Assimilation and Partition

How Settler Colonialism and Racial Capitalism Co-produce the Borders of Indigenous Economies

Bibliographic Data

ID4440796
AuthorsShiri Pasternak (0000-0002-6605-0022, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume119
Issue2
Pages301-324
Publication date2020-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSouth Atlantic Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-2876 • E-ISSN: 1527-8026
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00382876-8177771
OpenAlexW3017183089
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited41

The history of colonialism in Canada has meant both the partition of Indigenous peoples from participating (physically, politically, legally) in the economy and a relentless demand to become assimilated as liberal capitalist citizens. Assimilation and segregation are both tendencies of colonization that protect the interests of white capital. But their respective prevalence seems to depend on the regime of racial capitalism at play. This paper examines the intersection of settler colonization and racial capitalism to shed light on the status of Indigenous economic rights in Canada. I ask, to what extent are Indigenous peoples understood to have economic rights-defined here as the governing authority to manage their lands and resources-and, how we can we analyze these rights to better understand the conjoined meanings of colonialism and capitalism as systems of power today? In this paper, I look at two sites to address this problem: first, I examine how the Supreme Court of Canada has defined the "Aboriginal right" to commercial economies since the patriation of Aboriginal rights into the Constitution in 1982; and, second, I examine how these rights are configured through state resource revenue-sharing schemes with First Nations, in particular from extractive projects, over the past few years. Each case study provides critical material for analyzing the economic opportunities available to First Nations through democratic channels of state "recognition," as well as when and why tensions between state policies of segregation and assimilation emerge

Capitalism · Colonialism · Democracy · Economics · Economy · Indigenous · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Canadian Identity and History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Mining and Resource Management

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