Articles, Book Chapters, Reviews, Online pieces by Zoe Todd
Prepare and lead one hour discussion of readings with the class (different students assigned each... more Prepare and lead one hour discussion of readings with the class (different students assigned each week)s. (50%) 2. Critical Annotated Bibliography assignment: (50%) (~5000 words) (due December 10) Calendar Description: "This course will explore contemporary discussions in Environmental Sociology, examining questions at the intersections of environmental racism, geography, justice, and decolonization in relation to pressing and urgent environmental issues across diverse places".
History & Theory, 2020
This article explores the relationships among place, knowing, and being in environmental historie... more This article explores the relationships among place, knowing, and being in environmental histories. Grounding ourselves in the work of Indigenous scholars from North America and the Pacific, we propose a method of listening and attuning that can attend to the dislocation and abstraction often found in work addressing eco-cide and environmental violence. Against the ubiquity of the case-study approach, we propose a method we call "kin study," which invites more embedded, expansive , material, and respectful relations to people and lands. This article frames the issues and then proposes, though a dialogue, how kin studies may be constituted and applied in studying environmental histories of the Pacific and Western Canada.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2020
This piece explores the work and entanglements of our research collective, formed in 2016. First,... more This piece explores the work and entanglements of our research collective, formed in 2016. First, we collectively articulate the ethos and the motivations that inform the ways in which we labor to
This piece explores how human-fish relations in a) Paulatuuq, NWT in arctic Canada and b)
amiskwa... more This piece explores how human-fish relations in a) Paulatuuq, NWT in arctic Canada and b)
amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) in Treaty Six Territory act as a ‘micro-site’
where Indigenous peoples have negotiated, and continue to negotiate, concurrent and often
contradictory ‘sameness and difference’ vis-à-vis the State and its ideologies about lands, waters
and the more-than-human in order to assert and mobilize imperatives of reciprocity, care and
tenderness towards fish as more-than-human beings. I put forth a theory of fish ‘refraction’ and
dispersion, which is a process through which Indigenous peoples in Paulatuuq and
amiskwaciwâskahikan bend and disperse state laws and norms through local relations to fish and
waters. Exploring the ways that humans and fish alike work to navigate the complexities and
paradoxes of colonialism in Alberta and the Northwest Territories in the past and present, I
theorize a fishy and watery form of refraction of state laws, imperatives and colonial paradigms
by Indigenous peoples in Canada. In a time of rapid fish decline across the country --which some
argued is tied to the global realities of the Sixth Mass Extinction Event-- I argue for the urgency
and necessity of centering human-fish relations, alongside other fleshy engagements, in
contemporary and future political struggles.
By Jennifer Adese, Zoe Todd and Shaun A. Stevenson
"The mediation of Indigenous identity in Cana... more By Jennifer Adese, Zoe Todd and Shaun A. Stevenson
"The mediation of Indigenous identity in Canada cannot be disentangled from the ways that non-Indigenous Canadians attempt to mediate their own settler identities. For significant numbers of non-Indigenous Canadians, this mediation occurs through uncritical and problematic mobilizations of what is often perceived to be Métis identity—an identity which, for many with little connection to Indigenous histories or politics, simply signifies the mixing of cultures, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Indeed, countless Canadians who otherwise would not identify themselves as Indigenous, will inevitably cite a distant First Nations or Métis relative, claiming they themselves are Métis, part-Métis, or possess Métis heritage. Hardly a month goes by that notions of “Métis-ness” do not appear to be up for debate, or, more often, especially in the east, uncritically championed as part of Canada’s own national identity. If my claims here appear merely anecdotal, the recent controversies over the supposed Indigenous identity of author Joseph Boyden,1 along with the deluge of non-Indigenous op-eds in support of his lucrative and ambiguous claim to various Indigenous communities—at times Mi’kmaq, Anishnaabe, and of course Métis—is indicative of just how much investment settler Canadians put into
propping up and leaning into unsubstantiated claims to Indigenous identity,
while deriding legitimate assertions of Indigenous rights (Elliott 2017)."
