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Arctic Yearbook 2014
understand that indigenous land claims – and specifically those which lead to self-governance,
accompanied by more explicit control of rights to land ownership or use – are central to the new
landscape of mega-project development within the Canadian North. While the long term
sustainability of a wage economy linked to resource extraction for local communities is often
uncertain (i.e. boom and bust cycles), the question of how revenues are shared, how investment
is designated, and how control over resource extraction is regulated rests upon the success of
indigenous self-governance and the consultative process it has encouraged. It is the management
of the latter which, to a larger degree, influences the success of the former. As such, a new and
distinctive concern with co-management of resources has complemented the rise of an
indigenous studies component in Canadian Studies which is distinctively focused upon
development and the North (see Campbell 1996; White 2008; Natcher and Davis 2003; Natcher
2013), of which there are approximately 34 in all of Nunavut, the NWT and the Yukon (Natcher
2013). But, as Campbell, Fenge & Hanson (2011) remind us, there seems to be a false consensus
that if the problem of frontier/homeland has been assessed politically, the problem of economic
development impacts and benefits is under control. Nunavut’s creation did not end the problem
of self-governance in the North, nor the sharing of development benefits. Instead, there is a new
complexity and intertwining of issues which is as yet, poorly addressed. This relates not just to
the idea that development is inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for indigenous communities and
environments, depending upon whether land claims are in place, but rather how developmental
frameworks continue to be manipulated in ways which lessen their potential ability to resolve the
crisis of underdevelopment within First Nation communities in the Canadian North.
To better appreciate this claim, which is that the Canadian Studies literature has remained rather
simplistic in its analysis of Northern development issues and focused upon seminal research in
need of reassessment in contemporary terms, we need to think about three important issues. The
first is whether there is any evidence to support the idea that a lens on economic development
has not developed in the Canadian Studies literature. This is the case – only about two per cent of
articles in the three flagship journals which reflect the state of Canadian studies both at home
and abroad discuss the Canadian North, and of these, only two articles explicitly examine
economic development issues. These are the Journal of Canadian Studies, The American Review
of Canadian Studies, and the Intentional Journal of Canadian Studies. Approximately 600 articles
have appeared over the past ten years which reference the Arctic, and while next to none deal
specifically with economic development, there is limited concern, more generally, for
environment and governance issues. In general, while there are several other important journals
which are directed specifically to the study of the Canadian and International North which do
contain more explicit discussion of economic development issues, as well as single discipline
publications which discuss development issues, in general Canadian Studies literature as a
interdisciplinary field have avoided the topic.
The second issue to think about is how development is now being promoted in context of
existing arrangements for self-determination within the North. Much of the literature on
development is actually embedded in articles which define identity, political developments. This
is true even within the Canadian studies journals explored, where land claims and sovereignty
arrangements were the venue for explaining economic development issues. But even so, and this
speaks to the last point, even where political discussions address development issues, there is
little discussion of the economic context in type of decisions which are being made, specifically
Economic Development, Indigenous Governance, & Arctic Sovereignty