Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities
ISBN-13: 978-0415838597
ISBN-10: 0415838592
Winner of the Political Geography Specialty Group's 2015 Julian Minghi Distinguished Book Award!
With almost the entire world’s water basins crossing political borders of some kind, understanding how to cooperate with one’s neighbor is of global relevance. For Indigenous communities, whose traditional homelands may predate and challenge the current borders, and whose relationship to water sources are linked to the protection of traditional lifeways (or ‘ways of life’), transboundary water governance is deeply political.
This book explores the nuances of transboundary water governance through an in-depth examination of the Canada-US border, with an emphasis on the leadership of Indigenous actors (First Nations and Native Americans). The inclusion of this "third sovereign" in the discussion of Canada-U.S. relations provides an important avenue to challenge borders as fixed, both in terms of natural resource governance and citizenship, and highlights the role of non-state actors in charting new territory in water governance. The volume widens the conversation to provide a rich analysis of the cultural politics of transboundary water governance.
In this context, the book explores the issue of what makes a good up-stream neighbor and analyzes the rescaling of transboundary water governance. Through narrative, the book explores how these governance mechanisms are linked to wider issues of environmental justice, decolonization, and self-determination. To highlight the changing patterns of water governance, it focuses on six case studies that grapple with transboundary water issues at different scales and with different constructions of border politics, from the Pacific coastline to the Great Lakes.
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Good water governance includes all stakeholders and self-determining nations. In Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities, Emma S. Norman considers the past, present, and future of water governance among the eponymous three political units and explores these North American laws, policies, and institutions that form the present system. The book recasts a traditional bilateral understanding of water governance by exploring the ways that the indigenous communities and members act to complicate and complement existing trends while suggesting avenues for further cooperation and understanding that would strengthen the ability of these countries to sustainably comanage their shared resource. Further, the book seeks to analyze how through the process of asserting greater sovereignty in water governance, indigenous groups are not only improving environmental quality, but furthering their goal of self-determination. The book is an insightful, rigorous, and hopeful study of a critical issue.
The strength of this book is Norman's ability to draw on a number of viewpoints, many of which are ignored by traditional texts on the topic. Particularly, trans-boundary waters books lurch toward a legal view. In that genre, the work centers on a handful of texts and treaties. Norman does not neglect the legal analysis, but provides it in a historical setting that serves to frame a broader discussion about which actors are or are not included in most discussions of governance. Also important, this book draws on indigenous knowledge and theories, which bring about a wider viewpoint. Combining interviews, observation, data from symposia, and primary sources brings the picture into relief and brings the book a richer and more nuanced understanding of the intricate relationship among these different groups. Much of the material is covered in a narrative form, which helps make for a particularly compelling reading experience.
Norman places history in the center of her study. By tracing the evolution of the space governed by European settlers westward from colonization toward the Pacific, she tells the story of how the present system of governance between United States and Canada is a slow evolution. This gives the reader a better understanding of how institutions in the present governance system can both be shared, such as the International Joint Commission (IJC), even as differences remain between Canada and the United States approach. Certainly, there has been a proliferation of governance regulations and institutions. Taking the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 as a starting point, the present day has seen the emergence of a number of new bodies focused on the environment and water, such as through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These each have their own distinct advantages and drawbacks, and Norman contrasts them, bringing a strong picture of present-day governance between the United States and Canada. At the same time, though, indigenous authority has been marginalized in the governance process and these groups have largely had their voices ignored, also being very literally divided by the international boarder. As groups that predated any artificial line, they have disproportionally felt the impact of differential water governance in their traditional territories, as the U.S. Coast Salish watch as the Canadians are ticketed for collecting the same traditional shellfish that they have relied on for generations.
Governing Transboundary Waters is more than a book about state-level relationships among the United States, Canada, and indigenous people. The book is equally concerned with understanding how indigenous knowledge could be brought to center and privileged throughout governance at a variety of scales. Attendant to the key differences in this multiscalar landscape, this work explores how for indigenous groups, the expansion of their participation in the governance process is not only about resource management and protection. Rather, as Norman demonstrates, it is a means to expand their right to self-determination and resist ongoing forms of colonialism. This requires an examination not only of the ways in which governance has begun to be scaled down, but to recognize that governance from the indigenous perspective is in a process of being scaled up as it moves from institutions of a small tribe to encompassing entire nations. This is more clearly seen in the Coast Salish Gathering, which has not only energized water governance, but as Norman explains also served as a unique point for these people who have been divided by the border between the United States and Canada. While being required to navigate the physical and cultural separations, water governance related activity is experienced.