This article argues for the importance of including Indigenous knowledges into contemporary discu... more This article argues for the importance of including Indigenous knowledges into contemporary discussions of the Anthropocene. We argue that a start date coincident with colonization of the Americas would more adequately open up these conversations. In this, we draw upon multiple Indigenous scholars who argue that the Anthropocene is not a new event, but is rather the continuation of practices of dispossession and genocide, coupled with a literal transformation of the environment, that have been at work for the last five hundred years. Further, the Anthropocene continues a logic of the universal which is structured to sever the relations between mind, body, and land. In dating the Anthropocene from the time of colonialization, the historical and ideological links between the events would 1 This paper was originally written in June, 2016 as the members of the Anthropocene Working Group were deciding upon the status and appropriate date for the proposed epoch. It was meant as an intervention into their decision-making process, in the hopes that they might place the 'golden spike,' or start date, at 1610. As such, a draft of this article was circulated amongst the Working Group members that summer. Although the Working Group's work has come to an end, the Anthropocene has not yet been officially adopted and the start date has yet to be decided upon. We hope that this article might serve as a continued intervention to show the political efficacy of placing the GSSP at 1610.
"In the aftermath of an oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River, Zoe Todd urges a rethink of hu... more "In the aftermath of an oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River, Zoe Todd urges a rethink of human and more-than-human relations."
This piece examines the Supreme Court of Canada's Daniels decision through the lens of Métis lega... more This piece examines the Supreme Court of Canada's Daniels decision through the lens of Métis legal orders and human-fish relations. It offers watershed-level analysis of Métis relationships and responsibilities through space and time. In order to meet the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action number 45, which acknowledges the need for Canada to reconcile Indigenous legal orders with Cana-dian law, courts must stop defining the Métis through outside discourses of who they are and how they govern themselves. Instead, there must be a shift towards acknowledging complex and rich Métis legal orders. Further, it is important for legal scholars to acknowledge how specific aspects of Métis legal orders are co-constituted through relationships with, and responsibilities to, more-than-human beings such as fish, and that these relationships are bound to and enacted through ongoing labour between humans and fish in particular waterways throughout the prairies. Scholars and policy-makers alike must de-anthropocentrize understand-ings of how Métis conceive of and govern their relationships to lands and waters.
RÉSUMÉ Nous examinons dans cet article la décision Daniels de la Cour suprême du Canada depuis la perspective du système juridique métis et des relations humains-poissons. Nous proposons une analyse hydrographique des relations et des responsabilités métisses, dans l'espace et dans le temps. Afin d'accomplir le point 45 des appels à l'action de la Commission de vérité et de réconciliation, qui reconnaît la nécessité pour le Canada de concilier les affaires constitutionnelles et juridiques des peuples autochtones au droit canadien, les tribunaux doivent arrêter de définir les Métis selon des discours externes à propos de leur identité et de leur façon de gouverner. Au lieu de cela, un changement doit s'opérer pour reconnaître la complexité et la richesse de la structure juridique métisse. Il est par ailleurs important que les uni-versitaires dans le domaine du droit reconnaissent que certains aspects du système juridique métis sont co construits par des relations avec des êtres surhumains et par une responsabilité envers ces derniers. Ainsi, les relations avec les poissons, entre autres, sont à la fois enchâssées et réalisées par le travail continuel humains-poissons partout dans les cours d’eau des Prairies. La recherche et l’élaboration des politiques
doivent en outre « désanthropocentrer » leurs approches pour comprendre la relation des Métis aux terres et eaux.
How do you teach about the layered colonial realities that mould a Canadian city? How do you conn... more How do you teach about the layered colonial realities that mould a Canadian city? How do you connect the threads of movement, displacement, stories, erasure, resistance, and kinship that enliven and shape cities across Canada? These questions take on a new meaning for me as a newly arrived guest in Ottawa intent on honouring the unceded Algonquin territories I occupy. In teaching anthropology courses at Carleton University, I struggle to situate the material we read in class within the physical realities that we inhabit as student-teacher interlocutors moving through academic and civic spaces in Ottawa. I see it as my duty as an Indigenous feminist (Métis) scholar to try to ground-truth the theoretical work with which we engage in the classroom with—well, literal ground-truths (and water-truths, and atmospheric-truths) in cities across Canada.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/johs.12124/abstract
In this article, I ask how anthro... more http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/johs.12124/abstract
In this article, I ask how anthropology can adopt a decolonial approach that incorporates and acknowledges the critical scholarship of Indigenous thinkers whose work and labour informs many current trends in Euro-Western scholarship, activism and socio-political discourse. I also query how to address ongoing structural colonialism within the academy in order to ensure that marginalised voices are heard within academic discourses.
A piece by Crystal Fraser and Zoe Todd.
"During recent months, the idea of reconciliation has b... more A piece by Crystal Fraser and Zoe Todd.
