Fluid Decolonial Futures: Water as a Life, Ocean Citizenship and Seascape Relationality

ABSTRACT

Interrogating the settler-colonial governmentality of natural resource extraction lies at the heart of this article while centering relationships to water and emergent forms of ocean citizenship. This article articulates a seascape epistemology that conceives of water as a life force, not a resource, and offers a non-extractive way to conceptualize ocean citizenship. From an environmental justice orientation, this article responds to the following question: how can we move from an extractive treatment of the ocean to a relational approach? Fusing environmental political thought and decolonial futures, this article examines how seascape epistemologies turn away from landlocked property-centric territorial geographies and engage with more embodied, fluid, storied, and vibrant ways of being, knowing, and sensing the world. Informed by interpretive methods, political ethnography, and community-engagement, this article demonstrates how seascape epistemologies across archipelagos in Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and Coast Salish (Canadian) territories challenge the foundational underpinnings of extractivist settler-colonial governmentality.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Kanahus Manuel (Personal Correspondence, November 23rd, 2018, Coast Salish Territory)

² Epeli Ha’oufa (Public Lecture, East-West Centre, Honolulu, HI, 1994), “We Are the Ocean, Selected Works”, University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2008

³ Paul Lyons and Ty P. Kāwika Tengan “Introductions: Pacific Currents,” American Quarterly 67:2 (2015), p. 545.

⁴ David Uahikeaikaleiʻohu Maile, “RIMPAC and the Military Occupation of Hawaiʻi,” The Red Nation (August 13, 2016), available online at: https://therednation.org/2016/08/16/rimpac-and-the-military-occupation-of-hawaii/; Sarah Wiebe, “Refusing Extraction: Environmental Reproductive Justice Across the Pacific,” in Fiona MacDonald and Alexandra Dobrowolsky (eds), Turbulent Times, Transformational Possibilities? Gender and Politics Today and Tomorrow (Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press, in press).

⁵ Personal communication November 23, 2018.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Leonard Monkman, “How Art and Spirituality are Defining the “Water Protectors,” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (August 19, 2017), available online at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/how-art-and-spirituality-are-defining-the-water-protectors-1.4244645.

⁸ Glen Coulthard, Red Skins, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).

⁹ Many thanks to Jennifer Bagelman for this phrasing in conversation with Robina Thomas and Dawn Smith, personal communication, August 26, 2018, Coast Salish Territory.

¹⁰ Rachel: nuučaańuł translates to “along the water and mountains.” It describes 14 First Nations whose territories extend along the west coast of Vancouver Island. I am a member of Ahousaht First Nation and have strong kinship relations with Ehattesaht First Nation as well. In one way or another, my life has always revolved around the ocean. We played along the shoreline, splashed in the water, spent hours canoeing and kayaking, and frequently crossed the Salish Sea to see our family. The waters of the Pacific have always oriented my existence, and continually called me home. Our connection to the water is deeply engrained in us as coastal people; it is a kinship that is so vital to who we are as quuʔas (Indigenous) that an elder once told me that quuʔas need to be near the ocean. I felt this deeply when I returned home to Victoria, BC in 2015 after living away for a couple of years; it felt as though something had been given back to my heart. My love for the water has grown since I was a small child; it is deeply engrained in who I am as ʕaahuusaqsuups (an Ahousaht woman). As Lee Maracle aptly described: “I have always cherished the memory of water, the ocean, the life-giving force, and I have tried to be respectful, but until you truly humble yourself to water, you cannot appreciate its magnificence, nor respect life itself. I have not been able to stop thinking about it, feeling it, awakening to it,” (Lee Maracle, “Water” in Dorothy Christian and Rita Wong (eds), Downstream: Reimagining Water (2017) p.33). In 2017 I joined the Seascapes team and worked closely with Kw’umut Lelum youth during the 2017 and 2018 Tribal Journeys paddles. I spent most of my time in the canoe with the youth, pulling alongside them, sharing teachings, story and song.

