Unfinished thoughts on settlement, occupation, and colonization
Settlement
On June 25, 2014, the City of Vancouver Standing Committee of Council on Planning, Transportation and Environment unanimously carried a motion moved by Mayor Gregor Robertson that reads as follows:
“BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of Vancouver formally acknowledge that the city of Vancouver is on the unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations;
FURTHER THAT Council direct staff to invite representatives from the Musqueam,
Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations to work with the Mayor and Council and City
staff to develop appropriate protocols for the City of Vancouver to use in conducting
City business that respect the traditions of welcome, blessing, and acknowledgement
of the territory.”[1]
The motion’s preamble positions it as a direct outcome of the processes that took place between June 21, 2013 and June 20, 2014, during the Year of Reconciliation, which was proclaimed by the City in an effort to “heal from the past and build new relationships between Aboriginal peoples and all Vancouverites, [which would be] built on a foundation of openness, dignity, understanding and hope.” [2] Effectively, the motion was passed only a few days after the Year of Reconciliation came to an end and is aligned with other CoV initiatives aiming to strengthen relationships with “Vancouver’s host First Nations, the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and urban Aboriginal community,”[3] as is stated in a Year of Reconciliation follow-up report that was presented to City Council. It follows then that the most notable point of the aforementioned motion’s preamble lies in its acknowledgement of the “truth that the modern city of Vancouver was founded on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations and that these territories were never ceded through treaty, war or surrender.”[4] Effectively, this recognition goes further than validating the settler nature of the city–and subsequently of the majority of its inhabitants–; it points to the inherent illegality of the city’s–and subsequently of the majority of its inhabitants’–territorial occupation. If the implications of this statement are of a symbolic nature –this occupation yields no repercussions–, it nevertheless sheds light on the inherent problematic that accompanies any claim to settler ownership of/in the city as these systematically oppose First Nations’ ancestral territorial rights[5].
Power dynamics
The use of the term “host” in reference to Vancouver’s Indigenous communities, as quoted above, is significant as it renders explicit the settler status of most (current and past) Vancouverites. More so, it de facto positions them as guests. But the host-guest relationship, while semantically not inaccurate, does not render the power dynamics that have resulted from repeated (and still ongoing) processes of colonization. To be more accurate, we might say that this relationship is one in which guests have, to say the least, overstayed their welcome and effectively dispossessed the hosts. The City of Vancouver may have taken an important step in officially acknowledging the fact that its very foundation is based on uneven power dynamics, but in actuality, the above-cited motion has little more than a symbolic resonance. The fact is that, practically speaking, it can have no more than symbolic resonance. Imagine if you will that, as an outcome of the passing of this motion, the City gave the city back to the People whose ancestral territorial rights were recognized. Imagine development sites construction activities coming to a halt. Imagine homeowners forfeiting the square footage onto which stands their million-dollar Vancouver Specials. Imagine projected profits of Vancouver’s striated skyline collapsing. Imagine the real estate economic bubble finally bursting because irrelevant; private property tenures are suddenly voided.
As it currently stands, these projections can be no more than feats of the imagination. There is too much at stake. If we understand land claims as legal declarations of desired control over areas of property, in a post-colonial urban environment, land claims are necessarily intertwined with claims on participation in the city’s life, transformation and definition. In the case of Vancouver, land claims materialize through the competing interests of various user-groups and use-values, and are growing class divisions, the regulation of public space and recurrent processes of marginalization. Beyond the opposition of fundamental values–preservation of the land versus development and investment–claims for visibility and for sustained existence contrast those voiced by the tenors of global capital.
Ownership
A quick overview of BC’s history posits its current demographics as an outcome of a conjecture of influxes of settler populations that have come to inhabit the area, beginning with early colonial settlements more than 200 years ago and spanning through more recent immigration waves and inter-provincial movement.[6] The city of Vancouver is of course, at the heart of this movement, and if it is considered a young city it is not in reference to its population’s median age (which was 40.6 according to the 2011 census[7]). Most call it home going only a few generations back or only a few years back (between 2006 and 2011 alone, 155,100 Canadian newcomers settled in metro-Vancouver, representing 6.8% of the area’s population[8]). In the 125 odd years of its official history as city, waves of efforts to legitimize one’s presence on the land have cohabitated, and superseded one another. ….
In this context, the often heard phrase “I would like to acknowledge that we are on unceded Coast Salish Territories pronounced–sometimes in passing, sometimes with sincere recognition–by the most progressive settler Vancouverites (those who are in fact actively conscious of their settler status) at the beginning of public and private events may take on a different meaning. More than a recognition of ancestral territorial rights–that also denotes a certain amount of colonial guilt–this phrase may be thought of as an apology: an apology for one’s continued presence on, use of and sometimes ownership of the land even though one knows that one’s presence on, use of and sometimes ownership of the land is fraught from the get go. But this apology does not delegitimize one’s participation in the city or, in Henri Lefebvre’s terms, one’s right to the city. Perhaps the very enunciation of this apology serves in fact to reinforce one’s desire for participation, as a way of legitimizing one’s presence because one participates. This participation is itself viewed in contrast to another form of colonization that, like a wave, has swept over the city and radically changed its skyline, industries and real estate value. As a consequence: an uneven social fabric, one that can unravel at the pull of one too many loose strings.
New colonization
So on the one hand we apologize for participating, but on the other, we fight to retain this right to participation in the life of a city that is worth more than the monetary value of its waterfront and mountain range lines of sight. In this sense, this fight for participation, for organic development, for community life, for affordability, for accessibility and inclusion can be seen as a fight against another wave of colonization. Against a wave of colonization that is perhaps impossible to fight. We are complicit in it whether we like it or not.
This wave of colonization, following the ethos of neoliberalism, is driven by global capital: the intangible marker of, to quote community organizer Matt Hern, the “liquid era when people, goods, and capital are sloshing all over the globe.”[9] He observes that “Vancouver has a particularly liquid quality and not just because I’m being metaphorically cute, but because so many people and so much capital wants to flow through the city.”[10]
A wave of colonization that relies on the very concept of ownership – in this case home ownership – to sustain itself. Vancouver’s economic reality bubble is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like the Hygrade sausage, the more people eat it, the more it’s fresh. And the more it’s fresh, the more people eat it. In this case, the more property values are high, the more homeowners have the continued growth of their home’s value at heart. It’s not only an effect of greed, for many, it’s an economic necessity.
Layers of ownership
Multiple layers and delineations of ownership shape not only the city, but one’s relationship to the city. Conceptions of ownership of and in the city and the implications that come with these various delineations of ownership constitute the crux of the issue here and constituent le noyau autour duquel are articulated negotiations: negotiations of space, of use, of value, of occupancy, of identity, of history, of how we shape our understanding of the city’s past, of how its present unfolds, and how we project its future.
While their respective practices differ, works of artists Andrea Creamer, Gabrielle Hill and Charlene Vickers connect as they work from, or point to these processes of negotiation as they embody themselves in their experiences in and of the city.
[1] Council minutes p.6
[2] Ibid
[3] Administrative Report: Framework for City reconciliation p.1.
[4] Council minutes p.6
[5] A recognition of this problematic could be expanded to the almost entirety of the BC territory, which has not been the subject of treaties.
[6] It should be noted that colonial contact and European population influxes caused devastating defluxes in Native populations.
[7] http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/fogs-spg/Facts-csd-eng.cfm?LANG=Eng&GK=CSD&GC=5915022
[8] http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm#a2
[9] Common Ground in a Liquid City. 9.
[10] Ibid.