Counter-institutionalization and the economic futures of First Nations in British Columbia ...

• Main Author: Persaud, Anthony William
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2020
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0395409; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0395409

The legacy of settler-colonialism is manifest most potently as a dominant narrative that rationalizes First Nations compliance with Western-liberal institutions of common law, property and market-based economic growth. These have become de facto requirements for socio-economic improvements and well-being within First Nations communities. This dissertation challenges this assumption and narrative through an examination of the efforts of several First Nations in British Columbia as they pursue self-determination as central to their institutional and economic futures. I begin from the premise that the socio-economic and cultural-ecological condition of First Nations communities today is contingent upon the rules and governance structures imposed on First Nations as they interact with the settler-colonial state. Less recognized, however, are the multiple efforts of First Nations to redraw these structures and the logics that drive them through counter-institutionalizing processes. The dissertation comprises ...