Settler Anti-Pipeline Activists and the Turn to Frontline Solidarity

“We’re really trying, and I know it’s not enough”: Settler Anti-Pipeline Activists and the

Turn to Frontline Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples

Anjali Helferty

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education

University of Toronto

“We’re really trying, and I know it’s not enough”: Settler Anti-Pipeline Activists and the

Turn to Frontline Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples

Anjali Helferty

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education

University of Toronto

2020

Abstract

The logics and worldviews of settler environmentalism perpetuate settler colonialism

and white supremacy; settler environmentalism has consistently failed to work in relation to

Indigenous peoples in a good way. This research engages with the efforts of settler anti-

pipeline activists in Canada to solve these problems of environmentalism by turning to

frontline solidarity.

Frontline solidarity relies on systems of power; the framework hinges on a solidarity

group making use of their privileges to support the struggles of a frontline group while

simultaneously attempting to de-emphasize this privilege through, for example, following

frontline leadership. Frontline solidarity does not solve settler environmentalism; it does not

enable settler environmentalists to become the “good ally.” However, this framework at

times enabled settler anti-pipeline activists to productively support Indigenous-led legal

battles and land defence. Separating the goal of stopping pipelines from the goal of

supporting Indigenous self-determination has the potential to clarify roles for settlers on

Indigenous land.

Layered onto the contradictions of frontline solidarity, many of the settler activists worked at environmental organizations and were funded to stop pipelines through a collective campaign. Like frontline solidarity, philanthropy hinges on white settler power and fails to address systemic injustices. The organizational requirements of funded campaign engagement and the campaign absorbing solidarity goals into an “outreach” model worked primarily to maintain settler power. At the same time, the flexibility of campaign networks provided opportunities for relationships and learning between settler activists and Indigenous peoples; while not themselves decolonizing, the relationships provide an opening to work together against climate change and colonial power.

Settler anti-pipeline activists are steeped in multiple oppressive systems and were at times “called out” for racist or colonial actions. Narratives of Indigenous trauma and white fragility led to the creation of a feeling rule in which settler activists did not allow themselves to feel the pain these callouts caused. This contributed to burnout and limited opportunities for learning and healing.

This dissertation contributes to the literatures on solidarity, social movements, critical philanthropy, and politics of emotion. As an activist researcher, I am also motivated to contribute to the transformation of my own movement.

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Acknowledgments

I thought I already understood that everything in life is a collective process; I re- learned this deeply throughout the past years working on this degree. While some of the people mentioned here played a greater role in moving me forward, all were needed at the particular moment in which we met. I reflect on this process more or less chronologically.

Lauren Spring and Bethany Johnson, you were there from the start. It’s been great to cross major milestones together, from the first day of classes to navigating conferences right up to practicing my defence presentation. I’m so glad we were thrown together in this process.

Following coursework, I found myself largely working alone, largely unsuccessfully.

I decided to tell the truth about how things were going and mentioned to someone who I knew through a research group that I was lonely and struggling. Being the take-action human that she is, Rebecca Starkman proposed we start a weekly group to read each other’s work and give feedback. We pulled in two more colleagues, Dirk Rodricks and Velta Douglas, and the creatively named Writing Group began. In the early years, this group was a lifeline for degree progress; in later years, our writing support structure loosened and we developed deep friendships. I am so grateful to know you all.

While somewhat counterproductive to moving the degree forward, going on strike in the second year of this degree remains an important landmark. While many of us are not in regular contact anymore, the Deltas was a relationship forged in fire! Solidarity.

I floundered after the strike and attempted to quit the program (but failed to stick the quit). I eventually found terrific help from Dr. Indigo Esmonde who taught me the basics of academic writing in about 15 minutes. Over the next few years, I engaged in every

opportunity Indigo organized to develop my academic writing skills and support others to do so as well. Thank you, Indigo, for engaging in this incredibly important support. I also met

Dr. Carol-Ann Burke through this process, who became a wonderful mentor (and squash buddy).

As a result of the structured writing support Indigo set up, I ended up in an

Accountability Group with Bethany Johnson and Thelma Akyea. I so looked forward to our meetings and check-ins and appreciated all the good humour and gentle nudging. Even as our regular meetings ended after a couple solid years, I knew we remained committed to each other’s success.

Also stemming from engagement in writing support, I became part of an extremely active text group officially entitled PhDs r us. Almost! This support, and the related writing tracking spreadsheet, was key to getting me through some tricky moments in the later years.

Velta Douglas, Thelma Akyea, Lucy El Sherif, Fiona Purton, Daniela Bascuñan, Shawna

Carroll, and Elena Toukan– I knew when I had a question/complaint/feeling of any kind, someone would be there! And on the spreadsheet – Ty Walkland, Daniela Bascuñan, Tara

Kumabe, Velta Douglas, Shawna Carroll, Noah Kenneally, and Fiona Purton – the ongoing accountability and cheerleading/commiserating was so needed. Thank you all.

To my non-ac friends for helping me maintain wellbeing throughout these years – too many to name, but to the musical theatre singalong crew, Rhythms of Resistance, the amazing women who allowed me to be their doula, the celli, the enviros, and wonderful former roommate Erin Dann, you have all been so important to this process and to my life.

Your company and the fun we had together were so important to making my move to

Toronto smooth and maintaining my wellbeing here. Thank you to my neighbours, Georgia

and Aurelio, Frank and Sharon, who I have been so glad to get to know during this lockdown. And much love to Vikki VanSickle, my pandemic bubble buddy and the only person other than my partner I have hugged in 5 months.

To my family, mostly far, but occasionally very near – thanks for all the cheerleading and support of whatever stage I was at (the excited starting stage, the quitting stage, the not- quitting stage, the wandering around doing research stage, the seemingly endless analysis and writing stage). Huge thanks to my parents and partner for providing a financial safety net.

These degrees are not sufficiently funded; the financial insecurity that so many students experience has a massive detrimental impact on their wellbeing and their research. This is solvable.

Thank you to Dr. Kiran Mirchandani and all the members of your thesis advisory group over the past seven years. It was so important to have this space to talk about the ups and downs of PhD life and to gain and offer support from students at different stages. Thank you especially to Valerie Damasco and Adriana Berlingieri whose support was particularly important to me early in the process.

In addition to being a wonderful friend (and the Delta captain), Joe Curnow was an academic mentor whom I relied on more on the day-to-day than anyone else in this process. I met Joe the first day of my first class and I do not know that I would have finished this degree without her support. I tested and processed and worked through the ideas with Joe – particularly over extended text message chains over the past few years. I can’t thank you enough, Joe. Your students are so lucky to have you as a mentor.

Thank you to Dr. Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández and Dr. Erica Kohl-Arenas, my committee members. Rubén, your perspective on solidarity has been invaluable for this

process. I am so glad to have enrolled in your class many years ago; I have learned a great deal. Erica, taking a qualitative methods course with you in my Master’s is what led me to this degree in the first place! You were the first person to show me what research could be in a way that made me want to engage with it. Thank you for that, and for all your feedback and support throughout this process.

I am deeply grateful to the support of my supervisor, Dr. Jean-Paul Restoule. In addition to consistently supporting my progress, you brought to this project an ethical framework that I know I will carry with me into the future. As I move into other work, I bring your voice in my head and I know it will provide wonderful guidance.

This work could not have happened without the research participants. I am so grateful for your time and grateful to know you. You shared so much with me, and I learned a great deal. I have thought about you every day for many years! You were the perfect people to re- enter the activist community in Canada alongside and I hope to work with you for many years to come.

Finally, to my own little family – my partner, Aitor, and our kitty, Squishy. Aitor, we met just after I started this degree. You have met every twist and turn with grace and support.

I am so glad to have met you and am also glad to move into the next phase of our life together. Please don’t do a PhD. One is enough.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... iv

Table of Contents ...... viii

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

Who Am I To Take This On? ...... 4

Settler Environmentalism ...... 10

Protecting empty land: terra nullius and the wilderness ...... 11

The “Ecological Indian” ...... 13

Relationships Between Settler Environmentalists and Indigenous Peoples in Canada 16

Anti-Pipeline Activism in Canada ...... 19

Methodology ...... 24

Research participants ...... 32

Dissertation format ...... 34

Summary of papers ...... 35

Significance ...... 37

Chapter 2 “I Have A Stake In It Too”: Contradictions of Solidarity in Anti-Pipeline Activism in Canada ...... 39

Settler environmentalism ...... 42

Social movement solidarity ...... 44

Benefit and stakes in social movement solidarity ...... 48

Leadership and decision-making ...... 52

Whiteness and privilege in solidarity activism ...... 57

Settler solidarity on Indigenous land ...... 60

Research Methods ...... 62

Anti-pipeline activism and Indigenous solidarity in practice ...... 65

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Rationales for anti-pipeline activism ...... 67

First Nations legal rights and land defence as anti-pipeline strategy ...... 72

Positioning anti-pipeline activism as frontline solidarity ...... 78

Asking for leadership from Indigenous people ...... 88

Remaining unreconciled ...... 92

Chapter 3 “The Dagger Hanging Over Your Head”: The Influence of the Nonprofit Complex on Settler Anti-Pipeline Activists’ Attempts to Engage in Relationships of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples ...... 98

The contradictions of frontline solidarity ...... 101

Theorizing philanthropy in relation to systems maintaining white settler power ...... 104

Foundations maintaining systems of power ...... 104

Mechanisms maintaining white settler power ...... 107

Research Methods ...... 113

Research Context ...... 116

The Anti-Pipeline Campaign encouraging frontline solidarity ...... 118

Systems change vs. short-term wins in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign ...... 123

The Anti-Pipeline Campaign and short-term wins ...... 124

Attempting to follow Indigenous leadership while requiring short-term wins ... 127

Requiring outreach to First Nations in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign ...... 133

The outreach requirement ...... 133

Examining the requirement to engage with First Nations in relation to frontline solidarity ...... 137

Frontline solidarity in the NPIC ...... 140

Chapter 4 “There’s gotta be somewhere they can go to have those feelings”: The feeling rules of frontline solidarity in the anti-pipeline activist community ...... 143

Key concepts and context related to this analysis ...... 147

Solidarity ...... 147

Callouts ...... 150

Activist burnout ...... 152

Feeling rules ...... 155

Feeling rules in activism ...... 156

Research Methods ...... 158

The cases ...... 161

Narratives of white fragility and trauma in Indigenous communities ...... 162

Narratives about white fragility ...... 163

Narratives about trauma in Indigenous communities ...... 167

The feeling rule: White settler activists are not allowed to feel pain from callouts ... 172

Feeling rules and systems of support ...... 178

Chapter 5 Conclusion ...... 183

Dissertation Summary ...... 184

A Conversation ...... 184

Chapters in Review ...... 195

Reflections on Methodology ...... 200

Limitations ...... 205

Opportunities for further research ...... 206

Concluding reflections ...... 209

References ...... 216

Chapter 1

Introduction

In 2006, I attended the founding meeting of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition

(CYCC). I was proud to be at this diverse meeting of young people and youth organizations committed to keeping climate on the agenda of politicians and the media. More than twenty organizational leaders participated in the meeting, from environmental to faith to labour to

Indigenous groups. We collectively wrote a declaration about our vision for climate justice.

Reflecting on this task of collaboratively writing a long vision statement, I am amazed that my memories of this process are overwhelmingly positive and joyful. I am still inspired by the declaration when I read it today.

This meeting was the beginning of my involvement in national youth climate coalition building. I left the first CYCC meeting as the coalition chair and began coordinating and facilitating conference calls while also organizing local actions on Parliament Hill with my friends in Ottawa. As part of my job at the Sierra Youth Coalition, I supported the work of campus activists across Canada and worked to develop student leadership for campus sustainability and climate action. I facilitated the US-based Energy Action Coalition (now

PowerShift Network) through organizational disagreements stemming from differences in worldview between mainstream environmental, environmental justice, and Indigenous movements and through a 50% reduction in foundation funding for our work following the failure of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). I loved (and still love) the youth climate activist community, but, after only five years of activism, I was so burned out that I disappeared from the movement and enrolled in a Master’s degree at The New School in New York City. When Occupy Wall Street began in Lower Manhattan a few weeks into

my first semester, I could barely bring myself to take the subway down from my apartment to see what was going on.

CYCC and the Energy Action Coalition were places in which I built lasting relationships and learned many skills. I do not regret the time I spent in youth activism. At the same time, my experiences left me with unresolved questions about why a group of young, smart, well-intentioned, creative people committed to learning and justice found bringing together mainstream and Indigenous environmental organizations, as well as environmental justice organizations in the United States, such a struggle. While the coalition structures and processes were quite different in Canada and the United States, the challenges of bringing together organizations with different priorities and worldviews existed in both contexts.

These coalition experiences brought me to this research on settler anti-pipeline activists in Canada attempting to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples1. I approached this research on anti-pipeline activists interested in the potential for solidarity or coordinated collaboration between settler environmentalists and Indigenous people stemming from the agreement among many Indigenous leaders and settler activists that the pipelines should not be built. In this common goal there seemed potential for a foundation to at least begin working together. I approached the research cautiously optimistic about what I might find,

1 Colonialism is what imposed the Indigenous/non-Indigenous identity; without colonialism we would not identify this way. The distinctions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous have been and continue to be used by the state to perpetrate injustices. Even though these identities can prove useful in specific contexts and are claimed when needed (by Indigenous people in particular), they collapse a great deal of diversity within both groups and the multiple identities of many people. As Land (2015) says, the use of these terms is not to reflect inherent divides; when I use them in this dissertation it is reflection of the social systems that structure many aspects of the lives of the research participants and of my own life and that are central to the questions posed in this research.

but with an awareness of the challenges of solidarity work between settler and Indigenous movements (Tuck & Yang, 2012).

I want to be very clear about my understanding of why this research matters. As I discuss in detail in Chapter Four, the risk of burnout is high in a group of activists constantly struggling with and being called out for their failure – not failure to meet a campaign goal, but failure to meet the goal of correctly being in solidarity with Indigenous peoples. Every person who burns out is indefinitely lost to the movement for climate justice, and this is a movement that needs to quickly grow in numbers and power. Mainstream environmentalists, embedded as they are in whiteness and privilege, cannot be and are not the only leaders of this movement and need to engage in new frameworks to participate in this movement at all.

However, as people who care deeply about the environment and about the wellbeing of people, I believe it is worthwhile to consider how to avoid broad burnout and attrition. This consideration requires attention to the source and processes of the burnout and associated anxieties, and I have attended to these topics in this dissertation.

In this introductory chapter, I start by locating myself in the research. I discuss my identity as a mixed settler and my history as an environmentalist. I then give a review of the literature on settler environmentalism, with a focus on the “wilderness” and the “Ecological

Indian,” and discuss the research context of anti-pipeline activism in Canada. I give an overview of my methodology and the research participants. Finally, I briefly summarize the papers that comprise this thesis. The papers draw from overlapping data from the same set of interviews conducted for this research but view the data from distinct lenses and literatures: social movement solidarity, the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC), and emotions and feeling rules.

Who Am I To Take This On?

I learned about the practice of self-location from my supervisor, Dr. Jean-Paul

Restoule, and from Wanda Nanibush while learning about Indigenous research methodologies. In a research context, self-location is the start of the process and involves a reflection on accountability in connection to researcher identity and experiences (Absolon &

Willett, 2005). Connections can also be made to broader political or colonial systems, as, for example, Snelgrove, Dhamoon, and Corntassel (2014) engaged in self-location in relation to the term “settler.” In this dissertation, self-location provides a foundational understanding for how I came to undertake this research and how I approach the work and the world.

I have learned to start reflecting on my location by working to understand myself within the context of my family. I will describe my family and the various pathways that caused my parents to meet in a Toronto rooming house in the mid-1970s. My mother is

Indian, Indian from India, as I have clarified countless times. She actually grew up in

Mombasa, Kenya, as did her father, my grandfather, whom I called Baba. My grandmother,

Aji, grew up in India but her father was a diplomat so she spent time in various other countries around the world. My mother moved to Toronto as a teenager, and her parents and siblings moved to England shortly after. Aji and my two aunts still live in England today, and my uncle lives in Singapore with his wife, my aunt, and my three cousins.

My father is from a line of Irish Catholic family farmers in the Ottawa Valley, although he left the farm and worked for 30 years in the oil industry. My great-great-great grandfather came to Canada from Ireland in the 1830s as living conditions in Ireland became increasingly difficult. The community of Douglas, where my father is from, remains one of the most Irish places outside of Ireland, and no one in his family had married outside the Irish

Catholic community prior to his generation. My father’s brother and sister still live in

Douglas, and his other sister, my godmother, lived in nearby Kingston until she died a few years ago.

I am the eldest of four children. My two brothers live in New York, together in an apartment with two cats. My sister lives in Guelph, also with a cat, after spending a year living in a van in San Francisco. My parents live in Houston with two cats, although they spend a few months each year in Toronto. I live in Toronto with my partner, who is Basque, and our cat. My Indian family is relatively small and spread all over the world, and my Irish family is large and tends to land fairly close to home. My Indian family are doctors and academics and activists or work in tech, and my Irish family are farmers and teachers and nurses, or work in construction. A deep connection to animals also crosses generations through both sides of the family although in quite different ways; while my mother’s family loves their pets and going on safari, my father grew up milking cows every morning.

Directly or indirectly, these are the people who made me who I am. We are all carrying a complicated relationship to whiteness, colonialism, and white supremacy. My mother came to early 1970s Toronto after growing up in Kenya and attending a few years of boarding school in India. Canada was the third place she lived that had been colonized by the

British, although the first settler colonial country. Although she moved to Toronto, the rest of her family moved to small town England in a time of tensions between Africans and South

Asians in Kenya following Kenyan independence. My mother arrived in an increasingly diverse but also very racist city (Trumbull, 1977) as a high school student, although we have never talked about any early experiences of racism. Ireland also has a long history of colonial violence that my ancestors were subjected to, and then they themselves participated in

settling stolen land that they were allowed to purchase and farm because they were white enough to do so.

My mixedness is a product of British colonialism. It is difficult to imagine my parents ever meeting without the influence of colonialism. I know that the ease with which I am accepted into white circles depends on the lightness of my skin, while also knowing that my features most resemble my mother and my Aji. I have plenty of experience of people trying to guess my background or being considered alongside other mixed people as “emblems of a utopic future” (Mahtani, 2014, p. 6).

I have been in a room where a white environmental activist went uncontested when they said that they would not date someone outside their race, as if that was something that could be casually and acceptably stated. I have been told by a white anti-oppression trainer in the United States that I was not quite white enough to work with white people to examine racism and systems of oppression in white communities. I was never quite able to fit into caucus spaces based on racial identity, which have become more and more common in environmental activism, and deciding where to go each time the caucuses took place was complicated and very much tied to my politics at the moment. Because I felt most of my day- to-day privileges were closer to those of white people, I might choose to go with the white group to not suggest that my experiences were the same as those of the Black, Latinx, and

Indigenous organizers I was working with (as there were few other Asians and rarely anyone else who primarily identified as mixed). But I would inevitably feel that my experiences were not actually the same as those in the White group and might move over to the “POC” group to see if that felt like a better fit.

Reflecting on these experiences, I am grateful for language around “whiteness.”

Whiteness enables me to recognize the ways in which white supremacy impacts me and impacts the research participants discussed in this dissertation without having to force myself and others into boxes or take on labels that flatten nuance. I can also recognize the ways that differently racialized groups have been positioned in relation to whiteness, and that who gets to be white is both shifting and context-dependent (Bonilla-Silva, 2003).

Reflecting on my experience conducting this research, I believe my proximity to whiteness was part of what enabled me to have the conversations I had with research participants. Research participants, most of whom were white, told me stories, and then occasionally told me that they would never say what they had just said to a person of colour or Indigenous person because they did not want to burden them with their pain or white fragility. While I experienced some discomfort in these moments and a sense of my identity being invisibilized, I believe this was useful from the perspective of enabling the participants to feel comfortable saying what they wanted to say. In addition, for the handful of participants who identified as white passing or adjacent to whiteness, my similar positionality enabled me to ask otherwise awkward questions about their identities in relation to environmentalism and whiteness. While neither these white-adjacent experiences nor the participants’ perceptions of my identity was the focus of this research, I do believe being able to simultaneously exist in multiple identity spaces played a role in my interactions with participants.

In addition to situating myself in proximity to whiteness but not as white, I consider myself a settler on Indigenous land. I am aware that claiming settler in this way can serve as a move to innocence (Tuck & Yang, 2012) or a way to score points within academic or

activist communities (Asher et al., 2018). I still say it, since I believe it is important to say.

Tuck and Yang (2012) helpfully differentiate between an “immigrant nation,” where people take up the views and customs of the people who are already there, and a “settler nation,” where people arriving commit erasure of the people who are already there and bring their own governance systems. It is easy to see that, despite the ongoing and strong presence of

Indigenous peoples in Canada, the creation of this state is in alignment with British colonial rule and not the land-based governance of Indigenous nations that have been here for thousands of years. In settler colonial countries, settler colonialism and migration are entwined, since people who migrate after the “new” country is formed are migrating into a settler country. Several scholars include (or do not entirely exclude) racialized people within their definition of “settler” (Lawrence & Dua, 2005; Tuck & Yang, 2012; Wolfe, 2006).

At the same time, it is important to recognize the ways in which particular groups of people are racialized to support the settler state. Iyko Day ( 2015) makes the argument that it is not useful to create one broad “settler” category. Instead, she writes that “racial dynamics are internal rather than external to the logic of settler colonialism in North America” (p. 107).

Arguing against the binary of settler and Indigenous, Jodi Byrd (2011) proposes the use of

“arrivant” to foreground a recognition of the process by which many racialized people have been brought to settler colonial countries through force. Sharma and Wright (2008) also question the political usefulness of calling all migrants “settlers,” when this would seem to imply then that the only way not to be a settler is to stay on the land where one is from. They assert that the forces of globalization and capitalism render this impossible. They also suggest that migration is often the result of having been colonized, as can be easily illustrated from my own family’s movement around the globe. I continue to call myself a settler but am

aware that the term is contested and that, perhaps, some of these scholars might define me in other ways. To me, it matters to be clear about my settler positionality so that I keep front of mind my relationship to the land where I live and question assumptions about the obviousness of the legitimacy of colonial governance.

In addition to reflecting on my family roots, I want to briefly reflect on myself as an environmentalist. I could map my path to this project starting from when I saw a poster about a by-youth, for-youth campus sustainability conference run by the Sierra Youth Coalition in

2003 and hopped on a bus to Montreal to attend. This same program hired me on three years later to coordinate the program nationally. I could go back to my childhood, when I realized that the horrors of the Exxon Valdez spill were caused by the same company that my father worked for, and that therefore supported my day-to-day. As a child I was loyal to my father, and, as a result, to the company, at the same time as finding the photos from the spill incredibly distressing and choosing to research oil spills for school projects year after year.

(While I am happy to continue to have a great relationship with my father, my loyalty to Esso and Exxon wore off many years ago.) I could find my roots in the deep connection to animals that I mentioned earlier, which led me to become a vegetarian at age ten. It could be a video I vaguely recall of some people sitting in trees that I believe I was shown at Brownies at a young age, which in retrospect was likely of the Clayoquot Sound protests. While any one of these factors would not necessarily explain a commitment to environmentalism, some combination built a sustained interest over the past several decades.

My environmentalism was not the result of a connection to land. My family moved every few years, and I assumed that all locations were temporary. I did not spend much time in “nature” as a child; I did not sleep in a tent until I was nineteen and only have a handful of

times since. The place that I could best identify as part of my history was the family farm that my father grew up on and that we visited most summers; my cousin Julie and I would wander for hours in the fields picking berries and telling secrets. But I knew that it was not really my place, even as I planned throughout my teenage years to become a country veterinarian and move to the Ottawa Valley.

In order to understand my situatedness as a mixed settler environmentalist growing up in Canada and the United States, and to better understand the habits and patterns of white supremacy that pervade environmentalism and the environmentalists I interviewed for this project, I will now discuss settler environmentalism.

Settler Environmentalism

Settler environmentalism describes the characteristics of environmentalism undertaken by settler people on Indigenous lands. While the literature naming “settler environmentalism” is fairly limited, aspects of settler environmentalism are widely discussed in academic and activist communities in settler colonial countries. La Paperson (2014) provides a succinct definition:

…settler environmentalism describes efforts to redeem the settler as ecological, often

focusing on settler identity and belonging through tropes of Indigenous appropriations

– returning to the wildman or demigoddess, claiming of one’s natural or ‘native’ self

and thus the land, again. (p. 122)

In the context of a discussion about environmental education, Paperson identifies settler environmentalism in the various manifestations of environmental work ranging from

“greening the ghetto,” used as a euphemism for whitening urban spaces, to valuable environmental justice and other social justice projects that are ultimately still on Indigenous

land (Tuck & Yang, 2012). Paperson also identifies the narrative of the non-threatening

“Ecological Indian” as part of the discourse of place-based curriculum related to settler environmentalism.

In this section, I build on Paperson’s (2014) discussion to identify two aspects of settler environmentalism that shape present-day anti-pipeline activism in Canada: the protection of “empty” land, and the construction of the Ecological Indian.

Protecting empty land: terra nullius and the wilderness

Environmentalism as it exists in Canada and the United States today has its roots in terra nullius, the assumption or assertion that Turtle Island was and is empty and available for settlement. It is through this theory that settlers are able to take up the position of rightful decision-makers over Indigenous land, with the assumption that European knowledge, and therefore people, are considered inherently superior to Indigenous knowledges and peoples

(Battiste & Henderson, 2000). It was only in 2014 that the doctrine of terra nullius was declared invalid in Canada (S. Fine, 2014), and its premise endures in the United States

Wilderness Act (Dowie, 2006). However, to this day, enshrined in Canadian legal precedent is the assertion that “protection of the environment or endangered species” is a valid reason to infringe on Indigenous rights (Williamson, 2017). As John Borrows, an Anishinabe law professor and member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation, puts it, “Canadian law still has terra nullius written all over it” (2019, p. 93).

Environmentalism is also rooted in settler concepts of “wilderness” as space for settler urbanites to escape to (Aguiar & Marten, 2011) and white people (men) to seek to understand themselves (Thorpe, 2011). In understanding the wilderness as “pristine”, places are produced as without history or people, including, most obviously, Indigenous people

(Braun, 2002; Cronon, 1996). This understanding fails to recognize that the wilderness was mythologized as empty space by removing Indigenous peoples from the land through “not only homicide, but also state-sanctioned miscegenation, the issuing of individual land titles, native citizenship, child abduction, religious conversion, reprogramming (via missions or boarding schools), and myriad forms of assimilation” (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013, p. 77).

The influence of terra nullius and conceptions of empty and natural wilderness can be found in current land management practices. Indigenous and settler scholars and activists have made the argument that the creation of protected areas, often through parks, is dependent on settler colonialism (Banivanua Mar, 2010; Mawani, 2007; Newbery, 2012), and that conservation work too-often contributes to these processes by cutting off “natural spaces” from the Indigenous peoples who have been stewards of those places for thousands of years (Dowie, 2006). For example, Isaki (2013) draws a connection between conservation of land in Hawaii through the creation of parks and the violence of settler colonialism in spite of an “aggressive belief in the virtuousness of state conservation work” (p. 59).

Understanding the separation of people from land as a settler construct requires shifting foundational environmentalist worldviews that position humans as threatening to nature.

Similar ideas about land and wilderness protection can be found in anti-pipeline campaign work. In a recent use of the common environmentalist narrative of the need to protect charismatic megafauna, for example, environmental activists in Québec rallied and launched successful legal proceedings to prevent the construction of an oil terminal for the

Energy East pipeline at the St. Lawrence River on the grounds that it would cause harm to the endangered beluga whale (Gareau, 2016). Indigenous rights are often central to the

present-day anti-pipeline narrative; however, anti-pipeline work, particularly in the United

States, also makes use of the frame of land ownership and defence of settler property rights

(Bosworth, 2018). As Bosworth describes, part of the anger and frustration experienced by some settler people living near the Keystone XL pipeline path in a rural area of the United

States was that, in having their property seized for development, they were being “treated

‘like Indians’” (p. 13).

Theories of terra nullius and the need to protect wilderness form the roots of modern settler environmentalism, even as many environmental organizations today recognize their whiteness and attempt to “diversify” (Taylor, 2014), and environmentalists increasingly emphasize the importance of Indigenous rights in the context of land-based struggles.

The “Ecological Indian”

Alongside terra nullius and settler understandings of “wilderness,” the “Ecological

Indian” or “Ecologically Noble Savage” is a trope used to place settlers as the appropriate stewards of the land and is a familiar feature of environmentalism in Canada and the United

States. In the context of this stereotype, Indigenous people (as a homogenous group, rather than many diverse peoples) are understood to be, as Nadasdy (2005) puts it in his critique of the stereotype, “more of nature than in it” (p. 292). Indigenous people are considered to be the first environmentalists, or the first conservationists in particular, with innate ecological wisdom (Nadasdy, 2005).

While recognizing the extended academic debates among primarily settler scholars about whether or not Indigenous peoples pre-colonization might have met the standards of present-day settler colonial conservationism (Harkin & Lewis, 2007; Krech, 1999), I approach this discussion of the trope of the “Ecological Indian” from the position shared by a

number of Indigenous and settler scholars that asking the question itself perpetuates colonialism by placing Indigenous peoples on a spectrum of conservationism within a settler worldview (Nadasdy, 2005; Ranco, 2007). While Indigenous people may at times invoke aspects of this stereotype as a way to, for example, strategically speak to settlers in powerful land management positions (Ranco, 2007), or because they do feel that their practices and knowledge are better for the Land than those of settler society (Nadasdy, 2005), for the purposes of this discussion I consider the ways in which the construction of the Ecological

Indian has been used in settler environmentalism.

The Ecological Indian provides a foil for the ways in which settler environmentalists feel that their society is destroying land and water (Willow, 2009). The trope is useful to non-

Indigenous environmentalists, since it provides the basis of an argument against contemporary Western industrial society by hearkening back to a romanticized view of the past, while also dangerously shifting focus away from impacts of colonization on Indigenous peoples (Willow, 2009). While appearing complimentary to Indigenous peoples, the

Ecological Indian stereotype is not in alignment with Indigenous resurgence.

Settlers using this trope ultimately position themselves closer to Indigenous peoples of the past as part of the settler project of replacement (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández,

2013), since present-day Indigenous people will inevitably fail to meet settler requirements for perfect ecological behaviour. As Nadasdy (2005) asserts, in the context of this trope

Indigenous people become characterized:

…either as rapacious despoilers of the environment, as sad failures unable to live up

to the ideals of ecological nobility, or as inauthentic manipulators, cynically and

opportunistically deploying environmentalist rhetoric (that they know to be false) for

their own political gain.

In relation to the “Ecologial Indian,” Indigenous people are always set up to fail. This failure enables the settler environmentalists to, deliberately or subtly, confirm inauthenticity of modern Indigenous people and their supposed lack of cultural knowledge or separation from traditional practices. The Ecological Indian stereotype enables settlers to position themselves as the rightful stewards of the land and as appropriate judges of “authentic” Indigeneity

(Nadasdy, 2005).

The trope of the Ecological Indian exists in relationship to other familiar tropes about

Indigenous peoples, all of which ultimately serve settler colonialism. While the Ecological

Indian seems a more positive spin than the bloodthirsty or ignoble savage, the tropes serve a similar purpose. While the bloodthirsty savage justifies the elimination of Indigenous peoples through violence and assimilation and therefore validates domination of land by settlers, the

Ecological Indian similarly positions settlers as the rightful stewards of empty wilderness. In the context of both tropes, present-day Indigenous peoples are disappeared and settlers today are able to simultaneously justify and distance themselves from the ugliness of colonialism

(Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013).

Settler discourses about empty wilderness enable anti-pipeline activists to engage in conservation and land preservation-based strategies as rightful actors. Similarly, by placing authentic Indigenous peoples in the past, the trope of the Ecological Indian empowers settler environmental activists as decision-makers about what should or should not be allowed on the land. Without the underlying assumption that settlers have a right to determine what

should or should not take place on “our” land, the logic of environmentalism as it currently exists in Canada and other settler colonial countries fails.

This discussion of settler environmentalism, the construction of wilderness as empty, and the “Ecological Indian” is important to consider in the context of this research because the assumptions and approaches of anti-pipeline activism today, as well as the organizations where many of the activists work, are rooted in these environmental perspectives. As I will discuss in this dissertation, the settler activists are directly engaging with dilemmas about what their roles should be in relation to these land-based campaigns, and how they can work well with Indigenous peoples on Indigenous land today. The effort to change the environmentalist worldview becomes necessary as a result of understanding the foundational problems of the typical environmentalist worldview.

Relationships Between Settler Environmentalists and Indigenous Peoples in Canada

Living just below the surface of interactions between settler environmentalists and

Indigenous peoples today is the extended history of colonialism perpetuated by settler environmentalists in the name of conservation, wilderness protection, or animal rights. In a

Canadian context, the massive anti-seal hunt campaigns starting in the 1960s led by the

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Greenpeace Canada, among other groups, resulted in the European Union (EU) instituting a ban on imports of “whitecoat” seal pup pelts in 1983. The EU subsequently banned the import of all seal products in 2009.

While both bans excluded seal hunted by Indigenous peoples as part of traditional practices, they resulted in a collapse of the market for seal products and decimated the ability of Inuit to make a living from selling pelts. Income for seal hunters collapsed after 1983, and suicide rates, already alarmingly high, spiked (Arnaquq-Baril, 2016). While Greenpeace Canada, one

of the leading organizations in the anti-sealing campaigns, recently made a public apology for their involvement in the anti-sealing movement (Kerr, 2014), the impacts of the movement continue to negatively impact Inuit today (Arnaquq-Baril, 2016).

Another major touchstone in Canadian environmentalism is the Clayoquot Sound protests of the 1980s and 1990s. The settler group Friends of Clayoquot Sound was founded in 1979 to support the ultimately successful efforts of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation to prevent logging on Meares Island which is part of their traditional territory (Friends of

Clayoquot Sound, n.d.). The campaign broadened from there to prevent logging for the entire temperate rainforests of Clayoquot Sound. The “War in the Woods,” as the protests came to be known, culminated in the summer of 1993 when twelve thousand people were involved in the protest and over 850 arrests were made of protesters blocking MacMillan Bloedel (since purchased by Weyerhaeuser) logging trucks. National and international attention was drawn to the need to preserve “pristine rainforests” (Tindall, 2013). Most of the land that protesters were concerned about is still rainforest today, and the only logging company currently active in the area, Iisaak Forest Resources, Ltd., is now 100% owned by the Tla-o-qui-aht,

Ahousaht, Hesquiaht, Yuu-cluth-aht, and Toquaht First Nations and engages in a sustainable forestry model.

The Clayoquot Sound protests, although not in the distant past, have taken on a legendary characteristic within environmental activism in Canada today. That the region has not been logged in the decades since the protests is considered a major victory. However, from the perspective of solidarity with Indigenous peoples, the framing of the Clayoquot

Sound protests as an unreserved victory becomes complicated and contested.

Firstly, the Clayoquot Sound protests took up the framing of people as separate from nature and the need to protect untouched and unpeopled wilderness. While common within settler environmentalism, this perspective perpetuates settler colonialism and Indigenous erasure. The settler protesters and the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples also had different goals in relation to the forest; while the environmentalists wanted no logging to be permitting, the

Nuu-chah-nulth advocated for responsible forestry (Atleo, 2010). In addition, protesters failed to ask permission from the Nuu-chah-nulth to demonstrate against the logging trucks as guests on the land (Atleo, 2010). When Greenpeace planned a 1996 blockade without approval, the Nuu-chah-nulth banned the organization from their territory (Braun, 2002). In these actions, and without placing blame on the individual environmentalists who participated, it is possible to see the worldview of settler environmentalism enacted as the environmentalists assume and assert their right to act on the land.

I very briefly review these two major campaigns in environmentalism in Canada because of their prominence within the environmentalist imaginary, their ongoing impact on

Indigenous peoples today, particularly in the case of the anti-sealing campaigns, and their relevance to conversations of settler-Indigenous solidarity. Like myself, many of the settler campaigners currently involved in anti-pipeline activism grew up with stories of or personally participated in the anti-sealing campaigns or Clayoquot Sound protests. The substantial impacts on and conflicts with First Nations and Inuit that characterized these campaigns are maintained in the memories and experiences of Indigenous peoples today, alongside at times strong skepticism or unwillingness to work with environmentalists.

In anti-pipeline activism in Canada, settler environmentalism is complicated by the recognition by settler anti-pipeline activists of the usefulness of legal rights of First Nations

in relation to proposed pipeline development. The establishment of duty to consult from the

Haida Nation v. British Columbia case of 2004 has proven to be a powerful lever to prevent pipeline development. In addition, there exists a genuine desire among many anti-pipeline activists to do environmentalism differently, to be in good relationship with Indigenous peoples, and to prefigure Indigenous governance. In the next section, I will further discuss this context for the project.

Anti-Pipeline Activism in Canada

The research context for this project is anti-pipeline activism in Canada. Anti-pipeline activism is a subset of the broader environmental movement. At the time of the research, which began in early 2017, the climate movement in Canada had been focused on anti- pipeline work for several years. While it is difficult to attribute pipeline cancellations to specific activist efforts, although the current Premier of Alberta regularly gives outsized credit to environmentalists for preventing pipeline development (Anderson & Pike, 2018), when the research began the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline had been recently cancelled and the TransCanada (now TC Energy) Energy East pipeline appeared to be nearing cancellation as well. Of the three pipelines most often discussed by participants, only the Trans Mountain expansion continues to be in development today. I will begin this section by providing a brief history of these three proposed pipelines, discuss the rationale for sustained attention among settler and Indigenous people toward stopping pipelines, and build on the previous discussion of my rationale for selecting anti-pipeline activism as a site for study.

The Enbridge Northern Gateway fight was over by the time the interviews began. The

Northern Gateway pipelines were proposed to run from the tar sands in Alberta west to the

coast of Northern British Columbia. The pipeline to the coast would contain diluted bitumen, which would be transferred to tankers and shipped, and the pipeline to the tar sands would contain condensate which is used to dilute bitumen. The pipeline was approved by the

National Energy Board in 2013 and by the federal government in 2014. However, in January

2016, the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that the province of British Columbia had failed in the duty to consult Coastal First Nations in relation to the pipeline. Following this, in November 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau cancelled the pipeline and announced a plan for a tanker ban for the northern coast of British Columbia.

