qui la ville?

: Revitalisation, Settler Colonialism and Public Space in Montreals Shaughnessy Village Annotated Bibliography

Kelly Pennington ID 9451560 URBS 490 October 12, 2013

In the spring of 2011, public consultations were held in regards to a development plan for Shaughnessy Village, an area which lies to the west of Montreals downtown core. At the heart of the plans for development is Cabot Square, a small park that has become notorious as a meeting place for many of the areas homeless and marginalised population, notably many of Montreals Inuit and First Nations residents who use the square as a gathering point. In the fall of 2013, it has been announced that the square will soon be closed for renovations. Through an analysis of the revitalisation plans for the area, I hope to be able to situate gentrification and urban renewal within the context of settler colonialism. I argue this is relevant due to the ways in which settler colonial logic informs western thought, law and global capitalism, but additionally so due to the specific nature of the square and its users as Aboriginal peoples who have been dispossessed. This will be argued by looking at several texts on the settler colonial present as well as articles looking at gentrification, public space, and homelessness both within and without the context of colonialism.

UNDERSTANDING SETTLER COLONIALISM

Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native. Journal of Genocidal Research, 8(4), 387409. Wolfe defines settler colonialism as a structure rather than an event. Moreover, it is a structure that contains both negative and positive elements via destruction/elimination and replacement/amalgamation. He outlines the ways in which elimination is played out, through physical destruction and violence to assimilationist tendencies that seek to kill the Indian [...] and save the man (397). He also points out the logic of the tide of history (393) moving from savagery to civilisation which is used when justifying eliminatory

strategies enacted by a range of actors including civilians, militias and government agencies. It is the persistence through time and the range of strategies aimed at eliminating Nativeness - on the grounds of expansion and land seizure - that differentiates what he terms structural genocide from other genocidal projects. He emphasizes that it is their dispensability and land that distinguishes the settler colonial project. This article is seen as a seminal work on settler colonial theory and will provide a basis for understanding future arguments and manifestations as outlined below.

Morgensen, S. L. (2011). The Biopolitics of Settler Colonialism: Right Here, Right Now. Settler Colonial Studies, 1(1), 5276. Morgensen seeks to outline the ways in which settler colonialism performs biopower in deeply historical and fully contemporary ways (52). In this way, he builds on Wolfe using both Foucault and Agamben as a base with which to demonstrate that biopower must be perceived as a result of settler colonialism. He employs the idea of Agambens Homo Sacer, a being which is designated by the sovereign as allowed to be killed, but not sacrificed - bare life or the state of exception. Expanding on Wolfes description of elimination as the Western laws basis in the creation of the state of exception - that of Indigenous peoples and their land - upon which a settler colonial society is built, he claims that any simultaneous or subsequent appearance of the state of exception is informed by settler colonialism. He argues that Aboriginal peoples have remained on the brink of this state of exception, able only to ask for recognition. He explains that the universality of Western law is achieved through the elimination of difference. Being a

naturalised centre of settler colonialism, this demonstrates that the colonial era never ended.

Rifkin, M. (2013). Settler Common Sense. Settler colonial studies, 3(3-4), 322340. Rifkins article redefines settler colonialism as a process, one in which the projects of elimination and replacement became quotidian and commonsensical. He builds on Wolfes thesis of the system, among others, to describe the project as hegemonic, as opposed to universal or singular, or a lived system of meanings and values needing to be continually renewed, recreated, defended and modified (326). He identifies the moments in which acts of dispossession became mundane and apolitical, based on a background (331) which sees settlement uncritically and as an extra-legal given. He argues that everyday acts of elimination are a result of a settler common sense as a product of a pervasive, but not singular, project of government and non-Natives which recreates itself without being explicitly eliminatory. I hope to use Rifkins theory of settler common sense to parallel the ways in which a similar logic is applied to homelessness and liberal ideas of common sense. This would be in addition to using it to look at ways Nativeness is constructed as lesser or more prone to criminal behaviour.

Macoun, A. & Strakosch, E. (2013). The ethical demands of settler colonial theory. Settler Colonial Studies, 3(3-4), 426-443. Through this article, Macoun and Strakosh seek to analyse the role of settler colonial theory via its strengths, its challenges and its transformative power within academic research. Among strengths, they mention its capacity to demonstrate the contemporary nature of colonialism as well as the non-neutrality of the settler state and its presence on settled land. However, they hazard that settler colonial studies may be a self-fulfilling prophecy which posits the inevitability of such a structure and the futility in fighting it. They also hazard that settler colonial studies are not a means to replace engagement with Indigenous peoples. Finally, they insist on the non-totality of settler colonial theory, that it is but one of many limited analyses that one must take into consideration. I would like to be able to take their many cautions into consideration throughout my project. As a non-Native working in the context of settler colonialism, I hope to take into account the many ways in which my actions may reproduce colonial imbalance, as well as heed their insistence as to the limited nature of settler colonial theory.

Together, Wolfe, Morgensen, Rifkin and Macoun and Strakosch provide a framework for understanding the workings of power and government as well as the engrained nature of settler colonialism working in many ways and on many levels. Following the evolution of the theory from Wolfes seminal text to some very recent interpretations allows for a background by which I hope to develop my own understanding of the relevance of the settler colonial present in the context of Montreal and Cabot Square.