"During recent months, the idea of reconciliation has been brought to the forefront of the Canadian socio-political terrain, largely ensuing from efforts to examine the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples in the Indian Residential Schools (IRS) system. This was a system that sought to eliminate Indigenous cultures, in part, by forcibly removing children from their families to obtain a state-based education, often far away from their homes to institutions characterised by substandard and abysmal living conditions. The shift to reconciliation and efforts to achieve a "nation-to-nation relationship" has prompted a great deal of attention and new questions of access, content, and ownership of historical documents dealing with the history and legacies of IRS. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) battled the federal government for access to files and documents in possession of the Government of Canada pertaining to the centuries-old history of IRS in Canada, illustrating some of the nuances and complexities inherent in the question of 'decolonising the archives'. For Indigenous peoples, access to state or church archives is complicated, given ongoing settler-colonial realities that frame and govern archives in Canada. To decolonise the archives requires an erasure or negation of the colonial realities of the archives themselves. Given the inherent colonial realities of the archives as institutions, any effort to decolonise or Indigenise the archives in Canada can therefore only ever be partial."
http://www.internationaleonline.org/research/decolonising_practices/54_decolonial_sensibilities_indigenous_research_and_engaging_with_archives_in_contemporary_colonial_canada
"In 2012, I spent eight months living and working in the Inuvialuit hamlet of Paulatuuq, which is... more "In 2012, I spent eight months living and working in the Inuvialuit hamlet of Paulatuuq, which is situated on the coast of the Beaufort Sea in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, in Canada’s Northwest Territories. I was interested in people’s relationships to fish, and how fishing relationships were being asserted within the community in the face of cumulative colonial and environmental impacts, including looming mining interests, affecting the region. My first two degrees are in Biology and Rural Sociology and when I started ethnographic work in Paulatuuq, I still saw the relationships between humans and their environments with colonial eyes: fish were food, fish were specimens, fish were inputs in surveys and dry policy documents."
http://somatosphere.net/2016/02/from-fish-lives-to-fish-law-learning-to-see-indigenous-legal-orders-in-canada.html
An exploration of the ethics of care and reciprocity required to contend with past, present and f... more An exploration of the ethics of care and reciprocity required to contend with past, present and future stories of the Anthropocene.
This is a piece included in the "Lexicon for an Anthropocene Yet Unseen" series on the Cultural Anthropology website. ( In the 'Theorizing the Contemporary' conversation, published 21 January 2016. http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/799-relationships)
An essay invited for contribution to the book "Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aestheti... more An essay invited for contribution to the book "Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environment and Epistemology". It is edited by Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin.
(the book is available from Open Humanities press in the link above)
Review of Sanaaq for The Goose (Volume 13, Issue 2)
Études Inuit Studies, 2014
Résumé:
Cet article explore les relations humains-poissons comme un «site actif d’engagement» ay... more Résumé:
Cet article explore les relations humains-poissons comme un «site actif d’engagement» ayant été peu théorisé dans le Nord canadien. À travers deux études de cas, cet article cherche à montrer que les Inuvialuit de Palatuuq mettent en jeu la «pluralité des poissons» (les multiples manières de les connaître et de les définir) pour négocier les pressions qu’eux-mêmes, les animaux et l’environnement subissent dans l’Arctique canadien contemporain. Je soutiens qu’il est pertinent et instructif pour tous les Canadiens de comprendre le rôle central que les humains et les animaux jouent ensemble comme agents des processus coloniaux et politiques dans le nord du Canada. Examiner les relations que les humains entretiennent avec les poissons depuis plus de 50 ans à Paulatuuq nous permet de comprendre de façon plus nuancée les stratégies dynamiques qu’utilisent les Autochtones du Nord, dont les Paulatuuqmiut (les habitants de Palatuuq), pour naviguer dans les réalités environnementales, politiques, juridiques, sociales, culturelles et économiques de leur territoire. Cet article considère donc que les poissons et les gens sont, ensemble, des acteurs centraux du paysage politique du Nord canadien. J’émets aussi l’hypothèse qu’il existe un cadre relationnel de réconciliation, au niveau du discours, entre les Autochtones et l’État. Ce cadre élargit les horizons politiques et philosophiques du Sud au-delà de l’humain, vers une reconnaissance sociale plus large des relations complexes et dynamiques entre les personnes, les poissons et le territoire à Paulatuuq.
