Indigenous Governance and Business Management (Essay Sample)

Indigenous Governance and Business Management: How Treaties could Look Different if we were to adopt a more Gifting Economic Approach Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Course Name and Number Instructor Due Date How Treaties could Look Different if we were to adopt a more Gifting Economic Approach Introduction In this paper, I will look at how treaties between the Crown and Indigenous peoples of Canada would look different if the Canadian society adopted a more gifting economic approach to the agreements. I will introduce the topic by laying a background for treaty-making in Canada. I will briefly examine the historic and modern treaties and explain the different perspectives of the Crown and indigenous peoples on treaty-making. I will look at the gifting economy, followed by a discussion of how a more gifting economic approach would have made the treaties different. Indigenous peoples have a pre-occupation, a pre-occupation of land. They regard their traditional territories as sacred; the land is integral to their culture and identity. As Young (2019) describes the significance of land to indigenous peoples in her evidence to the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples: “Land is culture…The land connects us to our language and our spirituality, our values, our traditions, and our laws of mino bimatasiwin, which is the good life. In short, the land personifies who we are. It is the heart of our identity. It is our very lives, our souls, which are connected to the land of our ancestors.” Yet, when the English settlers arrived in Canada, they dispossessed indigenous peoples of their lands. Removing indigenous peoples from their homelands had a spiraling impact on many aspects of their life; it undermined their distinct cultures, institutions, systems of governance, and way of life. For over a century, the Crown aimed to assimilate indigenous peoples into the dominant settler society, which disrupted the Indian, Metis, and Inuit ways of life (Borrows, 2005). When indigenous peoples resisted the Crown’s actions, the government resorted to treaties to reiterate peaceful alliances (Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, 2019). Since the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which transferred indigenous title to the Crown in exchange for reserve lands and other benefits, treaties have provided a framework for living together and sharing the land traditionally occupied by indigenous peoples. The agreements provide foundations for continued partnership and cooperation between indigenous and non-indigenous people in Canada. Treaties between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples Treaties are agreements between indigenous peoples or territories and provinces and the Government of Canada (the Crown) that define the ongoing rights and obligations of both parties (Government of Canada, 2020). Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) recognize and affirm indigenous rights as set out in these agreements. Treaties between the government and indigenous peoples include historic treaties and comprehensive land claim (modern) agreements. Historic treaties comprised 70 treaties signed over two hundred years ago between 1701 and 1923. The historic treaties signed after 1763 provided massive areas of land that were initially owned by indigenous peoples to the Crown in exchange for reserve lands and other benefits, such as annual payments, public services, and rights related to hunting, gathering, and fishing. They include; Treaties of Peace and Neutrality (1701 -1760), Peace and Friendship Treaties (1725 – 1779), Upper Canada Land Surrenders and Williams Treaties (1764-1862/1923), Robinson Treaties and Douglas Treaties (1850 – 1854), and the Numbered Treaties (1871-1821) (Government of Canada, 2020). The era of modern treaties began in 1973, following the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Calder et al. v. Attorney General of British Columbia, which, for the first time, recognized the rights of indigenous peoples (Penikett, 2014). The first modern treaty, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was signed in 1975. Since then, 25 additional treaties have been signed (Penikett, 2014). Modern treaties have provided for the ownership of land by indigenous peoples, protection of culture, capital transfers, recognition of indigenous’ political and self-government rights, and access to resource development opportunities (Penikett, 2014). Two Different Perspectives: No Meeting of the Minds The Crown and indigenous peoples have had two different perspectives on treaties since making the first treaty in 1763. The two different perspectives relate to land and the approach to contracts. Firstly, the indigenous worldview regards the land as sacred and given by a Supreme Being or creator to be shared by all, including animals and plants. It is more than an economic asset; it provides sustenance for current and future generations. Land is connected to traditional knowledge, teachings, and spiritual beliefs. Commonly held land rights hold a people together. Secondly, indigenous peoples viewed treaties as sacred, spiritual pacts that allowed for the sharing of land with the settlers for a collectively prosperous future (Albers, 2017). This was informed by their view of contracts as including an offer, acceptance, and reliance (rather than consideration). They were instruments of relationships between them and the settlers that signified the sharing of land, just as they shared it with other groups and animals. The spirit and intent of the treaties were echoed in the ceremonial conventions that accompanied treaty-making events and in the trust placed in traditional elders as the highest authorities on the land. Moreover, the indigenous worldview is deeply rooted in the cultural values of giving and sharing. Therefore, by transferring their land rights to the Crown, they did not expect to profit from such ‘real-estate’ deals; rather, they were sharing part of what they had. On the other hand, the English settlers had originated from a capitalistic society that valued wealth and personal gain. They commoditized everything, including land. To them, land was not sacred but a resource that should be available for extraction and development for the benefit of humans. While indigenous peoples did not view humans as the most important in the world, the Western anthropocentric worldview was human-focused; humans are separate from and dominate over nature. Westerners saw humans as the most important and highly valued personal gain and success as vehicles for living a comfortable life. Acquiring as much land as possible meant more wealth. As such, their approach to the treaty-making process was to acquire as much land as possible at the minimum possible cost. Additionally, the visitors viewed treaties as legal processes with legal outcomes between nations. Treaties were contracts that required all the essential elements of offer, acceptance, and consideration. Each party to the treaty had specific rights and obligations. Once indigenous peoples relinquished their rights to land in exchange for reserves and one-off or perpetual payments, they could no longer occupy or use the land they had given up (Albers, 2017). Thus, the sharply divergent views between the Crown and Indigenous peoples meant that there was no meeting of the minds. Each party entered into the contract with a different purpose and objective. However, given that the settlers, and later the Crown, had the upper hand in the treaty-making processes, the Western worldview has dominated the treaty-making processes. This begs the question of whether the treaties as they exist today would have looked different, in their current form and spirit, had they been made with a more gifting economic approach. A More Gifting Economic Approach to the Agreements The gift economy is a system in which goods or services are given without an explicit agreement on a suitable immediate or future payment. In a gift economy, goods and services are not bought or sold. Gift economies are characterized by the absence of monetary gain but rely on intangible rewards, such as a sense of contribution, community, prestige, or honor (Miller, 2002). The basic idea of gift-giving is that the gift need not be directly reciprocated, which leads to a system in which people give according to their abilities and receive according to their needs (Kuokkanen, 2006). The gift culture is a constituent part of the way of life of many indigenous people of Canada. In many indigenous groups, people try to outdo others in generosity. Giving away is a source of prestige. It also signifies sharing and holding wealth for the benefit of all, not the hoarding common to “developed” European societies (Miller, 2002). In a commodity-oriented economy, the goal is to appropriate goods. However, in a gift-oriented economy, the goal is to strengthen social relations. Had this framework of the gift economy been applied to treaty-making between the Crown and indigenous peoples, the treaties would look pretty different than they do today on several fronts. Firstly, the purpose of the agreements would have been to expand the social (rather than the economic and political) ties between the two parties. From the indigenous peoples’ perspective, the theoretical object of the treaties would have been to convert the outsiders (English settlers) from strangers and potential enemies to friend and kin. This would have expanded the social ties to include the European settlers as part of the territory. As such, the indigenous peoples would have shared the land with the non-indigenous groups without any feelings of discontentment or animosity on either side. However, the Crown has been motivated by the economic and political gains to be realized from the pacts, and this has played a significant role in shaping the treaties as they are ...