settler colonial studies blog | A blog for the advancement of settler colonial studies | Page 529

Indigenous survival against the odds: Sarah Marie Wiebe, Everyday Exposure Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada’s Chemical Valley, University of British Columbia Press, 2016

20Sep16

Description: Near the Ontario-Michigan border, Canada’s densest concentration of chemical manufacturing surrounds the Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Living in the polluted heart of Chemical Valley, members of this Indigenous community express concern about a declining rate of male births in addition to abnormal rates of miscarriage, asthma, cancer, and cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses.

While starvation policies and smallpox-laced blankets might be an acknowledged part of Canada’s past, this book reveals how the colonial legacy of inflicting harm on Indigenous bodies persists through a system that fails to adequately address health and ecological suffering in First Nations communities.

Everyday Exposure uncovers the systemic injustices faced on a daily basis in Aamjiwnaang. By exploring the problems that Canada’s conflicting levels of jurisdiction pose for the creation of environmental justice policy, analyzing clashes between Indigenous and scientific knowledge, and documenting the experiences of Aamjiwnaang residents as they navigate their toxic environment, this book argues that social and political change requires an experiential and transformative “sensing policy” approach, one that takes the voices of Indigenous citizens seriously.

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Settlers need water and land: Michele-Lee Moore, Suzanne von den Porten, Heather Castleden, ‘Consultation is not consent: hydraulic fracturing and water governance on Indigenous lands in Canada’, WIREs, 2016

20Sep16

Abstract: The rapid increase in private sector proposals and permit applications to use water for the purpose of hydraulic fracturing has led to significant concerns in nearly every jurisdiction in the world where shale gas development has been explored. In addition to concerns about risks to water quantity and quality, in Canada, shale gas development has highlighted how the Crown (federal and provincial governments) continues to struggle in its approach to honor, respect, and uphold Nation-to-Nation relationships with Indigenous peoples. But moving beyond the criticism, we argue that these circumstances have provided a renewed opportunity to explore alternative governance approaches. Existing water governance challenges are exacerbated by historical injustices generated by resource management approaches that have exposed Indigenous nations to disproportionate environmental risks. Furthermore, the inadequacy of current water governance approaches to recognizing Indigenous rights, self-determination, ways of knowing, and values has been well established in literature relating to environmental governance and Indigenous peoples. Given these circumstances, if water is allocated to hydraulic fracturing in Canada with continued disregard for Indigenous rights and risks, we contend that this only further intensifies unjust environmental and cultural harm to Indigenous peoples. In the quest for solutions, we discuss the challenges to alternative models (co-management, collaborative governance, and impact benefit agreements) that are frequently cited in environment-Indigenous literature. We conclude with recommendations to address the unresolved challenges inherent in these governance models, in the interest of improving water decision-making.

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Educating settler-teachers: ‘Digital Narratives as a Means of Shifting Settler-Teacher Horizons toward Reconciliation’, Alexandra Bissell, Lisa Korteweg, Canadian Journal of Education, 39, 3, 2016

20Sep16

Abstract: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action report (2015), in the section “Education for Reconciliation” (p. 7, #62–63), calls for the integration of Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into the curriculum and for better preparation of teachers to deliver Indigenous content. Settler-teachers, however, have not been adequately prepared for this mission, nor are they well-prepared to teach Indigenous students. This article discusses a project of dual purpose in support of reconciliation: to give Indigenous students the opportunity to represent their Land-based dogsledding experiences as iMovie digital narratives and to give settler-teacher candidates direct experience for relationship-building in an indigenized context of education. Drawing upon theories of settler-colonialism, decolonization, and reconciliation in education, the article illustrates the imperative of immersing settler-teachers into contexts where Indigenous students self-representing their identities and Indigenous knowledge are at the centre of the curriculum.

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To teach or not to teach (hint: you cannot change what happened by disallowing its teaching)? Sam Levin, ‘UC Berkeley reinstates class on Palestine following outcry over its suspension’, The Guardian, 20/09/16

20Sep16

Excerpt: Shari Huhndorf, chair of the department of ethnic studies, said in a letter to administrators that she had determined that the “course is structured by open inquiry rather than a specific agenda”.

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Settlers invade everything: Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, ‘The Occupation of the Senses: The Prosthetic and Aesthetic of State Terror’, The British Journal of Criminology, 2016

17Sep16

Abstract: Colonial and settler colonial dispossession is performed through various forms of violence, justified by cultural, historical, religious and national imperatives. In this paper, I define one of these forms of violence as the occupation of the senses, referring to the sensory technologies that manage bodies, language, sight, time and space in the colony. This paper analyses the parades, marches and festivals performed in the Palestinian city space of occupied East Jerusalem; shares the slogans, chants and graffiti used by Israeli civil, religious and nationalist entities; and explores what is lived, seen, heard, felt and smelled by the colonized to uncover the political violence implicated in the occupation of the senses.

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Teaching settler colonialism (II): Kala Bechard, ‘Decolonizing Pedagogies: Interrupting the Settler Colonial Narrative of Landownership in Ontario Social Science and History Curriculum’, Research Paper, Queen’s University, 2016

17Sep16

Abstract: Drawing upon Ontario Social Science and History curriculum documents and textbook imagery and language, this paper examines how narratives of settler landownership strategically present Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples within the Canadian grand narrative. The curriculum and text material educators and learners are guided by ignore ongoing colonial violence towards Indigenous peoples and perpetuate the ideology of inevitable ‘peaceful’ interrelationships in national contexts. Learners develop identities in relation to land and how land is acquired. They come to understand themselves as part of a just nation in the particular sequence of Canadian Social Science and History teaching and learning. To go beyond simply adding content about Indigenous peoples in the classroom, educators and learners must adapt a decolonial approach to instead learn from Indigenous perspectives. Such a methodology would require the opening of a “third space” where the transmission of western curricular knowledge is interrupted. Educators and learners must create a space for problematizing the source itself and deconstruct the national grand narrative using inquiry, questioning and reflection, rather than repetition and regurgitation. This analysis reveals that particular placements of Indigenous peoples and settler Canadians in curriculum and classroom text material must be challenged by educators and learners to disrupt colonial narratives and to seek ongoing reconciliatory opportunities in and beyond the school walls.

