Settler Colonialism and the Policing of Idle No More

Abstract

Abstract Idle No More is a grassroots movement that presents a powerful politics of resistance to settler colonialism. In response, security agencies in Canada have categorized the movement as both a criminal and a national security threat. This article is focused on the policing and surveillance of Idle No More by security agencies in Canada. In detailing the extensive surveillance of the movement, we describe the policing of Idle No More as a continuation of colonial policing practices that target--with the objective of eliminating--indigenous movements that challenge the legitimacy of the settler state. *********** The impetus for the recent Idle No More events lies in a centuries old resistance as Indigenous nations and their lands suffered the impacts of exploration, invasion and colonization. Idle No More seeks to assert Indigenous inherent rights to sovereignty and reinstitute traditional laws and Nation to Nation Treaties by protecting the lands and waters from corporate destruction. Each day that Indigenous rights are not honored or fulfilled, inequality between Indigenous peoples and the settler society grows. --Idle No More (2015a). Idle No More has emerged as a grassroots movement to assert indigenous self-determination. Since its inception in the Canadian prairies, the movement has been a poignant example of resistance to practices of settler colonialism. Given the prominence of Idle No More and the radical politics of decolonial resistance that the movement articulates, settler colonial authorities in Canada have interpreted the movement as both a criminal and a national security threat. This article is focused on the response to Idle No More from security and policing agencies in Canada. In detailing the extensive surveillance of the movement, we borrow from settler colonial studies to describe the policing of Idle No More as a continuation of colonial governance practices that target--with the objective of eliminating--indigenous movements that challenge the legitimacy of the settler state. Studies on settler colonialism have underlined the distinction between colonial and settler colonial states (Veracini 2013).Though settler colonialism and colonialism have shared and overlapping rationalities and practices, a key distinction is that colonialism aims towards a permanent condition of management and exploitation, whereas settler colonialism aspires to acquire * (settle) land and establish an independent state (Collins 2011; Veracini 2010; Wolfe 2006). Patrick Wolfe (2006) has detailed how these techniques are extensions of a logic of elimination that is not exclusive to indiscriminate violence, but part of a strategic violence that targets aspects of indigenous life that do not correspond (or that challenge) the imposition of settler society's imaginary. It is precisely the myth of being a post-colonial society that characterizes settler colonial states (Veracini 2010), and we use the concept of settler governmentality to understand how policing and security agencies rationalize the extensive surveillance of Idle No More as though it had no colonial antecedents. As a contribution to studies on social movement policing in the settler colonial present, our focus is on how social control agencies scrutinize indigenous movements that challenge the land-acquiring practices of settler colonialism as well as Canada's imaginary. In challenging both these material and immaterial aspects of the settler colonial present, we detail a collection of declassified documents produced using the Access to Information Act (ATIA). In analyzing the surveillance records from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Department of National Defence (DND), Public Safety Canada, and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC), we describe how Idle No More has been targeted by extensive surveillance and translated into a criminal and national security (i. …

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