Settler Colonial Studies

Patrick Wolfe’s Settler Colonial Theory, 20 Years On

This special issue of Settler Colonial Studies aims to collaboratively examine the residual impacts of Patrick Wolfe’s influential essay, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” first published in 2006 in Journal of Genocide Research.

In the twenty years since the essay’s publication, it has become a staple of settler colonial studies, being cited thousands of times and quoted and read even more. The Taylor and Francis Journal of Genocide Research has the citation number at 3,800 and views at over 700,000, metrics that do not capture book and untracked publications.

Twenty years on, we’d like to address some of the following questions:

• What did this essay do to shift or situate the conversation of postcolonial studies towards settler colonialism?
• What chord did it strike that made it so widely taken up? And how have the essay’s key concepts travelled globally?
• How do the essay’s arguments hold up when considered in settler colonial contexts not addressed in Wolfe’s essay, or in contexts not widely discussed or in existence in 2006?
• How have Wolfe’s ideas of “elimination” and settler colonialism been examined?
• How have Wolfe’s ideas been applied? Has this occurred in ways not foreseen by the original publication?
• How do Indigenous scholars and critics use or critique Wolfe’s arguments?
• Are there differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous uses and critiques of Wolfe arguments? If so, what does this say about settler colonial theory?
• How are Wolfe’s 2006 essay and arguments used in teaching settler colonial studies?

Our aim is to curate a special issue by inviting a mix of scholars from across the globe, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, established and newer voices, to comment on the essay in 2026 as a way to examine the current state of the field. We seek research article contributions of 5,000 words that will undergo double-blind peer-review and also encourage reflective essays and creative responses to “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.”