like many others I was shocked and saddened to hear the news of Patrick Wolfe's sudden death in February. I first meet Patrick in 2008 or 2009 at La Trobe University, when he hosted a meeting with Israeli activist, Jeff Halper (from the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions) on the Israel and the Palestine conflict. I remember Patrick speaking at the meeting on the settler colonial nature of the Israeli state and the Zionist project.
Over the years, I ran into Patrick many times at various Palestine solidarity events. Patrick was always genuinely happy to meet others and always had a kind and supportive word to say.
Sometime in 2011, during a phone call about Palestine solidarity activism, he invited me to his home for lunch as I said I would like sometime to pick his brain about settler-colonialism for my PhD thesis but sadly I never followed up on setting a time for the meeting, something I very much now regret.
Patrick was a giant in the field of settler-colonial studies. As I note in my tribute to him below, his work launched a major reconsideration of the role of settlement in colonisation and was at the forefront of research in his field. Patrick was also an unapologetic supporter of Palestine and the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. Patrick also actively supported Aboriginal rights and the struggle for refugee rights.
Over the next couple of days, I will also post an interview with Patrick on Palestine and settler-colonialism, as well as links to some of his works.
Good bye Patrick, you will be sadly missed by all those who knew you. Patrick's passing is a loss not only for the academic world but also the Palestinian people, who have lost a dedicated champion.
Respected Australian scholar and Palestine
solidarity campaigner Patrick Wolfe passed away unexpectedly on 18
February. A long-time advocate for Palestinian human rights,
self-determination and justice, Wolfe was a groundbreaking scholar.
He researched and taught in Australia and internationally on race,
colonialism, imperialism, genocide, the history of anthropology and
Aboriginal history. His research examined race and settler colonialism
in Australia, the USA, Israel, Brazil and India.
Settler colonialism and the transformation of anthropology
initiated a major reassessment of the role of settlement in
colonisation. This seminal study examined the European settlement and
colonisation of Australia, demonstrating that the settlers operated as
if the country were “empty” despite it being occupied by an indigenous
population.
Wolfe explained that “invasion is a structure, not an event” and that
settler colonialism is premised on the “elimination of the native”,
this being achieved through either physical elimination or assimilation
policies that sought to transform indigenous populations into “white
people”. As he explained in a 2012 interview with Camryn Douglass of
Stanford University:
“Settler-colonialism is a form of colonialism that is exclusive. It’s
a ‘winner take all’, a zero-sum game, whereby outsiders come to a
country, and seek to take it away from the people who already live
there, remove them, replace them, and displace them, and take over the
country, and make it their own.”
Wolfe regularly spoke at and participated in Palestine solidarity
activities both in Melbourne and internationally. He was a solid
supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which
was launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005 – a call for
non-violent punitive measures to be maintained until Israel meets its
international obligations and complies with international law.
He was a participant in the first national Australian BDS conference
in 2010 and later lent his name, along with Noam Chomsky, John Pilger
and Norman Finkelstein, to a defence letter in support of 19 activists
arrested and charged over a peaceful BDS action in Melbourne.
In 2014, he joined more than 400 Middle Eastern scholars and
librarians at the height of Israel’s 50-day bombing campaign of Gaza to
condemn the murderous assault and to reiterate the call for the academic
boycott of Israel.
Despite losing his house and much of his research work in 2009, when
the Black Saturday fires swept through Healesville on the outskirts of
Melbourne, Wolfe continued to contribute to settler colonial studies.
Just one month before his death, he published two new books.
The first,
Traces of history: elementary structures of race, outlines a new approach to race and comparative settler colonial studies. The second,
The settler complex: recuperating binarism in colonial studies, is an edited volume of essays examining the assimilationist agendas in settler colonial states around the world.
With Wolfe’s passing, not only has the academic world lost a giant, but the Palestinian people have lost a dedicated champion.
[Kim Bullimore is the co-convener of the Melbourne Coalition Against
Israeli Apartheid and was a co-organiser of the first Australian BDS
conference in 2010. She blogs at livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com.au.]
