Settler Colonial Paradigms (SECOPS)

Classical Receptions – Territoriality – Legality – Indigeneity

Throughout world history, the occupation of new territories by settler communities has informed the formation of specific colonial regimes, combining territorial control, the imposition of legal authority, and the eradication of indigenous cultures. The newly developed field of settler colonial studies characterizes these regimes as the elements of a particular structure with an eliminatory logic. While scholars have studied the mechanics of this logic in various modern contexts, the deep historical roots of settler colonial paradigms remain largely unexplored. Connecting experts from the humanities, social sciences, law, and geosciences, this research network aims to unveil the dominant paradigms shaping the historical development and (re)activation of settler colonialism, with a particular focus on the formative or legitimizing role of classical models and classical scholarship in this process.

SECOPS explores a series of cases to connect settler colonial practices and imaginaries in antiquity and postclassical contexts. It uncovers long-term developments across time and space by establishing the recurrent paradigms of territorial organization, legal governance, and identity discourse in settler colonial societies worldwide. Innovatively applying the insights of classical reception studies and landscape archaeology to the field of settler colonial studies, SECOPS builds a new interpretative and empirical framework for the interdisciplinary analysis of the organization and impact of settler colonialism.

Making connections
Embedded in the Caput Mundi network program, SECOPS facilitates interdisciplinary research collaboration between the faculties and departments of the University of Groningen (UG) and the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), while also establishing connections with the thriving international academic environment in Rome, with its vast resources of leading research institutes, data archives, libraries, museums and international organisations. Leveraging these resources, SECOPS provides an interdisciplinary platform that builds upon the strong research tradition at KNIR and UG in the field of colonization studies. Focusing on the organization, mentalities and impact of colonial rule, this research highlights the long history and resilience of colonial paradigms, often leading back to classical antiquity, which continue to shape the modern world.

Team

Project directors: Tesse Stek (KNIR), Jeremia Pelgrom (UG)

Core team: Susanna de Beer (KNIR), Laura Overpelt (KNIR), Mark Thompson (UG), Maria Bonaria Urban (KNIR), Arthur Weststeijn (UU), Dinah Wouters (UG).

Activities
To cultivate strong professional and personal connections and foster enduring and successful interdisciplinary research collaborations, SECOPS sponsors and organizes:

• Research seminars held at both KNIR and UG, providing a platform for scholars and selected guest speakers to engage in discussions about their work. These sessions contribute to the establishment of academic networks and the development of research agendas for future studies;
• In-depth round table meetings at KNIR, bringing together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to collaboratively identify research synergies among themselves and with international partners. The academic setting at the KNIR campus provides an exceptional context for building robust professional and personal connections, which are essential for establishing enduring and successful research collaborations;
• Interdisciplinary courses at various academic levels, aimed at equipping the next generation of scholars with skills in thematic and interdisciplinary thinking;
• An international conference at Groningen, bringing together international experts working on settler colonialism;
• Post-doctoral research by Dinah Wouters, focusing on the role of the classical tradition in Dutch colonialism;
• Collaborative initiatives with governmental and other societal partners, such as museums, dedicated at investigating and conveying the mechanisms and consequences of settler colonialism.

Past activities
– Workshop: Settler Colonialism as a Structure? organized by Dr. Jeremia Pelgrom & Prof. Clemens Six | 17 – 21 June 2024
– Workshop: Reception History and Colonialism organized by Dr. Susanna de Beer (KNIR) & Dr. Dinah Wouters (UG) | 22 – 24 October 2024
– Public Lecture: ‘In tears and ashes, I am undone’. The Punic Wars and Epics of Empire by Dr. Sam Agbamu (University of Reading) | 23 October 2024
– Workshop: Roman Law in Early Modern Colonialism and the Dutch Empire organized by Prof. Tesse D. Stek & Dr. Arthur Weststeijn | 16 – 17 January 2025
– (Post-)Graduate course: Hero Worship in Ancient Mediterranean Colonialism organized by Dr. Jeremia Pelgrom and Prof. Tesse D. Stek| 10- 20 March 2025
– Conference Panel:  Roman Colonization as a Structure organized by Jeremia Pelgrom and Dies van der Linde | Leiden, 27 March 2025
– Workshop: Biographies of (Post)Colonialism. The Life and Afterlife of the Italian Colonisation of Africa organized by Dr. Maria Bonaria Urban | 9-10 October 2025
– Public Lectures: Italian Settler Colonialism and Genocide by Dr. Emanuele Ertola (University of Siena) & Prof. Ali Abdullatif Ahmida (University of New England in Maine, USA) | 9 October 2025
– The SECOPS project is associated with the CHS research network Colonialism as a Structure at the University of Groningen (RUG). For an overview of these activities see here.

Upcoming activities

– (Post-)Graduate course: Classical Reception and Colonialism. Ideologies and Practices from Antiquity up to the Present organized by Dr. Susanna de Beer and Dinah Wouters | Rome 4-15 May 2026
– International Conference: Settler Colonial Paradigms | Groningen, 21 – 23 May 2026
– Workshop: Landscapes of Power: Colonial Legacies of the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum organised by Dinah Wouters and Anouk Vermeulen | Groningen, 12 June 2026

Publications

– Settler Colonialism as a structure? Structural Logics, Long-Term Patterns, and critical Reflections. Editors Jeremia Pelgrom and Clemens Six, S., University of Groningen Press 2024

Forthcoming

– Settler Colonial Ideologies in the Dutch Republic: Willem Goes and the Roman Land Surveyors. Author Dinah Wouters, Papers of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome.
– Anthology: Classical Reception and Colonia Classical Receptions and Settler Colonialism: A Reader. Editors Dinah Wouters and Susanna de Beer, KNIR Dialogues. 
– The Dutch Iron Age: Colonial Ambivalences in Two Latin Poems by Caspar Barlaeus”. Authors: Dinah Wouters and Arthur Weststeijn, Early Modern Low Countries 10.1.