engleski

Multilayered Settler Colonialism in the Borderland

Colonialism is often regarded as a practice of domination of some European countries over territories on other continents. This is so much taken for granted that, for instance, Austria- Hungary is not even considered as a historical colonial power in historiography. Ruthner (2018) demonstrates that Austria-Hungary had de facto a colony on European soil - Bosnia-Herzegovina (annexed in 1878). It is also possible to recognize in some borderlands the “settler colonialism” (Veracini, 2015), which could be broadly defined as a kind of colonialism where the local population is replaced with or assimilated by another population brought by the rulers. The example of Istria, a peninsula disputed by many powers for centuries, will be used. As John E. Ashbrook (2006) shows, in historiography there are two concurrent nationalist narratives that are used to prove that Istria historically belongs to Italy or, from the Slavic side to Croatia and Slovenia. He recognizes a third narrative used by modern historians which tries to reconcile the two narratives in a third more multicultural narrative, as a territory of ethnic mixing. In my opinion, methodological nationalism (Wimmer and Schiller, 2003) is used in all three narratives, and that may be misleading in the explanation of historical situations. There are used regress arguments to explain various historical situations on the territory of Istria which lead to opposite firm blocks and to whataboutism (for example, the non/justification of war crimes). The concept of a historically multilayered settler colonialism may explain better the situation in the past, but also in the present. It may also be used to explain better the formation and/or acquisition of local identities by the settlers, be they italophone (for example, “regnicoli”, “monfalconesi”) or slavophone (for example, “kraljevci”, “benečani”), or people from the latest internal migrations in Slovenia, Italy and Croatia.

settler colonialism ; Istria ; methodological nationalism ; nationalism

nije evidentirano