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Settler Social Order: The Violence Of Policing In New Mexico, Elisabeth R. Ehlert Perkal

American Studies ETDs

This thesis argues that in order to understand how and why police violence happens in the U.S., it is necessary to situate these interactions within a framework of settler colonialism. The police exist to maintain social order and, in the case of the U.S., this social order is defined by hegemonic structures of power including settler colonialism. Thus, the police fabricate and enforce settler social order that requires subjugating and eliminating Native people in order to preserve settler sovereignty. This thesis intervenes into monolithic critiques of policing in the U.S. and argues that critiques of police violence are most productive …