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Teaching about settler colonialism: Tricya Bazinet, White Settler-Colonialism, International Development Education, and the Question of Futurity: A Content Analysis of the University of Ottawa Master’s Program Mandatory Syllabi in Globalization and International Development, MA Dissertation, University of Ottawa, 2016

17Sep16

Abstract: In this thesis I explore the relationships between post-secondary education in the field of international development, and the maintenance and practices of white settler-colonialism at home and abroad. My method is to search for recurring present and absent themes found in French and English course syllabi of the Canadian Master’s Program in Globalization and International Development of the University of Ottawa. Through search strings in 81 syllabi of four mandatory courses taught over an 8-year period, 2007-2015, I find that colonialism is little mentioned, and when it is, it is usually either as something of the past or something geographically distant. I conclude that, for students, academics and others to address settler-colonialism as an obstacle to decolonization, requires (1) acknowledging their current role in naturalizing settler-colonialism, (2) denaturalizing the logics of settler-colonialism, and (3) working to deliberately give up on white settler futures, while other futures (Indigenous futures) are flourishing through the process of decolonization. While this content analysis is only a small and possibly ungeneralizable example of higher education and its simultaneous potential for colonization and decolonization, it nevertheless represents an addition to the few applications of the theoretical field of settler-colonial studies and of its material implications.

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Indigeneity as transgression: Caitlin Elliott, You Will Be Punished: Media Depictions of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, MA Disserttion, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2016

17Sep16

Abstract: The following thesis focuses on media depictions of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women, a list that carries upwards of 1,200 names. The news coverage of these stories is reminiscent of television crime dramas in their depictions of
minority victims of crime, specifically in regard to victim blaming. In order to examine
this relationship, the present study compares coverage of missing and murdered
Indigenous women in Canadian news articles to depictions of victims, particularly
minority female victims, within crime procedural television shows. An ethnographic
content analysis (ECA) was conducted in order to parse out common themes between
news articles featuring missing and murdered Indigenous women (N = 50) and television
crime drama episodes (N = 65) from Law & Order: SVU (N = 37), CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation (N = 17), and Criminal Minds (N = 13). The overarching message portrayed
within these forms of media is the importance of conforming to social mores. Both forms
of media act as morality plays depicting the harm that will come to women if they
transgress society’s definition of ‘appropriate’ behaviour. These morality plays are aimed
at white women in order to protect their virtue and stifle female sexual agency. These
morality plays act as a way to enforce and engrain hegemony within society.

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The ‘mission complex’ and settler expansion: Lori J. Daggar, ‘The Mission Complex: Economic Development, “Civilization”, and Empire in the Early Republic’, Journal of the Early Republic, 36, 3, 2016, pp. 467-491

15Sep16

Abstract: The “mission complex” expanded the influence and power of the United States in the Ohio Country and beyond. It linked missionaries, humanitarians, manufacturers, federal employees, and indigenous peoples through networks of markets and capital: the material goods used in the agricultural missions offered a means both to stimulate business for eastern (and developing western) manufacturers and to develop a new consumer base in the Ohio Country. Attention to the functioning of this system, based upon free yet hierarchical relations of power, reveals how the early U.S. empire thrived off of economic growth. Paying attention to indigenous peoples’ appropriation and manipulation of the complex, moreover, reveals that some Native communities and individuals endeavored to take advantage of missionary labor, while others endeavored to facilitate their engagement with the U.S. economy by reinforcing ties with both the federal government and Euroamericans. Ultimately, analysis of the mission complex reveals that imperial state policy, as well as a myriad of Native and non-Native actors, facilitated the development and expansion of capitalist markets and forms of labor in the early republic.

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Who is indigenous? James J. A. Blair, Extracting Indigeneity: Oil, Environment and Self-Determination in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas), PhD Dissertation, CUNY, 2016

15Sep16

Abstract: This ethnographic and historical project examines how the settlers of the Falkland Islands (In Spanish, Malvinas) are constructing themselves as “natives” through new forms of governance over energy resources. Three decades after a violent war that cemented the archipelago’s British status, offshore oil discoveries led Argentina to renew its sovereignty claim. In response, the Falkland Islanders held a 2013 referendum on self-determination, in which 99.8% voted to remain British, with just three dissenters out of 1,517 valid votes. Most of the Islanders are white settlers, making their invocation of self-determination different from that of former colonial subjects with aboriginal rights. Unlike comparable settler colonies predicated on the elimination of the native, there is no historical trace of a pre-colonial indigenous population on the islands. To understand how the settlers are securing rights to territory and resources, this project examines debates around political, economic and ecological stability. The research incorporates participant observation, analysis of colonial letters and reports, and interviews collected during 20 months of fieldwork in the Falklands/Malvinas, Argentina and the United Kingdom. Drawing on this data, chapters explore contradictory practices of territorialization, through aspects of displacement, enclosure, peoplehood, personhood, infrastructure, science and nature. The dissertation concludes that by claiming self-determination, the Falkland Islanders are crafting a settler colonial protectorate for hydrocarbon production through popular consent to British sovereignty.

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