Clear-Cutting and Colonialism: The Ethnopolitical Dynamics of Indigenous Environmental Activism in Northwestern Ontario
Since December 2002 members of Grassy Narrows First Nation have maintained a blockade to slow the pace of clear-cut logging in their traditional territory. This article situates contemporary anti-clear-cutting activism at Grassy Narrows in its ethnohistorical and ethnopolitical context. It considers...
| Published in: | Ethnohistory |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Duke University Press
2009
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00141801-2008-035 https://read.dukeupress.edu/ethnohistory/article-pdf/56/1/35/254001/EH056-01-02WillowFpp.pdf |
| Summary: | Since December 2002 members of Grassy Narrows First Nation have maintained a blockade to slow the pace of clear-cut logging in their traditional territory. This article situates contemporary anti-clear-cutting activism at Grassy Narrows in its ethnohistorical and ethnopolitical context. It considers the blockade not as a manifestation of inherent indigenous environmentality but as a complex phenomenon predicated on Anishinaabe people's desires for self-determination, recognition of rights, and the power to decide what takes place on land they perceive as theirs. More broadly, it suggests that acknowledging indigenous environmental activism as a fundamentally political project challenges stereotypical images of ecological nobility and, concurrently, calls into question mainstream conceptions of a just modern society that has long since done away with colonialism. |
|---|