00:02:00 How did you get interested in the subject of “settler colonialism”?
00:05:50 Do you have an “Australian perspective”?
00:08:40 How would you summarise the thesis and key concepts of “settler colonialism theory” as developed by Patrick Wolfe, Lorenzo Veracini and others?
00:15:15 What are your main criticisms of this theoretical approach?
00:15:30 Collapsing cooptation, assimilation, ethnic cleansing and genocide into the concept of elimination is not helpful.
00:17:45 The relation between states and settlers is more complicated than “settler colonial theory” allows.
00:25:25 Lachlan explains the approach he takes in his work, summarising chapter 3 (about Indonesia’s colonisation of West Papua) and chapter 4 (about Australia’s failed colonisation of Papua New Guinea and the Northern Territory) of his book “Settling for Less”.
00:33:00 Daniel summarises chapters 5 (about “demographic engineering” during the Sino-Soviet split) and chapter 6 (about China’s ongoing struggle to colonise Xinjiang) and Lachlan makes some points about the role of settlement in the history of Chinese state-building.
00:39:30 How do you use the terms “colonialism” and “imperialism”? What definitions and distinctions do you favour, and for what reasons? What do you think of the distinction Joe Grim Feinberg makes in “Coloniality or Imperiality (in Eastern Europe, for Example)”?
00:47:20 Remarks by Daniel on the imperiality-coloniality distinction.
00:49:53 Daniel asks how the rise of the ideal of the nation state figures in the development of imperiality and coloniality.
00:51:15 Lachlan, using the example of Australia, speaks to how the ideal of equality associated with the nation state came into conflict with earlier forms of statehood.
00:53:42 What’s your relationship to Marxist thought (in a very general sense), and what’s your take on Classical Marxist theories of imperialism? Are there any newer Marxist approaches to questions of colonialism and imperialism that you find useful? How do you conceptualise “capitalism” and its relationship to “colonialism”?
00:58:08 Daniel remarks on the “materialism” of Lachlan’s argument in “Settling for Less”.
00:59:44 Lachlan talks about the relationship between the state and economic elites / capitalists in relation to the question of settler colonisation, with Indonesia and Australia as examples.
01:02:30 What’s your thinking on the subject of racism / racial ideologies? Do you favour a wider or a narrower definition of “race”/racism, both in terms of historical time and geographic/cultural scope? What’s the “material base” of “racism”?
01:08:08 Does it make sense to speak of racist relations of domination operating even in the absence of an explicit racial ideology? How “autonomous” is “race”/racialisation/racism?
01:11:27 Do “official” attempts by states or social movements and their propagandists to mobilise people in racist and/or colonial projects depend on a “lower level” of pre-existing, widespread popular beliefs in fundamental differences between human groups (and their different value)? If so, how significant are such popular attitudes for understanding the workings of “race”/racialisation/racism in society at a large scale.
01:18:03 What’s your thinking on antisemitism? What theoretical approaches to antisemitism are you most influenced by? Do you conceptualise antisemitism as a form of racism, and if so, what do you mean by that?
01:26:17 In an attempt to link the topic of racism/antisemitism back to the topic of colonialism/settler colonisation, Daniel roughly outlines his criticism of what he sees as the lack of historical specificity and Atlantic bias in dominant left attitudes and thinking regarding both colonialism and racism today.
01:30:55 Lachlan responds to some of Daniel’s points and speaks about his critique of many forms of anticolonial thought.
01:35:15 The nation state is fundamentally built on exclusion.
01:37:25 Can there be a state system where all states are equal and the populations of all states have roughly the same standard of living?
01:40:27 Gender and colonialism.
01:44:43 End