Offended by Offence

Things are beginning to firm up for the New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forum at Mount Royal University.  The forum is free and open to the public and is intended to stimulate public debate on aboriginal policy.  People with very different perspectives on aboriginal economic development, governance and education have been invited because it is assumed that bringing together opposing viewpoints enables all people to move closer to the truth.  The tentative program and confirmed participants are cut and pasted below.  I am still hoping to find more people who can present arguments supporting aboriginal sovereignty and indigenous “ways of knowing”.

FW

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New Directions in Aboriginal Policy, Free Public Forum in the Nickle Theatre, Mount Royal University, May 5, 2010

8:30-9:00, Coffee

9:00-9:30, Opening remarks – The kindly inquisition influencing aboriginal policy development

9:30-11:30, Panel I – Aboriginal sovereignty, indigenous nationalism, and the rule of law

11:30-1:00, Lunch break

1:00-2:45, Panel II – Private property rights, the Indian Act, and economic development

2:45-3:00, Coffee Break

3:00-4:45, Panel III – Indigenous “ways of knowing”, critical thinking and education

5:00-8:00, Reception

Confirmed participants (in alphabetical order)

Ron Bourgeault (University of Regina), Tom Flanagan (University of Calgary), Andrew Hodgkins (University of Alberta), Albert Howard (Independent Researcher, Calgary), Joseph Lane (Independent Researcher, Australia), Gary McHale (CANACE), David Newhouse (Trent University), Joseph Quesnel (Frontier Centre for Public Policy), Don Sandberg (Frontier Centre for Public Policy), Mark Vandermaas (CANACE), Frances Widdowson (Mount Royal University)

Stuart Soroka, the 2010 Programme Committee Chairperson for the CPSA, had a message posted on the Women’s Caucus listserve before it was moderated (see Email from Stuart Soroka – January 4 on the Ethics page of this blog).  In this message, Soroka assured members of the Women’s Caucus that my paper was transferred to a poster session because it “did not easily fit into a panel with other papers from the REIPP [Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics] section”.  He goes on to point out that the “the committee approved of the decision (as the committee must approve of all section heads’ decisions for CPSA conferences)” and that “the charge of any unprofessionalism on [Kiera Ladner’s] part is, to be frank, wholly unfounded”.

While “the charge of any unprofessionalism” could very well be without merit (it was merely noted that Ladner “seems to have left herself open to a charge of unprofessionalism”, and this suspicion was based on Ladner’s previous inability to be objective about my work on aboriginal policy), there are a few things that should be mentioned in response to the committee’s decision about my proposal’s lack of “fit” within the REIPP section.  I have been told that the CPSA, in the past, has been concerned about placing me on a panel with other scholars who study aboriginal politics out of fear that my ideas could create a hostile reaction (a circumstance that was realized at the 2008 conference).  The creation of the REIPP section has exacerbated this problem because it has tended to move presentations about aboriginal peoples and aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations out of more traditional academic sections (comparative politics, Canadian politics, etc.), and into a section that is influenced by an “identity politics” orientation.  Therefore, the idea of “fit” could have more to do with trying to avoid conflict than with academic considerations.

Second, it seems odd that the CPSA would not want to have a proposal concerning research ethics and aboriginal peoples, aboriginal epistemology, etc., discussed in a formal panel.  The CPSA devoted a section of its report on research ethics to “Research involving Aboriginal peoples”, and the second draft of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans’ chapter concerning “Research Involving Aboriginal Peoples in Canada” has just been released for scholarly consideration.  Brock et al., in their letter “Racism, chilly climate, our responsibility and the discipline”, even suggested that a “major CPSA *Plenary on Responsibility Difference and the Discipline* might be productive” and “would attract a phenomenal attendance and would generate the kind of constructive professional debate we desire within the CPSA, and would be a mentoring opportunity for graduate students and junior faculty” (the people recommended for the plenary, however, did not come from a wide range of perspectives and were largely supportive of the existence of different “ways of knowing”). 

