Understanding the privatisation of funding for sport for development in the Northwest Territories: a Foucauldian analysis

ABSTRACT

In the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, the political landscape has created opportunities for mining, oil, and gas (‘extractives’) industries to ‘replace’ some of the federal and territorial governments’ provision of social programmes. With the ‘boom’ or ‘bust’ uncertainty of the resource economy in Canada, questions arise concerning the long-term stability of extractives industry-funded provision of services, including sport for development (SFD) initiatives. In this study of SFD in the NWT, we use a Foucauldian approach to examine historical and present-day discourses to identify the conditions of possibility – that is, those conditions that have facilitated an apparent need and funding for SFD in the NWT. The format of our paper is as follows: First, we provide an overview of Foucauldian theory and our methodology, archaeology. Through an archaeological examination of discourse related to sport and the NWT, we argue that there are four conditions of possibility that have created the need for SFD in the NWT: the history of settlement, the rise of SFD, corporate social responsibility, and NWT socio-economic agreements signed at the territorial and community levels. We conclude this paper by raising important implications that these conditions may have for sport and the provision of services and social and political issues in the NWT.

KEYWORDS:

• sport for development and peace
• extractives sector
• corporate social responsibility
• archaeology
• Aboriginal communities

In the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, the political landscape has created opportunities for extractives industries to ‘replace’ some of the federal and territorial governments’ provision of social programmes, particularly in the Aboriginal communities that their resource extraction affects. With the ‘boom’ or ‘bust’ uncertainty of the resource economy in Canada, questions arise concerning the long-term stability of extractives industry-funded provision of services, including sport for development (SFD) initiatives. Extractives industries can ‘generate enormous wealth, yet the resource rich regions too often have poor economic growth, inadequate investment in health, education, and sanitation and low levels of child welfare because the resource wealth is diverted elsewhere’ (Banta 2006, p. A19). Thus, we come to this examination of the extractives industry and SFD in the NWT with the aim of contributing to the literature in a number of ways: First by providing a historical and contemporary analysis of the extractives industries’ funding of sport and SFD programmes in the NWT; second by further understanding of increasing transnational corporate involvement in social welfare programmes such as SFD, an investigation that has been called for by several scholars (see Hayhurst 2011, Hayhurst and Giles 2013). To accomplish these aims, we use a Foucauldian approach to examine historical and present-day discourses to identify the conditions of possibility – that is, those conditions that have facilitated an apparent need and funding for – SFD in the NWT.

The format of our paper is as follows: First, we provide an overview of Foucauldian theory and our methodology: archaeology. Through an archaeological examination of discourses related to sport and the NWT, we argue that there are four conditions of possibility that have created the need for SFD in the NWT: the history of settlement, the rise of SFD, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and NWT socio-economic agreements signed at the territorial and community levels. We conclude this paper by raising important implications that these conditions may have for sport and the provision of services in the NWT.

Theoretical framework

Existing research on SFD programming points to an increasing concern related to unequal exercises of power in a variety of forms, particularly between ‘donors’ and ‘recipients’ (Darnell 2007, Hayhurst 2009). Similarly, relationships between extractives industries and Aboriginal communities in the NWT are subject to unequal exercises of power in broad areas of development, which include youth sport and recreation. To study this complex relationship between Aboriginal communities, extractives industries, and sport, we use Foucauldian theory to frame our understanding of power and power relations. While Foucault did not specifically engage with sport in his research, his understanding of power nevertheless offers valuable insight into the ‘social influence of sport and exercise practices’ (Markula and Pringle 2006, p. 24). Though several scholars have argued against the utility of applying Foucauldian theory to colonialism (e.g. Young 1995), we nevertheless concur with Cherubini (2011, p. 4), who argued that Foucauldian theory is a particularly ‘important analytical tool for policy and for Aboriginal peoples since it illuminates how knowledge, power, and identity are both presented and rationalized’. We are further drawn to Foucault`s work for its utility in showing how certain knowledge has been privileged in certain time periods.

A central aspect of power, according to Foucault (1980), is that it is neither possessed nor transferred as a commodity. Instead, power is relational and circulates throughout the social body in a ‘net-like organisation’ (Foucault 1980, p. 98) that is productive in its effects. This notion of power as dynamic and exercisable by everyone contrasts typical juridical or economical understandings of power. Through these constant and daily relations of power, a social reality is produced (Markula and Pringle 2006) with normalising and disciplinary effects. Scientific or institutional discourses are reinforced, while localised, peripheral discourses (e.g. Aboriginal knowledges) are subjugated. Dominant discourses, then, emerge as the discursive truths in society that inform power relations and guide the behaviours and actions of individuals and society as a whole (Denison 2010). Colonial discourses, ‘systems of statements that can be made about colonies and colonial peoples, about colonising powers and about the relationship between these two’ (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2013, p, 51), have had particularly negative impacts on Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Indeed, these discourses reflect ‘[r]ules of inclusion and exclusion that operate on the assumption of the superiority of the colonizer’s culture, history, language, art, social conventions and the assertion of the need for the colonized to be “raised up” through colonial contact’ (Ashcroft et al. 2013, p. 51). These discourses are thus reflected in economic and social policies that have and continue to subjugate Aboriginal peoples.

