settler (adjective)

[enattente]

Bonjour,

Dans le cadre de critiques du colonialisme, il est assez fréquent de trouver le mot anglais « settler » employé comme adjectif dans des tournures du genre:

settler culture
settler way of life
settler society

Il s'oppose à « autochtone ».

Comme je suis en Ontario, je rencontre ce genre de discours surtout en anglais, mais quand il m'arrive d'en parler en français, je dis

culture des colons
mode de vie des colons
société des colons

Je préfère cela à l'adjectif « colonial » (qui traduit parfaitement « colonial en anglais, lié à une période historique) et à “colonisateur” (plus fort, traduit “colonizer”). Il m'arrive également d'utiliser “allochtone” pour tout ce qui n'est pas autochtone.

Mais du coup, j'ai à le traduire dans un document officiel et j'hésite. Comment traduirez-vous “settler” dans des phrases comme:

"The purpose of measures like these was to force Indigenous people to assimilate to settler culture."
"Settler society is based on the ongoing theft of land and resources from Indigenous territories."

Merci d'avance!

 

[trans-latour]

des nouveaux arrivants

 

[Perco]

Nouveaux venus?

Je me demande si un 'colon' ne va par définition dans un autre pays, tandis qu'un 'settler' n'est pas nécessairement un étranger (par exemple, des habitants de la co^te est des Etats-Unis aspiraient à e^tre 'settlers'?
Cela dit, je trouve dans le dictionnaire Wordreference:

Les pionniers partirent vers l'ouest pour coloniser les terres.

 

[mehoul]

Selon le contexte, le mot anglais "settler" est traduit en français par "pionnier" (par exemple dans le cas de l'expansion vers l'Ouest aux Etats-Unis) ou par "colon" (par exemple dans le cas des Israéliens qui s'installent en Cisjordanie). Au passage, il ne faut pas confondre colon et colonisateur.

 

[enattente]

Merci à vous tous.

« Settler » est employé pour désigner toutes et tous les non-Autochtones au Canada et aux États-Unis. J'ai l'impression qu'on trouvait un peu la même chose avec « colon » dans le contexte de l'occupation de l'Algérie. Donc à mon avis on peut dire sans problème que « settler » se traduit par « colon ». C'est seulement lorsque « settler » est employé en tant qu'adjectif que j'ai du mal à le traduire.

(Au Canada, « nouveaux arrivants » est le terme consacré pour désigner les immigrants récents, donc c'est à éviter pour traduire « settler ».)

 

[wildan1]

To me settler refers only to the first waves of arriving colonizing people. They established their communities, cleared land when they wanted to farm, dug wells, organized local government, etc.

Once communities are established, those following are immigrants.

EDIT: I refer above to the US context; not Canada's.

 

[enattente]

To me settler refers only to the first waves of arriving colonizing people. They established their communities, cleared land when they wanted to farm, dug wells, organized local government, etc.

Once communities are established, those following are immigrants.

I hear you that this is one common usage. But "settler" is nonetheless widely used to refer to non-Indigenous people and cultures. There is a historical dimension to the word, certainly, but it is also used to refer to an ongoing phenomenon of settler colonialism in countries like Canada, the US, and elsewhere (settler colonialism as distinguished from colonialism in places like West Africa or India, where there was not an attempt made to replace the Indigenous population with Europeans).

In this framing, the people who are part of the historical lineage of the early colonizers are still a part of an ongoing settler colonial project. This is what is meant when people say things like "settler culture." They aren't talking about history, but about the present.

Here are a few sources that hopefully illustrate the usage I'm concerned with:

Glossary: Settler/Settler Colonialism
The Contemporary Reality of Canadian Imperialism: Settler Colonialism and the Hybrid Colonial State
The Roles of Settler Canadians within Decolonization: Re-evaluating Invitation, Belonging and Rights

Et en français:

Economie politique de race et de classe d'une société de colons
Nier l’espace autochtone – une vieille histoire canadienne qui se poursuit
Équilibre réflexif : L’héritage colonial et le rôle de la réconciliation de la politique de télécommunication et de radiodiffusion

 

[mehoul]

To me settler refers only to the first waves of arriving colonizing people. They established their communities, cleared land when they wanted to farm, dug wells, organized local government, etc.

