COLONIAL CARCERALITY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: IMPRISONMENT, CARCERAL SPACE, AND SETTLER COLONIAL GOVERNANCE IN CANADA By JESSICA E. JURGUTIS B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Jessica E. Jurgutis, September 2018 i DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY (2018) McMaster University (Political Science) Hamilton, ON TITLE: Colonial Carcerality and International Relations: Imprisonment, Carceral Space, and Settler Colonial Governance in Canada AUTHOR: Jessica E. Jurgutis, B.A. (McMaster University), M.A. (York University) SUPERVISOR: Professor J. Marshall Beier NUMBER OF PAGES: vii, 335 ii Abstract This dissertation explores the importance of colonial carcerality to International Relations and Canadian politics. I argue that within Canada, practices of imprisonment and the production of carceral space are a foundational method of settler colonial governance because of the ways they are utilized to reorganize and reconstitute the relationships between bodies and land through coercion, non-consensual inclusion and the use of force. In this project I examine the Treaties and early agreements between Indigenous and European nations, pre-Confederation law and policy, legislative and institutional arrangements and practices during early stages of state formation and capitalist expansion, and contemporary claims of “reconciliation,” alongside the ongoing resistance by Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. I argue that Canada employs carcerality as a strategy of assimilation, dispossession and genocide through practices of criminalization, punishment and containment of bodies and lands. Through this analysis I demonstrate the foundational role of carcerality to historical and contemporary expressions of Canadian governance within empire, by arguing land as indispensable to understanding the utility of imprisonment and carceral space to extending the settler colonial project. In particular, in this dissertation I focus on demonstrating the relationships between historical and contemporary logics, institutions, and everyday practices of imprisonment and carcerality, and the role they play in the reproduction and maintenance of settler colonial governance within the Canadian context. The central contribution I make in this project is the concept of colonial carcerality, which I argue is a governance strategy that relies on inflicting ongoing harm to land, and to Indigenous, gender non- conforming and poor people of colour through criminalization. Drawing on the concept of colonial carcerality provides a framework to understand land as integral to the production of carceral space through the racialized, gendered, sexualized and classed hierarchies that make Canada possible as a settler state within empire. I show how that the criminalization of Indigenous persons through relationships to land occurs alongside the production of settler innocence, and that a carceral apparatus is produced through the preservation white heteropatriarchy alongside the subjugation of land. Drawing from the contributions of Indigenous resurgence and Indigenous feminist literature, this concept provides a theorization of carceral space beyond governance that highlights ongoing harm to land, waters and other living beings as a condition of possibility for carcerality within settler colonialism. It further draws from these insights to begin to imagine possibilities for restorative justice that value the life of all living beings as an entry point into understanding decolonial abolition within the settler colony. iii Acknowledgements I am grateful for the support I received to complete this project from the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, McMaster School of Graduate Studies, and the Department of Political Science. Thank you to my committee, J. Marshall Beier, Anna M. Agathangelou, Peter Nyers, and Alina Sajed, for your thoughtful engagement with this project. I am deeply appreciative for the distinct knowledge and insight you have each contributed to shaping this project and me as an intellectual. To Alina: Thank you for seeing the formative connections in this work and for the joy and inspirational energy you’ve shared with me in this process. To Peter: Thank you for sharing your intellectual curiosity and especially for prompting me to begin the difficult work of positioning myself in my work. To Anna: Thank you for always seeing and helping me to harness my intellectual ambition in the service of decolonizing feminist work. To my supervisor, Marshall, thank you for your unwavering support, guidance, encouragement and patience over the years. Many thanks to Manuela Dozzi, Kathleen Hannan, and Rebekah Flynn for your assistance, and for all the work you have and continue to do to make the department run smoothly. This project also would not have been possible without the learning, growth and healing work prompted in me by a number of people, places and communities: A deep and heartfelt thank you to Yendre Shen, Christine Jackiw, and Kelly Benóit- Bortolin, who have supported me in cultivating a relationship with myself that has allowed for the inner and embodied listening and knowing that made this project possible. I thank you for showing me the beauty and growth that can be found when we stop running from who we are. I’m not sure I would have found my way through without you. To the Walls to Bridges Collective and to all those who I attended training with in June 2014 and 2017 at Grand Valley Institution for Women: Thank you for your deep listening and for sharing your truths. The knowledge and insights that were shared in our circle first showed me what radical feminist, decolonial and abolitionist pedagogies and visions of justice can look and feel like. I carry this feeling with me and continue to let it guide me in this work. Thank you to all those I have worked with through the Political Action Committee and Indigenous Solidarity Working Group at CUPE 3906. Many thanks to Alex Williams for sharing his knowledge and research on the pass system, and for engaging in conversations on politics of historical and archival research in Canada. A special thank you to Fiona Kouyoumdjian, for so generously valuing my skills as a researcher and collaborator, and for the many conversations we’ve been able to share over the years about life and research. Finally, I am grateful to women at Six Nations who called for settlers return to the edge of the woods in Spring 2012. Thank you to the Indigenous and settler women who came together to share our experiences and explore ways of being in relation to each other that iv strive to undo colonial power dynamics in our relationships and collective political work. This project has been informed by our conversations and the time we’ve spent together reflecting on how white supremacy and heteropatriarchy are being reproduced in our Rows. I especially thank you for prompting me to reflect on how I, as a white settler, can better listen, respect and uphold the voices and knowledge of Indigenous women and Two-Spirit peoples. This project is indebted to this learning. To my dear friends and comrades: Berkay Ayhan, Rachael Baker, Danielle Boissoneau, Caitlin Craven, Melonie Fullick, Hayley Goodchild, Angela Orasch, Meaghan Ross, Emily Rosser, Sarah Shulist, Sonia Sennik, Laura Stewart, Armagan Teke, Niki Thorne, and Marcela Vecchione Gonçalves. Thank you for lovingly and generously sharing in this journey of life, learning and struggle. A special thank you to Caitlin Craven for your close reading and very caring and thoughtful engagement with this project. Thank you to my family, especially Stefanie Foran, Ramona Marlin, and Daina Mueller for always being there when it counts. Thank you to my family in Lithuania, for cultivating with me the legacies of love, desire and work that continue to make our relationships possible across time and space. Finally, to Michael James Young: thank you from the bottom of my heart for your companionship, care, and support, and especially for showing me a kind of love that I never knew was possible. I acknowledge the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe, and lands protected by the “Dish With One Spoon” Wampum agreement (Hamilton, Ontario), the Hamilton Harbour, the Askunessippi (Thames River), and the traditional territories of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Attawandaron (Neutral), and Wendat peoples (London, Ontario). Thank you to the many Indigenous peoples and other living beings that have and continue to steward this land since time immemorial. Any errors in this project are my own. This project is dedicated to my mother, Jurate Foran (Nov. 24, 1954 – May 2, 2015). For your love and care, even when you couldn’t protect me. To our continued journeys. “She’d always been there occupying the same room. It was only when I looked at the edges of things my eyes going wide watering, objects blurring. Where before there’d only been empty space I sensed layers and layers, felt the air in the room thicken. Behind my eyelids a white flash a thin noise. That’s when I could see her.” Gloria Anzaldúa, Interface, 1987, p. 148 v Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………….................................................iii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………….......iv Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………..........vi Introduction: Locating Imprisonment and Settler Colonialism in International Relations…………………………......…………………………….......................................1