Abstract:
This article explores human-fish relations as an under-theorized “active site of engagement” in northern Canada. It examines two case studies that demonstrate how the Inuvialuit of Paulatuuq employ “fish pluralities” (multiple ways of knowing and defining fish) to negotiate the complex and dynamic pressures faced by humans, animals, and the environment in contemporary Arctic Canada. I argue that it is instructive for all Canadians to understand the central role of humans and animals, together, as active agents in political and colonial processes in northern Canada. By examining human-fish relationships, as they have unfolded in Paulatuuq over the last 50 years, we may develop a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic strategies that northern Indigenous people, including the Paulatuuqmiut (people from Paulatuuq), use to navigate shifting environmental, political, legal, social, cultural, and economic realities in Canada’s North. This article thus places fish and people, together, as central actors in the political landscape of northern Canada. I also hypothesize a relational framework for Indigenous-State reconciliation discourses in Canada today. This framework expands southern political and philosophical horizons beyond the human and toward a broader societal acknowledgement of complex and dynamic relationships between people, fish, and the land in Paulatuuq.
Food security is a pressing issue in arctic communities throughout northern Canada. Findings from... more Food security is a pressing issue in arctic communities throughout northern Canada. Findings from fi eldwork conducted in Paulatuk, Northwest Territories in 2008 suggest that accessibility and affordability of food remains a signifi cant issue, results that echoe fi ndings from similar surveys and research in other arctic communities. Despite programs designed to address food security issues, access to adequate and nutritious food, both traditional and store-bought, remains a challenge in many arctic communities. Environmental changes, such as those attributed to climate change, the presence of contaminants, and proposed resource development in the Circumpolar North may further impact access to traditional foods. It is thus important for all levels of government to acknowledge and address the underlying economic and structural causes of food insecurity in arctic communities. Canada can look to the experiences of other jurisdictions, such as Greenland, in handling issues affecting food security in arctic communities.
MSc Thesis by Zoe Todd
"This study examines the influence of the wage economy on food security in Paulatuk, NT, and aims... more "This study examines the influence of the wage economy on food security in Paulatuk, NT, and aims to illustrate: a) how individuals are participating in the wage economy and traditional economy in Paulatuk, and in turn how this influences their ability to procure food from the land, as illustrated in Chapter 2; and b) the impact of income on the ability of residents to procure food from the store and through the Food Mail program, as shown in Chapter 3. The thesis aims to answer the question: “how does the wage economy affect the ability of individuals to procure food from the land and the store in Paulatuk, NT?” The influence of the wage economy on the traditional economy must be considered holistically, and store-bought and country foods must be considered as two equal parts of the food security equation in Paulatuk."
Uploads
Articles, Book Chapters, Reviews, Online pieces by Zoe Todd
amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) in Treaty Six Territory act as a ‘micro-site’
where Indigenous peoples have negotiated, and continue to negotiate, concurrent and often
contradictory ‘sameness and difference’ vis-à-vis the State and its ideologies about lands, waters
and the more-than-human in order to assert and mobilize imperatives of reciprocity, care and
tenderness towards fish as more-than-human beings. I put forth a theory of fish ‘refraction’ and
dispersion, which is a process through which Indigenous peoples in Paulatuuq and
amiskwaciwâskahikan bend and disperse state laws and norms through local relations to fish and
waters. Exploring the ways that humans and fish alike work to navigate the complexities and
paradoxes of colonialism in Alberta and the Northwest Territories in the past and present, I
theorize a fishy and watery form of refraction of state laws, imperatives and colonial paradigms
by Indigenous peoples in Canada. In a time of rapid fish decline across the country --which some
argued is tied to the global realities of the Sixth Mass Extinction Event-- I argue for the urgency
and necessity of centering human-fish relations, alongside other fleshy engagements, in
contemporary and future political struggles.
"The mediation of Indigenous identity in Canada cannot be disentangled from the ways that non-Indigenous Canadians attempt to mediate their own settler identities. For significant numbers of non-Indigenous Canadians, this mediation occurs through uncritical and problematic mobilizations of what is often perceived to be Métis identity—an identity which, for many with little connection to Indigenous histories or politics, simply signifies the mixing of cultures, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Indeed, countless Canadians who otherwise would not identify themselves as Indigenous, will inevitably cite a distant First Nations or Métis relative, claiming they themselves are Métis, part-Métis, or possess Métis heritage. Hardly a month goes by that notions of “Métis-ness” do not appear to be up for debate, or, more often, especially in the east, uncritically championed as part of Canada’s own national identity. If my claims here appear merely anecdotal, the recent controversies over the supposed Indigenous identity of author Joseph Boyden,1 along with the deluge of non-Indigenous op-eds in support of his lucrative and ambiguous claim to various Indigenous communities—at times Mi’kmaq, Anishnaabe, and of course Métis—is indicative of just how much investment settler Canadians put into
propping up and leaning into unsubstantiated claims to Indigenous identity,
while deriding legitimate assertions of Indigenous rights (Elliott 2017)."
