'The “Missing” Politics of Whiteness and Rightful Presence in the Settler Colonial City.' Millennium. 2017. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Urban History Review, 2010
This article uses settler colonialism as a specific analytic frame through which to understand the historical forces in the formation of settler cities as urbanizing polities. Arguing that we must pay attention to the intertwined histories of immigration and colonization, the author traces the symbolic and economic functions and origins of the settler-colonial city to reveal its political imperatives, the expropriation of Indigenous land, and the dispossession, removal, sequestration, and transformation of Indigenous peoples. Taking as a case study the city of Victoria, BC, and its Lekwungen people throughout the nineteenth century, the author charts the shift from a mixed and fluid mercantilist society to an increasingly racialized and segregated settler-colonial polity. This transition reveals how bodies and urbanizing spaces are reordered and remade, and how Indigenous peoples come to be produced and marked by political categories borne of the racialized practices of an urbanizin...
The paper considers how the logic of settler colonialism, the active and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples, shapes scholarship on migration, race and citizenship in Canada. It draws on the insights of settler colonial theory and critiques of methodological nationalism to do so. The concept of differential inclusion and assemblages methodology are proposed as a way to understand the relationship between Indigeneity and migration in a settler colonial context. The paper develops this conceptual proposal through an analysis of a single place over time: Scarborough, Ontario. Authors present portraits of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada to understand how migration and Indigenous sovereignty are narrated and regulated in convergent and divergent ways. Together, the portraits examine historical stories, media discourses, photography and map archives, fieldwork and interviews connected to Scarborough. They reveal how the differential inclusion of migrant, racialized and Indigenous peoples operates through processes of invisibilization and 322 hypervisibilization, fixity and erasure, and memorialization. They also illustrate moments of disruption that work to unsettle settler colonial dispossession.
Spectacles and Spectres: Settler Colonial Spaces in Vancouver (Settler Colonial Studies journal)
This paper argues that non-Indigenous ideas of Indigenous alterity shape and are shaped by processes that render Indigeneity spectacular and/or spectral. In Vancouver, BC, the urban centre of the Northwest Coast and ancestral homeland of the Coast Salish people, performances, art, and other forms of display are experienced by non-Indigenous people as spectacles: cultural not political, visual not otherwise sensorial, passively observed not participatory. And Indigeneity also haunts; despite dispossession, erasure, and displacement, Indigenous people return again and again to exercise their sovereignty and refuse conditions of disappearance and display. This revenant spectrality combined with spectacular representation creates a complex structure of feeling in the city. I suggest that, for non-Indigenous people, these conditions produce a holographic Indigeneity: hyper-visible from some angles, invisible from others; constantly present even in moments of apparent absence. Drawing on urban ethnographic research with non-Indigenous subjects, I use the socio-spatial cases of Stanley Park's totem poles and the Downtown Eastside's social marginalization to exemplify how spectacular/spectral dynamics characterize and sustain settler colonial logics in a city decorated with Northwest Coast art, haunted by legacies of colonialism, and uncertain about the future of Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations. I argue that conditions of spectacle and spectrality must be identified and transgressed to reimagine a different future.
This dissertation examines everyday social relations in the settler colonial city of Vancouver. Its contemporary ethnographic focus updates and reworks historical and political analyses that currently comprise the growing body of scholarship on settler colonialism as a distinct socio-political phenomenon. I investigate how non-Aboriginal residents construct and relate to Aboriginal alterity. The study is situated in three ethnographic sites, united by their emphasis on “including” the Aboriginal Other: (1) the 2010 Winter Olympics, which featured high-profile forms of Aboriginal participation (and protest); (2) the Mount Pleasant public library branch, which displays a prominent Aboriginal collection and whose staff works closely with the urban Aboriginal community; and (3) BladeRunners, an inner-city construction program that trains and places Aboriginal street youth in the local construction industry. Participants in this research include non-Aboriginal “inclusion workers” as well as non-Aboriginal patrons at the library, construction workers on a BladeRunners construction placement site, and audiences at Aboriginal Olympic events. I explore how my participants’ affective knowledges shape and are shaped by spatial and racializing processes in the emergent settler colonial present. My analysis reveals how everyday encounters with Aboriginal alterity are produced and experienced through spectacular representations and spectral (or haunting) Aboriginal presence, absence, and possibility in the city. In relation to inclusion initiatives, I argue that discourses of Aboriginal inclusion work to manage and circumscribe Aboriginal difference even as they enable interaction across difference. Ultimately, I suggest that social projects aimed at addressing Aboriginal marginality and recognition must actively engage with and critique non-Aboriginal ideologies, discourses, and practices around racialization, meaning-making, and settler privilege, while working within and against a spectacular and spectralized milieu. This research demonstrates how critical ethnography can be leveraged productively to analyse settler participation in the reproduction and transformation of the colonial project.