In addition, at the time of the interviews, anti-pipeline activists were beginning to predict that the Energy East pipeline would also be cancelled. Energy East was proposed to carry crude from the tar sands east to the coast of New Brunswick, a distance of more than

4,500 kilometres. The pipeline was originally proposed in 2013 by TransCanada. Given the size of the pipeline, many national and local environmental groups were involved in this fight including Greenpeace Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Council of Canadians, the

Conservation Council of New Brunswick, and Environmental Defence (The Canadian Press,

2017). Opposition was particularly strong in Quebec, where protesters interrupted National

Energy Board hearings in Montreal on the project in March 2016 and all subsequent

Montreal hearings were cancelled (Shingler & Smith, 2016). The National Energy Board review process began in June 2016 but was suspended in August 2016 when two of the three panel members were found to have met with former Quebec premiere Jean Charest who was a consultant for TransCanada at the time.

In January 2017, a new National Energy Board panel began its review of Energy East and opposition to the project continued. In October 2017, TransCanada announced that it

would no longer continue with the project, citing “changed circumstances” (TC Energy,

2017). In August 2017, the National Energy Board had announced that it would consider in its approval process upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions from potential increased oil consumption resulting from the pipeline. In addition, between the beginning and end of the process, oil prices had dropped from over $100 per barrel to closer to $55 per barrel, and the Trump administration had approved TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline running from Alberta south to Nebraska and then on to refineries at the Texas Gulf Coast.

The financial case for the Energy East pipeline was rapidly fraying.

In contrast with these cancellations, the federal Liberal government has persevered with its support of the Trans Mountain pipeline. At the same time as the Northern Gateway cancellation announcement in November 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau approved the then-

Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. The Canadian government later purchased the pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion and, at the time of writing, continues to assert that the pipeline will be built. Opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline was particularly strong from a number of First Nations, including the Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish Nations, as well as settler activists and residents of the City of Burnaby in British Columbia. These fights within Canada were taking place alongside the cross-border Keystone XL campaign and the United States-based Dakota Access Pipeline campaign and land defence camp at the

Standing Rock Indian Reservation. At the time of this research, anti-pipeline activism was a dominant approach of environmental activism in Canada and the United States and drew attention well outside the boundaries of environmentalist and Indigenous communities.

The rationale for focused attention to stop new pipeline development involved both local and global considerations. From a local perspective, settler and Indigenous

communities were concerned about the health and environmental impacts of a pipeline spill on land and water alongside the exacerbation of ongoing impacts geographically close to the tar sands. From a global climate perspective, preventing pipeline development was part of a strategy to limit the expansion of the tar sands due to the recognition of the particularly carbon-intensive nature of tar sands oil production. This goal was aligned with the global call to “Keep It In The Ground” (#KeepItInTheGround, n.d.; Awasis, 2017; Donaghy, 2018;

Green, 2018; Greenpeace USA, n.d.; Kuhn, 2015), as well as with the emerging dialogue around managed decline of fossil fuels (DeRochie, 2017; Scott, 2018).

In addition to these concerns, for Indigenous people involved in the anti-pipeline movement, the work is intimately connected to issues of sovereignty and contesting colonial decision-making on Indigenous land (Keogh, 2019; Lukacs, 2018; Unist’ot’en Camp, n.d.).

These priorities exist alongside recognition of the racist, classist and colonial distribution of local environmental harms (Buzzelli & Jerrett, 2004; Mascarenhas, 2007; Teelucksingh,

2002), which have resulted, for example, in Indigenous communities downstream of the tar sands experiencing high rates of rare cancers (McLachlan, 2014). While at the time of the research there were emerging and ongoing Indigenous-led conversations within climate activism emphasizing the importance of also focusing on tar sands mining (Deranger, 2018), as well as an emphasis on the need for solutions-focused work (Gilpin, 2017; Lubicon Solar, n.d.), anti-pipeline work was dominant in climate activism in Canada.

From a research perspective, the attention to pipelines among both settler and

Indigenous peoples in Canada made this a practical research choice. I anticipated there would be a sufficiently large pool of potential participants engaged in the anti-pipeline work who were also concerned about solidarity for engagement in this project. That many settlers and

Indigenous peoples were aligned in their commitment to prevent pipelines seemed to me to provide a potential foundation for relationships of solidarity. That the basis for the anti- pipeline commitment was fairly straightforward was in contrast with my own experiences of coalition facilitation around the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), which I will briefly describe.

The Energy Action Coalition had been founded to bring together the mainstream, environmental justice, and Indigenous youth climate movements in the US, and initially had also included some Canadian and cross-border organizations. I had been involved in Energy

Action since 2006 as a representative from the Sierra Youth Coalition in Canada, and had moved to Washington, DC, in 2009 to work on the central staff and facilitate the coalition.

At the beginning of the engagement on ACES, coalition organizations were sufficiently aligned to enable the Executive Director to release a statement in support of the introduction of legislation while still recognizing that there was need for improvement. Over time, however, it became clear that the bill would include practices and processes, in particular related to carbon pricing and cap-and-trade, that environmental justice and

Indigenous organizations had consistently asserted would sacrifice their communities and communities in the Global South in the name of mitigating emissions (Indigenous

Environmental Network & Climate Justice Alliance, 2017). These organizations began to oppose the bill. Despite this, many of the mainstream organizations continued to support the bill as a first necessary step to getting some national legislation in place in the United States.

As a coalition, we were no longer able to make statements of any kind about the bill because of the opposing positions of member organizations related to specific aspects of the legislation. That some of the more mainstream members of the coalition’s leadership felt it

was essential that we speak out in support of improving the legislation as the voice of the youth climate movement while environmental justice and Indigenous leaders vehemently opposed the legislation created conflict and division within the coalition.

The experience at the Energy Action Coalition trying to navigate work on ACES illustrates the difficulty of movements with different ethical commitments and worldviews attempting to work together. It was with this experience front of mind that I chose anti- pipeline activism as a site for this research. My perspective was that, unlike climate legislation, with massive opportunity for nuance and technical specifics, pipelines either get built or do not get built2. Many settler environmentalists and Indigenous communities in

Canada are committed to ensuring that pipelines are not built. For the purposes of this research on settler environmental activists wanting to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples, anti-pipeline work provided the opportunity to at least start from a place of goal alignment despite different worldviews. I felt that a context that seemed to provide substantial opportunity for solidarity action had the potential to prove informative about the theory and practice of solidarity.

Methodology

This research engaged primarily with settler activists around their experiences attempting to work in solidarity with Indigenous people and communities in the context of anti-pipeline work. I chose to focus attention on settlers for solutions to problems of

2 While engaged in this research, I have realized that there is more nuance to these positions than I originally anticipated. In some cases, a First Nation may oppose a particular pipeline route but not the pipeline itself. It is also important to note that there are Indigenous people who support pipelines, as well as who may hold various positions on particular pipelines depending on the specifics of the pipeline. I want to ensure I am not presenting Indigenous peoples as a homogenous group aligned to stop pipelines; this is clearly not the case. From a research perspective, that this was an organized movement that included settler environmentalists and Indigenous people who opposed particular pipelines meant that I was able to conduct the research in the context of these nuances.

solidarity most often caused by settlers and settler colonial systems and because of my own settler positionality. My hope was that gaining insight into settler solidarity efforts would benefit both the settler environmentalists and, importantly, the Indigenous people with whom the settler activists were attempting to work in solidarity and whose relationships with environmentalists were often understandably strained. It seemed that by attending to the frameworks structuring settler environmentalism there was potential for anti-pipeline activists to better understand their own perspectives and actions and potentially be better positioned to change them.

Given my interest in understanding personal experiences and perspectives, I chose qualitative interviewing as the method for this research and engaged in careful listening

(Rubin & Rubin, 2005). I conducted individual interviews with twenty-one people, and small group interviews with seven (two groups of two, and one group of three) for a total of twenty-eight participants. I conducted follow-up interviews with four. I do not quote all of these interviews directly in this dissertation, but they all informed my thinking about this project. The in-person interviews took place in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba,

Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. I also conducted an interview over Skype with a participant in Saskatchewan and over the phone with a participant in British Columbia.

Twenty-five participants identified primarily as non-Indigenous, although two mentioned that they may have some Indigenous heritage but did not claim an Indigenous identity. Three identified as Indigenous and were recognized leaders in their communities. I also had guiding conversations about the research near the beginning of the process with two settler environmentalists and one Indigenous community leader as well as a number of informal conversations with friends and past colleagues involved in the environmental movement.

Over the course of the research, I attended and led panels or workshops at three climate conferences and one retreat. All of these interactions, along with my previous experiences in environmentalism and coalition building, informed the research.

In all interviews, I asked participants whether they were willing to be audio recorded and whether they wanted to review a copy of the transcript. I let them know that they were welcome to make changes to the transcript to most accurately reflect what they intended to say. I did not require that the participants review the transcripts but gave them the option to do so and let them know that if they did not respond to my email inviting review that I would assume they did not want to conduct the review. Several did not respond, and a small number made changes to their transcripts. One participant indicated that they did not want to be quoted in the dissertation but was happy to have the content of the interview considered in the analysis.

In each of the interviews I conducted, I also asked the participants whether or not they wanted me to use a pseudonym when I quoted or referenced them in this research. All but two said they did not want a pseudonym used. However, as I completed this dissertation, I decided that my preference was to use pseudonyms for most participants. I felt that naming the participants, particularly in cases where I critique their actions or perspectives or examine emotional experiences, trapped them in a particular moment in time in a way that drew attention to the individuals rather than systems. I want the focus of this dissertation to be the frameworks and assumptions and systems that the environmentalists engage with and in, not the individuals.

I emailed the participants who were quoted in this dissertation to ensure that this change was acceptable. Most did not object, and several expressed that they were glad I was

making the change. One indicated they would prefer not to use a pseudonym but was willing to do so if it was necessary to anonymize other participants. I ultimately anonymized most of the settler participants, with some exceptions based on the context of the conversation when anonymization would have been difficult. I let participants know that if I did not hear from them in two weeks, I would select a pseudonym. Any mentions or quotations that were not anonymized were approved by participants.

The three Indigenous participants are not anonymized. I did not follow up with Alma

Brooks from St. Mary’s First Nation because the quotation I used was very limited and I did not feel it made sense to ask her to take time to approve it. I did follow up with Jordan

Gardner from Eagle Lake First Nation, who told me that the mentions and quotations attributed to him and his father, Chief Arnold Gardner, were fine to leave without anonymization.

Finally, in relation to the use of names, several participants mentioned Eriel Tchekwie

Deranger as an important influence. Eriel is a member of the Athabasca Chipwyan First

Nation and the Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action. I got in touch with Eriel to see if she would prefer to be anonymized, and she said that it was fine to leave the quotations in which she is named as is.

This overview of my research process illuminates several aspects about my methodological approach. While I am not suggesting that this research project is Indigenous or Indigenist research, and I stumbled many times in my attempts to put my learning about

Indigenous methodologies into practice (Helferty, 2019a), learning about the importance of relationships and relationality in Indigenous methodologies (S. Wilson, 2008) influenced both the topic and process of this research. In practice, this meant that I recognized a need for

clarity about my motivations for the research (Hampton, 1995; Kovach, 2009) and was open to discussing these motivations and my own experiences in activism frankly with participants. It was also the flexibility and encouragement of reflexivity that Indigenous methodologies brought to my research that enabled me to identify the topics of the papers included in this dissertation. For example, I did not include questions about burnout or funding in my original interview guide. However, as the topics came up again and again and as I reflected on my own experiences, I realized that these topics were sufficiently central to the experiences of the participants and to my own experience that it made sense to attend to them.

It was also in the context of prioritizing relationships and relationality that I chose to minimally edit the quotes presented in this thesis to be more in line with written rather than spoken English. I felt that it sometimes did a disservice to the participants to provide unedited quotations. In the case of this research, it was important to me to present quotations in such a way that would not result in unnecessary judgement from a reader about the language used, particularly given the informal nature of the interviews, and instead to draw the reader’s attention to the substance of the quotations. However, these edits were limited, and, for example, in cases where the participant moved back and forth between statements or seemed uncertain about a perspective, I have presented their speech in this way to illustrate the uncertainty.

The interviews were conducted based on an interview guide with questions and themes, but the content discussed in each interview varied substantially and the interviews themselves were conversational. While I entered the process with an interview guide and a list of questions, I did not follow the guide closely in most interviews. As is common in in-

depth interviewing, I engaged in follow-up questions with the participants based on their responses while keeping in mind the focus of the research project (Hesse-Biber, 2007). At the same time, I made an effort to create an environment during the interviews for the participants to tell the stories they wanted to tell by not overly structuring the process

(Kovach, 2009). In later interviews, I was also cognizant of commonalities with and divergences from what other participants had already mentioned. Many participants asked me what I was finding through the research, so I often shared my reflections or initial analysis with participants and asked for their feedback.

In terms of my relationship to the participants, given my identity as a former paid climate activist and my political alignment with movement goals, I was somewhat of an

“insider” to anti-pipeline activism. This came with the benefit of an acceptance of my engagement in this research topic and, I believe, trust that I would responsibly engage with their stories and an openness to discussing difficult experiences (Corbin Dwyer & Buckle,

2009). I was also able to engage easily with the activist language, although I generally asked for clarifications or definitions to avoid substituting my assumptions for what the participant meant. That said, my current position as a researcher along with my very limited involvement in anti-pipeline activism in Canada meant that I personally knew very few of the interview participants and very little of their particular activist context before I began the interview process.

identify what was important to them about their activist work. I believe the primary drawback to my insider status is the possibility that I might have inadvertently substituted elements of my past activist context for the experiences of the participants. I addressed this possibility by ensuring that the analysis for all chapters was strongly grounded in interview data.

I conducted the analysis for this research through an iterative process of reading and writing about the data to develop my thinking. I began the analysis process after completing my first round of research trips in spring 2017. I hired out the transcription process for most of the interviews, so began by reviewing and correcting the transcripts while listening to the recordings and making notes about themes of interest. Following this, I began lump coding

(Saldaña, 2016) a small number of interviews that I identified had addressed many topics. I created thirty codes through this process, most of which addressed substantially different topic areas.

I ultimately only made use of two of these codes for later analysis: Solidarity and

Funding. However, this initial process, alongside generative writing, enabled me to identify the topics for the papers contained in this thesis. From the beginning of this process, I had identified that one of the chapters would examine solidarity efforts in relation to existing literature on social movement solidarity. This is the topic of the paper in Chapter Two. As I mentioned earlier, the other two topics, the non-profit complex (Chapter Three) and callouts and burnout (Chapter Four), emerged from the data. I selected them because of the depth and breadth of the data on these topics, as well as the usefulness that I felt these topics had to the theory and practice of settler environmentalism and solidarity.

As I worked to analyze data, I continued to conduct interviews. As a result of having selected paper topics, the later interviews were more focused than the earlier ones although they maintained a conversational dynamic. Most of the interviews took place in restaurants or coffee shops, which had the benefit of creating a casual environment, and I often purchased a snack or drink for the participants as a gesture of thanks for sharing their time and perspectives.

I conducted final interviews in early 2018. I felt that there was enough data to address the topics identified. I remained open to conducting interviews with new participants if there was interest, in particular those located in Alberta and with Indigenous participants. That none of the participants were Alberta-based is not problematic from the perspective of breadth of data, since the data is not intended to be able to speak to the specifics of every region of the country. However, the lack of participants from Alberta in a research project about anti-pipeline activism, when all of these pipelines originate in Alberta, is a notable gap.

Unfortunately, my outreach to potential participants in Alberta never resulted in an interview.

I remained open to new Indigenous participants or additional potential participants who I felt had unique insights and who I met later in 2018 and 2019 and did engage in interesting discussions about the research findings with some of these individuals. However, I did not ultimately schedule additional interviews.

While completing interviews in 2018, I began to code the data into the three themes:

Solidarity, Funding, and Emotions. The codes often included multiple paragraphs or pages within the interview transcripts. Following this process, I examined each of the codes for subthemes. I decided to engage only with three interviews for the paper related to callouts and conflicts but remained open to using any of the interviews for the solidarity and funding

papers. I engaged in extensive generative writing (twice the word count of this dissertation), which served as a flexible analytic memoing process, and with the literature on the three topics.

This analysis process felt somewhat unwieldy and circular. It is a challenge to explain it here. On reflection, it was through a combination of the structure of coding and the flexibility with which I approached generative writing, which included my feelings and uncertainties and frustrations alongside reflections on the content, that enabled me to generate the ideas presented in these papers. The generative writing was contained in one long document, which enabled me to easily review my earlier writing. I am also thankful to friends, former colleagues in activism, and research participants who responded to occasional direct outreach or social media posts about the topics I was engaging with over the course of the analytical process. Particularly critical to my analysis process was being able to consistently bounce ideas off of a fellow early career academic interested in solidarity and willing to engage in occasionally lengthy text message interactions to move my ideas along and point out my assumptions or biases.

Research participants

Environmentalism is a broad movement, and the people involved have varied approaches and priorities. Currently in Canada, for example, these include advocacy for species at risk, campaigns against the Site C dam, and conservation research. Local environmental groups engage in activities ranging from river clean-ups to gardening to lobbying to organizing marches to locking down at pipeline construction sites. Organizations can be focused on local, regional, and/or global issues. Given the diversity of approaches within the environmental movement, and the various priorities and theories of change

associated with this diversity, I will briefly describe the particular community of activists I engaged with for this research.

Firstly, I will describe the demographic characteristics of participants to the extent I am able. I collected demographic data through following-up with interview participants to ask them to fill out a brief form. Fifteen of twenty-eight participants responded to my request for additional information. For the participants who did not respond, I drew from information gained during our interviews about participants’ identities and positionalities. Because not all of the participants responded to my additional request, this data is likely imperfect; however,

I believe it is reasonably accurate. To the best of my knowledge, twenty-one of the twenty- five settler activists interviewed identify as white, and the additional four with racialized or mixed backgrounds sometimes passed as white and were sometimes racialized. The high proportion of white participants is common within mainstream environmentalism, which has historically been a primarily white movement (Curnow & Helferty, 2018). There was recognition within the anti-pipeline community of the whiteness within the movement.

To the best of my knowledge, seventeen of the twenty-eight participants identified as women, and the remainder identified as men. To my knowledge, no participants identified as non-binary or used they/them pronouns. Of the fifteen participants who submitted demographic forms, eleven were in their 20s and 30s. I interviewed two Indigenous Elders, both of whom were grandparents.

Participants in this research project were likely willing to talk to me in part because they were interested in issues related to settler-Indigenous relationships and solidarity, and often also with whiteness in environmentalism. This interest is not necessarily true of all anti-

pipeline activists; however, that it was relatively easy to find interested participants suggests that this is a common concern among anti-pipeline activists.

In addition to increasingly widespread awareness among settler people in Canada about the importance of Indigenous rights, particularly following Idle No More (Coates,

2015; Monkman & Morin, 2017), this prevalence may also be connected to a network or collective campaign that, to the best of my knowledge, twenty of the participants were connected to in limited or substantial ways. I will call this the Anti-Pipeline Campaign (APC) for the purposes of this discussion. Some of the twenty participants mentioned were funded through this process or worked at organizations that received funding, and some were volunteer participants in organizations that received funding or had at some point attended a retreat or meeting organized by the campaign. I attended the sixth and final annual retreat for the campaign in early summer 2017.

As a funding body and convener, the priorities of the APC would likely influence the people and organizations they funded. Working with Indigenous peoples was a priority of the leadership of this group. It did not give specific direction, but, in later years, required funding applicants to indicate how they were working in some way with Indigenous communities. At the annual strategy meeting, Indigenous solidarity was a central topic of discussion, and there were often Indigenous leaders in attendance at the retreat. As a result, settler activists who might otherwise have had little engagement with Indigenous communities or worldviews in the context of their organizational work learned about the importance of working alongside

Indigenous communities and being informed by Indigenous perspectives. I discuss the implications of involvement in the APC in more detail in Chapter Three.

Dissertation format

This dissertation follows the manuscript approach. It consists of three self-contained papers intended for submission for publication, as well as this Introduction chapter and a

Conclusion chapter that ties the content together. Chapter Two, which focuses on solidarity, will be submitted to a social movements journal. Chapter Three, which focuses on philanthropy and activism, will be submitted to a journal focused on work in non-profits.

Chapter Four, which focuses feeling rules in activism, is currently under review in a peer- reviewed journal focused on emotions. I took the approach of a manuscript thesis in order to conduct analysis based on substantially different topics and make use of different literatures that each provide a unique perspective on solidarity in the context of anti-pipeline activism.

Summary of papers

In this dissertation, I discuss three themes related to settler anti-pipeline activists’ efforts to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples: the nature of the solidarity efforts in the context of anti-pipeline activism, solidarity efforts within the non-profit industrial complex, and experiences of callouts and conflict in solidarity-focused work. In this section, I will summarize each of these papers.

In Chapter Two, I examine settler activists’ understandings of their relationships with

Indigenous peoples and First Nations in the context of anti-pipeline activism on Indigenous land. In an effort to contradict the typical framework of settler environmentalism, in which

(white) settler people have an unquestioned right to determine what happens on “empty” land, settler anti-pipeline activists are attempting to conduct anti-pipeline activism in a relationship of frontline solidarity with Indigenous peoples. However, the turn to a frontline solidarity model is implicated in white supremacy and settler colonialism through its reliance on the strategic use of white settler privilege and resources.

Settler activists were unable to alleviate anxieties by correctly performing the good white ally or subverting white settler power. The settler activists were at times able to do useful work toward a shared goal of stopping pipelines; however, this work did not align the settler activists with self-determination for Indigenous peoples. Learning from the work of

Madeline Whetung (2017), I propose that the settler activists reorient themselves to remaining “unreconciled” rather than attempting to solve white settler environmentalism through the anti-pipeline work.

In Chapter Three, I focus on the participants most involved in the Anti-Pipeline

Campaign to examine the influence of professionalization and systems of philanthropy on paid anti-pipeline activists’ engagement with frontline solidarity. Large-scale philanthropy relies on the ability of individuals to amass massive amounts of wealth, often through extraction of resources on Indigenous land. As such, philanthropic foundations are unlikely to support self-determination of Indigenous peoples even as they were willing to disrupt the long-established oil industry through supporting anti-pipeline campaigning.

Participation in the APC contributed to the desire of settler activists to position anti- pipeline work as frontline solidarity as a result of learning about the importance of

Indigenous leadership on land-based work from Indigenous leaders also involved in the campaign. However, that the settler activists were required to campaign to stop pipelines as their work, with or without the involvement of Indigenous peoples, limited their ability to engage in the frontline solidarity model in the way they wanted. In addition, while some pre- existing relationship of solidarity were supported by the campaign, the system of philanthropy in which the APC existed ultimately limited most solidarity attempts or even risked exacerbating Indigenous leaders’ distrust of environmentalists. While not

decolonizing, some pre-existing relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples were able to be supported around the edges of the campaign.

In Chapter Four, in order to understand the ways settler environmentalists are reacting to being called out or experiencing conflict, I discuss a “feeling rule” (Hochschild, 2012) particular to the context of settler environmentalists attempting to work in solidarity with

Indigenous peoples. A feeling rule is a “a script or moral stance” (Hochschild, 2012, p. 50) that indicates which feelings are socially available or appropriate in a particular setting. The rule discussed in this paper is that settlers are not allowed to feel pain when they are called out or criticized in relation to their solidarity work with Indigenous peoples, or to place blame on an Indigenous person for their painful experiences. I connect the roots of this feeling rule to two narratives prevalent in the Canadian social context generally and the environmental activist context specifically: the narrative of white fragility, and the narrative of trauma in Indigenous communities. Despite the rule, I find that settlers are feeling pain when called out, so in order to re-align themselves with the rule they are making great efforts to deny the legitimacy of this pain to themselves and others. The rule limits the potential for settlers to support each other to learn and heal from past experiences.

In the final chapter I reflect on the chapters separately and together and on the methodological approach of this research project. I discuss limitations of and considerations for the research and identify several opportunities for further research that I feel would advance scholarship on social movement solidarity in general and in environmental contexts specifically.

Significance

I approached this research with the joint goals of supporting Indigenous-settler activist collaborations and contributing to the literature on social movement solidarity. This research will be useful for settler environmentalists as a vehicle through which to examine their processes and assumptions. While I do not anticipate that the research participants will all agree with all aspects of this analysis, it provides an opening for conversation and reflection leading to action. This research will also prove useful for activists in other movements, particularly those attempting to incorporate solidarity into a system and set of practices rooted in settler worldviews or assumptions.

Through this dissertation, I have attempted to focus on systems and processes rather than the actions of individual activists. I took this approach both because of my own understanding of the power of norms within systems and to hopefully enable activists to understand critiques as those of behaviours within systems and not critiques of the people themselves. In doing so, this dissertation attempts to provide an example of an attempt to be critical and compassionate and to express critiques in a way that those involved can hear and understand.

From a scholarly perspective, this dissertation will be of interest to social movement scholars interested in solidarity and philanthropy and contributes to the conversation about emotions and feeling rules inside and outside social movement contexts. This dissertation engages with increasingly prevalent conversations around white fragility and white anxiety and with work focused on settlers in settler colonial states. In a context in which action to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis becomes more and more pressing each year, this dissertation aims to work alongside activist and academic communities striving to ensure that the world that we recreate each day is rooted in relationality and justice.

Chapter 2

“I Have A Stake In It Too”: Contradictions of Solidarity in Anti-Pipeline Activism in

Canada

In the late 2000s, I was facilitating a national youth climate coalition in the United

States called the Energy Action Coalition3. With the election of President Obama in 2008, many climate activists in the United States were daring to hope that national climate legislation could be passed. Energy Action, which was made up of organizations from the mainstream environmental, environmental justice, and Indigenous environmental movements, was attempting to take a position on the proposed American Clean Energy and

Security Act (ACES).

What quickly became clear in our attempts to draft positions and media releases on the proposed legislation were the deep and irreconcilable positions of the organizations involved in the coalition. While many of the mainstream organizations were in support of the legislation, although calls for strengthening were universal, many Indigenous and environmental justice organizations did not support or even ultimately opposed the bill for multiple reasons including its reliance on carbon trading and its weak reduction targets.

While my memory of the details of these deep disagreements has faded, I can clearly bring myself back to the frustration and sadness of attempting to facilitate a coalition position that bridged irreconcilable differences. From my perspective, the ACES fights were incredibly damaging to the coalition and a great deal of trust among members was lost.

It was with this experience in mind that I began to research the anti-pipeline fights in

Canada. Unlike ACES, with all its details and nuances, the pipeline issue forces a binary: an

3 The Energy Action Coalition is currently called the Power Shift Network.

organization can either support a pipeline project or oppose it. Because there could be no half pipelines there was limited opportunity for compromise, and many environmental organizations and First Nations were in agreement that the pipelines must be stopped. I felt that this starting place of agreement had the potential to provide a foundation for building relationships between settler environmentalists and Indigenous land defenders. In addition, I conducted this research at a time of increasing awareness among settlers in Canada of the importance of Indigenous rights and a focus on right relations between settlers and

Indigenous peoples. It is in this context that this paper explores the efforts of settler anti- pipeline activists, a subset of the broader community of climate activists, to position anti- pipeline work in the model of solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

Unlike, for example, the international anti-apartheid movement, environmentalism is often not understood as a solidarity movement because the people involved in environmental action are campaigning to achieve goals or outcomes that positively impact themselves

(Sundberg, 2007). Environmentalists themselves do not typically position their work as solidarity. Settler environmentalism, in addition, has a problematic history of perpetuating white supremacy and causing direct harm to Indigenous peoples (Curnow & Helferty, 2018).

Settler environmentalism is founded on the premise that white settlers are right to determine what happens on Indigenous land (Curnow & Helferty, 2018; Paperson, 2014).

In contrast with environmentalist approaches, the type of social movement solidarity engaged by the participants in this research and commonly discussed in movement spaces typically involves a relationship between a “frontline”/more impacted community and a more privileged or less impacted group working in solidarity with the frontline community. For the purposes of this discussion, I call this “frontline solidarity.” Frontline solidarity is a fairly

common approach in relationships of solidarity between settlers and Indigenous peoples on

Indigenous land, in which settlers are understood to be taking up their right roles in relation to Indigenous peoples by following Indigenous leadership and supporting self-determination

(Kraemer, 2000). Frontline solidarity is often connected to decolonization, although can also risk reinscribing colonialism and domination through the reinforcement of social hierarchies based on racist and colonial logics (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2012).

In this paper, I examine settler activists’ understandings of their relationships with

Indigenous peoples and First Nations in the context of anti-pipeline activism on Indigenous land. In a deliberate contrast with typical framework of settler environmentalism, in which settler people have an unquestioned right to determine what happens on “empty” land, settler anti-pipeline activists hold a strong desire to position anti-pipeline activism in a frontline solidarity relationship and want to follow Indigenous leadership. However, in contrast with other frontline solidarity movements, their rationales for engaging in anti-pipeline activism in the first place are related to water and climate issues and not Indigenous self-determination.

They are layering in a goal of solidarity with Indigenous peoples on top of a pre-existing anti-pipeline goal.

I argue in this paper that the turn to frontline solidarity to solve the problems of settler environmentalism ultimately failed to enable settler activists to meet their goal of correctly performing the good white ally or subverting white settler power. Settler environmentalism was not solved by turning to frontline solidarity. The settler activists, driven to find a new model through which to interact with Indigenous peoples in the context of anti-pipeline campaigns that hinged on Indigenous legal rights and land defence, were no closer aligned with self-determination for Indigenous peoples than they were before they attempted these

new relationships. However, within an effort to alleviate anxieties and prefigure Indigenous governance through a frontline solidarity model, the settler activists were at times able to do useful work toward a shared goal of stopping pipelines.

I begin this paper with a discussion of settler environmentalism to provide context for this research on anti-pipeline activism. I subsequently engage with a discussion of solidarity in social movements to examine how stakes, benefit, and roles are understood in the movement-based literature and how whiteness and settler identities connect to the frontline solidarity model. I discuss my methodological approach, and then analyze the frontline solidarity efforts of settler activists stemming from the data collected for this research. I conclude with a discussion of frontline solidarity in theory and practice.

Settler environmentalism

Environmental activism in Canada is premised on the understanding that settler people have the right to make decisions about what happens on Indigenous land. Environmental activism engages settler people to pressure settler governments to adopt or reject policies related to the use of land, or, in the case of conservation, to “protect” land from use by people

(Atleo, 2010; Curnow & Helferty, 2018). As such, environmentalism is dependent on and reinforces settler colonial worldviews, processes, and structures. Environmentalism also at times overlaps with the animal rights movement, which has operated in violent opposition to

Indigenous peoples’ hunting and fishing rights (Arnaquq-Baril, 2016; Denis, 2015; Nadasdy,

2005).

In the context of these foundations, I join Paperson (2014) in naming “settler environmentalism.” Settler environmentalism describes the characteristics of

environmentalism undertaken by settler people on Indigenous lands. Paperson (2014) provides a succinct definition:

…settler environmentalism describes efforts to redeem the settler as ecological, often

focusing on settler identity and belonging through tropes of Indigenous appropriations

– returning to the wildman or demigoddess, claiming of one’s natural or ‘native’ self

and thus the land, again” (p. 122).

In this section, I build on Paperson’s (2014) work to discuss the protection of “empty” land in settler environmentalism.

Environmentalism as it exists in Canada and the United States today has its roots in terra nullius, the assumption or assertion that Turtle Island was and is empty and available for settlement. It is through this theory that settlers believe themselves rightful decision- makers over Indigenous land. It was only in 2014 that the doctrine was declared invalid in

Canada (Fine, 2014), and its premise endures in the United States Wilderness Act (Dowie,

2006). However, to this day, enshrined in Canadian legal precedent is the assertion that

“protection of the environment or endangered species” is a valid reason to infringe on

Indigenous rights (Williamson, 2017). As John Borrows, an Anishinabe/Ojibway law professor and member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation, puts it, “Canadian law still has terra nullius written all over it” (p. 702).

Environmentalism is also rooted in settler understandings of “wilderness” as space for settler urbanites to escape to (Aguiar & Marten, 2011) and white people (men) to seek to understand themselves (Thorpe, 2011). In understanding the wilderness as “pristine,” places are produced as without history or people, including, most obviously, Indigenous peoples

(Braun, 2002; Cronon, 1995). This understanding fails to recognize that the wilderness was

mythologized as empty space by removing Indigenous peoples from the land through “not only homicide, but also state-sanctioned miscegenation, the issuing of individual land titles, native citizenship, child abduction, religious conversion, reprogramming (via missions or boarding schools), and myriad forms of assimilation” (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013, p. 77).

Anti-pipeline work, particularly in the United States, makes use of the frame of land ownership and defence of settler property rights (Bosworth, 2018). As Bosworth describes it, part of the anger and frustration experienced by some settler people living near the Keystone

XL pipeline path in a rural area of the United States was that, in having their property seized for development, they were being “treated like Indians.” Settler discourses about empty wilderness enable anti-pipeline activists to engage in conservation and land preservation- based strategies as rightful actors. Without relying on terra nullius and Indigenous erasure, settler anti-pipeline activists are unable to determine the correct approach to development in

Canada. The logic of environmentalism fails.

Environmentalism is broadly understood to be problematically aligned with whiteness and the settler state (Dhaliwal, 2015; Levelle, 2017; Mock, 2014; Purifoy, 2018; Smith

Dahmen, 2017). The anti-pipeline activists discussed in this paper have turned to frontline solidarity as a way to solve the problematic foundations of settler environmentalism. In order to frame the work of the anti-pipeline activists, in the following section I discuss frontline solidarity as it is engaged in the social movement literature.

Social movement solidarity

“Solidarity” is used to describe many different types of relationships, with the most substantial agreement around the assertion that the concept is poorly defined (Bayertz, 1999;

Gaztambide-Fernández, 2012; Power & Charlip, 2009; Scholz, 2008; Sundberg, 2007;

Wilde, 2007). The literature on frontline solidarity is embedded within a growing literature exploring solidarity from various theoretical perspectives. In philosophy and political science contexts, for example, scholars have engaged in theoretical work to define different types of solidarity. In an often-cited approach, Bayertz (1999) identified 1. “solidarity and morality,” the human-to-human global community; 2. “solidarity and society,” community-level solidarity between individuals; 3. “solidarity and liberation,” in which individuals form a group to advocate for their rights against an unjust opponent; and, 4. “solidarity and the welfare state,” the idea that the state should support the wellbeing of all individuals.

In another model, Dean (1996) proposes “reflective solidarity” which relies on the risk of disagreements and dissent to build connections. She contrasts this model with conventional solidarity that bonds people together through group identity or subject-making; affectional solidarity which is based in personal relationships; and tactical solidarity which engages with solidarity between groups as a strategic means to an end but relies on dissolving difference in response to a commonly defined enemy. Dean critiques both tactical and conventional solidarities for reinforcing “us-them” distinctions and creating appeals based on similarities between groups or positionalities, whereas in reflective solidarity the

“we” is defined internally rather than in relation to an external body or force.

In both Bayertz and Dean’s discussions, many different types of relationships can be described as in some way connected to solidarity. The diversity of relationships for which the term is used means that additional clarification is needed. For the purposes of this research, I am examining “solidarity” as it is commonly used in social movements spaces: to describe relationships between groups, organizations, and/or communities rather than individuals.

While individuals involved in social movements come together to form a collective identity through solidarity, through perhaps one or more of the approaches Dean (1996) theorizes, this is distinct from the solidarity that I engage with in this paper.

That said, further discussion is necessary when discussing social movement solidarity between groups. Solidarity is theorized and acted on differently in different social movement contexts depending on the positionalities of the groups involved and how the groups understand their relationship to each other and to the movement issue. One formulation of solidarity between groups, what Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (2017), a Michi Saagiig

Nishnaabeg scholar and artist, calls “coresistance” and what otherwise might be called

“South-South” or “Black-Brown” (Makhijani, 2015; Márquez, 2014) solidarities, engages with relationships between peoples struggling against systems of oppression such as settler colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy. Simpson, alongside Tuck et al. (2014), argues for the importance of engagement between Indigenous and Black (and sometimes

Brown) communities to learn from each other’s practices, theories, and worldviews.

Alternatively, in situations in which relationships of solidarity in social movements are understood to exist between groups positioned quite differently in relation to movement issue(s), as well as when one group is regionally and/or globally positioned as privileged, a solidarity relationship may exist that makes a clear designation between a “frontline”/“most impacted” group and a group designated to work in solidarity. In this model, social movement solidarity is often understood as action undertaken by one group, the solidarity group, for the benefit of another group, the frontline group (C. C. Gould, 2007; Passy, 2001;

Sundberg, 2007). Building on theoretical work related to environmental activism and solidarity with Indigenous peoples (Curnow & Helferty, 2018), it is this second model that I

engage primarily with in this paper in order to examine relationships of solidarity premised on different social locations and working across systems of power.

For most organizations engaged in frontline solidarity, the rationale for action among members of the solidarity group is tied primarily to benefit for the frontline community. This relationship structure is definitional to frontline solidarity; if benefit was shared more equally between the groups, one group would not be recognized as frontline. The frontline group stands to benefit more than the solidarity group from achievement of movement goals. The solidarity group is understood to be more distanced from the movement issue in terms of the impact felt to members. This latter group is also often systemically privileged.

While this may appear to fall into the model of a charitable or helping relationship, and the actions undertaken by groups engaged in frontline solidarity may at times be difficult to distinguish from a charitable approach (Koopman, 2012), solidarity is philosophically underpinned by a commitment to global justice and an understanding of a need to change systems of power. This understanding of systemic inequities in power structures leads groups in solidarity relationships to identify the importance of movement leadership coming from frontline community members. In addition to recognizing that those with greater stake should have greater say, this approach works to prefigure governance systems that value the knowledge of systemically marginalized peoples. In the context of frontline solidarity relationships between settler groups and Indigenous peoples, this movement structure attempts to prefigure Indigenous governance on Indigenous land.

In the following sections, I examine in greater detail issues of stakes, benefit, and leadership in the context of frontline solidarity. I draw primarily from literature on North-

South transnational frontline solidarities because they attend to racial and colonial dynamics

central to the context of mostly white anti-pipeline activists working in solidarity with

Indigenous peoples on Indigenous land.

Benefit and stakes in social movement solidarity

While frontline solidarity is understood as action taken by one group primarily for the benefit of a frontline group, benefit may be theorized in multiple different ways in the context of frontline solidarity relationships. In this section, I will discuss the ways that social movement organizations working in solidarity have understood their relationship to movement goals and the various ways they understand themselves as benefiting from the movement.

In a straightforward formulation of frontline solidarity, Giugni and Grasso (2019) and

Passy (2001) draw on McCarthy and Zald’s (1977) articulation of “conscience constituents” in social movements to discuss “political altruism,” which they indicate that the conscience constituents are displaying because they do not benefit from the solidarity action. While

Giugni and Grasso’s (2019) analysis complicates ideas of complete separation, since they find that greater “social proximity” and “group attachment” to those most directly benefitting from the solidarity efforts increases the likelihood of an individual engaging in solidarity action, the premise of their analysis relies on a distinction between who is engaged in action and who benefits from the action.

