Joshua McEvoy | Queen's University at Kingston (original) (raw)
Published Academic Articles and Book Chapters by Joshua McEvoy
Security Dialogue, 2024
In April 2020, the British Columbia Utilities Commission released the Final Report of its Indigen... more In April 2020, the British Columbia Utilities Commission released the Final Report of its Indigenous Utilities Regulation Inquiry. The Inquiry was tasked with determining the regulatory environment for Indigenous utility providers across the Canadian province. We analyse the Inquiry as a colonial encounter between Indigenous nations and the settler state, arguing that technical bodies like the Commission represent a sort of security professional working to depoliticize the reproduction of settler sovereignty, highlighting the operations of non-traditional security professionals in settler colonial contexts. Through the Inquiry, security comes through providing certainty for existing energy infrastructure and institutions as 'colonial beachheads', legitimizing the settler colonial political-economic order. However, the Inquiry also demonstrates that such processes offer opportunities for Indigenous nations to contest that order. Indeed, Indigenous nations used the Inquiry to both contest the legitimization of settler sovereignty and accumulation, and press for the capacity to build their own infrastructure and institutions, thereby enacting their decision-making authority. We explore this tension in the context of the contemporary reconciliation discourse, finding the Inquiry's final recommendations represent an attempt to reify settler sovereignty, while also deepening settler insecurity through the possibilities opened for greater Indigenous self-determination.
Borderlands, 2021
Borders and bordering practices can be understood as both an act of sovereign authority and estab... more Borders and bordering practices can be understood as both an act of sovereign authority and establishing the contemporary international system. The drawing of borders also simultaneously legitimizes the state's sovereign authority, creating a political community 'inside' borders through which modern politics takes place. These processes are especially pertinent for settler states such as Canada, whose sovereign authority over its recognized territory is contingent on the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. However, Indigenous nations reject Canadian claims of settler authority and legitimacy, instead continuing to uphold their own modes of governance and relationships to territory. This contestation of settler territoriality is practiced in various ways, with this article exploring how energy utility governance and infrastructure act as bordering practices-that is, as a productive means of manifesting and demonstrating territorial authority. Through the British Columbia Utilities Commission's Indigenous Utilities Regulation Inquiry, we explore the contestation of territory through what we refer to as 'embedded bordering'. In doing so, we identify a tension between ongoing settler moves to dispossession alongside decolonial potential in the bordermaking practices of energy governance and infrastructure.
Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures, 2023
Book Reviews by Joshua McEvoy
![Research paper thumbnail of [Book Review] Sustainable futures: An agenda for action](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/104021050/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](International Affairs, 2022
![Research paper thumbnail of [Book Review] Power shift: The global political economy of energy transitions](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/104020979/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](International Journal, 2022
Security Dialogue, 2024
In April 2020, the British Columbia Utilities Commission released the Final Report of its Indigen... more In April 2020, the British Columbia Utilities Commission released the Final Report of its Indigenous Utilities Regulation Inquiry. The Inquiry was tasked with determining the regulatory environment for Indigenous utility providers across the Canadian province. We analyse the Inquiry as a colonial encounter between Indigenous nations and the settler state, arguing that technical bodies like the Commission represent a sort of security professional working to depoliticize the reproduction of settler sovereignty, highlighting the operations of non-traditional security professionals in settler colonial contexts. Through the Inquiry, security comes through providing certainty for existing energy infrastructure and institutions as 'colonial beachheads', legitimizing the settler colonial political-economic order. However, the Inquiry also demonstrates that such processes offer opportunities for Indigenous nations to contest that order. Indeed, Indigenous nations used the Inquiry to both contest the legitimization of settler sovereignty and accumulation, and press for the capacity to build their own infrastructure and institutions, thereby enacting their decision-making authority. We explore this tension in the context of the contemporary reconciliation discourse, finding the Inquiry's final recommendations represent an attempt to reify settler sovereignty, while also deepening settler insecurity through the possibilities opened for greater Indigenous self-determination.
Borderlands, 2021
Borders and bordering practices can be understood as both an act of sovereign authority and estab... more Borders and bordering practices can be understood as both an act of sovereign authority and establishing the contemporary international system. The drawing of borders also simultaneously legitimizes the state's sovereign authority, creating a political community 'inside' borders through which modern politics takes place. These processes are especially pertinent for settler states such as Canada, whose sovereign authority over its recognized territory is contingent on the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. However, Indigenous nations reject Canadian claims of settler authority and legitimacy, instead continuing to uphold their own modes of governance and relationships to territory. This contestation of settler territoriality is practiced in various ways, with this article exploring how energy utility governance and infrastructure act as bordering practices-that is, as a productive means of manifesting and demonstrating territorial authority. Through the British Columbia Utilities Commission's Indigenous Utilities Regulation Inquiry, we explore the contestation of territory through what we refer to as 'embedded bordering'. In doing so, we identify a tension between ongoing settler moves to dispossession alongside decolonial potential in the bordermaking practices of energy governance and infrastructure.
Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures, 2023
International Affairs, 2022
International Journal, 2022