Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Indigenous Americas) (32 page)

67.
United Nations Commission on Human Rights,
Study on Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Populations
, final
report by Miguel Alfonso Martinez, Special Rapporteur, Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 51st Session, June 22, 1999, 30.

68.
Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, “A Proposal to the Government and People of Canada,” in Watkins,
Dene Nation
, 185–87.

69.
June Helm,
The People of Denendeh: An Ethnohistory of the Indians of Canada’s Northwest Territories
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2000), 265.

70.
On the importance of “political form” to Indigenous politics in the North, see Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of the Drum
. More generally, see Day, “Who Is This We That Gives the Gift?,” 173–201; Taiaiake Alfred, “Sovereignty,” in
Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination
, ed. Joanne Barker (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 33–50; Andrea Smith, “Native American Feminism, Sovereignty, and Social Change,”
Feminist Studies
31, no. 1 (2005): 116–32; and Rauna Kuokkanen, “The Politics of Form and Alternative Autonomies: Indigenous Women, Subsistence Economies, and the Gift Paradigm,” paper published by the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University, 2007, 1–31.

71.
On the IB-NWT boycott of the 8th Legislative Assembly of the NWT, see Gurston Dacks,
A Choice of Futures: Politics in the Canadian North
(Toronto: Methuen, 1981), 99–100; Dickerson,
Whose North
, 102; Abel,
Drum Songs
, 259; Barnaby, Kurszewski, and Cheezie, “The Political System and the Dene,” 120–29.

72.
George Barnaby,
Native Press
, October 22, 1975, 12, quoted in June Helm,
The People of Denendeh
, 267.

73.
IB-NWT, “Agreement in Principle,” 184.

74.
On the relevance of cooperative and workplace democracy models of economic development to Indigenous societies, see Gurston Dacks, “Worker-Controlled Native Enterprises: A Vehicle for Community Development in Northern Canada,”
Canadian Journal of Native Studies
3, no. 2 (1983): 289–310; Lou Ketilson and Ian MacPherson,
Aboriginal Co-operatives in Canada: Current Situation and Potential for Growth
(Saskatoon: Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, 2001). Also see Robert Ruttan and John T’Seleie, “Renewable Resource Potentials for Alternative Development in the Mackenzie River Region,” report prepared for the Indian Brotherhood of the NWT and Metis Association of the NWT, 1976.

75.
Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, “Annual Report, 1975” (Yellowknife, N.W.T.: Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, 1975), 24–25.

76.
The conversation occurred via mail between a representative for the Kahnawake Sub-Office and then Vice President of the IB-NWT, Richard Nerysoo. The letter was included as part of an information package compiled in 1977 by the NWT Legislative Assembly to generate public concern over the “radical” nature of the Dene self-determination movement. Also included in the package was a list of reading materials that the then IB-NWT community development program director, Georges Erasmus, suggested might be useful in constructing a “development philosophy” for the Dene Nation. The list of readings included, among others, Frantz Fanon’s
Wretched of the Earth
, Paulo Freire’s
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
, Albert Memmi’s
The Colonizer and
the Colonized
, and Regis Debray’s
Revolution in the Revolution
. According to Erasmus, these “alternative” sources on development were to supplement research and perspectives drawn from the communities: “Many alternatives must be looked at,” wrote Erasmus in a memo addressed to Dene fieldworkers, “especially the example of our culture, the approach to development and distribution of material and ownership that our forefathers took. We may wish to keep some aspects of the old way in this industrial era.” Georges Erasmus became president of the IB-NWT the following year (in 1976) and served in this capacity until 1983. Information package on file with author and can be found in the Price of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife NWT.

77.
Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, “Annual Report, 1975,” 25.

78.
Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, “A Proposal to the Government and People of Canada,” 184.

79.
Ibid., 187.

80.
Abel,
Drum Songs
, 254.

81.
Judd Buchanan, quoted in Martin O’Malley,
Past and Future Land: An Account of the Berger Inquiry into the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline
(Toronto: Peter Martin Associates Limited, 1976), 98.

