Introduction: The Settler Colonial Situation

When this book appeared in 2010, settler colonial studies as a distinct field was in its infancy. Distinct strands of interdisciplinary and transnational researchSettler colonialismtransnational research about had not yet coalesced. Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview drew from different approaches to the study of a specific mode of domination and contributed to the consolidation of an autonomous subfield. An N-gram Google search conducted in early 2024 shows that the concept of settler colonialism forcefully emerged in scholarlySettler colonialismscholarly approaches to and public discourse during this century’s second decade: it was first detected in the 1950s, but remained a very niche term until its recurrence began a tenfold increase after 2010.