The issue of who benefits can substantially influence solidarity activism in practice. In the context of the Fair Trade movement, for example, student activists considered it essential that their solidarity efforts be focused on benefit to farmers and workers in the Global South.

Over time, some students participating in United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) in the

United States became sufficiently concerned about their work promoting Fair Trade being

co-opted for the benefit of private interests in the North that they ultimately decided to boycott Fair Trade products in a dramatic and contentious reversal of position (B. R. Wilson

& Curnow, 2013). This example illustrates the importance for solidarity activists of prioritizing benefit to the communities with which the solidarity activists worked. The USFT student activists were sufficiently committed to maintaining their focus on alignment with and benefit to workers in the Global South that they turned their back on a brand they had worked to build.

In other cases, benefit in social movement contexts may be theorized as shared or reciprocal rather than primarily one-directional, although this shared benefit may be very uneven in practice. In a discussion of transnational solidarities and drawing a parallel to social solidarity within groups, for example, Gould (2007) theorizes solidarity between groups as “implicitly reciprocal” (158) or networked. She gives the example of groups in

North America learning about effective group processes used in African communities while working to stop female genital mutilation in Africa. However, this example relies on an understanding of discursive solidarity that seems limited, and Gould recognizes that the reality of solidarity in practice may make substantial reciprocity unlikely between groups with very uneven access to power and resources.

In a different practice-based theorization of mutual benefit, anti-apartheid activists who were members of the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group (City Group) in London, UK, in the late 1980s, understood their solidarity activism as multi-directional and more than an asymmetrical flow of support (Brown & Yaffe, 2014). Drawing from Massey’s (2008) discussion of how connections can be made across place and power, Brown and Yaffe (2014) make the case that City Group understood its anti-apartheid solidarity action through political

and economic connections between Britain and South Africa, from both countries’ distinct but connected positions in colonial processes to local experiences of racism and the common enemy of the capitalist class. Stemming from this understanding, benefits of movement work would then be shared between people in South Africa and in England. However, City Group was clear that the benefit of anti-apartheid activism would be primarily felt by Black South

Africans, even as they connected their work to local racism in the UK.

Benefit may also be theorized as shared between local group members, if still differentiated based on the ways that systems of oppression differently structure people’s lives. For example, Kraemer (2000, 2007) indicated that all members of a Kanaka Maoli sovereignty group she was a member of in Hawai’i understood themselves as standing to benefit from Kanaka Maoli sovereignty, not only the Kanaka Maoli group members.

Kraemer and the other “ally” group members understood themselves as standing to benefit from the results of their efforts, and therefore having a stake in the work of the group.

However, they did not position themselves as standing to benefit from the work in the same way as the Kanaka Maoli leaders and participants in the group. Benefit was understood as shared, but not as equivalent.

Similarly, in the context of campus anti-sweatshop activism, Silvey (2002) positioned herself as having a stake in the activism as a faculty member on a campus with an active anti- sweatshop campaign. Taking a public position opposing sweatshop labour, and in this way aligning herself with student activists, threatened her perception of her own job security in the context of an unsupportive administration. This potential risk resulting from taking a political position created an environment in which Silvey experienced herself as having a stake in the outcome. She additionally theorized that the students running the campaign had a

stake in the anti-sweatshop solidarity activism and that it was not solely for the benefit of sweatshop workers because the same neoliberal forces entwining campuses and corporations and limiting faculty availability for students were the forces creating sweatshops. While maintaining “vigilant awareness of the painful differences” (p. 205) between the worlds of the students and those of the sweatshop workers, she argued that understanding solidarity through this lens makes the student movement sharper. This understanding of stakes goes beyond a general commitment to global justice as the rationale for solidarity activism; instead, it draws connections to the structures and hierarchies that shape the lives of both frontline and solidarity communities.

Within one movement, solidarity activists and scholars may theorize stakes in different ways based on their positionalities and their perceptions of the breadth of the system(s) they are working to change. For example, in contrast with Brown and Yaffe’s (2014) understanding of the work of City Group in the anti-apartheid movement as ending racism and systems of oppression in South Africa and in England, Kofi Hope’s (2011) research positions anti-apartheid activists based in Canada as not having a stake in the work of the movement and acting entirely out of a sense of moral responsibility. These different ways of understanding the same broad movement illustrate the diversity among groups that comprise movements and the multiple ways stake can be theorized even within frontline solidarity movements that deliberately recognize disparate social location.

Many of the groups discussed in this section complicate the clear divide between solidarity and frontline groups in terms of stake and benefit, where members of the solidarity group may understand themselves as having some stake in movement outcomes. However, what is consistent across these approaches is the secondary positioning of the solidarity

group’s stake or benefit as compared to the stake and benefit of members of the frontline group. Frontline solidarity is understood to be primarily for the benefit of members of the frontline group and is mediated through shared political commitments and shared understandings of social structures and hierarchies. The solidarity group’s rationale for action is to work toward justice that will primarily benefit members of the frontline group. While this is most obvious in cases where there is great physical distance between group members, such as in the anti-apartheid and Fair Trade movements, this rationale holds even within groups.

Leadership and decision-making

Connected to questions of stakes and benefit, solidarity activists often navigate issues related to group roles and leadership in solidarity activism. Positions about what roles solidarity activists should take in relation to frontline activists are understood in the context of local and global power dynamics and systems of oppression. In recognition of the unjust hierarchies within which activism is embedded and the importance of those most impacted by movement injustices leading the movement, solidarity groups often proactively address the issues of roles and leadership.

For example, despite conceptualizing herself and other allies as having a stake and standing to benefit from the work of the group, the group advocating for Kanaka Maoli sovereignty that Kraemer (2000, 2007) participated in and researched in Hawai’i designated only Kanaka Maoli group members as “core” members and decision-makers. In this group, they additionally divided non-Indigenous participants into haole, or white people/privileged people/colonizers, and people considered “local” who were most often racialized and historically connected to Hawai’i through plantation work. Haole and local people were both

considered allies in the structure of this sovereignty group. Core members approved of and appreciated allies who engaged in roles such as cleaning and childcare and were not seen to be taking over the group leadership, or who were willing to strategically make use of their privileged positionalities when asked (Kraemer, 2000). Privileged allies taking on reproductive labour and willing to take direction were seen to be understanding their right roles in the group, a framework also found elsewhere in the solidarity literature (Keefer,

2010).

In addition, privileged solidarity activists were criticized for positioning themselves as the default leaders of a social movement group (Kraemer, 2000) or determining for themselves what the solidarity work should be rather than having this work framed by frontline communities (Sharoni, 2006), practices which undermine the knowledge, experiences, and expertise of frontline activists. One of the Kanaka Maoli participants

Kraemer interviewed identified this as a particularly common problem when privileged group members considered themselves experienced activists and would enter the group with the assumption that they should lead from their first meeting (Kraemer, 2000). The obliviousness of this performance of superiority among privileged group members reinforces the importance of establishing norms related to leadership within and between groups.

Other social movement scholars are similarly clear about the need for frontline communities to lead and direct solidarity activism. For example, Gill (2009) criticizes the framing of the anti-Coca-Cola campaigning in the early 2000s on United States (US) college and university campuses as largely disconnected from the class-focused labour campaigns in

Colombia with which the students purported to be in solidarity. She suggests that this disconnection came about as a result of a combination of factors including the distinct

cultures of the places, anti-corporate in the US rather than anti-capitalist and pro-labour in

Colombia, as well as the lack of a narrative in the US-based campaign that went beyond the murder of labour leaders to include many other complex workers’ rights violations. Gill calls this “labour philanthropy,” citing Buhlungu (2008), rather than “labour solidarity,” distinguishing between the two models based on who determines the focus and frame of the work.

That said, as in the case of Fair Trade and anti-sweatshop activism, scholars are not arguing that there is a need for frontline activists in the Global South to tell solidarity activists in the Global North what specific actions they should be taking in their own local contexts or among other privileged people. Frontline activists do not need to provide specific instruction or direction to solidarity activists. Instead, the critique Gill (2009) makes is related to solidarity activists failing to properly understand the perspectives, worldviews, and multiple complex and intersecting priorities of the frontline activists.

In another example related to group leadership, City Group, the London-based anti- apartheid solidarity group discussed earlier, was formed by Norma Kitson and her friends and family (Brown & Yaffe, 2014). Kitson was a white South African in exile whose spouse,

David Kitson, also white, was a political prisoner in South Africa. Kitson’s political positionality in relation to the various prongs of the anti-apartheid movements in South

Africa and the UK were taken up by City Group, positions which so significantly impacted the relationships between City Group and the broader UK anti-apartheid movement that the national movement expelled City Group in 1985 (Brown & Yaffe, 2013). While Brown and

Yaffe do not frame this as one of group leadership in relation to positionality as I am doing here, they clearly indicate the importance of Kitson and her family as leaders in the group.

Alongside this emphasis on Kitson’s leadership, Brown and Yaffe position City Group as “subordinate to the actions of the [B]lack majority in South Africa and their popular organisations” (Brown & Yaffe, 2014, p. 41). In doing so, they position Black South

Africans as the leaders and decision-makers in the context of anti-apartheid work. That they take this position despite theorizing solidarity as reciprocal speaks to the strength of the political commitment within solidarity movements that frontline communities should lead, and solidarity activists should follow.

Interestingly, in the context of their research on accompaniment, a type of solidarity activism in which (mostly white, mostly Global North) individuals travel to (mostly Global

South) communities in order to draw attention to and reduce the likelihood of violence, neither Koopman (2012) nor Mahrouse (2007) substantially address questions of who should be leading or making decisions. However, it may be that the assumption that the accompanied are the leaders and the accompaniers are making use of their whiteness and/or citizenship as tools and therefore not leading is so ingrained in accompaniment that

Koopman and Mahrouse did not feel it needed to be explicitly explained. Koopman gestures to this when she writes that Latinx accompaniers in Colombia needed to be careful to not get inadvertently involved in community decision-making because of their closer relationships to the community members, which indicates that decision-making was intended to sit with local

Colombians. Similarly, Mahrouse describes how important it was to the accompaniers that they were invited to the places they were doing the accompaniment. As one of the activists

Mahrouse interviewed said, the activist believed they were right to go to Palestine because

“we were invited there by the Palestinians, as compared to just showing up on the doorstep,”

(p. 116). This positioning, as well as the distress Mahrouse found accompaniers experienced

if they were not immediately welcomed by every Palestinian they encountered, gestures toward accompaniers’ understandings of themselves as responding to a call or invitation rather than initiating or leading action.

Finley-Brook and Hoyt (2009) identify dilemmas about how to follow the leadership of those most impacted in practice when different groups of frontline communities have different approaches to the issue. In a familiar division within social movements, groups in the US and in Central America were divided between those willing to participate in improving the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and those committed to opposing the agreement. Groups engaged in these types of divisions have been called reformative and transformative or “reasonables” and “radicals” (Curnow et al., 2019). The differences in approach among groups in the US were substantially based on their solidarity commitments to particular partners in Central America (Finley-Brook & Hoyt, 2009). US- based groups that chose to oppose CAFTA did so to be in solidarity with longstanding

Central American partners holding this position, although Finley-Brook and Hoyt mention that they struggled with “how best to represent the needs of Central Americans” (p. 35) when some more mainstream Central American groups supported improvement of CAFTA rather than opposition. This speaks to the desire of solidarity groups to take direction from the people they identify as “most impacted” by the movement issue, as well as the challenges of navigating contradicting direction and the inevitability of needing to make a choice about with whom to stand in solidarity in the context of opposing positions.

Leadership from members of frontline communities is central to frontline solidarity relationships. While this approach can become complicated in practice, particularly when power or privilege among members of the solidarity group is asserted, the approach stems

logically from the rationale of working to right systemic injustices and the idea that those most impacted should direct movement priorities. A relationship structure in which frontline peoples lead prefigures a more just system.

Whiteness and privilege in solidarity activism

As discussed in the previous sections, frontline solidarity action is intertwined with privilege. Without systemic inequities that favoured some groups over others, frontline solidarity would not exist. While in some movements this privilege may be tied to other social characteristics, in many it is connected to whiteness. In accompaniment, for example, activists make strategic use of white supremacy to draw attention to violence perpetrated on

Black and Brown people, although accompaniers do express some anxiety about the potential for this model to perpetuate the very systems of oppression they are attempting to work against (Koopman, 2012; Mahrouse, 2007). In other movements, such as the mainstream environmentalist (Curnow & Helferty, 2018), women’s (D’Arcangelis, 2015; Zajicek, 2002), and queer (Han, 2007; Rosenberg, 2017) movements, the movements are problematically dominated by whiteness and white people.

Whiteness impacts solidarity activism when white activists enact their privilege. As

Mahrouse (2007) described in the context of accompaniment, “white/Western activists cannot help but re-enact a colonizing role” (p. 93) through offering advice to local activists or encouraging radical actions without sufficient understanding of who would suffer the consequences. This echoes Kraemer’s (2000) description of experienced white activists feeling they were right to advise Kanaka Maoli sovereignty group leaders about movement strategy. Activists Mahrouse interviewed identified this problem as the result of

accompaniers failing to deeply consider their positionality and privileges and properly understand the local context before engaging in accompaniment (Mahrouse, 2007).

Whiteness and privilege can also appear in the framing of frontline communities as victims or powerless. For example, some students in the anti-sweatshop movement in the

United States reinforced stereotypes resulting from systems of domination in positioning themselves as saviours of “poor, Asian factory women” (Silvey, 2002, p. 203). Similarly, in advocating for closing the School of the Americas, solidarity activists in Canada and the

United States framed Latin Americans as powerless victims and limited their participation to delivering emotional testimonials (Sundberg, 2007). While appearing to centre the experiences of Latin Americans through public storytelling, that the Latin Americans’ position in the movement was limited only to storytelling created and maintained a hierarchical relationship between solidarity activists and frontline peoples and served to centre the solidarity activists.

As a result of an awareness of these problems, solidarity activists may at times become over-focused on roles. Kraemer critiques this navel-gazing move, asserting that “Worrying about appropriate roles allows allies to appear sincerely committed, expressing a genuine desire not to overstep their welcome, while at the same time they avoid taking substantive action pending determination of an appropriate role” (2000, p. 325). Similarly, Mahrouse

(2014) draws on Sara Ahmed’s (2004) identification of “Declarations of Whiteness” to critique accompaniment activists for expressing discomfort in a documentary about the disproportionate attention paid to the death of Rachel Corrie, a white accompanier killed in

Palestine, and then quickly returning to an ongoing conversation about Corrie. Ahmed calls these declarations “non-performative,” in that they do not, in themselves, achieve anti-racist

action “at the moment of saying” (Ahmed, 2004, para. 50, emphasis in original). The dynamics of solidarity compounded with the logic and habits of whiteness has the potential to result in a stew of confusion and dilemmas for solidarity activists that can inadvertently work to maintain white supremacy in practice.

Frontline solidarity also risks providing a mechanism for privileged activists to shake off some of their privilege through a performance of the “good white ally.” Gaztambide-

Fernández and Howard (2010) make apparent the dependence of privileged students, for example, on their closeness to and knowledge of marginalized peoples to enable the students to perform morality. While not disputing the perspective that global injustices are

(differently) harmful to everyone, including those with privilege, Gaztambide-Fernández and

Howard critique the ally model for failing to create the systemic changes that would remove the need for allies in the first place; they assert: “Unless economically privileged individuals are willing to examine their sense of entitlement and challenge their own privileged ways of knowing and doing, being in solidarity with less fortunate others will remain about improving themselves,” (p. 4). While the context of their discussion is different from that of this research, Gaztambide-Fernández and Howard propose an important intervention into arrangements of relationships purporting to be solidarity. As Chouliaraki (2011) puts it, “the ironic solidarity of self-empowerment” (p. 372) enables privileged people to seek to improve themselves but fails to make any systemic changes or even recognize systemic injustices. In the context of movements dominated by whiteness and privilege, as we can see in the examples from the literature on transnational frontline solidarities, solidarity action risks being more about the performance of goodness and alleviating white anxieties than working toward shifting systemic injustices.

Settler solidarity on Indigenous land

The settler positionalities of solidarity activists are also important to consider in the context of solidarity efforts with Indigenous peoples on Indigenous land. Settler identity works to “foreground issues of agency, responsibility and accountability with respect to

Indigenous nations” (Lowman & Barker, 2015, p. 14). Identifying as a settler does not preclude other simultaneous identities, but instead describes a colonizing relationship to

Indigenous land. Refugees, racialized people, and people brought to colonized places unwillingly are often not called “settler” in recognition of differing relationships to land

(Byrd, 2011; Sharma & Wright, 2008); however, that there is a need for all non-Indigenous people to examine our relationship to treaties and “confront our collective illegitimacy”

(Razack, 2015, p. 27) illustrates the complexities of the term. At the same time, in an echo of the risk of a performative over-focus on roles Kraemer (2000) critiques, Dhamoon

(Snelgrove et al., 2014) argues that an over-focus on who is or is not a settler in social justice spaces can distract from a collective priority to overturn white supremacy.

As discussed earlier, leadership from members of a frontline community is central to the model of frontline solidarity engaged in this paper. Frontline solidarity efforts between settlers and Indigenous peoples follow this model; Indigenous people are understood as movement leaders. However, in this particular context, the rationale for leadership of

Indigenous people extends beyond the analysis that those “most impacted” should be in decision-making roles. Instead, Indigenous people are typically understood to lead settler-

Indigenous solidarity movements in an effort to prefigure self-determination of Indigenous peoples and in alignment with support for Indigenous governance over Indigenous land.

In the case of settler support for Six Nations, for example, a settler group took up the positioning of an “unambiguous perspective of support for Indigenous sovereignty” (Keefer,

2010, p. 85) when members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in 2006 reclaimed land that was slated for a subdivision development adjacent to the town of Caledonia. With a similar ethic in mind, activists in Toronto and other communities have an ongoing group in solidarity with Grassy Narrows First Nation. The people of Grassy Narrows are, to this day, experiencing mercury poisoning from the Reed paper mill dumping waste in the 1960s and

1970s (Ketonen, 2018). The purpose of the solidarity group is to “raise awareness and support for Grassy Narrows' struggle for justice” through providing mobilization support to leaders of Grassy Narrows First Nation as they pressure the provincial and federal governments for decontamination and appropriate health care (Free Grassy Narrows, n.d.).

The solidarity groups for Six Nations and Grassy Narrows are structured entirely for the purpose of working in solidarity, in a similar model to the transnational examples mentioned, and are aligned with the agenda of the First Nation(s) with which they are in relationship.

While the line between “support” and solidarity can appear blurred in these and many other examples, the groups position themselves as working in solidarity and are founded with an understanding of the importance of self-determination for Indigenous peoples and goal alignment against systemic injustices.

Settler environmentalists have at times attempted to take up the solidarity frame in the context of work in coalitions. These processes have been successful between local communities experiencing similar impacts (Mix, 2011; Sherman, 2010), situations in which the “frontline” distinction is not necessarily made, or when a group is created explicitly to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples (Da Silva, 2010; Land, 2015). Many

environmental activists are willing to learn from Indigenous peoples and reframe their work to be more in alignment with Indigenous sovereignty and futurity; however, they may also inadvertently take up paternalistic or colonial practices while engaging in coalition work and need to build relationships slowly and with care (Pickerill, 2009). Solidarity efforts by settlers are complicated by settlers steeped in settler colonial thought and action who, despite good intentions, are not able to escape colonizing relations (Nock & Haig-Brown, 2006).

Issues of stakes, benefit, and roles are central to the practice of social movement solidarity and of solidarity activists’ understandings of their positionalities. The relationship between solidarity and frontline activists is entwined with hegemonic systems of inequality and privilege. In settler colonial contexts, settler-Indigenous solidarity is consistently understood as connected to settler understanding of and alignment with self-determination for Indigenous peoples. Across frontline solidarity relationships, there is an ever-present risk that the relationship is more about alleviating the guilt of the privileged than about changing the systems that result in privilege in the first place. While purporting to work against white supremacy, frontline solidarity relies on the power and resources available to white people through white supremacy to amplify the struggles of frontline peoples.

Having engaged in this discussion of the characteristics and intrinsic tensions of a frontline solidarity approach to frame my analysis on the solidarity efforts of anti-pipeline activists, I will now discuss my methodological approach to research with anti-pipeline activists in Canada.

Research Methods

This paper is part of a larger research project about climate activists attempting to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples in Canada. Most of the individuals interviewed were

engaged in anti-pipeline work. I interviewed twenty-eight people in total: individual interviews with twenty-one, and small group interviews with seven (two groups of two, and one group of three). I conducted follow-up interviews with four. Twenty-five people identified primarily as non-Indigenous activists, although two of these mentioned that they may have some Indigenous heritage but did not claim Indigenous identity. Three identified as

Indigenous and were recognized leaders in their communities.

In the context of this research, I was attempting to put my learning about Indigenous methodologies into practice. I am not suggesting that this research project is an Indigenous or

Indigenist project; I stumbled many times in my attempts to put my learning about

Indigenous methodologies into practice (Helferty, 2019a). However, understanding the importance of relationships and relationality in Indigenous methodologies (S. Wilson, 2008) influenced both the topic and process of my research. In practice, this meant that, for example, I recognized a need for clarity about my motivations for the research (Hampton,

1995; Kovach, 2009) and was open to frankly discussing these motivations and my experiences facilitating diverse coalitions in climate activism with participants.

The interviews were conducted based on an interview guide and centred around the theme of relationships between settler and Indigenous peoples in climate activism, but the content discussed in each interview varied substantially. As is common in in-depth interviewing (Hesse-Biber, 2007), I engaged in follow-up questions with the participants based on their responses to the questions while keeping in mind commonalities with and divergences from what other participants had already mentioned. Given my identity as a climate activist and my political alignment with movement goals, I was somewhat of an

“insider” to the movement. Potential benefits of insider research include an acceptance of

researcher engagement in the research topic, trust that the researcher will responsibly engage with the stories of participants, and an openness among participants to discussing difficult experiences (Corbin Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). I believe that I experienced all three of these benefits while conducting this research. However, my current position as a researcher along with my very limited involvement in anti-pipeline activism in Canada meant that I had previously met only two of the interview participants and knew very little of the specifics of this activist context.

This combination of factors positioned me, like many researchers, in the “space between” insider and outsider research (Corbin Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). My experience of conducting the research was that this was primarily a benefit, since it enabled me to effectively tap into what surprised me about what the participants said in relation to my own experiences. I believe the primary drawback to my insider status was the risk of inadvertently substituting elements of my past activist context for the experiences of the participants. I have attended to this possibility while conducting analysis by ensuring that all findings are supported by data collected in this project and not my assumptions from my experiences in climate activism.

When I conducted the interviews for this project, I asked participants if they would like their real names used or they would prefer to use a pseudonym. Nearly all opted for me to use their real names, and I did so throughout the analysis and writing process. Nearing the end of the process, I reflected that in some cases it had been multiple years since I spoke to the participants. Several of the anti-pipeline campaigns were over, and they had moved on to other work. Environmentalism as a movement had learned about solidarity in the intervening years, and these activists had developed new relationships with Indigenous peoples and made

new mistakes. I felt that naming them in this thesis trapped them in a particular time and place that was likely no longer accurate. While I believe the themes and patterns generated from this work are still relevant to environmentalism and solidarity conversations today, I no longer wanted to use the real names of participants.

I emailed the participants who were quoted in this dissertation to ensure that this change was acceptable. Most did not object, and several expressed that they were glad I was making the change. One indicated they would prefer not to use a pseudonym but was willing to do so if it was necessary to anonymize other participants. I ultimately anonymized most of the settler participants, with some exceptions based on the context of the conversation when anonymization would have been difficult. I let participants know that if I did not hear from them in two weeks, I would select a pseudonym. Any mentions or quotations that were not anonymized were approved by participants.

The analysis for this paper was an iterative process taking place over many months. I experimented with various ways to understand interview data based on the many potential themes present in the solidarity literature. After multiple iterations of reviewing literature and coding data in an exploratory mode, I ultimately identified stakes/benefit, roles, and whiteness as particularly key to understanding the data from this project. As a result of this process, I was able to clarify distinctions between how social movement solidarity is typically understood in practice and the contradictions of solidarity present in environmental activism generally and anti-pipeline activism specifically.

Anti-pipeline activism and Indigenous solidarity in practice

The anti-pipeline activists interviewed for this project did not always use the term

“solidarity” when talking about relationships with Indigenous peoples. In addition to talking

about solidarity, they referenced being allies and practicing allyship4 or supporting decolonization5 or reconciliation6. Despite this diversity of terms, which have substantially different meanings, I find the literature on frontline solidarity useful as a framework to understand contradictions very present in this data when participants talked about working with Indigenous peoples. In particular, the solidarity literature provides a useful framework to examine how settler activists in Canada are understanding stakes and benefit in the context of anti-pipeline activism, and how these understandings interact with their perceptions of their right roles in relation to land and to Indigenous peoples.

In the following sections, I explore the activists’ rationales for engagement in anti- pipeline activism and their understanding of Indigenous rights and land defence as critical to successfully stopping pipelines. I then engage with the activists’ motivations to position anti- pipeline work in the model of frontline solidarity and to follow Indigenous leadership, despite the movement goal of stopping pipelines not requiring a frontline solidarity model.

4 “Ally” or “allyship” is often used interchangeably with “solidarity” in academic literature and academic settings. In discussions of solidarity work, the individuals doing the work are often called allies and it is common to see the phrase “solidarity or allyship”. See Clark, de Costa, and Maddison (2016); Kraemer (2007); Mott (2016); Roediger (2016) for examples.

5 The term “decolonization” is used in various ways by Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island, with some embracing the possibilities for, for example, decolonizing research (Kovach, 2009; L. T. Smith, 2012) or decolonizing higher education (Pete et al., 2013), although in these cases the authors also talk about “Indigenizing” these places and processes. Other scholars contest decolonization as anything but “the rematriation of Indigenous land, language, and lifeways” (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 317) and focus on resurgence (Flowers, 2015; Simpson, 2017; Snelgrove et al., 2014).

6 In the current Canadian context, discussions about reconciliation often connect to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which completed its report on the impacts of the residential school system on Indigenous peoples in 2015. The TRC is clear that reconciliation needs to be taken up by settler Canadians and is not for Indigenous peoples to move forward. The Commission report describes reconciliation as “establishing and maintaining a mutual respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, p. 6). In an effort to research the perspectives of non- Indigenous people in Canada on reconciliation, de Costa and Clark (2016) explored whether non-Indigenous people had “any sense of responsibility to engage” (p. 192, emphasis in original) with Indigenous peoples rather than asking about “reconciliation” directly due to their perception of a lack of broad knowledge about what the term means in Canada.

Rationales for anti-pipeline activism

Anti-pipeline activists’ rationales for engagement in anti-pipeline campaign work were most often about protecting water and mitigating climate change. This contrasts with a typical model of frontline solidarity in which the work would be primarily focused on injustices faced by a frontline group and campaign goals would be aligned with justice for that group. As I will demonstrate in this section, the “win” in anti-pipeline activism was stopping pipelines, not decolonization and self-determination for Indigenous peoples.

Tony (pseudonym), for example, talked about his rationale for stopping pipelines from his position as a waterkeeper:

…with Energy East, at the high level, we have to win this fight because climate change

is the biggest risk… the Gulf of Maine, which the Bay of Fundy is part of, is one of the

fastest warming waters in the world.

Tony was in regular coordination and had a strong relationship with the Chief of a nearby

Nation who worked in the same office building and who also opposed the pipeline. While

Tony differentiated between his position in relation to land and water as a stakeholder and

Indigenous peoples as rights-holders, and stressed the importance of “always behaving with that ethic in mind and trying to make sure that others, including the NEB [National Energy

Board] and everyone else, are behaving with that ethic in mind,” his rationale for engagement to stop pipelines was connected to the risk of climate impacts. I am not suggesting that Tony was not working in a good way with the Nation or that there is something wrong about his analysis of stakes and rights. Instead, what I point out here is that even with this analysis and with a strong relationship, Tony’s anti-pipeline activism is firstly about climate change. In

contrast with the settler-Indigenous frontline solidarity framework, he is not engaged in anti- pipeline activism firstly as an issue of Indigenous self-determination.

After the Energy East pipeline was cancelled, Thea (pseudonym), who had recently left her position at a climate-focused non-governmental organization (NGO), similarly talked about the cancellation as a win:

…today when you hear that Energy East is cancelled, you think that that took a lot of

people over a period of time but that work was worth it because, you know? And, at

the time, when I was doing Energy East work, it didn’t feel like, “Oh yeah, this is the

thing,” but now I look back and think like, “You know, I played a part in that,” and

that feels really important to know that we can win a fight that big.

Thea reflected extensively about Indigenous rights, about decolonization, about sovereignty.

She emphasized the importance of Indigenous rights in climate action, saying that “I think an

Indigenous rights-based approach to climate action is the best chance we have of getting to where we need to be.” At the same time, she identified the cancellation of Energy East as a win when this cancellation ultimately was largely not connected to goals of decolonization or self-determination.

Pointing out that anti-pipeline activists are framing successfully stopping pipelines as winning their campaign goals risks seeming redundant. Anti-pipeline campaigns are won by stopping pipelines; this appears to need little further explanation. The reason that I am pointing this out is to differentiate the ways that these settler activists understood a campaign win as compared to activists involved in frontline solidarity movement, even as, as I will discuss, these activists positioned or tried to position this campaign work in a frontline solidarity model in relation to Indigenous peoples. In contrast with achieving a campaign

goal in the Grassy Narrows campaign, which did recently, after many years, extract a promise of a healthcare centre designed by the community from the federal government

(Forester, 2020; McIntosh, 2020), or for Six Nations in the campaign to assert sovereignty over land (Keefer, 2010; Six Nations, 2008), stopping the Energy East pipeline did not take a step toward decolonization or self-determination. The goal of engaging in a frontline solidarity model was layered onto an existing anti-pipeline goal, rather than required to meet the campaign goal of stopping pipelines.

Aligned with this analysis of distinct goals, and uniquely among the settler activists interviewed for this project, two participants distinguished anti-pipeline campaign work from frontline solidarity. The rationales for distinguishing anti-pipeline work from solidarity held by Diana (pseudonym) and Paris (pseudonym), who had worked closely together as board and staff member at an energy organization, were connected to their relationships to the movement issue. Diana was clear about her positioning as having a stake in the outcome of the movement in relation to water and climate impacts and the implication of this stake for her role in the campaign:

If I’m working on a decolonization campaign, if I’m working on a campaign around

refugees, I’m pretty clear about my role as an ally and as a support person. On climate

change, I have a stake in it too… I drink the water too, I deal with the effects of climate

change…

Diana lived near the proposed Energy East pipeline route, so could be impacted by a spill, and she was also concerned about climate change impacts. She understood components of the anti-pipeline fights as decolonizing, giving the example of Standing Rock, but identified a contrast between the anti-pipeline campaigns and decolonizing work in which Indigenous

peoples would be “creating and organizing in a governance structure that is as much them asserting their power and sovereignty and rights” as about a particular campaign outcome.

Diana understood herself as having a stake in the outcomes of anti-pipeline fights and would oppose pipelines regardless of the positions of First Nations. Her rationale for taking action was that pipelines needed to be stopped to protect drinking water and mitigate climate impacts, and she contrasted this with campaigns engaging in a frontline solidarity model.

Paris took a similar position:

…maybe one of the reasons that I have the views that I do on why I’m fighting the

pipeline is that, for me, it’s a global justice issue that cuts across every intersectional

line, and I’ve always said that even if all the Indigenous communities had a majority

decision to support Energy East, I’d still fight that pipeline.

Paris talked about how he understands the strategic reasons to frame anti-pipeline activism in terms of Indigenous rights, but that supporting Indigenous rights is not his motivation for engaging in this work. In stark contrast with some participants who expressed dilemmas about how to respond to Indigenous people supporting pipelines, Paris was clear about his position on this issue.

Paris and Diana were both knowledgeable about Indigenous rights through academic and community engagement. Their rationales for action were not out of a lack of information about or commitment to Indigenous rights. Instead, they had assessed their campaign logic and had concluded that having a stake in the outcome of this campaign meant that this was not a frontline solidarity campaign.

Solidarity groups within social movements have taken various approaches to conceptualizing stake and benefit. While some understood only the frontline activists to have

a material stake in the outcomes of the campaign and conceptualized solidarity as largely altruistic (Hope, 2011), the work and theorizing of organizations and movements complicates this articulation of social movement solidarity as solely benefiting frontline activists (Brown

& Yaffe, 2014; Kraemer, 2000; Silvey, 2002).The diversity of approaches leaves room for solidarity activists to understand themselves as having some stake in social movement work.

However, in the context of these movements taking up the frontline solidarity model, the primary rationale for the work of the solidarity group was consistently solidarity with frontline activists and the stake and role of solidarity activists was understood as secondary.

In a frontline solidarity model, solidarity activists emphasize the importance of leadership of frontline peoples (D’Arcangelis, 2015; Kraemer, 2000; Land, 2015). This is logical in the context of other movements in which this model is engaged, such as the anti-apartheid or Fair

Trade movements, in which the frontline group is clearly much more central to the movement issue than the solidarity group. In contrast, settler anti-pipeline activists were not engaging in anti-pipeline work primarily in political alignment with Indigenous sovereignty or in recognition of hugely greater impacts to Indigenous peoples if the pipelines were not stopped. Instead, their rationale for anti-pipeline activism was that it was essential to mitigate climate change and reduce risk to local water sources and that they had a stake in these outcomes.

While I am framing climate mitigation and protecting water here as environmentalist rationales, it is important to note that these were also common priorities for many Indigenous people working to stop pipelines. Alma Brooks, a Maliseet grandmother from St Mary’s First

Nation, emphasized the “380 bodies of water on our territory that they want to cross” to build

the Energy East pipeline. Similarly, Chief Arnold Gardner talked about the relationship between the pipeline fights and water:

…say they're going to ok the pipeline. My community is 300. I’ve said this publicly. If

we have to be Standing Rock, we’ll do it. I can’t stop my people. I’ve said that to

industry already. I can’t stop my people. Because of the watershed and everything like

that, the northwest and not so much in Manitoba but you go down to our area? Lots of

lakes. Lots of rivers, creeks.

While the worldviews that frame the relationship between settler environmentalists and land and Indigenous peoples and land are substantially different, the alignment around stopping pipelines and a shared understanding of the importance of clean water provides an opening to work together. A shared goal seems to lead to a co-resistor or collaborative model rather than a frontline solidarity model. Despite this, as I will discuss later in this paper, the activists often worked to position themselves in a frontline solidarity model in relation to Indigenous peoples.

First Nations legal rights and land defence as anti-pipeline strategy

In addition to a shared goal, many Indigenous leaders and settler anti-pipeline activists shared an understanding of the power of the duty to consult7 First Nations within the legal system of Canada and of Indigenous-led land defence to successfully stop pipelines. The implementation of these particular strategies relies on a great deal of leadership and work by

Indigenous people; these strategies are not equally available to be led by settlers. However, settler activists’ awareness of the centrality of these strategies to anti-pipeline campaigning

7 As indicated on the Government of Canada website: “The Government of Canada has a duty to consult, and where appropriate, accommodate Indigenous groups when it considers conduct that might adversely impact potential or established Aboriginal or treaty rights” (Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, 2019).

created a risk of settler activists appropriating Indigenous peoples and rights as part of a settler-led campaign strategy. This approach follows the logic of settler environmentalist worldviews in which settlers are rightful inhabitants of the land. The settler activists themselves were aware of this risk and of the violence done to Indigenous peoples through settler environmentalism more broadly. They were motivated to find a way to work with

Indigenous peoples rooted in relationality and respectful of Indigenous worldviews and knowledges, even as the settler environmentalist framework they were embedded within pushed them away from this goal. In this section, I analyze the settler anti-pipeline activists’ orientation to First Nations legal rights and land defence. In the following section, I discuss their turn to the frontline solidarity model to solve the problems of settler environmentalism.

Firstly, both settler activists and Indigenous leaders understood the power of First

Nations legal rights and land defence. Tony gestured to this awareness in recounting a conversation with the Chief of a nearby Nation:

We don’t want to use someone’s rights claim. We want to support it, not use it, right?

Even though, you know, friends like [the Chief I work with] will say, “Use us! Say it,

say it, say it!” (laughs) in the sense like, “Don’t use us,” but in the sense that it’s like,

“We are partners here so just know that we can open doors you can’t.”

In the context of strong relationships, frank and even joking conversations can be had between settler anti-pipeline activists and Indigenous leaders who are all aware of the strategic value of Indigenous rights. Tony clarifies that this is not a relationship in which he as a settler environmentalist was making plans for the use of Indigenous legal rights without the ongoing involvement of the Chief that he worked with, but instead that they had a mutual awareness of the power of these rights to achieve a shared goal.

A number of anti-pipeline activists similarly articulated the understanding of the strategic power of Indigenous peoples to stop pipelines. Paris focused on this strategic approach: “What it comes down to for me is there’s only two things that have stopped pipelines: Indigenous court cases and Indigenous land defence.” From Paris’s perspective, the strategic power of Indigenous peoples was central to successfully stopping pipelines.

Melissa (pseudonym), who coordinated a collective campaign to stop pipelines that funded the work of many of the activists interviewed for this paper, articulated a dual motivation: “I take it from the legal policy frame… and then I also tie it to the fact that it’s morally right because it’s their land.” Like Paris, she was aware of the power of First Nations’ legal rights, but she also talked about advocating for the importance of Indigenous leadership on

Indigenous land.

Margo (pseudonym), who was working as an independent consultant at the time of the interview, bluntly expressed the dynamic that results from the awareness among settler activists of the power of First Nations legal rights:

…how it usually plays out is there’s a First Nations legal challenge, and we [settler

environmentalists] support it because we think it’s right, and then the [settler] NGOs

organize whatever they want to organize anyway with the assumption that the legal

battle is going to be the tactic that wins.

Margo emphasized settler organizations’ awareness of the power of First Nations legal rights to stop pipelines. Taking a critical stance, she positioned the settler organizations relying on the work of Indigenous people to win anti-pipeline campaigns. Her critique speaks to the extent of the analysis among settler environmentalists that Indigenous-led work will stop pipelines.

