ALGONQUIN NOTIONS OF JURISDICTION: INSERTING INDIGENOUS VOICES INTO LEGAL SPACES

ABSTRACT. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal notions of geography, nature and space sometimes compete, and these differences can create barriers to joint environmental problem-solving. This paper examines the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and Allies (AAFNA) and the strategies they used in juridical and legislative settings to make their voices heard. In the Tay River Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal (2000–2002), AAFNA attempted to introduced their knowledge of the environmental deterioration which would be caused by a Permit To Take Water issued to a multinational corporation by the Ontario Ministry of Environment. The paper is divided into two parts: first, it describes the concepts of Algonquin knowledge, jurisdiction and responsibility; second, it explores the strategies used to integrate their perspective into legal proceedings constructed by the Canadian government. This case reveals how some Algonquin people conceive of space and responsibility in deeply ecological, rather than narrowly juridical, terms. It establishes that their broad concepts of knowledge, land and jurisdiction are incompatible with existing Euro-Canadian divisions of legal responsibility and ecological knowledge, but at the same time can serve as the means by which they challenge the current structure of Aboriginal and Canadian relations.     

Full Spectrum Archaeology

Full spectrum archaeology (FSA) is an aspiration stemming from the convergence of archaeology’s fundamental principles with international heritage policies and community preferences. FSA encompasses study and stewardship of the full range of heritage resources in accord with the full range of associated values and through the application of treatments selected from the full range of appropriate options. Late modern states, including British Columbia, Canada, nominally embrace de jure heritage policies consonant with international standards yet also resist de facto heritage management practice grounded in professional ethics and local values and preferences. In response, inheritor communities and their allies in archaeology are demonstrating the benefits of FSA and reclaiming control over cultural heritage. Archaeology and heritage management driven by altruistic articulation of communal, educational, scientific and other values further expose shortcomings and vulnerabilities of late modern states as well as public goods in and from FSA.     

Deracinated Dispossessions: On the Foreclosures of “Gentrification” in Oakland,CA

This paper challenges dominant geographies of urban theory by conceptualising the dynamics of displacement in Oakland through place‐specific histories of racial/spatial politics. It argues that the repeated transposition of a San Francisco‐based model of “tech gentrification” results in deracinated dispossessions, or accounts of displacement uprooted from grounded histories of racial violence and resistance. It also argues that, while urban scholars acknowledge the role of historical difference in contouring dispossessions in metropolitan versus postcolonial cities, this consideration should be broadened to account for the racial/colonial dimensions of urbanism in the US as well. Treating Oakland as a “crossroads of theory”, this paper joins calls for a deeper engagement between postcolonial urban studies and critical race and ethnic studies from North America. Drawing upon the authors’ activist and empirical work, it contends that “thinking from Oakland” demands a foregrounding of racial capitalism, policing, and refusal.     

‘I like to let them have their time’. Hidden homeless First Nations people in the city and their management of household relationships

This paper responds to recent challenges to geographers to explore spaces of homelessness other than those of the streets and other public spaces. It focuses on hidden homelessness, where individuals stay with family and friends in order to avoid living in homeless shelters or on the street. Based on interviews with fifty-six First Nations hidden homeless men and women living in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada, the paper explores participants' accounts of how they negotiated their relationships with their hosts in order to maintain access to shelter. Participants monitored the tension their presence created in the household and they used five strategies to attempt to manage household relations. They minimized their presence, provided services for other members, moved frequently, contributed to household budgets and ate little of the household's food. By focusing on relationships within the household, this paper extends contemporary research on the ways homeless people negotiate different social and spatial environments.