Confronting White Supremacy and a Militaristic Pedagogy in the U.S. Settler Colonial State

Abstract

We argue that understanding contemporary geographies of race and militarism is predicated on understandings of settler colonialism and white supremacy. Settler colonialism is a continuously unfolding project of empire that is enabled by and through specific racial configurations that are tied to geographies of white supremacy. In a U.S. context, settler colonialism begins with the removal of first peoples from the land and the creation of racialized and gendered labor systems that make the land productive for the colonizers. In this context, settler colonialism is an enduring structure—an interrelated political, social, and economic process that continuously unfolds—requiring continued reconfigurations and interventions by the state. Such a framing connects landscapes of militarism and geopolitics with everyday forms of violence, social difference, and normalized power hierarchies and relationships of oppression. Building from these insights we argue that theorizations of U.S. militarism must be connected to the spatialities of white supremacy and grounded in the U.S. imperial settler state. Finally, we end by engaging with a broader discussion on the ways in which the discipline and academic institutions are complicit in practices that contribute to white supremacy, poverty, inequality, and the continuation of settler colonial practices. For these reasons it is necessary to cultivate a broadly conceived and militantly uncompromising peace agenda premised on antiviolence and the rejection of the racism (and its intersections with gender, class, and sexuality) implicit in the settler colonial state.

我们主张, 理解当代种族与军事主义的地理, 是基于对迁佔殖民主义与白人至上主义的理解。迁佔殖民主义是一个持续开展的帝国计画, 藉由并透过关乎白人至上主义地理的特定种族组构而成为可能。在美国的脉络中, 迁佔殖民主义始于移除先前居住于此地的原住民族, 并创造种族化与性别化的劳动系统, 让土地对殖民者而言具备生产力。在此脉络中, 迁佔殖民主义是一个持久的结构——一个持续不断开展的政治、社会与经济交互过程——并且需要持续的再组构与国家介入。此般架构, 将军事主义与地缘政治的地景连结至暴力、社会差异、常规化的权力位阶与压迫关係的日常生活形式。我们基于这些洞见, 主张美国军事主义的理论化, 必须与白人至上主义的空间性相互连结, 并植基于美国帝国迁佔者国家之中。最后, 我们涉入更为广泛的讨论, 探讨学门与学术机构在实践上的共谋, 导致白人至上主义、贫穷、不均, 以及持续的迁佔殖民实践之方式。基于这些原因, 我们必须以反对暴力并回绝迁佔殖民国家中隐含的种族主义 (及其与性别、阶级和性慾的相互交织) 为前提, 培养受到广泛认知且高度警戒而拒绝让步的和平议程。

Nuestro argumento predica que entender las geografías contemporáneas de raza y militarismo depende de entendimientos del colonialismo y de la supremacía blanca. El colonialismo de asentamientos es un proyecto de imperio de desarrollo continuo que se habilita por y a través de configuraciones raciales específicas, ligadas con geografías de la supremacía blanca. En el contexto norteamericano, el colonialismo de asentamientos empieza con la remoción de los pobladores nativos de sus tierras y la creación de sistemas de trabajo racializados y sesgados por género que hacen productiva la tierra para los colonizadores. En este contexto, el colonialismo de asentamientos es una estructura perdurable—un proceso político, social y económico interrelacionado que continuamente se desdobla, requiriendo reconfiguraciones continuas e intervenciones del estado. Tal enmarcación conecta los paisajes del militarismo y la geopolítica con formas de violencia cotidiana, diferencia social y jerarquías de poder normalizado y relaciones de opresión. A partir de estas percepciones argüimos que las teorizaciones del militarismo americano deben estar conectadas con las espacialidades de la supremacía blanca y ancladas en el estado colonizador imperial de los EE.UU. Por último, terminamos involucrándonos en una discusión más amplia sobre las maneras como la disciplina y las instituciones académicas son cómplices en prácticas que contribuyen a la supremacía blanca, pobreza, desigualdad y la continuación de las prácticas del poblador colonial. Es por estas razones por las que es necesario cultivar una agenda de paz más ampliamente concebida y carente de compromiso militar, cuyas premisas sean la antiviolencia y el rechazo del racismo (y sus intersecciones con género, clase y sexualidad) que van implícitas en el estado colonial de asentamientos.

Key Words:

• Baltimore uprising
• Ferguson uprising
• militarism
• peace studies
• white supremacy

关键词：:

• 巴尔的摩暴动
• 弗格森暴动
• 军事主义
• 和平研究
• 白人至上主义。

Palabras clave:

• levantamiento de Baltimore
• levantamiento de Ferguson
• militarismo
• estudios sobre la paz
• supremacía blanca

Acknowledgments

Both authors contributed equally to this article. We are indebted to the editors of the forum as well as Richard Wright and the anonymous reviewers who offered insightful improvements to this piece.

Notes

1 Smith (2012) borrowed heavily from the work of Edward Said to undergird her use of Orientalism. As she notes (69), her goal is to ultimately expand the term to include more than just subjects geographically located in Asia and the Global South.

2 At the time of writing, the local prosecutor in Baltimore had charged the arresting officers with homicide in the death of Freddie Gray and with making up his charges.

3 A report composed by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (2012) noted that in the 100 cities with the largest black populations in the United States, in the first six months of 2012 police or security officials killed 120 black men, women, and children. The report found that a security officer kills a black person every twenty-eight hours. Activists documenting police killings in 2015 noted at least 392 individuals killed by the police that year, which works out to a death about every 7.5 hours (http://killedbypolice.net).

4 The American Geographical Society's Bowman Expeditions, led by the University of Kansas and funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, focus on land ownership and property rights in areas that are not clearly enforced by states in Central America. These expeditions raise questions about the interrelations among geography, the military, and academic research. For larger discussions see the Journal of Political Geography special guest editorials (Bryan 2010; Herlihy 2010; see also Wainwright 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua Inwood

JOSHUA INWOOD is an Associate Professor of Geography and Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996. E-mail: [email protected]. His research examines racism, peace geographies, violence, settler colonialism, and the geographies of white supremacy.

Anne Bonds

ANNE BONDS is an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53211. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research examines community development, poverty, and the politics of difference and geographies of white supremacy.