Sovereignty & Indigenous Peoples

3 April, Track 3 Session 8

Compromising Sovereignty: Indigenous Agency and Colonial Governance on the Darfur-Chad boundary 1916-1956

Mr Chris Vaughan
Durham University, UK

What is now the Darfur-Chad border zone has long existed as an area of political contestation as well as of economic and cultural exchange between pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial states and societies. This paper will examine the pre-colonial and colonial history of this area and make three key arguments. Firstly porosity, a term often used in association with the absence of effective state sovereignty at the border and the irrelevance of African state boundaries, is key to understanding the historical relevance of the Darfur-Chad boundary to indigenous border societies, and ways in which indigenous actors contested and broke down colonial territorial sovereignties. The boundary helped to create a space where identities and loyalties were plural and fluid, and this created opportunities for local societies to play off external powers, one against the other. Secondly, while colonial powers attempted to impose their own visions of territorial sovereignty via policies of border management and control, in practice they were forced to accept the realities of porous borders, and work in ways which reached tacit accommodation with more fluid indigenous conceptualisations of space. Colonial boundaries thus became African boundaries, and European conceptions of territorial sovereignty were transformed by indigenous agency. Finally we need to recognise that these patterns of fractured sovereignties and fluid identities are not simply the result of twentieth century change brought by colonial impositions: they are the expression of the longue duree history of indigenous border peoples long used to living 'in-between' larger political units.

Conference participants only: Powerpoint presentation available at foot of page.

Boundaries and the Assertion of First Nations’ Sovereignty in Canada

Dr Brian Ballantyne
Surveyor General Branch, Natural Resources Canada

Canada has some 640 First Nations within its territorial boundaries. The issue of sovereignty and territorial integrity in this context, therefore, means rather more than simply the spatial extent of Canada itself. It also means establishing and re-establishing a series of jurisdictional boundaries between the 3,000 Indian Reserves (IR) and other areas over which First Nations claim sovereignty, and adjacent non-Aboriginal lands (fee simple, federal Crown and provincial Crown lands). Principles have been established for dealing with Aboriginal lands in general, such as the liberal construction of treaties and agreements, the inference of boundary ambiguity, the duty to consult, the fiduciary duty owed to First Nations, the minimal impairment of IR lands, and the need to define parcels in establishing Aboriginal title. These principles are being expanded in dealing with the assertion of First Nations’ sovereignty to water (akin to the Winters doctrine) and to the beds of the Great Lakes. However, these principles offer scant guidance in dealing with jurisdictional boundaries, particularly if those boundaries are riparian. Boundary-making on the ground thus means confronting a host of issues, such as the irrelevance of provincial legislation in limiting accretion for IR, the vesting of the beds of watercourses in IR for the purposes of gravel extraction, the assertions that the doctrines of erosion and avulsion do not apply to IR but that the ad medium filum presumption does apply, and the creation of new IR on regulated watercourses. Resolving those boundary and sovereignty issues is resulting in the confluence of three disparate streams: common law presumptions, statute law provisions and Aboriginal law principles. This confluence is observed through a case study approach of IR across Canada, with particular emphasis on the Fraser and Qu’Appelle watercourses.

When Indigenous People Question Contemporary Borders: Identity and Sovereignty at the Light of Integration

Dr Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary
University Joseph Fourier, France