Erasing Indigenous Indigeneity in Vancouver
Bc Studies the British Columbian Quarterly, 2007
anada has become increasingly urban. More and more people choose to live in cities and towns. Under a fifth did so in 1871, according to the first census to be held after Canada was formed in 1867. The proportion surpassed a third by 1901, was over half by 1951, and reached 80 percent by 2001. 2 Urbanization has not benefited Canadians in equal measure. The most adversely affected have been indigenous peoples. Two reasons intersect: first, the reserves confining those deemed to be status Indians are scattered across the country, meaning lives are increasingly isolated from a fairly concentrated urban mainstream; and second, the handful of reserves in more densely populated areas early on became coveted by newcomers, who sought to wrest them away by licit or illicit means. The pressure became so great that in 1911 the federal government passed legislation making it possible to do so. This article focuses on the second of these two reasons. The city we know as Vancouver is a relatively late creation, originating in 1886 as the western terminus of the transcontinental rail line. Until then, Burrard Inlet, on whose south shore Vancouver sits, was home to a handful of newcomers alongside Squamish and Musqueam peoples who used the area's resources for sustenance. A hundred and twenty years later, apart from the hidden-away Musqueam Reserve, that indigenous presence has disappeared.
Human Geography 7(1), 2014
David Hugill and Owen Toews Abstract This paper examines the controversy that emerged as the City of Winnipeg debated committing public funds to an evangelical Christian group seeking to build a youth centre in an urban neighborhood with a large Aboriginal population. It traces the emergence of a coordinated opposition to the project and demonstrates why many felt that municipal and federal support was not only inappropriate but also worked to recapitulate longstanding patterns of disregard for the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal peoples. In an era where it has become common for Canadian governments to speak of “reconciliation” we demonstrate how such ambitions continue to be impeded by pervasive logics of governance that work against genuine processes of decolonization. We argue that events in Winnipeg reveal the persistence of longstanding colonial dynamics and demonstrate how such dynamics are exacerbated by the regressive tendencies of the city’s neoliberal orientation. We insist that colonial practices and mentalities not only permeate the present but also that they interact with, and are shaped by, the exigencies of actually existing political economies. Ours is an attempt to show how insights about the form and content of urban neoliberalism can be productively engaged with insights about how colonial relations have been reproduced and transformed in the contemporary moment. It is also an effort to demonstrate how such mentalities and practices are being resisted and challenged in important ways in contemporary Canada. Our observations are based on a range of interviews with local activists, politicians and service providers as well as a close reading of a range of political documents available on the public record. Key Words: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Aboriginal Peoples of Canada, Urban Neoliberalism, Settler Colonialism, Evangelical Christianity, Aboriginal Non-Aboriginal Relationships, Postcolonialism. Urbanismo renaciente: Nuevas Incursiones Misioneras, Resistencia de los Pueblos Originarios y Barreras a la Reconstitución de Relaciones en el Noreste de Winnipeg Este artículo analiza la controversia surgida del debate acerca del financiamiento con fondos del Municipio de Winnipeg de un grupo evangélico cristiano que planeaba construir un Centro para Jóvenes en un barrio con una numerosa población aborigen. Acá se rastrea el surgimiento de una oposición coordinada al proyecto, y se demuestra por qué muchxs argumentaron que el apoyo municipal y federal no solo era inapropiado sino que además reinstituía viejos patrones de indiferencia hacia las aspiraciones y necesidades de los pueblos originarios. En una era en la que es común que los gobiernos canadienses hablen de ‘reconciliación’, acá demostramos cómo estas ambiciones continúan siendo incitadas por lógicas de gobernanza que en realidad funcionan en contra de los procesos genuinos de decolonización. En nuestra visión, los hechos en Winnipeg revelan la persistencia de viejas dinámicas coloniales y demuestran cómo esas dinámicas son exacerbadas por las tendencias regresivas de la orientación neoliberal de la ciudad. Insistimos en que existen prácticas y mentalidades coloniales que permean el presente pero también interactúan con (y son moldeadas por) las exigencias de las economías políticas realmente existentes. El nuestro es un intento de mostrar cómo los aportes acerca de la forma y el contenido del urbanismo neoliberal pueden ser relacionados con los aportes acerca de cómo las relaciones coloniales han sido reproducidas y transformadas en la actualidad. Se trata también de un esfuerzo por demostrar cómo esas mentalidades y prácticas son fuertemente resistidas y desafiadas en Canadá. Nuestras observaciones se basan en una serie de entrevistas con militantes locales y con políticos, así como también en la lectura detallada de numerosos documentos políticos de acceso público. Palabras clave: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Pueblos Originarios de Canadá, Neoliberalismo Urbano, Colonialismo, Cristianismo Evangélico, Postcolonialismo."
