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- Title
Ignorance and historical geographies of Aboriginal exclusion: Evidence from the 2007 Bouchard- Taylor Commission on Reasonable Accommodation L'ignorance et les géographies historiques de l'exclusion autochtone : éléments de preuve découlant de la commission Bouchard- Taylor sur les accommodements raisonnables tenue en 2007
- Authors
Schaefli, Laura M.; Godlewska, Anne M.C.
- Abstract
Ignorance is linked to colonialism and is deeply implicated in the maintenance of unequal social relations. The authors theorize ignorance as structural and self-interested, and undertake a geographically sensitive analysis of Quebec's 2007 Bouchard-Taylor Commission to demonstrate how ignorance of Aboriginal realities works strategically to sustain unequally occupied rhetorical and material space. The Bouchard-Taylor Commission was a public inquiry into Quebec citizens' opinions on the degree to which cultural difference should be accommodated in the province. Through both geographic decisions about where to hold public meetings and in its very mandate, the Commission restricted participation to Quebecers of French-Canadian descent and immigrants of long and more recent standing. The authors analyze how the law, and ignorance of how it applies to Aboriginal peoples, was mobilized by the Commissioners to create a space from which Aboriginal peoples could be excluded, and highlight the continuity of this strategy with past debates over Quebec identity. The case of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission demonstrates how ignorance operates in highly sophisticated and often readily justifiable ways to uphold settler interests.
- Subjects
QUEBEC (Province); INDIGENOUS peoples; IGNORANCE (Theory of knowledge); IMPERIALISM; CROSS-cultural differences; PUBLIC opinion
- Publication
Canadian Geographer, 2014, Vol 58, Issue 1, p110
- ISSN
0008-3658
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/cag.12064