10  The Missing Presence of
Aboriginal Peoples from the
Transnational Debate

Adrienne Chambon and Arielle Dylan

INTRODUCTION

This chapter stems from the startling observation of the missing presence of Aboriginal peoples from discussions and scholarship on transnationalism. As the investigations and conceptualisations of transnational relations have expanded to include families, communities, social movements, religion, economics, policy, and gendered and racialised relations, a vast array of relationships has been re-examined through a transnational lens, thus bringing in a new level of complexity. Yet, Aboriginal peoples have remained outside of that framework, perceived as the earliest inhabitants of the lands, whose worlds were transformed by the advent of foreign migration. The more recent thinking on transnationalism has evolved from studies of migration, taking into account the reconsidered status of nationstates and historicising their multiple effects. It is the settler peoples and the peoples who migrated after the constitution of nation-states who are considered in their transnational experiences. Yet, the absence of Aboriginal peoples from transnational thinking raises many questions. Leaving out Aboriginal peoples from this discussion can obfuscate a number of relations that Indigenous people enter into which are of a transnational nature. This absence restricts our understanding of transnational realities, and the existing and needed mechanisms of social support that are called for to sustain transnational relations. In this chapter we explore some of the possible sets of relationships that concern Aboriginal peoples in relation to transnationalism.

We first set out some of the possible reasons for this absence, which stem in part from dominant perspectives that confine Aboriginal relations to a certain terrain. Other reasons stem from the agendas that Aboriginal peoples themselves have actively pursued in making claims for redress. We then follow with the presentation of three instances of transnational relations entered into by Aboriginal peoples, two from within the territory that is known as Canada and a third with Aboriginal peoples in Canada as members of a broader alliance. We argue that in order for the transnational realities of Aboriginal peoples to be envisaged, revisiting a whole set of assumptions is required. We believe this opens up the way for a number of investigations.

SOME CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND

In the past few decades, transnationalism literature has proliferated across a variety of academic disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, migrant studies, history, geography, ethnic and racial studies, media and cultural studies, and, more recently, social work. The ‘container theory’ of nation-states, characteristic of social enquiry guided by ‘methodological nationalism’ (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004; see chapter 1) has been challenged along with conventional immigration paradigms, as intensified global economic, social, and epistemic forces and flows have engendered and (re)constructed transnational practices, identities, spaces, and places (Vertovec 2004; 1999).

Broadly, transnationalism describes the various linkages connecting peoples, communities, and organisations across the delineated somewhat arbitrary boundaries of nation-states. Transnational practices are not new, nor are transnational communities. As Wolf argues, cultures and societies constituted well before the development of capitalism were influenced by elements of larger systems, and can only be understood when contextualised “in their mutual interrelationships and interdependencies in space and time” (Wolf [1982] 1997: x). “Once we locate the reality of society in historically changing, imperfectly bounded, multiple and branching social alignments [ . . . ] the concept of a fixed, unitary, and bounded culture must give way to a sense of the fluidity and permeability of cultural sets” (Wolf [1982] 1997: 387).

Although Wimmer and Glick Schiller (2003) justifiably emphasise the resiliency of the nation-state in the face of transnational processes, their insistence that globalisation and its defining technologies do not represent an ‘epochal turn’ is at odds with the premises of this chapter. Earlier historical periods were not static, culturally homogeneous, or politically and economically unsophisticated, but this does not discount the momentous social, societal, national, inter-, and transnational changes wrought by the technological infrastructure of globalisation. Paehlke (2004) asserts that “electronic (or ‘digitalized’ or ‘globalized’) capitalism can be understood as a socioeconomic mode different from all previous modes—as a third type of industrial society” (40). The increasing efficiency and scope of telecommunications technologies, and the availability and relative affordability of air travel have sufficiently compressed space and time, making it possible not only for accelerated flows of capital, goods, ideas, and images, but also for increasing numbers of individuals to possess a twofold experience of place, encompassing both here and there (Vertovec 2004; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila 1997). Sometimes a considerable difference in degree, such as the technological developments in the latter half of the twentieth century, can produce pronounced qualitative differences. As Landolt (2001) argues, contemporary “transnational migration [and, it could be added, transnational practices in general] . . . exhibits an expansion in the realms of what is possible, the scope of who can do it, and in the complexity and consequences of what is done” (220).

Exploring transnational processes while simultaneously holding onto the concept of the nation-state, however altered, necessitates new ways of thinking. We need to develop new and evolving questions that address the multiple and changing identity, border, and order formations and fluidities characterising transnational spaces (Vertovec 2004). Equally important are questions concerning which forms of transnational practices are foregrounded and which transnational groups, peoples, and collectivities are studied or ignored and why. There is a noticeable lack of literature on Indigenous transnational practices. Alia's (2010) writings on global networking through media and transcending national specificities to achieve unity, and de Costa's writings on Indigenous peoples’ activism in transnational networks and in global institutions (2006) stand out among the few exceptions to this trend. The following section of this chapter begins by postulating why this gap might exist.

