Catastrophe colonialism: Global disaster films and the white right to migrate

Abstract

This article argues that post-9/11 global disaster films exemplify a social imaginary preparing white, Western subjects to envision settler (re)colonization of the Global South as the only option in the face of increasing ecological devastation. Using the films The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, I demonstrate how this catastrophe colonialism pairs the racialization of migration with the coloniality of disaster. Together, a perceived white right to migrate and colonial amnesia invert the material threat of crisis as experienced in the lived world to make (re)colonization appear as the natural response to global disaster.