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First Nations, Citizenship and Animals, or Why Northern Indigenous People Might Not Want to Live in Zoopolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

Paul Nadasdy
Paul Nadasdy*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
*
Department of Anthropology and American Indian Studies, Cornell University, 229 McGraw Hall, Ithaca NY 14853USA, Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Recent northern First Nation land claim agreements have created a new category of First Nation citizenship. Although many embrace the category as an essential aspect of First Nation sovereignty, others reject it as a colonial imposition that constrains the possibilities for indigenous politics. There does indeed appear to be a gap between the legal category of First Nation citizenship and northern indigenous peoples’ ideas about political society. For one thing, the latter includes animals, while the former does not. In their recent book, Zoopolis, Donaldson and Kymlicka develop a model of animal citizenship. Although not primarily concerned with First Nation citizenship, they do assert the universality of their model, including its compatibility with indigenous ideas about proper human-animal relations. In this article, I assess those claims and show that, to the contrary, their model is in many ways antithetical to the knowledge and practices of northern indigenous peoples.

Résumé

Des accords de revendication territoriale conclus récemment avec les Premières Nations du Nord ont créé une nouvelle catégorie, celle de citoyenneté des Premières Nations. Bien que cette catégorie soit considérée par de nombreuses personnes comme un aspect essentiel de la souveraineté des Premières Nations, d'autres la rejettent, car il s'agirait d'une imposition coloniale qui limite les possibilités en matière de politique autochtone. Il semble y avoir effectivement un hiatus entre la citoyenneté des Premières Nations comme catégorie juridique et les idées que se font les populations autochtones du Nord au sujet de la société politique. Entre autres, cette dernière notion inclut les animaux alors que ce n'est pas le cas pour la première. Dans leur ouvrage récent, Zoopolis, Donaldson et Kymlicka élaborent un modèle de citoyenneté pour les animaux. Bien que ces auteurs n'aient pas comme principale préoccupation la citoyenneté des Premières Nations, ils affirment l'universalité de leur modèle, incluant sa compatibilité avec les idées des autochtones sur ce que devraient être les relations entre les humains et les animaux. Dans cet article, j'analyse ces assertions et je démontre qu'au contraire, leur modèle est à maints égards aux antipodes du savoir et des pratiques des populations autochtones du Nord.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2016 

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