From George Jackson to Gerald Horne: Settler Colonialism as a Frame Work for Black Studies

• In Event: Colonial and Post-Colonial Realities: Theoretical and Cultural Resistance

Abstract

Black Studies is an independent discipline with a unique orientation toward scholarship and a multidisciplinary field in which scholars of differing academic training can engage. These two dynamics cause immense debates within the field about the nature and character of Black studies, making ideology and orientation of primary importance. The primacy of ideology and orientation leads to the important interrogation of deciding what framework one proposes is the best for studying Black life. This presentation will argue that the settler colonialism framework is vital for Black studies and Black scholar-activists who wish to produce work relevant to the modern-day Black freedom struggle. Settler Colonial structures form the basic institutions that dictate American political economy, organize relations between multi-racial lower classes, and frame the social reality among the African diaspora. These structures originated in the initial European conquest of the world but have continued until this day and still impact Africa and the African diaspora.
By examining writers and thinkers that have engaged the topic of settler colonialism from intellectuals as diverse as political prisoner George Jackson to admired historian Geral Horne, this presentation will call for the continued use of settler colonialism as a frame of analysis for scholars in Black Studies, particularly those who seek to study the Black Radical Tradition in earnest.

Author

• Damion Scott, University of Massachusetts Amherst