this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2023
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I think that adopting biological definitions of settler/indigenous identities is not just un-Marxist, it has disturbing echoes of race realism. Whether someone is a settler or not shouldn't be a question of genetics, it should be defined by how they relate to the settler state and settler ideological and cultural values. Ultimately it's a matter of how someone self-identifies, and whether they see themselves as part of the historical settler project or as outside or opposed to it. It has to do with the community they associate with and grew up in. Indigenous identity can be erased by assimilation but the reverse is also true, that people with settler ancestry can be deprogramed and learn to integrate into an indigenous culture and community (of course, as some comrades have pointed out in their replies below, this can only happen AFTER the stolen land has been returned to indigenous people).
You are wise to avoid the biological essentialism of race realism. But you do not incorporate the actual relation that determines a settler: the relation to land.
Further, a settler does not become Indigenous by integrating into culture. As if I can become Indigenous by going to the local powwow. Likewise, I am a settler regardless of my disposition towards the state because I live on stolen land and continue settler occupation. Settlers are famous for their struggles with the settler state, if that were important in determining their actual relations to Indigenous land, there would be no self identified settlers - a "settler-colonialism with no settlers."