Daniel (pseudonym), who was working at an internationally-focused environmental organization at the time of the interview, took this orientation a step further, describing how an environmental organization might orient itself to stopping pipelines in relation to

Indigenous legal rights:

We’re going to effectively literally lay out every possible way we could think of that

would achieve that goal so you would be saying, “Ok, if there’s a legal strategy for

Indigenous community, ok, that’s great, ’cause I can see how that ends up in court and

that might lead to a –” but that’s a fairly narrow view and it’s difficult to sort of say,

“We’ll just rely on the legal rights of Indigenous communities, particular rights-holding

communities, so actual Nations.” Just very transactional…

The process Daniel mentions in which an organization identifies every potential campaign strategy available to achieve its goals and then decides on its best approach is common in campaign planning. Within a settler environmentalist framework, and in a context in which

First Nations’ legal rights have successfully stopped pipelines, it is not surprising that settler organizations are examining this strategic approach as one of the potential avenues to win a campaign. Mid-way through his description Daniel recognizes the colonizing elements of this approach; that organizations risk adopting a colonizing model by using Indigenous rights as tools in their campaign strategy. In Daniel’s reflection, it is possible to see both the settler environmentalist perspective (as default) and an identification of a problem with this perspective.

Peter (pseudonym), a settler activist working for a First Nation at the time of the interview, was critical of this exact approach:

I feel like NGOs sometimes use title rights as a kind of campaign tactic, and tokenize

Indigenous people, and sometimes create problems for members of Indigenous

communities in the process of doing that, or make decisions without really consulting

or having a meaningful process of engagement… if you’re going to recognize land and

title rights, you need to recognize it in the sense that, for example, if you’re anti-LNG

[liquified natural gas] and that’s something you’re working on, and there’s a Nation

that’s pro-LNG, do you just completely ignore them, or do you engage them in the

same way you would the federal government or a municipal government that you

disagree with? And to me that’s like, are you even thinking of having the meeting with

them? Basically, are you seeing their jurisdiction as relevant when it doesn’t help you?

Peter identifies the hypocrisy at the root of a model in which settler activists follow

Indigenous leadership and claim to support self-determination for Indigenous peoples only when this approach is aligned with the campaign result to which they are already committed.

In practice, because following leadership in anti-pipeline activism is dependent on agreement with both goals and a strategy that has to be led by Indigenous people, the rest of the time there may be little engagement with or acknowledgement of Indigenous peoples and

Indigenous rights. Peter gestures to actual impacts of this orientation – that Indigenous people can be inadvertently tokenized or settler involvement can result in problems within

Indigenous communities.

A wholly strategic approach, in which settler organizations understand Indigenous rights as a central tool in their campaign toolbox, lies in stark contrast with a relationship that prioritizes Indigenous self-determination. While it may superficially resemble prefiguring

Indigenous governance and alignment with self-determination, this approach recognizes

knowledge among settler organizations of the power of Indigenous rights to stop pipelines, beyond what settlers are able to do, and the willingness of settler organizations to support

Indigenous leaders within the parameters of this goal. I am not suggesting that settler activists took up this colonizing approach intentionally; rather, I argue that this approach was the default within settler environmentalism that these activists were imperfectly striving to work against.

I am also not suggesting that all of the settlers’ interactions with Indigenous peoples in the context of an Indigenous-led legal strategy were problematic. Tony’s description of his conversation with the Chief of a nearby Nation seemed rooted in a friendship that extended beyond the usefulness of Indigenous rights for campaign strategy. In another example rooted in a relationship, Teika, the founder and Director of Transition Initiative Kenora at the time of the interview, talked about coordinating a legal strategy with Eagle Lake First Nation:

So, in particular, Eagle Lake, I work really closely with Eagle Lake now, and every few

months I go to Eagle Lake, like if they’re having a community Lands and Resources

meeting, I’ll come and sit in on that day. And so all the Elders there know me really

well and they rely on me as a source of trustworthy information and they bring me into

their legal strategy meetings with their legal team now and we talk about joint legal

strategy and so, it’s sort of larger coalition building that I do in that sense…

Teika had good relationships with Elders and leaders at Eagle Lake First Nation, and as a result was in coordination with them around joint priorities. This was a mutually beneficial relationship that, in part, relies on the legal rights that Eagle Lake First Nation was able to mobilize and that Teika, as a settler, was not.

In the context of these complex land-based campaigns, the duty to consult has proven its power. Settler activists and Indigenous peoples alike understand this power. Settler activists’ approaches to the power of the duty to consult are rooted in settler environmentalist worldviews, a framework that enables settler activists to consider mobilization of Indigenous rights as a settler strategy. While at times inadvertently articulating this colonizing approach, the settler activists were looking for a way to engage with Indigenous peoples that was rooted in respect and support for self-determination. As I will discuss in the next section, they turned to a model of frontline solidarity.

Positioning anti-pipeline activism as frontline solidarity

Settler activists were motivated to position themselves following Indigenous leadership in a frontline solidarity model. As discussed in the previous section, they were aware of the power of Indigenous legal rights and land defence to stop pipelines and aware of the potential for this strategy to fall within a colonizing framework. In addition, as I will discuss, they reflected on whiteness and what role they were best suited to take up as white settlers in a land-based struggle. They turned to frontline solidarity to solve the problems posed by settler environmentalism and whiteness. In contrast with solidarity models that emphasize common struggle and impacts of shared injustices, this group of settler activists was particularly focused on how they were differently positioned than Indigenous peoples in systems of power. At the same time, their perception of themselves as having a strong stake in stopping pipelines led them to feel they were right to determine the outcomes of anti-pipeline fights even as they attempted to assert that the land was Indigenous land and to support Indigenous self-determination. This sense of stake, rooted in settler environmentalist frameworks while

also logical within the context of this issue, contradicted their attempts to position anti- pipeline work as frontline solidarity.

Several activists directly named taking up a solidarity approach. Caroline (pseudonym), for example, who was working at a national multi-issue organization at the time of the interview, reflected on her experiences protesting at Burnaby Mountain as taking up a position of solidarity:

I really think that it’s this hard, challenging thing of like, as a white person wanting to

be in solidarity with the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, who’s trying to protect their land, but

also feeling this responsibility to understand your positionality…

Caroline situated herself wanting to be in solidarity with the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation in the context of work to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline. The Tsleil-Waututh are part of the

Coast Salish group of Indigenous peoples and had clearly stated that Burnaby Mountain is unceded Coast Salish territory. Burnaby Mountain was a significant protest site in 2014 in relation to the Trans Mountain pipeline, which the Tsleil-Waututh Nation continues to be committed to stopping. Caroline could have chosen to situate herself as a climate activist wanting to stop a pipeline in the context of her involvement in the protests on Burnaby

Mountain, but chose instead primarily to position herself in a relationship of solidarity.

Caroline’s reflection on whiteness was further connected to her experience of being treated gently by the police in contrast with the treatment she observed Black and Indigenous people receiving. This reflection in relation to identity is central to Caroline’s effort to position herself in solidarity, since it influences her analysis of what her most appropriate role should be. Caroline provides an example of an activist clearly stating their desire to be in solidarity and connecting this desire to whiteness in the context of a white settler state.

Natalie (pseudonym), a student activist, identified going to Standing Rock as an example of a time when she was positioned in a solidarity role. Like Caroline, she reflected on her whiteness in relation to deciding what work she felt was most appropriate to take on:

I personally went responding to a call and to be of service8. That was the idea, was to

be on the marches, to be a white body standing between the Indigenous people and the

military or police, and that was a very real, helpful action that we had been asked to

take going there, and to do dishes and clean up garbage and build toilets and do grunt

work as well. ‘Cause I don’t need to walk into a space and start organizing for anyone,

but there are tasks that need to be done and I have the physical ability to do them, I had

the time, I had the monetary stability to be able to take four days off of work and go, so

that was also an act of service that was required and that we were asked to do, and I

went with that intention as well.

Natalie identifies three characteristics of her involvement as a solidarity activist at Standing

Rock that enabled her to feel that it was the right decision to go, despite also saying that

“there were so many white people at Cannonball that they were actually – they were a burden.” The first point Natalie made, which she reiterated multiple times in the interview, was that she was responding to a request for people to come to Standing Rock put out by

Dallas Goldtooth, who is Mdewakanton Dakota and Dine and employed as the Keep it in the

8 In the context of Standing Rock, Natalie positions herself in a service role. Melissa also talked about environmental organizations working in service to First Nations in the context of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline fight, a pipeline that was successfully stopped: “…we also just knew that ultimately we were in service to them.” Similarly, Alicia, a solidarity activist D’Arcangelis (2015) interviewed for her research on solidarity between white and Indigenous women, used a frame of service: “I’m here as a tool with certain skills and resources. Please use me if I can be of service,” (p. 138). Wilson and Curnow (2013) explain student Fair Trade organizing as “an act of work-in-solidarity; they [the student activists] believed their labor would benefit farmers and chose to donate their labor in service to a cause they believed in,” (p. 580). While solidarity work and service are not the same, the service approach frequently presents itself as an extension of the solidarity tenet of following frontline leadership.

Ground Campaign Organizer at Indigenous Environmental Network. Responding to a call is key to Natalie’s sense that she should be at the Standing Rock camp, and echoes the emphasis that accompaniers put on the importance of being invited to the countries and communities they were entering (Mahrouse, 2007).

The second characteristic is that Natalie went to Standing Rock to strategically use her whiteness in the context of a white supremacist system. Her description of “standing between the Indigenous people and the military or police” is a way of mobilizing whiteness that directly parallels the work of accompaniers in transnational solidarity movements (Koopman,

2012; Mahrouse, 2014). This reliance on white supremacy caused some anxiety for activists involved in accompaniment who expressed discomfort relying on white supremacy to draw attention to violence done to Black and Brown people, although it seems that this discomfort often grew over a longer period of time engaged in this work than the four days that Natalie was involved (Mahrouse, 2014). Natalie does not indicate that she felt this discomfort. She expressed that this was something she and the other white people at the Oceti Sakowin camp had been asked to do, and that she felt was helpful.

The third aspect of the work Natalie mentioned was that she deliberately engaged in

“grunt work,” like doing the dishes or picking up garbage. Keefer (2010) and Kraemer

(2000) mentioned solidarity work in which privileged activists engage in reproductive labour and that this was understood as an appropriate role. Natalie contrasted her willingness to do these day-to-day maintenance tasks with the actions of other white people who felt they were right to “walk into a space and start organizing.” She also mentioned that some of the other white people were using material resources like food and firewood without contributing anything back to the camp.

The three characteristics that Natalie identified that enabled her to feel she was right to go to Standing Rock echo the rationales of transnational solidarity activists involved in accompaniment. This approach to frontline solidarity makes strategic use of white bodies to draw attention to violence done to marginalized peoples. That this approach hinges on white supremacy requires activists engaged in accompaniment to build a narrative of their own usefulness while simultaneously limiting what actions are appropriate within this framework.

Echoing Kraemer (2000), Natalie asserted that it would have been inappropriate for her to enter into the space as an organizer even though she was an organizer in her home city.

Instead, she engaged in “grunt work” and contrasted her behaviour with white settlers failing to properly act in alignment with her understanding of frontline solidarity by consuming resources at the camp. Natalie was likely aware of the critiques directed toward white settlers treating the camp like a music festival or failing to properly respect Indigenous ceremony

(e.g. Cram, 2016; Modery, 2016; O’Connor, 2016; Willis, 2016), which may have further reinforced the need to position herself in contrast with these other white people; this echoes the need to perform the “exceptional white ally” (D’Arcangelis, 2015).

Notably, the camp was created to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, and Natalie was against this pipeline. Her decision to go to Standing Rock in the context of many, many opportunities to engage in different solidarity efforts with Indigenous peoples and other marginalized peoples was presumably connected to her position against pipelines and her awareness of the power of Indigenous-led land defence to stop pipelines. However, what she focused on when discussing her participation in Standing Rock was the importance of engaging in a correct role in relation to Indigenous leadership rather than the strategic benefit of her engagement to stopping the pipeline.

As discussed earlier, following Indigenous leadership is often understood as central to engaging in a frontline solidarity relationship between settlers and Indigenous peoples. A number of other activists interviewed for this project expressed strong enthusiasm for opportunities when they were able to follow Indigenous leadership. Daniel, for example, talked about how he had been particularly excited about an opportunity to be positioned in a support role for a First Nation in relation to a call for a moratorium on tar sands development: “…instead of the environmental groups making the call, they’ll just be backing

[the First Nation’s] call.” In the example Daniel discussed, after a small group of settler activists had spent some time at the First Nation at the invitation of the Chief, working to build a relationship in a good way, the political context changed and the Nation ultimately chose not to take a public stance on the issue. Daniel expressed frustration about this plan falling apart because it followed a relationship model with which he had been looking for an opportunity to engage:

That’s an example of something we put quite a lot of effort and time into bringing the

organization [I was working for] in, and they were like, “Yes, we should partner

directly in this way and do it the right way and base it on relationship,” and then it fell

apart. And it was like, “Ah, this is so frustrating” to be – to get it that far, because I’d

been listening to Eriel for a long time and really trying to live up to what she’s been

asking her allies to do for a long time.

Daniel names the model of the environmental organizations supporting Indigenous leadership in the context of relationships as “the right way” and in alignment with what he had been taught to do by Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, who is a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan

First Nation and currently the Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action. The

frustration that Daniel experienced when this opportunity to support Indigenous leadership did not move forward indicates his eagerness to take the opportunity to work in a frontline solidarity model.

Daniel mentioned that it had taken some effort to bring the leadership of his organization on board with this approach, a dynamic that other activists interviewed for this project also mentioned. In attempting to follow Indigenous leadership, the activists interviewed were operating outside the typical processes of environmental organizations and the typical framework of settler environmentalism. Daniel’s advocacy within the organization where he worked to put time and money into relationship building to support

Indigenous leadership, as well as his frustration when this process does not ultimately work out as planned, provides evidence for his motivation to work in a frontline solidarity model.

The experience Daniel related, alongside the perspectives of Caroline and Natalie, could be interpreted to indicate that all three understood frontline solidarity to involve an element of sacrifice. Within frontline solidarity, it is common for privileged activists to situate themselves in roles with less power than or as collectively subordinate to frontline peoples (Brown & Yaffe, 2014). Political solidarity as theorized in the literature also often involves the willingness to sacrifice for a greater cause (Bayertz, 1999; Scholz, 2008). This element of sacrifice in a frontline solidarity model contrasts with a more reciprocal approach to solidarity based on assumptions of mutual aid or understandings of shared oppressions.

There are many more examples present in the data that emphasize sacrifice or the importance of subordinate positioning. It was common for settler anti-pipeline activists to state their aspiration to be in a solidarity relationship, position themselves as solidarity activists or allies, and/or indicate that they wanted to follow Indigenous leadership. Within

the framework of frontline solidarity, there was an effort among privileged activists to emphasize their privileges and focus on positionality rather than focus on the ways that continued exploitation and extraction of fossil fuels hurts everyone.

As before, Diana and Paris had a different vision for the anti-pipeline work in relation to Indigenous peoples that was explicitly tied to their stake in the issue. Diana talked about how her vision for anti-pipeline work was one of shared leadership:

…my comfort place right now is shared leadership on the pipeline because I have a

stake in it independent of what it means for decolonization, and I would be placed in a

very difficult ethical quandary if First Nations in Canada united to support the pipeline,

’cause I still oppose it.

Paris had a similar take about shared leadership:

…the world that I’m trying to prefigure is where everyone has voice, not a world where

white people just shut up and listen, but we share space… I get the historical dynamics

around colonization, about the “wanting to centre Indigenous [peoples]” narrative. I’m

just not sure that’s the end result that I would want to prefigure.

Diana and Paris both directly contradict the solidarity framework that centres frontline and

Indigenous peoples in the context of the anti-pipeline fights. For Diana, this is because she sees herself as having a stake in the outcome of the fight, a positioning shared by many other anti-pipeline activists. For Paris, he explained further that his perspective is connected to his understanding of treaty relationships in which people who come from around the world to the local territory have a clan, and leadership is based on connection to spirit rather than identity or ancestry.

However, Diana told me that the original vision for the organization they had worked with was for it to be Indigenous-led: “…originally, particularly because we started this whole thing at this meeting [hosted by Indigenous leaders at an Indigenous space], the idea was that we were going to be there and it was going to be an Indigenous-led process.” At a breakout session during the meeting, the small number of non-Indigenous people in attendance had talked about how they planned to organize the non-Indigenous community to start working to stop the pipeline. However, as Diana put it:

…we didn't even take our own advice, and right away we started meeting with other

Indigenous folks… before they'd actually had the time or space to figure out what a

[local] approach for the movement was going to look like for them.

What I reflect on here through a brief description of Diana and Paris’s perspectives is the strong presence of the frontline solidarity narrative and focus on following Indigenous leadership early in their planning followed by a shift away from this narrative. Even though, at the time that I interviewed them, Diana and Paris clearly said that they were not engaging in anti-pipeline work as solidarity, they had originally intended for their group to be

Indigenous-led. That this had not worked well may have influenced their thinking at the time of the interview about how best to approach anti-pipeline activism. While their perspectives at the time of the interview provide a counter example to the strength of the frontline solidarity narrative among anti-pipeline activists, Diana and Paris’s initial approach to anti- pipeline work aligns with the goal of following Indigenous leadership within the frontline solidarity framework.

Their initial approach also indicates the strength of the frontline solidarity approach among settler environmentalists, even in cases where there is not necessarily a local

organized Indigenous-led effort to follow to stop a pipeline. Environmental activists are often well-resourced and have systems in place to run campaigns or are able to devote substantial time and attention to starting up a new campaign or organization quickly. This is not always true for Indigenous communities. Settler environmentalism also does not practice the extended community consultation that Indigenous worldviews necessitate. With an understanding of different worldviews, resources, and approaches to action, it makes sense that Diana and Paris were able to quickly mobilize within the local settler activist community to begin to campaign against the Energy East pipeline before local Indigenous leaders had established both what their anti-pipeline efforts would look like and in addition how they would provide settler activists with direction for solidarity efforts. This is not a critique of local Indigenous leaders or of Diana or Paris, but a recognition of approaches existing in tension; Diana and Paris wanted the group that they founded to be Indigenous-led, alongside a broader narrative in the anti-pipeline activist community about the importance of

Indigenous leadership, but in practice this goal was inadvertently in tension with the processes of local Indigenous leaders.

As I have demonstrated in this section, the settler anti-pipeline activists interviewed for this project were focused on how they should interact with Indigenous peoples in the context of anti-pipeline fights given their white and/or settler positionalities. This attention to positionality in relation to what they understand as their correct role aligns with frontline solidarity approaches in which the group acting in solidarity is often understood to be taking up a secondary positioning in relation to the frontline group (Brown & Yaffe, 2014; Kraemer,

2000). However, in the context of other frontline solidarity movements, the rationales for movement involvement and relationship to the movement issue among solidarity activists

clearly call for this particularly solidarity model; for example, activists based in Canada who were involved in the anti-apartheid movement became involved because of a recognition of injustices clearly impacting Black South Africans more than people in Canada. This alignment between solidarity model and issue is murkier in the context of anti-pipeline activism, in which the settler anti-pipeline activists perceive themselves also as substantially impacted by the movement issue.

Asking for leadership from Indigenous people

As mentioned when discussing Diana and Paris’s initial approach to their group, a final factor structuring the relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples around the anti- pipeline fights is that settlers are looking Indigenous leadership to follow so that they are able to position themselves in a frontline solidarity relationship. This dynamic can be found in the ways that settler organizers talk about Indigenous leadership. For example, Melissa talked about how she was glad to work with First Nations to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline:

I think on Kinder Morgan9, you’re starting to see, there’s a lot of relationship-building

done with the Tsleil-Waututh – the Squamish would kind of come in and out of the

campaign, but because we always tried as best we could to make it front and centre,

what do the First Nations want to do on this, now we’re seeing the Squamish and the

Sacred Trust of the Tsleil-Waututh really stepping up, really stepping into the position

of leadership that everybody wanted them to… So, I think having that, both in terms of

the funding stuff, but in terms of strategy meetings, we’re constantly talking about

who’s reaching out to First Nations, what do they want, how do we engage, can we get

9 The Trans Mountain pipeline was originally proposed by Kinder Morgan, but since the time of the interview was purchased by the Government of Canada. For this reason, I call it the Trans Mountain pipeline but Melissa refers to it as “Kinder Morgan”.

them here to speak, can we get them here to do openings, that that has shifted the

understanding of the role of First Nations.

Melissa articulated a substantial shift in the way that most environmental organizations understand themselves in relationship with First Nations. In the typical settler environmentalist framework, there is no need for engagement with or recognition of

Indigenous peoples at all, and settlers are able to replace Indigenous peoples as the rightful stewards of the land (Curnow & Helferty, 2018; Paperson, 2014). In contrast with this framework, Melissa stressed the importance of the involvement of First Nations in anti- pipeline campaigning. While Melissa was clear that her understanding of the importance of

First Nations leadership was connected in part to the legal strategy, having Elders and leaders at openings and as speakers on anti-pipeline work goes beyond a solely strategic approach and Melissa was clear about her respect for First Nations’ governance.

At the same time, Melissa’s description of the ways that settler organizations were engaging with First Nations around Trans Mountain is that the settler organizations were trying to centre the leadership of First Nations in the context of a pre-existing settler campaign. In this approach, settler activists were “reaching out” to First Nations and Melissa references First Nations “stepping into the position of leadership that everybody wanted them to.” This orientation to First Nations makes it clear that the settler-led campaign already existed and Indigenous people were being asked to step into leadership within a pre-existing approach.

Similarly, Daniel talked about how the Anti-Pipeline Campaign (APC), which Melissa coordinated, “was more successful than any other project I’ve been involved in…[in terms of] trying to have fights be Indigenous-led and flow money to those groups, centre that, their

leadership in the campaign design.” Like Melissa, even though Daniel is talking about centring Indigenous leadership, in saying that the settler-coordinated APC was “trying to have fights be Indigenous-led,” Daniel’s orientation to the work maintains settlers as centred in the campaign narrative. Settler activists were running campaigns to stop pipelines but recognized both that the campaigns rely on Indigenous legal rights and that settler environmentalism risked a colonizing approach, so they were trying to figure out how to insert Indigenous leadership into their campaign. This relationship construction contrasts with the typical solidarity model between settlers and Indigenous peoples, in which settlers engage in Indigenous-led work rooted in self-determination (Keefer, 2010; Kraemer, 2000).

That said, settler anti-pipeline activists did follow leadership from Indigenous peoples when it comes in the form of clear direction or instruction. For example, Natalie followed

Dallas Goldtooth’s instruction to go to Standing Rock and felt she was able to make a contribution in that space. While also critiquing settler activists for tokenizing relationships,

Peter talked about the Pull Together campaign as a successful example of settler activists fundraising for Indigenous peoples asserting their rights:

I’d say something like the Pull Together campaign, which is clearly a very deliberative

and cooperative way of using title and rights as a campaign tactic. It’s really the

Nations that are expressing their rights and NGOs [non-governmental organizations]

supporting them. To me, that’s the ideal scenario, and it creates a great space for all

these other NGOs to be able to talk about the importance of title and rights and do it in

this container of a clear request from those Nations to support them.

Pull Together was a fundraising campaign launched by the Yinka Dene Alliance to support legal challenges to stop the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines. The campaign continues

today as an effort to stop the Trans Mountain expansion with the leadership of the Squamish,

Coldwater, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Peter acknowledged that asking environmental non- governmental organizations (ENGOs) to fundraise for something other than themselves was

“a struggle,” since “everyone’s got their targets,” but that a lot of ENGOs “sacrificed some of their bandwidth for getting people to donate to things and directed it straight to the Pull

Together campaign.” In addition, a number of grassroots/volunteer groups organized fundraising events, which Peter described as “the gold standard version of doing this right” and “a great opportunity for members from Tsleil-Waututh to go and speak to all of these community groups.” From Peter’s perspective, the model in which Nations exerting their sovereignty were supported by ENGOs and other settler groups in an Indigenous-led campaign was ideal. There are many examples of Indigenous leadership working to stop pipelines, and of settlers effectively supporting this work. However, understandably,

Indigenous leadership that settlers are able to easily follow does not exist in all places at all times.

Settlers experiencing a lack of direction provided by Indigenous leaders can play out on a local level, where some settler activists interpreted the call to follow Indigenous leadership to mean that their local group or particular campaign should be led by Indigenous people.

Diana reflected on attempts by settlers to follow Indigenous leadership within her organization and another local organization:

It strikes me that there is something fundamentally weird with a group of people that is

majority non-Indigenous saying, “We want to be led by someone Indigenous or we’re

going to create our own organization with another Indigenous –” … That just doesn’t

make any sense. It doesn’t work… we ended up in this situation, very similar, where

it’s like you’ve got all these non-Indigenous people being like, “Hey, you two people,

you just lead us.” It’s just ridiculous.

As mentioned earlier, the group in which Diana was in a leadership role had originally attempted to be Indigenous-led on a local level but the few Indigenous participants in the group had left the group for various reasons. Since that time, a different local group had been created that was intended to be Indigenous-led, in part in response to the lack of Indigenous leadership in Diana’s group, but, according to Diana, was quickly similarly dominated by settlers. This dynamic, in which settler activists attempt to have their local work led by

Indigenous people or attempt to find an Indigenous person to take up a leadership role in their local group, inadvertently perpetuates a settler-centred approach within an attempt to centre Indigenous leadership.

There is nothing wrong with settlers following Indigenous leadership when it is provided or with taking direction from Indigenous people. However, in the anti-pipeline campaigns, settler activists turning to frontline solidarity to solve the problems of whiteness and colonialism in settler environmentalism created its own problems in practice. One of these problems was that in looking for direction from Indigenous people they were asking

Indigenous leaders to add instructing settler activists to their workload. The search for a local

Indigenous person to lead settlers becomes an extractive relationship.

Remaining unreconciled

Settler anti-pipeline activists wanted to engage in a model of frontline solidarity or to position themselves following Indigenous leadership. Frontline solidarity appeared to enable settler activists to engage in effective anti-pipeline activism rooted in the power of

Indigenous legal rights and land defence while aligning with decolonization and self-

determination rather than exploitation and extraction. In turning to frontline solidarity, the settler activists took instruction from Indigenous leaders or fundraised for Indigenous-led legal challenges. This work enabled Indigenous leaders and settler activists to work toward a shared goal.

What became complex and contradictory, both theoretically and in practice, was the turn to frontline solidarity to solve the problems of whiteness and coloniality in settler environmentalism. From a theoretical perspective, while frontline solidarity purports to shift power toward frontline peoples, the model relies on the power of white people and/or settlers within white supremacist systems. Without distinctions based on powerful and less powerful social groups, there would be no call for people structured as having more power to support those structured as having less. These distinctions would not exist. Frontline solidarity requires white supremacy to create the divisions that then ask white people to ally with marginalized peoples. In relying on these divisions in order to exist and be effective, frontline solidarity does not easily align with dismantling white supremacy or the settler state.

Frontline solidarity also risks being more about the feelings of white people than about doing what is useful for frontline peoples. If meeting a shared goal can be positioned as frontline solidarity, this provides the opportunity for white activists to shake off some of their guilt or anxiety about white supremacy by positioning themselves as subordinate to frontline peoples. In taking on “grunt work,” the model provides the opportunity to prefigure different power arrangements within the context of a particular relationship or campaign10. However,

10 While I did not engage with gender in this dissertation, it is notable that the work considered the subordinate work that solidarity activists take on in a frontline solidarity model often involves cleaning, cooking, or taking care of children. This is work that is clearly identified with women. It would be interesting to explore the gendered dynamics of frontline solidarity.

this model of relationships does not in itself decolonize or work against a white supremacist settler state. In addition, settlers limiting themselves to only certain types of work has the potential also limit their own usefulness; as Paris told me, he had once decided he should be only in a logistical role to support an Indigenous-led conference and one of the conference organizers had to convince him to provide his perspective on the conference agenda when asked. Not only was Paris limiting his own usefulness, he was additionally requiring the

Indigenous organizer to do more work to convince him that he should contribute in a different way.

I am not suggesting that in this scenario Paris deliberately wanted the conference organizer to do more work, or that settler activists are deliberately searching for Indigenous leaders to pass blame for their actions. Instead, I propose that, to some extent, these actions are taken to alleviate settler anxieties. In addition, the actions seem to engage in performativity in relation to other settler activists. Because working with Indigenous peoples is both relatively new and very important to this community of environmentalists, there is a strong desire to do solidarity right in the eyes of other activists. Demonstrating depth of decolonial analysis risks becoming a competitive sport in environmental activist circles with limited useful action to show from these performative efforts.

Bringing this discussion to the particular context of anti-pipeline activism, unlike the privileged youth that Gaztambide-Fernández and Howard (2010) discuss, the settler activists engaged in this research are not engaged in activism as a way to demonstrate their benevolence or perform morality. Although certainly engagement with activism is connected to self-identity and the perceptions of others, they are not anti-pipeline activists to prove their moral worth. They are motivated to action to stop pipelines. However, the layering in of a

frontline solidarity approach to anti-pipeline activism is worth exploring from this perspective. The motivation of anti-pipeline activists to engage in solidarity and to position themselves as following Indigenous leadership may be in fact very much connected to a desire to position themselves as the “good” white person, the “good” settler. That they have taken up this model of solidarity that relies on positioning themselves as subordinate, even though that is not necessary to meet their activist goal of stopping pipelines, indicates a desire to alleviate discomfort stemming from their privileged positioning and from their awareness of the white, settler colonial roots of their environmentalist identity.

In addition, the frontline solidarity model, while hinging on white supremacy at all times, fits particularly poorly in the context of an issue in which the solidarity activists have a strong stake. Settler activists wanted to stop pipelines to protect water and mitigate climate change. Both of these goals fit within a settler environmentalist framework, and neither were about decolonization. The campaigns were won when the pipelines were stopped, not when the settler state was overturned. Settler activists were aware of the power of Indigenous rights to stop pipelines and wanted to support the use of these rights in a way that was respectful to

Indigenous peoples; this motivation required them to work against an environmentalist logic telling them to include Indigenous rights as part of their campaign strategy. This research demonstrates the tension between the frameworks of settler environmentalism and frontline solidarity. That environmentalists feel they have a substantial stake in the outcomes of the campaigns works against their ability to engage in frontline solidarity, even as they turn to frontline solidarity to solve the problems of environmentalism. However, this turn itself fails to enable them to escape or work against white supremacy and settler dominance.

This paper may read as an argument against engaging in a frontline solidarity model.

That is fair to some extent; there are performative elements of frontline solidarity that I propose are inherently not useful, and the model inescapably hinges on white supremacy.

However, I am not arguing against relationships of solidarity between anti-pipeline activists and Indigenous peoples or, more generally, between environmentalists and Indigenous peoples. Even while it often seemed to them wildly insufficient, the attempts made by settler anti-pipeline activists to engage in frontline solidarity were at times useful from a practical campaign perspective. Transfer of resources to support Indigenous-led legal challenges or land defence was useful, as was showing up and following direction at camps. That the settler activists had some analysis about the importance of respecting the leadership at the camps and understanding that they should bring as well as use resources better positioned them to interact with the camp in a good way.

In addition, relationships and friendships developed between settler activists and

Indigenous people in the context of a mutual understanding of the importance of stopping pipelines. These relationships were supported by a willingness among settler activists to balance learning and leading and to avoid immediately jumping to bring Indigenous people into their settler strategies. The relationships borrowed from frontline solidarity but did not follow it entirely; both Indigenous people and settlers were able to lead, learn, and teach and to use their available resources and knowledges in the context of a mutual goal. These relationships were no more decolonizing than frontline solidarity. They did not change the structure of the settler state. However, from a practical perspective, they seemed to better result in collaborative action than some of the work in a frontline solidarity model. Rather

than attempt to subordinate themselves while focusing on their own privileges, the attempt was made to build a good relationship.

In relying on Indigenous power in the Canadian state, anti-pipeline activism provided a context that brought to light settler activists’ anxieties about their relationships with

Indigenous peoples. This research demonstrates the power of these anxieties and the motivation among settler activists to find a different way to work with Indigenous peoples – a way that felt better and seemed to support Indigenous governance. However, self- determination for Indigenous peoples ultimately has little to do with settler environmentalists. What is left for settlers is to, as Madeline Whetung (2017) proposes, commit to listening, to maintaining past mistakes made as part of the relationship, to reducing harm, and to remaining “unreconciled.”

Chapter 3

“The Dagger Hanging Over Your Head”: The Influence of the Nonprofit Complex on

Settler Anti-Pipeline Activists’ Attempts to Engage in Relationships of Solidarity with

Indigenous Peoples

I’ve been trying to think of an anecdote about working in activism that accurately depicts what it’s like to work for an organization where, at the end of the day, another entity has power over what plans you can make and what your work should be. I could write about a funder I knew, a lovely program officer, to whom I will always be thankful for giving my program an unheard-of nine years of funding. In the final three years, which were the years for which I was responsible for fundraising and budgeting, we were engaged in a bit of make-believe that the program was going to launch a consulting arm and become (the magic words) “self-sustaining.” We didn’t, and it didn’t, and the program never recovered from the loss of this support. But we had a great relationship with that program officer, and we believed she had done what she could for us within the system available to her.

I could talk about the time, at another organization, when our Executive Director (ED) came back from a funder meeting and said we were changing the name of a campaign to make it less confrontational, and that wasn’t the new name just as good as the old name? The funder wasn’t on board with our level of punchiness (which, from my perspective, wasn’t particularly high). We raised eyebrows a bit but knew there was no point making a fuss about it. The ED was the only one who spoke to funders, and what she told us that the funders said was what would happen. We changed the name and moved on.

The problem is that neither of these anecdotes really capture what it feels like to work at a place where your work is completely externally controlled, even when you like the

individual people facilitating this control and are attempting to have a critical analysis of the system you are in. The power imbalance of being in this dynamic permeates every aspect of every day. Without a satisfying anecdote, I will attempt to draw on a metaphor. Imagine you are on a train. A train that you have apparently chosen to be on, and that you are attempting to or imagining that you have some ability to direct from the passenger seat but in which your sphere of influence is actually limited to the train car. And while you technically could paint a mural or plant a garden in the car, you know that it would get you kicked off the train.

So you follow the rules and stay on the train, until one day the conductor comes and throws you out the window while you all pretend that this is what you had wanted, that you will be fine, and that you were fine all along.

This paper explores the impact of the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC) and professionalization on settler activists’ efforts to situate anti-pipeline activism in a model of frontline solidarity with Indigenous peoples. I focus on the case of the Anti-Pipeline

Campaign (APC), the purpose of which was to stop new pipeline development and expansion in Canada. One of the activists funded through the campaign told me that, at its peak, the campaign provided small or large grants to as many as eighty organizations working to stop pipelines in Canada.

Many of the settler activists involved in the APC were attempting to engage in relationships of solidarity with Indigenous peoples in the context of anti-pipeline activism.

This effort to engage in solidarity contrasts with the way environmentalism has historically interacted with Indigenous peoples; environmental activists rooted in a settler colonial worldview have often selected and organized campaigns in ways that cause harm to

Indigenous peoples and have failed to situate environmental work with the understanding that

they were making decisions on Indigenous land (Arnaquq-Baril, 2016; Atleo, 2010; Braun,

2002; Flowers, 2015). Settler activists involved in the APC were aware of this historical dynamic and many had at times inadvertently perpetuated it themselves. They wanted to find a way to engage in environmental work that respected Indigenous self-determination and solved these problems of settler environmentalism. In order to do so, they had turned to a relationship model that in many ways resembled solidarity as enacted between groups that understand themselves as privileged in global or regional systems and groups that are

“frontline”/more impacted by the movement issue. For the purposes of this paper, I call this

“frontline solidarity.”

In this paper, in alignment with the critical philanthropy literature, I take the perspective that systems of philanthropy serve to uphold white settler power and fail to address systemic injustices. Environmentalism similarly asserts white settler authority over

Indigenous land. Settler anti-pipeline activists were attempting to disrupt typical practices of settler environmentalism from within, while also constrained by systems of philanthropy working to maintain the settler colonial status quo. They were relying on frontline solidarity to make this change even though, as I will discuss, frontline solidarity itself hinges on white supremacy.

Given this framing, one might anticipate that there is no room for systems of power to be disrupted. To a large extent, this prediction was borne out both as a result of the bureaucratic and organizational requirements of funded campaign engagement and as a result of the APC absorbing settler activists’ attempts to build relationships with Indigenous people and follow Indigenous leadership into an “outreach” model. Both of these mechanisms risked primarily working to maintain settler power and status quo environmentalism.

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However, the flexibility of campaign retreats and communication networks within the campaign provided opportunities for settler activists to learn about Indigenous worldviews and for relationships to be built or developed between settler activists and Indigenous peoples. While not massive disruptions of white settler systems of power, these relationships have the potential to intervene in typical environmentalist practices as settler worldviews and assumptions are challenged. Given the problems of settler environmentalist approaches, there is a need for settler environmentalists to interact with land and with Indigenous peoples in a way that prioritises relationships. There is potential for the relationships that were in various ways encouraged or enabled through the APC, perhaps inadvertently at times, to emerge as critical micro interventions in environmentalism even as the broader systems of the NPIC and environmentalism are largely unchanged.

I begin by discussing the ways in which frontline solidarity both relies on and fails to disrupt white supremacy to provide a framework through which to discuss scholarship on the non-profit industrial complex and foundation funding of activism. I discuss the methods used for this research and provide additional context for the APC. I then discuss the intersection of the funded campaign with settler activists’ attempts to position their work as frontline solidarity.

The contradictions of frontline solidarity

The model of social movement solidarity that the anti-pipeline activists engaged is often understood as action undertaken by one group for the benefit of another (C. C. Gould,

2007; Passy, 2001; Sundberg, 2007). However, both the motivations and theories behind solidarity work and the reality of solidarity activism in practice complicate and contest this understanding. Even in the case of movements founded to act in solidarity, solidarity activists

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may have their own agendas and preferred ways of working that impact their processes and priorities (Finley-Brook & Hoyt, 2009; Hussey & Curnow, 2013). They may also theorize their work as more than simply a response to a call for action behalf of another group (Brown

& Yaffe, 2014).

The goal of engaging in a relationship of solidarity between settlers and Indigenous peoples is intertwined with settler support for self-determination of Indigenous peoples

(Snelgrove et al., 2014). This model of solidarity requires accountability to Indigenous peoples and decision-making power to sit with Indigenous leaders. In movements engaged in solidarity between settlers and Indigenous peoples, there is a strong narrative that settlers taking on reproductive labour or “grunt work” and willing to take direction from Indigenous leaders are enacting their right roles (Keefer, 2010; Kraemer, 2000). In this model, settlers understand themselves as engaging in solidarity through their support for Indigenous self- determination and through moving away from leading campaign work.

