Login | Register

Constructing the Settler Sovereign & the Mechanics of Power Distribution: Hydroelectricity and Biopolitics in James Bay and Northern Québec, 1970s-1990s

Title:

Constructing the Settler Sovereign & the Mechanics of Power Distribution: Hydroelectricity and Biopolitics in James Bay and Northern Québec, 1970s-1990s

M. Matte, Mélanie (2021) Constructing the Settler Sovereign & the Mechanics of Power Distribution: Hydroelectricity and Biopolitics in James Bay and Northern Québec, 1970s-1990s. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

[thumbnail of M.Matte_MA_F2021.pdf]
Preview
Text (application/pdf)
M.Matte_MA_F2021.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access.
1MB

Abstract

This thesis discusses the relationship between hydroelectric development in Northern Québec and the institutionalization of health in Cree and Inuit communities of Eeyou Istchee (James Bay) from the 1970s to the 1990s. It explores the deployment of nutritional science by the Québec Ministry of Health as a response to health issues exacerbated by the flooding of large areas of ancestral hunting and fishing territories and the resulting relocation of Indigenous communities. With particular attention to the roles of distinctly Franco-Québécois notions of sovereignty, gender, race, and anthropocentrism, this research seeks to assess political discourses about energy and health over the course of the second wave of hydroelectric nationalisation in the province. I begin by examining two court cases leading to the adoption of the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement in 1975 – namely the Malouf decision and its appeal – to uncover the ideological underpinnings of the territorial negotiations between the Cree and Inuit and the Québec government. I then turn to the ways in which the Québec Ministry of Health targeted Indigenous mothers in the region through mechanisms of biopolitics in responding to health issues exacerbated by the destruction of Cree and Inuit foodways. In sum, this thesis problematizes the idea of hydroelectricity as a “green” energy in the Québec context by examining the impact of environmental destruction resulting from the building of dams in James Bay on the livelihood of directly affected Indigenous communities. It further highlights the persistence and creativity of the Eeyou Cree and Inuit in resisting encroachment on their lands and waters.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > History
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:M. Matte, Mélanie
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:History
Date:4 August 2021
Thesis Supervisor(s):Gossage, Peter
ID Code:988776
Deposited By: Mélanie M. Matte
Deposited On:29 Nov 2021 17:03
Last Modified:29 Nov 2021 17:03

References:

Primary Sources
Westlaw Database
Chef Max «One-Onti» Gros-Louis c. Société de développement de la Baie James (C.S., 1973-11-15), SOQUIJ AZ-50900653, [1974] R.P. 38.
Société de développement de la Baie James c. Kanatewat* (C.A., 1974-11-21), SOQUIJ AZ-75011045, [1975] C.A. 166.
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
Atkinson, Helen B., and Gordon Magonet, Editors. L’expérience de la Baie James: Guide pour les professionnels de la santé qui travaillent parmi les Cris du Nord québécois. Québec, QC: Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux du Gouvernement du Québec, 1990.
Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay. The Information Bulletin of the Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay. Chisasibi: Communications Department of the Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay, 1983-88.
Province of Québec. The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement : Agreement between the Government of Québec, the Société D'énergie De La Baie James, the Société De Développement De La Baie James, the Commission Hydroélectrique De Québec (Hydro-Québec) and the Grand Council of the Crees (of Québec), the Northern Québec Inuit Association and the Government of Canada. Québec: Editeur officiel du Québec, 1976.
Quebec Native Women. Mémoire Présenté le 20 Août 1980 au Ministère de la Santé et du Bien-Être Canada par l'Association des Femmes Autochtones du Québec. Montréal: Québec Native Women, 1980.
Samuels, Arthur. “A Glimpse of the North.” In L’expérience de la Baie James: Guide pour les professionnels de la santé qui travaillent parmi les Cris du Nord québécois, edited by Helen B. Atkinson and Gordon Magonet, 5-9. Québec, QC: Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux du Gouvernement du Québec, 1990.
Santé Québec. Santé Québec Health Survey among the Cree of James Bay: Features. Montréal: Gouvernement du Québec, Ministrère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux, 1992.
Santé Québec, Daveluy, C., Bertrand L. (Editors). A Dietary Profile of the Cree, Santé Québec Health Survey of the James Bay Cree 1991: Food and Nutrient Intake. Montreal: Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux, Government of Québec, 1998.
Secondary Sources
“A Case of a Missing Indigenous Woman in Val d’Or, Quebec, Led to Another Shocking Story.” CBC News, December 12, 2015. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/investigation-into-val-d-or-now-available-in-english-1.3362534
Barker, Joanne. “Introduction: Critically Sovereign.” In Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, edited by Joanne Barker, 1-44. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
Bédard, Fanny. “Joyce Echaquan: Malgré les appels répétés, Legault évite le terme racisme systémique.” Radio-Canada, June 10, 2020. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/espaces-autochtones/1739082/racisme-systemique-francois-legault-joyce-echaquan-atikamek.
Blancquaert, Loïc. “L’impact du jugement Malouf au Québec (1973-1974).” Assemblée Nationale du Québec (June 2011): 11.
Bolduc, André, and Clarence Hogue, and Daniel Larouche. Hydro-Québec: L’héritage d’un siècle d’électricité. Montréal: Éditions Libre Expression, 1989.
Bordeleau, Stéphane. “Québec dépose sa réforme de la loi 101 pour ‘porter le flambeau avec fierté.’” Radio-Canada, May 13, 2021. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1792778/reforme-loi-101-depot-quebec-jolin-barrette?utm_campaign=later-linkinbio-radpointca&utm_content=later-17145312&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkin.bio
Bruckert, Chris, and Tuulia Law. Women and Gendered Violence in Canada: An Intersectional Approach. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Climate and Capital: On Conjoined Histories.” Critical Inquiry 41, no. 1 (2014): 1-23.
Clayton, Mark. “Canadian Court Ruling Heartens Native Groups.” The Christian Science Monitor, 2 March 1994, retrieved from https://www.csmonitor.com/1994/0302/02041.html.
Cree Nation Government. “Delivering the Promise.” Vimeo. May 3, 2012. Video, 1:24:46. https://vimeo.com/41494497.
Cree Nation Government. “Our Way, Our Future.” Vimeo. March 16, 2016. Video, 1:29:09. https://vimeo.com/159068116.
Cree Nation Government. “Together We Stand Firm.” Vimeo. February 29, 2012. Video, 1:28:00. https://vimeo.com/37667349.
Cree Nation Government. “We Rise Up.” Vimeo. September 26, 2013. Video, 1:22:55. https://vimeo.com/75493243.
Cronon, William. “A Place for Stories: Nature, Histories, and Narrative.” The Journal of American History 78, no. 4 (1992): 1347-76.
Dugré, Mélanie. “Mtre James O’Reilly: The Trailblazer.” Bar of Montreal. September 2, 2015. https://www.barreaudemontreal.qc.ca/en/avocats/mtre-james-oreilly.
Dummitt, Christopher. The Manly Modern: Masculinity in Postwar Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.
Epp, Marlene. “Eating Across Borders: Reading Immigrant Cookbooks.” In Social History 49, no. 96 (2015): 45-65.
Fahrni, Magda. “Early Twentieth-Century Quebec and the Construction of Masculine Technical Expertise.” In Making Men, Making History: Canadian Masculinities across Time and Place. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018.
Fletcher, Christopher. “Measuring Inuit Health from Ungava to Nunavik via Nouveau Québec: Episodes in the History of Researcher–Subject Relations.” American Review of Canadian Studies 47 no. 2 (2017): 206-224.
Fleury, Jean-Louis. Les porteurs de lumière: L’Histoire de la distribution de l’électricité au Québec. Québec: Éditions Multimonde, 2004.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Goeman, Mishuana R. “Ongoing Storms and Struggles: Gendered Violence and Resource Exploitation.” In Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, edited by Joanne Barker, 99-126. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
Gossage, Peter, and John I. Little. Une Histoire du Québec: Entre tradition et modernité. Montreal, QC: Éditions Hurtubiste inc., 2015.
“History and Geography.” Cree Nation of Chisasibi. Accessed July 30, 2021. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/web_sources.html.
Hornig, James F. Social and Environmental Impacts of the James Bay Hydroelectric Project. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999.
