Settler Colonialism and (Re)conciliation

Penny Edmonds is Associate Professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the School of Humanities, University of Tasmania, Australia. She is the author of Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities (2010); co-editor of Making Settler Colonial Space: Perspectives on Race, Place and Identity (2010) and co-editor of Conciliation on Colonial Frontiers: Conflict, Performance, and Commemoration in Australia and the Pacific Rim (2015).

“Penelope Edmonds, in Settler Colonialism and (Re)conciliation, employs a historical methodology to examine how reconciliation discourse is deployed and refuted in affective performances. … a useful addition to the literature on transitional justice and on reconciliation in settler societies, particularly because they acknowledge the tensions around whether and how transitional justice might actually be of use for relationships between Indigenous peoples, non-Indigenous peoples and the state.” (Sophie Rigney, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 11 (2), July, 2017)“The strength of Edmonds’ analysis lies in her transnational comparisons that show how Indigenous performances hold settler colonial societies to account for the way they sanitise the past through reconciliation events to realise a specious post-racial future. … this book is a vital contribution to Indigenous studies because of the tendency of settler colonial societies to use the consensus politics of reconciliation to rationalise the theft of Indigenous lands and colonial violence.” (Joshua L. Reid, Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 48 (2), May, 2017)

• Introduction: Performing (re)conciliation in settler societies1. United States 'Polishing the chain of friendship': Two Row Wampum Renewal celebrations and matters of history 2. United States 'This is our hearts!' Unruly reenactments and unreconciled pasts in Lakota country 3. Australia 'Walking Together' for Reconciliation: From the Sydney Harbour Bridge Walk to the Myall Creek Massacre Commemorations 4. Australia 'Our history is not the last word': Sorry Day at Risdon Cove and 'Black Line' survival ceremony, Tasmania.5. Aotearoa New Zealand 'We we did not sign a treaty ... we did not surrender!': Contesting the Consensus Politics of the Treaty of Waitangi in Aotearoa New Zealand