Petroturfing by Jordan B. Kinder;

Author:Jordan B. Kinder; [Kinder, Jordan B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC052000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, NAT011000 NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2024-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

Lost. Little piece of land. Treaty rights. This language is revealing, particularly when put into relief with Boucher’s statements in support of Canada’s fossil economy. Here, Boucher makes explicit how oil sands development has required land dispossession. Moreover, he draws attention to the ways in which existing modes of extraction have the capacity to threaten treaty rights by dictating where and when Fort McKay First Nation and others across Treaty 8 territory can practice crucial aspects of land-based living enshrined in the treaty, such as hunting, trapping, or fishing. Put next to the kinds of commentary that bequeathed Boucher the title of “pro-pipeline chief,” the complex realities of how Indigenous self-determination confronts the inertia of resource extraction rise to the surface, as do the limitations of existing models of FPIC.

Positions like Boucher’s point to existing frictions within Indigenous individuals, nations, and communities surrounding questions of the costs and benefits of resource extraction as these costs and benefits impact the possibilities for exercising treaty rights. As in the case of any peoples or communities, Indigenous peoples are not homogenous in their views. Nor does a recognition of the difficult situation that Indigenous peoples have been collectively put in translate into a commitment to the machinations of fossil and extractive capital. Indigenous self-determination’s contours are by definition not determined by settlers, progressive or otherwise. Such a complex and nuanced condition is often flattened by petroturfing.

Petroturfing is by and large a settler enterprise; its treatment of and engagements with Indigenous peoples and perspectives both in support of Canada’s fossil economy and against it must be understood in light of this fact. From its inception in the pages of Ethical Oil, which, as I show in chapter 1, expends great efforts to distinguish Canadian oil as a kind of fair-trade alternative to OPEC oil, to the torch bearers that followed, including Canada Action and Oil Sands Strong, petroturfing has and continues to draw attention to Indigenous employment figures as evidence of the unique power that Canadian oil and its infrastructures wield. Recall Levant’s lofty words: “it’s safe to say that Aboriginals have never had it so good.”44 In the wake of reconciliation discourse taking hold as conventional industry views, Oil Sands Strong pushed this sentiment to its zenith by circulating a meme on its Facebook page offering followers a hypothetical scenario to choose between: “Middle Eastern conflict oil” or “Canadian Aboriginal produced peace oil.”45

To further legitimate this view through circulation, there have been concerted attempts across petroturfing to represent environmentalist organizations as tokenizing Indigenous peoples, as if there were not a plethora of Indigenous-led groups and efforts to resist the expansion of Canada’s fossil economy and promote environmental justice that prioritizes decolonization. In 2017, Cody Battershill of Canada Action, for instance, took to traditional news media to spread the word that “First Nations actually want resource development—if paid activists would just get out of their way.”46 Published as an opinion piece on the website of the Financial Post, a newspaper that is part of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.