The article “Digital Nomads And Settler Desires: Racial Fantasies Of Silicon Valley Imperialism” by Erin Mcelroy explores the intersectionality between indigeneity, gender queerness, and multispecies relationships while covering these intersections in relation to settler colonialism. The writing reflects the history of gender queer relationships and how they often go against the common and conventional constructs of sex, gender, and relationships. The tie between this and indigeneity lies in its lack of necessarily “conventional” heterosexual constructs, and rather its emphasis on the love and emotions of a relationship regardless of gender. The writing also emphasizes multispecies relationality and how the development of relationships between humans and non-humans, such as animals, was a concept that went against the general values of settler colonialism, but not of the indigenous peoples. The writing also depicts the importance of relationships between humans and the nature/environment around them, and how it is detrimental for them to be separated from having that type of relationship.
Overall, the article is a large critique of settler colonialism in not just its practices, but more so in regards to its values and the way that relationships were viewed in specific. The article is critical of how settler colonialism contributed to a stagnation of relationships and a decrease in overall relationship health, as bounds and expectations were placed on humans that excluded both non-heterosexual and multispecies relationships. Settler colonialism is controlling, and it does not give freedom for human expression or true choice in relationships. It is important to do our best to maintain the indigenous values of relationships, as limits should not be placed on human abilities and permissions to have true relationships with both other humans and non-human life in our environments and in nature.
The article does a great job at tying everything together and really emphasizing the intersectional aspects of the concepts covered. While each issue is different in some way from one another, they all root back to the same struggle and overarching problem, and they all are part of the same discussion of struggle within the unfair constraints placed on human relationships.
I agree with the general message of the article. It is important to unpack how settler colonialism has affected social norms and constructs revolving around relationships, and how it is important to take a step back from societal expectations of human relationships and to allow for freedom of relational expression and connection with nature.
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