Beyond the new Dawes Act : a critique of the First Nations Property Ownership Act ...

• Main Author: Fabris, Michael P C
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2016
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0308596; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0308596

This study offers a critique of the First Nations Property Ownership Act (FNPOA), a contemporary proposal to implement private property regimes on First Nations reserves in Canada. First, I examine the arguments used by proponents of the FNPOA to motivate support for this legislation. I demonstrate how, despite its similarity with past attempts to privatize First Nations reserve lands, the FNPOA represents a re-articulation of these older proposals as a type of recognition, where the implementation of fee simple property on reserves is cast as “restoring” pre-colonial property rights regimes. Second, I discuss how this legislation informs discussions within Geography and Indigenous Studies concerning Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation. I argue the FNPOA would provide a number of mechanisms to facilitate the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from reserve lands. Finally, I look at how conflicts over First Nations land and property rights provide an important site from which to analyze how both the ...