RÉSUMÉ Nous examinons dans cet article la décision Daniels de la Cour suprême du Canada depuis la perspective du système juridique métis et des relations humains-poissons. Nous proposons une analyse hydrographique des relations et des responsabilités métisses, dans l'espace et dans le temps. Afin d'accomplir le point 45 des appels à l'action de la Commission de vérité et de réconciliation, qui reconnaît la nécessité pour le Canada de concilier les affaires constitutionnelles et juridiques des peuples autochtones au droit canadien, les tribunaux doivent arrêter de définir les Métis selon des discours externes à propos de leur identité et de leur façon de gouverner. Au lieu de cela, un changement doit s'opérer pour reconnaître la complexité et la richesse de la structure juridique métisse. Il est par ailleurs important que les uni-versitaires dans le domaine du droit reconnaissent que certains aspects du système juridique métis sont co construits par des relations avec des êtres surhumains et par une responsabilité envers ces derniers. Ainsi, les relations avec les poissons, entre autres, sont à la fois enchâssées et réalisées par le travail continuel humains-poissons partout dans les cours d’eau des Prairies. La recherche et l’élaboration des politiques
doivent en outre « désanthropocentrer » leurs approches pour comprendre la relation des Métis aux terres et eaux.
In this article, I ask how anthropology can adopt a decolonial approach that incorporates and acknowledges the critical scholarship of Indigenous thinkers whose work and labour informs many current trends in Euro-Western scholarship, activism and socio-political discourse. I also query how to address ongoing structural colonialism within the academy in order to ensure that marginalised voices are heard within academic discourses.
"During recent months, the idea of reconciliation has been brought to the forefront of the Canadian socio-political terrain, largely ensuing from efforts to examine the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples in the Indian Residential Schools (IRS) system. This was a system that sought to eliminate Indigenous cultures, in part, by forcibly removing children from their families to obtain a state-based education, often far away from their homes to institutions characterised by substandard and abysmal living conditions. The shift to reconciliation and efforts to achieve a "nation-to-nation relationship" has prompted a great deal of attention and new questions of access, content, and ownership of historical documents dealing with the history and legacies of IRS. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) battled the federal government for access to files and documents in possession of the Government of Canada pertaining to the centuries-old history of IRS in Canada, illustrating some of the nuances and complexities inherent in the question of 'decolonising the archives'. For Indigenous peoples, access to state or church archives is complicated, given ongoing settler-colonial realities that frame and govern archives in Canada. To decolonise the archives requires an erasure or negation of the colonial realities of the archives themselves. Given the inherent colonial realities of the archives as institutions, any effort to decolonise or Indigenise the archives in Canada can therefore only ever be partial."
http://www.internationaleonline.org/research/decolonising_practices/54_decolonial_sensibilities_indigenous_research_and_engaging_with_archives_in_contemporary_colonial_canada
http://somatosphere.net/2016/02/from-fish-lives-to-fish-law-learning-to-see-indigenous-legal-orders-in-canada.html
This is a piece included in the "Lexicon for an Anthropocene Yet Unseen" series on the Cultural Anthropology website. ( In the 'Theorizing the Contemporary' conversation, published 21 January 2016. http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/799-relationships)
(the book is available from Open Humanities press in the link above)
(forthcoming essay in: The New [New] Corpse, Green Lantern Press, Chicago.)
Cet article explore les relations humains-poissons comme un «site actif d’engagement» ayant été peu théorisé dans le Nord canadien. À travers deux études de cas, cet article cherche à montrer que les Inuvialuit de Palatuuq mettent en jeu la «pluralité des poissons» (les multiples manières de les connaître et de les définir) pour négocier les pressions qu’eux-mêmes, les animaux et l’environnement subissent dans l’Arctique canadien contemporain. Je soutiens qu’il est pertinent et instructif pour tous les Canadiens de comprendre le rôle central que les humains et les animaux jouent ensemble comme agents des processus coloniaux et politiques dans le nord du Canada. Examiner les relations que les humains entretiennent avec les poissons depuis plus de 50 ans à Paulatuuq nous permet de comprendre de façon plus nuancée les stratégies dynamiques qu’utilisent les Autochtones du Nord, dont les Paulatuuqmiut (les habitants de Palatuuq), pour naviguer dans les réalités environnementales, politiques, juridiques, sociales, culturelles et économiques de leur territoire. Cet article considère donc que les poissons et les gens sont, ensemble, des acteurs centraux du paysage politique du Nord canadien. J’émets aussi l’hypothèse qu’il existe un cadre relationnel de réconciliation, au niveau du discours, entre les Autochtones et l’État. Ce cadre élargit les horizons politiques et philosophiques du Sud au-delà de l’humain, vers une reconnaissance sociale plus large des relations complexes et dynamiques entre les personnes, les poissons et le territoire à Paulatuuq.