GAP IN THE DISCOURSE—ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OUTSIDE AND INSIDE THE NATION-STATE

The questions of transnationalism rest upon the displacement of the nation-state as the dominant reference, container, and shaper of sets of social relationships, policies, and institutional practices. As an approach, transnationalism aims to militate against and become disembedded from the hegemonic dominance of the nation-state. National entrenchment is a problem of perspective. In the Canadian context, the vexed relationship First Peoples have with Canada's federal polity illustrates this point. The ways in which Aboriginal peoples think about, and the ways in which they are thought of in relation to, the nation-state raise critical questions.

Aboriginal peoples inhabited the land now known as Canada long before the arrival of western Europeans or the creation of the nation-state. In the early contact period, non-Aboriginals sought the assistance of Aboriginal peoples in the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence River region in order to survive the relatively harsh, unfamiliar lands. In time, as non-Aboriginals gained not only numerical supremacy but also a greater colonial foothold, Aboriginal peoples were relegated to the periphery, increasingly forced to reserves and subjected to assimilationist policies (Miller 2000). The Aboriginal-state relationship was a product of colonialism, pre-capitalism, and early capitalism (Sayre 2008). The conflictual relations between Aboriginals and newcomers became most pronounced with the advent of the market and the political system of ‘democracy.’

However, Aboriginal peoples’ presence is being felt powerfully in contemporary Canadian society through effective political organising and profound displays of resistance, such as changing legislation recognising Aboriginal title rights to the land that had not been extinguished under English law. These rights can be asserted today and have served as the basis for negotiations and land claims settlements such as the Calder (1973)¹ and Delgamuukw (1997)² court decisions in British Columbia, documented in the proceedings (Persky 1998; Christie 2005). Such decisions signify considerable advancement in understanding Aboriginal and Treaty rights in the Canadian legal system, and reflect the rise in resource-based economic developments on Treaty lands.³ Although the British colonising power failed to involve Aboriginal peoples in the establishment of the nation-state, imposing upon them instead a separate political status, the modalities of this recognition of difference removed them from the national compact. Today, the changing view is that it must be acknowledged that Aboriginal peoples’ “contributions in economic terms alone were substantial [to the founding of this country] and can never be properly assessed. . . . In the most profound sense of the term, they are Canada's founding peoples” (Dickason 2002: xi).

Canada's early Constitution posits a special relationship as Dominion to England with Aboriginal peoples governed by the imperial power of Britain. Unmistakable examples of the reach of this power are the Indian Act,⁴ the development of reserves, residential schools, and the withholding of the right to vote in the federal elections until 1960 (Cardinal 1999; Miller 2000). In contemporary democracy Aboriginal peoples are divided by different categories of statuses that were attributed historically by the Canadian government. In this social sense, they are not part of integrative considerations of the nation and, understandably, have a highly troublesome relationship with the rest of Canada. With Aboriginal rights being increasingly acknowledged by the Supreme Court of Canada and by the federal government, unsympathetic non-Aboriginals have been advocating a single set of rules for all Canadian citizens (Coates 2004). “According to polls conducted in 2003, a majority of Canadians now oppose the continued extension of indigenous and treaty rights” (Coates 2004).

Aboriginal peoples today consider that they are in nation-to-nation relationships with the federal government of Canada, seeing themselves as separate but parallel states (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996). Modern nation-states, as Eric Hobsbawm has demonstrated (1990), are based on industrial societies and anchored in a political government structure involving full participation of its citizens. Modern nation-states are differentiated from earlier notions of nations constituted as and defined by a people, in ethnic, language, or cultural terms. Therefore, because Aboriginal peoples are often cast as pre-industrial, their nations are sometimes conceived by members of the dominant society as lacking real nation status, being nothing more than quaint polities. This could explain, in part, why transboundary movements and transnational flows involving the circulation of persons, materials, and ideas across the borders of First Nations communities into the dominant society and into other First Nations and back again are not straightforwardly perceived as transnational practices.

Sadly, the lack of literature exploring Aboriginal transnational practices raises the spectre of three entwined conceptual and strategic blights characterising Canada's (and other colonising nations’) colonial history. The first is the idea of terra nullius, a legal concept meaning ‘empty land,’ that was used to appropriate land from Aboriginal peoples by theorising their absence (Dickason 1993). Neglecting to consider Aboriginal peoples in discussions of transnational processes and spaces in Canada, and globally, risks theoretically reinscribing this pernicious concept. The second is the notion of atemporality, a belief that certain groups are “pristine survivals from a timeless past” (Wolf 1997: 385), making them candidates for primitivist ethnographic study and not sufficiently post-industrial to be considered as interlocutors in the communication and exchange activities that are addressed in transnational discourse. The last is the concept of being ‘beyond the pale,’ a phrase used historically to designate those persons and communities outside the bounds of civilised society (Dickason 1993). To be sure, Aboriginal peoples’ current standard of living deviates in a substantive way from that of the statistical means of the general Canadian population in terms of death rate, suicide rate, health and poverty indices, housing, and education (Statistics Canada 2007), so in this social and political sense, they are located in an inferior position, at the periphery if not outside the frame of reference of the nation. The lack of texts investigating Aboriginal peoples’ transnationalisms reinforces this periphery position suggesting Aboriginal practices are somehow separate from the realms in which transnational practices occur.

