Territory and TerritorialitiesFirst Nations

GEOG 220 – Geopolitics – Lecture 10

Terra Nullius?• Terra Nullius: “land belonging to no one”Þ demographic criteria (Ecumene: the inhabited universe)Þ political criteria (sovereign rule: the governed/ruled universe)

• John Locke (1632-1704): Liberal nationalism (nation exists through exploitation of territory and state; self-determination)

• Reflection of relative power: from treaties to unilateral legislation (acts of Congress)

“Sec. 71. No Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with

whom the United States may contract by treaty;”

US, 1871 Indian Appropriations Act

What is ‘land’?

• Thinking about ‘land’ not only as a ‘surface’ but as set of relationshipsÞ Social / Socio-naturalÞ Territories reflect these relationships- Hunter guided by the raven to the elk

=> Place-based ethics

• Political space as sovereign jurisdiction: from this perspective “to qualify as a government … a political entity must have jurisdiction over a clearly defined territory” => discrete politico-territorial entities

How did colonialism dispossess?1 - the initial ability to dispossess rested primarily on physical power and the supporting infrastructure of the state;

2 - the momentum to dispossess derived from the interest of capital in profit, and of settlers in forging new livelihoods;

3 - the legitimation of and moral justification for dispossession lay in a cultural discourse that located civilization and savagery and identified the land uses associated with each;

4 - the management of dispossession rested with a set of disciplinary technologies of which maps, numbers, law, and the geography of resettlement itself were the most important.

Cole Harris (2004), Annals of the AAG

• Colonial process:– Regroup families into areas more easily accessible

to colonial administration to constitute a ‘band’ under an elected council and chief made accountable to (and often nominated by) the colonizer

– Set boundaries: reserves

Imposing territorialities?

• Treaty process:– Bands are required to define and negotiate specific territorial

boundaries, leading to exclusive claims over resourcesÞ Risk of seeing an erosion of access through kinship and

reciprocity rules

“…it bothers me now that, you know, when somebody wants to come and fish, our young people say, ‘oh you don’t belong here’… the Indian Affairs brainwashed our young people that we only belong to one band. That wasn’t the way it was before.”

Simon Charlie, Coast Salish carver

“Because the [territorial jurisdiction-based treaty]

process compels First Nation people to adopt Euro-

Canadian forms of governance, it serves to extend the

colonial project even as the agreements grant newly

emerging First Nation polities a measure of power

within the state context.”Paul Nadasdy, 2012, Boundaries among kin: Sovereignty, the modern treaty process, and the rise of ethno-

territorial nationalism among Yukon First Nations.

Brief (colonial) history of Treaties

• MONOPSONY: The British Royal Proclamation of 1763 prohibited the purchase of First Nation lands by any party other than the Crown.

• Upper Canada Treaties (1764 to 1862) – or Robinson Treaties• Vancouver Island Treaties (1850 to 1854) – or Douglas Treaties• Numbered Treaties (1871-1921)• Indian Act (1876; 1951)=> ‘agreement to share land and resources’ in return for right to continue traditional hunting & fishing, services, payments=> in practice: confinement to reserves (lost of status for moving out of reserve or marrying non-Indian man, till 1985)

• Modern Treaties (1975-ongoing)=> Larger land, self-government (rather than gvt by Indian Affairs)

Coast Salish people and ‘territories’• 54 Coast Salish people

‘bands’ in ‘Canada’• 27,000 registered

members• 29 bands (70%

members) entered BC Treaty Process since 1993

“Olympic Countdown: Aboriginal groups clash with the Games — and with each other”

Jasmine Rezaee, 13 January 2010This Magazine

Conclusion

• Using the language of ‘territorial sovereignty’ proved to be instrumentally useful for First Nations to challenge colonial legacies

Þ Devalue aboriginal forms of socio-political organization

Þ Transforms First Nation society in radical ways: main one being concepts of ethno-territorial identities and nationalist sentiments

Sources• http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-

policy/reserves.html?type=123&filename=Reserves.pdf• http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-

policy/the-indian-act.html

• Egan, Brian and Jessica Place. Minding the gaps: Property, geography, and Indigenous peoples in Canada. Geoforum, 2012.

• Harris, Cole. Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002.

• Harris, Cole. How did colonialism dispossess? Annals of the AAG. 2004.

• Blomley, Nicholas. Unsettling the City: Urban Land and the Politics of Property. 2003