Foucault’s work is also useful to the research at hand due to his understanding of neo-liberalism. In The Birth of Biopolitics, Foucault (2008) argued that the rise of neo-liberalism had important implications for biopolitical management of populations. Hamann (2009) posited that neo-liberal political rationalities compel individuals to assume market-based values to thus become ‘self-entrepreneurs’ (p. 37). As Golob and Giles (2015) pointed out in their work with ethnocultural minorities, the result is market rationalities that are central to neo-liberal practices (Harvey 2005), and extend ‘to domains which are not exclusively or not primarily economic’ (Foucault 2008, p. 323). To this end, we argue that these rationalities extend to SFD programmes.

A Foucauldian lens is useful for enabling researchers to identify the discourses circulating through society that reinforce an imbalance in the exercise of power between Aboriginal communities and extractives industries; as such, we required a methodology that enables a critical and historical examination of discourse. Through Foucault’s archaeological methodology, one can ‘examine the workings of discourse as related to social change and transformation’ (Markula and Pringle 2006, p. 30), in this case, in Aboriginal communities in the NWT.

Methodology

According to Foucault (1970), archaeology is a methodology used to determine the societal structures that served as conditions of possibility of what was considered, in a given era, scientific discourse. Through an examination of archival texts produced by, for example, government officials, archaeology can identify the conditions that enabled and rationalised certain systems of knowledge, which are revealed in discourse (Crowley 2009). Foucault (1970, p. xiv) was unconcerned with the content of scientific (i.e. dominant) discourse and its (supposed) validity as fact, and instead investigated the social conditions with which the claimant had to conform in order to give his/her work ‘value and practical application as scientific discourse’; these conforming, normalising conditions on society and discourse shape what is considered knowledge by establishing a ‘space of knowledge’ (Foucault 1970, p. xxii, italics in original) within which power is constrained and knowledge is produced. Discourses that lie outside this space of knowledge have been subjugated due to their incompatibility with the social configurations of their time of production. Thus, these subjugated and localised discourses are often representative of a ‘historical knowledge of struggles’ (Foucault 1980, p. 83).

While Foucault generally avoided systematising his methods (Springer and Clinton 2015), he described archaeology as a methodology appropriate for the ‘analysis of local discursivities’ (Foucault 1980, p. 85) within a specific era. The ‘archaeologist’ (i.e. the researcher) identifies what Vakirtzi and Bayliss (2013) described as ‘the production of statements as serious speech acts’ (p. 371). These serious speech acts, which are produced by dominant societal institutions through texts, etch power relations by forming temporal understandings of the discourses’ subject (Vakirtzi nd Bayliss 2013). In this research, we used archaeology to examine temporal understandings of Aboriginal peoples in Canada through the analysis of ‘serious speech’ texts related to resource and sport development in Northern Canada. These texts (Table 1) emerged from an epistemological field that has conditions governing knowledge formation (Markula and Pringle 2006). The texts found in Table 1 were identified through a university library database, broad web-based searches of government legislation and policies, and through reports available on international agencies’ and corporations’ websites. Due to the wide array of texts examined, search terms varied according to the topic. As part of searches for literature involving Aboriginal peoples in Canada, we used the terms Aboriginal (the legal term for Indigenous peoples in Canada) and Indigenous to account for the different identifying terms used by national and international scholars. To identify pertinent literature regarding the history of NWT’s settlement, we used terms such as mining and oil, Northern Canada, Yellowknife, and economic development. Similarly, our terms for finding sport and SFD sources were broad using, for example, sport, recreation, leisure, and development. Indeed, this broad analysis of texts was necessary, as ‘texts can never be understood or analysed in isolation – they can only be understood in relation to webs of other texts and in relation to the social context’ (Jorgensen and Phillips 2002, p. 70).

Table

Documents Analysed
Publication type	Document format
Academic publications	Peer-reviewed journal articles, books, policy centre publications
Extractives industries’ reports	Socio-economic and community reports, Impact Benefit Agreements, media releases
Government documents	Legislation, historical treaties, statistical documents
Media reports	National and local newspaper articles
Non-governmental reports	Sport policies, United Nations reports

First, we examined texts produced by societal institutions that related to resource development, sport, and Aboriginal peoples in Northern Canada. Through these texts, we then examined how understandings of Aboriginal peoples, resource development, and sport have been produced, revealing the underlying discursive formations driving actions and knowledge production. Broad and repeated themes throughout the documents coalesced to form the dominant discourses in the texts, which included ‘moribund Aboriginal economy’, ‘incentivised resource extraction’, ‘sport as a tool for Aboriginal youth development’, ‘privatised social aid’, ‘retreat of the welfare state’, and ‘mutuality of resource development benefits’. Each of these discourses relied on conditions of possibility that enabled them to emerge and dominate understandings of their subject. To determine their conditions of possibility, or the rules ‘needed in order for certain statements and discourses to emerge, and […] those material conditions that make citizenship activities possible’ (Olson et al. 2014, p. 1041), we identified the texts in which the discourses were produced, the institutions that produced them, and their temporal relationships to previous and future-related discourses, as well as the underlying social structures dominating their production and proliferation. For example, themes identified within a negotiated nineteenth-century treaty have temporal relationships to similar themes identified in the revised Indian Act of 1985. Considering the Government of Canada produces legislation, the discourses (re)produced by these themes carry enormous weight and can be considered dominant. Finally, the discourses were categorised into conditions of possibility by searching for similarities between discourses and tracing these similarities to the social and political ‘rules’ enabling their production. We identified four conditions of possibility that individually and collectively influence the partnerships between sport, Aboriginal communities, and extractives industry corporations.

