The future's past: politics of time and territory among dakelh first nations in british columbia

Abstract

This article examines contemporary political movements among Dakelh First Nations in British Columbia that have challenged Western modernity's fixation with a future achieved through industrial progress. Aboriginal people have been especially assertive in politicizing the connections between time and place through the display and performance of memory in forms as diverse as life history narratives, the cultural landscape, media and grass-roots development projects. Such constructions suggest that future developments in traditional lands must come through an engagement with the past -its meanings, practices, and significance in the particular places of cultural and economic production. I explore how Dakelh territories serve as sites for imagining and enacting alternative political and development agendas. I argue that these territories have increasingly become spaces forged in the margins of modernity's binary oppositions of self-other, natureculture and future-past. This finding is not meant to marginalize indigenous territories conceptually or politically, but rather to recognize their centrality to contemporary provincial politics where margins -both geographic and discursive -have become central locations for pursuing sovereignty over land and nation.

Knowledge to action: First nations engagement with research for community benefit.

“…The authors Fumiss (1993a), Klippenstein (1992) and Larsen (2006) explain how most pre-contact communities of Dakelh-ne in the northern interior were relatively small. People would live in a village during the long, cold, snow-covered winters.…”

“…Commonly, the dominant Western perspective objectifies land in monetary terms, fuelled by the idea that if land is not developed it is unproductive (Larsen, 2006). This viewpoint marginalizes land from society, and considers it a thing that needs to be controlled by people (Kingsley et al, 2013).…”

“…Bands were several groups of extended family that harvested resources in the same general area (Larsen, 2006). All members of the band had rights to collect resources anywhere on the territory, but each family had special rights to their Key oh, defined as an area of land that the family had stewardship over, and used repeatedly for hunting and gathering and provided them with their economic livelihood (CSTC, 2007).…”

“…The Aboriginal connection to place is an important part of their personal, cultural and political identity (Larsen, 2006), as well as overall health (Wilson, 2003) and wellbeing (Napoleon & Dickie, 2009). Connection to place means connection to the land, and the traditional territory of the people.…”

“…Takla Landing was established by 1937 (Larsen, 2006) Germansen Landing and Manson Creek are non-First Nations settlements in the southeast of the TLFN traditional territory. Takla Landing's remote location and distance to nearest amenities denote that many residents of Takla Landing still rely in part on a traditional lifestyle that includes a strong connection to the land (IHRC, 2010;Tobin, 2009), and the consumption of traditional foods as an important part of overall diet (Tobin, 2009).…”