Unsettling Citizenship: Movements for Indigenous Sovereignty and Migrant Justice in a Settler City
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Unsettling Citizenship: Movements for Indigenous Sovereignty and Migrant Justice in a Settler City Krista R. Johnston A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Gender, Feminist & Women's Studies YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO June 23, 2015 ©Krista Johnston, 2015 ii Abstract The central argument in this dissertation is that immigration and citizenship policies are integral to settler colonialism in Canada and that this has tremendous implications for alliances between Indigenous sovereignty and migrant justice movements in the city of Toronto. Urban Indigenous sovereignty activists are focused on the regeneration and resurgence of Indigeneity, expressed as responsibilities to land and community. To the extent that migrant justice movements are compelled to engage primarily with and through immigration and citizenship policies, their struggles are incommensurable with those for Indigenous sovereignty (see Tuck and Yang). Yet, when migrant justice movements are able to expose the colonial investments of these policies, to contest the dominance of the settler state, and to decolonize relationships of identity, land, and belonging, important possibilities for alliance-building emerge. The urban context thus provides an important potential site for decolonization and alliance- building, yet it is not atomized from the state, nor from state practices. In unsettling citizenship, migrant justice and Indigenous sovereignty activists are also, to some degree, unsettling the city. Here, ªunsettlingº signals the simultaneous acts of disrupting the linkage between settler colonialism and citizenship, of asserting Indigenous sovereignty in the city, and of challenging the assumption that citizenship is the primary political subjectivity of the contemporary context. As Vaughan-Williams concludes, ªThe conundrum is how to think political community otherwiseº (169). Although none of the activists I spoke with were prepared to dictate what decolonized relationships in the city should look like, many suggested that Indigenous approaches to identity, land, and belonging as interrelated responsibilities might provide important ways of re-imagining co-existence that respect autonomy and interdependence. iii Acknowledgements I have accumulated a debt of gratitude to a number of people over the course of this work. First, I extend my deepest thanks to the activists I have learned so very much from ± those who participated in interviews and focus groups and those whose insights were shared over the course of meetings, events, meals, and numerous other conversations. To say that your words and dedication have inspired and motivated this work is a tremendous understatement. I am also enormously grateful to the many academic mentors and guides who kept this project on track and nourished my intellectual curiosity throughout. Thanks are due to Dr. Jacinthe Michaud, thoughtful and thought-provoking supervisor, for her steadfast patience and intellectual generosity throughout this process. I also extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Bonita Lawrence, for encouraging me to keep thinking through Indigenous epistemologies and for ensuring that this infused the work. Thank you also to Dr. Celia Haig-Brown, my first research methodologies teacher, who helped me to think through the intricacies of doing research in a good way. I thank Dr. Kim Anderson for her incisive and thought-provoking questions at the doctoral defense. Thanks are also due to Dr. Mona Oikawa for her thoughtful questions and contributions to my further thinking on this topic. Early in my graduate studies I had the great fortune to work under the careful direction and mentorship of Dr. Susan Dion, and I am grateful that this work came full circle with her involvement in the dissertation defense. This work comes full circle in Funding in the form of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship made this work financially possible. A number of friends and colleagues have made this work possible in so many ways. Thank you to Jennifer Johnson and Shana Calixte, for support, encouragement, and for always being there, no matter what. Thanks are also due to dear friends and iv smart people: Praba Pilar, Jocelyn Thorpe, Deborah McPhail, Erika McPherson, and Stef Harvey. I thank the Sunday Writing Group for thoughtful engagements with some of this work, for intellectual engagement, and good advice. Thanks are also due to friends, colleagues, and outstanding students at the University of Toronto Mississauga, University of Manitoba, and University of Winnipeg for constant encouragement and motivation! And finally, love and thanks to my family, who have sustained me through this work, even though I©m sure they often wondered what it was all about. Love and thanks to my father, my brother and to my mother©s family and especially my Aunt Leah for always providing a connection to ªhome,º however intangible that might be. Deep thanks to Larry and Doreen Slashinsky for the time and space to write, and for countless hours of the best childcare possible. Endless thanks to my mother, without whom none of this would have been possible, and whose presence I feel every single day. To my children, Averi and Kalin, who challenge and nourish me in every possible way, and to my partner Ryan, steadfast friend and collaborator, your love keeps me going. Two very special people passed on as I was writing this dissertation: my beloved Granny and my Uncle Normand. Both struggled with questions of identity, land, and belonging in very different ways and taught me so very much. My thanks goes to each them for teaching me so many very important things. v Table of Contents Abstract.......................................................................................ii Acknowledgements......................................................................iii Table of Contents..........................................................................v Preface........................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Citizenship and Settler Colonialism: Theorizing Identity, Land, and Belonging in Toronto.....................................................5 Unsettling Citizenship...............................................................................................................8 Theoretical Framework and Key Concepts..............................................................................14 Contributions..........................................................................................................................21 Dissertation Overview.............................................................................................................24 Chapter 2: Decolonizing Research Methodologies.........................27 Participants and Data Gathering Methods...............................................................................32 Positionality............................................................................................................................38 Research and Praxis................................................................................................................42 Consultation, Consent, and Collaboration...............................................................................46 Chapter 3: Genealogies of Settler Colonialism..............................57 Indigenous Histories of Settler Colonialism............................................................................58 Diplomacy and Trade with European Newcomers...................................................................62 Responses to Genocide and Assimilation................................................................................67 The Treaty of Niagara and the Royal Proclamation.................................................................70 Toronto©s Indigenous History..................................................................................................72 Confederation and the British North America Act...................................................................78 Conclusion..............................................................................................................................80 Chapter 4: Identity, Land, and Belonging: Indigenous Sovereignty from the Urban Context...............................................................81 ªBeing Indigenousº.................................................................................................................82 Constructing and Imposing ªIndianº Identity..........................................................................84 vi Constructing the ªUrban Indianº.............................................................................................91 Indigenous Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the Settler City...................................................97 Identity and/as Responsibility............................................................................................98 Relationships to Land.......................................................................................................101 Belonging: Indigenous Communities and Nationhood......................................................106 Conclusion............................................................................................................................109 Chapter 5: Alliance and Incommensurability: Indigenous