In general, and as we explain in detail below, we argue that the first condition enabling extractives industry involvement in sport is the history of settlement in the NWT, and particularly the role that the extractives industries played in settlement; this role enabled the production of a colonial dominant discourse that labelled the NWT as a ‘frontier’ in need of development. Our second condition relates to the need for CSR, or the relationship between a corporation’s performance and its social citizenship practices. Various scholars have demonstrated how CSR is perceived as a necessary component of a corporation’s strategy to build public goodwill and image, which is evident in current SFD programming (e.g. Hayhurst and Kidd 2011, Hayhurst and Szto 2016). Our third condition is the rise in the number of SFD initiatives and organisations. The rise of SFD has (re)produced a dominant discourse that sport is inherently good, making youth sport an enticing opportunity for corporations looking to partner with community organisations. The final condition involves the NWT’s socio-economic agreements signed at the territorial and community level. This condition epitomises the support in discourse of the transfer of social provisions, of which sport is often included, from public to private. Below, we outline each of the four conditions and highlight how each condition enables certain dominant discourses to influence the extractives’ funding of Aboriginal sport and SFD.

History of settlement in the NWT

The history of settlement, and the importance of extractives industries to settlement, has emerged as a condition of possibility to extractives companies’ involvement in sport and SFD in the NWT. It is important to note, however, that Aboriginal (i.e. First Nations and Inuit) peoples lived in the region now known as the NWT for centuries before European contact and subsequent settlement. When initial contact in the late sixteenth century with Euro-Canadian settlers did occur, the contact was ‘modest and tentative’ (Coates 1985, p. 31), as the Aboriginal population exchanged survival knowledge and technology for the useful metal tools and other goods brought by settlers. While initial settler interests were to map the region and 1 day find the Northwest Passage, southern whalers became a prominent presence in the NWT in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Coates 1985). From the late seventeenth century to 1870, the area was known as Rupert’s Land and was owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The land mass was so vast that it covered much of what is considered Canada today; at the time of its purchase by the Canadian Government in 1870, the land encompassed close to 8 million km² and was primarily used by the Hudson’s Bay Company for fur trading purposes (CBC 2001). Perhaps as an indication of the poor relations that would follow, those involved in the transfer of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company to Canada failed to consult with the Aboriginal peoples who lived on the transferred land (CBC 2001), producing and reinforcing the idea that Aboriginal peoples had little to no legitimate say in decision-making processes that would drastically affect their lives. Indeed, the Enactment of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory into the Dominion of Government of Canada (1982/1870, para. 13) transferred, from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the “full power and authority to legislate for the future welfare and good government of the said territory”. In the same year, Canada was given control of a large area of land controlled by the British that was directly north-west of Rupert’s Land. The two areas were combined and given its current name, the NWT. Another territory, Nunavut, was created on 4 April 1999, greatly reducing the borders of the NWT; nevertheless, the territory still has an extremely small population density. According to the Government of the Northwest Territories Bureau of Statistics (2014a), 43,600 people now live in the NWT, of which roughly half are Aboriginal. To exemplify the vastness of the territory and its sparse population, one can note that the NWT’s current borders cover an area over 1 million km², and Yellowknife, the NWT’s capital city, has a population of 20,000, nearly half of the territory’s entire population (Government of the Northwest Territories Bureau of Statistics 2014a).

Throughout the twentieth century, colonial treaties benefitted extractives industries by excluding Aboriginal peoples from the decision-making processes regarding the land and thus the territory’s future economic development (Gibson and Klink 2005). Treaties in Northern Canada, for example, subjected lands surrendered to ‘the Indians’ to ‘regulations as may from time to time be made by the Government of the country … for settlement, mining, lumbering, trading or other purposes’ (Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada 1966, para. 9). These treaties, Zlotkin (1989, p. 275) argued, can ‘best be described as the “northern resource development” treaties’. Similar to the Enactment of Rupert’s Land and the NWT (1870), the provisions in the treaties were not negotiated with the Aboriginal peoples: ‘there is no evidence that the Indian people were told their rights were to be subject’ (Zlotkin 1989, p. 275) to the government’s regulations. Extractives industries would become the primary drivers of settlement and, through the perpetuation of discourses ‘that the native economy is moribund and the native people should therefore be induced to enter industrial wage employment’ (Berger 1977, p. XIX), would help to form the current neo-liberal economical model in the NWT.

