Shifting Boundaries: Aboriginal Identity, Pluralist Theory, and the Politics of Self-Government

Canada is often called a pluralist state, but few commentators view Aboriginal self-government from the perspective of political pluralism. Instead, Aboriginal identity is framed in terms of cultural and national traits, while self-government is taken to represent an Aboriginal desire to protect those traits. Shifting Boundaries challenges this view, arguing that it fosters a woefully incomplete understanding of the politics of self-government. Using relational pluralism as a theoretical lens, Schouls contends that Aboriginal self-government is better understood when an identification perspective is adopted instead of a cultural or national one. He shows that self-government is not about preserving cultural and national differences as goods in and of themselves, but rather is about equalizing current imbalances in power to allow Aboriginal peoples to construct their own identities. Shifting Boundaries adds an important perspective to existing theoretical approaches to Aboriginal self-government. It will appeal to academics, students, and policy analysts interested in Aboriginal governance, cultural studies, political theory, nationalism studies, and constitutional theory.