Consuming Indigenous Space, Producing Canadian Place: Mobilizing Nationalism towards Canada’s National Parks

Abstract

This research paper explores the use of national park land for citizenship, rather than conservation purposes. Particular emphasis is given to how this uniquely affects Indigenous peoples in Canada, whose traditional lands are frequently affected by the establishment and management of these parks by the federal Parks Canada Agency. Using both critical (postcolonial) theory and constructionism (social constructionist camp of environmental sociology), this macro qualitative analysis focuses on how discourse is used to mobilize symbols, knowledge, and power by the Canadian nation-state, and how this nationalist-conservationist narrative further erase historic and contemporary appropriations of Indigenous territories.