INUIT ENCOUNTERS WITH COLONIAL CAPITAL: NANISIVIK – CANADA’S FIRST HIGH ARCTIC MINE by Tee Wern Lim B.Com. (Hons)., The University of Otago, 2006 B.A., The University of Otago, 2008 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Resource Management and Environmental Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) January 2013 © Tee Wern Lim, 2013 Abstract Mineral development has a long history of occurring in the territory of Indigenous communities. In Canada’s North, mineral exploration and mine development has become the most significant economic development strategy for Nunavut, with unprecedented levels of investment taking place today. However, broader and long-term implications of mineral development, and relevant historical experiences, are not well understood or documented. This thesis investigates a historically significant case: Canada’s first high Arctic mine, the Nanisivik lead-zinc mine, which operated near the Inuit community of Arctic Bay from 1976- 2002. Across two papers, this thesis focuses on the mine’s development in the early 1970s, and closure in the 2000s. Through a Marxian analysis utilizing the constructs of primitive accumulation and modes of production, chapter 2 outlines non-renewable resource-based industrial capitalism (exemplified by Nanisivik) as a distinct and severe structure of dispossession. This is contrasted with prior periods of similarly colonial but merchant capitalist resource extraction, namely whaling and the fur trade. I explain how the State and capital combined to impose capitalist relations of production on a predominantly noncapitalist Inuit social formation. Aspects of structural resistance to this imposition are also discussed. Archival materials demonstrate in particular the intention of the Canadian State to institute a mineral-based wage economy in the region, to facilitate capital accumulation, and Inuit assimilation and labour formation. Chapter 3 explores Nanisivik’s closure and post-closure phases after operations ceased in 2002. It argues that, given the demolition of $50 million worth of industrial and residential infrastructure at Nanisivik, carried out against the wishes of the community of Arctic Bay, the mine represents a case of ‘closure failure.’ Research findings demonstrate a clear gap between the rhetoric and actual implementation of recent government and industry approaches to ‘sustainable’ mining, and socially responsibly mine closure. Analyses of relevant policy documents and interviews with residents of Arctic Bay suggest that economic concerns were consistently prioritized over socially responsible closure concerns. Profound and lingering disappointment and loss within the community over the outcome is also evident. Expanded mine closure regulation is called for in response. ii Preface Chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis are intended to be stand-alone, peer-reviewed manuscripts. I am the primary author of these papers. My thesis supervisors Dr. Terre Satterfield and Dr. Frank Tester will be co-authors of the two papers. In each paper, my contributions include a) research conceptualization and design, b) collection of data and its analysis and c) full drafting and preparation of the manuscript. Dr. Terre Satterfield, Dr. Frank Tester and Dr. Peter Kulchyski provided contributions and input to each of these stages of research, in their role as supervisory committee members. To reflect this collaborative effort, chapters 2 and 3 are written with the plural pronoun “we,” while the study’s introduction and conclusion are written in the singular first person. This research was approved under: UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board certificates H10-02539 Industrial Development at Arctic Bay and H10-01503 Adaptation, industrial development and Arctic communities: Experiences of environmental and social change. Nunavut Research Institute license # 03 054 11R-M-Amended Adaptation, industrial development and Arctic communities: Experiences of environmental and social change. iii Table of contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Preface............................................................................................................................................ iii Table of contents ............................................................................................................................ iv List of figures ................................................................................................................................. vi List of abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Study setting......................................................................................................................... 2 1.3. Research objectives and thesis outline ................................................................................. 4 Chapter 2: Mining as primitive accumulation in the eastern Arctic: Articulations of capital with the Inuit gatherer-hunter mode of production ................................................................................. 7 2.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 7 2.2. Ongoing primitive accumulation ......................................................................................... 9 2.3. Revisiting modes of production ......................................................................................... 12 2.3.1. Articulation and social formation ............................................................................... 15 2.4. Transition and transformation ............................................................................................ 17 2.4.1. Modes of production in the Canadian eastern Arctic.................................................. 18 2.5. Arctic articulations ............................................................................................................. 20 2.5.1. The whaling and early fur trade periods: “an initial link in the sphere of exchange, where interaction with capitalism reinforces the pre-capitalist mode” ................................. 20 2.5.2. The late fur trade, and the rise of the liberal welfare State and extractive industry: capitalism ‘takes root’ through the imposition of the colonial structures of dominance, “subordinating the pre-capitalist mode but still making use of it” ....................................... 26 2.5.3. The Nanisivik mine ..................................................................................................... 32 2.6. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 46 The future of Nunavut? At some point not yet reached in most ‘underdeveloped’ contexts, “the capitalist mode of production supplants all noncapitalist modes of production: noncapitalism disappears”? ................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 3: “We thought it would last forever”: The social scars and legacy effects of mine closure at Nanisivik, Canada’s first high Arctic mine .................................................................. 49 3.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 49 3.1.1. Mining, closure and sustainable development ............................................................ 51 3.2. Nanisivik – ‘The Place Where People Find Things’ ......................................................... 55 3.3. Methods: Understanding the evolving trajectory of closure .............................................. 58 3.4. The arch of closure............................................................................................................. 61 3.4.1. 2002: The stars align for economic diversification at Nanisivik? Promising process in the search for an alternative site use ..................................................................................... 61 3.4.2. 2004 – 2005: Processual failures, evasions of responsibility and vexed outcomes .... 65 3.4.3. 2009 – 2011: Who declares a mine a ‘success’? Nanisivik – A legacy of betrayal and social scarring ....................................................................................................................... 79 3.5. Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 88 Chapter 4: Conclusion................................................................................................................... 93 iv References ..................................................................................................................................... 98 Appendices .................................................................................................................................