Past CPSA sessions also have sparked considerable interest in these topics.  The panel that Albert Howard and I participated in with Sandra Tomsons in 2009 was packed and led to a lively, but restrained, discussion.  Kiera Ladner’s proposal last year entitled “Decolonizing the Discipline: Respecting Indigenous Knowledge & Using Indigenist Methodologies” was also accepted.  The abstract for this presentation was as follows:

“Since Columbus was discovered, knowledge of the Americas and the peoples who lived there captured the minds and imaginations of some of Europe’s greatest political philosophers: More, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Spencer, and Engels, to name but a few. Despite the fact that Indians of the Americas have occupied the imaginations of the world since the time of ‘discovery’, Indians have not occupied the imaginations of modern political scientists. Political science has ignored Indigenous political traditions and studied contemporary Indigenous politics only from the vantage point of the western-eurocentric tradition. Simply put, most have been unable to escape their paradigm paralysis to understand the politics of the ‘other’ on its own terms or as separate from the western-eurocentric experience. In so doing, political science has perpetuated a western-eurocentric understanding that virtually denies ‘others’ a voice within the discipline. This paper draws on the theoretical undertaking of my dissertation and updates the uncirculated paper presented at UofA (the abstract of which led to a heated exchange at CPSA). It engages the discipline’s construction of the Indigenous and argues that it is necessary to understand the ‘other’ not from the vantage of the western-eurocentric intellectual tradition as this readily perpetuates misunderstanding but from the vantage of their own intellectual and political traditions. It argues that proceeding as such enables a trustworthy post-colonial/decolonizing understanding of Indigenous politics within political science and that the effect of such a paradigm shift has the potential to be of great benefit to the discipline as a whole not just the study of Indigenous politics”.

A number of assertions put forward by Ladner still need to be analyzed and debated (for some reason, Ladner did not produce a paper fleshing out this abstract).  What are the “Indigenous political traditions” to which Ladner refers?  How do we “understand the politics of the ‘other’ on its own terms”?  And what is a “trustworthy post-colonial/decolonizing understanding of Indigenous politics within political science” and how will this “be of great benefit to the discipline as a whole not just the study of Indigenous politics”?  Once again, we seem to have the contradiction of saying that there should be a “different” understanding that only the identity group can have (i.e. it cannot be evaluated with universally accessible social scientific methods), yet this “understanding” must be accepted by all as a benefit to political science.

Ladner’s proposal was included in a workshop on “‘Race’, Racism and Anti-racism as Political Science: Framing and Re-Framing Relationships”, which also included presentations on “Race, Empowerment and Crisis Management: Black Political Leadership and Hurricane Katrina” and “Beyond Racial Exceptionalism: Explaining the Convergence of Mixed-Race Census Categorizations in Canada, the US and Great Britain”.  Interestingly, the two latter presentations are very dissimilar from Ladner’s and do not really concern epistemological matters.  Ladner’s presentation, in fact, would have “fit” much better with the presentations of Tomsons, Howard and myself, but, for some reason, Ladner was not included on our panel, which largely concerned epistemological questions.  Therefore, “fit” appears to be a very subjective determination of the programme committee.

It should be noted that unscholarly responses to work critical of the prevailing “aboriginal orthodoxy” have been occurring for quite some time, and so it should not really be surprising if this is continuing in my case. Radha Jhappan, for example, stated publicly that “fundamental racism” formed the basis of Tom Flanagan’s book First Nations? Second Thoughts even though no evidence was provided to sustain this accusation. Similar problematic conduct occurred when Flanagan’s book was awarded the Donald Smiley Prize. The chair of the jury, Gurston Dacks, quit when he was outvoted, displaying contempt for a process that he had agreed to participate in (rejecting it only when he lost the vote).  Joyce Green has noted that the political science community was “fractured” because the jury’s decision “implicated us all in rewarding something that many of us felt was deeply wrong” (Marci McDonald, “The Man Behind Stephen Harper”, The Walrus, October 2004, www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/the-man-behind-stephen-harper-tom-flanagan/5/).