Often, when the frontline solidarity model is engaged, the solidarity groups involved are created for the purpose of supporting an existing movement or campaign led by a frontline group. In contrast with these scenarios, in which the solidarity framework related to leadership and roles is foundational, environmentalism was not founded as a movement in solidarity with Indigenous peoples. In contrast, environmentalism is very much tied to the theory and practice of settler colonialism through settler protection and ownership of

“empty” land (Aguiar & Marten, 2011; Dowie, 2009; Isaki, 2013; Merchant, 2007; Thorpe,

2011). In addition, environmentalism in Canada and the United States has historically romanticized Indigenous peoples as the “Ecological Indian” (Krech, 1999) and caused direct or indirect harm to Indigenous peoples and Indigenous rights (Arnaquq-Baril, 2016;

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Nadasdy, 2005). In perpetuating a colonial view in which settlers have a right to determine what happens on the land, environmentalism contributes to Indigenous erasure (Curnow &

Helferty, 2018).

As discussed in the previous chapter, settler anti-pipeline activists involved in this research took up the frontline solidarity model to solve the problems of white settler dominance in environmentalism and a desire to have good relationships with Indigenous peoples. Frontline solidarity, however, theoretically hinges on the same systems of white supremacy that are tied to environmentalism; in relying on privileged groups to work for justice for marginalized groups, the system requires these distinctions to be maintained and requires attention to be paid to white people with power. Frontline solidarity in practice attempts to make up for this contradictory position, in which it works to combat injustices while relying on the same systems that created those very injustices, by positioning the privileged group as peripheral within the solidarity relationship (Koopman, 2012; Mahrouse,

2014). This subordination can look, for example, like initiatives to follow Indigenous leadership, an approach which also connects to a motivation to prefigure Indigenous governance over Indigenous land, or like limiting settler participation in activism to “grunt work” or logistics.

Frontline solidarity does not solve settler environmentalism (Curnow & Helferty,

2018). It is a model that can result in useful work within the context of campaigns with shared goals and can also lead to unproductive behaviours and approaches. It provides a way for settler activists to position themselves as the good ally, while simultaneously asking too much of Indigenous leaders and, at times, too little of settler environmentalists. It also risks an over-focus on settler participation in decolonization, which Flowers, a Leey’qsun scholar,

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asserts is more about solving settler shame through “recognition by the colonized” (Flowers,

2015, p. 37) than supporting Indigenous-led activism. Despite these theoretical contradictions, frontline solidarity is a model that is often embraced by settler activists as the preferred approach to working with Indigenous peoples in Canada. The settler anti-pipeline activists in this research widely took up this model.

It is with an understanding of the theoretical and practical tensions involved in engaging in frontline solidarity that I examine an additional powerful layer that the anti- pipeline activists navigated: their positions as paid activists in a coordinated and centrally funded anti-pipeline campaign.

Theorizing philanthropy in relation to systems maintaining white settler power

In this section, I review the literature on the impact and influence of the non-profit industrial complex on social movements and social movement organizations in relation to my theoretical examination of attempts to disrupt white supremacy and settler colonialism. I begin by situating foundations as elite structures dependent on systemic inequities and capitalism. I then discuss several ways that the critical philanthropy scholarship theorizes foundations impacting social movement organizations.

Foundations maintaining systems of power

The term “non-profit industrial complex” (NPIC) was constructed by Dylan Rodríguez

(2017) in relation to the prison industrial complex. In bringing together this term, Rodríguez identified the interplay between the state or elites and (progressive) social movement organizations (SMOs). Through the NPIC, elites are able to supervise and exert control over social movements by bringing SMOs into a system in which their survival is dependent on philanthropy. From the perspective of those working in SMOs, this organizational survival

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becomes intertwined with both the ongoing existence of their movement as well as their day- to-day employment. Within the NPIC this dependence and the corresponding influence of foundations on SMO work becomes the norm.

A central reason that this dependence is problematic is that foundations are, generally speaking, not going to operate against the interests of the founder, the founding family, or systems of power that enable consolidation of wealth (T. L. King & Osayande, 2017;

Roelofs, 2003). Foundations rely on the acceptability of individuals amassing vast amounts of wealth through processes dependent on local and global injustices. As a result, the critical philanthropy literature contests the idea that foundation funding supporting career-based organizing is a mechanism that can enable transformational change (A. Smith, 2017).

Philanthrocapitalists today compound the acceptability of the existence of an elite class by engaging with strategic giving as part of an approach that visibly and proudly seeks to maintain their own wealth and privilege (McGoey, 2015). Philanthrocapitalism celebrates an approach to philanthropy that emphasizes maximization of results per dollar spent through business management approaches that philanthropists believe are more effective than state- run systems (Morvaridi, 2012), even as philanthropy has always been dependent on government protection of the wealth of the wealthy (McGoey, 2015). McGoey draws on

Bourdieu and Gramsci to understand philanthropy as a system that appears altruistic but is underpinned by the need for the wealthy to legitimate and maintain their wealth. Building on this argument, I understand systems of philanthropy as rooted in white settler worldviews that celebrate hoarding of stolen resources. From these various critical perspectives it is unsurprising that systems of philanthropy are largely ineffective at shifting power away from the over-resourced or enabling moves toward decolonization.

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Unlike some other social movement funding that avoids intervening in production of wealth, anti-pipeline work does disrupt an industry, one which many foundations’ investments depend (or historically depended) on and of which several foundations’ founders were industry leaders. This strategy may therefore appear to be less about maintaining current systems of power than, for example, the poverty alleviation strategies theorized on the benefit of bringing poor people into dependence on capitalist marketplaces that Morvaridi

(2012) discusses. However, stopping pipelines is a solution that fits within a philanthropic model that is committed to addressing climate change but not to overturning or even questioning white settler governance. Working to stop pipelines does not work against settler colonial systems of power; agency within an anti-pipeline approach is maintained with

(primarily) white settler environmentalists whose worldviews are sufficiently aligned with those of the (primarily) white settler foundation leadership.

Also notable when considering the maintenance of white settler power is that much of the argument against current systems of philanthropy relies on the assumption that current governments are better positioned to address issues of poverty, health, and environment through tax dollars and the welfare state than are private foundations directing national and global agendas through massive donations; these arguments critique foundations for massive tax breaks that steal money from the public (Kohl-Arenas, 2017; McGoey, 2015; Wilson

Gilmore, 2017). While I generally agree with this critique, in settler colonial countries it relies on an assumption of the rightness of the settler state to govern land and people. In alignment with a frontline solidarity model oriented toward self-determination of Indigenous peoples the transformational change that I theorize in this paper is not the development of a

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massive welfare state; it is an overturning of settler colonial power and the return of

Indigenous land to Indigenous peoples.

Mechanisms maintaining white settler power

Critical philanthropy scholars theorize foundations exerting influence over social movement organizations through various approaches that serve to maintain current systems of power. Commonly discussed approaches include the selection of moderate rather than radical organizations for funding (Aksartova, 2003; Brulle & Jenkins, 2005; Haines, 1984;

Jenkins et al., 2018; Jenkins & Eckert, 1986) or professionalizing and therefore moderating grassroots organizations (Bothwell, 2001; Brulle, 2000; Jenkins & Halcli, 1999; D.

McCarthy, 2004). These processes are often understood as “co-opting” or “channeling” social movement organizations to achieve a moderating influence on social movements’ goals, strategies and tactics so that larger systems of white settler/elite power remain unchallenged. In this section, I discuss the ways in which critical philanthropy scholars theorize power relationships between foundations and social movement organizations.

One commonly discussed mechanism through which foundations exert power in a social movement context is through the selection of which movement organizations to fund.

In an argument rooted in Gramsci’s theory of hegemony in which members of the ruling class serve to manufacture consent and prop up state power (Gramsci, 1971), Roelofs (2003) observes that moderate SMOs willing to embrace legalistic or education-related strategies for specific groups to obtain rights but that do not contest systems of power are supported by foundations and brought into the NPIC. She theorizes philanthropy as rooted in a need to avoid marginalized peoples organizing using their own resources without any elite influence or control. Through philanthropy, individuals who might otherwise disrupt systems of power

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are brought into those very systems, provided with positions and salaries, and given many bureaucratic tasks to achieve and networks to maintain.

In contrast, SMOs focusing on systemic change and contesting systems of power are often deemed “unfundable” or “unrealistic” by foundations (Roelofs, 2003). Roelofs argues that processes of selection can result in social movements becoming increasingly moderate in their tactics and goals as funded organizations grow and dominate movement spaces and organizations seeking funding align their plans with foundation priorities. Roelofs’ argument is rooted in the assumption that philanthropy works to maintain existing systems of power and to exert control over social movements.

Building on scholarship that describes shifts in strategic approach and professionalization of social movements over time, Bartley (2007) examines the processes by which foundations channel social movements. He argues that foundations also influence

SMOs through the creation of organizational fields that create the process and boundaries of a social change project. In his analysis, foundations were pivotal in creating an environment in which a mix of radical and moderate environmental organizations came to be in agreement that creating a forest certification system was the correct solution to deforestation (Bartley,

2007).

In this case, rather than funding moderate groups to the exclusion of protest-based grassroots organizations engaged in boycotts, funders proactively brought moderate and radical organizations together into a new system with a collective goal. Funders served an entrepreneurial role in building forest certification as a field that SMOs could participate in or be brought into. Many SMOs became invested in and supported this initiative whether or not they were directly funded by the project and across an ideological spectrum within the

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broader environmental movement (Bartley, 2007). The foundations normalized a market- friendly approach to addressing the problem of deforestation while enabling protest-oriented organizations to hinge their demands on adoption of the certification system rather than reducing the use of wood. This approach strengthened the demand for companies to use certified wood and companies were publicly celebrated by the ENGO community if they made this change. Bartley’s analysis demonstrates the power of this entrepreneurial approach of foundations beyond other analyses focusing solely on the selection of moderate organizations and professionalization of grassroots organizations. In addition to exerting control over the industries that made philanthropists wealthy in the first place, the foundations created by these same philanthropists proactively exert (white settler) control over social movements.

Also exploring the “how” rather than the “what” of funder influence on SMOs,

McCarthy (2004) identified three bureaucratic/procedural aspects of foundation work that risked exerting intentional or unintentional influence on SMOs: offering project-based support rather than operating support, evaluating success based on measurable criteria, and making short-term rather than long-term grants. Within philanthropy directed toward environmental justice, however, McCarthy (2004) found that environmental justice SMOs and foundation program officers were well aware of the risks of foundation influence and took steps to proactively work against this potential, including understanding foundations themselves as a realm at which to direct their activism. McCarthy’s research provides stories of staff in traditional foundations working with environmental justice organizations to combat these risks. This analysis supports an understanding of the relationship between foundations and SMOs as complex and contested and continually negotiated even as it does

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not argue that this results in a shift in the underlying power arrangements that underpin the relationship.

Kohl-Arenas (2015) also complicates the representation of a system in which foundations deliberately channel or co-opt SMOs. Like Roelofs (2003), Kohl-Arenas’ analysis stems from a Gramscian framework. She proposes that foundations define the

“common sense” (Gramsci, 1971) approach to solve societal problems in ways that work to maintain current systems of power. In alignment with the critical philanthropy literature,

Kohl-Arenas found that foundations did exert a professionalizing and moderating influence on SMOs involved in the farmworker movement in California. However, Kohl-Arenas argues that foundation influence on SMOs was iterative and uneven rather than the implementation of a grand capitalist vision. Like McCarthy (2004), her research proposes that activists and program officers were aware of and wanted to work against the influence of foundations on the movement’s ability to determine its own goals and strategies; however,

Kohl-Arenas found that SMO participation in a foundation-driven collective still resulted in a distancing from the community base of the movement. Even without the intention of diverting movement goals, the power imbalance of the funder-funded relationship resulted in

SMOs moving their work toward the “common sense” asserted by foundations. McCarthy

(2004) and Kohl-Arenas (2015)’s research show us that activists are at times successful in shifting funder decisions on a grant-by-grant scale; however, these shifts do not ultimately work to overturn systems of white settler power.

The critical philanthropy scholarship engages substantially with power, but primarily engages with power through the lens of maintaining wealth and the capitalist system.

Bringing critical race theory into the conversation, Francis (2019) theorizes “movement

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capture” as a process through which funders influence the decision-making processes and priorities of social movement organizations. Within this framework, funders are most able to exert influence in times of financial scarcity or instability or when an organization is early in its development and has limited access to funders. As a result of movement capture, the

(white, liberal) Garland Fund was instrumental in shifting the priorities of the (Black-led)

NAACP in the United States from radical anti-violence to education in a time of financial scarcity (Francis, 2019). While not downplaying the victory of desegregated education,

Francis asserts that:

The problem with the mainstream education narrative of civil rights is not that

desegregating education was not important to black citizenship or that education was

not a radical issue but how it conceals the fight against racial violence and advances a

distorted version of civil rights memory. (p. 301)

Francis argues that the Garland Fund, despite a founding orientation to spend down its funds and exert minimal influence on grantees, changed civil rights history and permanently shifted the focus of the NAACP. From the framework of critical race theory, she argues that this is a case in which racial hierarchies are maintained through the practices and priorities of well- intentioned white liberals.

Critical philanthropy scholarship has deeply theorized various ways that foundations deliberately or inadvertently influence social movement organizations. The power of foundations can be exerted through selecting moderate organizations to fund and thereby increasing their power relative to radical organizations; by bringing radical movement leaders into foundation-directed strategies; by creating organization fields that enroll movement organizations; by requiring bureaucratic processes that pull time away from

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movement building work. In all these cases, power is maintained with white settler elites who see themselves as best positioned to determine pathways to justice for marginalized peoples.

This position deeply contrasts with an approach that emphasizes the importance of self- determination. While the detailed archival and ethnographic research taken on by critical philanthropy scholars makes clear the theoretical and practical complexities of how power and control are negotiated, as well as the ways in which social movements push back against and contest this power, this scholarship is rooted in recognition of the power of foundations in shaping movement agendas.

Environmentalism, as a particularly professionalized social movement with relatively limited grassroots accountability structures (Brulle & Jenkins, 2005; Jenkins et al., 2018), is substantially subject to the influence of foundations. Given the advocacy nature of anti- pipeline activism, it is also notable that environmental funding Canada leans strongly away from advocacy approaches, which received only 4.4% of funding in 201611 (Canadian

Environmental Grantmakers Network, 2018). This disinclination to fund advocacy in Canada makes the work of the staff members funded by the Anti-Pipeline Campaign very much dependent on their continued participation in this network.

While the specific approaches of the foundations funding the APC no doubt vary, I situate the current state of the NPIC with its emphasis on maximizing results per dollar, achieving short-term successes, and taking a top-down approach to change as the pool in

11 The Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Network’s analysis for grants in Canada in 2016 indicated the following as the top strategies for environmental funding: Direct Activity (e.g. tree planting), 35%; Education/Youth Organizing, 16%; Research, 14%; Public Education/Awareness, 12%; Capacity Building, 11%. The low funding in the Advocacy category in Canada contrasts sharply with that of the United States, for which Advocacy was the top category in 2015 receiving 35% of funding (Environmental Grantmakers Association, 2017).

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which the settler activists coordinated and funded through the APC are swimming. While social movement organizations speak back to foundations when they can, they are substantially constrained by a philanthropic structure that creates a dependence on foundations for their ongoing existence. These foundations themselves are dependent on the maintenance of white settler systems of power for their ongoing survival, making funded social movement organizations similarly dependent on maintenance of current hegemonic systems.

Research Methods

This paper is part of a research project about settler environmental activists attempting to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples in Canada. Most of the individuals interviewed were engaged in anti-pipeline work related to the Energy East or Trans Mountain pipelines. I conducted a total of twenty-eight interviews: individual interviews with twenty-one people, and small group interviews with seven (two groups of two and one group of three). I conducted follow-up interviews with four participants, although I have had brief follow-up conversations with several more. Twenty-five people identified primarily as non-Indigenous activists, although two mentioned that they may have some Indigenous heritage but did not identify as Indigenous. Three identified as Indigenous and were recognized leaders in their communities. Most of the interviews took place in person, with one using video conferencing technology and two (one initial, one follow-up) over the phone. In this paper, I draw primarily from interviews with paid activists connected to the Anti-Pipeline Campaign.

In each of the interviews I conducted, I asked the participants whether or not they wanted me to use a pseudonym when I quoted or referenced them in this research. All but two said they did not want a pseudonym used. However, as I completed this dissertation, I

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decided that my preference was to use pseudonyms for most participants. I felt that naming the participants, particularly in cases where I critique their actions or perspectives or examine emotional experiences, trapped them in a particular moment in time in a way that drew attention to the individuals rather than systems. I want the focus of this dissertation to be the frameworks and assumptions and systems that the environmentalists engage with and in, not the individuals.

The interviews were conducted based on an interview guide with questions and themes, but the content discussed in each interview varied substantially. As is common in in-depth interviewing (Hesse-Biber, 2007), I engaged in follow-up questions with the participants based on their responses to the questions while keeping in mind commonalities with or divergences from previous interviews. Given my identity as a climate activist and my political alignment with movement goals previously working in environmental movement organizations, I was somewhat of an “insider” to the movement. This came with the benefit of an acceptance of my engagement in this research topic and, I believe, trust that I would responsibly engage with their stories and an openness to discussing difficult experiences

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(Corbin Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). However, my current status as a researcher along with my very limited involvement in anti-pipeline activism in Canada meant that I personally knew very few of the interview participants and very little of their particular activist context.

I conducted the analysis for this paper through multiple rounds of coding. I began by lump coding all the times that funding or professionalization was mentioned in the data and creating codes that emerged from the data. I grouped the codes into themes and created subcodes within the themes. In early rounds of coding I focused on constraints that participation in the NPIC imposed on solidarity, since these were the most apparent in the data, and included all funded interview participants rather than only those involved in the

Anti-Pipeline Campaign. Over time, the Anti-Pipeline Campaign became apparent as a particularly relevant force within anti-pipeline activism in Canada and the ways that the campaign encouraged relationships between settler and Indigenous peoples emerged alongside the constraints. After multiple rounds of coding and iterations of codes I ultimately prioritized a narrower set of data that most closely connected the Anti-Pipeline Campaign and solidarity to draw on for this paper. However, the themes discussed cut across many more interviews and topics than those mentioned in this paper.

The non-Indigenous participants discussed in this paper identified as white or white- passing. While there are many racialized people involved in anti-pipeline activism, some of whom provided feedback on this research outside of an interview context, the environmental movement is dominated by the presence and culture of whiteness (Curnow & Helferty,

2018). The focus of this paper is on paid environmental activists which is also a predominately white group.

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The organizations funded through the Anti-Pipeline Campaign where the research participants worked vary from those with a single staff person to those with more than sixty.

Many of the interview participants attended an annual campaign retreat in order to build relationships, learn about each other’s work, and discuss strategy. I participated in the final retreat that took place in spring 2017 as a participant observer and workshop facilitator. At the time of the research, the APC funding was ending or soon-to-be ending for most participants as the funders declared Canada a climate success and turned their focus to other parts of the world. Most of the pipelines proposed over the previous several years had been successfully stopped.

Research Context

The APC was focused on preventing new pipeline development in Canada. In recent years, pipelines were proposed to run from the tar sands in Alberta to the east or west coasts of Canada or south into the United States. The rationale for the focus of the APC on pipelines was that new pipeline development would lock Canada into increased extraction of oil from the tar sands over the coming decades. Extracting oil from bitumen in the tar sands requires much greater water and energy inputs for extraction and refining than conventional liquid oil

(Union of Concerned Scientists, 2016) and the process of surface mining tar sands decimates

Canada’s boreal forest (Petersen & Sizer, 2014). Tar sands pipeline spills in water are also much more difficult to clean than leaks of conventional oil because a much higher percentage of the diluted bitumen (dilbit) contained in the pipelines sinks in water (Song, 2012). The expansion of tar sands mining is incompatible with Canada doing its fair share to address the climate crisis and presents an ongoing health and environmental challenge when pipelines leak or spill.

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At the time of the anti-pipeline campaigns, the importance of Indigenous leadership on

Indigenous land was more and more widely discussed in activist spaces in Canada as a result of the powerful influence of Idle No More. In addition, as much as a reconciliation framework can itself be a limited colonial construct (Clark, de Costa. & Maddison, 2016), the general awareness among non-Indigenous people in Canada of the systemic violence done to

Indigenous peoples increased in recent years perhaps as a result of the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission (The Environics Institute for Survey Research, 2016). The settler anti-pipeline activists involved in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign were impacted by these broader narratives and recognized Idle No More in particular as having had a strong influence on their understanding of Indigenous rights.

I begin with a discussion of the impact of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign in motivating settler activists to position anti-pipeline work in a model of frontline solidarity. I then focus on two elements of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign that substantially impacted the frontline solidarity efforts of settler activists funded to work on the campaign. The first, which is a common feature of funding within the NPIC, was a focus on short-term campaign wins rather than long-term systems change. This organizational system, unsurprisingly, limited the opportunities for solidarity. The second, which was unique to the Anti-Pipeline Campaign, was the requirement for settler activists to engage in some way with First Nations or

Indigenous leaders. This requirement at times limited and at other times supported relationships between settler and Indigenous peoples working to stop pipelines. In relation to both elements, I identify the ways that individual settler activists’ frontline solidarity efforts, imperfect and problematic as these can be, were impacted by their position as funded activists within the Anti-Pipeline Campaign.

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The Anti-Pipeline Campaign encouraging frontline solidarity

Building relationships with Indigenous climate leaders at Anti-Pipeline Campaign convenings and through coordinated work contributed substantially to settler activists’ motivation to position the anti-pipeline work as frontline solidarity in alignment with

Indigenous leadership. The annual campaign strategy retreat provided a particularly powerful opportunity for learning by bringing together settler and Indigenous activists funded within the campaign, Indigenous leaders working to stop pipelines, and academics and other allies.

Francine (pseudonym), who worked at an environmental NGO in Quebec, talked about how she started learning about Indigenous rights as a result of both the power of Idle No More and working on the Anti-Pipeline Campaign:

…meeting different people, getting the opportunity to meet with Idle No More folks,

meeting with other Indigenous folks, communities across Canada, Turtle Island, and

just getting some more knowledge about the Indigenous reality and realizing how the

colonization process had kind of wiped them from history and realizing my own lack of

education on the subject… I’m the only one [in my organization] who’s exposed and

who has the opportunity and the chance to work with Indigenous communities.

It was in part a result of the convenings that Francine participated in and the national network she gained through the Anti-Pipeline Campaign that she learned about the impacts of colonization and began to understand climate activism in relationship with Indigenous peoples. This exposure to Indigenous worldviews had a substantial influence on her understanding of the importance of Indigenous leadership in the context of land-based campaign work and motivation to position the work as frontline solidarity.

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It is also important to note that, as Francine points out, no one else at her organization had the opportunity to learn from Indigenous leaders and about situating land-based work in alignment with Indigenous rights in the way that she did through her involvement in the

Anti-Pipeline Campaign. The approach of situating anti-pipeline or other climate work in the context of Indigenous leadership was not the norm at her organization, nor was engaging in any way with Indigenous peoples. Francine was somewhat alone within her organization in her prioritization of this approach in part as a result of what she learned through the Anti-

Pipeline Campaign.

Daniel also talked about the importance of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign retreat for relationship development:

I did the… retreat six years in a row…in those six years, we had brought a lot of

Indigenous activist leaders and some Elders and some elected band council members

over the years from different fights we’d been working in and got to know a bunch of

them. And that was hugely valuable, to be able to spend time with Derek Nepinak from

[the Assembly of] Manitoba Chiefs or – a bunch of the folks – I was involved in the

[Northern] Gateway fight for a long time, and some of the leaders of the Yinka Dene

Alliance…

Daniel’s framing is that of a settler campaign inviting in Indigenous leaders to participate.

This framing speaks to the campaign being coordinated by settlers and working from a settler perspective. While Indigenous leaders were invited to the retreat, the campaign primarily funded settler activists. However, what Daniel emphasized was the importance of face-to- face connections, flexible time, and the opportunities to discuss difficult issues in

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environmentalism and build relationships with Indigenous leaders that the retreat created in a companionable environment.

Teika, who was the Executive Director of Transition Initiative Kenora at the time of the interview, coordinated the planning of the retreat during the time of this research. She mentioned that the process of planning the retreat had resulted in her connecting with Eriel

Tchekwie Deranger about Eriel’s participation in the retreat. Eriel is from the Athabasca

Chipewyan First Nation and currently Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action.

Teika reflected that the conversation ended up being much deeper than about participation and planning:

The crux of the conversation in the end, I suppose, after we talked about a lot of other

things, was that, none of our work we do really addresses the root causes of the things

we are fighting. So there are systemic roots to the problems that allow for conditions

for those problems to arise, so tar sands mining in and of itself is a problem, but it’s not

the root of a problem. The root of the problem is the systemic colonial system that has

allowed Indigenous voices to be disenfranchised and that has allowed white, capitalist

power structures to supplant themselves on Indigenous lands. So, that’s the problem.

With the goal of connecting about the retreat in the context of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign,

Teika and Eriel were able to engage in a conversation about root causes that extended well beyond the official campaign framework focused on stopping pipelines. They were able to continue to develop their relationship through the conversation and learn about each other’s experiences and perspectives. While anti-pipeline activism and, often, other environmentalist campaign work, does not attempt to address root causes of an issue, this attention to root causes and attention to a need for decolonziation is often central to Indigenous approaches to

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change. That Teika and Eriel had this conversation was a result of who they are as individuals and their relationship, but the conversation itself was prompted by a need to coordinate work facilitated through the Anti-Pipeline Campaign.

I am not suggesting that the retreat was a utopian space for relationship building. While also noting that the retreat was a great networking experience, Jordan, the Lands and

Resources Coordinator at Eagle Lake First Nation, who attended the retreat one year, mentioned that the all-vegan diet was unexpected. While this observation may have been about personal preference for Jordan, it connects to an established critique from Indigenous and environmental justice leaders about enforced vegetarian or vegan diets at environmental gatherings. That the Anti-Pipeline Campaign retreat had not addressed this the year Jordan attended, given the long-standing nature of this critique, indicates the strength of settler environmentalist norms governing the retreat12.

The retreat could be problematic in other ways as well. Daniel also referenced very tense and high conflict experiences at the retreat in previous years, which he said one year resulted in having to cancel a whole day of sessions due to “poking the issue a little too directly and triggering everyone.” In addition, Margo, who had attended the retreat in the past, talked about the power held by campaign coordinators at the retreat:

They are funders who convene people who show up because they hold the purse strings

who think that they can be funders and facilitators and think that they don’t have

12 The year I attended the retreat there was an optional “protein supplement” that participants could indicate they wished to receive at additional cost (although I believe the cost was often covered by the organizers). While I did not observe any judgement of participants who opted to eat meat at the retreat, the opt-in approach maintains vegetarianism/veganism as the norm. Assuming that all (white) settler activists are vegetarian and all Indigenous people eat meat is a substantial overgeneralization. However, in the context of discussion about leadership and norms within spaces, a default of veganism signals a settler environmentalist space.

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power, but you can’t hold all the purse strings and convene people and tell them you’re

neutral because you don’t understand what power is if you believe that’s possible.

Margo’s substantial critique of the interpersonal dynamics of the retreat and, possibly, the

Anti-Pipeline Campaign as a whole was that campaign coordinators were failing to acknowledge the power they held over activists funded by the campaign in campaign spaces.

Many of the participants’ jobs were dependent on funding from the APC and the coordinators had substantial impact on the distribution of this funding.

The retreat was a complicated and contested space. It was coordinated by settler activists with power over the people who attended. The side conversations that the retreat enabled, such as the one mentioned between Eriel and Teika, did not change the focus of the

Anti-Pipeline Campaign to the root causes creating the conditions for pipeline proposals. The

Anti-Pipeline Campaign did not become about decolonization. Despite the focus on

Indigenous leadership and the desire of settler participants to situate anti-pipeline activism as frontline solidarity learned in part from participation in campaign retreats, the Anti-Pipeline

Campaign was a settler-coordinated campaign that primarily funded settler activists to stop pipelines.

At the same time, if planned and facilitated with expertise and care, and with enough time outside of official sessions to connect informally, the annual retreat provided space for settler anti-pipeline activists and Indigenous leaders to develop relationships. Settler activists learned about the importance of Indigenous leadership and about colonialism and decolonization. That the settler anti-pipeline activists heard the perspectives of powerful

Indigenous leaders as a result of participation in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign substantially impacted the settler activists’ perspectives on the importance of situating the anti-pipeline

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campaign work in alignment with Indigenous leadership. Participation in the Anti-Pipeline

Campaign motivated settler anti-pipeline activists to address problems of environmentalism that were often made stark at the campaign retreats by positioning their funded activism as frontline solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

As discussed earlier, frontline solidarity risks being more about those attempting solidarity work than about frontline peoples (Curnow & Helferty, 2018); this approach risks being about alleviating settler shame and searching for recognition by the colonized than about decolonization (Flowers, 2015). Frontline solidarity is not the solution to an environmentalist approach that has so often failed to respect Indigenous governance, worldviews, and lives. At the same time, approaching land-based work with the goal of taking direction from Indigenous peoples has the potential to result in a shift in environmentalist actions that may at times reduce harm. Encouraged by their participation in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign, settler anti-pipeline activists turned to frontline solidarity and attempted to shift their understandings of themselves in relation to land.

Systems change vs. short-term wins in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign

While participation in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign and learning from Indigenous leaders contributed to the motivation of settler activists to position their anti-pipeline campaign work as following Indigenous leadership in a model of frontline solidarity, as paid campaigners they were ultimately subject to the priorities and processes of the campaign and of their organization. One of these processes, understood as a common feature of social movement funding in the NPIC, was a focus on short-term campaign wins (D. McCarthy,

2004). In contrast with a systems-change approach, focusing on short-term wins does not threaten capitalist systems that enable the vast accumulation of wealth necessary for the

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existence of the foundations that fund social movement work. Short-term wins do not work to overturn settler governance on Indigenous land. In this section, I discuss the approach of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign in relation to short-term wins, drawing primarily on Melissa’s perspective as a campaign coordinator. I then discuss the impact of this approach on solidarity within the campaign.

The Anti-Pipeline Campaign and short-term wins

The Anti-Pipeline Campaign goals were to stop pipeline development and to position

Canada as a climate leader. Although undeniably challenging, these are relatively short-term goals that operate within the colonial governance system. They are fairly typical of goals within the environmental movement and can be broken down into measurable intermediate targets and deliverables.

In my interview with Melissa, she discussed her thinking on stopping pipelines in the short term vs. funding long-term systems change:

If I had $500,000,000 dollars, which I don’t, by the way, but if I did have it, I would

take half of it and I would put it into the campaigns that are dealing with what’s

happening tomorrow, right? And that’s where we bump into things. Rapid response.

The government’s making a decision in two months. We need to get these

communication tools out. First Nations can’t always move on that timeline, but ENGOs

[environmental non-governmental organizations] can, and sometimes First Nations can,

and a lot of Nations are getting better at that, they’re understanding that’s the

immediate part of the work. But a lot of Nations are working on much bigger systems

change. And systems change doesn’t have timelines, it doesn’t have outputs… But

right now, there’s so little money around – well, I don’t know what the First Nations

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get on their own, but in the ENGO world, there’s so little money that, if you were to

split it up into dealing with stuff that’s coming up right now, like pipeline decisions,

and systems change, there wouldn’t be enough for either one.

Melissa distinguishes how she would divide up funding if she had a much greater amount of money to distribute and how she prioritized funding given the funds available. Melissa was clear that she felt prioritizing short-term anti-pipeline fights was the necessary and correct approach. She contrasts more immediate work with longer-term systems change work led by

First Nations. An approach of scarcity dominates Melissa’s perspective, which speaks to the challenges of her position as an intermediary between funders and funded organizations; she both receives grant proposals from organizations funded through the campaign and is in conversation with funders about the amount of funds they are willing to provide.

Melissa proposes that, in general, environmental SMOs are better positioned to engage in rapid response than First Nations and are used to working on short-term campaigns rather than taking a systems change approach. Environmental SMOs have been shaped by the foundation funding they have received over time and are accustomed to generating goals within a framework of what is “fundable.” They are accustomed to describing their campaign efforts in the context of measurable deliverables, winnable campaigns, and short timelines.

Melissa talks about the normalization of these practices within the system of philanthropy:

We have to because the foundations – it’s all done based on a very European,

structured way of thinking about things, which is: “Tomorrow the decision’s being

made. What do we have to do to get the Prime Minister to make that decision

tomorrow?” It’s on that kind of timeline, which is very different from a more

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traditional First Nations approach to things, and I don’t actually – I think it’s right. I

think if you stop everything and go into a full systems change for First Nations, we

would have three pipelines.

Melissa’s theory of change, given financial constraints, is in alignment with that of the foundations providing funding for the Anti-Pipeline Campaign. She believes that the pipelines were successfully stopped because the available funding was directed toward the short-term approach of stopping pipelines rather than a long-term approach of changing the system focused on Indigenous governance and decolonization. That the Anti-Pipeline

Campaign funded activism engaged in stopping pipelines did disrupt an industry; the complaints from oil-aligned governments make this clear (CBC News, 2019). The campaign did challenge powerful systems and assumptions about the inevitability of continued reliance on fossil fuels. However, the campaign’s prioritization of short-term goals over systems change echoes the “cherry-picking” approach that funds moderate rather than radical change and considers organizations bringing together critiques of multiple systems of power unrealistic or unfundable (Roelofs, 2003). Melissa’s understanding of what is and is not possible for the campaign from a framework of scarcity enables her to accept the campaign successes achieved as evidence of the correct approach and of benefit to both settler environmentalists and Indigenous peoples despite her own awareness of the broader and larger goals of many First Nations.

Philanthropic foundations commonly identify goals that mitigate symptoms of an inherently unjust system rather than working to change the system itself (Kohl-Arenas, 2015;

McGoey, 2015; Morvaridi, 2012). Melissa, and, likely, the funders that fund the Anti-

Pipeline Campaign, identified a short-term problem related to proposed pipelines and

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provided funding to address this problem. The Anti-Pipeline Campaign funders were not engaged with the much larger, long-term goal of changing the systems of governance that create the need to continuously campaign to stop pipeline development but would also likely result in limiting the potential for mass accumulation of wealth and reversing settler control of Indigenous land. While Melissa supports this approach, given the funds available, she is in a position that likely has little control over whether the funds should go toward stopping pipelines or toward changing systems of settler governance; foundation boards are unlikely to support a campaign dedicated primarily to Indigenous self-determination. That much of the funding was coming to an end at the time of this research because funders felt that Canada was a climate success indicates the narrowness of the foundations’ goals in the Canadian context.

Attempting to follow Indigenous leadership while requiring short-term wins

Given that environmental SMOs were accustomed to working on shorter-term change efforts, that the Anti-Pipeline Campaign was focused on addressing short-term issues, and that funders were accustomed to funding mainstream SMOs, it is unsurprising that the bulk of funding for anti-pipeline campaigning went to settler environmental organizations rather than First Nations or Indigenous-led work. However, campaign participants recognized effort made by the Anti-Pipeline Campaign coordinators to direct some funds toward Indigenous leaders rather than only fund ENGOs while still critiquing the funders for not more substantially changing their approach. As Daniel put it:

…the funders themselves would describe a very tricky situation where they’re trying to

bring along big international foundations that have never thought about this [climate

work] through this lens and don’t always see the value [in Indigenous leadership], so

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they’re trying to bridge these two things, trying to get money to – so, they did manage

to flow a bunch of money to Indigenous activists. Not quite a bit – quite a bit, but not

relative to the size of the project. So, I’d say it was more successful than any other

project I’ve been involved in…[in] trying to have fights be Indigenous-led and flow

money to those groups, centre that, their leadership in the campaign design. But, yeah,

in the end, and again, back to the sort of narrow, short-term viewpoint on effectiveness,

like looking at Alberta, where was the huge chunk of funding to fund on-the-ground

resistance work to tar sands in Alberta?

Throughout our conversation about the Anti-Pipeline Campaign, Daniel moved back and forth between indicating that the campaign did good work to support Indigenous leadership and critiquing the campaign’s approach as insufficiently aligned with the tenet of frontline solidarity that emphasizes following Indigenous leadership. In this quotation, for example,

Daniel expressed understanding for the complicated position of the campaign coordinators, whom he understood as needing to convince foundations of the importance of Indigenous leadership in the Canadian context. He then said that the campaign did fund Indigenous leaders more substantially than other campaigns in which he had participated, but that, from his perspective, it was not a large percentage of the overall project. Daniel recognized the efforts of the campaign coordinators to shift practices within the typical boundaries of funded activism while expressing a desire for the campaign to do more to shift the boundaries themselves.

Daniel critiques the campaign specifically for an overly short-term outlook that failed to fund grassroots mobilization and capacity building in Alberta. Given that the bulk of the tar sands are located in Alberta, the lack of funding directed toward Alberta-based

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organizations is notable. Daniel particularly noted a lack of funding toward Indigenous leaders who could be working in Alberta:

…there’s nobody who’s paid on the ground to work on tar sands issues in Indigenous

communities right now. Like, almost nobody. That’s something Eriel’s been talking

about for a long time now. “Who on the ground? We’ve got lots of awesome, smart,

young people who could be trained up to work on this who would love to. There’s no

one funding it.”

In another example of Eriel’s influence on the settler climate activist community, Daniel talks about Eriel emphasizing the lack of philanthropic support for Indigenous leadership in places most impacted by the tar sands. He connects the lack of funding for grassroots mobilization in Alberta to the short-term deliverables required in order to receive funding from the Anti-Pipeline Campaign:

They would say, they had a hard time identifying, either people, there are no people,

and getting the people involves years of preparatory work, and building up and training

them, basically you need to fund groups that are small right now over a sustained

period of time and then people get experience. There’s no pool of active people that

you can just grab. There’s no organization where you can say, “We’ll throw you a grant

and you’re good to go.” The environmental community on that front just doesn’t

largely exist. And so, that’s the cynical thing that happens with foundation funding is

your application is a 6-month churn. You’re applying for your next 6 months’ worth of

money. You have to say, “This is what I’m going to do.”

As mentioned earlier, positioning anti-pipeline activism in alignment with Indigenous leadership was a priority for Daniel that he learned in part from participation in the campaign

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and from Eriel and other Indigenous leaders. Daniel seemed torn between a critique of the

Anti-Pipeline Campaign leadership for not sufficiently supporting Indigenous-led anti- pipeline action while also expressing an understanding of the NPIC framework within which the campaign existed and appreciating campaign leaders’ efforts to make some changes.

While Daniel may believe that more could have been done to shift funding toward

Indigenous leadership, which is often understood as central to a frontline solidarity relationship between settlers and Indigenous peoples (Snelgrove et al., 2014), he also indicated that the effort made through the Anti-Pipeline Campaign was more substantial than he had observed in previous campaigns. Some effort was made through the campaign to support Indigenous leadership within the boundaries of the NPIC, but not to the point of shifting who officially held power within the campaign and who had access to funders.