Neo-liberal discourses of ‘reduced state intervention and greater individual responsibility’ (Golob and Giles 2015, p. 101) currently dominate and proliferate private–public partnerships in Northern Canada between private industries and Aboriginal communities (Taylor and Friedel 2011). Such partnerships, however, were preceded by a long and varied history of settlement and resource extraction in Northern Canada. During initial settlements, communities were developed as trading posts or transportation hubs. Eventually, resource extraction became the basis of settlement, as explorers founded communities for the purposes of gold or oil extraction (NWT Tourism n.d.). Resource extraction continues to be a priority for the NWT today, as the largest drivers of the territory’s economy are mainly resource-based companies, with mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction accounting for close to 25% of the gross domestic product (Government of the Northwest Territories Bureau of Statistics 2014b). There has, however, been resistance to this resource-based economy. The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry (Berger 1977) was a comprehensive report completed by Mr. Justice Thomas R. Berger into the feasibility and the impact of a Northern Gas Pipeline running through the NWT and along the Mackenzie River. The pipeline, which would have been one of the largest engineering feats in Canada’s history, was ultimately discontinued after Berger’s extensive hearings into its impact on both the environment and the people of the North; this is perhaps reflective of what Berger referred to as the dichotomous discursive positioning of those who call the North a frontier and those who call the North their homeland. He argued, ‘The future of the North ought not to be determined only by our own southern ideas of frontier development. It should also reflect the ideas of the people who call it their homeland’ (Berger 1977, p. xix). Thus, unlike most economic issues affecting Aboriginal peoples at that time, the Berger Inquiry weighed the opposition from Aboriginal peoples and the pipeline’s subsequent potential negative cultural impacts more heavily than the potential for economic gain. While the Berger Inquiry is an important example of NWT Aboriginal peoples’ exercise of power and resistance against land and cultural exploitation, the gradual loss of traditional practices and knowledge has had repercussions that have extended beyond the economy and into the health of its residents.

In general, the health status of Aboriginal peoples in Canada falls well below national standards when compared with non-Aboriginal peoples (National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health 2013). The Aboriginal population in the NWT, in particular, suffers from increased rates of obesity, lower physical activity levels, and decreased mental health status (NWT Health 2011). These health discrepancies are a culmination of many factors, although perhaps none are more impactful than the effects of colonialism. Loppie-Reading and Wein (2009, p. 22) identified colonialism as one of the distal determinants of Aboriginal health through ‘which all other determinants are constructed’. Thus, the health of Aboriginal peoples is mediated and subjugated through political, economic, and environmental colonial processes that have historically contributed and presently contribute to these health disparities (Loppie-Reading and Wein 2009). The enduring effects of residential schools and the continuing subjugation of Aboriginal peoples through the Indian Act (1985) and other policies are glaring examples of the material impacts of colonial discourses and their effects on Aboriginal health (Beavis et al. 2015).

Corporate social responsibility

The proliferation of extractives industries’ activity and the presence of disadvantaged Aboriginal communities have created opportunities for industries to partner with communities to produce a discourse of the need for and benefits of industries ‘giving back’ through CSR in areas of social development. The need for these partnerships often arises from extractives-related harm to the environment and local Aboriginal peoples. An example of this harm can be seen from Giant Mine, which was in operation from 1948–2004 and is partly responsible for the establishment of the City of Yellowknife (Jarvis et al. 2014). During the early years of its gold-mining operations, Giant Mine released the waste-product arsenic trioxide into the air, contaminating traditional lands and water (Yellowknives Dene 2005). The people most affected by Giant Mine’s environmental pollutants, The Dene from Yellowknives Dene First Nation (YDFN), have asserted that they continue to suffer the effects of related diseases and loss of traditions as a result of the mine’s environmental pollutants (Yellowknives Dene 2005). The clean-up for the mine, which falls under the responsibility of the Canadian Government, will cost close to $1 billion dollars (CAD) (Jarvis et al. 2014) and will require indefinite environment monitoring (Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada 2007). Currently, the CSR initiatives of the two operational diamond mines and the recently closed Snap Lake Mine have gone ‘full circle’ by incorporating the YDFN in their CSR initiatives (see Dominion Diamond 2013, De Beers Canada 2015, Rio Tinto 2016). The history of settlement in the NWT and its related texts drove extractives industries’ economic development, thus producing more recent neo-liberal discourses and, ultimately, as we show below, contributing to the rise of privatised aid in sport and SFD in the NWT.

The relationship between corporations and social citizenship has undergone a large transformation over the last quarter century. The unabated resource exploitation of Aboriginal lands started shifting towards mutuality in the 1970s, with key texts such as the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA) (1975) and the Berger Inquiry report (1977), which were heavily influenced by Aboriginal peoples’ resistance to resource development, advocating not only for shared economic involvement with Aboriginal stakeholders but also environment protection and treaty resolutions. For example, the JBNQA (1975) incorporated a number of Aboriginal corporations that would each receive monetary compensation from, among others, Hydro Quebec for the use of Aboriginal land. One of the purposes of the revenue used to compensate the newly incorporated Inuit Development Corporation, for example, was ‘the relief of poverty, the welfare and the advancement of education of the Inuit’ [(JBNQA 1975), Section 27.0.4(b)]. These texts helped to produce discourses that corporations must contribute beyond merely the economic growth of their companies and must respond to Aboriginal peoples’ needs.

