Insurgent Economics: Reflections on Community-Based Research and First Nations–Settler Entity Economic Relationships

L. Javed Sommers

doi:10.29173/jaed515

Authors

L. Javed Sommers

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/jaed515

Abstract

Last year JAED published a paper I wrote (Sommers, 2017) in which I made use of Kevin Bruyneel’s (2007) work on the “third space of sovereignty” to examine how Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation manages to both participate in capitalism (in Bruyneel’s words, “demand rights and resources from the liberal-democratic state”) and assert its sovereignty (“challenge the imposition of colonial rule”). I had written the paper in late 2015 for a class at the University of Alberta, and, four months later, in early 2016, a Community Service Learning (CSL) project prompted me to think further about the potential of Indigenous economic activity to advance Indigenous sovereignty and challenge the imposition of colonial rule.

In this article, I will borrow from Adam Gaudry’s principles of “insurgent research” (2011: 36), which I studied while completing my CSL project, to present my argument that First Nation–settler entity economic relationships2 can become “insurgent economic relationships” — relationships that are mutually beneficial economically to First Nations and settler entities, but also serve to further Indigenous sovereignty and challenge the imposition of colonial rule. In the context of this paper, I will imagine the “insurgent” aspect of these insurgent economic relationships in terms of Shalene Jobin’s discussion of the Plains Cree nation; in other words, I will assume that the First Nation’s “aspirations” within an insurgent FNSEER are to fight “for space within colonial structures while re-establishing their own governing processes” (Jobin, 2013: 601–602). The purpose of this article is not necessarily to outline how a FNSEER should actually be negotiated in the “real world”, but rather to imagine hypothetically how a FNSEER might be used to further Indigenous sovereignty. I will conclude the paper with some comments regarding why settler corporations might be amenable to an insurgent FNSEER.

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