Western conceptions of property enable and justify settler colonialism – copyright law turns cultural practices into ownable commodities.
Evelyn Nakano Glenn 15, Glenn is Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and founding director of the Center for Race and Gender, xx-xx-2015, "Settler Colonialism as Structure: A Framework for Comparative Studies of U.S. Race and Gender Formation", American Sociological Association, https://www.asanet.org/wp-content/uploads/attach/journals/jan15srefeature.pdf //MRK
The second thing that must be done is to secure the land for settlers. This can be accomplished by imposing a modernist property regime that transforms land and resources (sometimes including people) into “things” that can be owned. This regime consists of such elements as mapping and marking boundaries to delimit an object that is to be owned, a system for recording ownership, and legal rules for ownership and sale of objects defined as property. Indigenous people generally understand the land and their relationship to it very differently, viewing themselves as being provided for by the land and in turn as living in harmony with the land and having a sense of responsibility for its welfare. Settler society does not recognize indigenous conceptions and from their own perspective of land as property, views indigenes as failing to make productive use of it.
THE LOGIC AND PRACTICES OF U.S. SETTLER COLONIALISM
I turn now to the specific case of U.S. settler colonialism. Walter Hixson (2013:29) argues that the British settler colonial project in North America was unique from those of its Spanish and French rivals: “Like the Spanish and the French, the English embraced patriarchy, private property, and Christianity, but the emphasis on the settlement of families and communities distinguished them.” Spanish male colonists were spread thinly across vast vistas of land. French traders and missionaries were surrounded by indigenous people with whom they had to coexist. The French also were overwhelmingly male and often took Indian mistresses and wives with whom they formed Metis (mixed) communities. “By contrast European women migrated with men and children to settle in the English colonies.” This family-based colonization in combination with its rural character proved to be advantageous, enabling “a steady westward migration towards the agricultural frontier as the threat of Indian attack diminished” (Elliott 2006:43–44).