Ingram, Darcy. “The New Regulatory Environment.” In Wildlife, Conservation and Conflict in Quebec, 1840-1914. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013.
Jacobs, Margaret. White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
Johnson, Harold. Two Families: Treaties and Government. Saskatoon: Purich Publishing Limited, 2007.
Kelm, Mary-Ellen. Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia, 1900-50. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998. Kindle.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Lévesque, Fanny. “Rapport de la Commission Viens, un an plus tard: ‘Encore à la case départ.’” La Presse, September 28, 2020. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2020-09-28/rapport-de-la-commission-viens-un-an-plus-tard/encore-a-la-case-depart.php.
Luby, Brittany. “From Milk-Medicine to Public (Re)Education Programs: An Examination of Anishinabek Mothers’ Responses to Hydroelectric Flooding in the Treaty #3 District, 1900-1975.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 32, no. 2 (2015): 363-389.
Lux, Maureen K. Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. Kindle.
Massell, David. Quebec Hydropolitics: The Peribonka Concessions of the Second World War. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011.
Million, Dian. “Felt Theory: An Indigenous Feminist Approach to Affect and History.” Wicazo Sa Review 24, no. 2 (2009): 72.
Milloy, John S. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Indian Residential School System, 1879-1986. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2017.
Montreal General Hospital, Editors Claudette Lavallée and Elizabeth Robinson. The Health of the Eastern James Bay Cree: Annotated Bibliography. Montreal: Northern Quebec Module, Montreal General Hospital, 1993.
Moore, Jason W. “The Capitalocene Part II: Accumulation by Appropriation and the Centrality of Unpaid Work/ Energy.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 45, no. 2 (2016): 237-79.
Mosby, Ian. “Making and Breaking Canada’s Food Rules: Science, the State and the Government of Nutrition, 1942-1949.” In Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History, edited by Marlene Epp, Franca Iacovetta, and Valerie J. Korinek. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. 409-432.
Native Land Digital. (2021). Native Land [Interactive Map]. Native-Land.ca. https://native-land.ca.
Nelson, Melissa K. “Getting Dirty: The Eco-Eroticism of Women in Indigenous Oral Literatures.” In Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, edited by Joanne Barker, 229-260. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
Newton, Paula. “More Unmarked Graves Discovered in British Columbia at a Former Indigenous Residential School Know as ‘Canada’s Alcatraz.’” CNN online. July 13, 2021. https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/13/americas/canada-unmarked-indigenous-graves/index.html.
Obomsawin, Alanis. “Mother of Many Children.” National Film Board of Canada. 1977. Video, 57:00. https://www.nfb.ca/film/mere_de_tant_denfants/.
Perron, Dominique. Le nouveau roman de l’énergie nationale: Analyse des discours promotionnels d'Hydro-Québec de 1964 à 1997. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2006.
Prakash, Gyan. “Can the ‘Subaltern’ Ride? A Reply to O'Hanlon and Washbrook.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 1 (1992): 168-84.
Rad. “Ces jeunes qui rêvent d’un 3e référendum.” Radio-Canada. October 30, 2020. Video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy_etSK1Ko8.
Rifkin, Mark. When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books Edition, 1978.
“Sans Filtre #157 – Sophie Brochu, PDG d’Hydro-Québec – Repenser l’énergie & Réparer les erreurs.” Sans Filtre Podcast. Video, 1 :52 :25. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HtUMKyQisM.
Savard, Stéphane. Hydro-Québec et l’état québécois, 1944-2005. Québec: Septentrion, 2013.
Smith, D.B. “James Bay Cree Claim Victory.” Windspeaker Publication, 1994. https://www.ammsa.com/publications/windspeaker/james-bay-cree-claim-victory.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books, 1999.
Snyder, Emily, and Val Napoleon, and John Borrows. “Gender and Violence: Drawing on Indigenous Legal Resources.” UBC Law Review 48, no. 2 (2015): 593-654.
St. John, Michelle. “Colonization Road: The Path of Reconciliation is Long and Winding.” CBC docs. November 24, 2017. Video, 44:13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u03qLJ50bf4&t=60s.
Stoler, Ann Laura. “Cultivating Bourgeois Bodies and Racial Selves.” In Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things, 95-136. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
Stote, Karen. An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and the Sterilization of Indigenous Women. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2015.
Stote, Karen. “Birthright Denied: The Sterilization of Indigenous Women.” Herizon (2017): 16-19.
Tunney, Catharine, and John Paul Tasker. “Inuk Leader Mary Simon Named Canada’s 1st Indigenous Governor General.” CBC News. July 6, 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-gg-mary-simon-1.6091376.
Viens, Jacques. “Public Inquiry Commission on Relations between Indigenous Peoples and Certain Public Services in Québec: Listening, reconciliation and progress - Final Report.” Public inquiry report, Québec, 2019.
Walters, Krista. “‘A National Priority’: Nutrition Canada’s Survey and the Disciplining of Aboriginal Bodies, 1964-1975.” In Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History, edited by Marlene Epp, Franca Iacovetta, and Valerie J. Korinek, 433-451. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
Warner, Stanley. “The Cree People of James Bay: Assessing the Social Impact of Hydroelectric Dams and Reservoirs.” In Social and Environmental Impacts of the James Bay Hydroelectric Project, edited by James F. Hornig, 93-120. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999.
Wolfe, Patrick. Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event. London: Cassel, 1999.
All items in Spectrum are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. The use of items is governed by Spectrum's terms of access.

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads per month over past year

Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
- Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
Back to top Back to top