82.
Harold Cardinal,
The Rebirth of Canada’s Indians
(Edmonton: Hurtig, 1977), 15.

83.
Ted Byfield, “Wah-Shee and the Left: A Tale of the Territories,”
Saint John’s Edmonton Report
4, no. 24, May 23, 1977, quoted in Peter Puxley, “A Model of Engagement: Reflections of the 25th Anniversary of the Berger Report” (Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Network, 2002), 9.

84.
Stuart Demelt, quoted in O’Malley,
Past and Future Land
, 29–30.

85.
Government of the Northwest Territories,
You’ve Heard from the Radical Few about Canada’s North
(pamphlet), quoted in Kenneth Coates and Judith Powell,
The Modern North: People, Politics and the Rejection of Colonialism
(Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 1989), 112.

86.
IB-NWT, “The FBI War Game and the NWT,”
Native Press
, November 12, 1976, 1, 8. This information was obtained by the IB-NWT from a report made by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO).

87.
Dene Nation,
Denendeh
, 29.

88.
Coates and Powell,
The Modern North
, 113.

89.
Government of the Northwest Territories, “Priorities for the North: A Submission to the Honourable Warren Allmand, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,” in Keith and Wright,
Northern Transitions
, 2:259–64.

90.
Ibid., 260, 262. The legislative assembly even went as far as to irresponsibly suggest that Thomas Berger’s recommendations would amount to the establishment of an “apartheid” regime in northern Canada: “These same people (i.e., the Dene and their supporters) think that much of the territories should be converted into racial states along native lines. Like Mr. Thomas Berger. If you’re for what he seems to believe, then you’ve got to support something that has always been abhorrent to Canadians and violates our history—separating people according to race. Frankly, support Mr.
Berger and you have to support South Africa and its policy of apartheid—the separate development for each of its founding races.” Quoted in Free South Africa Committee, “Dene Nation: Apartheid?” (Edmonton: Pamphlet published by the Free South Africa Committee, University of Alberta, 1977).

91.
Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, “Metro Proposal,” in Keith and Wright,
Northern Transitions
, 2:265–66.

92.
Ibid., 265.

93.
Ibid., 266.

94.
Government of the Northwest Territories, “Priorities for the North,” 259–62.

95.
Office of the Prime Minister, “Political Development in the Northwest Territories,” in Keith and Wright,
Northern Transitions
, 2:211–83.

96.
Office of the Prime Minister, “Special Government Representative for Constitutional Development in the Northwest Territories,” in Keith and Wright,
Northern Transitions
, 2:275.

97.
Office of the Prime Minister, “Political Development,” 280.

98.
Ibid., 279.

99.
Somewhat tellingly, the federal government would immediately go on to qualify this assertion by stating that it would not sanction racially determined “political structures”
unless
this meant “the establishment of reserves under the Indian Act” (ibid., 280).

100.
Office of the Prime Minister, “Special Government Representative,” 275.

101.
Peter Russell, “An Analysis of Prime Minister Trudeau’s Paper on Political Development in the Northwest Territories,” in Keith and Wright,
Northern Transitions
, 2:297.

102.
Government of the Northwest Territories, “Priorities for the North,” 262.

103.
Ibid., 263.

104.
Office of the Prime Minister, “Political Development,” 278.

105.
Dene Nation and Metis Association of the Northwest Territories,
Public Government for the People of the North
(Yellowknife, N.W.T.: Dene Nation and Metis Association of the Northwest Territories, 1981), 3.

106.
Ibid., 7.

107.
Ibid., 13.

108.
Ibid., 13, 21–23.

109.
Ibid., 17.

110.
Ibid., 9–10.

111.
Ibid., 9.

112.
Ibid., 11.

113.
Dene Nation,
Denendeh
, 42.

114.
Aboriginal Rights and Constitutional Development Secretariat, “Discussion Paper on the Denendeh Government Proposal,” working paper prepared for the Special Committee of the Legislative Assembly on Constitutional Development, September 1982, 30.

115.
Dene Nation,
Denendeh
, 42.

116.
Abel,
Drum Songs
, 256–57.

117.
Dene/Metis Claims Secretariat, “The Dene/Metis Land Claim: Information Package,” (Yellowknife, N.W.T.: Produced by the Dene/Metis Negotiations Secretariat, 1986), 8.

