Where the Rivers Meet: Pipelines, Participatory Resource Management, and Aboriginal-State Relations in the Northwest Territories

by Carly A. Dokis

Overview

Oil and gas companies now recognize that industrial projects in the Canadian North can only succeed if Aboriginal communities are involved in decision-making processes. Where the Rivers Meet is an ethnographic account of Sahtu Dene involvement in the environmental assessment of the Mackenzie Gas Project, a massive pipeline that, if completed, would have unprecedented effects on Aboriginal communities in the North. The book reveals that while there has been some progress in establishing avenues for Dene participation in decision making, the ultimate assessment of such projects remains rooted in non-local beliefs about the nature of the environment, the commodification of land, and the inevitability of a hydrocarbon-based economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780774828451
Publisher:	University of British Columbia Press
Publication date:	07/01/2015
Series:	Nature | History | Society
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Carly A. Dokis is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vi

Foreword: The Paradoxical Politics of Participatory Praxis Graeme Wynn vii

Preface xxi

Acknowledgments xxv

List of Abbreviations xxvii

Introduction: People, Land, and Pipelines 3

1 "Very Nice Talk in a Very Beautiful Way": The Community Hearing Process 32

2 "A Billion Dollars Cannot Create a Moose": Perceptions of Industrial Impacts 63

3 Life under the Comprehensive Claim Agreement 91

4 Consultation and Other Legitimating Practices 130

Conclusion: The Politics of Participation 161

Notes 175

References 188

Index 196

What People are Saying About This

Paul Nadasdy

In this important book, Carly Dokis makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Indigenous-state-corporate relations and the nature of participatory assessment processes in Canada. In particular, her critique of how governments and corporations 'consult' with First Nations in the post–land claim era – and her analysis of how such consultation processes have evolved and been co-opted in the decades following the Berger Inquiry – is a must-read for scholars, policy makers, and proponents of development across Canada and elsewhere.

Julie Cruikshank

Where the Rivers Meet addresses questions of growing national and international significance: arctic and subarctic gas exploration in an era when Canada has acknowledged the 'duty to consult' Aboriginal communities as a fiduciary obligation. Drawing on ethnographic research in three sub-arctic communities, Carly Dokis artfully documents how this process continually fails to engage northern First Nations in locally meaningful ways.

Graeme Wynn

Where the Rivers Meet makes the important point that the effects of oil and gas projects “are not only economic or political or environmental but also profoundly moral matters. . . . As Dokis reminds us, they involve questions about what is valuable and meaningful, consideration for the preferred modes of living of different groups within the country, and thoughtfulness about how persons and environments should be treated.