Enterprising Indigeneity
By Joël Laforest
The process of fur-trading and colonialism brought about strange transformations amongst First Nations peoples. As fur trading escalated, a slow integration into the global commercial market began. As war amongst colonial powers waged, First Nations peoples were used by one power or another in attempts to secure territory. It’s true, also, that First Nations peoples used colonial powers in similar efforts.
The building of the St. Lawrence Seaway was a remarkably cynical move on the part of the Canadian government, using a divide-and-conquer strategy to buy out properties, destroy homes and cut the community off from accessing the St. Lawrence. The community has done a great deal of organizing in response since this incident, ensuring similar incidents do not come to pass. Furthermore, as their solidarity action on the Mercier Bridge during the 1990 Oka Crisis demonstrates, they are willing to directly confront state power to prevent further encroachment of their rights and on their territories.
The Kahnawake have ensured their economic survival through a range of strategies. Increased rights and access to across border zones, freedom from state taxation, and a relative autonomy to self-govern all provide a range of economic opportunities that are not quite within the confines of legally sanctioned state power and free-market capitalism. The relative illegibility of wealth and capital accumulation within the reserve – to settler eyes, at least – is evident in the way some Montrealers speak of the reserve.
Any mention of Kahnawake outside of the territory inevitably brings up gambling, or cigarette and tobacco sales, as though only some borderline or potentially illegitimate economic activity makes possible life on the reserve. This is peculiar, as Montreal has its own flavour of illegitimate economic activity, as recent stories regarding the construction1 and towing industry2 indicate. More generally, the moral economy of financial capitalism has not enjoyed a particularly outstanding reputation since the 2008 financial crash. Casino capitalism, as the name implies, blurs the line between the allegedly sound rational basis of investments and the game of chance that is gambling. Why, then, do the relatively small-scale activities regarding tobacco or gambling on the reserve occupy such a role in the imagination of settler-Montrealers?
The easiest explanations that come to mind involve a simple racism. But this isn’t prejudice: the racialized discourses that are typically deployed to ‘explain’ under-investment, ghettoization and police repression in other locales are not in force here. Rather, what is at work is a type of envy masquerading as suspicion.
The Kahnawake have used the available resources to create conditions that work for them. What is distinctive about their approach, however, is the collective enterprise of their nation: rather than being subjected to market forces and the state on an atomized individual level, their political and organizational capacity allows them to advocate for a general interest. This is the real envy behind settler-eyes: to have a substantive political-economic institution that looks out for the best interests of all within its territory, providing a buffer and negotiating role to the war of all-against-all in the age of neoliberal capitalism.
1“Corruption ‘More Widespread’ than Thought in Quebec’s Construction Industry,” CBC News, accessed August 16, 2017, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/charbonneau-corruption-inquiry-findings-released-1.3331577.
2 Ingird Peritz, “Corruption Alive and Well on Montreal’s Streets: Report,” April 24, 2017, sec. news, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/corruption-alive-and-well-on-montreals-streets-report/article34802752/.