This paper presents an analysis of the referendum on Native land claims that took place in British Columbia (BC) in the spring of 2002. The province's Liberal Government claimed that the referendum was needed in order to secure a public mandate for a set of negotiating principles that would breath new life into the supposedly stalled treaty process. Drawing evidence from government press releases, politicians' statements and media coverage, we argue that the BC Government and its supporters employed a discourse centred on neoliberal economic logic in order to justify the exercise. Furthermore, we charge that this discourse relies on an erasure of the historical-geographical contexts of Native-newcomer relations in the province. By drawing on Cindi Katz's socio-spatial metaphor of 'topographies', we suggest that Native space in British Columbia needs to be understood as a series of situated and grounded experiences of colonialism and capitalist production. Then, extending the metaphor, we highlight the ways in which the referendum supporters' rhetoric contains a vision of future topographies of Native experience that adhere to the private property ethic of neo-liberal economics. We conclude that the politics surrounding the treaty process must be understood as a contest over the terms of Aboriginal citizenship and not merely as a conflict over the allotment of land and resources.Cette communication présente une analyse du référendum sur les traités avec les Autochtones en Columbie-Britannique qui s'est fait au printemps de l'année 2002. Le gouvernement libéral prétendait que ce référendum était nécessaire pour obtenir un mandat public pour les principes qui allaient guider l'approche gouvernementale de la négociation des traités, un processus apparemment calé. Avec une examination des communiqués de presse du gouvernement, des déclarations des politiciens et de la revue de presse, nous plaidons que le gouvernement de la C-B et les adhérents ont justifié leur position par un discours qui place au centre la logique écon-omique néolibérale. En plus, ce discours nécessite l'effacement des contextes historiques et géographigues des relations Autochtones-nouveaux venus dans la province. Selon la métaphore socio-spatiale des « topographies » de Cindi Katz, il faut comprendre l'espace Autochtone en C-B comme série des événements situés et fondés du colonialisme et de la production capitaliste. En suite, avec une extension de la métaphore, nous mettons l'accent sur les manières dans lesquels la rhétorique des adhérents du référendum renferme une vision des topographies de la connaissance Autochtone qui s'attache àl'éthique de la propriété privée de l'économique néolibérale.
In the span of a few years, Premier Gordon Campbell transformed himself from a strong political critic of Aboriginal peoples in British Columbia to their apparent champion within a “new relationship.” The subsequent sudden collapse of Campbell's alliance with First Nations is a window into federal‐provincial relations, constitutional change, Aboriginal political organization, and the consequences of decisions made more than a century ago. Drawing on Nietzsche, we argue that Campbell's intentions, either to control or support Aboriginal peoples, were almost irrelevant; our focus should be on the “will to power” and efforts to stabilize power through territory. As a result of the collision of Aboriginal political mobilization, the expansion of natural resource development, and a series of court decisions, the unresolved nature of Canada's territorial claim to most of the land that is now British Columbia has finally reached a point where it can no longer be ignored, either politically or legally. However, the province lacks the legal authority to recognize or deny Aboriginal title, leaving the provincial government and indigenous peoples in British Columbia equally held hostage by the federal government.
This paper examines the representations of nature circulating in a Greenpeace anti-logging campaign in British Columbia, Canada. The effort to stop industrial logging in a region of the central coast named ‘the Great Bear Rainforest’ is presented as a case study through which nature’s social production can be glimpsed. Part of the larger ‘war in the woods’ that gripped British Columbia throughout the 1990s, the campaign considered here pitted Greenpeace and other environmental non-governmental organizations and their grassroots supporters against the forestry industry and many members of resource-producing communities. Through an analysis of campaign literature, newspaper coverage and ‘letters to the editor’, it is argued that the preservationist position advanced by Greenpeace visually and discursively constructs a concept of pristine nature which appeals to urban populations, employs a neocolonial representation of First Nations peoples and the nature within which they are situated, and finds authority and legitimacy in ecosystem discourse. Drawing both on work by Matthew Sparke concerning mapping and the narration of the nation and on Haripriya Rangan’s identification of regionality as a key concept in understanding nature’s production, it is suggested that the construction of nature considered in this case study needs to be understood as part of an articulation of a particular west coast metropolitan identity.
Key Messages Claims of Aboriginal sovereignty over territory crossed by proposed pipeline are substantive and practised, and well‐grounded in Canadian law. Aboriginal presentations to the Joint Review Panel are examples of a politics of refusal based in Aboriginal knowledge, governance, experience, and perspective, rather than merely a response to a specific proposal. Geographic research on natural resource development would benefit from more incorporation of Aboriginal theory.
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