CHAKIÑAN, REVISTA DE CIENCIAS SOCIALES Y HUMANIDADES, 2019
We live in a moment of hardening of nationalist discourses against immigration and racial minorities. In this conservative climate, Canada prevails as a benchmark for multicultural integration. However, there are voices within the nation that question this image of harmony. The case of the Black Vancouver community has not yet been studied in depth in this regard. This article of reflection aims to contribute to the debate on the relations of the nation-state and subaltern groups, and how they manifest themselves in the multicultural city. Vancouver has been chosen as a paradigmatic space because of its transcultural character built on indigenous lands. The object of study was the literature of Wayde Compton author and black activist of the city. Stemming from theories of the socio-spatial dialectic of Edward Soja and Leonie Sandercock, this article analyses the connection between the city, its representation in literature and its effects on social relationships. The work of Compton...
2013
In some respects, this comprehensive anthology represents the cutting edge in a growing field of study related to urban Aboriginal communities in Canada. With a focus ranging from Toronto to Vancouver, the book contains fascinating new studies, including the experiences of Aboriginal employees at Ontario\u27s Casino Rama, the rebuilding of Papaschase First Nation in Edmonton, and how Plains culture has been adopted as a form of healing in Vancouver. While the authors acknowledge the absence of voices addressing the Atlantic provinces and Quebec, this is offset by the strength of offerings from the Prairies, which include a textual analysis of media racism, a focus on Aboriginal youth gangs, and an exploration of hip-hop culture. Notably, in a context in which Inuit communities are often ignored, the book includes a study of Inuit communities in Ottawa. While the introduction covers a range of issues relating to urban Aboriginality, this book is refreshing in its view of urban Aborig...
2021
I intend to expand the idea of the immigrant as settler, and establish on a theoretical basis that 'settlerism' is about an ideology of neo-colonialism, not about movement to a place that is not your own. In this way, there can be migrants who are allies with Indigenous peoples, who reject settler and neo-colonial ideologies at the same time, as there can be migrants who adopt consciously, or unconsciously, these oppressive ideologies. After establishing this theoretical framework, the remainder of this MRP presents case studies which profile some of the important work being done by organizations to build bridges between Indigenous and migrant communities in Canada and to decolonize relations among these groups which make up much of Canada's population. A brief discussion about the policies and other state tools used to separate these two communities with an analysis of why this is the case will also be included.
Gathering place: Urban indigeneity and the production of space in Edmonton, Canada
Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, 2016
Most major Canadian cities have displaced existing indigenous settlements and gathering places. The city of Edmonton, Canada today includes what will soon be the nation's largest urban Aboriginal population. Though urban space and planning reflect colonial relationships, it has launched progressive initiatives preceding and following the work of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This article examines material and intangible traces of Aboriginal history and cultural presence in a theoretical context concerned with public spaces promoting transformative, dialogic, cross-cultural encounters. Case studies consider urban spaces as gathering places in terms of their relevance to indigenous practices of metissage. What is at stake for settler colonial cities in the recognition and inclusion of indigenous presence and historical relationships? Aboriginal cultures can and must play a critical role in the development of a mature civic identity rooted in a complex mutual history, with implications for urban social and ecological sustainability in the future.