Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:46:44.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“There Is Something in That Water”: Race, Nationalism, and Legal Violence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Carmela Murdocca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article analyzes the issue of water contamination in Kashechewan, Ontario, Canada. Through an inquiry into the way in which water contamination in one Aboriginal community was handled by the local and federal governments, this article examines processes of ongoing colonialism in Canada. Drawing on an array of sources, this article explores three features pertinent to this water crisis: historical forms of legal violence, symbolic forms of representation concerning the relationship between nationalism and the governance of race in liberal democracies, and the importance of the case study approach when examining legalized forms of violence. By examining connections between race, nationalism, and legal violence, this article explores the ways in which biopolitical forms of racial governance require an analysis that links legal violence and structural violence to historical and symbolic forms of representation.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , Spring 2010 , pp. 369 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2010 

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

References

Amnesty International. 2004. Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada. October. http://www.amnesty.ca/campaigns/resources/amr2000304.pdf (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Amnesty International. 2008. Canada: Unequal Rights: Ongoing Concerns about the Discrimination against Women in Canada. October 1. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR20/008/2008/en (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Bailey, Sue. 2007. Kashechewan Chief Defends Deal to Rebuild Flood‐prone Reserve. Globe and Mail [Toronto], July 31, A5.Google Scholar
Bailie, Ross, Carson, Bronwyn, and McDonald, Elizabeth. 2004. Water Supply and Sanitation in Remote Indigenous Communities: Priorities for Health Development. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 28 (5): 409–14.Google Scholar
Bakker, Karen, ed. 2007. Introduction. In Eau Canada: The Future of Canada's Water, 1–20. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Barlow, Maude, and Clarke, Tony. 2002. Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Berger, Carl. 1996. The True North Strong and Free. In Nationalism in Canada, ed. Russell, Peter, 3–26. Toronto: McGraw‐Hill.Google Scholar
Berlant, Lauren. 2007a. On the Case. Critical Inquiry 33 (Summer): 663–72.Google Scholar
Berlant, Lauren. 2007b. Slow Death (Sovereignty, Obesity, Lateral Agency). Critical Inquiry 33 (Summer): 754–80.Google Scholar
Biro, Andrew. 2007. Half Empty or Half Full? Water Politics and the Canadian National Imaginary. In Eau Canada: The Future of Canada's Water, ed. Bakker, Karen, 321–34. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Blatter, Joachim, and Ingram, Helen, eds. 2001. Reflections on Water: New Approaches to Transboundary Conflicts and Cooperation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Boyden, Joseph. 2009. The Current, World Water Day: Part 3. CBC Radio, March 20. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200903/20090320.html (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Bullard, Robert D. 1993. Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots. Boston, MA: South End Press.Google Scholar
Bullard, Robert D., and Johnson, Glenn S. 2000. Environmental Justice: Grassroots Activism and Its Impact on Public Policy Decision Making. Journal of Social Issues 56 (3): 555–78.Google Scholar
Burrows, John. 2002. Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Campion‐Smith, Bruce. 2005. Native Housing Appals Layton. Toronto Star, July 2, A4.Google Scholar
Campion‐Smith, Bruce. 2006. Troubled Reserve Could Move. Toronto Star, November 8, A1.Google Scholar
Canadian Medical Association. 2008. Investigative Report: 1776 Boil Water Advisories Now in Place in Canada. April 7. http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/178/10/1261.pdf (accessed May 19, 2009).Google Scholar
Canadian Press. 2007. Impoverished First Nation to Get $40 million. Globe and Mail [Toronto], April 10, A12.Google Scholar
Carlson, Hans M. 2004. A Watershed of Words: Litigating and Negotiating Nature in Eastern James Bay, 1971–75. Canadian Historical Review 85 (1): 63–84.Google Scholar
CBC News. 2005. Photo Gallery: Kashechewan. http://www.cbc.ca/news/photogalleries/reservewater/ (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
CBC News. 2007. Ottawa Nixes Relocation Plan for Flood‐prone Kashechewan. July 30. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/07/29/kashechewan‐deal.html (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