Of course evocation does not imply intent, and identifying the ways textual lacunae elicit this spectre does not actually explain the lack of literature exploring Aboriginal transnational practices; it does underscore the problematic historical resonances that such a gap produces. The small number of texts treating Indigenous transnationalism is probably best explained by three interrelated factors. First, few Aboriginal writers and scholars have directed their authorial attention to transnational concerns. While non-Aboriginal scholars have gamely embraced a shift toward global and transnational understandings including concepts of fluid borders and dismantling orders, Aboriginal scholars are busy asserting ‘Aboriginal nationhood rights’ which have been “banished from mainstream history and law and replaced by the theory of two founding nations: the English and the French” (Henderson 2000: 65). Invocations of ‘deterritorialisation’ and national instabilities are anathema to Aboriginal political strategising and cultural restoration, where the aim is to shore up First Nations. Second, many non-Aboriginal scholars remain unfamiliar with the historical reach and contemporary breadth of Aboriginal transnational practices. Third, the settler/transmigrant binarism found in much of the transnational literature does not provide a ready category for contemplating and discussing Aboriginal transnationalisms because of their unambiguous pre-‘settler’ status.

The remainder of this chapter endeavours to demonstrate the range of Aboriginal transnational processes that do take place through specific instances. The first, a historical case, dates back to the period before the constitution of the Canadian nation-state and involves a particular set of players.

TRANSNATIONALISM AMONG THE WENDAT, ALGONQUIN, AND FRENCH PEOPLES

Some authors, engaged in transnational investigations and scholarship, have identified the weakness of focusing overwhelmingly on contemporary transnational processes (Vertovec 1999, 2004; Faulstich Orellana et al. 2001; Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2003; Tinsman and Shukla 2007). While the intensity of capitalist flows and labour migrations in the latter half of the twentieth century outstrips those from the earlier half and prior centuries, transnational forces were no less significant in former times and smaller regions or non-nation-states. Understanding such early transnational dynamics historicises globalisation and present-day transnationalisms, and helps better to frame questions of the nation-state, fluidity of borders, sovereign reach and authority, new subjectivities, bifocality, and bilocality (Tinsman and Shukla 2007). This section provides a brief look at transnational practices in an early contact setting involving Aboriginal peoples and French people in a period predating Canadian confederation by more than two hundred years, to illustrate linkages between the contemporary situation and the past, contextualising to some degree current Aboriginal transnational practices in Canada.

When the French came to the St. Lawrence region in the early seventeenth century to establish a colony and acquire resources, they learned of the Wendat peoples, a confederated group of First Nations who practiced farming in the interior, the region known today as Midland, Ontario. Intrigued by reports of horticultural peoples, land use involving tillage and crop production valued as eminently superior to non-horticultural hunter-gatherer practices, the French were keen to meet the Wendat for expansionist, mercantile, and proselytising purposes. Scouts, traders, and missionaries were sent to live among the Wendat, and their writings, along with those of Samuel de Champlain, who formed a military alliance with the Wendat and sojourned briefly among them, provide the fullest historical documentary accounts, however biased, of any Aboriginal-non-Aboriginal encounter in the Canadian context for this period. The historic record, though wanting for its complete absence of primary documents authored by Wendat actors (traders, leaders, warriors, and diplomats) and French traders and scouts, reveals a series of transnational and transregional crossings arising from engagement with material flows and market changes.

In the early seventeenth century some bands from First Nations comprising the Anishnabe Algonquin, for example, the Kinounchepirini and Weskarini, among others, customarily wintered on the edge of Arendahronon Wendat communities exchanging French goods for Wendat cornmeal (Thwaites 1896–1901: 24: 269; Trigger 1994: 160). People from the Nipissing First Nation similarly spent the winter among the Attignawantan Wendat peoples. Before “reaching them, they catch as many fish as possible, which they dry. This is the ordinary money with which they buy their main stock of corn, although they come supplied with all other goods” (Thwaites 1896–1901: 21: 239). These seasonal transnational spaces that involved the receiving society and migrant communities surely produced new social formations and complex interconnections across and within First Nations borders. A consciousness of dual embeddedness would emerge during everyday lived experience in the winter months and throughout the remainder of the calendar year through resonances of the social, political, material, economic, and epistemic practices and changes. Evolving narratives would be produced and reproduced in this transnational constellation, this particular social geography.

