Between Kitimat LNG Terminal and Monkey Beach: Literary-Geographic Methods and the Politics of Recognition in Resource Governance on Haisla Territory

Abstract

This article uses a literary-geographic method to critique the recognition of Indigenous difference in settler-colonial resource governance. Situating analysis on Haisla traditional territories over which the Canadian state claims jurisdiction, we analyze how Indigenous culture is represented in an environmental assessment and a novel set in the same location. The environmental assessment of a liquefied natural gas terminal renders Haisla Indigeneity subject to forms of political economic calculation. In contrast, Haisla novelist Eden Robinson disrupts a colonial desire for Indigeneity as a contained and manageable object of governance. Placing these texts from different domains into productive interference, we expose the continued colonial captures that accompany recognition of Indigeneity in settler-colonial resource governance processes, and the necessity of thinking Indigeneity otherwise. This examination of the politics of recognition highlights how literary-geographic methods can be used to investigate both normative orderings and contestations of racial capitalism in the context of settler colonialism.

本文运用文学—地理学方法，批判迁佔式殖民资源管理对原住民差异的承认。我们将研究置于加拿大政府宣称具有管辖权的海斯拉传统领域中，分析原住民文化如何在位于相同的地点的环境评估与小说中再现。液化天然气站的环境评估，展现出海斯拉的原住民性受制于政治经济计算的形式。反之，海斯拉的小说家伊豋．罗宾森，则扰乱将原住民性视为可受限制并加以管理的治理对象之殖民欲望。我们将这些来自不同领域的文本置入具生产性的干扰中，揭露在迁佔式殖民资源管理过程中，伴随着承认原住民性而来的持续性殖民纪录，以及以其他方式思考原住民性的必要性。此般对于承认政治的检视，凸显出文学—地理学方法，如何能够用来同时探讨迁佔式殖民主义脉络中，种族资本主义的规范性秩序与争夺。

Este artículo usa un método literario-geográfico para criticar el reconocimiento de la diferencia indígena en la gobernanza de los recursos poblador–colonia. Situando el análisis en los territorios tradicionales de Haisla sobre los cuales reclama jurisdicción el estado canadiense, analizamos la manera como se representa la cultura indígena en una evaluación ambiental y en una novela ubicada en la misma localización. La evaluación ambiental de una terminal de gas natural licuado traduce el sujeto de la indigeneidad haisla a formas de estimación político–económicas. En contraste, el novelista haisla Eden Robinson interrumpe un deseo colonial de ver la indigeneidad como un objeto contenido y manejable de gobernanza. Al colocar estos textos de diferentes dominios en interferencia productiva, exponemos las continuas capturas coloniales que acompañan el reconocimiento de la indigeneidad en los procesos de gobernanza de los recursos poblador–colonia, y la necesidad de pensar la indigeneidad de otra manera. Este examen de las políticas de reconocimiento destaca cómo pueden usarse los métodos literario-geográficos para investigar los ordenamientos normativos y las batallas del capitalismo racial en el contexto del colonialismo con pobladores.

Key Words:

• Indigenous knowledge
• Indigenous literature
• literary-geographic methods
• ontology
• settler colonialism

• 原住民知识
• 原住民文学
• 文学—地理学方法
• 本体论
• 迁佔式殖民主义

• conocimiento indígena
• literatura indígena
• métodos literario–geográficos
• ontología
• colonialismo con pobladores

Acknowledgments

We want to thank Kristina Fagan and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this article. We also benefited from opportunities to present this research to the Canadian Association of Geographers, Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers, Antonia Mills' First Nations Studies course at the University of Northern British Columbia, and the University of Georgia Workshop on Space, Nature, and Society.

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (752-2010-0431,756-2013-0742).

Notes

1. In this article, we use the term Indigenous to refer to those peoples who live within a settler state but consider themselves distinct from settler society, and whose existence as organized societies predates the assertion of colonial sovereignty over their lands. When we are not specifically referring to the Haisla people, this is our preferred term for autochthonous peoples. We capitalize it in recognition of Indigenous struggles to be recognized as nations. We also use a series of terms that have specific legal meaning in Canada, when referencing state and corporate regimes of recognition for autochthonous rights. Aboriginal is the language of the Canadian constitution. Indian references the governance regime operating under the federal Indian Act (although we also use the term where Indigenous movements or authors have chosen to self-identify using this language). First Nations, a term without specified legal meaning, is also used by state and corporate actors as a replacement to the antiquated geographic malapropism Indian. Our decision to use a different term than state and corporate actors use is theoretically motivated. We want to distinguish the form of difference that state and corporate actors render visible from the forms of difference that Indigenous peoples articulate through ongoing and emergent practices of coming into relation with the world.

2. Our approach here is inspired by Simpson’s (2014) notion of Indigenous “backstreaming,” a political practice that views “the present through periods and points of the past that are deemed relevant or especially meaningful” (72), and how this practice can be understood as a source of Indigenous resistance to and resurgence beyond colonialism.

3. In this conception of Indigeneity, Simpson is specifically referring to the work of Louis Hall, who was an exponent of the development of Mohawk warrior societies.

4. In its submissions as part of the environmental assessment process, Kitimat LNG produced a report on Indigenous culture and land use for consideration in the regulatory authorities. The Haisla have access to legal mechanisms within the Canadian courts to force government consultation with regard to constitutionally protected Aboriginal interests on their wa’wais or territories. Moreover, part of the wa’wais in Bish Cove has been federally protected as Bees Indian Reserve #6, and resource governance needs to respect Haisla interests in the reserve lands. Companies filing environment assessment applications need to provide regulators with an account of the impacts of development on Indigenous peoples.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (752-2010-0431,756-2013-0742).

Notes on contributors

Richard Milligan

RICHARD MILLIGAN is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302−4105. E-mail: [email protected]. His current research includes ongoing projects on the politics of pipelines on Indigenous territories in North America and the geographies of race in watershed governance in the U.S. Southeast.

Tyler McCreary

TYLER McCREARY is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306. E-mail: [email protected]. His current research interests focus on Indigenous peoples and development in North America, focusing on anticolonial struggles against hydrocarbon development and Indigenous relationships to urbanization.