CBC News. 2008. Chief Says Residents Can Return to Kashechewan. April 29. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/04/29/kasheshewan‐evacuees.html (accessed May 12, 2008).Google Scholar
CBC Radio. 2006. Sounds Like Canada, May 14. http://www.cbc.ca/edmonton/features/fort‐chipewyan/ (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Commission for Racial Justice. 1987. Toxic Waste and Race in the United States. United Church of Christ. http://www.ucc.org/about‐us/archives/pdfs/toxwrace87.pdf (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Council of Canadians. 2007. A National Disgrace: Canada's Shameful Position on the Right to Water. October 12. http://www.canadians.org/water/issues/right/Canada_RTW.html (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Curry, Bill. 2008. Drink Water Troubles on Reserves Improving, Report Says. Globe and Mail [Toronto], January 18, A6.Google Scholar
Doucet, Bradley. 2005. Native Poverty: Why Relying on Government Is a Poor Solution. Le Québecois Libre November 15. http://www.Qubecoislibre.org/05/051115‐8.htm (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Environment Canada. n.d. Water and Culture. http://www.ec.gc.ca/water (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. 1967. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Farmer, Paul. 2004. An Anthropology of Structural Violence. Sidney W. Mintz Lecture 2001. Current Anthropology 45 (3): 305–25.Google Scholar
Fiddler, Alvin. 2006. Canada's Blood Diamonds. http://burningspearuhuru.com/tours/adbd‐tour/tourpkt/20061206_canadas‐blood‐diamonds.pdf (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Fleras, Augie, and Elliott, Jean Leonard. 1992. The Nations Within: Aboriginal‐State Relations in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. Toronto: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1997. “Society Must Be Defended. Lectures at the College de France 1975–1976. New York: Picador.Google Scholar
Fowler, Jonathan A. n.d. Case History for De Beers Canada Inc. Experiences with Diamond Exploration and the Victor Project, Ontario. http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/advocacy/csr/de‐beers‐canada‐inc.pdf (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Galtung, Johan. 1969. Violence, Peace, Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research 6 (3): 167–91.Google Scholar
Gilman, Sandar. 1988. Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Godsil, Rachel D. 19911992. Remedying Environmental Racism. Michigan Law Review 90 (2): 394–427.Google Scholar
Gosine, Andil, and Teelucksingh, Cheryl. 2008. Environmental Justice and Racism in Canada: An Introduction. Toronto: Edmond Publications.Google Scholar
Government of Ontario. 2008. Kashechewan Considers Benefit of Diamond Mine. May 27. http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/news/NRView.asp?NRNUM=79&NRYear=2008&NRLAN=EN&NRID=4975 (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Grand Council of Crees. 1995. Sovereign Injustice: Forcible Inclusion of the James Bay Crees and Cree Territory into a Sovereign Québec. Nemaska, Québec: Grand Council of Crees.Google Scholar
Grand Council of Crees. 2008. On the Occasion of the Signing of the Canada‐Cree New Relationship Agreement, February 27. http://www.gcc.ca/newsarticle.php?id=129 (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Granville, Michael. 2008. Minister of Northern Development and Mines, Legislative Assembly of Ontario. http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house‐proceedings/house_current.do?locale=en&Month=10&Year=2008 (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Haluza‐Delay, Randolph. 2007. Environmental Justice in Canada. Local Environment 12 (6): 557–64.Google Scholar
Harman, Megan. 2006. Relocate Troubled Native Reserve. Ottawa Citizen, November 10, A4.Google Scholar
Heiman, Michael K. 1996. Race, Waste, and Class: New Perspectives on Environmental Justice. Antipode 28 (2): 111–21.Google Scholar
Ho, Kathleen. 2007. Structural Violence as a Human Rights Violation. Essex Human Rights Review. http://projects.essex.ac.uk/ehrr/V4N2/ho.pdf (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Ibbitson, John. 2006. The End Draws Near for Kashechewan. Globe and Mail [Toronto], November 14, A4.Google Scholar
Imai, Shin. 20012002. Treaty Lands and Crown Obligations: The “Tracts Taken Up” Provision. Queen's Law Journal 27:1–50.Google Scholar
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. 2003. Fact Sheet: First Nation Water Management Strategy. May. http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/policy/federal/e_FNWMS.htm (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Ishiyama, Noriko. 2003. Environmental Justice and American Indian Tribal Sovereignty: Case Study of a Land‐Use Conflict in Skull Valley, Utah. Antipode 35 (1): 119–39.Google Scholar
