W(h)ither the Indian Act? How Statutory Law Is Rewriting Canada’s Settler Colonial Formation

Susan Collis

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2022, vol. 112, issue 1, 167-183

Abstract: This article documents how the Indian Act, the historic legal regime structuring settler colonialism in Canada, is being displaced by new statutory law, as nearly fifty federal statutes passed by successive governments between 2005 and 2020 rewrite First Nations land, taxation, resource, and governance regimes. I focus attention on these new laws, asking how they differ in instrument and ideology from the Indian Act. Particularly, I explore how new legislation responds to the Indian Act’s (unintended) affirmation of the unique political status of Indigenous peoples and manages the long-sedimented legal and regulatory differences between reserve and Canadian jurisdictions. Transferring our attention from the Indian Act to actual sites of legislative activity, we are better positioned to perceive, critique, and challenge the evolving formation of settler colonialism in Canada today.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1919500

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