Vested interests? Realizing the suburban dream by/and recognizing Indigenous title to the land

When: Thursday, March 22, 7:00 p.m.

Where: Room 7000, SFU Vancouver, Harbour Centre - 515 W. Hastings St.

Speaker: Serena Kataoka, assistant professor in social welfare and social development, Nipissing University

Cost: Free

"Homeownership" has come to stand in for the suburban dream – of  healthy, food secure, and sustainable capitalist cities. Yet Canadian homeowners discover the shaky colonial foundations of the real property system when their homes are expropriated.  This talk will examine the ways that dispossessed homeowners make the radical realization that the Crown claims entitlement to all the land. This talk will compare expropriation processes for highway development, in two white- majority, lower-middle income, and largely unplanned suburbs. In Ontario’s near north, residents became politicized but remained focused on their individual lots, whereas in Bridgeview (a neighbourhood in Surrey BC), residents engaged in direct action to protect the neighbourhood’s  ecology, elders and children. Seeking governments committed to working in and with communities, this talk will propose that Indigenous communities ought to wield the power of expropriation. Dr. Kataoka will examine the conditions under which Indigenous communities of the land in both case studies, Nipissing First Nation and Qayqayt First Nation, have not used the power of expropriation.  This thought experiment aims to identify the possibilities and implications of Indigenous communities claiming the power of expropriation, as one way of pursuing justice in and through the places where we live, together.

Co-presented by the SFU Urban Studies Program and the SFU Department of First Nations Studies