Precarious intimacies: cross-cultural violence and proximity in settler colonial economies of the Pacific Rim

Abstract

The development of settler colonial cultures was deeply dependent upon the everyday proximity of Indigenous and settler workers; yet we know surprisingly little of how the precarious intimacies arising from that proximity were intrinsically connected to forms of colonial violence. This chapter examines recent trends in colonial, postcolonial, and feminist scholarship to unpack how violence and intimacy were intertwined in the settler colonial encounter, and how this connection was embedded in the formation of settler colonial economies around the Pacific Rim. Considering a wider range of colonial dynamics beyond formal labour relations, it considers the role of ideological, moral, and emotional economies in shaping the complex colonial relationships that formed the building blocks of modern settler states.