Although groups of traders wintered at Quebec among the French in 1625 (Le Clercq 1691: 343) and then again in the 1640s, the Wendat in general were never keen to stay in French communities for extended periods. Trigger (1987) suggests that the 1625 winter stay of a Wendat party was driven by curiosity and a desire to cement relations with the French, while the sojourns in the 1640s can best be explained by military threat of the Haudenosaune and an increasing Wendat dependence on French goods. French interpreters, scouts, traders, and missionaries lived among the Wendat for long periods, and often on an ongoing basis. Because the journals kept by the missionaries are laden with the unfortunate stereotypes and offensive binary hierarchical dualisms that mark much of the colonial project worldwide (e.g., civilised/barbaric, Christian/heathen, human/subhuman), it is what is glimpsed indirectly of French traders and interpreters that best reveals transnational Wendat-French dynamics in Wendake, the territory of the Wendat.

The first European to travel to the interior was Etienne Brulé, who returned, according to Champlain, “dressed like an Indian” (Biggar 1922–36, 2: 188). Sagard, who lived among the Wendat from 1625 to 1626, describes French traders as rapidly adopting elements of Wendat dress, technologies, and cultural practices (Sagard 1866: 166, 611), but he also complains of the polluting moral influence the French exerted on the Wendat (Wrong 1939: 137). The Jesuits tried to stamp out the perceived immoral behaviour of French traders and interpreters among the Wendat in 1625, and in 1632 they redoubled these efforts by attempting to monitor more closely the activities of French men in Wendake, insisting on Christian marriages between French men and Wendat women rather than the marriage customs of the Wendat (Thwaites 1896–1901: 14: 15–17). It is in these Wendat-French transnational spaces, in which French traders and interpreters were living intermittently for extended periods among the Wendat, where the conventional and transgressive commingled, and the construction of nascent identities and composite social and cultural formations emerged. It is regrettable that the tenuousness of the written traces and the missing voices of these more subaltern social actors limit us in our considerations of the instances and scope of mutual influences.

We now turn to collective forms of claims-making and organised resistance initiated by Indigenous peoples, and focus on the recent development of cross-border alliances among Indigenous peoples as a transnational strategy of advocacy.

TRANSNATIONAL INDIGENOUS ALLIANCES AND ADVOCACY

As the historic record shows, First Nations peoples, like other peoples, actively entered into transnational arrangements not only to create or enhance material and epistemic circulations but also to form important, mutually beneficial alliances across borders. Historic precedents such as those described here lend depth to the understanding of contemporary political transnational strategies and activism practiced by Indigenous peoples around the world, strategies designed to resist persistent colonial forces and the more pernicious, neo-colonial aspects of globalisation and corporatisation. There are more than 370 million Indigenous peoples worldwide in ninety countries and the alliances forged across a number of Indigenous populations have assumed increasing international status.

The ostensible paradox inherent in the concept of Indigenous transnationalism has been observed by de Costa (2006) who identifies how localism, rootedness, and a place-based alignment, customarily associated with Indigeneity, appears initially inconsistent with a global orientation and related transnational practices. However, de Costa also quickly and rightly notes that the local is not sacrificed by Indigenous transnational processes but rather is buttressed, as borders of nation-states, and their sovereign reach, are continually exceeded through appeals to a “higher authority,” powers existing outside the bounds of the colonising state (de Costa 2006). If the nation-state is conceived as a container of sorts having a geopolitical, ideological, and legislative perimeter which encloses a loosely common people sharing a broadly defined cultural identity and sociolinguistic commonalities (Vertovec 2004), then the situatedness of Indigenous peoples within this nation-state model invites transnational movement as a means to escape the periphery status created by centuries of colonisation and continued forms of oppression. Just as imperialist strivings, historically and to this day, operate by exceeding national boundaries to pursue worldly interests and alliances, Indigenous groups recognise the necessity of transnational strategies to meet shared local and global concerns, the need to go outside the restrictive and oppressive borders and social orders of the nation-states by which they were excluded and marginalised through constitutional and regulative processes affecting so many arenas of social life: educational, economic, political, and cultural.

Transnationalism, though not a new phenomenon, has certainly been augmented by intensified global trade, electronic communication, and resource availability making technological developments and swift forms of global travel possible. Said (1994) suggests the “pattern of dominions or possessions laid the groundwork for what is in effect now a fully global world” (6). In this fully global world there are extraordinary social, economic, and environmental disparities, and it is around these issues that Indigenous peoples have organised transnationally. Despite numerical inferiority, Indigenous peoples have advantageously employed the mobilising power of ‘strategic essentialism’ (Spivak 1990), forming strong pan-Indigenous alliances and leveraging tremendous moral power on the global stage through cogent human and land rights lobbying, activism, and discourse, collectively tackling shared challenges. Much of this has been facilitated by what Alia (2010) aptly terms the New Media Nation, a nation that is contingent upon technological innovations and lacks the seeming tangibility of the geopolitical nation-state, but is defined instead by a very real transnational, transcultural electronic space that defies state boundaries and surpasses geographical borders. One of the many benefits of this electronic nation is that it enjoys a wide audience of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons, as virtually anyone with Internet access can readily gain information regarding the multidimensionality of pan-Indigenous coalitions and their transnational courses and practices (Alia 2010). Although the dissemination and adoption of new technologies has raised concerns of detrimental cultural change and possible ethnocide among Indigenous and other marginalised groups (Mander 1991; Becker, Burwell, and Gilman 2002), Indigenous peoples have successfully used electronic communication for cultural and linguistic revival and to promote common social and political interests. Indeed, Lorde's (1984) argument notwithstanding, the so-called “master's tools” can be used to “dismantle the master's house,” as Indigenous peoples are effectively using these technologies to critique, challenge, and subvert national orders.

