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

Authors: Glen Sean Coulthard

Tags: #SOC021000 Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Native American Studies

Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Indigenous Americas) (31 page)

80.
Elizabeth Povinelli,
The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2002).

81.
Eduardo Duran and Bonnie Duran,
Native American Postcolonial Psychology
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).

82.
Alfred,
Wasáse
.

83.
Bill Ashcroft,
Post-Colonial Transformations
(New York: Routledge, 2001), 35.

84.
Ashcroft,
Post-Colonial Transformations;
David Scott,
Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Scott,
Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).

85.
I think Taylor’s own account of recognition demands an answer to this question also. For instance, in relying on Hegel’s master/slave dialectic to make his point about the constitutive relation between recognition and freedom, Taylor seems to downplay the fact that the agency and self-understanding fought for and won by the slave occurs in a condition marked by inequality and misrecognition, not reciprocity. As Nikolas Kompridis points out, here the slave is “able, at least partially, to resolve the ‘epistemological crisis’ set in motion by his unsatisfied . . . desire for recognition without receiving the kinds of recognition [theorist’s such as Taylor regard] as necessary and sufficient conditions of successful agency and personal identity.” This same point can be made with respect to the background political context animating Taylor’s essay: namely, since confederation the respective relationships of Quebec and Indigenous peoples to the Canadian state have been marked by domination, yet both Quebec and Indigenous peoples routinely resist this dominance through creative displays of political agency and collective empowerment; the Quiet Revolution and Red Power
movements provide two particularly salient examples of this. In light of this, the question that needs to be asked again is where are these manifestations of collective empowerment coming from if not from recognition provided by the Canadian state? See Nikolas Kompridis, “Struggling over the Meaning of Recognition: A Matter of Identity, Justice or Freedom?,”
European Journal of Political Theory
6 (2007): 283.

86.
Fanon,
Black Skin, White Masks
(1991), 222.

87.
Fanon,
The Wretched of the Earth
, 148.

88.
Fanon,
Black Skin, White Masks
(1991), 221.

89.
Kruks,
Retrieving Experience
, 101. Fanon’s position on the emancipatory potential of negritude will be explored further in chapter 5.

90.
Fanon,
Black Skin, White Masks
(1991), 222.

91.
R. Young,
Postcolonialism
, 275. For an authoritative treatment of the historical successes and failures of the Third World’s postcolonial political projects, see Vijay Prashad,
The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World
(New York: The New Press, 2007).

92.
Jorge Larrain, “Stuart Hall and the Marxist Concept of Ideology,” in
Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies
, ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (New York: Routledge, 1996), 48; John Scott,
Power
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 10. Also see Stuart Hall, “The Problem of Ideology: Marxism without Guarantees,” in
Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies
, ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 25–46 (New York: Routledge, 1996).

93.
Larrain makes a similar point but without reference to Fanon in “Stuart Hall and the Marxist Concept of Ideology,” 49.

94.
Fanon,
Black Skin, White Masks
(1991), 183.

95.
Fanon,
Wretched of the Earth
, 8.

96.
R. Young,
Postcolonialism
, 295.

97.
Dale Turner,
This Is Not a Peace Pipe: Towards a Critical Indigenous Philosophy
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 5.

98.
Ibid., 31.

99.
Ibid., 111.

100.
Ibid., 114.

101.
Fanon,
Wretched of the Earth
, 51.

102.
Ibid., 54.

103.
Ibid., 44.

104.
Alfred,
Wasáse
, 58, 30.

105.
bell hooks,
Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics
(Boston: South End Press, 1990), 22.

2. For the Land

1.
Lois McNay,
Against Recognition
(London: Polity, 2008), 3.

2.
Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard,
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2007), 264.

3.
Frances Widdowson, March 15, 2010, comment on Peter Kulchyski, “With friends like this, aboriginal people don’t need enemies,”
Canadian Dimension
,
http://canadiandimension.com
(emphasis added).

4.
Widdowson and Howard,
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry
, 264.

5.
Ian Angus,
A Border Within: National Identity, Cultural Plurality, and Wilderness
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 1997), 3.

6.
Fraser and Honneth,
Redistribution or Recognition?
, 72–78.

7.
Day,
Gramsci Is Dead
, 4.

8.
See Kerry Abel,
Drum Songs: Glimpses of History
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 1993), 3–16.

9.
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
Gwich’in Comprehensive Land Claims Agreement
, 2 vols. (Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 1992). For background information on the Inuvialuit comprehensive claim, see Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
NWT Plain Facts: On Land and Self-Government, The Inuvialuit Final Agreement
(Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2007).

10.
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement
, 2 vols. (Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 1993).

11.
For background information on the Tlicho Agreement, see Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Tlicho Agreement—Highlights,
http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca
.

