In Alien Capital Iyko Day retheorizes the history and logic of settler colonialism by examining its intersection with capitalism and the racialization of Asian immigrants to Canada and the United States. Day explores how the historical alignment of Asian bodies and labor with capital's abstract and negative dimensions became one of settler colonialism's foundational and defining features. This alignment allowed white settlers to gloss over and expunge their complicity with capitalist exploitation from their collective memory. Day reveals this process through an analysis of a diverse body of Asian North American literature and visual culture, including depictions of Chinese railroad labor in the 1880s, filmic and literary responses to Japanese internment in the 1940s, and more recent examinations of the relations between free trade, national borders, and migrant labor. In highlighting these artists' reworking and exposing of the economic modalities of Asian racialized labor, Day pushes beyond existing approaches to settler colonialism as a Native/settler binary to formulate it as a dynamic triangulation of Native, settler, and alien populations and positionalities.
Reviews:
"...expand[s] and broaden[s] the canon of Asian North American literature... Day’s Alien Capital enable[s] us to understand the complexities of racialization beyond colonial/victims, black/white, dominant/minor binaries... articulate, intelligent addition to Canadian theory and criticism." — Eleanor Ty, Canadian Literature
"Ikyo Day’s book will take its place amongst important work that theorizes, historicizes and offers a way to speak to the intersections of capitalism, white supremacy, settler colonialism, and migration in white settler contexts." — Kevin Bruyneel, Theory & Event
"Day deftly retheorizes the history and logic of settler colonialism by examining its intersection with capitalism and the racialization of Asian immigrants to Canada and the United States. . . . [A] valuable resource." — Sumiko Braun, Amerasia Journal
"Iyko Day makes a compelling intervention in discussions of race, capital, and settler colonialism." — Rachel Kuo, Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association
“Alien Capital is a persuasive and thought-provoking study, challenging scholars to rethink historical interpretations of settler colonialism, immigration, labor, and race in North America.”
— Allan E. S. Lumba, Western Historical Quarterly
"This book invites readers to see art as a means of questioning and rethinking history. Historians may want the book to historicize the artists themselves, but Day is aiming at something else: seeing a world beyond capitalism." — Elliott Young, Journal of American History
“ [I]nsightful, intersectional cultural criticism.... I highly recommend Alien Capital for Native American and Indigenous studies scholars with an interest in settler-colonialism, critical ethnic studies, women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, visual cultures, and literature.” — Beenash Jafri, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
“Alien Capital . . . puts forward a much-needed account that unwaveringly reformulates the terms through which settler colonialism might be examined and contested from an Asian diasporic perspective.” — Szu Shen, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas
"Day insightfully approaches the analysis of North American settler colonialism through Asian Americanist critique." — Manu Vimalassery, Modern Fiction Studies
"Day offers us a new way of understanding how settler colonialism capitalism articulates race and provides new analytical tools for pushing forward settler colonial studies, cultural studies, and Asian American Studies." — Faye Caronan, Pacific Historical Review
"Day’s work provides a valuable look at settler colonialism and its ramifications for the East Asian peoples of Canada and the United States." — Diana L. Ahmad, American Historical Review
"Alien Capital offers a necessary and deeply welcome investigation into the intersections of race, indigeneity, and white settler colonialism." — Lily Cho, English Studies in Canada