Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:01:38.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Plurality of Meanings Shouldered by the Term “Aboriginality”: An Analysis of the Delgamuukw Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2007

Dimitrios Panagos
Dimitrios Panagos
Affiliation:
Queen's University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Abstract. There is an emerging consensus that group differentiated rights can protect collective identity, furnishing the state with important tools of accommodation. What happens, however, to the efficacy of these rights as tools of accommodation and their protective capacity if the identity they are meant to protect and accommodate is contested? In addressing this question, this paper explores the intersection of identity contestation and group differentiated rights in the Canadian context with specific reference to aboriginality and existing aboriginal rights. First, the paper offers a presentation of the plurality of meanings shouldered by the term “aboriginality”. Second, it traces the numerous decisions which comprise the Dlegamuukw case and examines the various explanations, descriptions and characterizations of aboriginality contained therein. In the process, it exposes that a particular understanding of this collective identity underpins the Court's ultimate characterization of aboriginal title, the aboriginal right at issue in this case. This represents a problematic interpretation, given that the version of aboriginality selected differs from the one put forward by the aboriginal litigants.

Résumé. Un consensus émergeant s'établit sur l'idée que les droits différenciés en fonction de l'appartenance à un groupe peuvent contribuer à la protection de l'identité collective, en fournissant à l'État d'importants outils d'accommodement. Qu'arrive-t-il, cependant, à l'efficacité de ces droits compris comme des outils d'accommodement, de même qu'à leur capacité de protection, si l'identité qu'ils sont censés protéger et accommoder est contestée? En répondant à cette question, cet article explore l'intersection entre la contestation identitaire et les droits différenciés en fonction du groupe dans le contexte canadien, avec, comme cas d'étude spécifique, l'autochtonie et les droits des autochtones. D'une part, il explore la pluralité de sens que revêt le terme “ autochtonie ”. D'autre part, il retrace les nombreuses décisions que comprend le cas Delgamuukw et examine les diverses explications, descriptions et caractérisations de l'autochtonie qu'elles contiennent. Dans ce cadre, il souligne qu'une compréhension particulière de cette identité collective sous-tend l'ultime caractérisation par la Cour suprême du titre autochtone, soit le droit des autochtones qui est au cœur de ce procès. Ceci constitue une interprétation problématique puisque la version de l'autochtonie sélectionnée diffère de celle que prônaient les litigants autochtones.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 591 - 613
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barsh, Russel Lawrence and James Youngblood Henderson. 1997. “The Supreme Court's Van der Peet Trilogy: Naïve Imperialism and Ropes of Sand.” McGill Law Journal 42: 993–1009.Google Scholar
Blauner, Robert. 1969. “Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt.” Social Problems 16(4): 393–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borrows, John. 2002. Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
British Columbia Supreme Court, Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, BCSC [ 1991] 3 W.W.R. 97.
Cairns, Alan. 2000. Citizens Plus. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Christie, Gordon. 2003. “Aboriginal Citizenship: Section 35, 25 and 15 of Canada's Cosntitution Act 1982.” Citizenship Studies 7(4): 481–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deloria, Vine and Clifford M. Lytle. 1983. American Indians, American Justice. Austin: University of Texas.
Eisenberg, Avigail. 2005. “Identity and Liberal Politics: The problem of minorities within minorities.” In Minorities within Minorities: Equality, Rights and Diversity, ed. Avigail Eisenberg and Jeff Spinner-Havel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gitksan Hereditary Chiefs, Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, Factum of the Appellants, SCC [ 1996].
Green, Joyce A. 2005. “Toward Conceptual Precision: Citizenship and Rights Talk for Aboriginal Canadians.” In Insiders and Outsiders: Alan Cairns and the Reshaping of Canadian Citizenship, ed. Gerald Kernerman and Philip Resnick. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Hanvelt, Marc and Martin Papillon. 2005. “Parallel or Embedded? Aboriginal Self-Government and the Changing Nature of Citizenship in Canada.” In Insiders and Outsiders: Alan Cairns and the Reshaping of Canadian Citizenship, ed. Gerald Kernerman and Philip Resnick. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Henderson, James Youngblood. 1994. “Empowering Treaty Federalism.” Saskatchewan Law Review 58: 241–329.Google Scholar
Jaimes, M. Annette. 1996. “Federal Indian Identification Policy: A Usurpation of Indigenous Sovereignty in North America.” In Native American Sovereignty, ed. John R. Wunder. New York: Garland.
Ladner, Kiera. 2003. “Rethinking Aboriginal Governance.” In Reinventing Canada, ed. Janine Brodie and Linda Trimble. Toronto: Prentice Hall.
McNeil, Kent. 2001. Emerging Justice: Essays on Indigenous Rights in Canada and Australia. Saskatoon: Native Law Center.
Mercredi, Ovide and Mary Ellen Turpel. 1993. In the Rapids: Navigating the Future of First Nations. Toronto: Viking Penguin.
Miller, Bruce Granville. 2003. Invisible Indigenes: The Politics of Nonrecognition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Moore, Margaret. 2001. The Ethics of Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Niezen, Ronald. 2003. The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Perry, Richard J. 1996. From Time Immemorial: Indigenous Peoples and State Systems. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). 1996. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services.
Schouls, Tim. 2003. Shifting Boundaries: Aboriginal Identity, Pluralist Theory, and the Politics of Self-Government. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [ 1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010.
Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). R. v. Van der Peet, [ 1996] 2 S.C.R. 507.
Tully, James. 1999. “Aboriginal Peoples: Negotiating Reconciliation.” In Canadian Politics, ed. James Bickerton and Alain G. Gagnon. Broadview.
Washburn, Wilcomb E. 1971. Red Man's Land/White Man's Law: A Study of the Past and Present Status of the American Indian. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs, Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, Factum of the Appellants, SCC [ 1996].
Wilkins, David E. and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. 2001. Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Williams, Robert A. 1997. Linking Arms Together. Oxford: Oxford University Press.