Maps and Memes by Eades Gwilym Lucas;

Author:Eades, Gwilym Lucas;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MQUP
Published: 2014-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

This situation, epitomized by Delgamuukw v. The Queen, in which complexities of competing claims from various levels of government and First Nations political structures and hierarchies necessitated extensive testimonial and examination, has been intricately woven through with spatial data and maps. The irony is that maps provide necessary context whilst simultaneously making that same knowledge abstract. In this manner, the knowledge becomes de-contextualized. The double-edged nature of cartography in the courtrooms is worth a bit more discussion because it is not explained at any length in, for example, Ray’s book on Native history and the courtrooms (Ray, 2011). Ray does note the vast amounts of documentation with which lawyers and judges are faced in large court cases such as Calder. A primarily paper-based archive will often include many maps, drawings, and diagrams, especially in one pertaining to First Nations in Canada. But these spatial / visual aspects of the archive (Rose, 2007) presented in support of First Nations claims in Canada are not specifically addressed in Ray’s book Telling It to the Judge, nor are they in other similar titles (Asch, 1997; Mills, 1994).

Maps in courtrooms are most eloquently explored, using postcolonial/ deconstructive epistemological lenses, by Sparke (1998 and 2005). The “Map that Roared,” the title of one of Sparke’s most famous papers, references a phrase used by Judge McEachern upon attempting to unfold a hand-drawn map that would become part of the massive Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en Atlas compiled to redress competing claims between the Gitksan and the Nisga’a (Sparke, 2005, 7). According to Sparke, McEachern’s remark may have been a veiled reference to “paper tigers,” and thus a subtle undermining of the Gitksan method of documenting their knowledge and claims to the land. It is not surprising, then, that McEachern decided against the Gitksan, forcing them to take their case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Sparke also introduced the idea of “contrapuntal cartography” inspired by Edward Said’s contrapuntal reading of colonial literature (Sparke, 2005, 4; Said, 1993, 51). Applied to cartography, contrapuntal reading refers to ways in which maps serve to introduce ruptures into dominant (colonial) discourses in the courtroom. In the case of McEachern’s decision, the failure of the dominated to overturn an engrained colonial mentality meant not ultimate failure, but a renewal of the theme of counter-mapping in the higher courtroom setting. In Said’s words (quoted in Sparke), “a simultaneous awareness both of the metropolitan history that is narrated and of those other histories against which and together with which the dominating discourse acts” was enacted in the courtroom in Smithers, BC, as a battle that had played out for decades involving first the Nisga’a, then the Gitksan, and finally the Gitksan with the help of the Wet’suwet’en, in a very complex play of dominating / dominated that eludes a purely binary approach.

The complexity stems in part from differing levels of jurisdiction evolving over time and resulting in a variety of roles and attitudes towards First Nations. Political boundaries are often arbitrary and pay no heed to natural and cultural boundaries, or do so inconsistently.

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