Title: Liberalism, surveillances and resistance
First published: 2009
Description: Power relationships are the focus of Keith D. Smith's Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance. Informed by Michel Foucault and other postmodern 'map-makers, ' it examines important social, economic, and political mechanisms introduced by Canadian settler society to silently seize power from the country's indigenous population and institute a new ruling order. Crucial to these processes are 'ways of seeing and knowing' and discourses of exclusion, all of which have had profound, devastating consequences for Aboriginal peoples and communities. Surveillance, conducted by government agents, police officers, church officials, and other settlers, was particularly important to this enterprise, its expansion of the market economy, and the spread of Western liberalism. Of course, Aboriginal people did not accept these changes passively; as Smith notes, they actively resisted, both overtly and less obviously, malicious state policies and programs.^

Today, this resistance persists in land claims, treaty negotiations, and other sites of power where liberalism and surveillance continue to challenge Aboriginal people's autonomy. The book's organization is both thematic and chronological with the first half devoted to peoples and places and the second half to change over time. The opening chapter introduces readers to Foucault and how his ideas can be used to interpret the history of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations in western Canada. Smith pays particular attention here to definitions of and relationships between 'imperialism, ' 'colonialism, ' 'capitalism, ' 'liberalism, ' 'surveillance, ' 'coercion, ' and 'resistance' so as to contextualize his study within broader historiographical debates and to avoid some of the pitfalls encountered by other scholars of Aboriginal history.^

Although Smith could have emphasized better the original contribution he makes to our collective understanding of this topic and demonstrated how his study differs from other analyses of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations, this broad philosophical discussion implicitly connects his work to many studies published in the last three decades, especially those focusing on state relations with Aboriginal people (the work of J.R. Miller, Sarah Carter, and Cole Harris immediately come to mind).
Subjects: Liberalism, Indians of north america, canada, Marginality, social, Northwest territories, history, British columbia, history, Indians of North America, History, Social Marginality
LC classification: E78.C2 S6219 2009