118.
Ibid. Following the leadership change in 1983 from Georges Erasmus to Stephen Kakfwi, the Dene Nation made a strategic decision to pursue the recognition of political rights though the territorial government and land issues through the negotiation of the land claim. See Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of a Drum
, 87.

119.
Marina Devine, “The Dene Nation: Coming Full Circle,”
Arctic Circle
, March/April 1992, 15.

120.
Ibid.; Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of a Drum
, 94–97. These authors discuss the fragmentation of the Dene Nation and unified nationalist movement.

121.
For critical discussions of the newly proposed MPG, see: Petr Cizek, “Northern Pipe Dreams and Nightmares: Return of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline,”
Canadian Dimension
(May/June 2005):
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/1930
; Erin Freeland and Jessica Simpson, “Petro-Capitalism and the Fight for Indigenous Culture in Denendeh,”
New Socialist
62 (Fall 2007): 9–11.

122.
Frank T’Seleie quoted in Ed Struzik, “Things Change in 25 Years Says Anti-Pipeline Activist: Frank T’Seleie Is Now in Favor of a Pipeline along the Mackenzie,”
Edmonton Journal
, July 7, 2001.

123.
Stuart Kirsch, ”Indigenous Movements and the Risks of Counter Globalization,”
American Ethnologist
34, no. 2 (2007): 304.

124.
Todd Gordon, “Canada, Empire and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas,”
Socialist Studies
2, no. 1 (2006): 47–75.

125.
Paul Nadasdy, “‘Property’ and Aboriginal Land Claims in the Canadian Subarctic: Some Theoretical Considerations,”
American Anthropologist
104, no. 1 (2002): 248.

1.
Seyla Benhabib,
The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

2.
See, in particular, James Clifford, “Taking Identity Politics Seriously,” in
Without Guarantees: In Honor of Stuart Hall
, ed. Paul Gilroy, Lawrence Grossberg, and Angel McRobbie, 94–112 (London: Verso, 2000); Arif Dirlik,
Postmodernity’s Histories: The Past as Legacy and Project
(New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000); Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,
Empire
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000); Nikolas Kompridis, “Normativizing Hybridity/Neutralizing Culture,”
Political Theory
33, no. 3 (2005): 318–43; Bonita Lawrence,
“Real” Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationalism
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004); David Scott, “The Social Construction of Postcolonial Studies,” in
Postcolonial Studies and Beyond
, ed. Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul, Matti Bunzl, Antoinette Burton, and Jed Esty, 385–400 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005);
Peter Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of a Drum: Aboriginal Cultural Politics in Denendeh and Nunavut
(Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006).

3.
Benhabib,
The Claims of Culture
, 8 (emphasis added).

4.
Ibid.

5.
Ibid., ix.

6.
Ibid., 7–8, 4.

7.
Terence Turner, “Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What Is Anthropology That Multiculturalists Should Be Mindful of It?,”
Cultural Anthropology
8, no. 4 (1993): 412, quoted in Benhabib,
The Claims of Culture
, 4.

8.
Benhabib,
The Claims of Culture
, 68.

9.
Ibid., 184.

10.
Ibid., 184, ix.

11.
Ibid., 7.

12.
Ibid., ix.

13.
Ibid., 19.

14.
Ibid., 20.

15.
Ibid. 184.

16.
Ibid., 54. For a comprehensive discussion of the gendered character of Canadian Indian policy, to which I am much indebted, see Lawrence,
“Real” Indians and Others
; Joanne Barker, “Gender, Sovereignty, and the Discourse of Rights in Native Women’s Activism,”
Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism
7, no. 1 (2006): 127–61. Also see Kathleen Jamieson,
Indian Women and the Law in Canada: Citizens Minus
(Ottawa: Advisory Council on the Status of Women and Indian Rights for Indian Women, 1978).

17.
Megan Furi and Jill Wherrett,
Indian Status and Band Membership Issues
(Ottawa: Parliamentary Research Branch, 2003), 2.

