Whose Land Is It? Rethinking Sovereignty in British Columbia
Item
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Title
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Whose Land Is It? Rethinking Sovereignty in British Columbia
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Description
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Essay by authors Nicholas XEMŦOLTW̱ Claxton (W̱SÁNEĆ) and John Price discusses the resistance of two First Nations, the W̱SÁNEĆ and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht, to settler colonialism dispossession and destruction. It discusses Aboriginal languages and rights, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people, and UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples).
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issue
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204
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pages
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115-138
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Date
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2020-01-09
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Language
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en
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doi
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10.14288/bcs.v0i204.191508
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issn
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0005-2949
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short title
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Whose Land Is It?
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Rights
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Copyright (c) 2020 BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly
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Publisher
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BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly
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Abstract
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In this article we attempt to understand the depth of this resistance by exploring how two First Nations – the W̱SÁNEĆ and Mowachaht/Muchalaht communities whose traditional territories are on and aroundVancouver Island – articulate in their own language their relationships to the land and to each other as well as their concepts of sovereignty. We examine these two nations because of our association with them – Claxton as a member of the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation and Price as a researcher who has worked with the Mowachaht/Muchalaht for the past four years and has obtained their consent to publish his findings. We find that in both nations a deep attachment to the land – derived at least in part from organic concepts of being in which people do not own the earth but, rather, belong to it – has given these First Nations the strength to survive 170 years of settler colonialism and rapacious dispossession while continuously insisting on their sovereignty over their territories. We counterpose their ongoing assertions of sovereignty to those of settler assertions as articulated in the courts of British Columbia and Canada over the past fifty years. We find the case for Indigenous assertions of sovereignty over their territories persuasive, particularly in light of the Supreme Court of Canada determination that Crown sovereignty over British Columbia is based solely on the Treaty of Oregon, an agreement that we show is based solely on the now discredited Doctrine of Discovery.