Carroll’s (1979) once dominant definition of CSR described a corporation’s economic responsibility to produce socially responsible goods and services as the most important function of CSR. According to Carroll, corporations were not fully expected by society to involve themselves in philanthropic activities outside of their economic activity; this is a sharp contrast to the role of social citizenship in CSR today. Corporations are increasingly valued or ranked by society based on their perceived social morality rather than on their economic performance (Porter and Kramer 2006); this perceived morality by society drives modern CSR and we argue functions as a condition that enables extractives industry involvement in Aboriginal communities’ SFD. Harribey (2011, p. 24) contended that, ‘a company is almost taking a risk if it is not part of what has now become the mainstream by incorporating a framework of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility’. Thus, executives of extractives industries operating in the NWT are discursively produced as needing to invest in social citizenship programmes, like sport, in Aboriginal communities.

Canadian corporations’ CSR initiatives have propelled their involvement in the area of youth sport. Specific to the NWT, many youth sport and recreation organisations and events have partnered with extractives industries operating in the region (e.g. Dominion Diamond Mine and the Northern Youth Leadership Society, Diavik Dominion Mines and Diavik Super Soccer, De Beers Canada and Polar Pond Hockey). These partnerships provide funding for youth sport and recreation and function as a method of increasing community support for the extractives industry. Extractives industries also clearly support sport organisations that use a social development through sport approach, which can be seen in Diavik Super Soccer’s ‘event that includes youth from many northern communities and encourages healthy, active, living through sport’ (Rio Tinto 2014, para. 5). This is equally apparent in Dominion Diamond’s partnership with Northern Youth Leadership, whose mission is to ‘provide on the land personal growth, leadership opportunities and connections that empower young people to create positive change’ (Northern Youth n.d., ‘Our Mission’). And yet, there is potential for concern – particularly in relation to the stability of private sector funding of sport and SFD organisations, as well as the consequences of neocolonial relations of power as they impact Aboriginal youth.

Rise of sport for development

SFD is a relatively new area of research in sport and, consequently, a firm definition is yet to be broadly agreed upon among scholars; however, for the purposes of this study, we will use the United Nations’ (UN) (2003, p. v) definition of SFD, which views sport-based initiatives as ‘practical and cost-effective tools to achieve objectives in development and peace’ on both global and local scales, making sport an effective agent of positive social change. We use the UN’s definition of SFD because of the high level of influence the UN can have on the direction of government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) alike (e.g. Hayhurst 2009), including those groups focused on Aboriginal-based SFD programmes. For example, the UN’s increased advocacy of SFD in the early twenty-first century was met by a proliferation of NGOs involved in SFD (Coakley and Donnelly 2009). In addition to NGOs, transnational corporations have long entwined some part of their CSR with sport and SFD initiatives. For example, through its N7 programme, Nike has supported Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States since 1997, which was prior to the UN’s declarations on sport’s potential in social development (Hayhurst et al. 2016).

The rapid and relatively recent adoption of SFD has, however, been met with some criticism. As researchers begin to understand the recent surge in SFD NGOs, there is increasing scepticism as to the purported socio-economic benefits of sport. Skinner and colleagues (2008) argued that sport can be an effective tool to build social capital, yet they also noted that a framework needs to be established to coordinate policy development from top-down and bottom-up approaches. Coalter (2010b) introduced more scepticism surrounding SFD’s potential for effecting positive social change, as he claimed the UN’s statements on sport’s contribution to achieving the Millennium Developmental Goals lack the evidence and theory to support such claims. Using a case study of a Youth Sports Organisation in Nairobi, Coalter (2010a) warned of the dangers of oversimplified and generalised benefits of sport; sport organisations, rather than simply sport, are the true agents of social change. Kruse (2006, p. 8) emphasised these points by contending that the strong beliefs in the discourse of the benefits of sport are ‘based on the intuitive certainty and experience that there is a positive link between sport and development’, rather than based on empirical evidence. Indeed, Kruse reasoned that without a systematic analytical framework to assess the effectiveness of SFD organisations, the link between sport and positive social development cannot be determined.

