Buried Epistemologies_ the Politics of Nature in (Post) Colonial British Columbia Bruce Willems-Braun - Unknown

8/11/2019 Buried Epistemologies_ the Politics of Nature in (Post) Colonial British Columbia Bruce Willems-Braun - Unknown

1/30

Buried Epistemologies: The Politics of Nature in (Post) Colonial British ColumbiaAuthor(s): Bruce Willems-BraunSource: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 87, No. 1 (Mar., 1997), pp. 3-31Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.on behalf of the Association of American GeographersStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2564120.

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2/30

Buried

Epistemologies: The

Politics of

Nature

n

(Post)colonial

British

Columbia

Bruce

Willems-Braun

Department f Geography, niversityf British

olumbia

Postcolonial

heoryas ssertedheneed o carefullyonsiderow

resent-day

ocial nd cultural

practicesremarkedy istoriesf

olonialism.his aper xploresepresentationsf he rainforest'

and nature'in

ritisholumbia,anada, nd racesseriesf buried

pistemologies'through

hich

neocolonialelationsre ssertedn the

egion.rawing pon

ecent

epresentationsf

he

orest

proffered

y

he

orestndustrynd the nvironmentalovement,nd the istorical

ritingsf

prominent

ineteenth-centuryeologistnd mateurthnologist,heuthor

hows

ow nature'

'wil-

derness')asbeen onstructeds a realm

eparateromculture.He locatesn this he ossibilityor

contemporaryracticeshat bstractnd

displace

he

orest'from

ts ulturalurroundsndrelocate

it

within

he

bstract

pacesf

he

market,he ation,nd,

n

recentcological

hetorics,

he

iosphereandthe lobal ommunity.y odoing,he uthorontestsssumptionshat olonialismsonlyn

'ugly

hapter'f

Canadian

istory

nd

rgues

nsteadhat

olonialistractices

nd

rhetorics

emain

presentutunthoughtn many f he

ategories,dentities,nd representationalracticeshat re

deployed

oday

othn

public

ebatend

cientificanagementf natural

andscapes'and

natural

resources.'

hus,

mid he

urrentopularityfnotionsike ustainable

evelopment,iodiversity

management,cosystemestoration,

nd o on-which

isk

bstracting

atural

ystems'part rom

theirulturalurrounds-its essentialo

recognizehe olonial istoriesnd neocolonialhetorics

that ontinueo

nfusecommonsense'categoriesnd dentitiesikenature'andresources.

KeyWords:

cultural

olitics,

nvironmentalism,ature,

ostcolonialism

Focusing ttention

n the

presence f the olonial

imagination

n

today's ost-colonialocietys not

a gesture

f

ahistoricism-on he

contrary.

rob-

lematizing istorical

istance, nd analyzing he

way

streams f the

past

still

nfuse

he

present,

makehistorical

nquirymeaningfulBal

1991:34).

A

whatpoint an we be said to have en-

tered

he

postcolonial'? his

question

has

been raised

recently y

a

number

of writ-

ers who

worrythat with

the

recent

acceptance

of 'postcolonial' criticism nd theory nto the

academy,

the

term is now

applied

so

broadly

(and uncritically) s to

render

t

empty Mishra

and Hodge 1991; McClintock 1992). At its

best, postcolonial

theory

has

sought

to

bring

critical attention to bear on the contestedter-

rains, global flows, and

hybrid

dentities of a

world undeniablymarkedby histories nd lega-

cies of

colonization and decolonization, nclud-

ing even the spaces

and identitiesof the met-

ropolitan core,' its formsof consciousness and

its theories (Spivak 1988a; Appadurai 1990;

Bhabha1994). At tsworst, ostcolonial heory

assumes temporalityhat uggestshat oloni-

alism s somethinghat an be relegatedo

the

past, r, qually roblematic,eneralizesirst,

colonial

discourse,

nd second, a subsequent

postcolonial

ondition,

n

ways hat

re

natten-

tive o theunevennessnd particularityf spe-

cific olonialpractices, rocesses f decoloniza-

tion and

continuing

anticolonial

struggles

located at differentites; projecting lobally

what are but local practices forcritiques,ee

Mishra and Hodge 1991; McClintock 1992;

Shohat 1992; Dirlik 1994; Thomas 1994; De

Alva

1995). Most useful, think,

re those

n-

stanceswhere ommentatorsave asserted he

need to

think

arefullybout

the

continuity

f

colonial or neocolonial

relations, racing

he

waythat treams

f the

past

till nfuse he

pre-

sent

Bal 1991; Shohat1992),

and also

turning

attention o differences etween nd within

'postcolonial'

ocieties

whereby

he

egacies

f

colonialism re experienced nevenly etween

Annals

f heAssociationfAmerican eographers,7(1), 1997,

pp. 3-31

?

1997 byAssociation fAmericanGeographers

Published y Blackwell ublishers,

50 Main Street,Malden,MA 02148, and 108 Cowley

Road, Oxford, X4 1JF, K.

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/30

4

Willems-Braun

social objects Frankenberg

nd Mani 1993).

'Postcoloniality,'

fterll, ppears uitedifferent

when applied

o differentocial groupswithin

now-independenthite ettlerolonies

ike he

U.S., to

the

mestizaje

f Latin America r to

indigenous eoples n Canada or Australia.n

thispaper, he ambivalence f

the

term

post-

colonial

s

explored

long with ts theoretical

and political elevance hrough discussion

f

the politics f nature'

n recent nvironmental

conflicts

n British

olumbia, anada hereafter

BC).

In

light

frecent riticism,postcoloniality's

nowoften aken o refer otonly o a condition

'after olonialism' ut also to theways hat o-

lonialpasts

ontinue o organize xperience

n

thepresent.t signals,notherwords, othcon-

tinuity

nd discontinuity

n

historiesf colonial

power

nd

decolonization.

s StuartHall has

recently oted,

he

temporalitiesand,

would

add, spatialities)

f

colonialism/postcolonialism

are neither

ingular

or

universal.

What

post-colonial'

ertainly

snot s

one

f

hose

periodisationsased

on

epochal stages,'

hen

everything

sreversedtthe amemoment,llthe

old relationsisappearorevernd entirely

ew

ones cometo

replace

hem.

learly,

he

disen-

gagementrom he olonisingrocessasbeen

long,

drawn-out

nd differentiatedffairHall

1996:247).

ForHall, postcolonial

ocieties re haracterized

by

he

persistence

f

he

aftereffects'f olonial-

ism. But,

he

cautions,

ts

politics

annot be

declared

o be the ame s

they

were

during

he

time f direct olonial

ccupation

nd rule,

r

assumed o take he ameform cross ifferent

sites. wish o draw ut three

mplications

hat

follow

rom

Hall's

remarks,

nd

which

n

turn

frame hediscussionshat ollow. irst,n light

of

the

complex

histories f

colonialism/post-

colonialism,

t

seems

necessary

hatwe

renovate

our

conceptions

f historical ime.

In

other

words,

o

comprehend

ow colonialist

ractices

persist

n the

present

equires

shift rom on-

ceptions

hich

nderstand

he

ime f olonial-

ism/postcolonialism

o be

singular

nd unified

and where

postcolonialism ecessarily

ollows

after

nd

supersedes

olonialisms a

subsequent

stage

n

history,

o

an

increased

ttention

o

the

multiple emporalitiesfcolonialism/postcolo-

nialism,

he

many condensations

nd

ellipses

that risewhen

hese ifferent

emporalities

re

convened

n

relation

o

eachother,nd

the

vari-

ous

temporal hythms

nd

spatialities

hat

gov-

ern the emergence f colonialist r

counter-

colonialrepresentationsnd practices.econd,

if there s indeed no singular ime and

space

of colonialism/postcolonialism-butnly

the

transient oment f many ntersecting

empo-

ralitiesnd spatialitiesrawn ntorelation-it s

also impossible o speak of a singular

olonial

discourse.

f

we

take

olonialdiscourse

o refer

to the production nd codification f

knowl-

edge thatunderwritesnd legitimateshe de-

ployment f Western ower ver olonial

ub-

jects Williams nd Chrisman 994),

t

must e

recognized hat this also occurs

diffierentially

through ime nd between laces nd thus an

be

approached

s neither fixed

or

universal

setof tatements

see

Thomas

1994).

