Week 4 Lecture 2: Indigenous Worldviews: Relations and Collective Resilience

Indigenous Worldviews

“All My Relations”

Interrelatedness of all creation, animate and inanimate beings

• Animals, mountains, minerals, trees, stars

Settler Colonialism

An ongoing system in which colonizers move onto Indigenous land, becoming the dominant majority

Includes displacement of land and replacement of culture

A structure, not just a single event

• Organizing logic of society

• Complex and diverse ways in which the installation of settlers on land already occupied by Indigenous peoples influences multiple aspects of culture

Terra Nullius

“Land belonging to no one” / “Empty land”

Asserts that settlers arrived in “empty lands” and/ or lands that were ~ figuratively ~ empty due to the “inappropriate” occupation of those already there

• Denies meaningful Indigenous presence

Ties to “civilization” and exploitation of land - Indigenous land use “needs to be superseded by more ‘advanced’ and ‘productive’ ways”

Wet’suwet’en Resistance and Worldview (background)

Wet’suwet’en territory in northwestern BC is unceded land - never signed over by treaty

Governance of the territory rests with hereditary chiefs whose authority comes from legal systems predating colonialism

Wet’suwet’en law emphasizes relational responsibility to land, water, animals, and plants

Coastal Gas Link Pipeline

Approved by provincial and federal governments

Consent obtained from elected band councils, but withheld by hereditary chiefs

Fundamental clash of the legal system and worldviews

Elected band councils

Part of the system set up by the Indian Act of 1876

• Regulations and laws for Indigenous peoples and identity - polices identity

Their authority covers reserve lands

Hereditary chiefs hold broader authority over traditional, unceded territory

Wet’suwet’en resistance - mechanics and results

Series of checkpoints and camps along the proposed route

Places of teaching and cultural activity

A responsibility from a relational view

In 2019, the RCMP enforced court injunctions authorizing police action on Wet’suwet’en land

• Settler colonialism in action - prioritizing the extractive process

Resistance as a form of oppositional action

Includes organized movements that seek to bring about change or challenge the imposition of laws, decisions, policies, or projects

• Refusal of dominant political and economic systems

Protecting, not protesting

Central to Leanne Simpson’s interview with Jacob Ostaman

Not just opposition to colonial authority

Protesting is action in response to political actions

• Participating in the political game

Protecting is rooted in ethics of care and responsibility

Indigenous resistance/ protection is an enactment of sovereignty, especially on unceded land

Wet’suwet’en resistance timeline

2022 - submission made to UN of violation of rights as outlined by the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)

• Focused on continued construction on traditional territories

2023 - Construction of the 670 km gas pipeline reached “mechanical completion”

• Has received over $1.4 million financial penalties by the BC government due to repeated non-compliance to environmental regulations, including waterway protection/ erosion control

2024 - Land defenders charged under civil injunction for being there

2025 - Suspended prison sentences for 3 key land defenders (Sleydo/ Molly Wickman included) and community service

Indigenous resurgence

Refusal to accept historical/ dominant systems

Not just protest

Modes of action and practices that seek to deconstruct and disempower the colonial world by the recentering and reinvigorating of Indigenous personhood