This dissertation interrogates the ways in which place-based belongings are constituted through outdoor recreation. By applying material-discursive theories of rhetoric to spaces of outdoor recreation on the Colorado Plateau such as the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort, rock climbing landscapes in the Navajo Nation, adventure mountain biking practices that trace a 19th century stagecoach route, and ultra running trails at Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation and on ancient trails that connect Hopi Villages, and elsewhere, I examine the affective relationships between those activities, landscapes, and cultures. Drawing on spatial and environmental rhetoric and critical theories of race, gender, and sexuality, I analyze affective investments in white settler colonialism to argue that such spaces are more than recreational. The framework I have developed to better explain such spaces, Recreational Colonialism, positions outdoor recreation as the new language of colonialism. Recreational Colonialism is both a discourse and a performance that-in many ways explored in this dissertation-connect outdoor recreational discourses to a trifecta of oppressions through which white settler colonialism depends: white supremacy, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy.

Ce mémoire se penche sur un sujet d’actualité qui fait l’objet de polémiques ponctuelles au Québec depuis 2006 : La Romaine, la construction d’un complexe hydroélectrique qui harnache l’une des dernières grandes rivières sauvages de la province. Spécifiquement, cette étude s’intéresse à des discours institutionnels québécois et innus sur ce projet. L’analyse s’appuie sur des mémoires déposés à la consultation menée en 2008 par le Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE). Faisant converser les études de l’ethnicité, le concept de colonialisme d’occupation blanche [settler colonialism] et les études culturelles, ce mémoire jette de nouvelles lumières sur le rôle des dispositifs du développement durable et des grands barrages en contexte colonial. En premier lieu, cette recherche présente une trame historique sur le renouveau de la relation entre peuples innu et québécois centrée, tour à tour, sur l’agriculture, l’exploitation forestière et les grands barrages. L’objectif est d’exposer comment ce rapport interethnique, en constante mutation, a été marqué par différents modes d’aménagement du territoire. Dans un deuxième temps, ce portrait nous amène à examiner la conjoncture sociopolitique d’où émerge la Romaine. Suivant cette contextualisation, l’application d’une grille d’analyse des débats sociotechniques permet de découvrir les manières dont le développement durable module les systèmes de représentations collectives à l’égard des rapports interethniques et des régimes énergétiques contemporains. Cette analyse expose, simultanément, la régénérescence d’un imaginaire d’occupation colonial québécois et l’émergence de contre-discours innus. Ultimement, cette recherche se conclut en interrogeant les termes et possibilités d’un développement durable décolonial. / The event on which this thesis aims its focus is a topic of controversy in Quebec since 2006 : la Romaine, a hydroelectric complex involving the harnessing of one of the last great wild rivers in the province. Specifically, this study examines the new Innu and Quebecer institutional discourses on this project. The analysis takes as material of study the reports submitted to the consultation conducted in 2008 by the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE). Establishing a dialogue between ethnic studies, the concept of white settler colonialism and cultural studies, this paper sheds light on the role of the apparatus of sustainable development and of great dams in a colonial context. First, this research provides an historical framework on the renewal of the relationship between Quebec’s and Innu’s people centred, in turn, on agriculture, logging and large dams. The goal is to explain how this interethnic relationship, in constant metamorphosis, has been marked by different models of settling the territory. Secondly, this picture leads us to examine the socio-political situation from which emerges la Romaine. Following this contextualization, the application of a socio-technical grid of analysis allows to discover the ways in which sustainable development modulates the collective systems of representations in regards to interethnic relations and contemporary energetic regimes. This analysis expose simultaneously the regeneration of a settler’s imaginary for the Quebecers and the emergence of counter-discourses for the Innus. Ultimately, this research concluded by questioning the terms and possibilities of a decolonial sustainable development.