Kelm, Mary‐Ellen. 1998. Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia 1900–50. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Laurence, Margaret. 1987. The Diviners. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Bonita. 2002. Rewriting Histories of the Land: Colonization and Indigenous Resistance in Eastern Canada. In Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society, ed. Razack, Sherene H., 21–46. Toronto: Between the Lines.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Sara. 2006. A Crack in Colonial Dogma. Chilliwack Times [British Columbia], November 17, B15.Google Scholar
Mackay, Eva. 2000. Death by Landscape: Race, Nature and Gender in the Canadian Nationalist Mythology. Canadian Woman Studies 20 (2): 125–30.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, Constance A., Lockridge, Ada, and Keith, Margaret. 2005. Declining Sex Ratio in a First Nation Community. Environmental Health Perspectives 113 (10): 1295–98.Google Scholar
Mascarenhas, Michael. 2007. Where the Waters Divide: First Nations, Tainted Water and Environmental Justice in Canada. Local Environment 12 (6): 565–77.Google Scholar
Manalansan, F. Martin IV. 2005. Race, Violence and Neoliberal Spatial Politics in the Global City. Social Text 23 (3–4 84–85): 141–55.Google Scholar
Mawani, Renisa. 2007. Legalities of Nature: Law, Empire and Wilderness Landscapes in Canada. Social Identities 13 (6): 715–34.Google Scholar
McCallum, Mary Jane. 2005. This Last Frontier: Isolation and Aboriginal Health. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadien d'histoire de la médecine 221 (1): 103–20.Google Scholar
Mining Watch Canada. 2005. “DeBeers’ Victor Diamond Project in Attawapiskat.” June 23. http://www.miningwatch.ca/en/home/country/canada/ontario/victor‐project (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Mining Watch Canada. 2008. Canada's Valuable Fresh Water Is Not for Dumping Toxic Waste. July 15. http://www.miningwatch.ca/index.php?/MMER/MMER_coalition_forming (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Ministry of Community and Correctional Services. 2007. Inquests into the Deaths of Ricardo Wesley and Jamie Goodwin Announced. December 19. http://ogov.newswire.ca/ontario/GONE/2007/12/19/c4750.html?lmatch=&lang=_e.html (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Ministry of Environment. 2005. Technical Report: Drinking Water System at the Kashechewan First Nation. November 10. http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/techdocs/5445e.pdf (accessed November 22, 2009).Google Scholar
Ministry of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. 2006. Report on the Expert Panel on Safe Drinking Water for First Nations, vols. 1 and 2. Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada. http://www.sdw‐eps.gc.ca/rprt/index_e.asp (accessed November 23, 2009).Google Scholar
Mosse, George L. 1985. Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Murdocca, Carmela. 2009. From Incarceration to Restoration: National Responsibility, Gender and the Production of Cultural Difference. Social and Legal Studies 18 (1): 23–45.Google Scholar
Niezen, Ronald. 1998. Defending the Land: Sovereignty and Forest Life in James Bay Cree Society. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Office of the Auditor General of Canada. 2005. Drinking Water in First Nations Communities (chapter 5). In Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to the House of Commons. http://www.oag‐bvg.gc.ca/internet/docs/parl_cesd_200812_05_e.pdf (accessed December 23, 2009).Google Scholar
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2002. Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racism: Canada. http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/A.57.18,paras.315‐343.En?Opendocument (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Page, Justin. 2007. Salmon Farming in First Nations’ Territories: A Case of Environmental Injustice on Canada's West Coast. Local Environment 12 (6): 613–26.Google Scholar
Paradis, Scott. 2005a. Town Faces Water Crisis. Daily Press [Timmins, Ontario], October 17, A1.Google Scholar
Paradis, Scott. 2005b. Residents Stay Put: Evacuation Called Off After INAC [Indian and Northern Affairs Canada] Pulls Plug on Money. Daily Press [Timmins, Ontario], October 19, A1.Google Scholar
Pickard, Aaron. 2008. Kashechewan Evacuation. Daily Press [Timmins, Ontario], April 26. http://photos.thedailypress.ca/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=18626237&event=503995&CategoryID=0&picnum=6&move=F#Image (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Polaris Institute. 2008. Assembly of First Nations, Canadian Labour Congress. Boiling Point: Six Community Profiles of the Water Crisis Facing First Nations within Canada. May 22. http://www.polarisinstitute.org/boiling_point_0 (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Pope, Alan. 2006. Report on the Kashechewan First Nation and Its People, October 31. http://www.ainc‐inac.gc.ca/nr/prs/s‐d2006/kfnp_e.pdf (site no longer active).Google Scholar