12.
Under federal policy, specific claims differ from comprehensive claims insofar as the latter do not involve an Aboriginal title claim but rather seek to implement the specific rights and provisions outlined in a historical treaty (which the Crown has failed to live up to), or those that flow from the state’s fiduciary obligation to protect the interests of Aboriginal peoples in its management of band money, lands or other assets. See Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
Specific Claims: Justice at Last
(Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services, 2007).

13.
Martha Johnson and Robert A. Ruttan,
Traditional Dene Environmental Knowledge
(Hay River, N.W.T.: Published by the Dene Cultural Institute, 1993), 98–99; Michael Asch, “The Economics of Dene Self-Determination,” in
Challenging Anthropology
, ed. David H. Turner and Gavin A. Smith (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1980), 345–47; Asch, “The Dene Economy,” in Watkins,
Dene Nation
, 56–57; Peter Usher, “The North: One Land, Two Ways of Life,” in
Heartland and Hinterland: A Geography of Canada
, ed. L. D. McCann (Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall, 1982), 483–529.

14.
Asch, “The Dene Economy,” 56–58.

15.
Abel,
Drum Songs
, 244.

16.
Mark Dickerson,
Whose North? Political Change, Political Development, and Self-Government in the Northwest Territories
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1992), 89–90.

17.
Ibid., 90.

18.
Statistics Canada,
2001 Census Analysis Series—A Profile of the Canadian Population: Where We Live
(Ottawa: Government of Canada, 2001), 1.

19.
Dene Nation,
Denendeh: A Dene Celebration
(Yellowknife, N.W.T.: Dene Nation, 1984), 19.

20.
Dickerson,
Whose North?
, 83–84.

21.
Garth M. Evans, “The Carrothers Commission Revisited,” in
Northern Transitions
, vol. 2,
Second National Workshop on People, Resources and the Environment North of 60º
, ed. Robert Keith and Janet Wright (Ottawa: Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, 1978), 299.

22.
Dickerson,
Whose North?
, 86.

23.
Institute for Psycho-Political Research and Education, “Political Development in the Northwest Territories,” in Keith and Wright,
Northern Transitions
, 2:318.

24.
Gerald Sutton, “Aboriginal Rights,” in Watkins,
Dene Nation
, 149.

25.
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
Oil and Gas North of 60: A Report of Activities in 1969
(Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1970), 4, quoted in Bruce Alden Cox, “Changing Perceptions of Industrial Development in the North,” in
Native Peoples, Native Lands
, ed. Bruce Alden Cox (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1991), 223.

26.
Berger,
Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland
, 1:ix.

27.
Ibid.

28.
Edgar Dosman,
The National Interest: The Politics of Northern Development, 1968–75
(Toronto: McClelland and Stuart, 1975), xiii.

29.
Ibid., 25.

30.
Peter Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of a Drum: Aboriginal Cultural Politics in Denendeh and Nunavut
(Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2005), 61–62. On the differing ideological perspectives of each organization vis-à-vis northern development, see Peter Usher, “Northern Development, Impact Assessment, and Social Change,” in
Anthropology, Public Policy and Native Peoples in Canada
, ed. Noel Dick and James Waldram (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993), 110–11.

31.
Re: Paulette and Registrar of Land Titles, (1973)
. For a discussion of the caveat, also see Abel,
Drum Songs
, 250.

32.
Abel,
Drum Songs
, 250.

33.
Quoted in Miggs Wynne Morris,
Return to the Drum: Teaching among the Dene in Canada’s North
(Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2000), 138.

34.
On the history of Treaties 8 and 11 see Rene Fumoleau,
As Long as This Land Shall Last: A History of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, 1870–1939
(Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2004).

35.
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
Statement on Claims of Indian and Inuit People
.

36.
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, “Comprehensive Claims Policy and Status of Claims,” March 2002, 1.

37.
Berger,
Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland
, xxvi–xxvii.

38.
Frances Abele, “The Berger Inquiry and the Politics of Transformation in the Mackenzie Valley” (PhD diss., York University, 1983), 1.

39.
Usher, “Northern Development, Impact Assessment and Social Change,” 111.

40.
Vine Deloria Jr.,
God Is Red: A Native View of Religion
(Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing, 1992), esp. 61–76.

41.
Ibid., 62 (emphasis added).

42.
Ibid.

43.
Ibid., 63.

44.
Vine Deloria Jr., “Power and Place Equal Personality,” in
Power and Place: Indian Education in America
, by Vine Deloria Jr. and Daniel Wildcat (Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing, 2001), 23.

45.
Tim Cresswell,
Place: A Short Introduction
(New York: Blackwell, 2004), 11.

46.
For further elaboration, see Allice Legat,
Walking the Land, Feeding the Fire: Knowledge and Stewardship among the Tlicho Dene
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012).

