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<p>Borders and bordering practices can be understood as both an act of sovereign authority and establishing the contemporary international system. The drawing of borders also simultaneously legitimizes the state’s sovereign authority, creating a political community ‘inside’ borders through which modern politics takes place. These processes are especially pertinent for settler states such as Canada, whose sovereign authority over its recognized territory is contingent on the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. However, Indigenous nations reject Canadian claims of settler authority and legitimacy, instead continuing to uphold their own modes of governance and relationships to territory. This contestation of settler territoriality is practiced in various ways, with this article exploring how energy utility governance and infrastructure act as bordering practices—that is, as a productive means of manifesting and demonstrating territorial authority. Through the British Columbia Utilities Commission’s Indigenous Utilities Regulation Inquiry, we explore the contestation of territory through what we refer to as ‘embedded bordering’. In doing so, we identify a tension between ongoing settler moves to dispossession alongside decolonial potential in the border-making practices of energy governance and infrastructure.</p>
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Borders and bordering practices can be understood as both an act of sovereign authority and establishing the contemporary international system. The drawing of borders also simultaneously legitimizes the state’s sovereign authority, creating a political community ‘inside’ borders through which modern politics takes place. These processes are especially pertinent for settler states such as Canada, whose sovereign authority over its recognized territory is contingent on the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. However, Indigenous nations reject Canadian claims of settler authority and legitimacy, instead continuing to uphold their own modes of governance and relationships to territory. This contestation of settler territoriality is practiced in various ways, with this article exploring how energy utility governance and infrastructure act as bordering practices—that is, as a productive means of manifesting and demonstrating territorial authority. Through the British Columbia Utilities Commission’s Indigenous Utilities Regulation Inquiry, we explore the contestation of territory through what we refer to as ‘embedded bordering’. In doing so, we identify a tension between ongoing settler moves to dispossession alongside decolonial potential in the border-making practices of energy governance and infrastructure.

Embedded Bordering

Borderlands Journal

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Territorial Authority, Indigenous Utilities, and Settler Colonialism in British Columbia

Borders and bordering practices can be understood as both an act of sovereign authority and establishing the contemporary international system. The drawing of...

Embedded Bordering

Published Online: Nov 02, 2021

Page range: 140 - 170

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/borderlands-2021-006

Keywords
borders, utilities governance, settler-colonialism, Indigenous self-determination, British Columbia

© 2021 Joshua K. McEvoy et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Embedded Bordering

Published Online: Nov 02, 2021

Page range: 140 - 170

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/borderlands-2021-006

Keywordsborders, utilities governance, settler-colonialism, Indigenous self-determination, British Columbia

© 2021 Joshua K. McEvoy et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
borders, utilities governance, settler-colonialism, Indigenous self-determination, British Columbia