Water, wild rice, and the ongoing production of Settler colonialism in Anishinaabe Akii
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Strube, Johann
- Graduate Program:
- Rural Sociology (PHD)
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 20, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Kathryn Brasier, Major Field Member
Leland Glenna, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Craig Campbell, Outside Unit & Field Member
Clare Hinrichs, Major Field Member
Kathryn Jo Brasier, Program Head/Chair
Kyle Powys Whyte, Special Member - Keywords:
- wild rice
Anishinaabe
settler colonialism
environmental justice
transboundary watergovernance
hydro - Abstract:
- This dissertation demonstrates how historic and contemporary water governance has served to colonize Indigenous Anishinaabe lands and bodies in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and Ontario. Settlers imposed three changes to establish their hegemony over the Boundary Waters. First, they used a series of legal maneuvers to unilaterally assert their political sovereignty over the area. Second, they introduced an ontology of Modern Water which came to dominate Anishinaabe ways of relating to water. Modern Water enabled the third imposition; the construction of hydro dams that enabled the development of a Settler economy at the expense of the Anishinaabeg’s key source of subsistence: wild rice (Zizania palustris). Based on qualitative interviews, document analysis, and 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I document how the decline of wild rice affected the social reproduction and community life of Couchiching and Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nations. Studying the lead water governance agency in the Boundary Waters, the International Joint Commission, I show how present-day efforts to include Indigenous People in water governance fall short of bringing justice to the Anishinaabeg unless these efforts are accompanied with a deep reckoning of Settler colonialism and its relation to water governance. Settlers’ investment in Settler colonialism leads them to deny how their work contributes to the ongoing disenfranchisement of Indigenous Peoples. An unsettling pedagogy of the oppressors is needed for Settlers to connect perception, consciousness, emotions, and action to resist oppression as a social problem that dehumanizes both them and Indigenous Peoples.