¹¹ Sarah: as someone who grew up in the Salish Sea, across from “Deep Cove” and the waters hosting the Kinder Morgan pipeline terminus on Tsleil-Waututh territory, when I think about seascapes, I think about how water is part of the core of my being. Whether swimming, canoeing across the “Indian Arm” or harvesting crab, a coastal ethic influenced how I came to be and understand the world. Years later, when I relocated to Vancouver Island as a student, and subsequently a university professor, I witnessed protocols and traditions of Indigenous communities whose livelihoods depend on the abundance of healthy sealife for their very existence. Ranging from a community paddle to bring back reefnet fishing practices, canoeing as part of Tribal Journeys or harvesting seafood, the ocean is a way of life. My affinity for these traditions is not one just of allyship or solidarity, but an affective appreciation for the embodied realities of living, breathing and relying on seascapes for a healthy and full way of being human in the world. This requires care for and an ethical engagement with more-than-human life, which decenters the human as the primary unit of life, existence and in this article, analysis.

¹² Coulthard, Red Skins, White Masks; Timothy Pachirat, Every Twelve Seconds: Industrial Slaughter and the Politics of Sight (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013); Edward Schatz, Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power (Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press, 2009); Sarah Marie Wiebe, Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada’s Chemical Valley (Vancouver, CA: University of British Columbia Press, 2016); Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow, Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes (New York, NY: Routledge, 2012).

¹³ Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009); Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016); Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14:3 (1988), pp. 575–599; Teena Gabrielson and Katelyn Parady, “Corporeal Citizenship: Rethinking Green Citizenship through the Body,” Environmental Politics 19:3 (2010), pp. 374–391; David Schlosberg, “Theorizing Environmental Justice: Expanding the Sphere of a Discourse,” Environmental Politics 22:1 (2013), pp. 37–55; Charlotte Coté, Spirits of Our Whaling Ancestors; Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing; Manulani Meyer, Hoʻoulu: Our Time of Becoming: Collected Early Writings of Manulani Mayer (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2014); Audra Simpson, Mohawk Interrupts: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014); Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2017); Qwul’sih’yah’maht Robina Anne Thomas, “Honouring the Oral Traditions of the Ta’t Mustimuxw (Ancestors) through Storytelling,” in Leslie Brown and Susan Strega (eds), Research as Resistance (Toronto, CA: Canadian Scholars Press, 2015).

¹⁴ Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter; Donna Haraway, When Species Meet; Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges”; Teena Gabrielson and Katelyn Parady, “Corporeal Citizenship”; David Schlosberg, “Theorizing Environmental Justice”; Charlotte Coté, Spirits of Our Whaling Ancestors; Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing; Manulani Meyer, Hoʻoulu: Our Time of Becoming; Audra Simpson, Mohawk Interrupts; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done; Qwul’sih’yah’maht Robina Anne Thomas, “Honouring the Oral Traditions of the Ta’t Mustimuxw (Ancestors) through Storytelling.”

¹⁵ Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done.

¹⁶ Margaret Kovach, Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations and Contexts (Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press, 2009); Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done; Qwul’sih’yah’maht Robina Anne Thomas, “Honouring the Oral Traditions of the Ta’t Mustimuxw (Ancestors) through Storytelling.”

¹⁷ Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter, When Species Meet; Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges”; Coulthard, Red Skins, White Masks; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done.

¹⁸ Dian Million, Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2013).

¹⁹ For more discussion of Indigenous approaches to birth and governance, see Erynne M. Gilpin and Sarah Marie Wiebe, “Embodied Governance: Community Health, Indigenous Self-Determination and Birth Practices,” Bearing the Weight of the World: Exploring Maternal Embodiment, A. Einion & J. Rinaldi (eds) (Toronto, CA: Demeter Press, 2018; for more about Erynne’s work, see her 2020 dissertation from the University of Victoria: “Land as Body: Indigenous Womxn’s Leadership, Land-based Wellness and Embodied Governance,” available online at: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11520. A video summary of her research is also available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=35DCEI-CkI0.

²⁰ Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing, p. 7.

²¹ Mehana Blaich Vaughan, Kaiāulu: Gathering Tides (Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2018).