Abstract:
This article explores human-fish relations as an under-theorized “active site of engagement” in northern Canada. It examines two case studies that demonstrate how the Inuvialuit of Paulatuuq employ “fish pluralities” (multiple ways of knowing and defining fish) to negotiate the complex and dynamic pressures faced by humans, animals, and the environment in contemporary Arctic Canada. I argue that it is instructive for all Canadians to understand the central role of humans and animals, together, as active agents in political and colonial processes in northern Canada. By examining human-fish relationships, as they have unfolded in Paulatuuq over the last 50 years, we may develop a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic strategies that northern Indigenous people, including the Paulatuuqmiut (people from Paulatuuq), use to navigate shifting environmental, political, legal, social, cultural, and economic realities in Canada’s North. This article thus places fish and people, together, as central actors in the political landscape of northern Canada. I also hypothesize a relational framework for Indigenous-State reconciliation discourses in Canada today. This framework expands southern political and philosophical horizons beyond the human and toward a broader societal acknowledgement of complex and dynamic relationships between people, fish, and the land in Paulatuuq.
MSc Thesis by Zoe Todd
amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) in Treaty Six Territory act as a ‘micro-site’
where Indigenous peoples have negotiated, and continue to negotiate, concurrent and often
contradictory ‘sameness and difference’ vis-à-vis the State and its ideologies about lands, waters
and the more-than-human in order to assert and mobilize imperatives of reciprocity, care and
tenderness towards fish as more-than-human beings. I put forth a theory of fish ‘refraction’ and
dispersion, which is a process through which Indigenous peoples in Paulatuuq and
amiskwaciwâskahikan bend and disperse state laws and norms through local relations to fish and
waters. Exploring the ways that humans and fish alike work to navigate the complexities and
paradoxes of colonialism in Alberta and the Northwest Territories in the past and present, I
theorize a fishy and watery form of refraction of state laws, imperatives and colonial paradigms
by Indigenous peoples in Canada. In a time of rapid fish decline across the country --which some
argued is tied to the global realities of the Sixth Mass Extinction Event-- I argue for the urgency
and necessity of centering human-fish relations, alongside other fleshy engagements, in
contemporary and future political struggles.
"The mediation of Indigenous identity in Canada cannot be disentangled from the ways that non-Indigenous Canadians attempt to mediate their own settler identities. For significant numbers of non-Indigenous Canadians, this mediation occurs through uncritical and problematic mobilizations of what is often perceived to be Métis identity—an identity which, for many with little connection to Indigenous histories or politics, simply signifies the mixing of cultures, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Indeed, countless Canadians who otherwise would not identify themselves as Indigenous, will inevitably cite a distant First Nations or Métis relative, claiming they themselves are Métis, part-Métis, or possess Métis heritage. Hardly a month goes by that notions of “Métis-ness” do not appear to be up for debate, or, more often, especially in the east, uncritically championed as part of Canada’s own national identity. If my claims here appear merely anecdotal, the recent controversies over the supposed Indigenous identity of author Joseph Boyden,1 along with the deluge of non-Indigenous op-eds in support of his lucrative and ambiguous claim to various Indigenous communities—at times Mi’kmaq, Anishnaabe, and of course Métis—is indicative of just how much investment settler Canadians put into
propping up and leaning into unsubstantiated claims to Indigenous identity,
while deriding legitimate assertions of Indigenous rights (Elliott 2017)."
RÉSUMÉ Nous examinons dans cet article la décision Daniels de la Cour suprême du Canada depuis la perspective du système juridique métis et des relations humains-poissons. Nous proposons une analyse hydrographique des relations et des responsabilités métisses, dans l'espace et dans le temps. Afin d'accomplir le point 45 des appels à l'action de la Commission de vérité et de réconciliation, qui reconnaît la nécessité pour le Canada de concilier les affaires constitutionnelles et juridiques des peuples autochtones au droit canadien, les tribunaux doivent arrêter de définir les Métis selon des discours externes à propos de leur identité et de leur façon de gouverner. Au lieu de cela, un changement doit s'opérer pour reconnaître la complexité et la richesse de la structure juridique métisse. Il est par ailleurs important que les uni-versitaires dans le domaine du droit reconnaissent que certains aspects du système juridique métis sont co construits par des relations avec des êtres surhumains et par une responsabilité envers ces derniers. Ainsi, les relations avec les poissons, entre autres, sont à la fois enchâssées et réalisées par le travail continuel humains-poissons partout dans les cours d’eau des Prairies. La recherche et l’élaboration des politiques
doivent en outre « désanthropocentrer » leurs approches pour comprendre la relation des Métis aux terres et eaux.
