Dr Federica Caso

Dr Federica Caso was born in Sardegna, a Mediterranean island belonging to Italy, where she developed intimate familiarity with questions of militarism and cultural self-determination. In 2015, she moved from the UK to Meanjin/Brisbane to pursue a PhD at the University of Queensland, which she gained in 2019. Federica researches the relationship between Defence and settler colonialism which she gathers under the concept of ‘settler military politics’. She has recently concluded a project that maps the history and politics of Australia’s war commemoration along the development of the settler (martial) state. This research is collected in the forthcoming book Settler Military Politics: Militarisation and the Aesthetics of War Commemoration (2024, Edinburgh University Press). She is now focusing on Indigenous military service in the present, including Indigenous participation in the Regional Surveillance Units (of which NORFORCE is the most recognisable), Defence Indigenous Procurement, and the contribution of Indigenous women in Defence to gender equality and reconciliation. She is working to establish a network of scholars interested in settler military politics across Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.