The Anti-Pipeline Campaign also worked in a typical process within the NPIC of limiting the work of funded activists to specific campaign priorities related to stopping pipelines. For example, Francine had learned about the importance of Indigenous leadership in part through the Anti-Pipeline Campaign and had developed relationships with leaders at a nearby First Nation who were also working to stop pipelines. These same leaders were also working on another environmental issue: preventing the reopening of a mine. Francine felt she should also be able to provide support to prevent the mine reopening if she was going to position herself in a frontline solidarity relationship with the people of the nearby Nation.

However, she was in a paid position working to stop pipelines and was therefore limited both by her organization’s priorities and the priorities of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign that funded her job. She contrasted her position with that of the Indigenous leaders:

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What’s tricky I think… the whole organization versus individuals, and one struggle we

had… is that they’re still stuck with that… mine, ’cause they have that new company

now, but now the issue is, even if we were doing similar work with them, my work is

focused on pipelines and energy issues and that’s what we’re getting money for. We’re

not working on mining issues. So how do you, how are you a viable partner, and

they’re just human beings in their community.

Francine distinguishes between her position as someone funded to work to stop pipelines within an organizational structure, with various accountabilities, and the position of the people of the nearby Nation who were dealing with substantial environmental risks from multiple sources and had to manage all of them simultaneously. As she said, she was not funded to work on mining. Her accountability to the organization and to her funding limited her ability to feel she was fully engaging in a relationship of frontline solidarity with the people she had built relationships with at the nearby Nation. She felt was not able to be ultimately accountable to them and to follow their leadership or support their work on multiple issues.

As a result of these limitations, Francine had concluded that it was best to engage in solidarity work outside the organization rather than as part of her funded work: “I don’t think

[my organization is] the right place to be doing meaningful solidarity work and I just think it would hinder some of the partnerships.” That she said this despite having developed good relationships with leaders at the nearby Nation indicates her experience of being unable to meet her own expectations for a frontline solidarity relationship due to her positioning as a paid organizer.

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The focus on specific, short-term wins typical of philanthropic funding of social movement organizations limited the potential for settler activists to position anti-pipeline work as frontline solidarity the way they wanted to in the context of the Anti-Pipeline

Campaign. While activists involved in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign recognized efforts made by funding coordinators to support Indigenous leaders and engage in aspects of a frontline solidarity model, this support worked within rather than stretched or changed the boundaries of the NPIC.

A deep belief in the limitations of what is possible within funded campaigns underpins

Daniel’s perspective on the Anti-Pipeline Campaign’s engagement with Indigenous leadership. From a scarcity framework and with an understanding of the norm of limited funding for Indigenous-led work, he felt that the campaign had made a good effort to shift funding towards Indigenous leadership. He also relays his understanding that Eriel was advocating for additional funding for paid Indigenous organizers; without suggesting that

Eriel does not see the contradictions and complications of funded activism, this understanding seems reasonable given that she currently leads an Indigenous climate organization with paid staff. Daniel advocated for more funding for Indigenous activists within the NPIC system even while understanding the many systemic flaws of the system.

With a similar understanding of limitations, Francine draws a different conclusion; not that she is opposed to paying Indigenous organizers, but that she is not convinced that the current settler environmentalist organizations are a good place to do frontline solidarity work.

She found it difficult to figure out how to be a “viable partner” when constrained by the organization and funders. While both in some ways reliant on continuing systems of oppression, frontline solidarity and philanthropy require different positioning of paid

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activists; Francine found it difficult to simultaneously manage multiple accountabilities and flexibly take direction from and engage in a partnership with Indigenous leaders.

Requiring outreach to First Nations in the Anti-Pipeline Campaign

The Anti-Pipeline Campaign’s focus on short-term wins and measurable deliverables was typical of funded campaigns within the NPIC (D. McCarthy, 2004; A. Smith, 2017). In contrast, the Anti-Pipeline Campaign was somewhat unique in requiring settler activists funded by the campaign to engage in some way with First Nations or Indigenous leaders. In this section, I will discuss the rationale for including this requirement and the impact of the requirement on the efforts of paid settler activists to engage in frontline solidarity relationships.

The outreach requirement

When I interviewed Francine early in the research process, she mentioned that she was required by a funder to work with nearby Indigenous leaders as part of the anti-pipeline campaigning. I expressed some surprise about this, since, in my experience working in climate activism, I had never heard of a funder requiring this type of collaboration. Francine quickly clarified that it was the Anti-Pipeline Campaign that had created this requirement rather than a particular foundation. I later asked Melissa about this requirement when I interviewed her:

We built that in. It wasn’t there when we first started. When we first started we would

sort of say to people, “Tell us what you need in terms of the different campaigns,” but

as we worked more, particularly with the ACFN [Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation],

with Eriel, I think she was a huge influence on me personally in the fact that – I find

this in particular because [where I live] it’s been just drilled into me since the day I set

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foot here that you work with First Nations. But in the rest of Canada, that’s not the

same… And so, I didn’t realize just how much groups were not doing that… it was,

“Tell us how you’re reaching out to the First Nations, how you’re ensuring that they’re

part of things so that it’s a collaboration.”

Within the framework of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign, Melissa was able to establish the requirement that the settler environmental organizations involved in the campaign engage in some way with nearby First Nations. She created this requirement in response to realizing that this was not the norm elsewhere in the country in contrast with her local experience.

Like Daniel and Teika, she mentions learning from Eriel Tchekwie Deranger as key to realizing that there was a need for change. In her position as funding coordinator, she had the power to create this requirement.

In bringing in a requirement to engage with First Nations, Melissa was not requiring activists to engage in a frontline solidarity relationship with Indigenous peoples. She was clear that she was not in support of decision-making power about the campaign necessarily sitting with First Nations: “…we wanted to build in, not that First Nations need to approve everything, because that’s very messy. There are some Nations who support the pipelines.

Which territory are you talking about? It just gets very complex.” Melissa was prepared to oppose pipelines regardless of the positions of the First Nations or hereditary leaders whose land the pipelines may cross.

Instead, what was important to Melissa was that the campaign did not ignore the ongoing existence of Indigenous peoples altogether. From her perspective, her approach was aligned with Indigenous governance:

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I look at First Nations as a government, and I have worked with all different levels of

government who have supported some of the stuff I want to do and have fought against

what I want to do, and no one government has been able to stop me, so if a First

Nation’s – if a Nation doesn’t agree with what I’m doing, I also think that I need to do

outreach, I need to do education, I need to do relationship building, or I keep going. I

just keep going…

A relationship of solidarity between settlers and Indigenous peoples typically relies on settler support for self-determination for Indigenous peoples (Snelgrove et al., 2014). Understanding

First Nations as governments appears in alignment with this approach. Notably, however, in contrast with typical frontline solidarity approaches that emphasize alignment with

Indigenous peoples, Melissa’s understanding of First Nations as governments enables her to run campaigns without needing issue alignment with Indigenous leaders. Her view of First

Nations as governments did not require her to follow the leadership of First Nations; this approach was not about self-determination for Indigenous peoples. Rather, it enabled her to position First Nations alongside the colonial governance systems that control land and water in Canada, none of which she feels she needs to defer to or follow. This perspective enables

Melissa to understand herself in a position of respect for First Nations without needing to follow Indigenous leadership or align her actions with the perspectives of Indigenous peoples. That Melissa is in a key coordinating role makes her understanding of what the relationship should look like between settler environmentalists and Indigenous peoples particularly relevant to the activists funded through the Anti-Pipeline Campaign.

Interestingly, the only other anti-pipeline activist who discussed First Nations as governments and similarly encouraged settler activists to engage with Nations they disagreed

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with was Peter, who was a settler anti-pipeline activist also living in British Columbia and working at a First Nation:

…if you’re going to recognize land and title rights, you need to recognize it in the

sense that like, for example, if you’re anti-LNG [liquified natural gas] and that’s

something you’re working on, and there’s a Nation that’s pro LNG, do you just

completely ignore them, or do you engage them in the same way you would the federal

government or a municipal government that you disagree with? And to me that’s like,

are you even thinking of having the meeting with them? Basically, are you seeing their

jurisdiction as relevant when it doesn’t help you?

Peter critiques settler activists for only engaging with Indigenous peoples or First Nations when this engagement is directly beneficial to their campaign. First Nations’ legal rights through the duty to consult have been critical to stopping pipeline development over the past several years (Gilpin, 2017) and, as a result, there is a risk of settler activists tokenizing

Indigenous peoples by considering First Nations’ rights as tools in the settler campaign toolbox. Instead, Peter encourages settler activists to consistently engage with First Nations even in the case of disagreement. Peter understands this as a way to demonstrate respect for land and title rights.

Peter’s perspective is similar to Melissa’s position that it is important to engage with

First Nations whether or not there is alignment around a particular issue and whether or not

First Nations’ legal rights are useful for a particular campaign. These positions indicate an awareness among settler environmentalists that engagement with Indigenous peoples in anti- pipeline campaigning is not exclusively about collaboration to achieve a mutual goal. While

Melissa did not explicitly call for a frontline solidarity model, this understanding of the

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importance of engagement with Indigenous peoples is in some ways in alignment with a frontline solidarity approach that emphasizes respect for Indigenous governance over

Indigenous land. Melissa’s position that it is not necessary to be in alignment or agreement with First Nations informs the campaign requirement to conduct outreach to First Nations.

Examining the requirement to engage with First Nations in relation to frontline solidarity

While following a particular logic, requiring settler activists to engage with Indigenous peoples was a complicated proposal in practice. This requirement had the potential to open space for relationships but also could result in settler activists interacting with First Nations as a result of the requirement but without organizational support or knowledge of the Nation with which they were attempting to engage.

In an example of a scenario in which the requirement to engage opened space for settler activists to act in solidarity, this requirement was aligned with existing relationships between

Teika and various Elders and leaders at Eagle Lake First Nation including Jordan and Chief

Arnold Gardner, Jordan’s father. Teika had not met Jordan and Chief Gardner as a result of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign requirement to engage with Indigenous leaders; her recollection was that she and Jordan had first connected through another settler activist who had interviewed leaders at Eagle Lake for a photography project, and that Jordan had requested

Teika bring information to a regional pow wow. At the time of the interview, Teika was involved in conversations with Eagle Lake First Nation about a joint legal strategy to stop the

Energy East pipeline and was providing information about the pipeline to Eagle Lake.

I interviewed Jordan with his father, Chief Arnold Gardner, at Thunderbird House in

Winnipeg. Jordan mentioned that Teika had proposed funding for Eagle Lake through the

Anti-Pipeline Campaign: “Teika has included us in some of the proposals that she did, so I’m

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just kind of crossing my fingers that something comes of that.” Eagle Lake had not received funding from the campaign in previous years at the time of the interview, but Jordan was hopeful about receiving funding at the time that we spoke.

Jordan and Chief Gardner were also aware that indicating a relationship with Eagle

Lake through proposing joint funding had the potential to benefit Teika in the eyes of funders. As Jordan put it: “A lot of organizations need that First Nation... to be able to put it in the proposals.” Chief Gardner agreed: “That’s why I like involving people like Teika. It’s helping them but it’s also helping us.” While they were not suggesting that benefit to herself was Teika’s main motivation, both Jordan and Chief Gardner believed that their partnership made Teika’s funding proposal stronger given the Anti-Pipeline Campaign’s requirement to reach out to Indigenous leaders. The existence of this relationship did not stem from the Anti-

Pipeline Campaign requirement; however, that the campaign required Teika to engage with

Indigenous leaders provided the opportunity for her to make the case for the campaign to provide funding to Eagle Lake and for Teika to spend paid time interacting with leaders at

Eagle Lake about stopping pipelines.

In contrast with this approach based on existing relationships, in which the campaign requirement to engage with Indigenous leaders supported developed relationships and could potentially directly benefit Indigenous leaders, Peter mentioned problems arising from settler activists overstating their involvement with First Nations as a result of the funding requirement:

…there’s been funding tied to working with First Nations communities, and I’ve

definitely heard frustration of people representing themselves doing a bunch of work

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with Indigenous communities when the realities of that on the day to day are not quite

the same as the way things are being presented.

The Anti-Pipeline Campaign required ENGOs to engage with First Nations as a funding requirement, whether or not this is something the organization prioritized or was likely to maintain after the end of the campaign. It also required the ENGOs to propose what these interactions would be. This arrangement of feeling pressure to report successes to funders can result in an inability to frankly discuss difficulties or failures or to trap organizations into approaches that do not work because the organizations have previously framed them a success (A. Smith, 2017). Peter indicates that ENGOs may have perceived pressure to position themselves working closely with First Nations in order to satisfy funders, resulting in potentially overstating the relationship.

The Anti-Pipeline Campaign requirement to engage with First Nations may, in fact, have set settler activists up to overstate relationships. Rather than work to build relationships slowly and take into account local context, ENGOs were forced into a position of engaging in work with which they may have had little experience and for which they were held to account by funders rather than by the Indigenous leaders to whom they were reaching out.

Accountability to funders risks dominating among many accountabilities (typically to the mission of the organization, to constituents, to partners, in this case also to First Nations) because of the disproportionally powerful position of the funder (Ebrahim, 2005). This arrangement, in which accountability to funders holds greater power than other accountabilities, works against the ability of ENGOs to slowly build flexible relationships with Indigenous leaders. The work of the ENGO is on the terms of the funder rather than

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those of Indigenous leaders and requires action to be reported back to the funder. In the context of funded activism, power rests with the funder.

Frontline solidarity in the NPIC

From a theoretical perspective, systems of philanthropy and frontline solidarity both rely on white supremacy and settler colonialism. Both systems distinguish between those with power and those with less power. Both systems position themselves as working against injustices. Without advocating for a frontline solidarity model as the ideal approach, given these similarities, it is worth exploring why the settler activists interviewed for this research found it difficult to bring frontline solidarity into paid activist processes.

While philanthropy and frontline solidarity both trade on white supremacy, they push settler activists to position themselves in substantially different roles. The NPIC requires settler activists to emphasize, even overstate, their own successes and importance to the campaign. In contrast, frontline solidarity requires settler activists to subordinate themselves in relation to frontline peoples and follow leadership. While settler activists are being pushed by the NPIC to demonstrate how useful they are to stopping pipelines, they simultaneously want to take up the position of good allies who are following rather than leading campaign work. They want the flexibility to align with Indigenous leaders across multiple issue areas and support self-determination. These motivations are out of alignment with the requirements of the NPIC.

From a framework analyzing the maintenance and disruption of systems of power, there are multiple ways to consider the requirement that settler activists reach out to First

Nations that was introduced to the Anti-Pipeline Campaign. SMOs can and do at times engage in activism or advocacy directed toward funders in addition to their community-based

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campaign work (Kohl-Arenas, 2015; D. McCarthy, 2004). Melissa mentioned the influence of Eriel in her decision to bring in the outreach requirement; this could be understood as activism within the campaign system. The outreach requirement as well as efforts to direct funding to First Nations and bring Indigenous leaders to campaign gatherings also likely required Melissa to advocate for the importance of Indigenous leadership to foundations accustomed to only funding settler organizations. Multiple levels of advocacy were likely involved in bringing in the interventions made to the Anti-Pipeline Campaign. At the same time, none of these adjustments shift the perpetuation of settler power within the campaign context or in terms of campaign goals. As Daniel put it, if the campaign was going to be

Indigenous-led “the people making the decisions should probably be Indigenous. That never happened.”

Indigenous worldviews are clear about the importance of relationships – to people, land, water, spirit (Absolon, 2010; Little Bear, 2000; S. Wilson, 2008). Settler environmentalism is founded on the premise of settler governance over Indigenous land, and settler environmentalists have historically failed to build respectful relationships with

Indigenous peoples. Anti-pipeline activists turned to frontline solidarity as a new model of relationship which, while enabling some useful campaign work, still relies on white settler privilege and maintains separate-ness rather than focusing on the opportunities for alignment through relationship (Land, 2015). As a result of their positionalities within the NPIC, settler activists had to layer this solidarity effort on top of a requirement to demonstrate their ongoing worth to campaigns to stop pipelines that they were already in the habit of fulfilling.

This work contributes to theorizing in critical whiteness studies and settler colonial studies by demonstrating how white settlers’ attempts to move themselves out of colonial

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structures and habits are bound by the systems of whiteness that the settlers operate within.

While this does not preclude useful work, settler moves to better ally themselves with

Indigenous peoples at times inadvertently reproduced colonial relationships. This work also contributes to critical philanthropy scholarship that examines the ability of foundation-funded social movements to create transformational change.

Settler environmentalists working in better relations with Indigenous peoples does not in itself work to overturn white supremacy and the settler state. These relationships were often limited and inevitably imperfect within the anti-pipeline campaigning context. Even if the settler activists had more perfectly performed frontline solidarity, they would not have succeeded in working toward decolonization. However, the relationships between white settler environmentalists and Indigenous leaders may at times provide an opening to work together against climate change and colonial systems of power for the mutual benefit of settlers and Indigenous peoples around the edges of the systems within which they are embedded.

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Chapter 4

“There’s gotta be somewhere they can go to have those feelings”: The feeling rules of

frontline solidarity in the anti-pipeline activist community

I have many wonderful memories from the decade I spent in youth climate activism. I was a campus activist, was involved in the founding of the Canadian Youth Climate

Coalition, worked at the Sierra Youth Coalition, and later moved to Washington, DC, to facilitate the Energy Action Coalition (now called PowerShift Network). Despite a seemingly ever-increasing list of politicians determined to bury their heads in the sand on the climate issue, I am proud of what we accomplished. I am particularly proud to have played some small role in strengthening the foundation for the explosion of youth activism that we see today.

I loved being a climate activist and felt incredibly lucky to get to spend every day working for what I believed in, but there is a reason I am not working in climate activism anymore. This reason, unfortunately shared by a number of my friends and former colleagues, is that I burned out. I was juggling a lot of work and competing organizational priorities, but it was not (only) the quantity of work that burned me out. Ultimately, what proved unworkable for me was the emotional weight of attempting to hold together a coalition of mainstream environmental, environmental justice, and Indigenous organizations through a challenging transition period. Everyone who worked for these organizations was deeply committed to climate mitigation, supporting adaptation where (increasingly) necessary, and building a youth movement; however, the substantially different worldviews of each of the movements and, I believe, the dominance of the mainstream environmental

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perspective among coalition leadership, resulted in a constant state of tension and substantial unproductive conflict13.

I have reflected on this time frequently in the years since I left climate activism, and recently began to understand this recent phase of climate action as a period of movement transition (Helferty, 2019b). I believe mainstream environmentalism is making a necessary shift in worldview from climate action to climate justice, and that those of us involved in climate activism during this period of transition are engaging in difficult work. And – that many of us who come from more mainstream environmental roots are going to behave in ways that are aligned with systems designed to oppress. When we do this, we get called out.

I was called out while working in youth climate activism – several times I’m sure, but one time that I most clearly remember. The critiques embedded in the callout were undeniably legitimate. The callout itself, as well as the shunning that accompanied it, was also intensely distressing and deeply wore away at my sense of self. The burnout I experienced in youth activism is the reason I research activism today; both because I was looking for an opportunity to learn and reflect and contribute to social movements in a different way and because I was so burned out that I was no longer useful in activist spaces.

Despite these experiences, I did not plan to write about emotions when I undertook this research project about settler anti-pipeline activists in Canada attempting to work in solidarity with Indigenous people. I did not ask questions about burnout. Burnout inserted itself into the conversations I was having time and time again until I realized I should start

13 The coalition restructured and shifted its focus a few years after I left; to my (admittedly limited) knowledge, most of these problems have been largely resolved through some excellent leadership.

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asking. Once I started, the conversations about burnout and exhaustion and pain were some of the most frank and vulnerable parts of the interviews.

While activist burnout is terrible but ordinary, I perceived during these conversations a familiar distress related to the ways in which the settler environmentalists I spoke with were experiencing burnout. The conversations included the typical experiences of overwork, underpay, and lack of resources and security that permeate activist organizations (Chen &

Gorski, 2015; Cox, 2008; Gorski, 2018; Roth, 2016), alongside the weight of a sustained focus on the climate crisis and the potential for associated anxiety, despair, and depression

(Doherty & Clayton, 2009; Gillespie, 2013; Fessenden, 2014; Caldwell, 2010). However, the participants’ stories also seemed to suggest an experience of burnout related to their efforts to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and communities that drew my attention and that

I recognized from my own efforts trying to work in solidarity and overturn systems of oppression in coalition spaces.

In this paper, I propose a “feeling rule” (Hochschild, 2012) as the source of this distress particular to the context of settler activists attempting to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples. A feeling rule is a “script or moral stance” (p. 50) that indicates which feelings are socially available or appropriate in a particular context. The rule discussed in this paper is that settler activists are not allowed to feel pain when they are called out or criticized in relation to their solidarity work with Indigenous peoples, or that they are not allowed to blame the pain they feel on the actions of an Indigenous person. I connect the roots of this feeling rule to two narratives prevalent in the Canadian social context generally and the environmental activist context specifically: the narrative of white fragility (DiAngelo, 2011), and the narrative of trauma in Indigenous communities (Adams & Clarmont, 2016; Berube,

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2015; Brave Heart et al., 2011; Schiffer, 2016). Despite the rule, settlers are feeling pain when called out, so in order to re-align themselves with the rule they are making great efforts to deny the legitimacy and feeling of this pain to themselves and others.

I take up this process as part of a commitment, as a settler environmentalist myself, to holding up a mirror to other settlers14 in order to better understand what we do and why. This is particularly necessary in the context of discussions of burnout and solidarity since, as a

Black racial justice activist put it, “‘well-intentioned, progressive [white] people who think they are lovers of justice’” (Gorski, 2018, p. 14) can be the greatest contributors to burnout experienced by people of colour. I would find it reasonable to expect that a similar dynamic might apply to interactions between white settler environmentalists and Indigenous peoples, wherein actions of well-intentioned environmentalists attempting to work in solidarity but rooted in the competitiveness and individualism of white culture (Katz, 2003) cause harm to

Indigenous people. My effort in this paper is to name one path settler environmentalists seem to unknowingly travel while attempting solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

Alongside this central commitment to supporting settler environmentalists to stop harming Indigenous peoples in our coalitions and campaigns, I recognize the pain experienced by environmentalists when their genuine efforts to work in solidarity are called out and they subsequently are shamed or shunned by fellow settler activists. This pain is real and is harmful, and can have severe consequences including, as one participant mentioned to me, thoughts of suicide. I write this to call on fellow settler environmentalists to shift our norms from distancing and criticizing each other, and to instead rush to support learning and change for those of us acting in line with the oppressive systems in which we work and live.

14 Thanks to my friend and colleague Dr. Dirk Rodricks for suggesting the metaphor of a mirror.

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My hope is that we can change these practices in our movements and effectively unite against systems of power designed to divide.

I also conduct this analysis in recognition of the deterioration of social movements resulting from movement leaders and participants burning out. The movement for climate justice is one of many interconnected critical movements in this moment and the prevalence of burnout among participants has a systematic weakening effect. These movements need to be powerful and diverse and the many people within them who grew up learning and internalizing colonial, oppressive systems need to be able to (un)learn and persevere for the movement to build power. A revolving door of burned out activists limits the movement’s ability to thrive.

I begin by defining key terms as I use them in this paper: solidarity, callouts, and activist burnout. I then engage with the scholarship on feeling rules and emotions in activism, and the intersection of these literatures. I discuss two narratives connected to the feeling rule

I identify in this paper and provide evidence for the rule drawing primarily from interviews with three research participants. I then discuss a possible impact of this rule: that settlers are not showing up to support each other to learn and heal when they are called out or criticized.

Key concepts and context related to this analysis

In this paper, I engage with a number of concepts that are mobilized differently from field to field and are therefore important to define. I will begin with a discussion of solidarity, and then move on to discuss callouts and activist burnout.

Solidarity

The larger research project that this paper stems from is an examination of the ways that settler environmentalists are attempting to work with Indigenous peoples and First

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Nations to stop pipelines in Canada. Solidarity was often discussed in the context of these conversations, and the way these particular activists understand solidarity is an important piece of context for this paper. While I discuss solidarity in more depth elsewhere (Curnow

& Helferty, 2018), I will provide a brief overview in this section of how solidarity is theorized, how it is applied to activist scholarship broadly, and finally its application to environmental activism specifically.

Sally Scholz (2008) theorizes solidarity between communities as “political solidarity,” which brings individuals together through response to injustice rather than, for example, common identities or experiences. Scholz’s solidarity is rooted in a moral obligation to act, and political solidarity in a shared commitment to justice. Jodi Dean (1996) positions “the tactical solidarity of coalition politics” (p. 27) based on strategy and shared interest as a reduced version of solidarity due to the ongoing creation of “us-them” divisions and requirement for lack of dissent within the group. Alongside this critique, Rorty (1989) proposes solidarity as an active dismantling of us-them distinctions through attending to the pain and suffering of the other. Dean provides additional insight into how solidarity efforts might operate in the context of complex emotional and political environments by proposing reflective solidarity, in which one engages in the conflicts that will inevitably arise and there is a requirement to “get messy” (Uttal, 1990, in Dean, 1996). Dean proposes that it is through this conflict that the group can arrive at a new definition for a “we” that is defined internally to the group, rather than externally by hegemonic systems that operate to separate.

In social movement contexts, political solidarity or frontline solidarity is often understood as action undertaken by one group for the benefit of another (C. C. Gould, 2007;

Sundberg, 2007). In frontline solidarity, differences between identities are maintained in

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recognition of the different ways that systems of oppression structure lived experiences.

However, both the motivations and theories behind frontline solidarity work and the reality of solidarity activism in practice complicate and contest this understanding. Even in the case of movements founded to act in solidarity with a frontline community, often across significant geographical distances, solidarity activists may have their own agendas and preferred ways of working that impact their processes and priorities (Finley-Brook & Hoyt,

2009; Hussey & Curnow, 2013). They may also theorize their work as more than simply a response to a call to action from a frontline community (Brown & Yaffe, 2014).

Solidarity with Indigenous peoples is not foundational to environmental activism. In contrast, environmentalism is very much tied to the theory and practice of settler colonialism and settler protection and ownership of “empty” land (Aguiar & Marten, 2011; Dowie, 2009;

Isaki, 2013; Merchant, 2007; Thorpe, 2011). Collaboration between environmental activists and Indigenous communities does take place, but, as Land (2015) notes in her research on activists in Australia, does not necessarily involve the environmental activists taking up a pro-sovereignty approach. New solidarity efforts by environmental activists today primarily exist as political solidarity between distinct communities as environmentalists recognize and attempt to address systems of oppression that are in some ways intrinsic to the movement.

Many of the anti-pipeline activists discussed in this paper are newly learning about

Indigenous rights and sovereignty through their work. They are engaged in dilemmas and discussions about their relationship to sovereignty and how to build respectful and lasting relationships with Indigenous people. They are also struggling to determine how to understand their activism in relationship to a call for Indigenous leadership on land-based work including anti-pipeline campaigning. They are at times doing useful work as a result of

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these efforts and at other times enacting problematic patterns of settler environmentalism.

Actions discussed by research participants in this study include, for example, holding a rally in a park run by a First Nation and only inviting someone from the Nation to speak at the last minute, or running a campaign on Indigenous land without any engagement of Indigenous peoples at all. At times, these actions have led to callouts. In this paper, I engage with some of the emotional implications of being called out for these actions.

Callouts

When systemically problematic behaviours and patterns are enacted, which activists often understand and experience as mistakes, the activists are sometimes called out for these actions. Callouts are criticisms of an action or position. They can be understood as a necessary response to injustice (Ahmad, 2017; Thomas, 2019) or as a problematic mechanism that inhibits relationships and learning in social movements (Ahmad, 2015).

They may take place over social media or may take place in person. In the research discussed in this paper, activists sometimes talked about being called out as distinct from more private critiques, but at other times identified a one-on-one private interaction as a callout. This indicates to me that there is a lack of consensus among movement participants about what constitutes a callout as compared to other forms of criticism or feedback. In this paper, I follow the participants’ use of language.

Callouts and callout culture have been recently taken up in the scholarly literature, primarily in feminist literature. Scholars and activists theorize callouts as labour in various contexts, including the work of Indigenous women and women of colour to report misogyny, racism, and sexism online (@tgirlinterrupted et al., 2014; Nakamura, 2015) or of students calling out sexual violence on campuses (Vemuri, 2018). A consideration of power is central

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to how the callout is perceived. For example, in the case of students calling out sexual violence at McGill University, Vemuri describes their decision to engage in public actions as a “last resort in their activism, one they enact after coming up against many institutional barriers to action” (p. 500). From the perspective of these authors, callouts are understood as a necessary tool to combat systemic injustices.

However, this scholarly and public attention and the naming of “callouts” in the past decade does not mean that this is a new phenomenon in social movements. Audre Lorde

(1997), reflecting on the possibility of inadvertently invisibilizing non-Black people of colour, for example, wrote that:

If I participate, knowingly or otherwise, in my sister's oppression and she calls me on

it, to answer her anger with my own only blankets the substance of our exchange with

reaction. It wastes energy I need to join with her. And yes, it is very difficult to stand

still and to listen to another woman's voice delineate an agony I do not share, or even

one in which I myself may have participated (281).

In this reflection, Lorde describes a situation that might be named a callout today. Lorde

(1988) herself called out straight Black women for homophobia and creating divisions within

Black women’s activism, saying “those stereotypes are yours to solve, not mine, and they are a terrible and wasteful barrier to our working together” (p. 30).

In another example from feminist movements, Srivastava (2005, 2006) theorizes the problematic responses of white women to being called out as racist in the context of conversations about anti-racism in feminist social movement organizations. In her research, white women drew attention to themselves, their emotions, and their need for comfort or

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expression of these emotions. Srivastava argues that these responses prevented the anti-racist change needed in the organizations that were the purpose of the callouts.

In contrast to feminist scholarship, callouts are rarely explicitly discussed in the scholarship on environmental or climate movements. A recent academic literature search of callout culture and climate activism turned up only one result, which briefly positions callout culture as a threat to sustained climate activism (Slocum, 2018). This is the case despite examination outside the scholarly literature of the racist roots of environmentalism (Purdy,

2015) and the problems of whiteness in environmentalism (Dhaliwal, 2015; Smith Dahmen,

2017), both factors that result in frequent problematic behaviours and associated callouts. In addition, in the Canadian context, it is difficult to talk about any efforts of environmentalists to work with Indigenous peoples without some conversation about the way in which activism against the seal hunt has had an ongoing and severe negative impact on Inuit lives, culture, and economy (Arnaquq-Baril, 2016).

I do not evaluate the callouts discussed in this paper as either necessary to combat injustices and/or as impeding relationships and learning. I do not believe I am in a position to make this determination based on the interviews I conducted. Instead, I work from the premise that callouts are part of the reality of activism, today and in the past, and examine the reactions and experiences of white settler activists to being called out or criticized.

Activist burnout

Activist burnout has been discussed in the social movement and psychology literatures with increasing prevalence over the past two decades (e.g. Bunnage, 2014; Chen & Gorski,

2015; Cox, 2011; Gomes, 1992; P. C. Gorski, 2015, 2018; P. Gorski, Lopresti-Goodman, &

Rising, 2018; Mannarini & Talo, 2011; Roth, 2016; Vaccaro & Mena, 2011). Maslach and

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Gomes (2006), whose work in psychology frames much of the literature on activist burnout today, characterize activist burnout as a state where “the initial ‘fire’ of enthusiasm, dedication, and commitment to the cause has ‘burned out,’ leaving behind the smoldering embers of exhaustion, cynicism, and ineffectiveness,” (p. 43). They additionally recognize that activism requires sustained engagement with local or global injustices that many non- activists do not attend to, and which can result in burnout stemming from experiences of isolation.

Burnout is commonplace within environmental activism. Shields (1991) proposed that particular elements of environmental activism, including sustained attention to predictions of future crises, a sense of limited results from the activist work, and a lack of resources can contribute to burnout. Kovan and Dirkx (2003) found that seven of the nine participants in their study of long-time environmental activists working in small non-profit organizations had experienced significant burnout, and that there was a sense among these activists that future burnout was always a possibility.

Despite the commonness of burnout, there is a nearly complete absence of open discussion and support for burnout among activists; activists felt this absence exacerbated their burnout (Chen & Gorski, 2015). In a study of unpaid education activists that included those working for environmental justice, Gorski and Chen (2015) found a prevalent “culture of martyrdom” (p. 397) among these activists who felt that looking after their own well-being undermined their activism, although some also recognized the problems of this culture and the importance of taking care of themselves to avoid burning out and no longer being able to continue their activism.

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Gomes (1992) found that, in research with peace activists, it was building relationships and being part of a community of activists that the participants found most rewarding about their work. These relationships were more rewarding for the activists than a sense of meaning from the work or even achieving activist goals. Interestingly, it was also this community, and the stress and infighting and demanding attitudes or egos within the activist community, that participants found most stressful about their activist involvement (Gomes, 1992). While the language of callouts was much less prevalent when Gomes conducted this research, a parallel can be drawn between the judgement Gomes found among peace activists and the callouts common in activism today.

Over the past two decades, much of the social movement literature has come to recognize the importance of emotions in activism. This recognition has taken place as the result of a combination of the influence of feminist literature, a focus on culture in social movement studies, and an increasing understanding that a consideration of emotions is central to understanding all types of human actions (Eyerman, 2005). Themes related to emotion in activist research include, for example, recognizing the impact of emotions in spurring protest action (Reger, 2004) or in avoiding burnout and sustaining activism over the long haul (Brown & Pickerill, 2009).

That said, because activism is externally oriented, it holds the potential to delegitimize or discourage self-reflexivity (Barker et al., 2008). Activism can also require participants to embody and perform the ideal activist (Bobel, 2007), suppressing any emotions that are considered inappropriate in an activist context. As Brown & Pickerill (2009) suggest,

“Creating a ‘safe’ space for activists to explore these difficult emotions might be just as important for emotional sustainability as fostering the more positive emotional responses” (p.

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27). Recognizing this, some activist groups devote significant internal effort to supporting the development of emotional reflexivity among participants (D. King, 2005).

Brown and Pickerill (2009) also propose that the combination of a lack of flexibility within the activist identity and a lack of recognition of the always-partial identity as activists

(who are also family members, friends, etc.) creates a tension between the theoretical ideal of being an activist and the reality of doing activism. They suggest that this tension prevents reflexivity about the partial nature of the work that is essential to sustaining activism over the long haul, because it makes any possible level of engagement inherently inadequate. The existence of this “perfect standard” of activism (Bobel, 2007) also implies the existence of a set of feeling rules for activism that need to be followed in order to act in accordance with this standard.

Feeling rules

The concept of a “feeling rule” was theorized by Arlie Hochschild (2012) in the early

1980s. Feeling rules can be found in “the pinch between ‘what I do feel’ and ‘what I should feel’” (Hochschild, 2012, p. 50), and we may remind ourselves of the rules through “a private mumbling” (p. 57) or might be reminded by being questioned by those around us about why we displaying or failing to display a particular feeling. Hochschild theorizes feeling as pre- action, and therefore recognizes these rules that structure our correct emotions as part of determining what actions will be taken.

Hochschild (2012) differentiates between “surface acting,” or expressing the feeling we perceive is appropriate despite an awareness that we are not feeling it, and “deep acting,” when we experience the feeling we have decided or learned is appropriate in a particular context (p. 33). In deep acting, it is possible to lose awareness of what feeling might have

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otherwise existed. The expression of feeling does not require effort because the person has successfully convinced themselves that they feel the feeling they believe they are supposed to feel. However, Hochschild differentiates this from feelings that arise spontaneously – stressing that in both surface acting and deep acting the individual is engaging in an intervention (p. 36).

Despite the commonness of these interventions, it is understandably difficult to “re- educate” our emotional responses even when it is necessary for alignment with our politics

(Jaggar, 1989, p. 170-171). Defending emotions as an essential element of knowledge construction against the Western articulation of emotions as irrational, Jaggar offers the term

“outlaw emotions” for emotions that are “conventionally unacceptable” (166). Jaggar also contests the existence of precultural or acultural emotional responses, proposing instead that

“so-called gut responses” (p. 160) are instead created by dominant cultural values.

Outlaw emotions are often expressed by members of systemically oppressed groups for whom aligning with and maintaining the status quo comes at a cost. The concept of outlaw emotions has been used to theorize emotions in various settings including in queer activism during the AIDS crisis (D. Gould, 2001) and in education settings (Meiners & Quinn, 2010) as well as activism in teaching (Neville, 2018) and in blogging (Lopez, 2014), although it has not yet been taken up extensively in analysis of environmental or climate activism.

Feeling rules in activism

The concept of feeling rules has been recently applied to various social contexts. For example, Boler and Davis recently engaged the concept to examine the relationship between liberal and conservative feeling rules in relation to Trump’s presidency while left-leaning media promotes its coverage as legitimate by claiming rationality via lack of emotion (Boler

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& Davis, 2018). Hochschild (2016) herself applied the concept to a five-year research project with Tea Party supporters in Louisiana to examine their support for political stances that are materially harmful to themselves. Demonstrating the breadth of the uses of the concept, the framework of feeling rules was also recently used to analyze the anonymously articulated emotions of women on the British online forum “Mumsnet” in relation to rules related to

“good motherhood” (Pedersen & Lupton, 2018).

Within discussions of emotions in activism, feeling rules have only occasionally been taken up explicitly. One way is through discussion of social movements intentionally creating countercultural feeling rules (Hochschild, 2012) that align with the moral framework of the group and/or subvert societal conventions (Jacobsson & Lindblom, 2013). The feeling rules extend logically from what the worldview of the ideal participant in a particular movement is understood to be. For example, in animal rights activism, valuing the rights of animals requires participants to feel and demonstrate distress when in the presence of people eating meat (Jacobsson & Lindblom, 2013). This distress extends logically from the moral framework of the animal rights movement.

In feminist organizing, consciousness-raising groups provide a purposeful space for women to explore outlaw emotions that did not fit within the feeling rules of broader society while simultaneously establishing a different set of feminist feeling rules (Reger, 2004).

Consciousness-raising groups worked to change ideas by identifying the emotions associated with the idea; for example, changing the idea that gender inequality is the fault of the individual woman by recognizing and collectively examining emotions such as anger or shame (Reger, 2004). Whether taught through modeling and disapproval or direct

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conversation, developing and learning feeling rules in activist contexts is understood as key to being and becoming part of the activist community.

I argue in this paper that the climate activists engaged for this research, who have learned about solidarity and decolonization and Indigenous rights and who want to be allies to Indigenous peoples, have developed an unspoken feeling rule that they are not allowed to feel or recognize their own pain or trauma from experiences of conflict or being called out. In order to discuss this feeling rule, I have reviewed literature on solidarity, callouts, and activist burnout. The solidarity literature provides context for the type of activist engagement the research participants are involved in and emphasizes their concerns about how to engage in land-based work and to work in relationship with Indigenous peoples. The discussion of callouts identifies the nature of callouts in activist contexts. The literature on burnout emphasizes the normalcy of activist burnout and draws connections between burnout and relationships within activist communities.