The publication of George Manuel's The Fourth World: An Indian Reality in 1974 popularised the term Fourth World, first coined by Tanzanian High Commission first secretary, Mbuto Milando, as a descriptor for poor, marginalised groups not recognised as nations. The common history of attempted eradication and forced assimilation, paternalism, social and geographic ostracism, racism, and land expropriation created an alternate reality for Indigenous groups where they were either forcefully excluded from larger society (through reserve systems) and left to live beyond industrial borders (until the discovery of a desirable resource in lands formerly deemed valueless), or they themselves elected to distance themselves from the discrimination and foreign values of modern society, preferring instead the cultural and ethical logic of their own societal structures.

The economic and social inequities that have resulted from these racist and systematic exclusionary practices are being increasingly contested in multinational forums through pan-Indigenous coalitions and communications across national borders. On September 13, 2007, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, involving identity assertion, equity concerns, inclusivity, and structural transformation, was adopted by the General Assembly. Contained in this declaration is an article specifically articulating the right to transnational practices. Article 36 (1) states, “Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as peoples across borders” (UN General Assembly 2007).

Clearly, transnational organising, networking, lobbying, and advocacy are essential practices for social, economic, and political transformation. While the human rights agenda can be used to contest and appeal current life circumstances and create avenues to challenge the constitutionality of structural discrepancies and inequities and make demands for redress and compensation, the individualistic focus has been critiqued from an Aboriginal perspective that generally supports a more collectivist, interdependent ontology. A difficulty with international treaties is the inability to hold nations accountable, even when they are signatories. As Clayton Thomas Muller of the Mathais Colomb Cree Nation, Tar Sands Campaign organiser for the Indigenous Environmental Network, recently claimed, “Canada is the only country still opposing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada continues to criminalize Indigenous activists who stand up for Aboriginal Treaty rights, even though these rights have been affirmed by the Canadian constitution and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” (Thomas Muller 2010). This state opposition was finally overturned in November 2010 with Canada's endorsement of the UN Declaration. In the case of state opposition, or lack of implementation through a system of protections and sanctions, recourse leads to appeals through international coalitions, and the activation of pressures applied both on the global stage and domestically.

Indigenous peoples have also organised effectively to tackle transnational environmental concerns. The land and, more specifically, a community's sacred relationship with the land (Little Bear 1998; Wilson 2008) have always been a source of cultural identity for Indigenous peoples. Environmental degradation, including air and water pollution, land contamination, soil erosion, desertification, natural resource depletion, and global warming, as well as the appropriation and marketisation of Indigenous knowledge and medicinal plants, have become the new form of ‘ecological imperialism.’ In the time of imperial and colonial expansion, western Europeans brought what Crosby (1986) termed a “portmanteau biota” complete with plants, animals, and pathogens that made possible European numerical supremacy in the “land of the demographic takeover.” Now it is industrialised nations and their degrading land-use practices, polluting industrial and technological processes, that constitute present-day ecological imperialism in the manner of transboundary air pollution, diminished ability to engage in traditional land-use practices, environmental refugees, and so on. Just as the social, cultural, historical, and economic boundaries of nation-states are fluid, so too are environmental boundaries, often with the worst offenses by industrial nations accruing to those communities not participating in their production or enjoying their benefits.

A clear statement of the profound connection Indigenous peoples have with their land base is expressed in a letter to U.S. Senator John Kerry composed by youth representing Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation, and Lubicon Cree First Nation regarding the devastation caused by the Alberta oil sands. Fearing that Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice would downplay the significant human rights and environmental iniquities of the oil sands when meeting with U.S. Congressional leaders, the youth wrote: “Animals are dying, disappearing, and being mutated by the poisons dumped into our river systems. . . . Once we have destroyed these fragile eco-systems we will have also destroyed our peoples and trampled our treaty rights” (Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) 2009).

