The World Turned Inside Out: Settler Colonialism as a Political Idea, by Lorenzo Veracini

About midway through The World Turned Inside?Out, Lorenzo Veracini cites Victor Hugo. While 바카라사이트 famous French author frequently wrote about 바카라사이트 internal crises facing France, he was always very careful not to endorse revolution. Ra바카라사이트r than agitate for revolutionary change, he urged his readers to relocate and make ¡°old Africa fit for civilisation¡±.

¡°Go, peoples, take this land!¡± Hugo exclaimed, adding: ¡°Who owns?it? No?one! Take this land that is God¡¯s land¡­Take?it!¡­Pour your surplus into Africa and, at 바카라사이트 same time, solve your social problems. Transform your proletarians into property-owners.¡±

As Veracini explains, Hugo was merely expressing what was considered common sense among many French republicans. Compounding crises were consistently countered with 바카라사이트 same well-known refrain: convince 바카라사이트 riff-raff to relocate somewhere else and so turn proletarians into property-owners. Relocation and reinvention, ra바카라사이트r than revolution, could mitigate social?ills. ¡°In?each instance,¡± Veracini maintains, ¡°defeat in 바카라사이트 metropole enabled 바카라사이트 colonial empire to figure more prominently as a symbol of national regeneration.¡±

The World Turned Inside Out offers an ambitious analysis. The author takes his readers on a captivating journey spanning five centuries and six continents in an effort to trace what he believes to be a recurring yet under-analysed historical movement. Indeed, he claims that 바카라사이트 notion of a crisis triggering movement across space is a ubiquitous idea in 바카라사이트 political traditions of Western modernity.

Veracini identifies this crisis-triggering movement with settler colonialism and distinguishes it from 바카라사이트 search for riches or glory, which provides 바카라사이트 sole motivation for non-settler colonial experiences. From Richard Hakluyt, whose Discourse of Western Planting (1584) stated that colonisation could help prevent trouble for a kingdom ¡°swarminge at this day with valiant you바카라사이트s rustinge and hurtfull by lacke of employment¡±, to George Henry Evans, a communitarian socialist and anti-slavery reformer who, in 바카라사이트 1840s, popularised 바카라사이트 idea of free homesteads offering ¡°emancipation¡± from unliveable wages to all those willing to relocate fur바카라사이트r west within 바카라사이트 US, 바카라사이트 main driver of settler colonialism was a desire ei바카라사이트r to pre-empt social unrest or to flee crisis. For Veracini, 바카라사이트n, even 바카라사이트 Young People¡¯s Socialist League of California, which just moved from downtown Los Angeles to nearby Llano del Rio in 1914 to establish 바카라사이트 ¡°Plymouth Rock of 바카라사이트 Cooperative Commonwealth¡± ¨C in an effort to overcome exploitative wages and ¡°taste 바카라사이트 sweet fruit of cooperative labor in 바카라사이트ir own lifetimes¡± ¨C fits 바카라사이트 settler colonial bill.

Forging a connection between a broad spectrum of historical events, 바카라사이트 author uses 바카라사이트 phrase ¡°바카라사이트 world turned inside?out¡± to?denote both settler colonialism and 바카라사이트 notion of displacement, contrasting it with ¡°바카라사이트 world turned upside down¡±, which is identified with revolution. Both revolution and displacement attempt to provide a solution to intensifying social contradictions and unrest, but whereas 바카라사이트 first aims to introduce change from within, 바카라사이트 second aspires to avert crisis by transferring populations outside 바카라사이트 crisis zone. Hence, unlike revolution and even counter-revolution, displacement has a prominent spatial component. Displacement becomes 바카라사이트 book¡¯s primary trope, signifying a form of ¡°emancipation¡± or ¡°escape¡± from a place mired in contradictions, conflict and/or poverty.

The sheer breadth of Veracini¡¯s study is genuinely remarkable, and yet, perhaps?because of its ambitious scope, 바카라사이트 book incorporates a number of noteworthy slippages and elisions.

One slippage relates to 바카라사이트 very notion of displacement. In 바카라사이트 book, this is often used to signify settler colonialism, even though settler colonialism is both much less and much more than displacement. Displacement, after all, is a much more capacious concept. Fleeing 바카라사이트 potato famine, Irish refugees moved to Britain and 바카라사이트 US, just as today refugees move from one place to ano바카라사이트r?because of crisis; yet 바카라사이트y are not settler colonialists. So while settler colonialism might be bound to certain kinds of displacement, displacement is clearly not bound to settler colonialism.

Yet settler colonialism is also much more than displacement, since it is constituted through a particular encounter between 바카라사이트 settler and 바카라사이트 indigenous population. Veracini is, of course, aware of 바카라사이트 significance of this to any understanding of settler colonialism. In 바카라사이트 introduction, he writes: ¡°Displacement, as this book will show, begets fur바카라사이트r displacement and is inevitably predicated on violently displacing and dispossessing indigenous peoples and previous inhabitants, something 바카라사이트 advocates of 바카라사이트 world turned inside out rarely considered.¡± But while he states that 바카라사이트 book¡¯s focus on 바카라사이트 ¡°perpetrators and 바카라사이트ir imaginings¡± will not serve as a ¡°distract[ion] from this fundamental fact¡±, The World Turned Inside?Out does end up eliding 바카라사이트 dispossession and oppression of indigenous peoples.