Research Methods

This paper is part of a larger research project about environmental activists attempting to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples in Canada. Most of the individuals interviewed were engaged in anti-pipeline work. I conducted individual interviews with twenty-one people, and small group interviews with seven (two groups of two, and one group of three). I conducted follow-up interviews with four. Twenty-five people identified as non-Indigenous activists, although two of these mentioned that they may have some Indigenous heritage.

Three identified as Indigenous and were recognized leaders in their communities.

The topic of this paper suggests the use of feminist methodologies due to the attention to emotion particularly present in feminist scholarship. In addition, the practice of in-depth

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interviewing that I conducted is common to feminist methodologies (Hesse-Biber, 2007) as well as other qualitative research. However, in the context of this research, I was attempting to put my learning about Indigenous methodologies into practice. While I am not suggesting that this research project is an Indigenous or Indigenist project, and I stumbled many times in these attempts (Helferty, 2019a), learning about the importance of relationships and relationality in Indigenous methodologies (S. Wilson, 2008) influenced both the topic and process of this research.

In practice, this meant that, for example, I recognized a need for clarity about my motivations for the research (Hampton, 1995; Kovach, 2009) and was open to discussing these motivations and my own experiences in activism frankly with participants. It was also the flexibility and reflexivity that Indigenous methodologies brought to my research that enabled me to come to the topic of this paper. As I mentioned earlier, I did not initially ask participants questions about burnout, or about emotions at all. However, as the topic came up again and again, and as I reflected on my own experiences of activist burnout, I realized that this was sufficiently central to the experiences of the participants and to my own experience that it deserved attention. Two participants independently described their experiences of being called out or critiqued as “soul-crushing,” and many others talked about being called out and how they responded, or the difficult emotional experiences of their activist work. The three white settler women whose interviews I focus on for this paper had recent experiences of callouts, conflicts, or burnout and were therefore able to talk about these experiences from their recent memories. Two of the three had recently left leadership positions in the movement (one paid, one volunteer) all or in part as a result of conflict and burnout. The third had been called out in the context of a temporary volunteer leadership position that had

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recently ended when we spoke, although she continued to be employed in environmentalism.

The women live in different regions of Canada and may know each other but to my knowledge have not extensively worked together.

Importantly, I have not selected these cases because I believe these three women are unique in the ways they responded to or reflected on challenging experiences. I do not believe that these women are unusual in their experiences of conflict or in their emotional responses to these experiences. It is for this reason that I am anonymizing their responses, even though this was only requested by one of the participants15. The paper is not about how three women responded severely or irrationally to conflict. It is about engaging deeply with three women’s experiences of painful moments that many others I interviewed, and many activists, including myself, have also experienced. I took up this process in order to identify rules we have created for ourselves that may be causing harm and to encourage fellow settlers to support each other. I also anonymized the other participants quoted in this paper.

I conducted the analysis for this paper through an iterative process of reading and writing about the data to develop my thinking. Many participants had spoken about conflict and emotions, and I began to take note of times that participants said that something could not or should not be said or done in public. I noticed that the three participants I focus on for this paper, Carmen, Sylvie, and Nora (all pseudonyms), all of whom were experiencing moments of pain when I interviewed them, seemed to be struggling with some aspects of what they felt they were or were not supposed to feel or did or did not feel. I began to map out the twists of the logic in their interviews to find moments where they articulated a feeling

15 I confirmed with the other two participants that they were comfortable with their interview being anonymized for this paper and spoke with all three about the content of the paper.

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rule, and then tested out the rules I identified to see if they fit with other two interviews. As a result of this process, I was able to identify the feeling rule discussed in this paper, that activists are not allowed to feel pain when called out.

Once I had identified this feeling rule, I examined narratives that were present across interviews to determine whether there could be a connection between the logic of a particular narrative and the feeling rule that settler activists are not allowed to feel pain. The two narratives that stood out were related to (1) white fragility, in which white people are accused of over-sensitivity and “white tears” are sometimes mocked (Young, 2015); and (2) trauma in

Indigenous communities, which the settler activists consistently described as worse than any of their own experience of trauma or pain. While I made use of some aspects of a thematic narrative analysis (Parcell & Baker, 2017) in my identification of the two narratives, rather than focusing on the narratives I draw connections between the narratives and the feeling rule.

The cases

The activists whose experiences I analyzed in this paper are white women in their 20s and 30s. I interviewed two of them twice, with cumulative times of 2 hours 40 min and 1 hour 30 min, and one of them once for 2 hours and 30 min. Carmen had recently organized an event for the movement as part of an all-volunteer organizing committee outside of her ongoing employment in environmentalism. The organizing team had been called out in a public social media post the day before the event for failing to sufficiently include local

Indigenous speakers. For reasons of availability rather than design, our first interview took place the day after the event ended when the experience was very fresh in Carmen’s mind.

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Sylvie had recent left her position as director of a climate advocacy organization when we spoke. Sylvie did not have one specific recent experience of conflict that she reflected on but was very connected to several experiences and was able to reflect on these in detail.

Nora was a primarily behind-the-scenes activist but was known within her community as a local leader. She worked full-time outside of activism in the environmental field and was engaged in her activist work in a volunteer capacity. She was a founding member of the organization she was involved in and had been a leader in the organization for several years.

The organization had experienced significant internal conflict, often related to its attempts to include settlers and Indigenous people under one umbrella. When I interviewed her, she had recently left the organization.

Narratives of white fragility and trauma in Indigenous communities

Carmen, Nora, and Sylvie are part of a community of environmentalists that is actively engaging with questions about how to operate in solidarity with Indigenous peoples. There is a growing awareness among many, though not all, environmentalists and environmental organizations in Canada today that the historical ways of (not) engaging with Indigenous

Nations and peoples have been massively problematic (Arnaquq-Baril, 2016; Baldwin et al.,

2011; Davis, 2010). Among the group of activists interviewed for this research, efforts are underway to find a new way of working. These efforts include hiring Indigenous staff people

(albeit infrequently), requiring or encouraging all staff members to take anti-oppression or decolonization trainings and workshops, or forming committees to develop organizational policies related to the interactions between the organization and Indigenous communities.

Many environmentalists I spoke with told me that they were personally committed to decolonization or reconciliation. These environmentalists were uncomfortable with the ways

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in which the movement they identify with has operated/continues to operate with respect to

Indigenous peoples, and they want to be part of finding a new way to be environmental activists.

In this (sub)movement effort of environmental activists attempting to position their work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples, narratives about white fragility and trauma in

Indigenous communities are increasingly acknowledged. In the following sections, I discuss the overarching narratives and then provide examples of how these narratives were mobilized within the anti-pipeline activist community.

Narratives about white fragility

White fragility is a tidy way to describe the experiences of white people who have been insulated from “race-based stress” throughout their lives and are therefore highly susceptible to the smallest amount of this type of stress (DiAngelo, 2011). This stress as experienced by white people results in a number of defensive moves, such as “outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation,” (DiAngelo, 2011, p. 54). These moves “function to reinstate white racial equilibrium” (p. 54). Recent articles about white fragility in the New Yorker

(Waldman, 2018), The Globe and Mail (Balkissoon, 2016), the New York Times (Rankine,

2019), and USA Today (Dastagir, 2018) illustrate the increasing prominence of the discourse of white fragility.

In activist spaces, white fragility is acknowledged as a systemic issue that white activists need to address. White women’s tears in particular are critiqued for shifting focus away from anti-racist work and requiring racialized women to hear confessions of racism or focus on the comfort of white women over necessary changes to problematic organizational

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systems and processes (Srivastava, 2006). White fragility is also sometimes used to express contempt. For example, on rabble.ca, an article about white Canadian discomfort with Omar

Khadr described “shocked and white fragile NDP-ers” condemning Islamophobia using the coded language of “radicalization” (Behrens, 2017). In an article entitled “Moving beyond white fragility: Lessons from Standing Rock,” activist Murphy Robinson described the difficulty she faced attempting to take lessons about recognizing and correcting colonial patterns that she learned at Standing Rock to white communities in her home place of

Vermont on unceded Abenaki territory (Robinson, 2018).

In the conversations that took place for this research project, only two participants explicitly named white fragility, although the presence of the narrative could be felt across many of the interviews. Sylvie was one of the two who used the phrase “white fragility,” saying that taking criticisms personally for “being a white person in a paid organizing position in the movement” was perhaps evidence of her white fragility: “…this is from a lot of people that have said it’s not personal. I’m like, ok, it feels pretty personal but ok. But maybe that’s my white fragility.”

Sylvie may believe that feeling hurt or taking it personally when told, “‘You don’t deserve it. You should quit your job,’” exhibits white fragility and is therefore an outlaw emotion in her community of solidarity-oriented activists. This acknowledgement may be, as

Hochschild terms it, “deep acting” (2012), meaning that she has internalized the feeling rule to the point of belief. She may also know that as a white activist engaged with frameworks of solidarity and justice she is supposed to be self-reflexive and that acknowledging white fragility is part of the performance of being a “good ally,” whether or not she actually feels it

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is exhibiting white fragility to take it personally if someone tells her she should quit her job because she is white.

Another possibility is that Sylvie feels torn between what she thinks she is supposed to feel in alignment with her community (not hurt) and wanting to assert her actual feelings

(that she is hurt). Her pattern of speech gives an indication that this last scenario may be the most accurate, as in previous quotation, for example, when she bounces back and forth between saying that it is “ok” and that it “feels pretty personal”: “I’m like, ok, it feels pretty personal but ok.” Whatever the case, what is clear is that Sylvie is familiar with the narrative of white fragility and able to mobilize it in conversation.

The other participant who named white fragility, Daniel, talked about the concept three times during our conversation. Early on, he mentioned it in the context of people being defensive about being called “settler.” Later on, he talked about fragility in relation to his own efforts to acknowledge his racism and the processes of trying to unlearn in racist and colonial systems:

Yeah, but again, that fragility thing is a concept I really cling to now. It’s the fact that

people are really unsure and insecure about their position on this issue or, “I’m a white

activist, and I really don’t know where – how to solve this problem or what I could be

doing better,” and carrying guilt and, if someone says to me, asks me right now, “Are

you racist?” right now, without feeling hurt or guilty, I can say, “Yeah,” without – there

was a couple years ago, I would say, “Oh no I’m not. I’m trying really hard…” Now, I

can say, “No. As unfortunate as it is, I think I probably am. Those are structures that I

can’t get myself out of, so I’m working on it,” and if you could have that really honest

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attitude towards it you could actually solve the problem, but a lot of folks are stuck at

that earlier point.

Daniel went on to talk about how some of the people who are stuck are “taking it too personally and they’re too fragile about it.” This is in alignment with what Sylvie’s talk indicates, which is that taking critique related to whiteness personally is an outlaw emotion in this community and demonstrates white fragility. In describing some other activists as

“stuck,” Daniel identifies a behaviour demonstrating white fragility that he has observed some of his colleagues experience difficulty moving past. In becoming stuck in a defensive mode of denying the ways in which their approaches or actions are racist or colonizing,

Daniel describes these other activists as unable to move past focusing on themselves to focus on the bigger problems they should be attending to. This is what DiAngelo (2011) describes as the “race-based stress” that white people have very low tolerance for, which also parallels

Srivastava’s (2006) analysis of white women over-focusing on themselves and failing to properly address organizational issues.

Daniel’s final use of the concept of white fragility was similarly positioned, in which he said, “I’m not gonna be fragile about what my feelings are, and be constantly open to have people be constructively critical.” At the time of the interview, Daniel was in an organization where he felt well-supported and in which he had security and stability. He did not mention any recent experiences of being called out. In this context, Daniel seemed to find white fragility useful for his development and understanding of himself as a white activist.

While Sylvie and Daniel were the only participants who directly named white fragility, others acknowledged the existence of the narrative in different ways. For example, Julia, a

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white woman who is a local activist in Winnipeg, talked about strategically using language other than “settler” because, like Daniel, she received resistance to the use of “settler”:

…there’s lot of conflict. Like, I often say “settler descendant,” because I understand.

There’s people… so, usually a certain age and sometimes a certain gender who are

really offended. Like, “I’m not a settler. Where am I supposed to go back to? I’m

fourth-generation Canadian.”… Sometimes I just say “non-Indigenous,” which to me is

completely ok.

In this example, Julia is responding to the resistance of some people she works with to being identified as settlers by retaining flexibility in language, which, as she points out, she is also fine with. In this case, white fragility is identifiable in the resistance to identifying as a settler, in parallel to Daniel’s story about activists resisting acknowledging their own racism.

I am not suggesting that acknowledgement of being a settler is all that is required to address white fragility, but rather that resistance to the acknowledgement is one way in which white fragility asserts itself that research participants identified. Either through naming white fragility, as Sylvie and Daniel did, or alluding to the concept, as Julia did, the anti- pipeline activists interviewed for this project demonstrated an awareness of white fragility.

Narratives about trauma in Indigenous communities

An increasingly prevalent narrative both inside environmentalism and in Canada more broadly is related to trauma experienced by Indigenous peoples stemming from centuries of colonialism and attempted genocide. Recognition of trauma is a particularly well-known narrative in Canada today as a result of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recent process to listen to the experiences of survivors of residential schooling and their families and communities. Residential schooling in Canada lasted for over 150 years and took

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150,000 children from their homes, families, and communities, and the recent attention to this system of assimilation as a result of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission has increased the general knowledge among people in Canada of trauma experienced by Indigenous peoples as a result of settler colonialism. Awareness of residential schools among settler people in Canada increased from 51% to 66% between 2008 and 2016, and in 2016 nearly all of those aware were able to describe some characteristics of residential schools (The Environics Institute for Survey Research, 2016).

Many of the settler environmentalists I interviewed for this research project readily acknowledged the trauma experienced by Indigenous people and communities. Peter, a settler environmentalist who worked for a First Nation, identified this directly, saying,

“definitely in Indigenous communities, there’s more of their fair share of stuff people are dealing with – generational trauma let alone people’s personal trauma.” Kristy, a settler activist working for a multi-issue organization and involved in anti-pipeline organizing in a volunteer leadership role, talked about how, in a group of Indigenous youth she had helped organize a training for, “People had a lot to say and the stories were intense, not that that doesn't sometimes happen otherwise [in primarily non-Indigenous groups], but there's no question that it was more, there was more trauma and the lived experience of people was intense.” Charlie, a settler environmentalist in a volunteer leadership position, talked about trauma experienced by Indigenous people by referencing his comparative privilege: “I’m not dealing with experiences of oppression and trauma that cause me to be triggered by certain things.”

In all three of these examples, Indigenous people were talked about as having more trauma and experiencing more oppression than the typical white settler in Canada. All of

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these statements were in some way comparative, rather than an independent acknowledgement of Indigenous peoples holding trauma. This detail speaks to the way this narrative about Indigenous people’s pain exists within this community of environmentalists.

The environmentalists relate Indigenous peoples’ traumas and oppressions to their own more privileged position. They do not say that Indigenous people have experienced a great deal of trauma. They say that they have experienced more trauma.

In the interviews with Carmen, Nora, and Sylvie, their acknowledgement of trauma experienced by Indigenous peoples came through in various ways. They did not state their acknowledgement as clearly as Peter, Kristy, and Charlie, but there are places in our conversations where their statements seemed to be built on an unstated foundational acknowledgement of trauma in Indigenous communities.

For example, Nora talked about how it was “super fair” for the Indigenous women she encountered to be angry, while talking about her frustration with other white activists for criticizing and failing to properly support each other:

If [a specific younger Indigenous woman] wants to call me out on the internet, that’s

fucking awesome. If some other 30-something year old woman who lives in a house

and has a salary wants to call me out, I’m a lot less ok with that. The idea that, as white

folks, we need to hold each other accountable and teach each other and individually

solve this problem – I don’t see that way of – I don’t see those kinds of callouts as

actually taking responsibility in a way that’s actually gonna cause transformation.

Nora’s distinction between which behaviours she, likely facetiously, described as “awesome” and which she was “a lot less ok with” depended on whether or not the person was situated like her – a 30-something woman with a house and a salary. Nora’s perception of whether it

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was right for someone to call her out was based on the extent to which she perceived they are experiencing systemic trauma. In the quotation above, she named a younger Indigenous woman as having every right to call her out. Nora had theorized that the positionality of this

Indigenous woman, including and beyond her Indigeneity, made callouts acceptable. Nora compared this to someone who shared her own positionality, who, she implied, would have experienced less trauma and should instead be doing the labour to support other similarly privileged activists. A similarly positioned person may be angry, but Nora never said that hypothetical person’s anger is fair, or that it rationalized engaging in callouts. She only talked about how a younger Indigenous woman’s anger is fair.

Carmen had been called out most recently, and therefore had the least time to work to understand her experiences when we spoke. Her acknowledgement of Indigenous peoples’ pain was part of a discussion about how to work through her own feelings:

…as a non-Indigenous person, especially as a white person, I have a lot of feelings,

right, there's a lot of feelings and I don't know where the space is to have a

conversation about like, about my own feelings because I know that I can't, because I

never have that conversation about my own feelings with someone who's Indigenous or

a person of colour because it's not my place to put that on them, but I do come back

with a lot of like, “But we're really trying, and I know it's not enough.” But I can't, I

don't know if, I feel like I can't say that publicly. “I'm trying, I know it's not enough,

I'm trying.” But I don't feel like I can say that publicly ever. That that's not good

enough. And that's really hard.

Carmen’s awareness of the trauma experienced by Indigenous people and people of colour underpinned her statement that she should not talk about her own recent experience of being

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called out with an Indigenous person or a person of colour. She talked about the conversation as if it would be layering her own recent experience of pain on top of the trauma that they are already holding. Carmen’s acknowledgement of Indigenous peoples’ trauma came up in the context of a conversation about a lack of space within the movement for her to work through being called out because she knew she should not be putting that trauma on someone who already experienced, as she implied, more trauma than her.

Sylvie also talked indirectly about the ongoing trauma Indigenous people are experiencing. She drew a parallel between experiences of reacting strongly to being catcalled and being criticized within the movement:

But I think it’s also that thing that I think about when you’re like, you’re walking down

the street and some guy catcalls you and you just flip your shit, and it’s not about him.

It’s about every other experience like that, and so, when people come down hard on

me, I’m like, ok, it is about me, but it’s also about every other experience that’s led up

to you having to deal with this at all.

This example was in the context of a discussion about what role white people should be playing in the climate justice movement, and her experience of repeated assertions that white people should “take up less space” or “and lift up folks of colour and Indigenous folks instead of yourself.” In our conversation, Sylvie seemed to be working through her own analysis of these assertions and the lack of clarity she felt about what the role of white people, like herself, should be. Similar to Carmen’s talk about trying to do good work, Sylvie talked about how she was part of “this whole group of white people who are really trying to learn how to do this and do it well,” and who she believed were receiving a lot of the negative feedback as a result of these efforts. She believed this feedback was “not really

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meant for them,” although this may be difficult to say with certainty. She and Carmen struggled between acknowledging their own experiences of pain and acknowledging the trauma faced by Indigenous peoples.

The feeling rule: White settler activists are not allowed to feel pain from callouts

It is in this struggle that it is possible to interpret a feeling rule: that it is not acceptable as a white settler to be hurt or experience pain when called out or criticized by an Indigenous person. Roots of the rule can be found in the two narratives discussed earlier: that displaying pain when criticized reveals white fragility, and that Indigenous people will always carry more pain and trauma than settlers. As a result of the feeling rule, acknowledging the trauma experienced by Indigenous peoples and recognizing behaviours of white fragility and simultaneously acknowledging that white settlers are experiencing pain and trauma in the context of their activism is made incommensurable.

The feeling rule also goes beyond what is a more often explicitly stated message, that white settlers should be self-reflexive and aware of how they are showing up in spaces, to instead suggest that settlers should not feel pain when called out. Since life-long structures of emotional responses are difficult to change (Jaggar, 1989), which is what is required of white settlers to follow this rule, what I will illustrate is that they are instead struggling to deny the pain they feel in order to bring themselves in alignment with the feeling rule. Rather than recognize appropriate spaces and times and communities with which to work through settler pain, the settler activists struggled fiercely to deny their pain, when at the same time they felt it and desired to acknowledge it and have it acknowledged and supported by others.

Carmen illustrated this when talking about what approaches she feels are allowed in environmentalism:

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…in everything else in my life, I approach it with, trying to approach myself with

forgiveness and kindness around making mistakes… you're gonna make mistakes, and

I sometimes feel like there's no room for those mistakes. When those mistakes happen,

it's horrific. It's a fucking car crash. And it’s really hard and shameful and embarrassing

as an activist, but I know my feelings can't... be over the feelings [of Indigenous people

and people of colour]... so I find that to be one of the hardest parts of this, is that I want

to have these honest conversations, but I don't feel like they can be had in most realms

of the really social justice side, like, “Your feelings really don't matter, it's like the

feelings of other people matter more” and I also have feelings. But I understand that, I

get that. Rationally it makes sense, emotionally it's hard.

In parallel to the narratives the activists expressed about trauma in Indigenous communities,

Carmen talked about how other people’s feelings matter more than hers do. She talked about how she was not allowed to operate with kindness towards herself because there was no room for mistakes, and that she was not allowed to feel her feelings because her feelings did not matter. As Sylvie did when referencing white fragility, she went back and forth between aligning her talk with the feeling rule and associated narratives (“I know my feelings can’t… be over the feelings [of Indigenous people and people of colour]”) and acknowledging her own pain (“I also have feelings”). This illustrates the struggle between what she has told herself that she is allowed to or should be feeling and what she is actually feeling, which is where a feeling rule can be found (Hochschild, 2012). Carmen identified this struggle when she said, “Rationally it makes sense, emotionally it’s hard.”

In this example, Carmen struggled in particular with the way in which she perceived that the feeling rule contradicted the philosophy that she had worked to adopt in other aspects

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of her life, which was that she is going to make mistakes and that it was important to approach these mistakes with self-forgiveness. To Carmen, this approach was incompatible with what she believed was required of her in “the really social justice side” of environmental activism.

In her interview, Sylvie named several experiences as painful where she felt assumptions were being made about her priorities and commitments to decolonization through a narrow snapshot of who she was based on her job and the campaign priorities of the organization. Acknowledging the pain of these experiences was out of alignment with how Sylvie is supposed to act given the feeling rule that she was not allowed to feel pain.

However, she ends the discussion by placing herself and her own experiences of erasure in the queer community as smaller than those experienced by people of colour in the climate movement:

And sometimes that’s also working with like radicalized queer people because I’m so

straight-passing that it’s kind of like, there’s a lot of ways that we do this violence to

each other, like small acts of erasure and that helped me to understand what it’s like for

folks of colour to work with me, because I’m like, I don’t even know the small acts of

erasure that I’m enacting on you, but I know what it feels like when it happens to me,

and I knew there’s just tenfold the opportunities for that to happen [to you], so I have a

good idea of what it feels like and it helps me to understand a little bit more, you know,

how I need to change and how we need to change the way we do things…

In contrast with Carmen’s more rapid flip back and forth between acknowledging her feelings and denying a place for them in activism, in this example Sylvie took a little more time to theorize a denial of the legitimacy of her pain. Even in the process of making a

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comparison between her experiences of erasure in the queer community, where this same feeling rule may not apply, and the experiences of people of colour and Indigenous people in the environmental movement, she minimized the violence done to her rather than drawing the experiences in parallel.

Nora mobilized the feeling rule that she is not allowed to feel pain when critiqued or called out differently from Carmen and Sylvie. This may be in part because the difficult experiences she spoke about never involved being called out or criticized directly. She felt massive responsibility for the conflict taking place in the group that she had co-founded and in which she had played a major leadership role, but criticisms were not directed towards her.

This created a different relationship to callout or critique than that of Carmen and Sylvie.

Nora’s feelings stem from a difficult overall experience rather than specific incidents of being directly called out.

Nora did not minimize her pain. She talked about it frankly and frequently during our interviews. Rather, Nora made an effort to be clear that her pain was not caused by the

Indigenous members of the group. Paired twice in each interview with Nora’s statements that she did not feel any negative emotions about the Indigenous people she worked with was a direct criticism of the other white activists. I provided one example of this in the previous section, and provide another here:

I walked away and I don't feel any anger or frustration towards any of the Indigenous

folks I was working with. I have a lot of concern around how within the non-

Indigenous community I was working with, we worked with and supported each other

in thinking about how to handle this stuff, because I think what often, what, the

scenario I just saw play out over and over again was different people wanting to

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position themselves as the people who know how to be good allies, and sort of cutting

down people who were getting it [allyship] quote unquote wrong... And... I think that's

really shitty. And I think that's actually, even if we take seriously, which I hope we do,

that as non-Indigenous folks we need to teach, we need to take responsibility for our

learning on this stuff, to be part of that means not getting engaged in public call outs

and public smearings of other non-Indigenous folks who might be getting it wrong, but

figuring out how to create community and build community in ways to help us all get

better at getting it right. And that has not existed at all. So far, from what I can tell. Or

in my experience, there has not been anything – none of that's happened [here]. And so

there's been a lot of sort of jockeying for sort of ally cred, and I don't think that serves

anything.

Nora’s repetition that she was not angry or frustrated with the Indigenous people she worked with suggests that she was working to align herself with a feeling rule or that she was aware of a rule about how she was supposed to feel about the Indigenous people with whom she interacted. She may also have engaged in this repetition to position herself correctly as an ally in the context of our interview. To provide another example, she said:

…it really hurts personally to feel like the idea is that, in some way, we did anything

other than what we knew how to do at the time for the cause. Like anything other than

that is just like, fuck. I just like let myself get sick, sacrificed my relationship, put

myself at risk of being fired several times a week, and so to then be in a situation

where, again, if like [a younger Indigenous woman] wants to say that to me, I’m ok

with that but if [two white activists] want to say that to me, I’m really not ok with

that…

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In a variation of the feeling rule, rather than that she is not allowed to feel pain when critiqued about efforts to work in solidarity, Nora’s talk suggests that she believes she is not allowed to place any blame for her pain on the actions of Indigenous group members. While

Carmen and Sylvie operationalized the feeling rule by denying and minimizing their pain,

Nora instead recognizes her pain but goes out of her way to make it clear that it results from stress and group dysfunctionality and critiques the settler participants for failing to properly support each other while stressing the legitimacy of the anger of the Indigenous participants.

Nora’s rationalization of anger from Indigenous participants in the organization connects to the narrative about Indigenous trauma. Her rejection of any pain she might be experiencing as a result of this anger, even though it was not specifically directed at her, indicates her understanding that feeling hurt as a result of critiques from Indigenous group members would be an indication of white fragility.

Nora also pushed back against the corollary of the feeling rule that settlers are not allowed to feel pain, which is a lack of community support among settlers for when they are in pain. Instead, as she says, settler activists are competing for “ally cred” by calling each other out and then also failing to support each other when called out:

I’m really, really interested in what do we do if, again, if we really take seriously,

which I do, this thing about other white folks should be the ones doing the emotional

labour of helping other white folks figure this out, then we gotta show up and do that

and we can't participate in shunning and we can't participate in throwing people under

the bus, we need to like create the spaces where they can ask – where they can get

angry, go through the process of getting angry, getting defensive, being hurt, wanting

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to justify their actions, and finally being “Oh yeah, ok, maybe this wasn't...” right,

there's gotta be somewhere they can go to have those feelings…

In the context of the feeling rule that settler activists are not allowed to feel pain, there is no need for community support – because there is no pain to be worked though. However, as the activists I spoke with confirmed, settler activists are in fact feeling many feelings, including pain and shame. As Nora proposed, it might be through working to understand some of these feelings that the activists have the potential to learn about themselves and their activism and, perhaps, about racist or colonial patterns of thought or action that they are repeating. Instead, the lack of community support and practice of “shunning” that she alluded to, and that is often a companion to callouts, served only to isolate activists from the movement they so strongly identify with and that they have joined to be able to participate in moving the world toward justice. The impulse of settler environmentalists to engage in lateral violence in order to demonstrate their “ally cred” has the potential to limit learning and change.

Feeling rules and systems of support

I undertook this analysis for the purpose of examining the problem of burnout among solidarity-oriented environmental activists and the presence of pain and descriptions of difficult experiences that permeated so many of the interviews I conducted. In order to conduct this analysis, I made use of the framework of “feeling rules” (Hochschild, 2012) to identify the rule that settlers are not allowed to feel pain when called out in relation to their solidarity work, and traced some of the roots of the rule to narratives of white fragility and trauma in Indigenous communities.

I chose to focus in-depth on the cases of Carmen, Sylvie, and Nora in part because two of the women had recently left leadership roles in the movement, and the third talked about

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how she thought about leaving. Their departures took with them the knowledge and experience they had gained and relationships they had built over time. While I am not asserting that an individual activist leaving a movement is always worse for the movement, the pattern and prevalence of activists burning out systematically weakens movements over time.

I made use of Jaggar’s (1989) concept of “outlaw emotions” to understand taking callouts personally as an outlaw emotion in the settler environmental activist community.

This identification of an outlaw emotion goes hand in hand with the feeling rule that they are not allowed to feel pain and the requirement to separate their emotional experiences from their actions in order to be “good allies.” In contrast, in other social movement contexts, such as in Gould’s (2001) analysis of ACT UP and AIDS activism, activists changed the framework of their activism to take up confrontational emotions they had previously considered “outlaw” such as grief and anger. I identify this distinction as a potential area for future study in relation to the positionalities of the activists involved; in the research for this paper, white settler environmentalists made outlaw defensive emotions that they felt stemmed from their privileged positionalities, whereas in Gould’s research, queer activists chose to reframe and take up confrontational emotions considered outlaw by dominant society in order to engage in more militant activism without shame related to their queer identities.

I also identified an impact of this feeling rule, which is a lack of movement space for white settlers to talk about the pain they experience as a result of callouts and conflict and an absence of support for each other to learn and heal. If the pain should not exist, in alignment with the feeling rule, it follows that support is not necessary. While I did not theorize

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whiteness and white culture more generally in this paper, and instead focused more narrowly on white fragility, it may be useful to understand the lack of support through the lens of common aspects of white culture. These include, for example, a focus on individualism and competitiveness (Katz, 2003), particularly in the context of how leadership is determined

(Liu, 2018).

In relation to frontline solidarity, the presence of this feeling rule demonstrates the insecurity with which white settler activists are approaching frontline solidarity work. This insecurity is present in an underlying sense that it is impossible to engage in solidarity work without being called out, a version of the “white double bind” (Sullivan, 2007, p. 233), and also present in a lack of learning-oriented responses to situations of conflict. This results in a lack of security and inability to productively engage in the inevitable conflicts that result from working between communities.

In this paper I engaged with feelings and emotions and performance of emotions but engaged little with humour. Reflecting on the interviews I conducted, I would not say that there was no smiling or laughing or that the interviews were not enjoyable (for me, at least); that was not the case. Humour, however, is not the same as a bitter chuckle or defensive smile. The settler activists I spoke with took the issue of how to be in solidarity with

Indigenous peoples seriously; very seriously. The seriousness with which they took the issue perhaps reflects a perceived undercurrent of risk of doing the work wrong and being a bad settler, and of being called out.

However, multiple scholars have proposed the use of humour in solidarity contexts, and it may be a wise approach for settler activists to begin to exercise. In a settler context,

Land (2015) stresses the importance of maintaining a sense of humour while engaging in

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critical reflection; that laughing at ourselves can help avoid settlers becoming mired in shame or over-subservient and enable us to work through our mistakes “on our own steam” (p. 201) rather than through the labour of an Indigenous person. Boudreau Morris (2017) talks about her experiences within the Acadian community of the use of humour to build community and help people to cope, and humour and laughter is often understood as central to the ongoing survival and thriving of Indigenous peoples (Dokis, 2007; Leddy, 2018; MacIntyre, 2020).

Sustaining a sense of humour throughout our settler activist efforts may be a lesson well learned from Indigenous peoples.

I close this paper with a favourite quotation from Bernice Johnson Reagon’s (1983) reflection on coalitions:

You don’t get a lot of food in a coalition. You don’t get fed a lot in a coalition. In a

coalition you have to give, and it is different from your home. You can’t stay there all

the time. You go to the coalition for a few hours and then you go back and take your

bottle wherever it is, and then you go back and coalesce some more. (p. 359)

This reflection about coalition work applies well to the efforts to build new relationships across movements of everyone involved in anti-pipeline activism – settlers, Indigenous people, people of colour, people who identify with multiple of these groups. For the purposes of this paper focused on settler activists, and on white settler women in particular, there was no clear place for them to go home to for food and comfort. This is not to suggest that white settler activists never offer comfort to each other, but rather that there is not a culture of support or recognition of a need for a place to heal when hurt.

This research suggests that it would serve anti-pipeline activism for settlers to be able to acknowledge their pain and support each other to work through the pain, with the ultimate

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goal of learning how to eliminate racist and colonial behaviours. Perhaps this culture change might help settler activists stay in the movement and help environmentalism shift closer to a justice-oriented movement able to work in good relations with Indigenous peoples.

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Conclusion

I started this dissertation with a reflection about my first experience in youth climate coalition building. It feels fitting that I end it with a reflection on a more recent iteration of youth climate convergences in Canada, PowerShift: Young and Rising, which took place in

Ottawa in early 2019. It felt simultaneously odd and completely natural to be back at a youth climate conference eight years after I stepped back from youth climate activism. My final involvement in youth climate activism had been at PowerShift 2011, a 7,000-person conference in Washington, DC, where I worked around the clock for four days prepping and running the complicated and unexpectedly under-planned Friday and Saturday night keynote sessions (fed and supported by several terrific interns) and then burst into tears from stress and exhaustion in one of the organizing rooms on Sunday morning. These convergences are incredibly complex to plan and implement, and while none of them are perfect they all have had some great moments of inspiration.

As anticipated, PowerShift: Young and Rising inspired me and brought me a lot of joy.

It reminded me of the power of youth movements. Also as anticipated, it was also a microcosm of the complicated relationships and experiences and accountabilities and worldviews that show up in this dissertation. In some moments, interactions or dynamics felt so familiar that it was as if the participants were acting in a play that I had written from this research project. There were great intentions to build solidarity, there was a lot of diversity of people and perspectives, there were misunderstandings, and there were callouts. In one workshop I attended where the panelists were called out, I found that one of my arms was shaking in response to the intensity of the situation and my embodied memory of past

conflicts. Participating in the conference, while difficult at times, reinforced for me the importance of activists researching activism and settlers researching settlers in order to support ongoing learning and change. It made me glad to have conducted this research and to be engaged about the findings with the climate activist community, which is still my community.

Dissertation Summary

Awareness of environmentalism’s too-easy relationship with colonialism has, rightly, spurred an urgent motivation to tear down and rebuild the norms of environmental activism among the settler anti-pipeline activists engaged in this research. This dissertation works to illuminate the structural and systemic challenges that are often experienced as individual or personal failures in a moment in which settler environmentalists are striving to create a new framework and modes of practices for environmental action. While the chapters are written as individual papers, they form an arc from an examination of frontline solidarity frameworks as engaged within anti-pipeline activism to addressing the particular influence of professionalized environmentalism on frontline solidarity efforts to working to understand the unwritten rules of how to feel and act in activist spaces in relation to frontline solidarity.

A Conversation

Before moving to an academic discussion of the chapters, I share a brief work of creative non-fiction in the form of a series of letters between two climate activists, Simone and Olivia. Simone and Olivia are composite characters created from the data collected for this research project. These letters provide an opportunity to draw from and present the kinds of stories participants told me in a conversational mode that is different from the isolated quotations found throughout this dissertation. These letters serve as an alternative version of

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the chapters in review, although with a more limited analysis; more extended analysis can be found in the chapter descriptions following the letters.

I situated the letters in the context of the fight led by the Wet’suwet’en peoples to stop the construction of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline in early 2020. The conflict and resulting rail blockades captured the attention of people in Canada for several weeks (until this attention was indefinitely diverted by and to the global pandemic16).

Dear Olivia,

I’m having a dilemma. I’m trying to figure out how I should be thinking about solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en peoples. I’m hearing there’s a call to action to block railroad tracks across the country to disrupt business as usual and draw attention to what is going on on Wet’suwet’en territory. I am totally willing to do this – I see there’s a local action organized in a couple days and I’m planning to be there. But I’m having a dilemma about how to follow Indigenous leadership in this case. The band councils approved the pipeline and hereditary chiefs are opposing it. I’m learning about the systems of Indigenous governance and that the band council system was imposed as part of the Indian Act – I actually didn’t know that.

What I’m trying to say is – I have an opinion about this pipeline. I don’t want it to be built. Am I aligning with the hereditary chiefs because of that agreement? If I’m aligning with hereditary chiefs, am I against the band councils? In a way that seems so self-serving…

16 Notably, despite most industry being shut in Canada as a result of Covid-19, construction on the Coastal GasLink pipeline was allowed to continue without consent from Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs (Loper, 2020; Morin, 2020; Poon, 2020). Public health concerns related to the pandemic are layered on top of existing and ongoing assertions about violence to Indigenous women, children, and two-spirit people resulting from the “man camps” constructed to house pipeline workers (Linnitt, 2020).

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if we participate in the rail blockade because we agree about stopping the pipeline does that mean we’re not really doing solidarity? I’ve learned that as a settler it’s important to follow

Indigenous leadership, and I’m not sure how to understand my own motivation. Would be great to get your take.

Simone

Dear Simone,

I really understand what you’re saying – in this case (and so many cases) the violence against Indigenous people here is so clear – the videos that have been coming out are just awful. So I think it’s about that violence too, not just about the pipeline. And it’s hard to imagine police violence like that happening against the band council that’s pro-pipeline… police aren’t really used to prevent fossil fuel development…

I’ve also been reading up about traditional governance a bit and it seems quite clear that the Wet’suwet’en peoples have self-determination over the land, even within the colonial governance system. But I wonder – what if this was a pro-pipeline fight instead of an anti- pipeline fight? I doubt I would be ready to join a rail blockade in support… or what if it was an anti-solar fight, or anti-windfarm? It’s really complicated to really strongly believe in something, like that this pipeline can’t be built, and at the same time want to be respecting

Indigenous self-determination. Does that mean that I don’t get to decide or have an opinion about it?

Hope things are going well at work and with your anti-pipeline group – are you organizing with other people there to join the blockades? How’s work?

Olivia

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Dear Olivia,

Yeah, we’re mostly just showing up but we’ve done a bit of organizing support locally.

Everyone is a bit low capacity right now so it’s helpful to be able to not organize and just show up! Work is fine – too busy but it’s ok, it’s not that hard. The activism is trickier most of the time (no surprise).

