How Capitalism Will Save Colonialism: The Privatization of Reserve Lands in Canada

Abstract This paper surveys the ways in which the First Nations Property Ownership Act (FNPOA) is the site of both tension and alliance between state, non‐state, and local Indigenous interests converging around a common agenda of land “modernization” in Canada. It is a convergence, I argue, that mus...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antipode
Main Author: Pasternak, Shiri
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/anti.12094
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fanti.12094
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/anti.12094
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Summary:Abstract This paper surveys the ways in which the First Nations Property Ownership Act (FNPOA) is the site of both tension and alliance between state, non‐state, and local Indigenous interests converging around a common agenda of land “modernization” in Canada. It is a convergence, I argue, that must be read in the context of a reorganization of society under neoliberalism. The FNPOA legislation is discursively framed to acknowledge Indigenous land rights while the bill simultaneously introduces contentious measures to individualize and municipalize the quasi‐communal land holding of reserves. The intersections of alliance around this land modernization project foreground the complex ways in which capitalism and colonialism, though inextricably tied, perform distinguishable economic processes, and how we must be attentive to the particulars of their co‐articulation with local formations of indigeneity.