ABSTRACT

Knowledge production has been integral to colonial projects and the making of the contemporary state. This paper brings these two processes together in the contemporary settler-colonial context of Canada, arguing that knowledge production remains a central technology in the contemporary (re)production of settler sovereignty. The paper uses the Aboriginal Peoples Survey as a case study, reading it through the lenses of legibility and a politics of misrecognition to advance an understanding of the Survey as a “settler project.” Not only does the Survey reinforce the erasure of Indigenous knowledges, but this erasure and misrecognition work together to limit the “universe of policy possibility” by establishing an evidence base that enables further colonial policymaking interventions. In doing so, such projects reaffirm the existing colonial relations of power between Indigenous nations and the settler state rather than supporting Indigenous self-determination through policymaking.

摘要

知识生产是殖民项目和当代国家建设不可或缺的一部分。本文将这两个过程在加拿大当代定居者-殖民背景下结合在一起，认为知识生产仍然是当代（再）生产定居者主权的核心技术。该论文使用土著人民调查作为案例研究，通过易读性和误认的政治来阅读它，以促进将调查理解为“定居者项目”。调查不仅加强了对土著知识的抹除，而且这种抹杀和误认通过建立一个支持进一步殖民政策制定干预的证据基础来共同限制“政策可能性的宇宙”。在这样做，