What you’re saying is totally my dilemma though – how much are we saying we’re taking action in solidarity when we’re actually just hopping on a bandwagon because we agree with the outcome? Is it about supporting self-determination for Indigenous peoples at all? I mean, this must be a bit different for you I think, since your job is anti-pipeline campaigning. Does your org even really think about self-determination in a systemic way?

We actually talk about it quite a bit in the group, we’re just still not sure what to do!

Simone

Dear Simone,

I mean truthfully the organization doesn’t engage with it that much… it’s not that no one thinks about it, but our org hasn’t taken any official stance on land or self-determination.

It totally causes problems when we’re trying to do something that’s really connected to land… I remember one time recently we were working with a local group created to stop pipelines and also working with some people from a First Nation nearby who were against the pipeline. We were planning a rally. The leaders at the First Nation wanted to start off clearly saying that this was their land, including the town and everything. The people from the group were really against it because they felt like it was their town. It got really heated,

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and I felt like I couldn’t take a clear position because the organization hasn’t made any statements about this being Indigenous land. I’ve learned a lot but it hasn’t really translated into an organizational approach… we’re still kind of your typical bunch of white enviros for the most part.

The conflict was awful by the way – and I was totally called out on facebook by the

Indigenous leaders I was working with. I mean, they didn’t name me or anything, but they did name the organization for not being supportive. It was so awful. I was afraid to talk to anyone about it because I felt like they would tell me I was being too sensitive, and I get that this isn’t about me... I guess I feel like I was doing the best I could within the constraints of my job and putting in so much extra time too – I mean you know how much work these jobs are! It sometimes feels like it’s impossible to do things right and it sometimes makes it hard to do anything at all. When the callout happened, I just wanted to quit.

And no one reached out at all – I mean, I talked it through with some non-enviro friends but it was two weeks before I felt like I could reach out to someone I trusted who is in the movement to talk about what happened and process it. Instead a whole bunch of enviros who I’ve known for years and who know I’m the only one working with that Nation liked the comment or wrote on it and agreed with it. They probably don’t even think about it, but now

I feel super awkward around them and I’m kind of angry about it actually. Like, did I even do something wrong? I’m not even sure. People love a pile-on.

Olivia

Dear Olivia,

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Ugh, that sounds awful… I had no idea you were feeling that way about this. I saw that post (I mean of course I did, it got a ton of traffic) but you’re right – I hadn’t thought about it at all since then. I’ve been called out and it really is soul-crushing, I get it. It’s so hard to know how to not look like we’re being super fragile all the time if we also want to be able to show some vulnerability and get some comfort and support from our enviro friends. Not support saying that we didn’t do anything wrong, just support for a bit of healing so we can learn from the mistakes. There’s so much burnout it seems like the least we can do is try to stop positioning ourselves as better than someone who’s been called out. (I mean it’s happened to literally all of us… no one is above this…)

I get what you’re saying about the org not being ok with taking a stance on self- determination. It seems like your org is happy enough when a legal battle that’s about First

Nations’ rights successfully stalls or stops a pipeline… so it’s kind of contradictory to not take a position about land within the org. I get that this just adds to your plate, but maybe you could do some internal education about it??

I think it’s still complicated outside funded (and hierarchical) orgs, even though there isn’t this additional layer. Like – I went out and blockaded on the weekend, and I’m planning to go tonight as well for a few hours. This campaign ask is so clear and it seems to be effective, so it’s easy enough to just show up. I feel like I’m doing something useful and at the same time not making it all about me – I’m just using my physical body and as a middle class young white woman I’m pretty low risk for being arrested (or at least probably won’t be physically hurt if I am). Hm. Maybe it isn’t that complicated in this case. Why am I making it unnecessarily complicated!? Lol… I guess it’s just when I imagine other cases that it gets

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more confusing. Oh, and that the Wet’suwet’en band councils are mostly pro-pipeline… right. That’s why it feels complicated!

Simone

Dear Simone,

I mean, we’re all really good at making things complicated!!

I have tried to at least do a brown bag lunch with the org about supporting self- determination and it went well, but none of the top people in the org came. My manager didn’t even come. So it’s kind of hard that way. I have some other ideas though and appreciate the nudge to try them out! Maybe I can find a couple more people in the org who seem to be thinking about this and work on it with them.

I get what you’re saying about it being complicated why we’re joining these blockades but might not be game to support a different Indigenous-led action depending on what the goal is. I get it! I mean, we are allowed to have our own opinions though right? Even if it’s hard to trust our gut, since our instinct is so steeped in white supremacy and settler colonialism. But we have some ability to analyze a situation (or well, overanalyze it probably!). It doesn’t make sense to me that we would just do what any Indigenous person tells us to do at any time. I mean, I’ve seen things go really badly when enviros try to get any

Indigenous person to tell them what to do. It’s just hard then to figure out how to be a good ally and be in support of self-determination if you’re doing it on a case by case basis. If you’re supporting self-determination, isn’t that just what it is? Do you even get to disagree?

I get that we can never agree with all the positions of Indigenous leaders – that’s impossible. I am also against new pipelines – they just aren’t part of a good future I can

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envision. I hate that I feel like I can’t just reach out to an Indigenous leader the way I would with anyone else because it seems like it’s destined to go badly somehow. I also get the sense that I’m going to be called out whatever I do, and I don’t know if I can take a lot more of that. I’m just… tired. Every day I wake up and I feel like a robot.

Olivia

Dear Olivia,

This does not sound great! It sounds like you might be getting a bit burned out… I know these jobs can be really tiring at times. It’s definitely hard to not feel like you can do anything right. It’s also not true – there’s plenty of good work you’re doing.

I get the tension though! When I was at the blockade the other day, I was just thinking… is this what I should be doing? Is there something more I can do for decolonization than just show up and stand around eating samosas? But then, this is what has been asked and it is something I can do, so I’ll do it.

Do you ever think that maybe our desire to feel like we’re part of decolonization isn’t really that helpful to actual decolonization? I mean, fundraising for an Indigenous-led legal battle doesn’t really feel like decolonizing, but it’s a material and impactful way to support.

And actually, it can be directly related to who is in charge of the land… so maybe it’s more decolonizing than I thought?? I sometimes feel like I want to be closer to the centre, to be part of the planning and visioning conversations, so I can feel good about myself and get a checkmark from Indigenous leaders. I want to be closer to them and learn from them, and I really want them to think I’m a good ally! Can I just say that actually writing this out feels so

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awkward, please don’t judge! It’s all about me… which actually helps me realize that I need to get my positive feelings about this work from someone else, not from Indigenous leaders.

But from one perspective, it seems like we have to be involved in decolonization – if we’re not, aren’t we colonizing? Doing nothing is supporting the settler state. But I don’t have a vision for how to decolonize, so maybe I should just be attentive to where I’m being called to action by people who do have that vision.

Simone

Dear Simone,

That makes total sense to me! And of course I am judging you… just kidding! If we can’t say our awkward and probably offensive things to each other, how will we ever sort any of this out?

I actually have been reading some stuff about Indigenous resurgence and I feel like I can get even more how it isn’t about me when I read that – although do I ever want to be a part of it. Or I mean, really I just want to be in that world. Like, I want it to have happened and I want Indigenous people to govern this land in a way that respects the land and people and everything. I don’t think it would be perfect – there really is no perfect! But like, I think we would be doing a lot more to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss, and I think there would be so much to limit people getting super rich off of abusing the land and people and animals.

We’ve gone on so many tangents!! I guess just looping back to the original questions, maybe it’s more about taking some action than taking perfect action and about doing our best. I feel nervous even saying that because it’s so hard to be called out when you’re doing

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your best, but I hope we can encourage each other to stay with this even when it’s hard. I feel like we’re working toward something good, do you? It would be awful to just accept that this is the way the world is and there’s nothing we can do about it. I mean, we are climate activists! Environmentalism has its problems… so many problems. But we can try to learn while we take action at the same time – I mean, it’s not like we can just stop.

Olivia

Dear Olivia,

Don’t forget that breaks are allowed… none of us are 100% activists all of the time. I mean, even as I’m saying that I know there’s a whole thing about how privileged white people get to take breaks and no one else does, because we have some security from this issue. We’ve all heard people say that in Indigenous and racialized communities activism is a necessity not a choice, and have you noticed that people do seem stick around for a long time? Even within Indigenous organizations – there seems to be so little turnover. I wonder if there are better systems of support than we have in white enviro spaces. I would totally believe that.

I guess for now I’ll just keep showing up to the blockade. It feels useful and it’s something I can do given who I am and my constraints in this moment. Plus, I get to see lots of friends there and there’s usually music and dancing to stay warm! It has a different vibe from other actions I’ve been to – we’re attentive to the issue but we’re also hanging out and building community. It feels like a space where I can do what’s feasible for me and no one’s going to judge me for not being there earlier or doing more. Is this what sustainable, enjoyable activism feels like?? Lol… that’s a first.

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Seems like there’s no avoiding the tension about not agreeing with all Indigenous leaders – I’ll just have to sit with that. Maybe it isn’t about following all Indigenous leadership… maybe it’s ok if we take a look at a particular situation and figure out where to dedicate our time. It still feels kind of icky, like that we’re doing something because we believe it in anyhow or like we’re using Indigenous leaders to achieve our settler goals. But it’s not like I can work on every issue anyhow, there isn’t the time in the day and the positions contradict each other. So there are always choices. At least in this moment, going to the blockade feels like a good choice so I’ll keep at it and keep reading and trying to learn.

I’m hoping to make it to the next retreat – maybe I’ll see you there! Hope you’re well in the meantime. Let’s keep this conversation going.

Simone

Simone and Olivia are not perfect (I am in agreement with Olivia that there is no perfect), and their letters betray white settler frameworks. At the same time, the letters express a grappling with how to change their practices that was present in nearly all of the interviews I conducted. Through their letters, I highlight the contradictions and tensions that the anti-pipeline activists interviewed for this research project engaged with. They discuss several themes: the question of how to ensure they are not positioning themselves as supporting self-determination for their own benefit, issues of how to work well with a First

Nation from within an organization, concerns about burnout, experiences of being called out and feeling shunned by your own community of activists, strategic questions about the use of white privilege, and dilemmas about how to best follow Indigenous leadership on Indigenous land.

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Chapters in Review

I will now discuss the previous chapters in this dissertation. In Chapter One, the

Introduction, I set up the topic of this research and began by writing about my self-location.

Following self-location, I discussed the literature on settler environmentalism as it relates to

“wilderness” (Thorpe, 2011) the “Ecological Indian” (Krech, 1999) and relationships between settler environmentalists and Indigenous peoples in the Canadian context (Arnaquq-

Baril, 2016; Baldwin et al., 2011; Davis, 2010). I then provided an overview of anti-pipeline activism in Canada. I discussed the methodology used for the research and the research participants and their relationships to each other. I summarized the papers and discussed significance of the research. This chapter provided background and context to frame the three papers contained in the dissertation.

Chapter Two examined frontline solidarity in settler anti-pipeline activism in Canada.

Anti-pipeline activism exists within climate activism and a settler environmentalist framework. The norms of settler environmentalism enable the planning and implementation of campaigns that have caused substantial harm to Indigenous peoples (Arnaquq-Baril, 2016;

Denis, 2015; Nadasdy, 2005). Settler environmentalism consistently fails to situate environmental work in alignment with the knowledge that Canada exists on stolen

Indigenous land. However, in the context of anti-pipeline activism, environmental organizations and many First Nations shared the goal of preventing new pipelines on

Indigenous land. The settler anti-pipeline activists who participated in this research were motivated to work with Indigenous peoples in a good way and were aware of the power of

Indigenous rights and land defence to stop pipelines. They turned to frontline solidarity as a way to solve the problems consistently caused by settler environmentalist approaches.

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Frontline solidarity looked like it would enable the anti-pipeline activists to engage in effective activism that was itself reliant on Indigenous rights without falling into the racist and colonial patterns of settler environmentalism. As a result of orienting anti-pipeline activism toward frontline solidarity, the settler environmentalists did take direction from

Indigenous leaders in a way that worked toward stopping pipelines and was aligned with a shared goal. They participated in Indigenous-led actions and camps without attempting to take them over, inappropriately participate in ceremony, or use more resources than they contributed; while this feels like a low bar, it is a common problem. This was useful work to do that engagement with solely a settler environmentalist framework may not otherwise make obvious.

However, in calling for those with more power to support those with less, frontline solidarity hinges on the power of privileged people in white supremacist and settler colonial systems. From a theoretical perspective, it is therefore not able to solve these same problems in settler environmentalism, nor is it a model that easily aligns with the goals of dismantling white supremacy or the settler state and moving toward Indigenous self-determination.

The turn to frontline solidarity does have the potential to soothe settler anxieties about using the rights of Indigenous peoples to stop pipelines; in doing so, this effort risks becoming more about the feelings of settler activists than about Indigenous self- determination. The subordinate positioning characteristic of frontline solidarity models enables settler activists to shake off some of their privilege/guilt while working toward the goal they wanted to achieve in the first place; they can position themselves as supporting

Indigenous rights, be seen as having “ally cred” within the activist community, and feel good about the work.

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However, in taking up this positioning, they are not necessarily always doing what is useful to stop pipelines or in relation to self-determination for Indigenous peoples. They may inadvertently adopt a patronizing or helping approach rather than one focused on working together. The same positioning that enables these activists to usefully participate in an

Indigenous-led camp by doing needed work to maintain the physical infrastructure leads them to over-limit their helpfulness when asked to give advice and asks Indigenous people to take up a great deal of work to lead environmentalists and designate approval or forgiveness.

Frontline solidarity as a model doesn’t suit an issue in which the activists positioning themselves as the solidarity group feel that they have a very strong stake. Settler environmentalism tells the anti-pipeline activists that they are right to have a strong stake; frontline solidarity tells them that they should position themselves as subordinate. Separating the issues has the potential to be clarifying; they have a strong stake in stopping pipelines and a solidarity orientation to Indigenous self-determination. Conflating the two goals creates a double bind: the settler activists should lead and also should not, they should support and also should not help, they should do everything they can to stop pipelines and also should not make decisions on Indigenous land.

This attempted alignment with frontline solidarity is made more challenging in the context of paid activism, as I explored in Chapter Three. I examined the impact of the non- profit industrial complex in the context of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign in relation to settler activists’ frontline solidarity efforts. Systems of philanthropy and frontline solidarity both rely on white supremacy and settler colonialism. However, the two systems direct the activists to differently position themselves in relation to those from whom they are looking for recognition.

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As I discussed in Chapter Two, doing frontline solidarity often involves solidarity activists positioning themselves as subordinate to frontline activists in the context of the campaigns and limiting their roles. In contrast, paid activists are required to seek approval from organizational leaders, program officers, and boards of directors at philanthropic foundations. This approval is achieved through positioning themselves as essential leaders of a campaign who should continue to receive funding. In alignment with the critical philanthropy literature, I took the perspective that philanthropy, like settler environmentalism, serves to uphold white settler power and fails to address systemic injustices. Working within social movement organizations created additional constraints for settler anti-pipeline activists attempting to do environmentalism differently.

To a large extent, white settler systems of power were not disrupted through paid anti- pipeline activists’ frontline solidarity attempts. Settler activists were limited by the bureaucratic and organizational requirements of funded campaign engagement and as a result of the Anti-Pipeline Campaign absorbing settler activists’ attempts to work in frontline solidarity with Indigenous peoples into an “outreach” model. Both of these mechanisms primarily worked to maintain settler power and status quo environmentalism.

However, the campaign provided opportunities for settler activists to learn about

Indigenous worldviews and for relationships to be built or developed between settler activists and Indigenous peoples. These relationships create the opportunity to challenge settler worldviews and assumptions. There is potential for the relationships that were in various ways encouraged or enabled through the Anti-Pipeline Campaign to emerge as critical micro interventions in environmentalism even as the broader systems of the NPIC and environmentalism appear largely unchanged.

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Frontline solidarity has a performative aspect; in part because it’s so important to this particular activist community, in part because settler activists are often insecure about how to do it well, and in part because they perceive a substantial risk to doing it “wrong.” I engaged with this risk in detail in Chapter Four, in which I identified narratives of white fragility and trauma in Indigenous communities as the root of the “feeling rule” (Hochschild, 2012) that settler activists are not allowed to feel hurt as a result of being called out or experiencing conflict in the context of solidarity efforts or in relation to Indigenous peoples. I traced the feeling rule from interviews with three activists who had recently experienced callouts or who identified as particularly burned out when I interviewed them. Two of the three had recently left positions in movement organizations, and the third talked about feeling at times that she wanted to leave. I identified the feeling rule in the struggle between what the participants felt and what it seemed they believed they should have felt when called out.

An impact of this rule is a lack of intentional space in settler environmentalism for environmentalists to learn from their mistakes and heal from the pain they are actually feeling. White supremacist culture leads to a need for constant performance of perfectionism, and settler activists have not yet figured out how to transform their own expectations of perfect behaviours from themselves and others into a perspective more conducive to ongoing and consistent action. The pattern of activists burning out and leaving social movement weakens movements over time and limits the possibilities for learning as settlers shun and shame rather than support each other.

The feelings of solidarity activists may play a substantial role in the search for an

Indigenous leader to provide instruction about their activism. Many, even most, of the settler activists that I spoke with had been called out or criticized about their failure to respect

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Indigenous peoples or follow correct protocols or for other past colonial or white supremacist behaviours. Without assuming that Indigenous people are perfect and settler environmentalists are always in the wrong, I believe it is fair to say that many of the callouts were at least to an extent the result of problematic behaviours rooted in white settler entitlement. Settler environmentalism did not develop with a structure of support to enable learning and healing for environmentalists when they are called out, and, despite attempts following the feeling rule to deny this pain, the activists experienced the callouts as very painful. In addition to a motivation to work against settler colonialism and prefigure

Indigenous governance, following the instruction of an Indigenous leader in a frontline solidarity model has the potential to provide cover or safety when called out. Following instruction enables the settler activists, if called out, to abdicate some of the responsibility for their actions.

In frontline solidarity, settler activists look to Indigenous peoples for recognition; it is often said that only an Indigenous leader can name someone an ally in any given context (e.g.

Kluttz et al., 2020). This search for recognition can and should be problematized for once again centring settlers and for maintaining a system in which settlers look to Indigenous leaders for affirmation and approval. It is not the role of Indigenous leaders to designate the

“exceptional white ally” (D’Arcangelis, 2015, p. 127); settler activists need to be able to feel good within our roles ourselves.

Reflections on Methodology

Nearly ten years ago, I received an email from a well-respected (and famous) movement theorist saying if I was going to run an activist training in a half-baked way, it would be best to not do it at all. Despite this, I attempted to move forward with a rushed and

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limited version of what might otherwise have been ideal. My reflection afterward was that it went alright. Not at all perfect, but better than if we had not done it at all. While I similarly feel glad to have undertaken this research and to have learned about Indigenous methodologies along the way, I believe some aspects of my incomplete take-up of

Indigenous methodologies, partially influenced by rushing to begin fieldwork due to external funding deadlines, did not benefit the process. I discussed this in detail elsewhere (Helferty,

2019a), and will highlight some key points here.

I am grateful to have had many opportunities to learn about Indigenous methodologies over the course of my doctoral degree from my supervisor, Dr. Jean-Paul Restoule, from

Wanda Nanibush, and from the Indigenous Inquiries Circle at the International Congress on

Qualitative Inquiry. Through learning from these scholars and reading their works and the works of other Indigenous scholars (Hampton, 1995; Kovach, 2009; L. T. Smith, 2012; S.

Wilson, 2008), I learned that Indigenous methodologies can involve many different research methods and approaches but will always be with and for Indigenous communities and connected to spirit (Restoule et al., 2010). Given my initial interest in researching settler-

Indigenous relationships, it seemed important to understand Indigenous methodologies in order to do the research and interact with Indigenous participants in a good way; however, when I considered my motivations for taking up this research and my lack of connection to

Indigenous spirit, it was ultimately clear to me that I was not undertaking an Indigenous or

Indigenist (L. R. Simpson, 2004; S. Wilson, 2007) research project. The applied goal of this project emerged as an effort to find ways to support settler environmentalists to critically examine their/our solidarity efforts in a way that I hoped would benefit Indigenous peoples; however, this project is ultimately about settlers. As a settler activist myself, I wanted to treat

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the research participants with kindness and care and at the same time better understand some of the systemic problems with settler solidarity efforts. Given this focus and my positionality, the focus of this project on settlers made sense.

At the same time, I thought there were some elements from Indigenous methodologies that I would attempt to include. I felt that the story-focused and conversational approaches prevalent in Indigenous research approaches (Kovach, 2009) suited this research well. Given that the research was about solidarity and engaged with a community that I am part of, focusing on relationships, staying connected and accountable to the people engaged in the research, and understanding the research as reciprocal felt important (Hart, 2010; Kovach,

2009; Loppie, 2007). These approaches are not exclusive to Indigenous methodologies, and I also learned about their importance from the principles of participatory action research (M.

Fine et al., 2003). As an activist researcher, I felt that these approaches were essential for conducting responsible research.

It was in the implementation of the practices that I encountered challenges as a result of other aspects of my research design. Having primarily worked in national roles in Canada and the United States, I was interested in a national perspective on anti-pipeline activism. I was also particularly interested in how activists employed in funded activist organizations attempted to work in solidarity as a result of my experiences of having work substantially impacted by funders and non-profit systems. These interests led me to a process in which I met once or twice with local activists in different cities and towns and had a sense of building a relationship but was not actually involved in the participants’ work in a way that felt reciprocal to me in the moment. Buying a cup of coffee or breakfast as thanks for the conversation felt transactional rather than relational. I tried to alleviate this sense of

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discomfort by making offers to facilitate or support groups’ strategic planning processes or to return to the region to attend an important campaign event; offers genuinely made but that I did not actually have the availability or flexibility with which to follow through. After realizing that I was operating from a sense of unease or guilt rather than what made sense in the context of new and limited relationships and was possible for me at the time, I stopped making the offers.

Much later in the research process, I realized the value of the research itself, and that in bringing findings back to the participants I could engage in a reciprocal relationship. I realized that I had taken in a focus on a reciprocal research process from learning about

Indigenous methodologies and participatory action research but had failed to learn that this reciprocity can also exist in how participants engage with research findings. The participants wanted to know what I found and this was/is a valuable offering to the community. While analyzing data and writing this dissertation, I have already begun to bring the research back to participants and the activist community through one-on-one discussions and presentations or workshops at activist conferences. I have received feedback that these engagements have been productive and useful, and I will continue to explore ways to engage with activists about this research.

Contributions

This dissertation contributes to conversations about activist solidarity within academic and activist circles. I was glad to have the opportunity to learn from academic work from the anti-apartheid movement, from transnational solidarities, from Fair Trade. I hope this dissertation contributes to these conversations and that I have made good use of what I have learned from these other movements.

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While I did not plan this initially, it is in retrospect not surprising that much of the dissertation ultimately became connected to whiteness and white fragility. Environmentalism is known to be white (Curnow & Helferty, 2018), and the whiteness or white-adjacentness of the research participants in this project attests to the continuing dominance of whiteness in environmentalism in Canada today. Diversifying white organizations alone will not necessarily change the underlying culture of whiteness in an organization (Ward, 2008); however, there is influential leadership from Indigenous and racialized people present in environmental activism in Canada today. I have a sense of optimism that those of us steeped in whiteness (whether or not we identify as white ourselves) are ready to hear critiques from these leaders and from each other. This dissertation contributes to the rapidly growing literature on whiteness and white fragility inside and outside social movement settings.

This dissertation also engaged with current practices in philanthropy. There is a clear need for change in funding processes and requirements. In requiring organizations to apply for six months or one year of work at a time and requiring campaign victories that can be achieved within these timeframes, funders are creating an atmosphere of scarcity and unnecessary anxiety that limits flexible, thoughtful, and creative action. Anti-pipeline work in Canada in recent years has often been successful, but there is much more work to do to bring Canada into alignment with globally responsible climate targets and justice for

Indigenous peoples. There is power in solidarity between Indigenous and settler communities, and this power is being constrained by limited resources, lack of funding to

Indigenous communities and organizations, and an unnecessarily short-term focus.

Foundations today are engaged in conversations about shifting approaches to social movement funding that better understands the nature of movement cycles (Engler, 2018;

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Hicks, 2018; Nelson, 2017; Saavedra, 2018), and there is an opportunity for Canadian environmental funders to be leaders in changing their approach.

Limitations

There are several limitations to what I can claim from the data collected. Firstly, there are limits to what this project can address as a result of several aspects of the demographics of the participants. Despite reaching out to a number of Indigenous people involved in anti- pipeline work, I interviewed only three. While I learned a great deal from these interviews, the small number does not allow me to get much sense of themes or concerns shared by

Indigenous people around the efforts settlers are making to work with them and follow their leadership. As a result, I generally did not attempt to discuss Indigenous perspectives in this research although I am grateful for and learned a great deal from the conversations I had with the three Indigenous leaders who participated in this research.

In addition, as mentioned earlier, based on responses to the demographic questionnaire and conversations with settler activists they all or nearly-all identified as white or white passing. While indicating a need for a change in environmental spaces, this also indicates a clear limit to the findings of this research. It is not about settler environmentalists; it is about white/white passing settler environmentalists. I believe that, now that I have re-engaged with climate activism in Canada over the past several years, I would likely be able to recruit a more diverse group of participants in a future study. Although I was often connected with potential participants through my network or through previous participants, it was primarily the white or white passing activists who were most willing to be interviewed about this research without having a personal relationship with me.

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Despite reaching out to several potential participants, I ultimately did not conduct any interviews with anti-pipeline activists in Alberta. Given that the pipelines start in the tar sands, most of which are located in Alberta, and that the downstream tar sands risks are felt among communities in Alberta, this is a substantial gap. I was surprised to discover how few anti-pipeline activists lived in Alberta and discussed this in at least one interview. While I do not have reason to believe that the dynamics around settler activists attempting solidarity are necessarily very different in Alberta than they are elsewhere in the country, it would be interesting to gain an understanding of these dynamics from the perspective of Alberta activists.

Finally, my interest in a national story risks invisibilizing the very different local circumstances of anti-pipeline activism around the country. The internal dynamics, structures, and processes of the mostly settler anti-pipeline organizations that I gained brief insight into vary substantially. Different First Nations have distinct relationships to anti- pipeline work and approaches to collaboration with settlers. Regional politics in New

Brunswick are completely different from those in Quebec or Manitoba, and anti-pipeline work in cities is completely different from similar work in more rural communities or towns.

Determining how to approach activism on Indigenous land as a settler with a personal and political stake in the issue is going to be a complex undertaking that is necessarily rooted in a local context. Because I only interviewed a few activists in each location, I was not able to speak to specific local contexts and instead focused on national themes; however, similarly focused research projects could be undertaken on a local scale or within one organization.

Opportunities for further research

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Reflecting on the research process and findings has opened up a variety of potential new avenues for further research, some of which extend the research, and some of which are paths I chose not to take during this process but that I believe are worthwhile. One of these paths relates to gaining a deeper understanding of organizational systems and organizational change in relation to solidarity efforts. As a result of my experiences in funded activist organizations, I am particularly interested in researching how settler environmentalists employed in activist organizations attempted to engage in solidarity work. I had initially attempted to conduct this research project with one organization that has a large Toronto- based office and to develop a research plan and agenda together based on our mutual interests. When this did not work out, I chose to conduct interviews across many organizations, so that I could maintain my ability to analyze the impact of funding and non- profit systems.

I am glad to have been able to write about funding since I believe it is a powerful force impacting solidarity efforts. That said, as I gained glimpses into funded, semi-funded and unfunded organizations around the country, I increasingly felt that the way their internal organizational processes and structures support or limit their efforts to work in solidarity deserves further attention. I believe that the ways these organizations are set up and how they work internally merits further study, and that it would be interesting to carry this out in a deeper, more focused partnership with one organization or group. As a result of conducting this research and my activist participation over the past several years, I have become more interested in unfunded organizations and believe there is much to be learned about systems that influence organizations where funding is not a primary force. I also believe that coalitions such as the Peace and Friendship Alliance in New Brunswick have a great deal to

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teach about creating systems that enable settlers and Indigenous peoples (as well as urban and rural) to work well together and a focused collaborative project with a coalition has the potential to be beneficial to both the coalition and the social movements literature.

There is also an opportunity to analyze the underpinning philosophies of current funding systems and philanthropy around environmental activism in Canada that I did not substantially engage with in this project. I chose to focus on how the existing funding processes, such as short-term wins, impact solidarity efforts. I engaged in a limited way with questions about why funders are operating in such a way that seems to prioritize, for example, short-term wins like stopping pipelines over longer scale commitments to movement building, but it would be interesting to identify the roots of the rationale of the funding community that has determined this is the best approach to make change in climate- related work. Similarly, it would be worth understanding the relationship between historical sources of wealth in family foundations, often tied to fossil fuels, and how decisions are made within these foundations in relation to their support for climate activism. Kohl-Arenas

(2015) engages with these kinds of questions around how the underlying philosophies of funders and the sources of wealth, as well as the role of the program officer, shaped funding in California’s Central Valley; conducting research along similar lines would be worthwhile in the context of climate activism in Canada.

In addition, I believe that examining solidarity within the community of racialized people engaged in climate action is an exciting area for further research. I did not exclude racialized people from the research sample, but, to my knowledge, all of the settler participants identify as white or at least sometimes white passing. That the majority would be white is unsurprising given whiteness in environmentalism, but that all settlers were white or

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white passing was unexpected. This presents an opportunity for further research by and with racialized climate activists.

Finally, I believe it would be beneficial to gain the perspective of more Indigenous land defenders, water protectors, and anti-pipeline activists around their experiences of working with settler environmentalists. The lack of Indigenous perspectives can be felt throughout this dissertation. Perhaps this could be taken up in relation to the many instructional lists that already exist about how to work well in allyship or solidarity. That said, it seems clear to me that this is research that should be done by Indigenous people in a way that is for them, not for the benefit of settler environmentalists struggling to follow these instructions. This latter point can be further examined with the settler community.

Concluding reflections

In this research, I explored the ways in which settler activists attempted to integrate frontline solidarity into anti-pipeline activism and the theoretical and practical implications of these attempts. As an activist myself, this exploration helped me to connect theory to my experiences and those of fellow activists; theory provides me with a framework through which to examine why I do/feel the things that I do/feel. It enables me to separate my gut instinct, which has been long influenced by white settler approaches, from taking

(collectively critically analyzed) action aligned with my (collectively critically analyzed) goals. My hope is that debating and examining the inevitably imperfect and incomplete conclusions from this research supports the settler activist community to examine their approaches and motivations and also to practice self/community forgiveness and critical reflection.

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There can be an assumption of frontline solidarity as flowing exclusively from those with privilege to those with less; much of this dissertation is rooted in settler environmentalists’ assumption that, as people with (generally) structurally more privilege than Indigenous people in a settler colonial state, they should be reversing their assumed authority in a solidarity model. D’Arcangelis (2015), learning from Indigenous participants in her research, critiques this assumption as replicating colonial assertions of white people as subjects acting on the Indigenous Other as objects. While the idea that the settler activists should be taking a secondary role seems (and likely is) at times rooted in this problematic approach, there is ample evidence in this dissertation that Indigenous people are often in a powerful/more powerful role than settlers in the context of anti-pipeline activism and many land-based efforts in Canada. Settler activists are unable to do much of the most powerful anti-pipeline work without Indigenous people. This perspective echoes Pamela Palmater

(2015), a Mi’kmaq lawyer whose family is from Eel River Bar First Nation, who made the case that it is Indigenous peoples who are positioned to help settler peoples:

Just as in the early days of contact when the settlers needed our help to survive the

harsh winter months and seek out a new life here, Canadians once again need our help.

They need our help to stop Harper’s destructive environmental agenda. First Nations

represent Canadians’ last best hope at stopping [former Prime Minister] Harper from

the unfettered mass destruction of our shared land, waters, plants, and animals in the

name of resource development for profit by multinational corporations. (p. 80)

While Palmater wrote this in relation to the activities, priorities, and alliances of the former

Prime Minister of Canada, her identification of the power of First Nations to defend the land is a prominent theme in anti-pipeline activism today.

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The conundrum of how to take direction from Indigenous leaders while not over- limiting settler participation, not over-burdening or reifying Indigenous leaders, and not relying this direction as protection from callouts emerged as a central theme in this research.

Given the prevalence of the message that solidarity groups should take direction from frontline peoples (e.g. D’Arcangelis, 2015; Kraemer, 2000; Land, 2015; Moore & Kahn

Russell, 2011) this seems primarily a question of when and how to act on this message. In the context of this research, settler activists attempted to put the idea that they should follow

Indigenous leadership into practice across the board in their anti-pipeline activist engagements; some to the extent of attempting to not lead the predominately white settler groups that they themselves had founded. As Diana said, “That [asking an Indigenous person to lead a group created by settlers] just doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t work. I don’t even have the vocabulary to talk about why it doesn’t work, because it so intuitively doesn’t work.” I also could not have expressed why this approach “doesn’t work” at the beginning of this project but am much closer to doing so as I complete this writing.

Without attention to context, the messages settler activists receive about how to

“correctly” do solidarity can appear contradictory. For example, Land (2015) argues that solidarity needs to be understood as in the interests of those engaging in solidarity efforts; she argues that a “helping” attitude is destined to be patronizing. D’Arcangelis (2015) is in agreement on the problems with a helping approach but argues that it is important to “curb the self-serving aspects of the impulse to solidarity” (p. 260). Without attention to the specific aspects of solidarity that these scholars are engaging with, these statements can seem contradictory; on the one hand, we are directed to ensure solidarity efforts are understood as in our interests, and on the other are directed to ensure the efforts are not self-serving.

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However, while Land (2015) is arguing for the idea that settlers need to understand that we will (nearly) all be better off in a system of Indigenous governance, even as we settlers

“are the [colonial] system” (p. 215), D’Arcangelis (2015) is pointing out the problems of trying to shake off privilege/guilt and be the “good settler” through engaging in solidarity. It is a misinterpretation of D’Arcangelis’ argument to conclude that solidarity should only benefit Indigenous peoples, even as we see a focus on benefit to those more structurally oppressed in relation to the movement issue as a theme throughout the frontline solidarity literature (Brown & Yaffe, 2014; Hope, 2011; Kraemer, 2000; B. R. Wilson & Curnow,

2013). Land also argues that middle class white people need to be transformed through self- reflection and engagement in political action in order to be able to build meaningful social change with Indigenous peoples; in the context of anti-pipeline activism and other land-based environmental work clarity about what interests are and where interests align may be a useful place to start the self-reflection element of this goal of transformation.

In the context of anti-pipeline activism, I find it clarifying to distinguish between two goals: the goal to stop pipelines, and the goal to support Indigenous self-determination17. The anti-pipeline goal often relies on the mobilization of Indigenous rights and it is understandable that the two goals were often conflated in the conversations I had with settler anti-pipeline activists. We can see the desire to orient all anti-pipeline work as frontline solidarity throughout this dissertation. From a perspective attempting to respect Indigenous self-determination over Indigenous land, it is not a stretch that settlers feel they should not advocate for or against a particular intervention on the land and should not engage in their own activism to stop pipelines on Indigenous land. They certainly wanted to avoid taking the

17 I am thankful to Dr. Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández for pointing out that the activists are conflating two goals.

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perspective that they “know better” than Indigenous peoples or are more closely aligned with

Indigenous worldviews.

However, I propose that differentiating between the goal to stop pipelines and the goal to support self-determination has the potential to better enable anti-pipeline activists to do the work they are compelled to do without navel-gazing or over-reliance on Indigenous instruction. Work to stop pipelines can be carried out by environmentalists, and, I would argue, settler activists can lead aspects of this work. There is potential for work to be done in parallel at times; settler groups can do their own work while staying in contact with First

Nations or nearby Indigenous-led groups with a shared goal (Land, 2015). This approach brings to mind Guswenta – we travel side by side. Anti-pipeline activism, in which the settler activists do have a stake, can be differentiated from work primarily about Indigenous self- determination. In the latter context, the need for ongoing direction from Indigenous peoples is very clear; or, as Leanne Betasamoke Simpson (2017) proposes, the work is done without much attention to white settlers at all and those who are allies will show up.

It may seem that I am critiquing the settler environmentalists interviewed for this research for over-complicating their interactions with Indigenous peoples. It is possible that, at times, some excessive consternation is happening on an individual level. However, I primarily want to draw attention to the systems they are in that may lead to collective anxiety and experiences of inadequacy. The activists that I interviewed are striving for something; they have a strong sense that something about the current way of operating is not good and should not continue and they are looking for another way. We can see this striving in the conversation between Simone and Olivia – they are attempting to help each other break out

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of a cyclical questioning of their decisions and approaches in order to do something useful.

The settlers I interviewed are activists; they are action-oriented.

At the same time, the activists are so constrained within the systems in which they are operating and, often, perpetuating that there is little time or space to figure out a collective vision or approach. The conversation between Simone and Olivia is drawn from the data for this research but this does not mean it takes place regularly; more than one participant told me that it was a relief to have the opportunity to sit with me and thoughtfully talk about solidarity since this rarely took place in their day-to-day. While the need to figure out how to be good relations to Indigenous peoples is on their minds, the time is rarely taken to do the collective work needed to move this goal forward. I see the “dos” and “don’ts” in this dissertation: the settler activists shouldn’t over-burden Indigenous people, they should take direction, they shouldn’t over-limit their involvement, they shouldn’t take over, and so on. If the environmentalists are paid organizers or campaigners, they are accountable to the

(generally speaking) rushed and urgent processes of the nonprofits they work within, to the foundations that fund their work, and to their direct managers in often-hierarchical organizational structures. The effort required to find balance is substantial and demands attention; the white settler structures anti-pipeline activists exist within work against their ability to be generative, thoughtful, creative contributors to the tip of the planet toward justice.

Even so, many are sticking with the work (and for longer than I did). They are attempting to work through and within systems that are forcing them down simultaneously different paths and grappling with multiple double binds. The effort they are putting in on an individual level is clear; what is also clear is the need for a shift in the very foundations of

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environmentalist norms. I see cracks in the foundations appearing in this research, and I see the cracks broadening in the time since I conducted this research; I am here for the earthquake.

Regan (2010), referencing historian Roger Epp, asked "How do we solve the settler problem?" (p. 11); in anti-pipeline activism, the white settler environmentalist problem was attempted to be solved through the turn to frontline solidarity. This dissertation has made it clear that this turn was complex and contradictory. Ongoing engagements between settler environmentalists and Indigenous peoples are complicated even in the context of mutual goals. This research makes a contribution to settler activists better understanding the theoretical roots of their own emotions and behaviours. Through self-reflection, humour, commitments to supporting each other, and thoughtful community-wide analysis settler environmentalists can find a way toward meeting environmentalist goals in right relations with Indigenous peoples.

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