Quite the

opposite-it can be argued hat olonial ower,

farfrom

monolithic,

eizes

upon,

enlists, nd

combines range fdiscourses,nowledges,

nd

signifying ractices scientific, eligious,

es-

thetic)

which re

not formally

r ideologically

aligned

with

olonial dministration,

ut from

which he

demarcationnd regulation

fdiffer-

ence can be appropriatednd utilized y colo-

nialpower.

n

short, s Nicholas

homas rgues,

there an be

no global heory

f olonial

ulture,

only

ocalized heories

nd historicallypecific

accounts hat rovidensightntovaried rticu-

lationsof colonialist

nd

countercolonialep-

resentationsnd practices.1 inally,

t follows

that

nypolitics

fdecolonization

n the

present

must

e attentive

o

these

multiple

emporalities

and

spatialities,

nd thus o

the

multiple

orms

that

olonialist ractices

ake

nd

to thediffer-

ential nd nonidenticalites

of resistancehat

emerge

n this

colonial/postcolonial

errain.

This is as trueforNorthAmerican

ocieties s

any other.As

Ella Shohat

and

RobertStam

(1994) havedemonstratedorNorthAmerica,

colonialist ultural ractices,

nd Eurocentrism

more

generally,

emain

ndemic,resent

s "re-

sidual

races f

centuries

faxiomatic

uropean

domination" nd

thereforeontinue o

inform

"the

general ulture,

he

verydayanguage,

nd

the

media." Such

"vestigial hinking,"

o

use

their hrase, permeatesnd structures

ontem-

porary ractices

nd

representations

ven after

the

end

of colonialism.

.

.

[It] embeds,

akes

for

granted,

nd 'normalizes'

he hierarchical

powerrelations enerated y colonialismnd

imperialism"p. 2).

These traces

re

not always

immediatelyisible,

ordo

they omprise

ho-

mogeneous,

nternallyonsistent,neo)colonial

discourse.

nstead, hey

ake heform f buried



4/30

Buried

Epistemologies

5

epistemologies"

r "bad

epistemic

abits"

hat

have

been

naturalized s

"common

ense" n

everydayelationsnd in

social,

conomic, nd

political

nstitutions.2

For

geographers,

he

claim

that a

colonial

imaginationan be found n thepresent,nd,

further,

hat t

operates

uietly

nd

effectively

n

unquestioned

dentities

nd

positiveknowl-

edges,

has presented

challenge

o

the

disci-

pline's

elf-understanding.

ike

anthropologists

earlier,

eographers

ave

ome o

recognizeheir

discipline's

omplicity ith

olonialism

nd m-

perialism

Driver

1992;

Livingstone

1992;

Godlewska nd Smith

994),

although

ew

ave

giventhis

a

contemporary

ocus.

ndeed, the

critical

roject s a

whole

has

followed

ertain

paths,while eavingothersunexplored.Most

commentators

ave

mappedthe

inks

between

individual

geographers,

eographical

nstitu-

tions,

nd past colonial

administration:

eog-

raphy s

knowledgewielded

n

the

interest f

empire.

thers,

rawing n a

very ifferent

on-

cept

of

power, ave

explored

n

moredetail

he

colonizing

ower

nherent

n

particular

ays

f

rendering

andscapes

visible':

n

other

words,

the

ntersection

f

modalities f

power, nowl-

edge,

nd

spatiality

n

specific

olonial

ractices

(Driver1992; Gregory 994; Ryan1994). In

almost ll

cases,

however,

olonialisms

safely

relegated o the

past,

lthough

he

motivation

behind

this

work

often ies in

the

present

(Driver

1988).

Curiously,

while

geographers

have

paid

considerable

ttention

o

the

sig-

nificance

f

the

production nd

representation

of

space

or

olonial

practices,

ess

ttention

as

been

paid

to

the

productionnd

representation

of

nature.

Geographers

ave had

little

o

say

about

the role

that the

production

f

nature

(rhetoricallynd materially)as played n thecolonization f

particularocial

environments,

how

natural cientists

including

eographers)

made

visible

nd available

o colonial

dminis-

tration

discrete ealm

alled nature' hat

ould

be

seen

as

separate

rom

olonized

eoples,

r,

perhapsmore

mportant, ow what

counts s

'nature'

oday

s often

onstituted

ithin,

nd

informed

y,

the

legacies

of

colonialism.

No

doubt

this s

explained

n

part

by

the

growing

distance between

critical human

geography

(concerned

rimarily

ith

patiality)

nd

envi-

ronmental eographyconcernedmostlywith

the

management

f

physical

nvironments),

such

thatboth

approaches

ll too

often

llow

'nature' o

stand s

an

unproblematized,histo-

rical

object.' So,

although

geographers ave

written

xtensivelyn the

representation

fna-

ture,

nd,equally

s important,

ave inked

his

with

nature's

ransformation,

his aper

ocuses

on

questions f

representation

or ifferent

ea-

sons.3Rather han xplorehangingdeas bout

nature, am more

nterestedn

the

emergencef

'nature' s

a

discrete nd

separate

bject f aes-

thetic

reflection,cientific

nquiry, nd

eco-

nomic nd

political

alculationt

particularites

and

specific istorical

oments. y

ttendingo

nature's

onstructionn

representational

rac-

tices,

he

cultural olitics

hat

ccompany

ach

and

every

taging f

nature' an be

made ex-

plicit. t

maybe

necessary

hen-amid declara-

tions

of

the

postcolonial-to

decolonize om-

monsense otions f nature'; hat s, to locate

the

operation f relations

fcolonial

power n

what

has

hitherto een

seen as an

inviolable

identity.

The

Fate'of the

Temperate

Rainforest:

Public'

Conflicts

and

Constitutive

ilences

The most ntense,mediatized, nd interna-

tionalized onflictsn

British

olumbia have

surrounded

he

fate' f the

region's

emperate

rainforest.

hese

conflicts ave

conventionally

been

staged

s

struggles

etween

he

forestn-

dustry

nd

environmentalists,een

s an

agonis-

tic

contest etween wo

poles

n the

ort f

bi-

nary ogic f

regulated

pposition' hat audril-

lard

1984) locates s both

heform

nd

content

of

politics

n whathe

calls

highly

mediatized"

societies

and withoutwhich

the

singular

ol-

lapsesunder tsownweight). hisbinarystag-

ing'

has

focused

much-needed

ttention n

the

ecological

onsequences

f

forest

modification,

on

the

responsibilities

f

forest

sers, nd,

to

a

lesser

xtent,

n the

political

conomy

f the

forest

ndustry.

ut

t

has

also worked and-in-

hand

with, nd indeed

relied

eavily pon,

the

marginalization

f

other

voices-labor,

local

communities,nd,

as

I

argue

n this

paper,

n-

digenous

eoples First

Nations)4

who do

not

fit ither

f

the

positions'

scribed. ather

han

referee

hese

onflicts, seek to

interrupthis

binary taging hrough series f other ues-

tions

bout what s left

unthought

n

struggles

over nature' n a

region

ike

BC.

