Being Neighbourly: Urban Reserves, Treaty Settlement Lands, and the Discursive Construction of Municipal–First Nation Relations

Abstract

Ongoing land claims negotiations are creating areas of First Nation authority within and adjacent to many urban centres. Several government agencies and lobby groups have responded to these changes with discussion papers and toolkits, all implicitly or explicitly intended to help municipal and First Nation governments become better "neighbours." Using the theoretical and methodological insights found in critical discourse and interpretive policy analysis, this article examines the prevalence of this "neighbour-to-neighbour" discourse in municipal and other non-Indigenous policy, placing a particular focus on how it is used in land-use planning. I explore how these policy documents discursively construct and articulate a distinctly and deeply settler-colonial perspective on the desired relationship between First Nations and municipalities: one that has clear antecedents in liberal-economic notions of property, and that serves to conceal key aspects of Indigenous authority.