Navigating Mi'kmaq fishing after the Marshall decision: the cultural production of identities and local economies in Atlantic Canada ...

• Main Author: Fox, Gretchen Elizabeth
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries 2009
• Subjects: Canada; Indian; Snow crab
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17615/hfm7-jw04; https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/dissertations/3x816n69t?locale=en

This dissertation examines how one Mi'kmaq First Nation community in Atlantic Canada was confronting the cultural and economic changes brought about by the 1999 Marshall decision, a legal ruling recognizing Mi'kmaq people's treaty right to fish and sell their catch for a profit. I draw on the theoretical frameworks of social practice theory, political ecology, common property theory, moral economy and the literature on the pan-Indian Traditionalism movement to understand how Mi'kmaq people were engaging discursively with their fellow community members to construct new cultural worlds of Mi'kmaq fishing and Mi'kmaq culture following the upheavals brought about by the Marshall decision. While some community members embraced the ruling as an opportunity to earn a living in the region's lucrative commercial lobster and snow crab fisheries, community Elders and less wealthy residents argued for the persistence of a local moral economy based on sharing and the distribution of wealth. Their discourses reflected a ...