²² Noʻeau Peralto, Kokolo Mai Ka Mole Uaua o ʻī: The Resilience & Resurgence of Aloha ʻĀina in Hāmākua Kikina, Hawaiʻi (Honolulu, HI: PhD Dissertation, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa, 2018).

²³ Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing, p. 1.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Wade Davis, The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World (Toronto, CA: House of Anasi Press, 2009).

²⁷ Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing, p. 3.

²⁸ Ibid., p. 5.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Coulthard, Red Skins, White Masks.

³¹ Epeli Hau’ofa, “Our Sea of Islands,” The Contemporary Pacific 6:1 (1994), p. 8.

³² Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing, p. 15.

³³ Ibid., 16.

³⁴ Michelle Daigle, “Embodying Kinship Responsibilities In & Through Nipi (Water),” in Jim Ellis (ed.), Water Rites: Reimagining Water in the West (Calgary, CA: University of Calgary Press, 2018).

³⁵ Charlotte Coté, Spirits of Our Whaling Ancestors; Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing; Manulani Meyer, Hoʻoulu: Our Time of Becoming; Audra Simpson, Mohawk Interrupts; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done; Qwul’sih’yah’maht Robina Anne Thomas, “Honouring the Oral Traditions of the Ta’t Mustimuxw (Ancestors) through Storytelling;” Sarah Marie Wiebe, Erynne M. Gilpin and Laurence Butet-Roch, “Reimagining Attawapiskat: Indigenous Youth Voices, Community Engagement and Mixed Media Storytelling,” Journal of Environmental Media 1:2 (2020), pp. 145–166.

³⁶ A video vignette documenting the “Turning the Tide” community paddle is available at: https://vimeo.com/108393689.

³⁷ Jennifer Bagelman, “Geo-politics of Paddling: ʻTurning the Tide’ on Extraction,” Citizenship Studies 20:8 (2016), pp. 1012–1037.

³⁸ The Seascapes Crew consists of the following key members: Dr. Robina (Qwul’sih’yah’maht) Thomas (University of Victoria); Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe (University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa/University of Victoria); Dr. Jen Bagelman (Newcastle University); Dr. Dawn (Sii-yaa-ilth-supt) Smith (Camosun College); Rachel (yacaaʔał) George (University of Alberta); Dr. Glen Coulthard (University of British Columbia); Dr. Charles Menzies (University of British Columbia); Dr. Philippe Le Billon (University of British Columbia); Dr. Peter Keller (University of Victoria) and Kw’umut Lelum.

³⁹ Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing, p. 25.

⁴⁰ Dian Million, Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2013); Sacred Journeys (2018), available online at: http://sacredjourneyexhibit.com/.

⁴¹ Rachel: As you paddle together you come to understand your relationship to those in your canoe as a part of a family. In many instances you may be connected to those in your canoe through bloodlines, but the relationships build go beyond these formal (and often western) conceptions of family. Traveling together unites paddlers in a deeply reciprocal relationship that also calls on our responsibilities to support one another, and ensure our safe passage. These become deep kinship bonds that extend beyond our journey and are ones we maintain through our lives. It is through these solid bonds that we come to understand ourselves as family and not merely travelers on our journey.

⁴² Paddle to Puyallup, Tribal Journeys (2018), available online at: http://paddletopuyallup.org/about.php; https://www.facebook.com/events/209075229744782/

⁴³ Personal communication with Dawn Smith, August 26, 2018, Coast Salish Territory. For more about Canada’s efforts toward reconciliation, see the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and their Calls to Action https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525; see also the Yellowhead Institute’s 2019 follow-up report here: https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2019/12/17/calls-to-action-accountability-a-status-update-on-reconciliation/.

⁴⁴ James Tully, Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

⁴⁵ Glen Coulthard, Red Skins, White Masks; Audra Simpson, Mohawk Interrupts; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done.

⁴⁶ Simpson, As We Have Always Done, p. 43.