In response to the disproportionate environmental risks Indigenous peoples face nationally and globally, Indigenous environmental activists have formed transnational coalitions, networks, and organisations, sometimes working in concert with non-Indigenous nongovernmental organisations to combat environmental racism, terminate environmental wrongs, and seek remediation. One need only reflect on the dire environmental conditions experienced in Aamjiwnaang First Nation in southern Ontario or the Cree and Chipewyan First Nations in Alberta to comprehend the extent of environmental injustices within Canadian borders (Nikiforuk 2008).⁵ Internationally, the differential exposure to environmental carcinogens and neurotoxins experienced by Indigenous peoples is meticulously documented by Westra (2007). The Indigenous Environmental Network, which has a twenty-year history, for example, has been working to promote environmental justice and sustainable livelihoods in First Nations communities, addressing issues such as climate change, environmental toxins, biodiversity, sacred places, water concerns, and globalisation.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), another Indigenous transnational coalition, comprises Inuit from Canada, Russia, Alaska, and Greenland, and serves to protect Inuit human, cultural, and language rights, as well as safeguard the Arctic environment for present and future generations. The ICC played a substantial role in the international negotiations that led to ratifying the Stockholm Convention on the Elimination of Persistent Organic Pollutants, a convention that came into force in 2003. These are but a few examples, among many, of Indigenous peoples employing transnational processes and avenues to make significant assertions regarding environmental, human, and social justice rights.

NORTHERN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT—FIRST NATIONS AND CANADA

Much of the transnational literature has examined the practices, dynamics, and social and societal impacts of persons moving from poorer to wealthier nations, the flow of transnational labour created by migrants who seek economic opportunities that will permit greater material provisions, through remittances sent from the host country to family members back home (Crawford 2003; Parrenas 2005; Beck-Gernsheim 2007; Cornelius et al. 2009). Immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers have been considered in diasporic, transnational analyses, but not Aboriginal peoples and their movements within Canadian borders, despite the fact that Aboriginal peoples define their communities as separate nations contained within the historical imposed boundaries delineating the geographic and political purview of Canada. Movements outside of First Nations borders represent a form of transnationalism, and this section will demonstrate how these flows, when stemming from economic incentives, show many of the hallmarks of transnational practices globally.

Transmigrants often experience a considerable economic difference between their home and prospective host countries, which acts as an inducement for transnational strivings (Beck-Gernsheim 2007). It is precisely these kinds of flows in human labour that are investigated in transnational scholarship, in situations where the divide between rich and poor is so severe that families will tolerate lengthy geographic separations for the sake of alleviating this economic gap. Just over a decade ago, Aboriginal peoples were described as enduring some of the most deplorable living conditions within Canadian borders: ill health, poverty, contaminated water, dilapidated and overcrowded housing, and family breakdown (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada 2000). This report likened the experiences of Aboriginal peoples to those of people living in ‘Third World’ countries. The analogy, based on the statistical evidence, is apt and invokes Manuel's (1974) use of the designation ‘Fourth World’ to signal the economic, political, and social disparities separating the so-called First World from Indigenous peoples’ Fourth World conditions. More recent statistics indicate Aboriginal peoples in Canada fared poorer than the general population on a variety of health indices, including diabetes, heart disease, and addiction (Health Canada 2009), showing significantly higher rates of suicide (Government of Canada 2006). And, irrespective of subtle improvements in Aboriginal employment rates from 2001 to 2006, these rates remain considerably below those of the average figures for the general Canadian population, with on-reserve Aboriginal groups having even higher unemployment rates than their counterparts who live off reserve (Statistics Canada 2009).

Given these statistics, it is not surprising that the Aboriginal practice of rural-or reserve-urban migration, in which individuals leave their First Nation to enter large urban centres, is often motivated by ambitions not dissimilar to those of non-Aboriginal transmigrants. While some Aboriginal persons endeavour primarily to escape the poverty or terrible circumstances of their home community, what some have termed ‘rural ghettoes’ (Dei, Hall, and Rosenberg 2000: 9), others leave their home community, their First Nation, and venture into the larger social and political topography of the Canadian nation-state to achieve improved material standards, present and future, for themselves and their extended families (Mt. Pleasant, personal communication, 21 July 2010). This form of transnational movement shares many parallels with transnational practices in the larger global context, replete with remittances to family members at home, use of information and communication technologies to sustain long-distance ties, dual consciousness and the bifocality of being here and there, lesser economic and social status in the host country, and, sometimes, family breakdown.

The shift in the past quarter century from a world economy having international practices to a global market characterised by transnational forces and increasing fluidity of nation-state borders engendering altered and accelerated patterns of human, information, capital, and corporate flows is impacting Indigenous peoples in multiple, and sometimes unambiguously negative ways (Hall and Fenelon 2009). This is especially true when considering top-down transnational manoeuvrings of the growing corporate-state, the very practices that the transnationalism ‘from below,’ both as ambition for increased prosperity and radical equity praxis, seeks to mitigate (Morawska 2003). Globalisation processes in the Canadian context must be explored for their unique effects on Aboriginal peoples and their communities. In this time of neoliberal market developments the Canadian government is more strongly supporting Aboriginal self-governance, which should not be hastily interpreted as progress, for this change in political tone cannot be read separate from growing industry interests in Aboriginal territories now known to be resource-rich (Slowey 2001). In the past, Canadian developments on Crown lands ⁶ bypassed consultations with Aboriginal peoples, but in recent decades the negotiated agreement, signalling an evolution in First Nations-corporate relations, is central to resource development in First Nations Treaty areas. This change has been achieved largely through Aboriginal resistance and political activism and the consequent changes in legislation and the Constitution Act. The relatively recent discovery of mineral-rich areas in the boreal region of Canada, most of them on Aboriginal Treaty lands, has led to a growing number of negotiated agreements between First Nations and corporations throughout subarctic Canada.

