Political Theory

H13(a) - Indigeneity, Colonialism and Land Rights

Date: Jun 4 | Time: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Justine Perron (University of Ottawa)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Missila Izza (Université de Montréal)

The Object Possession Trap: On the Microfoundations of Territorial Rights: Anna Jurkevics (University of British Columbia)
Abstract: This paper grapples with the problematic uptake of natural law in contemporary justifications of territorial sovereignty (e.g. Stilz, Nine). In taking up natural law, contemporary theories fall into “the object possession trap,” which emerges from a peculiar European understanding of land that was consolidated in the early modern period: land, in this conception, is an object to be captured and possessed by humans. Thinkers such as Grotius, Locke, Pufendorf, and Kant all embraced and elaborated this approach to land. The object possession trap produces two problems: first, in treating land as an object rather than a set of interdependent subjects, it limits the emancipatory potential of place-based relationships; second, it models the human relationship to land on the act of conquest, or “land capture.” Territorial theory today thus unwittingly incorporates the right of conquest in its uptake of natural law. Moreover, the mainstream endorsement of object possession has generated a disconnect between European and indigenous philosophies of land. Given these problems, I ask whether it is possible instead to assimilate insights from indigenous philosophies of land, which pose it as a set of survival-promoting relationships across diverse human and non-human constituencies, into the framework of rights we have inherited from natural law. I argue that such a move would require a radical rethinking of the normative foundations of both territorial and property rights.

Theories of Territory in Cyberspace: Margaret Moore (Queen's University)
Abstract: States claim territorial rights, chief of which is the right to make, enforce and adjudicate the law within their own territory. This clarifies which state's laws apply and which state enforces the law. There is a burgeoning literature on territory, which points out that political theory has focused extensively on the relationship between the citizen and the state, but has left untheorized the geographical domain of the state and we now have a number of theories of territory. This paper examines a current challenge to the model of organizing laws and enforcement territorially, which is highlighted by non spatial activities. For short, this paper calls this cyberspace. Increasing online activity raises a number of questions for our way of organizing the world and for theories of territory. In this paper I discuss this challenge, considering (a) cyber warfare, perpetrated by state actors, and non-state actors; and (b) cyber crime, when states extract data from servers abroad; and when this is done by non-state actors (criminals). The paper explores how best to understand cyber space jurisdiction, and the extent to which current theories of territory can cope with this challenge.

Political Theory Against Settler Colonialism: Invitations from Indigenous Theories of Resurgence: Kaitie Jourdeuil (Queen's University)
Abstract: This paper considers the methodological, pedagogical, and normative invitations for settler political theorists emerging from Indigenous theories of resurgence (ITR). These theories articulate a political mode of resistance to settler colonialism that “[amplifies] Indigenous life and just relations” with human and non-human relatives and the earth (Estes, 2019: 248; see also Corntassel, 2020; Coulthard, 2014; A. Simpson, 2014; L.B. Simpson, 2011, 2017). This is in contrast to dialectical or civic modes of resistance that seek to transform settler-colonial relations through direct engagement with settlers and their governments (Allard-Tremblay, 2022). Instead, ITR provide indirect guidelines for settlers by enacting political alternatives to settler colonialism within and amongst Indigenous and other-than-human political communities. Through close engagement with different ITR from across Turtle Island, this paper seeks to tease out some of these indirect invitations for settlers to orient our political communities towards just relations with other human and non-human communities. In particular, I focus on the challenges ITR poses for settler political theorists and the traditional objects, methods, and arguments of our work. These include the presumption that political thought can be separated from the ‘empirical’ world of political life and practice, and the disavowal of relationship resulting from Western—and especially liberal—political thought’s commitment to methodological (anthropocentric) individualism. I conclude by considering how settler political theorists might respond to these invitations to bring our normative work and teaching into better relationship with other political communities with whom we are entwined.

Neoliberal Colonialities of Elder Care Migration: Collin Xia (York University), Anna Agathangelou (York University)
Abstract: This paper examines the intersection of global aging, neoliberal care regimes, and transnational migration through an analysis of eldercare-centered migrations between the Global North and South. As the world faces unprecedented demographic aging and care crises, two distinct but related patterns of migration have emerged: the movement of primarily female caregivers from the Global South to provide eldercare in the North, and the relocation of elderly individuals from the North to care facilities in the South. Drawing on postcolonial theory and critical analyses of care work, this paper argues that these migration patterns represent neocolonial developments predicated on the devaluation and commodification of both debilitated elderly bodies and racialized/gendered caregivers. The research demonstrates how neoliberal logics of productivity and market rationality have created systems where care work is doubly devalued as feminized labor sustaining "unproductive" bodies. This has led to the exploitation of migrant caregivers through global care chains while simultaneously driving the expulsion of Northern elders to "care paradises" in the South where they can leverage global inequalities to access affordable care. The paper concludes that eldercare migration perpetuates colonial hierarchies through the extraction of care labor from the South and the creation of privileged care enclaves that appropriate Indigenous lands and local resources. This analysis contributes to our understanding of how contemporary care arrangements reproduce historical patterns of exploitation while revealing the complex intersections of aging, gender, race, and global inequality in transnational care economies.