POSTDEVELOPMENTAL PROPERTIES IN THE AGE OF THE EXCEPTION: THE POLITICAL AND AFFECTIVE LIVES OF THE TRADITIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE OF PLATEAU PEOPLES IN BRITISH COLUMBIA by Sean Robertson J.D., University of British Columbia, 2003 M.ARCH., University of British Columbia, 1998 B.A., University of British Columbia, 1994 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Department of Geography © Sean Robertson, 2011 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring, 2011 All rights reserved. However, in accordance with the Copyright Act of Canada, this work may be reproduced, without authorization, under the conditions for Fair Dealing. Therefore, limited reproduction of this work for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, review and news reporting is likely to be in accordance with the law, particularly if cited appropriately. APPROVAL Name: Sean Robertson Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (Geography) Title of Thesis: Postdevelopmental properties in the age of the exception: The political and affective lives of the traditional environmental knowledge of Plateau peoples in British Columbia Examining Committee: Chair: Dr. Paul Kingsbury Assistant Professor - Geography ___________________________________________ Dr. Nicholas Blomley Senior Supervisor Professor - Geography ___________________________________________ Dr. Rosemary Coombe Professor York University - Department of Social Science ___________________________________________ Dr. Jennifer Hyndman Professor York University - Department of Social Science ___________________________________________ Dr. Ruth Buchanan Associate Professor York University - Law ___________________________________________ Carole Blackburn External Examiner Assistant Professor University of British Columbia - Sociology Date Defended/Approved: ___________________________________________ ii Declaration of Partial Copyright Licence The author, whose copyright is declared on the title page of this work, has granted to Simon Fraser University the right to lend this thesis, project or extended essay to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. 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Simon Fraser University Library Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC, Canada Last update: Spring 2010 ABSTRACT I explore the politics surrounding the protection of Native traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) in the southern interior of British Columbia through qualitative research with 35 traditional land users. I attempt to gather a sense of their values as part of a democratic process of circulating alternative politico-legal principles (“postdevelopment”). The conditions of the colonial present and the gap between western and Native knowledges become the basis for an alliance between me, the reader and the community members toward decolonizing rights and the law. Here, to “decolonize” is to draw geography (externalities) back into the law. I argue that Native practices of TEK produce a counter-governmentality which implants the collective on the normative political horizon. It disavows fewer of the indices of human life: the “outside” which holds the individual. The protection of TEK therefore rests not only upon new western legal instruments and the defence of the land whereupon it is performed, but more fundamentally upon the elaboration of these values and practices in law and the everyday. I explore politics as a matter of sovereign power, for example in the use of rights, civil disobedience and the struggle over land, and as a matter of disciplinary power, for example in the re-signification of rights and where identity is performed both inside and outside (via affect) the spatio-discursive legacy. I follow the circulation of Native governmentality through three case studies. The first is a geography of abandonment and witnessing concerned with struggles against the declaration of extinction by the Canadian government on the Sinixt people. The second is a geography of rights concerning the presentation of a “friend of the court” brief to the World Trade Organization on the matter of the Native property interest in timber in the Canada-US Softwood Lumber case by the Interior Alliance of Native Nations. The third is a geography of affect concerning the protection of traditional territory against international resort development by the Secwepemc peoples at Sun Peaks, BC. Keywords: governmentality; customary law; rights; affect; Indigenous people; traditional environmental knowledge iii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I. The problem: I inquire into the means of protecting Indigenous traditional environmental knowledge (TEK)—the know-how and protocols for hunting, gathering and fishing which form the cultural and material basis for Indigenous societies—in the political and legal contexts of British Columbia and the information age. Will securing Indigenous title or treaty help to protect TEK by virtue of providing a land base? Will the development of legislation prevent its appropriation as genetic inputs for food or pharmaceuticals? My main premise is that TEK is more broadly threatened by the hegemonic economic paradigm and political rationality which fail to countenance the collective and the environment. Where the securing of land rights and new laws does not go far enough to protect TEK, what representational and nonrepresentational interventions can be made against the hegemonic rationality? And what are the implications for making Canada a fairer society? II. Review of related literature: Nonwestern knowledges have been revalorized in the social sciences and humanities. From a position of inferiority, they are now seen as valid systems for understanding the networks which produce things (Latour, 1993). Where inferiority legitimated colonial atrocities, Indigenous peoples have been recast as having their own science (Agrawal, 1996), knowledge (M. Brown, 2003; Escobar, 2008), political ordering (Tully, 1995; Chakrabarty, 2008), law (Borrows, 2002; Santos, 2006), and ontology (Blaser, 2010). From a governmentality perspective, my contribution is to interrogate the “heretical” practice of TEK as a form of “counter-governmentality” (Foucault, 2007) critical to resisting biopolitical governmental rationality (W. Brown, 2003). III. Methodology: I explore the politics surrounding the protection of TEK in the southern interior of British Columbia through research with 30 traditional land users (interviews and focus groups held c. 2005-2010), historical and newspaper archives, on-line media, and legal pleadings. Since I learned less about the specifics of community knowledge-protection protocols than the principles underpinning their enactment and Indigenous law, the project was pushed from its initial concern with Indigenous law as the logical starting point for protecting TEK