Settler identity depends constitutively on the colonized it wishes to erase.

Evidence

Unionist intellectual John Wilson Foster named the dilemma quite explicitly: “We wished, like Memmi’s colonialists, the disappearance of the usurped. Indeed, we attempted politically to erase them, imagining, then acting out, a Northern Ireland free from the dormant, sporadically stirring threat of sedition.” And yet, as Foster admits, “We defined ourselves over against them which meant that we were in part defined by them” (J. W. Foster 1988, 20). — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2105

Unionist intellectual John Wilson Foster named the dilemma quite explicitly: “We wished, like Memmi’s colonialists, the disappearance of the usurped. Indeed, we attempted politically to erase them, imagining, then acting out, a Northern Ireland free from the dormant, sporadically stirring threat of sedition.” And yet, as Foster admits, “We defined ourselves over against them which meant that we were in part defined by them” (J. W. Foster 1988, 20). — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2105

Categorization

• XREF: Directly evidences reader’s question: when the outgroup threat is removed, the identity that was defined only against it has nothing left to anchor on — relevant to post-threat decay predictions. — connects to: Settler-colonial solidarity persists only through materially maintained structures, not primordial identity — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 2139; Close proximity to the colonized intensified settlers’ drive for racial distinction — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1370; Colonized aspiration toward the settler world rests on tolerated, patronized acceptance. (+6 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 2105

Broader Connections

• Colonized aspiration toward the settler world rests on tolerated, patronized acceptance. #expands (0.85)
• Labeling a settler conflict ‘tribal’ displaces its causes onto the colonized #expands (0.85) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2113
• Close proximity to the colonized intensified settlers’ drive for racial distinction #expands (0.82) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1370
• Colonial exclusion categories sedimented into the national identity of the colonized #expands (0.75) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 463
• Settler-colonial solidarity persists only through materially maintained structures, not primordial identity #qualifies-own (0.60) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2139