While Canada is often called a pluralist state, there are no sustained studies by political
scientists in which aboriginal self-government is discussed specifically in terms of the
analytical tradition of pluralist thought. Aboriginal self-government is usually discussed as an
issue of cultural preservation or national self-determination. Aboriginal identity is framed in
terms of cultural and national traits that are unique to an aboriginal community and selfgovernment
is taken to represent the aboriginal communal desire to protect and preserve those
traits. Is such an understanding of what motivates aboriginal self-government accurate, or
does it yield an incomplete understanding of the complex phenomenon that aboriginal selfgovernment
in Canada represents?
The political tradition of pluralism allows for analysis of aboriginal self-government
that addresses questions left unattended by the cultural and nationalist frameworks. Pluralism
is often viewed as a public arrangement in which distinct groups are given room to live side by
side, characterized by mutual recognition and affirmation. At the same time, there are
different faces of pluralist theory and each addresses questions about the recognition and
affirmation of aboriginal self-government in different ways. Those three contemporary faces
can be distinguished by the labels communitarian, individualist, and relational.
The major hypothesis advanced is that aboriginal self-government is better understood
if an "identification" perspective on aboriginal identity is adopted as opposed to a "cultural" or
"national" one and if that perspective is linked to a relational theory of pluralism as opposed to
a communitarian or individualist one. The identification approach examines aboriginal identity
not in terms of cultural and political traits, but in terms of identification with, and political
commitment to, an aboriginal community. Relational pluralism in turn, examines the challenge
of aboriginal self-government in terms of power differences within aboriginal communities and
between aboriginal and Canadian governments.
Applying these approaches to aboriginal politics in Canada confirms their suitability.
Contrary to what previous scholarship has assumed, aboriginal self-government should not be
seen primarily as a tool to preserve cultural and national differences as goods in and of
themselves. The politics of aboriginal self-government should be seen as involving demands
to equalize current imbalances in power so that aboriginal communities and the individuals
within them can construct aboriginal identities according to their own design.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/13235 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Schouls, Timothy A. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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