Working in the woods: Tsimshian resource workers and the forest industry of British Columbia.

American Indian Quarterly, The, June, 2001 by Butler, Caroline F.; Menzies, Charles R.

In the context of contemporary treaty making and recent Euro-Canadian court decisions reaffirming Aboriginal rights and title, it is more important than ever before to understand the pivotal role played by First Nations in the development of British Columbia's resource-based economy. (1) Unfortunately, the dominant narratives of North America's settler states continue to ignore the role of First Nations as workers and their participation in building our contemporary economies. It is more common for these "stories"--both popular and academic--to focus instead on the pre- or early contact pasts and cultures of first peoples and, in the process, fetishize their "otherness." (2) But, as Littlefield and Knack point out, the involvement of indigenous people in wage labor "has...

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