The unsettling unemployment rates and health statistics already discussed coupled with the significant labour market barriers Aboriginal peoples face because of discrimination, lower education levels, and limited job opportunities near their home communities (Luffman and Sussman 2007) make these negotiated agreements, essentially a First Nation-corporate agreement, appealing. Unfortunately these new economic developments, while potentially a boon to the local First Nations economies, are not entirely without unpromising social consequences. While the incomes of those working at the mines are generally high and each First Nation usually negotiates the right of its members to have first opportunity for jobs, the actual work schedule is often gruelling, typically involving two-week rotations where employees fly into the remote region where the mine is situated, are away from their families half the month, which cumulatively amounts to half the year (Dylan, Smallboy, and Lightman, in progress). In the transnational space, or “diaspora space” (Brah 1996), of the mine site tenuously ‘inhabited’ by Aboriginal peoples from various First Nations as well as non-Aboriginal persons, in the association of multiple cultural identities, lies the potentiality for new transnational subjectivities. Family breakdown sometimes occurs as absence strains fidelity. Sometimes couples decide to move out of their First Nation and into the closest town, even while one partner continues to fly back and forth to the mine, because they wish to avail themselves of educational opportunities and the more affordable material goods in these non-Aboriginal centres (Dylan et al., in progress). Although this form of Aboriginal transnationalism has not been sufficiently studied, the risks to the social fabric, cultural values, and traditional life-ways (stemming in part from the environmental damage caused by mining practices) are considerable, yet so is the persistent cost of poverty, as so many statistics for Aboriginal peoples in Canada demonstrate.

Some of these issues could be addressed through creating meaningful participation opportunities for all parties in the negotiation process (Stewart and Sinclair 2007), seeking and suitably considering traditional ecological knowledge to help sustain traditional lands (Whitelaw, McCarthy, and Tsuji 2009; Mulvihill and Baker 2001; Armitage 2005), and militating against the cultural and power disparities of proponents and stakeholders by insisting on just negotiations as a starting point (Banerjee 2000; Chataway 2002). These issues ought to be considered in a transnational context, in the nation-to-nation and transnational framework of global and local concerns, if they are to be properly and equitably addressed.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

We started from the absence of Aboriginal realities in discussions of transnationalism. We examined some of the reasons and circumstances for this absence and presented three cases of transnational relations in which Aboriginal peoples were central, which can extend the parameters of what transnational relations encompass. We hope to have shown some of the specificities, as well as some commonalities of Indigenous transnational experiences with current understandings of transnational relations: first, cultural influences and shifting patterns during pre-Confederation situations of transnational relations that were motivated by economic gains for the settler powers, which have been devalued and are more difficult to document; second, recent networking of Indigenous peoples across national borders for purposes of activism in the making of joint claims addressed to nation-states and the forces of the neoliberal market through international organisations; and third, within the borders of a nation-state (a case that is typically left out of transnational considerations), a transnational type of relations between and across Indigenous communities and mainstream society as found in a local economic venture. Economics, cultures, and relations of power are at stake, and are negotiated through daily personal contacts.

Each of these discussions has brought out a different facet of the kind of social support that is at stake in varied circumstances. The early historical case, which suggested a form of co-existence on a daily basis that led to forms of exchange, support, and hybridisation across peoples, was subsumed under other power relations, making the traces of inter-group support very tenuous. To lift those early realities into our awareness would require a particular type of scholarship focusing on the unheard voices of secondary (perhaps mediating) social actors. The second configuration of the global alliances illustrates the formidable development of formal mechanisms of mutual support and empowerment developed conjointly by Aboriginal nations in their dealings with non-Aboriginal nations. The third type of circumstance strongly suggests the need for the participatory involvement of Aboriginal people in the type of economic decision-making that affects communities, beyond the interests of the market and the short-term assistance to specific individuals. These strategies are not exhaustive.

The objective in this chapter was to engage with the broader question of the absence of Aboriginal realities in debates on transnationalism, and the cases discussed are illustrations that cover a particular spectrum of processes. Other sets of questions, situations, or circumstances could be examined beyond these specific instances. In preparing this chapter, other paths of inquiry came to mind, which we offer as a sample among possible others.

