Colonial discovery was legitimized by symbolic acts of touching and appropriation

Evidence

Whilst the racial, and racist, basis of the doctrine of discovery is a modern innovation, the doctrine owes much to its premodern forms and ethos. The finding and settlement of putatively unknown lands has long been attended with mythic and religious justification and with rituals of appropriation, all of which strikingly resemble modern practice. Similarity in this case, however, serves to dramatize difference. What marks modern discovery of the occidental variety, the subject of this present paper, is the displacement of the mythic and religious by a combination of racism and legalism. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 216 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Colonial extraction justified first contact through preemptive legal-religious claims — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 299; Colonial states museumized sacred sites to legitimize themselves as guardians of tradition — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 673; Colonial power was symbolically encoded as masculine mastery over a feminized land — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 619 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern colonial discovery replaced mythic and religious justification with racism and legalism #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 216