18.
Lawrence,
“Real” Indians and Others
, 50.

19.
Ibid., 54–55.

20.
Barker, “Gender, Sovereignty and the Discourse of Rights in Native Women’s Activism,” 135–36.

21.
Re: Lavell and Attorney-General of Canada (1971), 22 DLR (3d) 182
.

22.
Lawrence,
“Real” Indians and Others
, 56.

23.
Barker, “Gender, Sovereignty, and the Discourse of Rights in Native Women’s Activism,” 137.

24.
Ibid.

25.
Kathleen Jamieson, “Sex Discrimination and the Indian Act,” in
Arduous Journey: Canadian Indians and Decolonization
, ed. J. R. Ponting (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986), 126–27.

26.
Attorney-General of Canada v. Lavell; Isaac v. Bedard (1973), 38 DLR (3d)
, 481 (emphasis added).

27.
Ibid.

28.
For an authoritative account of this struggle, see Janet Silman, ed.,
Enough Is Enough: Aboriginal Women Speak Out
(Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1987).

29.
Lawrence,
“Real” Indians and Others
, 57.

30.
Barker, “Gender, Sovereignty, and the Discourse of Rights in Native Women’s Activism,” 138–39.

31.
Ibid., 139.

32.
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of December 16, 1966. Available online at
http://www.ohchr.org
.

33.
Janet Silman,
Enough Is Enough: Aboriginal Women Speak Out
, 149–72.

34.
Sandra Lovelace v. Canada, Communication N0. R. 6/34 (29 December 1977), UN Doc. Supp. No. 40 (A/36/40) at 166 (1981)
.

35.
Joyce Green, “Balancing Strategies: Aboriginal Women and Constitutional Rights in Canada,” in
Women Making Constitutions: New Perspectives and Comparative Perspectives
, ed. Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Vivian Hart (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 47.

36.
Joyce Green, “Canaries in the Mines of Citizenship: Indian Women in Canada,”
Canadian Journal of Political Science
34, no. 4 (2001): 728.

37.
Barker, “Gender, Sovereignty, and the Discourse of Rights in Native Women’s Activism,” 141.

38.
Bryan Schwartz,
First Principles, Second Thoughts: Aboriginal Peoples, Constitutional Reform and Canadian Statecraft
(Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1986), 337.

39.
For a discussion of Aboriginal participation in the Charlottetown negotiations, see Peter H. Russell,
Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canada Become a Sovereign People?
, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 154–227.

40.
Native Women’s Association of Canada,
Aboriginal Women, Self-Government and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
(Ottawa: Published by the Native Women’s Association of Canada, 1991), 17–18.

41.
Lawrence,
“Real” Indians and Others
, 69.

42.
The Assembly of First Nations, quoted in Menno Boldt and J. Anthony Long, “Tribal Philosophies and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” in
The Quest for Justice: Aboriginal Peoples and Aboriginal Rights
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 171.

43.
Benhabib,
The Claims of Culture
, 19.

44.
The following interpretation of Benhabib’s critique of essentialism is indebted to Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s analysis of Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial criticism (Hardt and Negri,
Empire
, 143–46). See also Homi K. Bhabha,
The Location of Culture
(New York: Routledge, 1994).

45.
Benhabib,
The Claims of Culture
, 106; also see Monique Deveau, “A Deliberative Approach to Conflicts of Culture,”
Political Theory
31, no. 6 (2003): 780–807.

46.
Or, stated the other way around: when cultural obligations are conferred on individuals without these deliberative mechanisms in place, then “the obligations that ensue can only be regarded as an imposition. In such cases, any defense of cultural
traditions will be regarded as a [potential] source of coercive power applied against an unwilling membership” (Tim Schouls,
Shifting Boundaries: Aboriginal Identity, Pluralist Theory, and the Politics of Self-Government
[Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2003], 106).

47.
Hardt and Negri,
Empire
, 137–50.

48.
Ibid., 139.

49.
Lawrence,
“Real” Indians and Others
, 2.

50.
Rodolfo Stavenhagen,
Human Rights and Indigenous Issues: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples: Mission to Canada
, UN Commission of Human Rights report, 2004, 2.

