There Is Something in that Water: Race, Nationalism, and Legal Violence
Publisher: Law & Social Inquiry
Author(s): Carmela Murdocca
Date: 2010
Topics: Basic Services, Extractive Resources, Governance, Renewable Resources, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution
This article analyzes the issue of water contamination in Kashechewan, Ontario, Canada. Through an inquiry into the way in which water contamination in one Aboriginal community was handled by the local and federal governments , this article examines processes of ongoing colonialism in Canada. Drawing on an array of sources, this article explores three features pertinent to this water crisis: historical forms of legal violence, symbolic forms of representation concerning the relationship between nationalism and the governance of race in liberal democracies, and the importance of the case study approach when examining legalized forms of violence. Ety examining connections betweenrace, nationalism, and legal violence, this article explores the ways in which biopoliticai forms of racial governance require an analysis that links legal violence and structural violence to historical and symbolic forms of representation.