Povinelli, Elizabeth A. 2002. The Cunning of Recognition. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Pritchard, Stephen. 2000. Between Justice and Law in Aotearora, New Zealand: Two Case Studies. Law and Critique 11:267–86.Google Scholar
Pulido, Laura. 1996. A Critical Review of the Methodology of Environmental Racism Research. Antipode 28 (2): 142–59.Google Scholar
Pulido, Laura. 2000. Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90 (1): 12–40.Google Scholar
Razack, Sherene H. 1998. Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Razack, Sherene H., ed. 2002. Introduction: When Place Becomes Race. In Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society, 1–20. Toronto: Between the Lines.Google Scholar
Richardson, Boyce. 1991. Strangers Devour the Land. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Schindler, David. 2007. Foreword. In Eau Canada: The Future of Canada's Water, ed. Bakker, Karen, xi–xv. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Sierra Legal Defense Fund. 2001. Waterproof: Canada's First Drinking Water Report Card. http://www.ecojustice.ca/publications/reports/waterproof‐canadas‐first‐national‐drinking‐water‐report‐card (accessed May 12, 2009).Google Scholar
Smith, Andrea. 2005. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. New York: South End Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London & New York: Zed Books Ltd.Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann Laura. 1995. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Strauss, Julius. 2007. How Kashechewan Created a Political Stampede. Globe and Mail [Toronto], November 4, A16.Google Scholar
Taylor, Dorceta. 2000. The Rise of the Environmental Justice Paradigm: Injustice Framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses. American Behavioural Scientist 43 (4): 508–80.Google Scholar
Teelucksingh, Cheryl. 2007. Environmental Racialization: Linking Racialization to the Environment in Canada. Local Environment 12 (6): 645–61.Google Scholar
Thacher, David. 2006. The Normative Case Study. American Journal of Sociology 111 (6): 1631–76.Google Scholar
Toronto Star. 2006. Kashechewan's Future. Toronto Star, November 13, A18.Google Scholar
Toulouse, Angus. 2009. The Current, World Water Day: Part 3, CBC Radio, March 20. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200903/20090320.html (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
United Nations General Assembly. 2008. Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living—Mission to Canada. February 28. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/ENACARegion/Pages/CAIndex.aspx (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Walker, Gorden, and Bulkeley, Harriet. 2006. Editorial: Geographies of Environmental Justice. Geoforum 37:655–59.Google Scholar
Westra, Laura. 1993. Environmental Racism and the First Nations of Canada: Terrorism at Oka. Journal of Social Philosophy 30 (1): 103–24.Google Scholar
Westra, Laura. 2007. Environmental Justice and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. London: Earthscience Publications.Google Scholar
Westra, Laura, and Lawson, Bill E. 2001. Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice, 2nd ed. New York: Rowman and Littlefied.Google Scholar
Wingrove, Josh. 2008. Kashechewan Rescue Efforts Thwarted. Toronto Star, April 27, A6.Google Scholar
Woelfle‐Erksine, Cleo, Cole, July Oskar, and Allen, Laura. 2007. Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press.Google Scholar

Case Cited

Kanatewat v. James Bay Development Corporation[1973] Quebec Judgement No. 8 [on file with the author.Google Scholar

Statutes Cited

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part 1 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c.11. http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/const/const1982.html (accessed November 22, 2009).Google Scholar
James Bay Treaty No. 9, 1905 and 1906. http://www.ainc‐inac.gc.ca/al/hts/tgu/pubs/t9/trty9‐eng.asp (accessed November 22, 2009).Google Scholar
James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement. 1975. http://www.gcc.ca/pdf/LEG000000006.pdf (accessed November 22, 2009).Google Scholar
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. res. 217A (III), U.N. Doc A/810 at 71 (1948). http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b1udhr.htm (accessed November 22, 2009).Google Scholar
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Resolution adopted by the General Assembly. October 2, 2007. A/RES/61/295. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/471355a82.html (accessed October 16, 2009).Google Scholar