The Racialization of Land: An Ontological Investigation into 'Settler-Becoming' and Land Racialization

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with an ontological premise about the genesis of the settler, and what settler-being implies for the development and dispossession of land. It argues that the racialization of land produces what is known as the settler-being, a distinct ontology developed by the archetypal Settler within the settler colony. This Settler views capitalist private property and elimination as fundamental characteristics that produce the subject as the Settler and is thus the consequence of varying colonial phenomena. Private property and capital accumulation in the context of North American settler colonialism reveal a tendency within the settler-colonial project to ap-ply the characteristics of racialized capitalism towards the land, which settlers seek to colonize and ‘settle,’ thus revealing the subsequent process of racializing the land that they seek to control. Understanding the land as racialized helps make sense of tendencies within settler-colonial society, as the role that private property plays within the continent reveals the role that white supremacy plays in colonization, in capitalism, and settler-colonial ontology.