ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ambivalence of the term postcolonial along with its theoretical and political relevance through a discussion of the politics of nature' in recent environmental conflicts in British Columbia (BC), Canada. First Nations in BC continue to articulate ways of imag(in)ing social natures that are tied to their own cultural traditions and historical and spatial practices. The phrase 'social nature' should ward against simplistic interpretations that locate aboriginal people as 'closer to' nature or as necessarily having an environmental ethic of sustainability. Like any other social group, the production of nature by individual First Nations groups is mediated through cultural practices, epistemologies, and technologies. Within rhetorics of "nature as the absence of culture," First Nations are provided with few possible subject positions, and these few are highly circumscribed. In legal struggles, and in recent "government to government" negotiations, 'First Nations must always deal with the question of 'evidence' for native claims.
