Abstract
The professional practice of planning and the state-controlled mechanisms under which western-science planning operate offer little to improve the lives of Indigenous people and their communities. Arguably, western-science planning along with its many legal tools, collectively reproduce existing colonial relations in the interest of state domination over, and suppression of, Indigenous people. In this paper, we describe a different planning model, one that Viswanathan (2019) refers to as “parallel planning”, wherein Indigenous planning principles are practiced in parallel to western-science planning, with each approach informing, and complementing, the other. Our case example is from the Saskatchewan River Delta wherein Indigenous values nested in traditional knowledge in the land and water are the centrepiece of a planning process supported by the western-science planning framework. Challenges facing this approach will be discussed alongside suggestions on how these challenges may be overcome.
Highlights
Indigenous communities in Canada continue to be negatively impacted by upstream water resource and land use development activities (McGregor, 2012, 2014; Basdeo &Bharadwaj, 2013; Baijius & Patrick, 2019a)
Current water resource planning and management approaches nested in westernscience offer little space for Indigenous engagement, resulting in lost opportunities for collaboration, partnership and reconciliation (Castleden et al, 2017;Baijius & Patrick, 2019b)
This paper presents the results from a single case study (Yin 2014; 2015) of a watershed planning process set in Saskatchewan, Canada
Summary
Indigenous communities in Canada continue to be negatively impacted by upstream water resource and land use development activities (McGregor, 2012, 2014; Basdeo &Bharadwaj, 2013; Baijius & Patrick, 2019a). Land use planning practices in Canada and other colonial states have mostly served to reproduce colonial relations nested in conflict and mistrust between settler-state actors and Indigenous communities (Lane, 2006; Arsenault et al, 2018). We observe this condition on three levels. Despite a decade of legal precedent, consultation and engagement with Indigenous communities remains the exception rather than the norm when it comes to land and resource planning in Canada (Porter & Barry 2016)
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