Aboriginal Peoples And Politics

Aboriginal claims remain a controversial but little understood issue in contemporary Canada. British Columbia has been, and remains, the setting for the most intense and persistent demands by Native people, and also for the strongest and most consistent opposition to Native claims by governments and the non-aboriginal public. Land has been the essential question; the Indians have claimed continuing ownership while the province has steadfastly denied the possibility.

In Citizens Plus, Alan Cairns unravels the historical record to clarify the current impasse in negotiations between Aboriginal peoples and the state. He considers the assimilationist policy assumptions of the imperial era, examines more recent government initiatives, and analyzes the emergence of the nation-to-nation paradigm given massive support by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. We are battered by contending visions, he argues - a revised assimilation policy that finds its support in the Canadian Alliance Party is countered by the nation-to-nation vision, which frames our future as coexisting solitudes. Citizens Plus stakes out a middle ground with its support for constitutional and institutional arrangements which will simultaneously recognize Aboriginal difference and reinforce a solidarity which binds us together in common citizenship. Selected as a BC Book for Everybody

Comprehensive treatment of aboriginal land claims and relationship with the Canadian government.

WINNER OF: Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book from the Caribbean Philosophical Association Canadian Political Science Association’s C.B. MacPherson Prize Studies in Political Economy Book Prize Over the past forty years, recognition has become the dominant mode of negotiation and decolonization between the nation-state and Indigenous nations in North America. The term “recognition” shapes debates over Indigenous cultural distinctiveness, Indigenous rights to land and self-government, and Indigenous peoples’ right to benefit from the development of their lands and resources. In a work of critically engaged political theory, Glen Sean Coulthard challenges recognition as a method of organizing difference and identity in liberal politics, questioning the assumption that contemporary difference and past histories of destructive colonialism between the state and Indigenous peoples can be reconciled through a process of acknowledgment. Beyond this, Coulthard examines an alternative politics—one that seeks to revalue, reconstruct, and redeploy Indigenous cultural practices based on self-recognition rather than on seeking appreciation from the very agents of colonialism. Coulthard demonstrates how a “place-based” modification of Karl Marx’s theory of “primitive accumulation” throws light on Indigenous–state relations in settler-colonial contexts and how Frantz Fanon’s critique of colonial recognition shows that this relationship reproduces itself over time. This framework strengthens his exploration of the ways that the politics of recognition has come to serve the interests of settler-colonial power. In addressing the core tenets of Indigenous resistance movements, like Red Power and Idle No More, Coulthard offers fresh insights into the politics of active decolonization.

This 2001 book focuses on the problem of justice for indigenous peoples and the ways in which this poses key questions for political theory: the nature of sovereignty, the grounds of national identity and the limits of democratic theory. It includes chapters by leading political theorists and indigenous scholars from Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and the United States. One of the strengths of this book is the manner in which it shows how the different historical circumstances of colonization in these countries nevertheless raise common problems and questions for political theory. It examines ways in which political theory has contributed to the past subjugation and continuing disadvantage faced by indigenous peoples, while also seeking to identify resources in contemporary political thought that can assist the 'decolonisation' of relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics--the politics of ethnocide--played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald's "National Dream." It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between First Nations and non-Native populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. " Clearing the Plains is a tour de force that dismantles and destroys the view that Canada has a special claim to humanity in its treatment of indigenous peoples. Daschuk shows how infectious disease and state-supported starvation combined to create a creeping, relentless catastrophe that persists to the present day. The prose is gripping, the analysis is incisive, and the narrative is so chilling that it leaves its reader stunned and disturbed. For days after reading it, I was unable to shake a profound sense of sorrow. This is fearless, evidence-driven history at its finest." -Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Pox Americana "Required reading for all Canadians." -Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood "Clearly written, deeply researched, and properly contextualized history...Essential reading for everyone interested in the history of indigenous North America." -J.R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires

This collection of essays is a timely exploration of the progress of Aboriginal rights movements in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Contributors compare the situations in Canada and Mexico, in both of which demands by Aboriginal people for political autonomy and sovereignty are increasing, and explore why there is little corresponding activity in the United States. The essays address problems of constructing new political arrangements, practical questions about the viability of multiple governments within one political system, and epistemological questions about recognizing and understanding the "other." Contents One Continent, Three Styles: The Canadian Experience in North American Perspective -- Juan D. Lindau and Curtis Cook; A Just Relationship Between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Peoples of Canada -- James Tully (University of Victoria); Indigenous Movements and Politics in Mexico and Latin America -- Rodolfo Stavenhagen (Colegio de Mexico); Rights and Self-Government for Canada?s Aboriginal Peoples -- C.E.S. Franks (Queen's); Liberalism's Last Stand: Aboriginal Sovereignty and Minority Rights -- Dale Turner (Dartmouth); First Nations and the Derivation of Canada's Underlying Title: Comparing Perspectives on Legal Ideology -- Michael Asch; Quebec?s Conceptions of Aboriginal Rights -- Andrée Lajoie, Hugues Melaçon, Guy Rocher (Université de Montréal) and Richard Janda (McGill), The Revolution of the New Commons -- Gustavo Esteva (Instituto de la Naturaleza y la Sociedad de Oaxaca); Indian Policy: Canada and the United States Compared -- C.E.S. Franks.

Delgamuukw. Mabo. Ngati Apa. Recent cases have created a framework for litigating Aboriginal title in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The distinguished group of scholars whose work is showcased here, however, shows that our understanding of where the concept of Aboriginal title came from – and where it may be going – can also be enhanced by exploring legal developments in these former British colonies in a comparative, multidisciplinary framework. This path-breaking book offers a perspective on Aboriginal title that extends beyond national borders to consider similar developments in common law countries.