Blockades or Breakthroughs?

Aboriginal Peoples Confront the Canadian State

Yale D. Belanger, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Yale D. Belanger, P. Whitney Lackenbauer

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9780773543904
• eBook ISBN:
  9780773596139
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Global Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Blockades have become a common response to Canada's failure to address and resolve the legitimate claims of First Nations. Blockades or Breakthroughs? debates the importance and effectiveness of blockades and occupations as political and diplomatic tools for Aboriginal people.

The adoption of direct action tactics like blockades and occupations is predicated on the idea that something drastic is needed for Aboriginal groups to break an unfavourable status quo, overcome structural barriers, and achieve their goals. But are blockades actually "breakthroughs"? What are the objectives of Aboriginal people and communities who adopt this approach? How can the success of these methods be measured? This collection offers an in-depth survey of occupations, blockades, and their legacies, from 1968 to the present. Individual case studies situate specific blockades and conflicts in historical context, examine each group’s reasons for occupation, and analyze the media labels and frames applied to both Aboriginal and state responses.

Direct action tactics remain a powerful political tool for First Nations in Canada. The authors of Blockades or Breakthroughs? Argue that blockades and occupations are instrumental, symbolic, and complex events that demand equally multifaceted responses.

Contributors include Yale D. Belanger, Tom Flanagan, Sarah King, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, David Rossiter, John Sandlos, Nick Shrubsole, and Timothy Winegard.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Maps
• BLOCKADES OR BREAKTHROUGHS?
• Introduction
• 1 - Point Pelee’s Summer of Discontent
• 2 - The Nature of a Blockade: Environmental Politics and the Haida Action on Lyell Island, British Columbia
• 3 - Lubicon Lake: The Success and Failure of Radical Activism
• 4 - “The War Will Be Won When the Last Low-Level Flying Happens Here in Our Home”: Innu Opposition to Low-Level Flying in Labrador
• 5 - A Bridge Too Far? The Oka Crisis
• 6 - The Oldman River Dam and the Lonefighters’. Response to Environmental Incursion
• 7 - The Tragedy of Ipperwash
• 8 - The Gustafsen Lake Standoff
• 9 - Seeking Relief: The Dispute in Burnt Church (Esgenoôpetitj)
• 10 - Blockades, Occupations, and the Bay of Quinte Mohawks’ Fight for Sovereignty
• 11 - Your Home on Native Land? Conflict and Controversy at Caledonia and the Six Nations of the Grand River
• Contributors
• Select Bibliography
• Index