Mining and Climate Change Vulnerability: A Case Study of the Tłı̨chǫ ...

• Main Author: Schmaus, Lucas
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: University of Alberta Library 2023
• Subjects: Northwest Territories
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7939/r3-0wdc-pz27; https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/21e7d50a-7e61-41aa-affa-15924adac4fd

Indigenous self-determination in the Canadian North has and continues to be limited by the extractive and disempowering political economy of the mining industry. This thesis reports a community-based participatory research study which evaluates the perceptions of a sample of residents a group of northern Indigenous communities to the combined impacts of extractive resource development and climate change through individual semi-structured interviews with mine workers, Elders, and local government officials. The Tłı̨chǫ, Dene peoples residing in the Northwest Territories have built capacities, but self-determination continues to be challenged by historical and ongoing colonialism, including the unequal recognition of Indigenous rights, the social and environmental impacts of industrial development and most recently, the impacts of climate change. Taking a political economy focussed approach to vulnerability, this research finds that for the Tłı̨chǫ, self-determination continues to be limited by the impacts ...