Once communities are established, those following are immigrants.

Ce point de vue convient tout à fait au contexte américain, mais pas par exemple à celui de l'empire colonial français. Les Français qui partaient s'installer dans les colonies, en Afrique ou en Indochine (comme on disait) restaient des Français et étaient vus (et se voyaient je pense) comme des colons. D'ailleurs ils n'ont jamais tenté de s'émanciper de la tutelle française (sauf au Québec peut-être?), contrairement à ce qui s'est passé dans les Amériques.

 

[djweaverbeaver]

Hello,

Settler colonialism is still colonialism by another name. I think that settler is often used for political reasons in an attempt to gloss over the fact the people moving into the area often wiped out the indigenous cultures that were already living there in order to establish the dominance and to legitimize their presence their in their own eyes. This is definitely the case for both Canada and the United States. I'm quite sure that the First Nations of Canada and the Native Americans of the United States would never refer to the white people on the North American continent as settlers. Some would consider it to be as insensitive and offensive as the textbooks in some states that refer to African slaves as "immigrants".

If this is an official document that you're translating, then I'm not surprised the government would opt for the word settler. For the noun at least, the Canadian government's Termium Plus proposes pionnier and colon.

 

[Parigigi]

"settler colonialism" est le plus souvent traduit par "colonialisme de peuplement" (par opposition à "d'occupation") dans les travaux universitaires.

 

[enattente]

Hello,

Settler colonialism is still colonialism by another name. I think that settler is often used for political reasons in an attempt to gloss over the fact the people moving into the area often wiped out the indigenous cultures that were already living there in order to establish the dominance and to legitimize their presence their in their own eyes. This is definitely the case for both Canada and the United States. I'm quite sure that the First Nations of Canada and the Native Americans of the United States would never refer to the white people on the North American continent as settlers. Some would consider it to be as insensitive and offensive as the textbooks in some states that refer to African slaves as "immigrants".

If this is an official document that you're translating, then I'm not surprised the government would opt for the word settler. For the noun at least, the Canadian government's Termium Plus proposes pionnier and colon.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I can assure you though, "settler" is an incredibly common term for referring to white people. I won't try to speak for the States (though I have heard it used there too), but in Canada, it is extremely common. There is, for instance, a very influential book by the American writer J. Sakai titled "Settlers" that is a critical history of the white working class in America. As far as I can tell, the term originates among Indigenous people to describe the people and the culture that has tried to replace theirs. If anything, it is white people who find it occasionally offensive.

The Canadian government would not describe people as "settlers." It uses terms like "Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians". It would only use the word in its historic sense.

In case it is ever useful to anyone else, I stuck with "des colons" as the translation for "settler" as an adjective. I would also use "colonial" or "allochtone" in some circumstances.

 

[wildan1]

I can assure you though, "settler" is an incredibly common term for referring to white people. I won't try to speak for the States (though I have heard it used there too), but in Canada, it is extremely common.

I can't really say that settler is really that common in the U.S. beyond the context I described earlier in this thread. In the U.S. context settler is a historical term; we don't really have "settlers" down here anymore.

I think the sensitivities and political priorities are different between our two countries on this particular issue.

 

[Albert 80]

My great-grand parents on my mothers side were settlers from Belgium and France who had been brought to Manitoba (western Canada) between 1885 and 1900 by Belgian priests who were hoping to help establish Manitoba as another French-speaking part of Canada. Many of my ancestors helped found various small French-speaking communities in SW Manitoba (Grande-Clairière, Hartley etc - they cleared the land for crops and built the first houses. They were always referred to by the priests who brought them to Canada (and then they called themselves) "colons". Interestingly, there were other villages in the same area settled by Irish "immigrants", or Ontario Irish, or their children, who called themselves "settlers". There was clearly an equivalency between the two descriptors .