In

what

ways

and to

what xtent

o these

onflicts

ccur

pon



5/30

6

Willems-Braun

and rework

material-semioticerrain lready

inscribed ithin nd through he

historiesnd

tropes f

past olonial ractices?o

what xtent

are thesehistories

imultaneously

resent ut

buriedwithin he

onventional

ategories-'na-

ture,' resource,' he nation'-throughwhich

these

trugglesremediateduch hat hese ate-

gories

ppear today

n

our public cultures s

unmarked,

elf-evident

identities,'eaving

heir

constitutive omentsn colonial

histories,nd

their

olitical ignificance

n

the

present, nex-

amined? ow do these

dentities,

n

turn,work

to

authorize ertain oices

industry,nviron-

mentalists) hile imultaneously

arginalizing

others? n

short,

o what

extent re

political

strugglesver ature

n

sites ike

British olum-

bia always lreadyomplicitn a politics fna-

ture hatrisks

eenacting

olonial

relations

n

the

present?

The

significance

f

these

uestions as been

made

evidentmostrecently

n

the

highly ub-

licized onflicts ver

the fate' f the forestn

Clayoquot Sound, a region hat covers ome

350,000 ha on the

west oastof Vancouvers-

land

(Figure ) and which ontains

arge

reas

of

"old-growth"

orests.5hat the

region

has

become he

focus f ntensenternationaltten-

tion nthe1990s sdue, npart, o a particular

configuration

f

local-global

conomic,

cul-

tural,

nd

ecological

ynamics

hathave

com-

bined to

produce Clayoquot Sound as an

'event.'

hese can be

summarized

riefly.irst,

rates f timber arvestn

BC have

historically

exceeded he nnual

eproduction

f

wood fibre

in

the

province's

economicallyiable"forests.

This, ogether

ith

ncreased

ompetitionrom

new wood

fibre-producingegions Southeast-

ern

United

States,New

Zealand, Indonesia,

Brazil,ndChile, mong thers) asresultedn

a

situation here

or ransnationalorest om-

panies

o

maintainmarkethare nd

profitabil-

ity,

nd

for

he

provincialovernment

o meet

its ocial

goalof

sustaining

ocal

forest-depend-

ent

ommunities,

hefurther

xploitation

f al-

ready epleted

ld-growth

orestss

necessary.

Second, ust

when he ast emnantsf

o-called

'unmodified'

orests ere scheduled o be re-

made

in

the

image

of the

commodity,

he

science f

ecology rovided

owerful

ew

meta-

phors nd newwaysof envisioning'he for-

ests-and theearth-as

ecological ystems,

nd

thereby rought

within

ublic

discourse on-

cerns ver

biodiversity,

abitat

ragmentation,

and

ecological

integrity.'

et other

ocal-global

..g: .

..

...........

Figure

1.

LocationfVancouver

sland,

ritish

o-

lumbia,

howinglayoquot

ound nd reaslaimed

as traditionalerritories

y

he

Nuu-chah-nulth.

dynamics

have

emerged

concurrently:

he

growth

f Vancouver

s an

administrative,

i-

nancial,

nd service

enter

n

globalizing

cono-

mies,

ncreasinglyetaching

he

city

from

he

remainder f

a

resource-dependent

rovince

(Davis

and Hutton

1989);

inked

o

these

rans-

formations,heformationf newmiddle lass

in Vancouver

nd elsewhere orwhom

nature'

could

be

given

ew

meanings;

nd the

develop-

mentof

internationalircuits f

capital,

om-

modities,

nd

mages

hathave

ncreasingly

is-

placed

sites

ike

Clayoquot

Sound into

global

networks,

nd thus ransformedocal

struggles

over

BC forests

nto a

global

issue.

Together

these

onditions ave worked o

produce

new

politicalpaces

nd

constituencies.

For

these

easons,

mong

others,

layoquot

Sound has become a flashpointorstruggles

over

he

fate f the

temperate

ainforests,

nd,

in

the

early

90s,

as transnational

orestom-

panies

tood

poised

o increase

he

caleof

for-

estry

perations

n

the

region,

nvironmental-

ists-most from utside he

region-declared

'last tand' n

defense f

the

region's

ld-growth

forests.

t is

here, lso,

n themidst f

political

struggles

ver

nature'

nd the

fate'

f

thetem-

perate

ainforest,

hat

specific

ilence an

be

located nd wherewe

can

begin

to

map ways

thatpresent-dayonstructionsf natureare

marked

y

colonial

ast.

These ssues ould

be

clearly

een

n

a

series

f

events n

1993.

The

increasing

ntensity

f the conflict

ver

the

Sound,

and

the

nternationalization

f

protest

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6/30

BuriedEpistemologies 7

in the arly 990spromptedheprovincial ov-

ernmento prepare nd release land-use lan

(British olumbia1993a) that ought o medi-

ate between he widelydivergent emands

of

industry nd environmentalists.6he plan,

which oned theregion or ifferentses-for-

estry,ecreation,reservation,nd so on-failed

to end conflict

ver

he

region, recipitating

n-

stead

ne ofthe

argest ollectivections fcivil

disobedience

n Canada's

history:

he arrest f

more than 900 environmentalrotestors,nd

an equally motional esponse yforestryork-

erswho saw

their

ivelihoodshreatened. uch

has beenwrittenbout his,mostly rom ithin

the environmental ovement

nd usually

o-

cused

on

relations etween he

state, orporate

capital, aw,citizenship,nd the rights' f the

nonhumanBreen-Needham

t

al. 1994; Hatch

1994; MacIsaac and Champagne 1994). Less

attention as been

paid

to a

subsequent eport

by theprovincial mbudsman British olum-

bia

1993b)

which sserted hat

hroughout

he

eventseading o

the

Clayoquot ounddecision,

the

Nuu-chah-nulth-a onfederation

f First

Nations hat ive

n

the

west oast

f

Vancouver

lsland7-were not adequately onsulted, ven

though

he

and

at

ssue ay ntirely

ithin heir

traditionalerritoriesnd had never eenceded

to colonial

uthorities

r to thefederal

tate.8

The

marginalizationf the Nuu-chah-nulth

in

decision-makingrocesses

round

Clayoquot

Sound raises mportantuestions hat

his

ssay

seeks o

address.

How is it

possible

hat mid

the

many

oices

speaking

or'

nature

n

Clayo-

quot Sound,

the voices of

indigenous eoples

werenot

adequately

eard?What contributed

to

this

silencing'?

he

argument

make s that

the itineraries

f

silencing'

hat ontributed

o

Nuu-chah-nulthoncerns oingunheeded re

not

found rimarily

n

administrativerocess

r

state

olicy although hey

re

certainly

vident

at

this

evel).9 ather,

n

order

o

ocate

he on-

ditions

f

possibility

or his

bsence,

turn

my

attention

o a series f

current

nd

historical

representationalractices hrough

which na-

ture' s made to

appear

as an

empty pace

of

economic nd

political

alculation nd

particu-

lar

actors

uthorized

o

speak

for

t.10

argue

that t

s

precisely

uch

representationalractices

thathaveunderwrittennd

legitimated

he

b-

straction nd displacement f commodities

('natural'resources,

isual

scenery,'

ancient'

trees, tc.)

from ne setof

cultural elations

nd

their relocationwithin

others:

the abstract

spaces

f he market,'he nation' nd,

nrecent

ecological rhetorics,

he 'biosphere' nd 'the

global community.'

One effect as been that

all apparent from

distance)public' nd un-

constrained'

iscussion

ver hefate f heforest

has beenconvenedn preciselyhebinaryogic

(jobs vs. environment)

hat authorizesertain

voiceswhilemarginalizingthers.

ndeed,this

displacement as enabled

the constructionf

policy bout

self-evidenthing alled nature,'

and ts oning

etween arious sers,

o proceed

as though

twere

imply

he ransparentxpres-

sion of a 'national'

nterestr

a

mediation e-

tween ariouspublic'

nterests.

As

I

note ater,

hese ynamics avenotgone

uncontested-a tory

ncreasinglyold by First

Nations,historians,nthropologists,nd film-

makers. irstNations

n

BC continue

o articu-

late

therways f mag(in)ingocial

natureshat

aretied o

their wn

cultural

raditionsnd

his-

torical nd spatialpractices.