47.
Bill Erasmus, foreword to
Finding Dahshaa: Self-Government, Social Suffering, and Aboriginal Policy in Canada
, by Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009), x–xv; Sally Anne Zoe, Madelaine Chocolat, and Allice Legat, “Tlicho Nde: The Importance of Knowing,” unpublished research paper prepared for the Dene Cultural Institute, Dogrib Treaty 11 Council and BHP Diamonds Inc. (1995), 5. These references discuss land-as-relationship in the Dene context. For similar accounts in other Indigenous contexts, see, Paul Nadasdy, “The Gift in the Animal: The Ontology of Hunting and Human–Animal Sociality,”
American Ethnologist
34, no. 1 (2007): 25–43; Keith Basso,
Wisdom Sits in Places: Language and Landscape among the Western Apache
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996); Thomas F. Thornton,
Being and Place among the Tlingit
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008).

48.
George Blondin,
When the World Was New: Stories of the Sahtu Dene
(Yellowknife, N.W.T.: Outcrop Publishers, 1990), 155–56.

49.
Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of a Drum
, 88.

50.
Philip Blake, “Statement to the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry,” in Watkins,
Dene Nation
, 7–8 (emphasis added).

51.
See, for example, Lesley Malloch,
Dene Government: Past and Future
(Yellowknife, N.W.T.: Western Constitutional Forum, 1984). Also see Berger,
Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland
, 93–100; George Barnaby, George Kurszewski, and Gerry Cheezie, “The Political System and the Dene,” in Watkins,
Dene Nation
, 120–29.

52.
Dene Nation, “Dene Declaration,” in Watkins,
Dene Nation
, 3.

53.
Gerald (Taiaiake) Alfred,
Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors: Kahnawake and the Rise of Native Nationalism
(Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press, 1995), 14.

54.
Ibid., 178. On the nationalism as “invented tradition” thesis see Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds.,
The Invention of Tradition
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Benedict Anderson,
Imagined Communities
(London: Verso, 1983).

55.
Alfred,
Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors
, 14.

56.
Abel,
Drum Songs
, 231.

57.
Usher, “Northern Development, Impact Assessment and Social Change,” 99.

58.
On the application of the “mode of production” concept to Dene self-determination, I am indebted to the work of Peter Kulchyski and Michael Asch in particular. See Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of a Drum
, 34–42, 103–4; Michael Asch, “Dene Self-Determination and the Study of Hunter-Gatherers in the Modern World,” in
Politics and History in Band Societies
, ed. Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee, 347–71 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Also see: Hugh Brody,
The Living Arctic: Hunters of the Canadian North
(Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1987); Brody,
Maps and Dreams
(Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1988); Brody,
The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers and the Shaping of the Modern World
(Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2000). Also see these writings on the subject: Peter J. Usher, “The Class System, Metropolitan Dominance, and Northern Development in Canada,”
Antipode
8, no. 3 (1976): 28–32; Usher, “Staple Production and Ideology in Northern Canada,” in
Culture, Communications and Dependency
, ed. W. H. Melody, L. Salter, and P. Heyer, 177–86 (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1982); Usher, “The North: One Land, Two Ways of Life,” in
Heartland and Hinterland: A Geography of Canada
, ed. L. D. McCann, 483–529 (Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall, 1982); Usher, “Environment, Race and Nation Reconsidered: Reflections on Aboriginal Land Claims in Canada,”
Canadian Geographer
47, no. 4 (2003): 365–82.

59.
Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of a Drum
, 38.

60.
Marx, ”The German Ideology” in
Karl Marx: Selected Writings
, ed. David McLelland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 161 (emphasis added). The full quote reads: “[A] mode of production must not be considered simply as being the production of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of
expressing their life
, a definite
mode of life
on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce [it]” (emphasis added).

61.
Kulchyski,
Like the Sound of a Drum
, 38.

62.
See Asch, “The Dene Economy.”

63.
Joan Ryan,
Doing Things the Right Way: Dene Traditional Justice in Lac La Martre, NWT
(Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1995), 1.

64.
Barnaby, Kurszewski, and Cheezie, “The Political System and the Dene,” 120.

65.
For a comprehensive elaboration on this point in the context of land claims in British Columbia, see Andrew Woolford,
Between Justice and Certainty: Treaty-Making in British Columbia
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005); Taiaiake Alfred, “Deconstructing the British Columbia Treaty Process,”
Balayi: Culture, Law and Colonialism
3 (2001): 37–66. Also see, Gabrielle Slowey,
Navigating Neoliberalism: Self-Determination and the Mikisew Cree First Nation
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2008).

66.
Joyce Green, “Decolonization and Recolonization,” in
Changing Canada: Political Economy as Transformation
, ed. Wallace Clement and Leah Vosko (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 52.

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