"Love doesn't cancel colonialism": land, lesbians, and settler colonialism

K. J. Janeschek
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:51:52 PDT

This thesis examines the relationship between lesbians, land, and settler colonialism through an analysis of several texts written about Antarctica by lesbians. In the introduction, this thesis identifies the three fields of study which it draws upon--rural queer studies, queer nature studies, and queer indigenous studies--and notes the absence of settler colonialism as a point of analysis in rural queer studies despite the field's focus on the relationship between queer people and land. The following section, "Lesbians, Land, and Settler Homonationalism," provides both historical background of lesbian land-based movements such as the landdykes and theoretical considerations important for the thesis, namely how non-Native queer people and identities often uphold settler colonialism. In the next chapter, "The Antarctica Question," the thesis explores Antarctica's colonial history and its current queer relationship to settler colonialism. This is followed by a discussion of three texts--Approaching Ice and Towards Antarctica by Elizabeth Bradfield and On the Ice by Gretchen Legler--which examines the ways these writers' relationship with Antarctica resembles other lesbian land movements, their negotiations with settler colonialism and a masculine Antarctic explorer history, and the personal (queer) transformations enabled by lived experiences on land (or ice). The conclusion identifies how a settler colonial logic might lapse through a relationship with land and the transformations that such a relationship forges, but ultimately will heal over the lapse in its framework unless challenged directly.