« Misunderstanding Self-Government: Laura Kellogg and the Corporation as a Self-Governing Community »

Conférence d’Avigail Eisenberg (Professeur de sciences politiques, University of Victoria)

Le jeudi 6 février 2025, de 16h30 à 18h00, salle de bal Thomson House. Ouvert à tous, une réception suivra.

L’inscription est appréciée, par courriel à l’adresse suivante ou via Facebook. Un étudiant de McGill, choisi au hasard parmi ceux qui se sont inscrits à l’événement et qui sont actuellement étudiants à McGill, recevra un exemplaire du livre d’Avigail Eisenberg, intitulé Reasons of Identity: A Normative Guide to the Political and Legal Assessment of Identity Claims, Oxford University Press, 2009.

Organisée par le Groupe de recherche sur les études constitutionnelles (RGCS), une unité du Centre Yan P. Lin pour l’étude de la liberté et des ordres mondiaux dans les mondes ancien et moderne.

Résumé

In 1920, Laura Kellogg (Oneida) proposed to use the law of incorporation to shield Indigenous communities from hostile government policy and corrupt practices. Her plan was meant to secure “something in the order of self-government” at a time when genuine self-government was impossible and when many Indigenous leaders had turned away from their traditions. As a model for organizing Indigenous life, incorporation was a sustainable solution to community disintegration. However, it was (and is) neither an antidote to colonialism nor a template for Indigenous self-determination. As Kellogg’s efforts demonstrate, Indigenous communities adopt strategies, like incorporation, because there are no better choices before them. The risk is that, over time, strategy will become reality, and community members will come to prefer the position of compromise over more radical alternatives. But, in Kellogg’s case, to be silent in the face of the rule of another was not impotence but confidence in the resilience of her community and the unpredictable nature of plural political power.