Place and forest co-management in Nitassinan/Labrador

• Main Author: Tytelman, Carolina
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 2016
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/12540/; https://research.library.mun.ca/12540/1/thesis.pdf

The focus of this dissertation is on the relationships between the Innu people of Labrador and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, through the practices of production of their respective places: Nitassinan and Labrador. I argue that Nitassinan and Labrador are different places, which co-exist uneasily, sometimes in open opposition. These places are product of an assemblage of practices and relations of human and non-human persons and other agents. I centre my analysis in the process of forest co-management of Forest District 19a (Labrador/Nitassinan) between the Innu Nation and the provincial government in order to explore the intersections of these two places in the context of the current relationship between the Innu people and the provincial government, in a milieu that continues to be colonial. While co-management processes are often considered to be a way of empowerment for aboriginal people, I argue that the co-management process analysed here primarily reinforced and facilitated the types of practices of place that produced Labrador. However, amidst these practices, the Innu people and, in institutional terms, the Innu Nation, were able to carry on some practices of place that allowed for the continuation of the production of Nitassinan.