Based on three years of ethnographic research in the Yukon, this book examines contemporary efforts to restructure the relationship between aboriginal peoples and the state in Canada. Although it is widely held that land claims and co-management-two of the most visible and celebrated elements of this restructuring-will help reverse centuries of inequity, this book challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that land claims and co-management may be less empowering for First Nation peoples than is often supposed. The book examines the complex relationship between the people of Kluane First Nation, the land and animals, and the state. It shows that Kluane human-animal relations are at least partially incompatible with Euro-Canadian notions of "property" and "knowledge."
Yet, these concepts form the conceptual basis for land claims and
co-management, respectively. As a result, these processes necessarily end
up taking for granted-and so helping to reproduce-existing power
relations. First Nation peoples' participation in land claim negotiations
and co-management have forced them-at least in some contexts-to adopt
Euro-Canadian perspectives toward the land and animals. They have been
forced to develop bureaucratic infrastructures for interfacing with the
state, and they have had to become bureaucrats themselves, learning to
speak and act in uncharacteristic ways. Thus, land claims and
co-management have helped undermine the very way of life they are supposed
to be protecting.
This book speaks to critical issues in contemporary anthropology, First
Nations law, and resource management. It moves beyond conventional models
of colonialism, in which the state is treated as a monolithic entity, and
instead explores how "state power" is reproduced through everyday
bureaucratic practices-including struggles over the production and use of
knowledge. The book will be of interest to anthropologists and others
studying the nature of aboriginal-state relations in Canada and elsewhere,
as well as those interested in developing an "ethnography of the
state."
Paul Nadasdy is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and American Indian
Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
