In the Way of Development: Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalization Edited by Mario Blaser, Harvey A. Feit and Glenn McRae ZED BOOKS London & New York in association with International Development Research Centre Ottawa • Cairo • Dakar • Montevideo • Nairobi • New Delhi • Singapore In the Way of Development was first published in 2004 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, UK, and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA in association with the International Development Research Centre, Box 8500, Ottawa ON, Canada KIG 3H9 [email protected]/www.idrc.ca About this Book This volume is the product of a mutually enriching collaboration between Indigenous leaders, other social activists and scholars from a wide range of disciplines. It explores what is happening today to Indigenous peoples as they are inevitably enmeshed in the remorseless expansion of the modern economy and development, subject to the pressures of the marketplace and government. It is particularly timely, given the growing criticism of free- market capitalism, and of development. The volume assembles a rich diversity of statements, case studies of specific struggles and situations, and wider thematic explorations. All start from the fact that Indigenous peoples are actors, not victims. The accounts come primarily from North America, and particularly the Cree, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and Chippewa–Ojibwe peoples who straddle the US/Canadian border. There are also studies of Indigenous peoples from South America, and even from the former Soviet Union. The intellectual focus is on the complex relationships that develop between Indigenous peoples, civil society and the environment in the context of market- and state-mandated development. The volume shows how the boundaries between Indigenous peoples’ organizations, civil society, the state, markets, development and the environment are ambiguous and constantly changing. It is this fact that lies at the heart of the political possibility of local agency, but also, ironically, of the possibility of undermining it. The volume seeks to capture these complex, power-laden, often contradictory features of Indigenous agency and relationships. It shows how peoples do not just resist or react to the pressures of market and state, but also sustain ‘life projects’ of their own which embody local history and incorporate visions and strategies for enhancing their social and economic ways of living and their relationships to state and markets. The Editors Mario Blaser is an Argentinian–Canadian anthropologist who has worked and collaborated on a variety of endeavours undertaken by the Yshiro people since 1991. His scholarly work focuses on exploring the epistemological and political possibilities of non-modern ways of knowing. Harvey A. Feit is Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, Ontario. He was an adviser to the Grand Council of the Crees during their 1972–78 treaty process. His research is on how Cree epistemology shapes conservation practices and how these inform political relationships. Glenn McRae is an applied anthropologist who has worked extensively throughout the United States, India, South Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America as an environmental consultant. He has a Ph.D. from the Union Institute and University, and teaches at the University of Vermont. Contents Acknowledgements 1 Indigenous Peoples and Development Processes: New Terrains of Struggle - Mario Blaser, Harvey A. Feit and Glenn McRae 2 Life Projects: Indigenous Peoples’ Agency and Development - Mario Blaser PART I Visions: Life Projects, Representations and Conflicts 3 Life Projects: Development Our Way - Bruno Barras 4 ‘Way of Life’ or ‘Who Decides’: Development, Paraguayan Indigenism and the Yshiro People’s Life Projects - Mario Blaser 5 Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Sustainable Development: Towards Coexistence - Deborah McGregor 6 James Bay Crees’ Life Projects and Politics: Histories of Place, Animal Partners and Enduring Relationships - Harvey A. Feit 7 Grassroots Transnationalism and Life Projects of Vermonters in the Great Whale Campaign - Glenn McRae 8 ‘The People Had Discovered Their Own Approach to Life’: Politicizing Development Discourse - Wendy Russell PART II Strategies: States, Markets and Civil Society 9 Survival in the Context of Mega-Resource Development: Experiences of the James Bay Crees and the First Nations of Canada - Matthew Coon Come 10 The Importance of Working Together: Exclusions, Conflicts and Participation in James Bay, Quebec - Brian Craik 11 Defending a Common Home: Native/non-Native Alliances against Mining Corporations in Wisconsin Al Gedicks and Zoltán Grossman 12 Chilean Economic Expansion and Mega-development Projects