My purposehere,

however,

s not to establish hese s

somehow

more

authentic.'12

ather, focus

on those

practices

hatwork o

imit

ossibilities

or heir

expression,

nd thereby eek to problematize

and undermine ssumptions

f historical is-

tance

between

colonial

ast

nd a postcolonial

presentn BC's temperateainforests.egin-

ning

therefore

with recent forest ndustry

promotional

iterature

nd

ending

with

ontem-

porary

onstructionsf nature'

n environmen-

talist hetorics,

will how t both ites

n what

critical

nd

constitutivebsences

he

authority

to

'speak

for' naturehas been

built. Between

these ections interject

he

texts f the

promi-

nent ate

nineteenth-centuryeologist

George

Dawson

in

order

o

map genealogies'

r

pre-

texts' oth

f

what ounts

s nature

n

BC

today,

and of present onfigurationsf authorityn

BC's forests.

ertainly,

awson's texts

o not

lead directlyo the present

war n thewoods'

between nvironmentalists,ndustry,

nd First

Nations,

s

one link in a chain

of historical

events, ut they

an be

read o

show heemer-

gence

f the

natural'

s an

entity

eparate

rom

the cultural' nd

the

imultaneous arginaliza-

tionofnative

resence

n

British olumbia.

Be-

hind

present-day

dentities-as

oucault

1977)

and

others ave noted-lie numberless

egin-

nings

nd

myriad

vents, nd

Dawson's

texts

canbe made to subvert heeasyplayofrecog-

nition n the

present.

n

short,

his

aper

an

be

read s

a

cautionary

ale; gainst

what s now a

flood tide

of

managerialism

n BC and else-



7/30

8 Willems-Braun

where, rganized round uch notions s 'sus-

tainability,'ecological

estoration,'bioregional-

ism,'

nd

landscapecology,' sound cautious

warning

hat asks

about

the historical

ondi-

tions hat nablethe

management

r

preserva-

tionof nature' o proceed n thewaysthat t

does, thatpermitauthority'

o be

constructed

and

legitimated

n

particularways,

and that

naturalize 'post'colonial ultural nd political

terrain.

Staging Pure' Spaces

of

Economic and Political

Calculation

'Custodians of the Forest':The Rhetorics

and

Rights f Access

of

Transnational

Capital

BritishColumbia's environmentalonflicts

are

today layed

ut

n

a

highly

mediatizeder-

rain

n

which actorsvie for

public opinion.'

Appropriately,hen, begin

my nquiry

ith n

artifact rawnfrom he midst f

thesemedia

wars.

Beyond

he

Cut-my

firstxhibit

n

this

tory

ofnature nd tsrepresentatives-ispublic e-

lations

ocument

n

which

the

forestndustry

conglomerate

acMillanBloedel

MB)

seeks

o

legitimate

ts

uthority

s

the

forest'scustodian'

in the face f

strong

riticism

f

ndustrial

or-

estry

s

practiced

nder advanced

capitalism

(MacMillan

Bloedel

n.d.).

The

document,

ne

of

several hatthe

company

has

produced,

s

attractivelyackaged

nd

organized

n

an easy-

to-read ormat hatmixes

glossy hotographs,

graphics,

nd written ext

(includingboxed

quotesfromcientificexperts').What ntrigues

me,however,

s

not

this ormat-which

ppears

ubiquitous oday-but

the

wo invitations'hat

this ocument fferseaders

nd through hich

MB's

authority

s

built.

he first

s an invitation

to

evaluate

MB's

forest

management ractices.

The

second, mplicit

n the

first,

s

an invitation

to

forget

he

colonial

histories hich

have

made

MacMillan

Bloedel's

osition

s custodian'

os-

sible.

t is the

econd hat nables he

first

o

be

taken

p

as common ense'

by

the

reader.

The booklet penswith statementy Ray

Smith,

hen

president

nd

CEO of MacMillan

Bloedel:

AtMacMillan

loedel e re

roud

f

ur

history

of

forest

anagement

n

BC-we believehatwe

are among hebest n theworldwhen t comes o

forestryracticesnd integratedesourcemanage-

ment.We asked British olumbians bout their

viewson managing nd usingthe forestsn this

province, nd we are now convinced hat MB

shares he ameconstructivealues, oncerns,nd

expectationsor se oftheforest esources do the

majority f people ivingnthe province.... We

are committed o manageour forestlandsn the

best nterests

f

thepublic.

Smith's statement ets

the

tone

for the remain-

der of the

document, where,

n

a selfless

ct of

'corporate responsibility,'

MB

turns

the

spot-

light of public scrutinyon its own practices.

This rhetoric of accountability pivots on the

mobilization of a potent political fiction-the

'public'-which at once posits a singularbody,

situates the reader within it, and assumes a

unified

nd collective nterest n

the

forest,

lat-

tening

out

any difference

ithin BC

society.

n

turn,

his

permits

n initialbut crucial

displace-

ment: MB's

rights

f

access

to the

resource

re

to

be legitimated hrough an evaluation

of

its

management

f the

resource, hifting

ttention

away

from he more

politically hargedquestion

of

tenure.

his

emphasis

on

management

s in

large part a response to criticswho claim that

the forestndustryn BC is ecologicallydestruc-

tive and unsustainable

(Hammond 1991;

Drushka

et al.

1993), but

it also

carefully

e-

lineateswhat is at stake

n

BC's forest isputes.

Organized thus,

Beyond

he

Cut

sets out

to

persuade

the

reader about

MB's

expertise

s a

forestmanagerand itsresponsiveness

o

'public

concerns.'

The

firsts achieved

through

rheto-

ric

of

'expert,'

'scientific'

management.

The

booklet is

filled

with

photographs

of

experts

t

work. "MB road

engineers,'

readers re told

in

a caption beside a photograph of road build-

ers,

"know that

poor

road construction

prac-

tices

can cause

erosion and

mud build-up

in

streams."

Photographs depict

environmental

scientists

ngaged

in

research "in the field"

or

the

"lab,"

or

working

with

"computer

simula-

tions"-all

privileged

sites of

'authority'

in

Western cultures

of

science

(Haraway 1989).

Other

photographs depict "high-tech green-

houses"

(Figure 2)

which

grow "genetically

u-

perioroffspring,"assisting'

ather han

destroy-

ing' nature.

LUPAT-a Land Use

Planning

Ad-

visoryTeam-is introducedas a crack team of

"environmental

specialists"

with

expertise

in

"soils,wildlife, ish,

water

resources,

nd

growth

and

yield projections."

Other

experts,

we are

assured,

re consulted about "recreation nd aes-



8/30

Buried

Epistemologies

9

..~i

S.

.

.. . ...

A'

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A

lok

7/...

?

I

4

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~-

t

Figure2. Forestryssues n British olumbia reoften ramedyforestryompaniesn technical atherhan

socialor ethical

erms,

hereby

hifting

ttention

way

fromontentious

ssues ike and tenure.

mages ike

his

one showing igh-tech

reenhouses

re designed

o convince

iewers

hat

heforestsre beingmanaged

n

the

most

fficient

anner nd

in

the

nterests

f

an undifferentiated

public.'

Courtesy,

acMillan

Bloedel

Ltd.

thetics." inally,

he

corporation

otes that

t

consults

ith he tate

t everyevel:BC

Forest

Service,

Ministry f Environment

nd

Parks,

Heritage ranch,

nd thefederal epartment

f

Fisheries

nd

Ocean. What

makesthis repre-

sentational trategyffectives what Jurgen

Habermas

1987) has

describeds the

splitting

off' f expert

ultures

rom he ifeworld,

uch

that ommunicative

ctionbecomes

runcated

or colonized y systems-imperatives.

uestions

of

politics

nd legitimation

re thereforeis-

placed

from

he socialrealm

'value' or

moral

reason)

to technical

ealms instrumental

ea-

son).

