Settler Colonialism and the Criminalization of Indigenous People in Canada

Abstract

In this chapter Professors Adam J. Barker and Emma Battell Lowman, well-known scholars of settler colonial theory, lay out a basis for understanding the criminalization of Indigenous people through the lens of settler colonialism. For them, settler colonialism in fact represents colonization that persists through the continual assertion of jurisdiction over land and the interconnected processes of Indigenous displacement, dispossession and elimination. Offered as a strong basis for understanding the criminalization of Indigenous peoples in Canada today, the authors provide historical and modern-day examples of settler violence, from the lynching of Louie Sam in 1884 to the criminalization of Indigenous protests and assertions of nationhood. They further illustrate how the residential school system and reserve system are interlocking carceral systems logically linked to contemporary examples of police violence against Indigenous people and have influenced disproportionate Indigenous imprisonment in Canada. Settler colonialism is proffered as useful for explaining and understanding ongoing conflicts and government attempts to suppress Indigenous resurgence and land assertions, through consistently criminalizing Indigenous demands made of the settler state.