In this article, I ask how anthropology can adopt a decolonial approach that incorporates and acknowledges the critical scholarship of Indigenous thinkers whose work and labour informs many current trends in Euro-Western scholarship, activism and socio-political discourse. I also query how to address ongoing structural colonialism within the academy in order to ensure that marginalised voices are heard within academic discourses.
"During recent months, the idea of reconciliation has been brought to the forefront of the Canadian socio-political terrain, largely ensuing from efforts to examine the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples in the Indian Residential Schools (IRS) system. This was a system that sought to eliminate Indigenous cultures, in part, by forcibly removing children from their families to obtain a state-based education, often far away from their homes to institutions characterised by substandard and abysmal living conditions. The shift to reconciliation and efforts to achieve a "nation-to-nation relationship" has prompted a great deal of attention and new questions of access, content, and ownership of historical documents dealing with the history and legacies of IRS. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) battled the federal government for access to files and documents in possession of the Government of Canada pertaining to the centuries-old history of IRS in Canada, illustrating some of the nuances and complexities inherent in the question of 'decolonising the archives'. For Indigenous peoples, access to state or church archives is complicated, given ongoing settler-colonial realities that frame and govern archives in Canada. To decolonise the archives requires an erasure or negation of the colonial realities of the archives themselves. Given the inherent colonial realities of the archives as institutions, any effort to decolonise or Indigenise the archives in Canada can therefore only ever be partial."
http://www.internationaleonline.org/research/decolonising_practices/54_decolonial_sensibilities_indigenous_research_and_engaging_with_archives_in_contemporary_colonial_canada
http://somatosphere.net/2016/02/from-fish-lives-to-fish-law-learning-to-see-indigenous-legal-orders-in-canada.html
This is a piece included in the "Lexicon for an Anthropocene Yet Unseen" series on the Cultural Anthropology website. ( In the 'Theorizing the Contemporary' conversation, published 21 January 2016. http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/799-relationships)
(the book is available from Open Humanities press in the link above)
(forthcoming essay in: The New [New] Corpse, Green Lantern Press, Chicago.)
Cet article explore les relations humains-poissons comme un «site actif d’engagement» ayant été peu théorisé dans le Nord canadien. À travers deux études de cas, cet article cherche à montrer que les Inuvialuit de Palatuuq mettent en jeu la «pluralité des poissons» (les multiples manières de les connaître et de les définir) pour négocier les pressions qu’eux-mêmes, les animaux et l’environnement subissent dans l’Arctique canadien contemporain. Je soutiens qu’il est pertinent et instructif pour tous les Canadiens de comprendre le rôle central que les humains et les animaux jouent ensemble comme agents des processus coloniaux et politiques dans le nord du Canada. Examiner les relations que les humains entretiennent avec les poissons depuis plus de 50 ans à Paulatuuq nous permet de comprendre de façon plus nuancée les stratégies dynamiques qu’utilisent les Autochtones du Nord, dont les Paulatuuqmiut (les habitants de Palatuuq), pour naviguer dans les réalités environnementales, politiques, juridiques, sociales, culturelles et économiques de leur territoire. Cet article considère donc que les poissons et les gens sont, ensemble, des acteurs centraux du paysage politique du Nord canadien. J’émets aussi l’hypothèse qu’il existe un cadre relationnel de réconciliation, au niveau du discours, entre les Autochtones et l’État. Ce cadre élargit les horizons politiques et philosophiques du Sud au-delà de l’humain, vers une reconnaissance sociale plus large des relations complexes et dynamiques entre les personnes, les poissons et le territoire à Paulatuuq.