Green’s comments reflect the deep problems that exist in political science with respect to the study of aboriginal peoples and aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations.  What is meant by saying that someone’s scholarship is “deeply wrong”?   Shouldn’t political scientists be concerned about the quality of the arguments and the amount of evidence that is being put forward to support them?  Unfortunately, the characterization of Flanagan’s work in moral terms has prevented a comprehensive analysis of his arguments.  Postmodern political scientists feel justified in dismissing Flanagan’s arguments as reprehensible, when engaging with them would help us all to more fully understand aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations.  One does not have to agree with arguments to critically analyze them; avoiding opposing viewpoints because one dislikes their preconceived implications, however, is anti-intellectual and is harmful to the academic integrity of the discipline of political science.

With the amazing success of the 2009 New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forum held at Mount Royal College (now Mount Royal University), interest was expressed in making the event an annual affair.  Therefore, I am pleased to announce the tentative date of next year’s New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forum – May 5, 2010.  It is hoped that Mount Royal University will be able to host this event each year at the beginning of May.

The purpose of these forums is to stimulate open and honest debate about aboriginal policy.  Effort is being made to bring in a wide variety of perspectives for the benefit of students, faculty, and interested members of the public.  It is hoped that the free exchange of ideas in a collegial environment will help to reduce the ideological policing that has plagued discussions of aboriginal policy for so long.

Although the funding arrangements are still being worked out, a number of researchers and scholars have expressed interest in participating in the forum.  In addition to myself and Albert Howard, other potential participants include Tom Flanagan (University of Calgary), Joseph Quesnel (Frontier Centre for Public Policy), Ron Bourgeault (University of Regina), and Andrew Hodgkins (University of Alberta).   There is also hope (funding permitting) of bringing in researchers and scholars from Australia and New Zealand to discuss aboriginal policy developments in these countries.

Those interested in this forum should keep an eye on the New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forums page on this blog.  This page will make the draft program available, as well as work from the scholars and researchers presenting at the forum.  The page also will keep a record of information from past forums.

The 2010 New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forum is already promising to be a very interesting event.  Tom Flanagan will likely be discussing the ideas in his forthcoming book, written with Christopher Alcantara and André Le Dressay, Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights (see the New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forums page for a description).  As readers of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry will know, Albert Howard and I are very critical of arguments that propose property rights as a solution to aboriginal dependency and marginalization.  This viewpoint, however, has not been extensively debated in the academic community because it is easier for members of the Aboriginal Industry to dismiss Flanagan’s ideas than to subject them to critical analysis.

For more information on this forum, please feel free to contact me at fwiddowson@mtroyal.ca or 403-440-6884.

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Program update – March 2010

New Directions in Aboriginal Policy, Free Public Forum in the Nickle Theatre, Mount Royal University, May 5, 2010

8:30-9:00, Coffee

9:00-9:30, Opening remarks – The kindly inquisition influencing aboriginal policy development

9:30-11:30, Panel I – Aboriginal sovereignty, indigenous nationalism, and the rule of law

11:30-1:00, Lunch break

1:00-2:45, Panel II – Private property rights, the Indian Act, and economic development

2:45-3:00, Coffee Break

3:00-4:45, Panel III – Indigenous “ways of knowing”, critical thinking and education

5:00-8:00, Reception

Confirmed participants (in alphabetical order)

Ron Bourgeault (University of Regina), Tom Flanagan (University of Calgary), Andrew Hodgkins (University of Alberta), Albert Howard (Independent Researcher, Calgary), Joseph Lane (Independent Researcher, Australia), Gary McHale (CANACE), David Newhouse (Trent University), Joseph Quesnel (Frontier Centre for Public Policy), Don Sandberg (Frontier Centre for Public Policy), Mark Vandermaas (CANACE), Frances Widdowson (Mount Royal University)