Likewise,

echnical

nterests ecome

es-

tranged rom

whatHabermas

alls

enlightened

action'

nd

come o be established

hemselves

s

'values' uch hat ationalityas technique)s no

longer

ritique ut

egitimation.

he issue hen

is not

whetherMB's scientific

redentials

re

solid but

how

technical

ationality

ecomes

surrogate

or moral or political

rationalities.

Placed

ogether

ith

esthetic isplays

f forest

renewalinverting

he before'

nd after'

hotos

that he environmental

ovement

as used so

effectively),

hese hetoricsermit

he

ompany

to narrate

comforting

tory f rational

man-

agement

ndtemporary

isturbance

f 'public

resource.' he message s unmistakable: B's

forest ractices

re sustainable';eft

o the

om-

pany, he

forest

will

be

renewed,

f

not

im-

proved,

or uture

enerations.

Pursuing

he econdtack,

MB demonstrates

its

responsivenesso

public

concerns y

noting

that t ncorporatesublic

nput, pens

its'

for-

eststo multiple

sers, nd

goes farbeyond

ts

legislated

esponsibilities

n

preservation

f for-

ests

nd

wildlife abitat.

We are ssured

hat he

company

olds

he

ame oncerns

s the

verage

citizenboutpreservingreas f"specialmpor-

tance."

The forests f British

olumbia,"

we

read,

are a great ource

of pride nd

concern

for hepeople

ofthe

province.

o one

wants o

see

them

decimated

r devoted xclusively

o

timber roduction."

MB

therefore

ooperates



9/30

10

Willems-Braun

withgovernment

gencies

n

preservingxam-

ples of old-growth orestsn areas of special

beauty nd in critical

wildlife abitats. hou-

sands fhectaresfforestlandn Vancouvers-

land, t

claims, avebeen transferredromMB

ownershiprtenure o parks nd ecological e-

serves, hile

ogging

n

other sensitive"r "aes-

thetic" egions as beendeferredndefinitely.

t

theend of

the

day,

MB

appears

s

the

public's

trustedpokesperson,ossessing

he

most bjec-

tiveknowledge

nd advanced echnology,nd

mediating,

n a

disinterested anner, etween

theclaims fvarious interest

roups":

As

custodiansf he orest, B protects,ares or,

and renews

his

reat

esourceor

he

benefit

f

present

nd

uture

enerations....

he

company's

forestryoliciesre ased n chievingn

optimum

balance or ll

users aking

nto

ccountconomic,

recreational,nd nvironmentalactors....

italics

mine)

In a

world f ompeting emands nd uncertain

economic

and ecological futures,

MacMillan

Bloedelknows est.

Normalizing

he Forest:

Public

Fictions

and National

Displacements

This

s notthe

place

to

debate

he

ustainabil-

ity

f

urrent

orest

ractices,

or o askwhether

MacMillan

Bloedel

has

been

a

good

steward.

Not that hese re

unworthyopics,

ut to

do

so would

be to

accept

he irst

nvitation

ithout

recognizing

he econd nvitationhat

ccompa-

nies t-the invitationo

forget

he

olonialhis-

tories hat enable

and

legitimate resent-day

constructionsf

authority.

ow

is it

that

the

land

appears

n

documents

ike

this-and

in

muchpublic' ebate ver orest anagement-

as a

purified pace

of economic

nd

political

calculation

containing isual, cological,

nd

economic

esources)

ithout

ny

ther

ompet-

ing

laims?

Why

hould

his

ppear

o

natural'?

Why

is it common ense'

to debate

rights

f

accessto forest esources

n

terms f technical

expertisend

the

strategic

nterestsf

the na-

tion' without

ny acknowledgment

hatother

'nations'-First

Nations like the

Nuu-chah-

nulth-may

dispute

hese

erritoriallaims?

n

turn, ow s it thatMacMillanBloedel or,for

that

matter,

heBC

Ministry

f

Forests) ppears

as

the

forest's

egitimate

ustodian?

What

dy-

namics

ie

behind nd

establish his

uthority?

Perhaps

more o the

point,

ow

s

t that n

BC,

a discourse f resourcemanagementbound to

a new and powerful

metanarrativef sustain-

ability nd tied to the administrativepace of

the nation) has been

constructednd institu-

tionalized n a conceptual

nd administrative

space ntirelyeparaterom nother, nmarked,

but certainly ot unrelated,management is-

course hatnever ppears n thesediscussions,

yetwhich y ts bsence

naturalizeshe bstract

space

of the

Canadian

state nd economy:

he

demarcation,egregation,

nd administration

f

native

ommunities

nd lands?13

These are difficultuestions, ut we can be-

gin

our

nquiry

nto

his nvitationo

forget

y

returningo Beyond heCut, nd by paying t-

tention o theabsences nd silences hat truc-

ture tsnarrative. hatremainsompletely n-

marked

n the

photographs,ext, nd figures

s

a subtlemanoeuvre hereby

he

land,'

he for-

est,' nd

a

commodity,

timber,'re simultane-

ously

bstractednd

displaced

rom

xisting

o-

cal culturalnd political

ontexts,nd resituated

in the

rhetoricalpace

of the nation' nd its

'public.'

The foresthat

MB

discusses

s at

once

any

orest

nd noforest

t all.With

he

xception

of a

smallmap

that uperimposes

B's forest

tenures ver

he

empty'

pace

of the

province,

MB's forests re devoid of specificity-geo-

graphicalrhistorical.

hus, n a neat ymmetry,

what

MB

authors,

uthorizes

MB.

Displaced

from ts cultural

urroundings,

he forest e-

comes

n

unmarked,

bstractategorymptied

of other laims-a

pure pace

hat

xists

nly

s

a

ground

nd rawmaterial

or he

self-creation

and rationalmanagement

fthenation-state.

s

such t

is

free o

be

inscribednd

incorporated

within ther erritorializationsnd

temporalities

as the nation's'

orest,

ivided

nto units

Tree

FarmLicences), llotted o leaseholderslike

MB)

and

subjected

o

rational

management

(computerized odels,

cientificnd economic

rationalities)

o as to

produce

sustained

ield'

through

ationalized

forest otations'

s

part

f

the

dministration

f national

population'

nd

'economy' Figure3).

Indeed,

n

one of

the

many

ronies

ound

n

BC's

forests,

oresters

nd

economists

oday

efer

o

this ationalized

orest

as the normal' orest.14

Ecologists

ave

rgued

hat he normal' orest

is inmany espectsabnormal,' ut n thepre-

sent

paper

his s not

mycomplaint.Nor

do

I

share belief

n a 'normal'forest

hat can be

si(gh)ted ndependent

f

regimes

f

knowl-

edge-even

the science f

ecology.)Rather,

n



10/30

Buried

Epistemologies

11

0

A

FOREST

z

z -

w

~~ROTATION

Cl)

RUes

IImRn

o

e coSnteta

n

Fiurr3eI

dreiscusesyth

foforetmnagementrie

C'

wihteforests

ere

ipaermad

theirloablecontextsuand

Thidscefaces

thermhanyutuays

atd BC'stforestl

and-

scapes.

ource:MacMillan

Bloedel,

n.d.

the midstof a

putativelypostcolonial'

context,

I

argue

that

his bstraction

isplaces

discussions

of

authority

rom

questions

of

territory,

enure,

and

rights

f access

(and

their onstitutive

olo-

nial

histories),

nd convenes

them

nstead-pre-

cisely

through

he

normalizationof the

'forest'

and

its

ntegration

nto

the administration

f

the

'nation-state' and its

'populations'-around

questions

of rational

management

and

conser-

vation.

This,

in

turn,

permits particular

ogic

of

equivalence

to circumscribe nd

apparently

exhaustpossibilities fpublic debate: thehealth

of the resource

s the health

of

the nation.

It

is

not

rights

f access but

the

economic

and

eco-

logical

details

of

the

normal' forest

hat are

at

stake.