in Mapuche Territories - Aldisson Anguita Mariqueo 13 Hydroelectric Development on the Bío-Bío River, Chile: Anthropology and Human Rights Advocacy - Barbara Rose Johnston and Carmen Garcia-Downing PART III Invitations: Connections and Coexistence 14 Revisiting Gandhi and Zapata: Motion of Global Capital, Geographies of Difference and the Formation of Ecological Ethnicities Pramod Parajuli 15 A Dream of Democracy in the Russian Far East - Petra Rethmann 16 The ‘Risk Society’: Tradition, Ecological Order and Time–Space Acceleration - Peter Harries-Jones 17 Conflicting Discourses of Property, Governance and Development in the Indigenous North - Colin Scott 18 Resistance, Determination and Perseverance of the Lubicon Cree Women - Dawn Martin-Hill 19 Restoring Our Relationships for the Future - Mary Arquette, Maxine Cole and the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment 20 In Memoriam - Chief Harvey Longboat (1936–2001) Index Acknowledgements We have benefited from the contributions of many colleagues and participants, to whom we owe much for the development of this project. Jasmin Habib of Wilfred Laurier University has been an extraordinary and generous colleague, who has shaped the conceptualization and implementation of this project throughout. Peter Harries-Jones also provided advice and critical insights throughout all phases of publication, and helped to make this a better book. Many Haudenosaunee people from the Six Nations helped to host the meetings that led to this volume and contributed to the participants’ understandings of Indigenous teachings. The late Chief Longboat played a central role in the development of this project. He co-organized the meetings at McMaster University and on the Six Nations lands. He gave a keynote lecture, provided an overview and synthesis of the results of the meetings, and encouraged the development of this volume. Clan Mother Gloria Thomas, Tom Deer, Dawn Martin-Hill, Bev Jacobs and Linda Staats all helped to host and shape the meetings. An extraordinary group of high school students from the Six Nations also attended and entered into discussions eloquently and memorably. Pehuenche Lonko Antolin Curriao from Chile and Alberto Santa Cruz from Paraguay brought Indigenous perspectives from South America, along with Bruno Barras and Aldisson Anguita Mariqueo, who have each contributed to this volume. In the final stages of editing, the chapter manuscripts were read critically and discussed in depth by the graduate students in our seminar at McMaster in the fall of 2002, and they offered us stimulating and often challenging advice: Alisa Kincaid, Jennifer Levy, Jennifer Mallory, Linda Scarangella, Jennifer Selby and Ben Stride-Darnley. We also benefited from the comments and advice of upper-year undergraduate seminar readers in Anthropology 4AE3. We have been aided throughout by the exceptional work and continuing advice of numerous professionals, assistants and volunteers. William Coleman of McMaster, Jasmin Habib and Colin Scott served as rapporteurs at the meetings. Others who helped with the meetings were: Kathleen Buddle-Crowe, Patricia Austin, Theresa McCarthy, Saul Rich, Beth Finnis, Beth Barber and the McMaster First Nations Student Association. During our contributors’ meeting and conference our Spanish-speaking contributors had the benefit of three days of continuous translation thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Professors John Browning, Nibaldo Galleguillos and George Sorger, and especially Ping-Mei Law, of McMaster and their students. The chapters submitted in Spanish, by Bruno Barras and Aldisson Anguita Mariqueo, were translated into English by Mario Blaser. At the editing stage we have been aided by the professional advice and services of Kenneth Blackwell, Caroline Kinsley, Amanda White and Candida Hadley. We have also benefited from the fine map-making skills of Glenn Garner. It has been a pleasure to work with the editors and production team at Zed Books, Lucy Morton and Robin Gable at Illuminati, and staff at IDRC. The editors also wish to acknowledge the financial support of: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for research grants and a research conference grant to Harvey Feit; the International Development Research Council of Canada (IDRC), the Grand Council of the Cree (Eeyou Astchee) and the United Nations University for helping to fund travel for non-academic Indigenous participants; Environment Canada; and the McMaster University programmes in Indigenous Studies, Peace Studies and Engineering and Society, the Institute on Environment and Health, and especially the Department of Anthropology for administrative and assistantship support as well as financial contributions. Critical funding from the International Network on Water, Environment and Health