ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses what makes the oil sands disastrous for First Nations people who live in the region; and the connections between theories of biopolitics, racism, and colonialism to explain the relationship between the state and First Nations. It also addresses the forms of resistance that pair specific, immediate demands with long-term challenges to networks of power that bear the mark of past and present colonization. Environmental justice movements, such as Idle No More, challenge the Canadian government and oil companies beyond the immediate demands to stop issuing land-use permits and to stop oil sands related activities. The history of settler colonialism in Canada offers context to understand the policies of elimination and assimilation that hold indigenous people in an uncertain space between general population and those who threaten this internal stability. Biopolitics is a useful framework for understanding the management of population using various technologies and surveillance systems, but biopolitics alone cannot describe technologies directed at marginal populations.
