The making of a “peaceable kingdom” : land, peopling and progress in an expanding Canada
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Political Science, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Choquette, Éléna
issued: 2019-07-03T16:39:46Z
issued: 2019
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: My dissertation mobilises the tools of critical political theory to study the processes of land appropriation and cultural homogenisation over lands claimed by Canada in the development of the Canadian state and identity. I examine the justifications for Canadian attempts at incorporating non-Canadian lands and peoples by using the case of the “North-West” (now the Prairie provinces). Adopting James Tully’s critical approach to political philosophy, I scrutinise hundreds of parliamentary and governmental archival documents. These documents reveal that the Canadian state mobilised liberal concepts of peace and progress to justify Canadian territorial and political expansion. I argue that Canada authorised its appropriation of Indigenous lands by claiming that it alone could improve the lands it looked to incorporate. To the extent that Canadian colonial liberalism regarded the Indigenous Peoples of the North-West as requiring the protection and assistance of the Dominion in achieving higher forms of humanity, colonial liberalism also authorised the epistemic violence of their assimilation to emerging settle communities. In short, I show that the Canadian state used colonial liberalism to effect the dispossession and assimilation of Indigenous Peoples necessitated by that its territorial and political development. By bringing into view the violence implicated in Canadian development, this dissertation first challenges the hegemony of the Canadian state and nation as those of a “Peaceable Kingdom”. Secondly, this dissertation uses Canadian political thinking to illuminate the larger liberal tradition. By examining the roots of liberalism in the process of territorial expansion and settlement in Canadian political development, I expose the intimate connection between liberalism and settler colonisation and surface the intrinsically violent potential of liberalism. Finally, this research identifies the potential for exclusion that is built into the liberal tradition and …
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/70879
note: THE MAKING OF A “PEACEABLE KINGDOM”: LAND, PEOPLING AND PROGRESS IN AN EXPANDING CANADA by ÉLÉNA CHOQUETTE B.A. McGill University, 2011 M.A. Université de Montréal, 2013 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2019 © Éléna Choquette, 2019 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: The Making of a “Peaceable Kingdom”: Land, Peopling and Progress in an Expanding Canada submitted by Éléna Choquette in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science Examining Committee: Barbara Arneil, Political Science Supervisor Gerald Baier, Political Science Supervisory Committee Member Bruce Baum, Political Science Supervisory Committee Member Glen Coulthard, Political Science Supervisory Committee Member Mark Warren, Political Science University Examiner Michel Ducharme, History University Examiner iii Abstract My dissertation mobilises the tools of critical political theory to study the processes of land appropriation and cultural homogenisation over lands claimed by Canada in the development of the Canadian state and identity. I examine the justifications for Canadian attempts at incorporating non-Canadian lands and peoples by using the case of the “North-West” (now the Prairie provinces). Adopting James Tully’s critical approach to political philosophy, I scrutinise hundreds of parliamentary and governmental archival documents. These documents reveal that the Canadian state mobilised liberal concepts of peace and progress to justify Canadian territorial and political expansion. I argue that Canada authorised its appropriation of Indigenous lands by claiming that it alone could improve the lands it looked to incorporat…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2019-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0379725
language: eng
degree discipline: Political Science
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/70879