Instances of transnationalism among Indigenous peoples abound. Historically, in the case of the American continent, Indigenous people have felt connected across the borders of the nation-states that are now Canada, the U.S., and the formerly French, Spanish, and English colonies. People travelled back and forth along the north-south lines, and maintained concrete, personal, family, and community ties. The notion of time being more elastic and stretching over much longer periods for Aboriginal peoples also means that such communities’ ties can be relationally and symbolically maintained for extensive periods of time. In fact, border crossing is an imposition from the nation-states, which is thought of instead as land continuity that goes back to pre-colonial times. The state partitions are relatively recent and do not coincide with people's practices even today. This line of investigation would encompass the actual practices of settlement, various forms of mobility, visitation, celebrations, and exchanges between individuals, families, and members of community across the nation-state borders.

A related but different question which links to this point, and also to the second case we discussed in terms of alliances, is that Indigenous peoples across North, Central, and South America have maintained an interest in the well-being of Indigenous peoples ‘on the other side’ of that border. The realities of their comparable fates within settler states resulting from colonialism has naturally generated a sense of common interests and common concern for the welfare and conversely the dislocation of Indigenous communities across the continent, and the value placed on Indigenous values and knowledge. Such a line of inquiry would pursue the symbolic affiliations across Indigenous communities that have been developed for cultural, social, and political ends.

Some of the Indigenous-settler state relations have been marked by a long history of legal disputations. Numerous examples abound, as mentioned early on in our chapter. The terms of these legal arrangements and their implementation would lend themselves to close examination. This is a type of scholarship that is currently removed from discussions of transnationalism, although this concern implicates the rewriting of a public history (Johnson 2008). A case in point is the Jay Treaty of 1794 signed between the two colonial powers of the time, the British Crown and the U.S., without Aboriginal peoples being signatories to it. The treaty recognises the Aboriginal right of mobility of people and commodities across the newly constituted borders without interference, e.g., without taxation, penalty, or hindrance. It provides the right for status-Aboriginal peoples (defined by evidence of Aboriginal blood quantum greater than 50 percent) to enter the U.S. without a passport; the right to be employed in the U.S. without requiring a special work permit (such as the green card). This treaty is still in force, yet it is known to some Aboriginal peoples and is invisible to most people. The extent of its applicability today would be a significant path of inquiry. The meaning of its existence, which once affirmed the primacy of Aboriginal peoples’ rights to the land and resources, has most likely been eroded.

The many cultural and symbolic connections across Indigenous peoples lend themselves to a wide range of investigations in the arenas of culture, communication, and the arts. Different generations of Indigenous peoples have maintained and produced cultural and spiritual works, which in turn have had different kinds of imprints and influences among different audiences. Inquiries need to be made into the institutional arrangements that have sustained such creations, and into the obstacles to their maintenance and expansion, the extent and density of the networks and media affiliations. Examining current productions would constitute another stimulating avenue of study; for example, in what ways do urban Aboriginal theatre productions transmit, negotiate, and work with transnational realities among Indigenous groups and in relation to mainstream or minority productions?

Many questions of concern to Aboriginal peoples can be thought of in transnational terms. We feel strongly about the importance of including Aboriginal realities in the agenda of transnationalism. We hope to have shown, at least in a preliminary manner, particular instances of such processes, and how their specificities can extend our understandings of transnational realities.

NOTES

1.  The Calder v. British Columbia (Attorney General) decision represented the first acknowledgement in Canadian law that Aboriginal title, and rights to land, existed before and persist following colonisation. This decision initiated the readiness of the federal government to negotiate First Nations land claims.

2.  In the Supreme Court of Canada ruling on Delgamuukw v. British Columbia the parameters of Aboriginal title, its content and extent, were further defined. This ruling acknowledges rights to specified lands belonging to Aboriginal peoples, provided that exclusive use and occupation can be demonstrated continuing since the British Crown declared dominion over the territory. This case also led to the ruling that Aboriginal peoples’ oral histories were to be recognised as evidence when establishing historic occupation or use.

3.  This term refers to lands thought to belong to Aboriginal peoples based on rights deriving from formal agreements established in treaties between sovereign nations: Aboriginal nations and the Crown.

4.  The Indian Act is the primary federal statute regarding Aboriginal (Indian) status, governance, and management of lands. It has been rightly decried by Aboriginal peoples as paternalistic, colonial, and detrimental to self-government.

5.  Both the Aamjiwnaang First Nation and the Cree and Chipewyan First Nations are suffering health problems caused by environmental contaminants. For Aamjiwnaang residents the source is more than sixty industrial facilities, by which the nation is surrounded, releasing staggering levels of toxic industrial byproducts into the environment; for Cree and Chipewyan First Nations in Alberta, it is environmental toxins produced by the oil sands.

6.  The term Crown lands refers to those lands owned by the provincial or federal governments. Based on relevant Supreme Court rulings regarding Aboriginal title, if the government desires to pursue any activity on Crown land, a reasonable attempt must be made to determine whether Aboriginal rights exist, and if they do, the Aboriginal nations holding these rights must be consulted.

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