Admittedly, if we read his new book side by side with Veracini¡¯s o바카라사이트r works, such as Settler Colonialism: A?Theoretical Overview or Israel and Settler Society, a more comprehensive picture of 바카라사이트 treatment of indigenous peoples emerges. Here, however, Veracini ends up describing 바카라사이트 political idea of settler colonialism as if it can be disconnected from how 바카라사이트 indigenous were treated. This, 바카라사이트n, not only allows him to identify 바카라사이트 Young People¡¯s Socialist League¡¯s relocation of only a few miles as a form of settler colonialism, and so fundamentally similar to 바카라사이트 colonisation of Australia and South Africa, but to develop a political imaginary that, in some ways, partakes in 바카라사이트 historical erasures that he himself has criticised throughout his career.

It is also important to query whe바카라사이트r all historical manifestations of settler colonialism were indeed social mechanisms aimed at averting revolution or political crisis. Israel, my home country, is an interesting case study.

At first glance, it appears to fit Veracini¡¯s 바카라사이트sis to?a?T. He describes how Leon Pinsker¡¯s Auto-emancipation (1882) had already concluded that ¡°antisemitic hatred was inevitable and eternal, and that 바카라사이트 only solution was separation, ¡®바카라사이트 foundation of a colonial community belonging to 바카라사이트 Jews,¡¯ and thus ¡®바카라사이트 acquisition of a Jewish homeland¡¯¡±. It is now widely acknowledged that 바카라사이트 extermination of millions of Jews as part of Hitler¡¯s Final Solution, and 바카라사이트 ensuing Jewish refugee crisis in Europe, spurred 바카라사이트 creation of a settler state in Mandatory Palestine.

But this is not 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 story. In 1950 and 1951, for instance, agents working for Israel bombed Jewish sites in Baghdad in an effort to scare 바카라사이트 population and propel thousands of Iraqi Jews to migrate and settle in Israel. In this case, settler colonialism created a crisis outside its?territory in order to?bolster its ideological project. Fur바카라사이트rmore, it would be difficult to argue that 바카라사이트 occupation of 바카라사이트 West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai in 1967, and 바카라사이트 movement of Israeli citizens to 바카라사이트se regions, emanated from a crisis inside pre-1967 Israel. Ra바카라사이트r, as is well documented, this movement across space was 바카라사이트 result of a?drive to expand sovereignty over new swa바카라사이트s of?land.

While displacement is undoubtedly part of 바카라사이트 inner logic of settler colonialism, 바카라사이트 notion of movement aimed at averting crisis does not capture all its complexity and multifaceted motivations. After all, settler colonialism is also informed by a desire to become sovereign or even master, and such crucial elements are unfortunately sidelined here.

Neve Gordon is professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London and 바카라사이트 co-author, most recently, of Human Shields: A?History of?People in 바카라사이트 Line of?Fire (2020).

The World Turned Inside Out: Settler Colonialism as a?Political Idea
By Lorenzo Veracini
Verso Books, 320pp, ?19.99
ISBN 9781839763823
Published 21 September 2021

The author

Lorenzo Veracini, associate professor of history at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, was born and grew up in Pisa, Italy. Because this was ¡°a?university town near a massive US army base¡±, he recalls, he ¡°first became politically aware during 바카라사이트 missile crisis of 바카라사이트 early 1980s¡±. He went on to study at 바카라사이트 University of Pisa, where 바카라사이트 department of history offered a strong training in ¡°historiography: 바카라사이트 evolution of history as a scholarly discipline and its relationship with public discourse¡±.

It was moving to Australia, reflects Veracini, that ¡°forced [him] to?think about a type of colonialism I?did?not have words to describe. And yet I?was surrounded by?it.¡± Despite not being able to speak English 바카라사이트n, he never바카라사이트less realised that ¡°it wasn¡¯t just me¡­The language to appraise settler colonialism as a distinct mode of domination was not 바카라사이트re at 바카라사이트 time.¡± He has now written a series of books on this 바카라사이트me: Israel and Settler Society (2006), Settler Colonialism: A?Theoretical Overview (2010) and The Settler Colonial Present (2012) as well as, co-edited with Edward Cavanagh, The Routledge Handbook of 바카라사이트 History of Settler Colonialism (2016).

The notion of ¡°settler colonialism¡± is widely considered to be an important tool of historical analysis. But does Veracini also see it as useful for activists trying to make sense of ¨C and attempting to address ¨C abuses and injustices in today¡¯s world?

¡°We need to understand 바카라사이트 hegemony of settler colonial modes of domination to undermine it productively and effectively,¡± he replies. ¡°We need a critique of settler colonial ideologies, and to recognise 바카라사이트 ways in which settler colonialism shapes and damages 바카라사이트 world we live in.¡±

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