Abstract:
This article explores human-fish relations as an under-theorized “active site of engagement” in northern Canada. It examines two case studies that demonstrate how the Inuvialuit of Paulatuuq employ “fish pluralities” (multiple ways of knowing and defining fish) to negotiate the complex and dynamic pressures faced by humans, animals, and the environment in contemporary Arctic Canada. I argue that it is instructive for all Canadians to understand the central role of humans and animals, together, as active agents in political and colonial processes in northern Canada. By examining human-fish relationships, as they have unfolded in Paulatuuq over the last 50 years, we may develop a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic strategies that northern Indigenous people, including the Paulatuuqmiut (people from Paulatuuq), use to navigate shifting environmental, political, legal, social, cultural, and economic realities in Canada’s North. This article thus places fish and people, together, as central actors in the political landscape of northern Canada. I also hypothesize a relational framework for Indigenous-State reconciliation discourses in Canada today. This framework expands southern political and philosophical horizons beyond the human and toward a broader societal acknowledgement of complex and dynamic relationships between people, fish, and the land in Paulatuuq.
complex ways, as what I gloss as fish pluralities. I argue that fish are agents who are impacted by, who bear witness and are responsive to, and in some cases, even shape aspects of colonialism in northern Canada. I demonstrate that Paulatuuqmiut employ a legal order that incorporates and acknowledges an understanding of fish as sentient beings, to address everyday challenges brought to them by relationships of colonialism, environmental change (ie: climate change), and resource exploration.
Through the notion of fish pluralities, I argue, Paulatuuqmiut express a local legal order, kinship and cosmology, and simultaneously engage with and challenge Western preconceptions about (and preoccupations with) Indigenous knowledge systems as fundamentally incompatible with Western epistemologies and ontologies. Fish pluralities enact instead dynamic in situ local logics that enable people and fish, together, to respond to and shape human-environmental relations as realities embedded in ongoing colonialism in Canada. They do this on their own terms and as necessary. By negotiating ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ within, across and between different ontologies, legal orders, and cosmologies, in the context of colonialism and environmental change, Paulatuuqmiut assert ongoing and reciprocal relations to fish that inform diverse and important aspects of community life, refracting colonial and environmental pressures in order to articulate and enact strategies that best meet the needs of people and fish alike."
This is a thesis built on work from 2010-2016. It is best read in the context of being a document produced through the UK academy and the demands British academe places on Indigenous knowledge production within colonial universities in Europe. As a testament to specific relationships and responsibilities to interlocutors and teachers, this text is a snapshot of a particular moment of understanding and analysis, and an effort to be relational and accountable to friends and interlocutors who brought me into their fishing lives. This text is not an endpoint -- the thinking in here grows with new engagements and I would write an entirely different thesis today, with the knowledge and reciprocal relationships that shape my ongoing work. This thesis is, at its most fundamental iteration, a record of the work that went into conceptualizing Indigenous laws, fish, science, and other relationships articulated by participants in the 2010s. And their knowledge and praxis continues to shape and guide my work.
(http://www.northernpublicaffairs.ca/index/interrupting-the-northern-research-industry-why-northern-research-should-be-in-northern-hands/)
http://spacing.ca/national/2014/10/01/creating-citizen-spaces-indigenous-soundscapes/
http://activehistory.ca/2013/12/on-scottish-independence-a-metis-perspective/
I work in Canada. I am from Treaty Six Territory in central Alberta, from a city that bears the nehiyawewin (Plains Cree, Y Dialect) name amiskwaciwâskahikan. I am Métis on my dad’s side of my family, with roots that stretch back to Métis communities throughout present-day Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. I offer this introduction so that you can place who I am, who I am related to, and which territories I am bound to through movement, stories and time. I do so in order to ensure that readers and interlocutors can locate my knowledge in its own complex relationality to the places that I and my ancestors come from and moved through. I also provide this information to foreground the focus of my piece, which is a meditation on the visceral decolonization of the academy – and anthropology—here in Canada.
https://decolonization.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/enacting-solidarity-between-displaced-and-dispossessed-peoples-resistance-through-art-in-the-prairies/
•Comparative analysis of information about fish across diverse knowledge systems
•Knowledge mobilization of this information in dynamic ways (narrative, art, policy-oriented materials) to convey the complexity of fish life and worlds
•Explore diverse governance systems to better understand what is required to protect fishhabitats and fish communities
•Appreciation for the diversity of global Indigenous and local practices and approachesemployed to protect fish
•In honouring the territories this class takes place in, a significant amount of the materialcovered draws from Indigenous nations on the West Coast, as well as across the country
Indigenous Ecological Ways of Knowing and the Academy
The relationship between Indigenous traditional ecological knowledges and the academy. Topics include: linguistic barriers, tensions in diffuse ways of knowing, research ethics with respect to Indigenous traditional knowledge, and working with knowledge holders.
Prerequisite(s): third-year standing in Indigenous and Canadian Studies or permission of the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies."