Settler-colonial solidarity persists only through materially maintained structures, not primordial identity

Evidence

I have argued that religious identifications in Northern Ireland formed the modality in which settler-colonial relations are lived. If so, then what appear as primordial identities are in fact politically significant only within a structure that is maintained endogenously and exogenously – within the state and with the support of one or more external states – in order to ensure the supremacy of one segment of the population over another. As the instance of the Republic of Ireland seems to suggest, however, the persistence of settler-colonial mentalities is a function of the structure, not of insuperable primordial attachments. There is nothing “tribal,” except for poets and ideologues, about colonial antagonisms: they persist on and through performatively maintained structures of power and do not survive the withdrawal of the material support that sustains them. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2139

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the stated research purpose: external-enemy solidarity is structural, and removing material support (external threat/backing) decays it — not primordial. Connects to the ‘does threat removal decay solidarity’ question. — connects to: Settler identity depends constitutively on the colonized it wishes to erase. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 2105; Colonial identity construction disavows subaltern histories that cultural translation work must restore — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 857; Colonial subjects resist the amputation of their identity yet find agency impossible — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 556 (+5 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The core falsifiable wager opposing primordialist accounts of group solidarity — that political meaning, not identity content, is the causal variable and is structure-dependent — is paradigm-shifting for how this reader frames the research question.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Colonial identity construction disavows subaltern histories that cultural translation work must restore #expands (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 857
• Colonial subjects resist the amputation of their identity yet find agency impossible #expands (0.72) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 556