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Native - Newcomer Relations
I maintain
a strong research interest in Native-Newcomer relations in
twentieth century Canada. It is a field that has grown dramatically
in the last decade, and affords the potential for lively debate
and direct policy relevance.
I am currently working on several projects
with Yale Belanger (Native American Studies, University of
Lethbridge) including an article on the selection of James
Gladstone as Canada’s first Indian senator and a biography
of Gilbert Monture. Our major project is an edited volume
on Aboriginal blockades and occupations over the last forty
years. In recent decades, scholars have documented forms of
Aboriginal peoples’ agency from “everyday resistance”
to direct action against the authority of the nation-state.
While Aboriginal blockades have been a relatively common occurrence
since 1970, and have elicited much commentary from journalists
and public officials, scholarly literature on the phenomenon
has been surprisingly sparse. The adoption of direct action
tactics like blockades and occupations is predicated on the
idea that something is needed to break an unfavourable status
quo, and that the outcome can be a favourable one. But do
blockades and occupations work? Do they represent a mechanism
for political “breakthrough”? What are the objectives
(political, territorial, socio-economic, and ideological)
of Aboriginal people and communities who adopt this approach?
How can success be measured? The key to this volume will be
deep analysis and an appreciation of the complexity of Aboriginal
communities, governments, other stakeholders – and the
interactions between these protagonists in the context of
Native direct action strategies and tactics. This manuscript
was submitted to a university press in spring 2012 and is currently in peer-review.
I am also working
on a specific project assessing the roles and experiences
of the Canadian Forces in confrontations with Aboriginal
people, from Goose Bay to Gustafsen Lake, with Tim Winegard.
We have acquired many boxes of material through Access to
Information, and we plan to write a book on the subject.
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