Advancing critical discourse analysis of Indigenous consultations: Argument Continuity v. epistemic vigilance

ABSTRACT

The paper conducts the critical discourse analysis of Indigenous consultation reports with the help of Argument Continuity, a brand-new critical discourse analysis category. Argument Continuity is a set of the same arguments and counterarguments repeatedly produced/reproduced by the institutionally dominant arguer through an adversarial reasoning process to dismiss opposing arguments without reflecting upon their merits. Argument Continuity is contingent upon motivated criticism, a reasoning practice of biased evaluation of opposing arguments. Epistemic vigilance is a polar reasoning practice of unbiased evaluation of opposing arguments that never results in responding to them with Argument Continuity. The paper applies an institutionalist perspective to tracing and explaining the reasoning dynamics of motivated criticism and epistemic vigilance in the distorted (controlled) context of reasoning interactivity between arguers with power asymmetries. Contrasting the Indigenous consultations over the Trans Mountain and Mackenzie Valley pipelines, the paper reveals how the institutional context constraining/advancing the reasoning capacity of Indigenous arguers to resist the controversial project made it easier/harder for the institutionally dominant officials to employ motivated criticism/epistemic vigilance, responding to Indigenous concerns with or without Argument Continuities.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous consultations
• institutional reasoning capacity
• argument continuity
• motivated criticism
• epistemic vigilance

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to anonymous reviewers for insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. I especially appreciate the suggestions for developing epistemic vigilance as a reasoning strategy contingent upon a well-designed context.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Supported by institutional rules of communication.

2. In controlled reasoning exchanges, rules are not pragmatic norms structuring a critical discussion but are mandatory and non-negotiable restrictions.

3. In this case, any distinction between the Crown and agency’s actions falls away (Clyde River 2017, para 29).

4. In the pragma-dialectical argumentation, consent-seeking reasoning is considered as an asset contributing to accommodating diverse views, which should be aligned on the verges of the epistemic truth (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2016). However, in adversarial reasoning interactivity permeated by disagreement on priors, consent-seeking interactivity puts an epistemic truth on a hold deepening disagreement under limited evidence pool (Sunstein 2002) and even suppressing it under power asymmetries (Goodwin 2007).

5. MV never resulted in commercial development.

6. TM resulted in commercial development in 2019.

7. I do not present those sequences here due to the journal’s space limitations. A reader, using this paper’s theoretical framework, will be able to reconstruct Argument Continuities by referring to the relevant sections of the NEB report (2019, paras 8.2., 14.7.3., 14.8.1., 14.8.3., 14.11.2).

8. I recognize that costs may be associated with being an intervenor, such as preparing evidence, making copies, and sending documents to NEB and other parties. Those costs are common and reasonable for any formal proceedings. This section does not challenge them but describes the costs that impede the diverse evidence flow in hearings.

9. For example, alternative locations for building TM, proposed by Tsleil-Waututh Nation at the 2018 hearings, were rejected by NEB as ‘not supported by the Board’s filing requirements’ (NEB report 2019, 386).

10. Berger categorized the Environmental Protection Board, funded by the proponent, the government departments, and agencies as intervenors.

11. The reasoning situation over the TM-related underwater noise demonstrated how the absence of available evidence for fish harm was recognized by NEB as the absence of harm unless vise versa is proven by opposing Indigenous communities (Figure 3). The same position was taken by NEB in the case of uncertainty about the fate and behavior of diluted bitumen spills (NEB report 2019, 192).

12. In 2019, the NEB’s regulatory tasks were taken up by the Canadian Energy Regulator.

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships – Doctoral, No. 767-2020-2902).

Notes on contributors

Oxana Pimenova

Oxana Pimenova has a Ph.D. in Law (Dagestan State University, 2005) and a Ph.D. in Public Policy (University of Saskatchewan, 2023). Since graduating from the Law Department, she has published research on legal aspects of multilevel governance. Today, she studies relationships between Canada and Indigenous Peoples over resource projects to reveal and combat hidden power dynamics in consultative exchanges of arguments.