Property, human ecology and Delgamuukw
Date
2011-07-22
Authors
Cheney, Thomas
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Abstract
This thesis has two central goals. The first is to theorize the confrontation of Indigenous societies and European settler society as, among other things, a conflict between two opposing conceptions of the human relationship with nature — human ecology. The Western/settler view is that nature is external to humans and instrumental to their development. John Locke’s philosophy provides an excellent example of this type of thinking. In contrast, the world-view of many Indigenous societies is characterized by a sense of ontological continuity between humans and the ecology. The second aim of this thesis is to contribute to ecological political theory by exploring the contrast between these two divergent views of human ecology. It is suggested that this contrast provides a theoretically fertile site for an ecological politics suitable for a post-modern, post-capitalist future. These theoretical observations are grounded in a concrete case study: the Delgamuukw legal episode.
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delgamuukw, environmental studies, John Locke, philosophy, Indigenous politics, Gitxsan, Wetsuwet'en, Indigenous philosophy, property rights, colonialism, dispossession, political theory, ecological political theory, improvement, Aboriginal rights, nature, land-use, modernity, non-modern, capitalism, state, subject-object