JPEXXX10.1177/0739456X15621147Journal of Planning Education and ResearchPrusak et al. 621147research-article2015 Research-Based Article Journal of Planning Education and Research 1 –11 Toward Indigenous Planning? © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav First Nation Community Planning DOI: 10.1177/0739456X15621147 in Saskatchewan, Canada jpe.sagepub.com S. Yvonne Prusak1, Ryan Walker2, and Robert Innes2 Abstract “Indigenous planning” is an emergent paradigm to reclaim historic, contemporary, and future-oriented planning approaches of Indigenous communities across western settler states. This article examines a community planning pilot project in eleven First Nation reserves in Saskatchewan, Canada. Qualitative analysis of interviews undertaken with thirty-six participants found that the pilot project cultivated the terrain for advancing Indigenous planning by First Nations, but also reproduced settler planning processes, authority, and control. Results point to the value of visioning Indigenous futures, Indigenous leadership and authority, and the need for institutional development. Keywords aboriginal, community planning, First Nation, Indigenous planning, reservation, reserve Introduction This article examines a multiyear community planning pilot project undertaken from 2006 to 2011 on the principal “Indigenous planning” is an emergent paradigm in contempo- reserves of eleven of those Saskatchewan First Nations. The rary planning discourse that aims to reclaim the historic, con- pilot project was an initiative of the federal government’s temporary, and future-oriented planning approaches of Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Indigenous communities across western settler states like Canada (AANDC). The planning consultant team hired by Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia AANDC to undertake the pilot project with First Nations and (Jojola 2008; Matunga 2013; Walker, Jojola, and Natcher their affiliated tribal councils was the Cities and Environment 2013). The literature on Indigenous planning is comple- Unit, a consultancy arm of the School of Planning at mented by a larger literature on planning with Indigenous Dalhousie University in the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, communities (e.g., Barry 2012; Berke et al. 2002; Nilsen Canada. By the end of the pilot project, all of the First 2005; Porter 2010; Sandercock 2004). Combined, this inter- Nations had undergone the process of creating a community national scholarship has advanced our understanding of how plan with the consultant team, addressing areas such as hous- to more effectively support community planning undertaken 1 ing and infrastructure, education, health and wellness, cul- on First Nation reserves, Indian reservations (e.g., Guyette ture and traditions, environment, economic development, 1996; Jojola 1998; Lane and Hibbard 2005), and in Indigenous and governance. rural and remote communities (e.g., Duerden, Black, and We examine the extent to which the work carried out dur- Kuhn 1996; Lane 2006; Procter and Chaulk 2013). ing the pilot project coincides with advances in research on There are more than six hundred First Nations in Canada, planning with Indigenous communities and the emergent speaking more than sixty Aboriginal languages. Those self- paradigm of Indigenous planning. Our central argument is identifying as a First Nation person make up nearly 61 percent that the pilot project, on one hand, cultivated the terrain for of Canada’s total Aboriginal population and about 2.6 percent of the total Canadian population (Statistics Canada 2013a). Saskatchewan is a Canadian province with a population of just Initial submission, November 2013; revised submissions, April and more than one million people, where greater than 10 percent September 2015; final acceptance, September 2015 self-identified as First Nation (Statistics Canada 2013b). There 1 Rural Municipality of Mervin, Turtleford, Saskatchewan, Canada are more than seventy First Nations in Saskatchewan, repre- 2University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada sented locally by band councils, regionally by tribal councils (that comprise several First Nation bands), provincially by the Corresponding Author: Ryan Walker, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, and nationally by Saskatchewan, 117 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5C8, Canada. the Assembly of First Nations. Email: [email protected] Downloaded from jpe.sagepub.com at UNIV TORONTO on January 15, 2016 2 Journal of Planning Education and Research advancing Indigenous planning by First Nations, but also protocols, and practices from being heard and understood by reproduced the colonial imposition of settler planning pro- mainstream planning and public institutions, sustaining the cesses, authority, and control. The next section conceptual- epistemic violence suppressing First Nations as subjects and izes planning with First Nations and the emergent paradigm the application of Indigenous self-determining autonomy— of Indigenous planning, building to a point of departure for though not its existence by right—vis-à-vis the settler state our research. It is followed by a discussion of research meth- (Spivak 1988). ods. The results are presented and discussed, before conclud- The political and cultural project of Indigeneity is chal- ing the article with implications for Indigenous planning lenging the authority and legitimacy of planning systems, among First Nations. where understandably Indigenous communities are often skeptical about participating in state-driven planning pro- Planning and Indigenous Nations cesses based in a legal and governance framework that has a long history of marginalizing their interests (Berke et al. Statehood in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and 2002), or that simply operates under another spatial culture Australia was achieved through dispossession of Indigenous altogether (Porter 2010). Land-use planning in the lands and cultures, by exterminating them or relocating them Nunatsiavut region of Labrador, Canada, following the 2005 to reserves (Canada, Australia) or reservations (United land claim agreement between the Inuit, federal, and provin- States), and by social, economic, cultural, and political assim- cial governments is illustrative (Procter and Chaulk 2013). A ilation (Hibbard, Lane, and Rasmussen 2008). Dispossession Regional Planning Authority of two Inuit and two provincial is not an episode in history, but a continual process reproduc- government appointees was struck, mandated to create a ing Indigenous–settler relations. Dispossessed territory is land-use plan for the entire region within three years, in con- reclaimed by First Nations and different territory is reassigned sultation with its diverse Indigenous communities. It hired a by the settler state for new purposes (Porter 2010). registered professional planner to conduct the planning work, Dispossession constitutes a “continuous assault on the politi- though he resided in the provincial capital, hundreds of miles cal and cultural autonomy of indigenous peoples” (Lane and away from the region. The imposed time frame was unten- Hibbard 2005, 172). Claims of sovereignty over land and able, human resources were insufficient to engage meaning- resources is the context upon which competing spatial cul- fully with communities across the region, and the ability of a tures are juxtaposed (Porter 2010). On one hand, there is a single planner living outside the region to surmount the epis- spatial culture of disaggregated economic return from private temological challenges of working in dramatically different property associated with the settler state, and on the other the cultural settings was questionable (see Umemoto 2001). spatial culture of aggregated interrelationship between use Two examples of competing spatial cultures in the and stewardship of land, culture, economy, society, and envi- Nunatsiavut land-use planning process are instructive. First, ronment brought forward to varying degrees in First Nation the Labrador Inuit consider sea ice to be a continuation of the claims. Reserves themselves are colonial spaces and part of land, providing travel routes and harvesting opportunities, the settler spatial culture of making “property” out of the land and wished to include it in the plan. The settler governments not reserved for Indigenous communities (Porter 2010). did not want it included in the plan, with the federal govern- Beyond territorial dispossession, reserves served as places for ment pointing to its jurisdiction over the ocean and resources sociocultural experiments (Hibbard 2006) of assimilation to located there, and the provincial government pointing to its agricultural ways of life, the control of movement on and off authority over land and resources. The power of settler statu- reserve with a pass system, the prohibition of spiritual cere- tory frameworks resulted in the exclusion of sea ice from the monies and culture, and the forced removal of First Nation plan. Second, the Inuit wanted to prioritize planning to “live children to residential schools where many underwent physi- as Inuit,” focusing on connectivity between land, resources, cal, emotional and sexual abuse (Lerat and Ungar 2005; Ray, culture, and people, while the planner and planning authority Miller, and Tough 2000). determined it necessary to operationalize Inuit perspectives Indigenous nations expend tremendous