A dominant theme is understanding water governance as practiced by the indigenous people in this region. Moving from government as a narrow field to governance as a broad subject brings in a wide range of activity associated with environmental protection and conservation. As Norman explains, many of the indigenous governance activities can be described as “performative.” The reader gains insight through case studies such as the Mother Earth Water Walks, which raise awareness about the failing ecosystem and the critical role that water plays for humanity and the different perceptions between indigenous people and the Canadian government. This and other examples challenge the reader to understand differing definitions for governance.
This inclusive framing of the water governance question underscores the timeliness of this work. The United States and Canada have peacefully comanaged their shared water resources since at least the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty. This instrument has operated to settle disputes between these two countries with astonishing equanimity. This bilateral relationship is being pressured by other forces, however, including climate change, which encourage a rapid adjustment. During a time when critical instruments such as the Columbia River Treaty are renegotiated, this work helps open up both critical conceptual space and helpful advocacy so that the future reflects a contemporary understanding of water governance rather than repeating outdated views. This book will be relevant to scholars in a number of fields. The book is clearly relevant to geographers, particularly those with a focus on political, economic, human, and cultural geography. Although the geographical focus is on the long border between the United States and Canada, the work more specifically discusses events in the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes regions. The book will also interest those working in legal studies, particularly international and environmental law. Indigenous studies scholars might also appreciate this book for its reflections on law and governance. The book is not excessively theoretically focused, making it broadly accessible to both scholars and nonscholars alike.
Norman could have improved this piece by more critically considering the role of the indigenous people within the framework of U.S. and Canadian institutions. Extensive time is spent discussing areas such as the IJC's International Watershed Boards, which downshift the scale of governance. These are important tools to bring in new voices to the governance process and provide a useful avenue for public participation. The indigenous role in these existing governance structures is left largely unexplained, however, with the dominant focus on the other forms of governance in which they engage.
This is Norman's third book, but first single-authored effort. With a background in both water governance and indigenous studies, her positionality is clear throughout the text. This helps establish the framework by which she understands her subject and provides additional strength to the argument and particularly to her observations of the ways that status quo forms of water governance affect the lives of indigenous people on both sides of the Canadian–U.S. border. For example, she brings extensive notes from her time spent in conversations with the Coast Salish people during the Canoe Journey through the Pacific waters around Washington State and British Columbia. More than mere antidotes, this serves as an example for how recent inclusion of water testing in conjunction with U.S. Geological Survey authorities serves to include these people in a now hybrid space that was traditionally reserved for only U.S. or Canadian actors.
Governing Transboundary Waters asks difficult questions about water governance, a difficult-to-contain resource, and how it can be shifted and improved to better serve particular people and environment. Norman reflects on the border between the United States and Canada and how the similarly placed indigenous people in this area are themselves pushing back against constructed barriers to their inclusion in the process. This is a worthy contribution that will expand the debate in a number of fields and is a must read for anyone who is concerned about water governance and indigenous groups. The message that everyone needs to “pull together” will be well received.
About the author (2014)
Emma S. Norman is Chair of the Science Department / Native Environmental Science Program at Northwest Indian College, Bellingham, Washington State, USA. She is also a Research Associate with the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the America Indian, USA, and a long-term collaborator with the Program on Water Governance at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
Bibliographic information
QR code for Governing Transboundary Waters
Title Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities
Earthscan Studies in Water Resource Management
Author Emma S. Norman
Publisher Taylor & Francis, 2014
ISBN 1135040192, 9781135040192
Length 236 pages
Subjects Nature › Ecosystems & Habitats › Lakes, Ponds & Swamps
Nature / Ecosystems & Habitats / Lakes, Ponds & Swamps
Nature / Ecosystems & Habitats / Oceans & Seas
Political Science / International Relations / General
Technology & Engineering / Environmental / General