Unsettling Stories: A Settler Reflection on Narrative Phantasies of Land

Modern political and market structures have normalized colonial violence into economic and social realities, while imperial powers still dictate modes of labor and resources extraction that benefit them in the present, but send the physical world hurtling into a future of crisis. Justifying this activity are Western mindsets based in rational exclusivity, which fail to recognize the constructed elements of their reality, instead subjugating and historicizing those with different ontological perspectives. In particular, Western logics have persecuted indigenous populations and their cultural connection to ancestral homelands in order to appease colonial paranoia and reassert exclusive claim to stolen land. This is not materially, ethically, or spiritually sustainable. This thesis examines the ways in which colonial and indigenous ontologies interact in the past, present, and future through identifying the reality-shaping narrative phantasies which shape encounters surrounding land. Phantasies of land and the ecosystems humans are a part of are especially central to how individuals and societies relate to the self, as well as human and non-human others. Through an analysis of the 1843 Thomas Gregory-Pamunkey petitions over claims to the Pamunkey reservation land, this thesis studies how colonial and indigenous phantasies of land interact. It demonstrates that the colonial inability to recognize personal and cultural phantasies often leads to conflict, but an ability to recognize the power of narrative and communicate through alternative ontologies than one's own can lead to successful communication and meaningful relationships, ones which can help those with settler backgrounds to live more ethically and support indigenous resurgence. This thesis offers a theoretical, historical, and practical guide to begin the process of unsettling the self by way of recognizing the constructed narrative phantasies settlers have been accustomed to interpreting the world through, and reflects on ways for settlers to move forward by engaging with land-based ontologies.