An historical ethnography of industry and race on British Columbia's north coast

(SSHRCC research grant 410-2000-0557, 2000-2003)

Project description

Along the margins of industrial capitalist expansion are resource hinterlands or economic backwaters that are drawn upon in moments of expansion, or deserted in times of economic contraction (Palmer 1994).  The northern coast of British Columbia, Canada, is one such area.  Variously incorporated into the world capitalist system as a supply region of furs, fish, timber and minerals, it is now suffering the withdrawal of capital.  At the end of the 19th century the region was a site of social transformation in which  the indigenous chiefly hunting and gathering societies were undermined and then incorporated into an industrial capitalist mode of production (Dombrowski 1995; Knight 1996; McDonald 1994; Wolf 1999:69-131). 

At the end of the 20th century, the region is again undergoing another major transformation of its economic base. The lessons of the past, however, seem unable to guide actions for the future.  New lines of antagonisms and sites of co-operation are emerging in which both aboriginal and non-aboriginal resource workers must necessarily struggle against their experiences of the past (Sider 1997).

The proposed research seeks to go beyond the ‘either/or’ approaches embodied in much of the scholarly literature and the public imagination concerning aboriginal and non-aboriginal resource workers and, furthermore, to locate the ethnographic experience within the wider social processes and transformations of the global economy.  Through an ethnographic examination of both aboriginal and non-aboriginal life and family histories an integrated story of the racialization of work and life within the context of global capitalism will be presented.   This work does not try to present a ‘unified story.’  Rather, my aim is to bring together the different local voices in a common text that will allow the reader to empathize with, without having to take sides with, the divergent experiences of being either an aboriginal or non-aboriginal resource worker in the changing field of global capitalism.

Research Objectives

To describe and analyze: 1) the historical processes of industrial development in north coastal BC; 2) how the development of industry has shaped and/or been shaped by the social construction of racial and ethnic identities.  Through the ethnographic investigation of the connection between industrial development and racial identifies in north coastal BC this research will clarify: 1) how the development of industrial capitalism  generated a racially segmented labour force through combining with pre-existing local forms of social inequality;  2) the interconnection between local industrial development, state policies, and racialized identities.