Settler Colonialism as Environmental Injustice: Rogers Place and Edmonton

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the recent construction of Rogers Place, a downtown sport arena in Edmonton, Canada, is deeply entangled within the longue durée and ongoing process of capitalist settler colonialism on Indigenous territory. Building upon existing literature in environmental justice, Indigenous environmental studies, and gentrification studies, this chapter explores how settler colonialism itself can be understood as a profound form of environmental injustice in the context of Global North settler colonial states like Canada, and how contemporary sport stadia complexes such as Rogers Place contribute to the enduring problems of displacement or removal of racialized Indigenous bodies. The authors express hope that this discussion of the effects of sport-related gentrification processes provides a useful lens for interested readers to deepen their understandings toward the nexus of sport, environmental (in)justice, and settler colonialism.