Paper/Proposal Title
Settler (International) Law and Displaced Transnational Indigenous (African) Peoples in Canada: Presumed Equal but Obviously Separate
Location
M2300
Start Date
November 2023
End Date
November 2023
Keywords
transnational indigeneity, displacement, settler-colonial law, Africa, Canada
Abstract
Documenting and validating Indigenous Peoples collective experiences with colonial violence, land dispossession, forced displacement, systemic racism, and ongoing exclusion from the nation-building process is fundamental to the idealised Westphalian state such as Canada’s constitutional monarchy. The United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951 make no mention of Indigenous Peoples prosecuted and forcibly displaced by slavery, systemic colonial violence, or neoliberal capitalism (vis-à-vis globalisation). Although the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), 2007 does not define an Indigenous person it stipulates their right to belong and determine their own identity. In Canada, indigeneity is embedded and localised in section 35 of the colonial settler Constitution Act, 1867-1982. This geographical jurisdiction of Aboriginality implies that all other indigeneities in Canada are erased or unrecognised. Informed by the author’s lived experience as an Indigenous Liberian Canadian migrant. This research project examines how law normalizes discrimination and inequalities by claiming equal rights yet differential treatment for transnational Indigenous migrants in Canada. Adopting a complex mixed methodological design, the research draws on theories decolonisation, intersectionality, critical race, social determinants of health, and (Black African) feminist jurisprudence.
Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)
Veronica is a multi-award winner and a passionate academic-advocate. Holding six academic degrees from four continents, she has researched, taught, consulted, and presented at conferences in over 30 countries. She's authored five books, several book chapters, and journal articles. In 2002, she founded Africa Awareness, a student driven initiative responsible for instituting the first and only African Studies Program at the University of British Columbia. She is the founder/editor-in-chief of the Journal of Internal Displacement; co-editor of the Migration, Displacement, and Development Book Seeries with Rowman and Littlefield; the co-lead of the Law and Society's Collaborative Research Network (CRN-11): “Displaced Peoples”; lead of the Law and Society Association’s International Research Collaborative (IRC-10): “Disrupting Patriarchy and Masculinity in Africa”; and founder of the Voice of West African Refugees in Ghana at the Buduburam Refugee Settlement in Ghana. Veronica is also the Australian National University International Alumna of the Year, 2021; the president of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration; and a Co-Chair, Africa Interest Group, American Society of International Law. Currently, she is the Director of Flowers School of Global Health Sciences and an assistant professor of Legal Studies at Athabasca University. Veronica is a born and bred Indigenous Liberian war survivor.
Settler (International) Law and Displaced Transnational Indigenous (African) Peoples in Canada: Presumed Equal but Obviously Separate
M2300
Documenting and validating Indigenous Peoples collective experiences with colonial violence, land dispossession, forced displacement, systemic racism, and ongoing exclusion from the nation-building process is fundamental to the idealised Westphalian state such as Canada’s constitutional monarchy. The United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951 make no mention of Indigenous Peoples prosecuted and forcibly displaced by slavery, systemic colonial violence, or neoliberal capitalism (vis-à-vis globalisation). Although the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), 2007 does not define an Indigenous person it stipulates their right to belong and determine their own identity. In Canada, indigeneity is embedded and localised in section 35 of the colonial settler Constitution Act, 1867-1982. This geographical jurisdiction of Aboriginality implies that all other indigeneities in Canada are erased or unrecognised. Informed by the author’s lived experience as an Indigenous Liberian Canadian migrant. This research project examines how law normalizes discrimination and inequalities by claiming equal rights yet differential treatment for transnational Indigenous migrants in Canada. Adopting a complex mixed methodological design, the research draws on theories decolonisation, intersectionality, critical race, social determinants of health, and (Black African) feminist jurisprudence.