MB's

rhetorics-and

the

normalization

of

the forest

more

generally-however,

assume

a

priori

he

uridical,

political,

nd

geographical

space of

the

nation-state

nd

ignore

ts

historico-

geographical

onstitution

and

contestation).

By

staging

he

nation-state s accomplished

rather

than continually rticulated, heTree FarmLi-

cences

which

MB

holds,

and

the normal'

forest

it

manages,

are rendered

transparent

nd

thus

common

sense.' Detached

from heir ocal

cul-

tural relations,

t becomes

a

short

step

to

see

these

erritoriess empty

ublic

ands 'wilder-

ness'), eased o transnational

ompanies

or he

'benefit' f the

general opulation.'5

n

light

f

incomplete

ecolonization

n British olumbia,

such rhetorics iskreinscribing

olonial

rela-

tions,

rasing resent-day

irstNation truggles

over

sovereignty,'nd ignoring

heir

ontinual

assertion

hatwhat ppears

s wilderness'n

one

rhetorics a

highly u/turallandscape

n another.

Assuming he

fixity f these

national/natural'

spaces

and their taging

s an

abstractvoid' nd

normalization

ithin

'national conomy')

s,

suggest, bad

epistemic abit,

ne that

imul-

taneously

ncorporatesnd

renders

nvisiblehe

colonial

histories hrough

which these spaces

have been constituted

nd

naturalized,

nd

which in turn authorize ertainvoices-re-

sourcemanagers,

ureaucrats,

ature's efend-

ers-to speak

for

nature.

Unthinking

eocolonial

'Cultures'

fNature:Genealogies

of

Wilderness'

If

thegenealogist

efuseso extend

is faith

n

metaphysics,fhe istensohistory,e finds hat

there s

'something

lto ether ifferent'

ehind

things:

ot

timelessnd ssentialecret,

ut he

secret

hat hey aveno

essence r

that heir s-

sencewasfabricated

n

a

piecemeal

ashion

rom

alien

orms. .

. What

s

found t

thehistorical

beginning

f

things

s not he

nviolabledentity

of heir

rigins;

t s

the issension

f ther

hings.

It

s disparity

Foucault 977:142).

It is to these olonialhistories

nd practices

that want to turnnow.

MacMillan

Bloedel's

'authority'

s

built,

n

part,

by establishing

he

forest s a 'natural' nd 'public'resource. ut

this s

facilitated,

n

turn, y

histories

f

seeing

nature' n Canada's

west

oast that re deeply

imbricated ith forms

f colonial

power.

n

other

words,

he

authority

f

corporate apital

today

s related

n

important ays

o historical

practices

f

imagining,

epresenting,

nd

puri-

fying

natural' andscapes. s

I will

argue,

hese

practices

ermitted

natural'

paces

o be

appre-

hended part

rom orms f native

erritoriality.

Wedded o

a Western

metaphysics

f

ruth,

uch

representationsould be seen as revealinghe

'real' tructure

f the andscape,

nd could give

rise,

n

turn,

o forms f administration

hat

accepted

his s a matter f course.

By

showing

themechanics f

the

production

f this hetori-



11/30

12

Willems-Braun

cal space called nature,' t becomes possible

both o write genealogy f nature' s the ab-

sence

f

culture'wilderness')

n

latetwentieth-

century ritish olumbia, and to destabilize

claims

of

authorityhat are built on this ab-

sence.16willbe necessarilyelective;o unthink

the neocolonial

ssumptions uried

n

MB's

text,

will nlist he

writings

f

George awson,

a geologist nd amateur thnologist, ho trav-

eled the coast with the GeologicalSurvey

f

Canada in the 1870s-1880s. By reading

Dawson's texts gainst he grain, he fixity f

this national/naturalpace-and its repre-

sentation s a nonhumanized interland-ap-

pears

ess

ertain;

ts onstruction

s such,upon

which ubsequentrights' f access re built, s

madevisible t themoment f tsemergence.

Displacements:Bounding

the

Native' and

Producing Nature'

Dawson's travels oincided oughly ith he

years

hat he federal

ndian

Reserve ommis-

sion IRC) was allocating nd demarcatingn-

dian

Reserves n the

province.

This

makes

Dawson's texts articularlyignificant.

t

is the

Reserve ommissions hat artographicallyn-

scribed

olonialist

iscourse nto the

territory

of the

province, ounding,

within

quasi-legal

discourse,

he

space

of native

villages

nd

be-

yond

their

xtent, ositing n empty

nature

open

to settlement

r

enterprise.

his

in

turn

has authorized

ubsequent epictions

f BC as

a

'resource andscape'

rather

han a

'cultural

landscape.'

onsiderablettention

n BC histo-

riography

asfocused

n

the ndianLand

Ques-

tion, ebating

he

relativegenerosity'

o the

n-

diansofsuccessiveolonial dministrators,nd

later, fter hecolony oinedCanada

in

1871,

specific rovincial

nd federaluthorities

Fisher

1977;

Tenant

1990). However,

s

Gayatri pi-

vak

1990)

reminds

s,

administrative

ractice

presupposesn irreducibleheoretical oment.

Practicesuch s those f the RC occurred ot

simply hrough

dministrative

iat,

but

were

made

possible through

seriesof

discourses

through

hich

'space'

of

dministration

ould

appear,

nd

that t once

nvited nd

egitimated

the ctions f

administrators.

he

cartographic

inscriptionfcolonialist hetoricn the reserve'

was

thus

prefigured

nd facilitated

y

a more

general

extualization

hich

ncluded

not

only

the

appearance

f

written

ecords,

ut

more

important,

he

emergence

f a

sense

of

order

and totality hrough he production

nd dis-

seminationf

knowledge ertainingo the and

and its inhabitants.

n

thisway

a 'landscape'

could be known

nd made available.

In this ight, awson'stravels

nd writings-

in partbecausehe wrote s a 'disinterested'ci-

entist, ot a colonial pologist-provide

valu-

ablewindow

nto he xtent f colonialist isu-

ality hat t once

ordered ndnaturalized C's

natural/cultural

andscapes, nd at the same

timeunderwrotehe bounding

f native erri-

tories

nd

the hape nd future irection

f

tate

policy.

What

wish o trace

n

Dawson'swork,

then, s the processby which

the land'

was

made

to

appear

s nature': spacethatheldno

signs f culture' nd therefore

ould be appro-

priatedntothe dministrativepaceofthe na-

tion.' This

occurred,

will

argue,

not

through

the denial by

Dawson and others

of

native

claims o the

and Dawson personally

uggested

the opposite)but through

series

of

repre-

sentational

ractices

hat at

once

located nd

contained native resence, ividing est oast

territoriesntothe primitive'

paces of native

villages, nd

the modern' paces f theemerg-

ing Canadiannation.

Dawson's official

ritingsook the form

f

survey eportsor heGeological urveyfCan-

ada (GSC), fulfilling

ne of theconditions

hat

thecolony

f

British

olumbiahad

attached

o

union

with he Dominion

of

Canada

in

1871:

that eological

urveys

e

madeof

henew

prov-

ince's domain.'

everal cholars ave

hown he

significance

fthese

urveys

n

the

development

and

spatial

xtension

f

the Canadian nation.

Zaslov 1975) notes

hat he

urvey

as

a

prime

instrument

n

"pushing

ack

thefrontiers"nd

that t

was,

n

manyplaces,

he

"first

rm"

of

theCanadiangovernment.orerecently,eller

(1987) has tied

the formationnd activities

f

the GSC

more

losely

o

imagined eographies

of a 'transcontinental'

anadian

nation,

nd

also

to

utilitarian

oncerns

or nationaleco-

nomic development. oth,

however,

iew the

survey rimarily

s

a

process

f

enumeration,

documenting,

hrough

areful

bservation,

he

wealth

f

the

new nation.

