From passive to active dialogue? Aboriginal lands, development and métissage in Québec, Canada

Abstract

Over the last decade, northern Québec (Canada) has been the stage of tremendous changes regarding the active role played by Aboriginal peoples in matters of planning and territorial development. This gradual rise, if incomplete, of the Aboriginal agency greatly impacts, as we shall argue here, on the identities and territorialities of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities, through new policies, legislation, treaty processes, institutions (public or private) devoted to development, territorial governance or the increasing number of cross-cultural partnerships and investments. The goal of this paper is to offer a critical portrait of the recent changes affecting the relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in northern Québec, and discuss the limits of the cross-cultural dialogue in which they are engaged. This argument is an attempt to show how development and planning are rich grounds for understanding the state and the economy as ontological. It will be illustrated through the recent emergence of the Québec government's Plan Nord ('Northern Plan'), an ambitious program of development, and the treaty process involving three Innu First Nations in the regions of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and Côte-Nord. Conceived of as a dynamic form of cross-cultural dialogue shaped by power relations, the concept of métissage (hybridity) grounds our analysis and highlights the challenges of multicultural territorial planning. If Québec is presently engaging in a renewed cross-cultural dialogue with First Nations, the final result of this dialogue, however, remains uncertain.

From cutlines to traplines: Post-industrial land use at the Pine Point mine

“…Participants in this study were either Chipewyan Dene or Mé tis, a term that refers to people of mixed Euro-Canadian and First Nations heritage. In this paper, we refer to Dene and Mé tis peoples collectively as 'Aboriginal,' following the official terminology currently used in Canada (Helm, 2000;Desbiens and Rivard, 2014). particularly important to understand this relationship because Tamerlane Ventures Inc., a British Columbia-based junior mining company, is in the process of renewing production at the Pine Point site (Roy et al, 2012).…”

Implementing Indigenous and Western Knowledge Systems (Part 2): “You Have to Take a Backseat” and Abandon the Arrogance of Expertise

“…These are sets of social relations with attendant Settlercolonial hierarchies that, when enacted, work to reproduce and legitimize those hierarchies as natural or inherently valuable. Scholars have noted, in manners aligned with many respondents' experiences, that being compelled to adopt such roles as a precondition of "having a place at the table" lends itself to producing colonial subjectivities (Alfred & Corntassel, 2005;Desbiens & Rivard, 2014;Howitt & Suchet-Pearson, 2006;Nadasdy, 2005). This is certainly counterproductive to integrative approaches that argue for a lifetime of co-learning (Bartlett et al, 2012).…”

“…Semi-structured interviews are common in qualitative research as they allow researchers to understand a respondent's point of view and lived experiences, and to go in unanticipated directions as the interview unfolds (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). …”

Les recherches sur le Québec du Nord : un instrument d’appropriation territoriale pour quels acteurs?

“…Bien que le lien entre, d'une part, l'effervescence scientifique et, d'autre part, l'appropriation du Nord comme symbole de l'identité nationale ne soit pas aussi direct que l'on pourrait le penser (Farish, 2006), la conquête matérielle du Nord au nom des intérêts du Sud pourrait toutefois avoir joué un rôle dans l'imaginaire national, à tout le moins au Québec (Desbiens, 2014;Savard, 2009b). En effet, selon Painchaud, « [c]e Nord symbolique s'exprime dans une littérature spécialisée, universitaire et para-universitaire, qui est de plus en plus abondante au Canada.…”

“…Au cours des années 1970, les Québécois se mirent non seulement à rêver de s'affranchir de la tutelle d'Ottawa, mais aussi de devenir les maîtres d'oeuvre de leur propre développement » (Martin, 2010, p. 130). La construction du barrage de la Baie James -et du mythe de la conquête du Nord qui entoure son édification -constituera un autre épisode de cette appropriation du Nord à caractère capitaliste et néo-colonial (Desbiens, 2014). La signature de l'entente de la Baie James et du Nord québécois fera malgré tout comprendre à de nombreux acteurs que les autochtones sont des intervenants dont il faudra dorénavant tenir compte.…”