Examining the Subjugation of Indigenous Women through Community Partnerships with Extractive Industries

Abstract

Integration into the capitalist market creates an opportunity for Indigenous communities to relinquish interdependent relationships with the Canadian state by commodifying natural resources to subsidize funding. Corporate partnerships offer Indigenous communities an opportunity for economic development to help alleviate conditions of poverty; however, the potential benefits are not reaching all members of the communities equally. Rather, extractive developments on Indigenous territories are creating new and complex challenges for Indigenous women. This paper examines the current and historical legacies of colonization within Canada that have excluded and oppressed Indigenous women, and have made Indigenous communities dependent on colonial processes to improve socioeconomic disparities. The legacies of colonization, the patriarchal foundations of capitalism, and the transient nature of extractive developments disproportionately harm Indigenous women, making corporate partnerships an unsustainable option to maintain Indigenous independence from the Canadian State.