This the

urvey ertainly

as. But

t was also

much

more.The GSC

not

only enumerated,

but

brought

particular

ode

f ntelligibility

o

bear on thelandscape.This was no mereac-

counting,

t

was a means

f

imultaneously

tag-

ing

nd

availing, way

of

producingspaces

f

visibility' Rajchmann1988;

Gregory 994)

and

by

extension

spaces

of

invisibility'

hat

n



12/30

BuriedEpistemologies

13

turn

uthorized he activitiesf certain ctors.

The

outline

f

Dawson's 1880) report n his

1878 explorationsn

the Queen Charlotte s-

lands

located

orth f

Vancouver

sland)

makes

the

construction

f

spaces

f

visibility/invisibil-

ity n the practice f enumerationbundantly

clear.

Like most

GSC

reports,

t

begins

with

general

escriptionf the slands-a

bird's ye

view hat ituates hem n relation o

therest f

the

nation, nd provides

general

utline

of

their physical

geography-coastline, arbors,

rivers,mountains,

nd

so on. This

provides

readers ith

generalframe' hat an then

be

filled ithmore etail.

ubsequent haptersnd

appendices

ocate

nd describe he

slands'

eol-

ogy,ndians, oology,

nd botany-divisions

n

the extwhich pparentlymirrored' hat ould

be

'found'

n

nature.

lants, nimals, ndians,

rocks-each were

separated nd evaluated s

discretentities

hich,

n

turn,

ould

be

further

subdivided, roviding, hrough

he

enumera-

tionof the parts,'

picture

f

the whole.'Geo-

logical

observations,or nstance, ere

divided

into furtherlassifications:

riassic, retaceous

coal

bearing,

ertiary,

nd

glaciated nd

su-

perficial

eposits. ikewise,

awson's notes n

the Haida Indians

distinguish nd analyze

physical ppearance,ocialorganization,elig-

ion

and 'medicine,' he potlatch nd

distribu-

tion

of

property,

olklore,illages,

nd

popula-

tion.

Through

he onstructionf

particular

ir-

cumscribed

nowledgedomains,

these land-

scapes

were

encountered,organized,

and

enumerated.

More than

enumeration,

awson's

survey

also

stood as a remarkablease of

anticipatory

vision.'

At

thetimehe

undertook

his

ask,

he

white ettler

opulation

n BC

was

till

utnum-

bered ynatives,nd,further,his ettleropu-

lationwas

clustered

lmost

ntirely

t the ex-

treme

outhwestorner f the

provinceGalois

and Harris

1994).

Beyond

ts

extent,

he

and

was

still nown

nd

experienced

hrough

ative

territorialities

nd

temporalities.

he

survey

therefore

mbodied nd

nscribed

national ele-

ology

n

a

landscape

hat, lthough

ounded

y

the

artographic

bstractionf national

orders,

had

not

yet

een

rationalized

n

relationo them.

Yet

these

boundaries-howeverbstract-were

of

great

significance.

s

BenedictAnderson

(1991) persuasivelyrgues,t is only ubsequent

to

thedemarcationf

a 'national

erritory'

hat

surveys

ikeDawson's

could become

part

fthe

accounting edgers

f

the nation.

Only

sub-

sequent

o this

bounding

ould interiors'

p-

pear empty' nd available

o

be 'filled.'17

n

a

series f tellingmetaphors, obertBrown, n

explorer n Vancouver sland who preceded

Dawson byfifteenears,makes his nticipatory

fillingxplicit.

It was the ntention. . thatwe should trike

through

he

unexplored

ections f the

sland,

carefullyxaminehat racts a specimen,nd

hus

form skeletonobe filled

p

afterwards

Hayman

1989:9) italics ine].

Later,Browndescribed he findings f his ex-

plorations as "tests of the whole" (1869), by

which heregions etween istraversesouldbe

"judged."

On more han ne occasionhe fanta-

sized of its future ransformationt the

hands

of settlers:

The trail rom ictoria o Comoxcrosses he

Quall-e-humiver lose o the oast, nd an ex-

tensionf his ould ormtransinsularoad on-

nectingoalminersfNanaimo nd thefarmers

of Comox

with

he

wild savage

f

Nootka,Klay-

o-quot Clayoquot]

nd

Barclay

ound

1864:25)

[italicsmine].

Likewise,Dawson (1880a:38) speculated that

n

the

Queen

Charlottes before

many years

xten-

sive saw-millswill

doubtless be established....

The quality of the spruce timber s excellent,

and beside the mmediate

horesof the

harbour,

logs might probably

be

run down

the

Naden

River from the lake above." Both Brown and

Dawson assume nd enact

the

bounded

pace

of

the olony nd

nation

espectively,eproduc-

ing

in

a speculative antasy

hat

had already

been

accomplished

lsewhere

n

the Americas.

The GSC, then,

n

Dawson'swritings ore pe-

cifically,

must

be seen not

only

as an enumera-

tion,but also, quite iterally,

s a meansof

in-

corporation-constructingnd filling he body'

(skeleton)

of the 'nation'

(specimen),

and

in-

scribing

hesenew territorializationsnto West

Coast ands.

Significantly,

n the colonial

context,

he

in-

corporation

f

the nation

as

a

body)

and

the

'visualization'

f ts

internal

tructure'nvolved

also a

fundamentaldivision and displacement.

These occurred

n two

ways.First,

t the same

time that the skeleton of the nation was

being

given flesh,

t

was

also

anatomized-divided

into its

component parts.

The

divisions

of

the

survey ntroducedcategoriesbywhich the land

could

be known

and

appropriated. Second, by

constructing

discrete

entities-minerals, trees,

Indians-these could

be

apprehended ntirely

apart

from

heir

surrounding, displacing

and



13/30

14

Willems-Braun

resituating

bjects

within

uite pecific,utvery

different,

rders f

ignification.hese

processes

of division

nd displacement an

be seen in

Dawson's

ournals.

n

these,Dawson

recorded

observations

nd kept a daily account of his

movements,ncluding escriptionsfthe ocial

and technical

mediations

hat

made

his

move-

ment and

his

scientific bservations

ossible:

people he

met,

how

he

traveled,

where

he

stayed,

who

acted

as

his guides, nstruments

used,

measurements

ade,

and so on.

On

the

reverseide

of

his ournalpages,Dawson occa-

sionally nserted etails that he

had missed.

More

often, awson used these lank

paces

o

write second

parallel' ext.

n

this

he

elabo-

rated pon

aspects

f

thephysical

andscape

r

native ulture.Much of the nformationound

on

the

back f

hese

ages

was

ater

ncorporated

into his 'scientific' extson the

geology, e-

sources,

nd native

ultures

f the west

coast,

but

t

is

the

organization

f these

parallel

exts

that s of

interest. ome

passages

dealt exclu-

sively

with

geology

r

botany,

thers

nly

with

native

ulture,

hile

yet

thers

ynthesized

oth

into an

enumerationf

different

spects

f the

countrybut

ven

here,

s n

his

reports,

he wo

identities

ere

rarely rought

nto

relation;

a-

tivesappearedas yet another lement o be

documented).

One

example

will

uffice.

rom

August -10,

1878, Dawson, accompanied

by

his

brother

Rankine,

n

Indian

guide

named

Mills,

nd

the

crew

of

the

schooner

Wanderer,

raveled rom

Skidegate

o

Masset, long

the

east and north

coast fGraham sland.

On

August 1,

the

day

following

is

arrival

n

Masset,

Dawson

at-

tended

hurch,

inedwith he

missionary

r.

Collison,

ead

ecent

ewspapers,nd "wrote

p

notes."The events f the fourdaysare duly

recorded

n

his

daily ournal entries.On the

reverse,

wo

parallel

exts

re

found

see

Ta-

ble

1).