HOMELESSNESS, THE CITY AND GENTRIFICATION THROUGH THE COLONIAL LENS

Blomley, N. (2004). Land and the postcolonial city. Unsettling the city: Urban land and the politics of property (pp. 105-156). New York: Routledge. In this article, Blomley seeks to place the discussion of the city and its workings within the context of colonialism, specifically in Vancouver, BC as a postcolonial city. He demonstrates that while dispossession is complete, displacement is open to contestation and remaking (109). He underscores the important role cities have had in dispossession as the outposts of empire. Notions of rights, property and the inevitability of progress are also mentioned. Blomley refers to the philosophies of Locke and Hobbes as instrumental in underscoring the importance of order and the opposite of life before settlement, rules and property. He describes several interventions used to reclaim urban spaces which are seen to be far removed from the serenity of the Aboriginal spirituality, challenging erasure of Native peoples both through their location and their political nature. He contrasts them with such sites of remembrance as the Totem Poles in Vancouvers Stanley Park, which memorialise at the same time as they forget (122). Blomleys article places many of the concepts outlines in the previous section and contextualised them within the (specifically Canadian) urban centre. This will create a basis for understanding the inherent role cities play in the elimination of the Native as well as understanding the potential to recreate spaces of Indigeneity within cities.

Lyons, L. E. (2011). From the Indigenous to the Indigent: Homelessness and Settler Colonialism in Hawaii. In Studies in Settler Colonialism: Politics, Identity and Culture (pp. 140152). Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. In this chapter, Lyons studies the realities of Native Hawaiian homelessness. Looking at two examples in the state, she demonstrates the ways in which efforts made, private and public, on behalf of homeless people take on a paternalistic and racist tone which values economic value over use value and create a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, placing this in the context of a settler colonial state. She describes a connection between colonialism and homelessness as a lack of political sovereignty within territory once their own. She also points out the tendency to view individual, mainly psychological, problems as cause for homelessness rather than systemic violence and dispossession. Citing Wolfe, she concludes that we must consider the lasting colonial legacy of private property rights as well as the ever present structure of settler colonialism in the discussion of the homeless, and more specifically, the Indigenous homeless. Though narrow in scope, Lyons piece forms direct links between homelessness and settler colonialism, both within the context of the Native and non-Native homeless. These arguments will form a basis for a broader argument on the connections between the two.

HOMELESSNESS, THE CITY AND GENTRIFICATION WITHOUT

Blomley, N. (2010). The Right to Pass Freely: Circulation, Begging and The Bounded Self. Social Legal Studies, 19(3), 331350. This article addresses ways in which many scholars and policy makers look at the issue of rights. Blomley argues that many scholars criticize regulation of public space and homelessness, claiming it disrespects the rights of the homeless or have a basis in discrimination, simply as a means to address larger issues. He analyses Canadian Safe Street Talk in an attempt to show that we should assess the basis for safe street logic. He contends that the rhetoric is based in a commonsensical, liberal view that values the bounded self, or the right to pass freely as an individual, as the pretext for freedom. He sees that it is this liberalism that makes such legislation difficult to contest in that it is not specifically exclusionary. This article is useful in deciphering similar rhetoric which is very present in plans for Cabot Square. However, where it lacks is in providing a better understanding of the source of commonsensical liberalism, something which I would argue is the settler colonial framework on which our system or rights and values is based, or Rifkins notion of settler common sense. These concepts together build a basis for the understanding the ways in which

Mitchell, D. (2003). The annihilation of space by law: Anti-homeless laws and the shrinking landscape of rights. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (pp. 161-194). New York: Guilford Press. Mitchell points to several new, anti-homeless, pro-quality of life laws that have been implemented over the past decade in the United States, claiming that they raise the politics of aesthetics over the politics of survival (189). He applies Neil Smiths concept of revanchism as an urban strategy cutting across party lines which, according to neoliberal globalisation, seeks to attract capital. Harvey and Marx are central to his arguments the title being a play on Marxs annihilation of space by time using the metaphor instead to demonstrate the elimination of space through judicial and disciplinary measures. Using the example of Seattle, he shows that laws addressing antisocial behaviour were unevenly applied, inevitably leading to profiling, whereby survival itself is criminalized (163). Referring to the recent resurgence and recriminalisation, he acknowledges a history of criminalisation of the poor in Europe and the need for a reserve of this army of poverty for the expansion of capital (174). He also notes a reinvestment in a language of deviance (178). Questions of exclusionary citizenship and rights are also raised, similar to previously mentioned states of homo sacer. Many concepts are useful within the article, namely in outlining the ways in which law has been adapted to suit aesthetics and therefore global capital. However, the placing global capitalism within the context of settler colonialism and recognizing alternative histories of dehumanisation based on notions of citizenship would be useful. Additionally,

taking into account the above article by Blomley highlights the need to understand the basis of the rhetoric in social liberalism.

Harvey, D. (2008). The right to the city. New Left Review 53(1), 23-40. In this article, Harvey looks at the way in which capitalism and urbanisation are linked. He describes cities as product of accumulation, which inevitably results in crisis and is linked to class struggle. Using Haussmanns Paris and Moses New York, he outlines the ways by which urbanisation, specifically the housing sector, simultaneously absorb surplus, stabilise economies and placate the middle class via debt and private property ownership. It is this that leads to the neoliberal ethic which reveres individualism and produces a pacified population and maintains itself via dispossession of the poor. Finally, he argues that we should demand greater democratic control over the surplus which he maintains will allow for a more democratic urban environment. This article clearly presents the arguments for an economic understanding of the ways is which cities have become tools in capital accumulation and global positioning. Im interested in the ways in which much of the language and ideas bright up coincide with settler colonial theory, including explicit mention of colonising space and the parallels between the neoliberal ethic and settler common sense.