Land, land banks and land back: Accounting, social reproduction and Indigenous resurgence

Matthew Scobie, Glenn Finau and Jessica Hallenbeck
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Matthew Scobie: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Glenn Finau: University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Jessica Hallenbeck: Simon Fraser University, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

Environment and Planning A, 2024, vol. 56, issue 1, 235-252

Abstract: This paper situates Indigenous social reproduction as a duality; as both a site of primitive accumulation and as a critical, resurgent, land-based practice. Drawing on three distinct cases from British Columbia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and Bua, Fiji, we illustrate how accounting techniques can be a key mechanism with which Indigenous modes of life are brought to the market and are often foundational to the establishment of markets. We argue that accounting practices operate at the vanguard of primitive accumulation by extracting once invaluable outsides (e.g. Indigenous land and bodies) and rendering these either valuable or valueless for the social reproduction of settler society. The commodification of Indigenous social reproduction sustains the conditions that enable capitalism to flourish through primitive accumulation. However, we privilege Indigenous agency, resistance and resurgence in our analysis to illustrate that these techniques of commodification through accounting are not inevitable. They are resisted or wielded towards Indigenous alternatives at every point.

Keywords: Indigenous; accounting; social reproduction; land back (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:56:y:2024:i:1:p:235-252

DOI: 10.1177/0308518X211060842

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