In one

textwe

find

n

enumeration

f

the

wealth

f

nature.'Here

the ciences f

bot-

any

and

geology lay

a

larger art.Specimens

are

ocated

nd

related n

space.Physical roc-

esses

are described nd

possibilities

or

estab-

lishing ommunications

or

lack

thereof) uly

noted.

n the

parallel ext,

Dawson

describes

native

eoples, heir ustoms nd behavior

and,

on other ccasions,heir illages). hisappears,

quite literally,

s a

turning

f Dawson's

gaze

from ne

object

domain'

o

another.

The same

separation

s found n his

photo-

graphs:

eological

ites

nd landscape istas

n

theone hand Figure )

and native illages nd

individuals n theother

Figure

).18

So, while

indigenous eoples were

at once described

n

great etail-their hysical

eaturesnd cultural

forms ocumentednd enumerated-they

ere

simultaneously etached rom the landscape,

which ould thenbe subsequentlyncountered

and described

s

devoid

of

humanoccupation.

In otherwords, awson distills he omplex o-

cial-ecological orlds

fhistravelsntoneatun-

ambiguous categories: rimitive

ultureand

pristine ature. o relationsredrawn etween

the

wo.

nstead, he

formers contained ithin

the village,' ixing

native

resence

n

'place,'

while

beyond

he

bounds

of thenative illages,

Dawson

filled

he

blank paces

of

the mperial

mapwith hecolored pacesof geological nd

botanical

maps.

n

turn,

hese

atter

paces ould

be subject

o new

visualregimes hich

aw the

land

in

terms

f

stratigraphy

nd

geological

time,revealing'

n

environmental

rchitecture'

that ould be

appropriated

s

yet

new frontiers

for

apital.

he

enterprising

ettler,rmed

with

a

rudimentary

nowledge

f

geology,

ould

thereforeread the

rocks'

ccording

o an

as-

sumedplan,

and

indeed

wasencouraged

o do

so.19 awson himself ould

go

on to write exts

aboutCanada asa "field orminingnvestment"

(1896), and createprovincialmaps

of the

re-

gion's "important

rees" 1880b)-important

not fornative

nhabitants,

ut

for

he

nascent

forest

ndustry.

hatwe find

n Dawson'swrit-

ings, hen,

s the

unveiling

f nature's

plan,'

plan

which

both

preceded

nd lay

external

o a

nativepresence nd

which

would be

fulfilled

only hrough

he

udiciousmixing

f

European

(Canadian) capital

nd labor.

The

Appearance

f Natural Order and

the

Ordering

f Nature's

Appearance

Dawson's

texts

uggest

he

possibility

fwrit-

ing genealogies

f

unmarked

ategories

uch as

'nature,'

he

land,'

and

the nation.'

But

they

also

helpclarify

ow

colonizing ower

works. s

Timothy

Mitchell

1988)

notes,

he llusion

f

representations

ike

the

survey,

he

ournal,

r

the

map

was

that

hey ppeared

o

be without

illusion: heywere aithfulothe things' epre-

sented, romisingomplete

nd certain

nowl-

edge (even

f

this

was

continually eferred,

s

Robert rown

1869] noted, eaving

details" o

"more

minute

fter

nspection").

his

promise



14/30

BuriedEpistemologies 15

Table

1.

ParallelTextsFound on the Reverse ages of George Dawson's Journals

Text : Physical andscape

Text : Cultural andscape

The

Coast etweenkidegate&

Masset,

nsome e- Potlatch. r. Collinson ivesme some

dditional

spects esembleshat etween umshewa

Skide- light n this ustom.

gate.A bare pen tretch ithno harbour scarcely

even Creek

r

protecteday

for

anoes

or

boats, When man s about o make potlatch,

or

ny

for

ongdistances.he beach s gravelly sometimes

reason, uch

s

raising house

&c. &c. he

first,

ome

coarselytony o a pointnearwindboundamp f Months efore and, ives utproperty,

oney c.,

trackurvey. eyond his tbecomes andy,

though

So

much o eachman,

n

proportiono their arious

not

without ravel ontinues enerally

f

Sand, ll the

ranks

standing.ome

ime efore

he

potlatch,

way

o

Masset. this

s

all

returned,

ith nterest.hus

a man

receivingour ollars, ives

ack

ix,

& so on. All the

LawnHill s

evidentlyausedby he

utcrop

f

vol-

property funds

hus

ollected

re hen

iven way

canic ock escribedn field ook, s

probably erti-

at

thepotlatch. he

more

imes manpotlatches,he

ary. eyond his or omedistance, includinghe more mportante becomesn the yes fhis

ribe,

region boutCape Ball, liffs,r owbanks fdrift- & themoresowing o himwhennext

ome ne

clay, sands haracterize.hey regenerally

earing distributesroperty potlatches.

away nder he ction fthewaves, trees

stumpsmay e seen n various tages f

descent o the

The

blankets,ctus&c. arenot orn p & destroyed

beach. n

someplaces ensewoods ffine pright exceptn certainpecial ccasions.f for

nstance

clear rees,re hus xposed n section,

theremust contests to be carried

n

betweenwomen r three

be much ine

pruce

umber ack

from

he ea

every-

as

to who s to be

chief,

ne

may

ear

p

ten

where. ery requentlyhe imbereen n

the mme- blankets,catteringhefragments,he thersmust o

diate

erge

f

the

liffs,

shore s of an nferior

ual-

the

ame,

r

retire,

so on till ne

has

masteredhe

ity,

ather

crubby full

f

knots. he soil s others.treallymounts ovotingn most

ases,

or

generallyery andy

where hown

n

the

liffs,

r in

such

rial mans

ersonal roperty

oon

becomes

peaty

n bottom

laces

wherewater as

Collected. exhausted,

utthere n

under-current

f

upply

rom

Sandhills

r

sandy levationsesembling

uch,

re his

friends

ho

would

wishhim o be

chief, he

n

seen n someplaces nthe liffs,nsection,

there most opular avours ikely o be the hosen ne.

is

nothing

o show hat he oil

away

rom

heCoast

isuniversallyandy,ut hefact hat heupper epos- At Massetastwinter, youngmanmade ome

its

of

hedriftpread ery niformly are

ofthis improperdvances

o a

youngwoman,whose ather

character.urther orth he hore s almost

very- hearing fthematter, asvery ngry,

immediately

where

ordered

yhigher

r

ower

and

hills,

overed

tore

p twenty

lankets.hiswas not

merely

o

give

with ank

oarse

rass;

each

eas,&c. &c. Beyond

vent o his

feelings,

or he

young

man

had to follow

these re

woods, enerallyiving hough urntn

suite,

in thisCase not

having

he

requisite

mount

some

places.

he

trees re

of

various

egrees

f

excel-

of

property,

he thers fhis ribe

ad

to subscribe

lince,

utmost

enerally

ather ndersized

scrubby.

furnish

t,

or eave

lasting isgrace

n the ribe.

This

part

f

the oast

s also

characterizedy agoons, Their eelingsoward heyoung

manwere ot

&

is

evidently aking,

nder he

frequent

ction

f

naturally,

f

the

Kindest,hough hey

id

not

urn

the

heavy

outh

ast

ea. him

ut

ofthe ribe s

theymight

ave

done

fter

having

toned

or isfault.

Totemsrefoundmong he ndians ere s

elsewhere.

he

chief nes

bout

Masset re heBear

& the

Eagle.

Thoseofone totem

must

marry

n the

other.

Source: ole and Lockner

1993:57-59).Emphasis

n

original.

allowedreaders and

writers) o apprehend n

appearancef rderhatwas thought o

emanate

from

ature tself,ather hanfrom he

ordering

of appearances n

representationalractices.

Reading he survey nly as a more-or-lessc-curate record'within story f progressive

European cquaintancewith west

coast lands

obscures he manner ywhichthe

survey n-

framedhe andwithin

egimes fvisibility.t s

important o be clear:what s at

issue

s not

whether

awson's urveysepresented

he

a

Buried Epistemologies_ the Politics of Nature in (Post) Colonial British Columbia Bruce Willems-Braun - Unknown

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