While the above critical engagements with SFD raise important questions surrounding the development and implementation of SFD initiatives, scholars have been addressing these issues in the literature. In his research on Right to Play, Darnell (2007) recognised the problematic pattern of North American or European organisations developing SFD programmes using neo-liberal approaches of increased personal agency and decreased state involvement for implementation in developing communities of the global South. The discursive production of ‘Whiteness’ as the dominant culture within these programmes points to problematic race-based issues that place the community at an inferior level to the programme implementers (Darnell 2007). The issue, therefore, is not sport itself, but rather the manner in which sport is used to promote or refute political ideologies under the banner of ‘development’ (Darnell 2012). The widespread acceptance of discourses of the benefits of sport and SFD is a critical factor for the involvement of extractives industries in SFD in the NWT. Prior to the ‘institutionalisation’ of SFD, sport and social development-focused community and recreation organisations partnered with extractives industries in the NWT. Silke (2009, para. 17) described the extractives industries’ in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s as, ‘very generous in their support of recreation in Yellowknife, building rec halls and curling rinks, funding sports for all ages and sexes, and contributing to the maintenance of the Gerry Murphy Arena’. While examples of these types of sport partnerships still exist, such as De Beers assuming a large role in the construction of Yellowknife’s arena (Puglia 2004), the use of sport as a tool for development is increasingly apparent in extractives industries’ strategic CSR investments. For example, in the NWT, through its Ekati Plus Community Development Program (Dominion Diamond 2013, p. 27), Dominion Diamonds reported that it prioritised its community investments in ‘areas where positive change is encouraged’. While the organisations it funded ranged across areas of development from education and literacy to health, they also included organisations that used sport as a tool for development (e.g. Northern Youth Leadership Society), affirming Dominion Diamond’s belief that sport is an area where positive change can occur. Dominion Diamond described these investments and partnerships as having ‘a role in developing the North’ (Dominion Diamond 2013, p. 27). De Beers Canada (2013, p. 24) claimed that its social investments, which include sport, are part of a ‘commitment to strengthen the NWT socially, not just economically’. This understanding of sport by the extractives industry arises from earlier international advocacy of sport, and the subsequent proliferation of SFD organisations, which (re)produced discourses of sport as inherently good and as a valuable tool for development. Specific to the NWT, the extractives industry’s involvement in sport is enabled through territorial and community-level socio-economic agreements.

Northwest Territories’ devolution

In an effort to gain more control over its resources and economy, the Government of the NWT (GNWT) signed a devolution agreement with the Government of Canada on 1 April 2014. Similar to the Yukon Territory’s devolution agreement in 2003, the agreement marked the transfer of many federal powers to the territorial government. Prior to devolution, and unlike the provinces whose power stems from their constitutional rights, Canada’s territories were delegated powers by the federal government, effectively meaning ‘that the North was largely governed by federal officials’ (Government of Canada 2010, para. 3). A key aspect of devolution is revenue sharing between resource industries, the GNWT, and Aboriginal peoples living in the NWT. Through devolution, up to 50% of all taxes extractives industries pay for the use of public land are now sent to the GNWT; up to 25% of these resource monies are then distributed to the five regional Aboriginal governments according to the region’s individual cost of living and population (GNWT 2014). The remaining 75% is kept by the territorial government to provide services to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal residents alike.

Perhaps the most apparent benefit of devolution is that it allows Aboriginal governments to have a voice in the way resource revenues are used and distributed. While a large amount of the revenue that the GNWT receives is still from the transfer of federal funds, the regional Aboriginal governments of the NWT now have more control over revenue than they did prior to devolution. There are, however, challenges to revenue sharing in a largely welfare state. The relative dependency on resource extraction faced by the NWT’s economy ensures that its resource revenues are also dependent on the government’s willingness to continue to prioritise resource extraction. Indeed, section 10.9 (a) of the Devolution Agreement emphasises that revenue sharing ‘continues to provide an additional incentive for the NWT to develop natural resources’ (Government of Canada 2013, p. 87). In effect, Aboriginal peoples in the NWT now have increased control over money received from resource industries, yet the source of that money is still largely dependent on devolution’s financial incentive to continue to extract resources from public lands. As resource extraction continues to be a priority in the economic development of the NWT, there will likely be further partnerships between SFD programmes and new extractives industries operations, such as the currently under construction Gahcho Kue Diamond Mine. The YDFN has already entered into an Impact Benefit Agreement (IBA) with the Diamond Project, with provisions that include the funding of ‘community wellness initiatives’ (Yellowknives Dene 2015, p. 26). Thus, while devolution attracts further resource development, it is at the community level where Aboriginal communities privately negotiate and sign IBAs with extractives industries, subsequently coming into partnership with the industry in a variety of sport, employment, education, and youth initiatives.

Impact Benefit Agreements

In general, IBAs are legally binding agreements between a prospective mining developer and the Aboriginal communities whose treaty or traditional lands will be affected by the resource extraction (Fidler and Hitch 2007). The vast majority of IBAs are confidential, meaning Aboriginal groups cannot discuss them with one another, with the media, or with the government (O’Faircheallaigh 2010). While ‘the negotiation of IBAs is now considered to be a de facto, albeit unwritten, regulatory requirement in the [Canadian] North’ (Sosa and Keenan 2001, p. 8), there is no legal requirement for companies and communities to enter into an IBA, nor is there any government oversight during the negotiation and completion of such agreements (Caine and Krogman 2010). What underlying factors, then, give rise to these essentially voluntary partnerships between large corporations and Aboriginal communities? Similar to CSR, IBAs rely on neo-liberal discourses that ‘the ideal First Nation is an independent First Nation that competes in the marketplace and is independent of the state … [and] one that does not impede resource development activity’ (Slowey 2008, p. xv). Indeed, Sosa and Keenan (2001) argued that the primary purpose of an IBA is to ensure that the benefits of resource extraction stay in the community, as well as to address the environmental and economic implications of mining. These sentiments are reflective of discourses promoted by extractives industries, which, for example, report that the purpose of community engagement is to ‘give back to the communities, be involved at the community level and build strong relationships with the community’ (Dominion Diamond 2013, p. 26). The outcomes of partnerships framed in neo-liberal discourses are at best mixed. Growing inequities both within and between Aboriginal communities (Taylor and Friedel 2011), as well as the fragmentation and misrepresentation of community voices (Fidler and Hitch 2007) have been identified as outcomes of these partnerships between extractives industries and Aboriginal communities.