⁴⁷ Jeff Corntassel, “Re-envisioning Resurgence: Indigenous Pathways to Decolonization and Sustainable Self-Determination,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1:1 (2012), pp. 86–101; Jeff Corntassel and Cheryl Bryce, “Practicing Sustainable Self-Determination: Indigenous Approaches to Cultural Restoration and Revitalization,” Brown Journal of World Affairs xviii:11 (2012), pp. 151–162.

⁴⁸ Nuučaańuł word meaning Indigenous.

⁴⁹ Kw’umut Lelum (2018), available online at: http://www.kwumut.org/.

⁵⁰ Michelle Daigle, “Embodying Kinship Responsibilities In & Through Nipi (Water),” p. 9.

⁵¹ Harsha Walia, Undoing Border Imperialism (Edinburgh, UK: AK Press, 2013).

⁵² Ibid., 6 (original emphasis).

⁵³ Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission (KIRC) (2018), available online at: http://www.kahoolawe.hawaii.gov/home.php.

⁵⁴ Noʻeau Peralto, Kokolo Mai Ka Mole Uaua o ʻī.

⁵⁵ Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission (KIRC) (2018), available online at: http://www.kahoolawe.hawaii.gov/home.php.

⁵⁶ Ibid.

⁵⁷ Personal communication August 23, 2018.

⁵⁸ Noenoe Silva, Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004); Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright (eds), A Nation Rising (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).

⁵⁹ Corntassel and Bryce, “Sustainable Approaches to Self-Determination,” pp. 151–62.

⁶⁰ Hawaii News Now, Reclaiming Kahoʻolawe (March 2018), available online at: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/category/330964/reclaiming-kahoolawe.

⁶¹ Kai Palaoa (2018), available online at: https://kaipalaoa.com/about/.

⁶² Ibid.

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Kai Hwa-Wang, “Native Hawaiians Face Federal Charges for Sea Burial of Whale,” NBC News (August 26, 2016), available online at: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/native-hawaiians-face-federal-charges-sea-burial-whale-n637651; Max Ritts and Sarah Marie Wiebe, “The Story of Wānanalua: Stranded Whales and Contested Marine Sovereignties in Hawaiʻi,” Environment and Space Planning E: Nature and Space (2020), available online at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2514848620901438.

⁶⁶ Kai Hwa-Wang, “Native Hawaiians Face Federal Charges for Sea Burial of Whale.”

⁶⁷ Ibid.

⁶⁸ Ibid.

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ Personal Communication, July 20, 2018.

⁷¹ Lin Weich, “How the Watchmen of Haida Gwaii Preserve the Past,” Reader’s Digest (2018), available online at: https://www.readersdigest.ca/travel/canada/haida-gwaii-watchmen/.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Graham Richard, “Nang X̲aldangaas,” Council of the Haida Nation (August 27, 2018), available online at: http://www.haidanation.ca/?p=7949.

⁷⁴ Ibid.

⁷⁵ Ibid.

⁷⁶ Jess Housty, “Kinship,” On Building Community: We Need to be Part of the Pod, Royal British Columbia Museum (2020), available online at: https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/blog/post/042820/building-community-%E2%80%9Cwe-need-be-part-pod%E2%80%9D?fbclid=IwAR09NnmLvGNFDL0m5cocIkhsL6O6-h7RNfH7-E3JFgc9V1h7RMm59UbcyRA.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Rachel Yacaaʔał George

Rachel (Yacaaʔał) George is nuučaańuł of Ahousaht and Ehattesaht First Nations. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political at the University of Alberta Science specializing in Indigenous Politics. Her doctoral research explores how conceptions of Indigenous justice have intersected with reconciliation initiatives such as truth and reconciliation commissions in Canada and the United States. In particular, she is interested in pathways to decolonization through resurgence and storied practice.

Sarah Marie Wiebe

Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe grew up on Coast Salish territory in British Columbia, BC, and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa where she focuses on environmental sustainability. She is an incoming Assistant Professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria. Her book Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada's Chemical Valley (2016) with UBC Press won the Charles Taylor Book Award (2017) and examines policy responses to the impact of pollution on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation's environmental health. At the intersections of environmental justice and citizen engagement, her teaching and research interests emphasize political ecology, participatory policy making, and deliberative dialogue.