81. Pipelines and Protests: Legacies of Struggle and Resistance in the Fight Against Environmental Racism in Canada
- Author:
- Ingrid Waldron
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Institution:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Abstract:
- Canada was founded on enslavement and dispossession. This is most ex- emplified by its assimilationist ideologies and policies, by the displacement, subjugation, and oppression of Indigenous and Black peoples and cultures, and by the expropriation of Indigenous lands. The colonial theft of land and accumulation of capital have been foundational to Canada’s wealth. New op- portunities for Europeans to access resources prompted colonization in North America, which was followed by the creation of a global economy that came to be dominated by Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and Britain. To access lands in the Americas, Europeans negotiated treaties, dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their lands, waged war to extinguish Indigenous populations, and eliminated or disrupted Indigenous landholding traditions.1 The unique ways in which Black and Indigenous people have been racialized and implicated in white set- tler nations and by capitalist expansion reveal the antithetical roles both groups have played in the formation of settler colonial societies. For example, while the reproduction of Black slaves in the United States was perceived as positive since it increased slave owners’ wealth, the growth of Indigenous populations was seen to jeopardize the accumulation of profit by slave owners because it made access to land more difficult.2
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Environment, Protests, Pipeline, and Racism
- Political Geography:
- Canada and North America