Youth education and recreation are common components of IBAs as part of broader community provisions (Gogal et al. 2005). For example, De Beers Canada (2015) Snap Lake CSR initiatives were concentrated in traditional areas such as job training, education, and health, and also in areas such as community development, culture and heritage, and sport. Through a decrease in public funding of sport (Doherty and Murray 2007), coupled with support produced by the federal government in documents such as the Canadian Sport Policy (2012), the private sector has emerged as a key stakeholder and partner in all areas of sport. Thus, there is a sociopolitical environment in the NWT where the devolution agreement provides a financial incentive for Aboriginal groups to allow increased extractives activity, and where federal policies encourage partnerships between private industries and sport organisations. This nexus of factors enables extractives industries to ‘support health, environment, arts, culture and sport’ (De Beers Canada 2014, p. 3), and, specific to IBA agreements, support ‘youth initiatives in our IBA schools’ (Dominion Diamond 2014, p. 29).

Discussion

Through our analysis of the conditions of possibility that have enabled extractives industries to fund SFD in the NWT, it became clear that while each condition of possibility differs in name and appearance, they all enable similar colonial discourses to emerge and collide into a solid foundation that – we contend – justifies the proliferation of SFD programming in NWT. Arvin and colleagues (2013, p. 12) described settler colonialism occurring when ‘newcomers/colonizers/settlers come to a place, claim it as their own, and do whatever it takes to disappear the Indigenous peoples that are there. Within settler colonialism, it is exploitation of land that yields supreme value’. Settler colonial discourses shaped the NWT’s settlement, yet are also entwined within each of the other three conditions of possibility. For example, the rise of SFD and its prominence in Aboriginal communities in Canada may not be necessary if it were not for the ‘Third World conditions’ (United Nations 2011, para. 4) many Aboriginal communities are currently facing in Canada. These conditions and health inequalities have been profoundly affected and produced by colonialism (NCCAH 2013) and are part of the settler colonial project that Arvin et al (2013) have identified as trying to ‘disappear’ Indigenous peoples. Thus, SFD, which has been lauded for its purported abilities to overcome challenges such as ‘poverty, conflict, and disease’ (Right to Play n.d., para. 2), is only needed in Canada due to the challenges facing Aboriginal communities that have largely arisen from settler colonialism and its related discourses.

The history of settlement and Aboriginal peoples’ resistance to the role of the extractives industries in it are also intricately linked to the industries’ involvement with IBAs and CSR. There is a long history of discursively producing traditional Aboriginal practices and way of life as unimportant for the sake of promoting resource extraction (e.g. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada 1966). Partnerships between extractives industries, Aboriginal communities, and SFD programmes, then, have emerged from a long history of settler colonialism that has continually reproduced relations of power etched in the subjugation and domination of Aboriginal peoples, and also their resistance to it.

As funding for youth sport shifts from public to private sector sources, questions arise as to the impact this can have on sport and the organisations that develop it. For example, the funding priorities of the Ekati Plus Community Development Program (Dominion Diamond 2013, p. 27) ‘have shifted from supporting celebratory events to investing in areas where positive change is encouraged’. Thus, an organisation or sport event seeking funding must align its programme’s goals with the criteria concerning discourses of ‘positive change’ set out by Dominion Diamond to be eligible for funding. Questions then arise regarding the impact of this influence and whether the shift from public to private sponsorship will lead to long-term sustainability of these programmes and whose interests these programmes best serve. Further, O’Faircheallaigh (2010) noted that although there are many socio-economic advantages to be accrued by forming agreements with mining industries, there is also the potential of budgetary cutbacks by the government in response to communities’ increased revenue and lack of dependence on the state.

Other than partnering with extractives industries, Aboriginal communities often have few other ways to generate the funds needed to make up for chronic underfunding of the welfare state and to address the legacy of colonialism. The NWT’s devolution agreement, where communities are incentivised to continue to permit extractives industries to extract from their lands, means that Aboriginal communities often look to large, transnational corporations for the provision of essential services such as job training, education, and youth sport and recreation due to the ways in which the extractives industry have become discursively produced as a legitimate provider of these services.

The importance of CSR and IBAs to the provision of services is made readily clear during economic downturns. Near the end of 2015, De Beers announced the closure of its Snap Lake Diamond Mine in the NWT (Quenneville 2015). Apart from the hundreds of jobs lost to both residents of the NWT and elsewhere (Quenneville 2015), we can see how the consequences of a mine closure are all intricately tied to CSR and IBAs. The rise in prominence of CSR ensured De Beers would prioritise social citizenship, investing $1.8 million in social programming in 2014 in areas including arts, culture, heritage, health, sport, and general community development (De Beers Canada 2015). With the closure of the mine, the money invested in these programmes will be at best reduced, but more than likely stopped all together. Similarly, and perhaps tellingly, Dominion Diamonds, which has recently faced economic difficulties, has stopped funding Northern Youth Leadership.

