Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 10-13-2020 2:00 PM The Habits of Settlement: A Critical Phenomenology of Settlerness Deanna L. Aubert, The University of Western Ontario Supervisor: Schuster, Joshua, The University of Western Ontario : Fielding, Helen, The University of Western Ontario A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the Master of Arts degree in Theory and Criticism © Deanna L. Aubert 2020 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, and the Theory and Criticism Commons Recommended Citation Aubert, Deanna L., "The Habits of Settlement: A Critical Phenomenology of Settlerness" (2020). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 7363. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/7363 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract This thesis investigates the role of settlers in maintaining settlement in Canada. I problematize settler bodies to deliberate on their potential for performing decolonization. My discussion seeks to complicate theoretical approaches that position the onto- epistemological stance of the settler as their impediment to decolonizing action. Drawing from the fields of phenomenology and affect theory, I discuss habit formation in bodies. I use case studies that discuss settler-Indigenous land relations to ground these theories of habit. I look to Indigenous leaders, artists and scholars, who offer valuable insights into the habituations of settlement as an institutionalized arrangement and a mode of behavior.