51.
Patricia Monture-Angus,
Thunder in My Soul: A Mohawk Woman Speaks
(Halifax: Fernwood, 1995), 184; Lawrence,
“Real” Indians and Others
, 64–84.

52.
Peter Kulchyski, “Human Rights or Aboriginal Rights?”
Briarpatch Magazine
, July 1, 2011, 3.

53.
The Assembly of First Nations, quoted in Menno Boldt and J. Anthony Long, “Tribal Philosophies and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” in
The Quest for Justice
, 171.

54.
Take, for instance, Homi Bhabha’s suggestion that by highlighting the fractured and in-between spaces of social identities we “open up” the very “possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy.” See Bhabha,
The Location of Culture
, 4. For a discussion of both the transformative possibilities and limits of Bhabha’s project, see, Hardt and Negri,
Empire
, 137–59.

55.
Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj Žižek,
Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left
(London: Verso, 2000), 14–15.

56.
Benhabib,
The Claims of Culture,
8.

57.
Ibid., x, 19–20, 184.

58.
Butler, Laclau and Žižek,
Contingency, Hegemony, Universality
, 15.

59.
Duncan Ivison, “Deliberative Democracy and the Politics of Reconciliation,” in
Deliberative Democracy in Practice
, ed. David Kahane, Daniel Weinstock, Dominque Leydet, and Melissa Williams, 115–37 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010).

60.
Dirlik,
Postmodernity’s Histories
, 207.

61.
Arif Dirlik and Roxann Prazniak, “Introduction: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Place,” in
Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization
, ed. Arif Dirlik and Roxann Prazniak (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 9.

62.
Ibid.

63.
Benhabib,
The Claims of Culture
, 185.

64.
Ibid.

65.
James Tully, “Aboriginal Peoples: Negotiating Reconciliation,” in
Canadian Politics
, ed. James Bickerton and Alain-G. Gagnon, 3rd ed. (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2000), 419. Also see Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples,
Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
, vol. 1: ch. 6.

66.
For a survey of literature in the Canadian context, see Alfred,
Peace, Power, Righteousness
; Tully, “Aboriginal Peoples: Negotiating Reconciliation”; Michael Asch, “From ‘Calder’ to ‘Van der Peet’: Aboriginal Peoples and Canadian Law,” in
Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand
, ed. Paul Havemann (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1997), 428–46; Patrick Macklem,
Indigenous Difference and the Constitution of Canada
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001). In the American context, see Robert A. Williams,
The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). In the Australian context, see Henry Reynolds,
Aboriginal Sovereignty: Three Nations, One Australia?
(Sydney: Allan and Unwin Publishers, 1996).

67.
Michael Asch, “Self-Government in the New Millennium,” in
Nation-to-Nation: Aboriginal Sovereignty and the Future of Canada
, ed. John Bird, Lorraine Land, and Murray MacAdam, 65–73 (Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 2002); and Asch, “From ‘Calder’ to ‘Van der Peet.’”

68.
Patricia Monture,
Thunder in My Soul: A Mohawk Woman Speaks
(Halifax: Fernwood Press, 1995).

69.
Ibid., 175.

70.
Wendy Brown,
States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 173.

71.
Sarah Hunt, “More Than a Poster Campaign: Redefining Colonial Violence,”
Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society Blog
, February 14, 2013,
http://decolonization.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/more-than-a-poster-campaign-redefining-colonial-violence/
.

72.
Ibid.

73.
Dory Nason, “We Hold Our Hands Up: On Indigenous Women’s Love and Resistance,”
Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society Blog
, February 12, 2013,
http://decolonization.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/we-hold-our-hands-up-on-indigenous-womens-love-and-resistance/.

74.
Day,
Multiculturalism and the History of Canadian Diversity
, 222.

75.
Dirlik,
Postmodernity’s Histories
, 205.

76.
Stuart Hall, “The Work of Representation,” in
Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices
, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage Publications, 1997), 44.

77.
Jeffrey Tobin, “Cultural Construction and Native Nationalism,”
Boundary 2
22, no. 2 (1994): 131.