The private and public sectors’ involvement in sport is complicated, especially as it relates to sport’s role in socio-economic development. In general, the private sector is identified by the Canadian Sport Policy (2012) as a key stakeholder in all areas of sport and as a valuable resource for prospective sport organisation partnerships. Nevertheless, the Canadian Sport Policy (2012, p. 4) asserted, ‘sport is an essential part of life in Canada’, a statement reflective of the Aboriginal Sport Circle’s (n.d., para. 3) understanding of sport and recreation as an ‘integral part of the Aboriginal community wellness model’. Government responsibility for increasing the participation of Aboriginal peoples in sport is also clearly outlined in the Canadian Sport Policy (2012, p. 17): the federal government is committed to working towards further ‘inclusion of traditionally marginalised groups in sport’. Similarly, the provincial and territorial governments are tasked with increasing marginalised populations’ access to sport and recreation. Thus, the increased privatisation of funding for typically marginalised groups’ sport in the NWT appears to contradict the roles of the state as set out by the Canadian Sport Policy. This contradiction is particularly troubling when coupled with the ongoing concerns of Canada’s ‘lack of progress in implementing the rights of Indigenous children’ (Bennett and Auger 2013, p. 4). Considering health and education initiatives frequently appear in extractives industries’ socio-economic reports in the NWT, it appears that a void of funding from the government is being filled by the extractives industries operating in the area. Two crucial questions that remain, however, are (1) whether the communities in the NWT that are distant from extractives operations, and thus receive fewer funding benefits than the communities most affected, have a similar void in funding in matters of human rights (i.e. health and education), yet have no industry to supplement their needs; and (2) who is ultimately responsible in providing social goods, such as youth sport, education, and health? The extractives industries claim, ‘Not all the challenges can be addressed by private industry alone. We are not responsible for social programmes’ (BHP Billiton et al. 2013, p. 11). Nevertheless, the extent of the extractives corporations’ involvement in social programmes – as documented in this paper – appears to directly contradict this statement, making the distinction in responsibilities between the government and the private industry unclear, and worthy of future scholarly investigations.

Conclusion

Our analysis into archival discourses identified four conditions of possibility that have enabled extractives industries to partner with Aboriginal communities in the NWT and fund youth sport and recreation. The four conditions allowed certain discourses to emerge that reproduce the need for neo-liberal ‘intervention’ in the NWT as it relates to youth sport and SFD programmes. Additionally, the results of the archaeological methodology employed in this research have made it clear that sport and SFD are just one part of extractives industries’ CSR initiatives in the NWT. Further research is required to examine the extent of Aboriginal partnerships with extractives industries in all areas of social well-being, including areas of human rights to health and education. It is also important to note that we believe there can be a role for Aboriginal communities to partner with industries; however, there are problems with tying the funding of important services to the capriciousness of the resource extraction economy. When a mine closes, it affects more than just the economic welfare of its employees, as the programmes, such as those related to SFD, that have come to rely on funding are forced to look elsewhere or close. There are, however, opportunities for improving partnerships between extractives industries and Aboriginal communities in the NWT. Increased federal and territorial funding of sport in the NWT would not only further improve stability of Aboriginal sport but would also help address the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (Canadian Sport Policy 2012, p. 10) Calls to Action regarding sport. Specifically, Call to Action 90.i calls for, ‘In collaboration with provincial and territorial governments, stable funding for, and access to, community sports programmes’. While these solutions may address some issues regarding funding, more investigation is needed to address the structures of inequalities that arise from settler colonialism and that continue to reproduce colonial discourses surrounding Aboriginal peoples in the NWT.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant

Notes on contributors

K. Gardam

K. Gardam is a first year master’s in Public Health student at Lakehead University. He studied Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa for his undergraduate degree. Kevin has a particular research interest in sport for development (SFD), Aboriginal health, and policy development.

A.R. Giles is an associate professor in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa. An applied cultural anthropologist, she conducts research with Aboriginal communities in Canada, primarily in the Arctic and SubArctic. Audrey’s research focuses on the intersections of culture/gender/place as they relate to injury prevention, health promotion, and SFD. With Janice Forsyth, she is the co-editor of the awarding winning collection, Aboriginal Peoples and Sport in Canada: Historical Foundations and Contemporary Issues (UBC Press).

L.M.C. Hayhurst is an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include SFD and peace, gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive health in/through SDP, cultural studies of girlhood, postcolonial feminist theory, global governance, international relations and corporate social responsibility. She is a co-editor (with Tess Kay and Megan Chawansky) of Beyond Sport for Development and Peace: Transnational perspectives on theory, policy and practice, and her publications have appeared in Gender, Place & Culture; Third World Quarterly and Sociology of Sport Journal.