A Bounded Land
Reflections on Settler Colonialism in Canada
- Publisher
- UBC Press
- Initial publish date
- Nov 2020
- Category
- Historical Geography, General
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780774864411
- Publish Date
- Nov 2020
- List Price
- $39.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780774864442
- Publish Date
- Nov 2020
- List Price
- $32.95
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780774864428
- Publish Date
- Nov 2021
- List Price
- $32.95
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Description
Canada is a country of bounded spaces – a nation situated between rock and cold to the north and a political border to the south. In A Bounded Land, Cole Harris seeks answers to a sweeping question: How was society reorganized – for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike – when Europeans resettled this distinctive land?
Through a series of vignettes that focus on people’s experiences on the ground, Harris exposes the underlying architecture of settler colonialism as it grew and evolved, from the first glimpses of new lands and peoples, to the immigrant experience in early Canada, to the dispossession and resettlement of First Nations in British Columbia.
By considering the whole territory that became Canada over 500 years and focusing on sites of colonial domination rather than settler texts, Harris unearths fresh insights on the continuing and growing influence of Indigenous peoples and argues that Canada’s boundedness is ultimately drawing the country toward its Indigenous roots.
About the author
Cole Harris is a Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of several books, including Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia (UBC Press, 2002), which was nominated for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, and The Reluctant Land: Society, Space, and Environment in Canada before Confederation (UBC Press, 2008), which won the Srivastava Prize for Excellence in Scholarly Publishing. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada. He lives in Vancouver, BC. To this day Harris and his family maintain a summer home on property originally staked out by his grandfather.
Editorial Reviews
A Bounded Land brings new dimensions and reflections to the work of Cole Harris as a scholar. The themes turn on settlement, colonization, dispossession, re-settlement, and the concluding theme throws light on Indigenous displacement and theories of empire and decolonization.
The Ormsby Review
Overall, this book is not only a fitting capstone to an extroardinary career, but also an excellent primer for understanding Canada's settler colonial past.
Pacific Historical Review
It is to Harris’s credit that the innovative assembly of spatial and social vignettes in A Bounded Land prompts our reflection on Indigenous and settler relations in colonial Canada.
University of Toronto Quarterly
A Bounded Land is a guided tour through the work of a brilliant, insightful, and compassionate mind and body of work.
The Canadian Historical Review
There is a lot packed into this book ... [It] highlights the theoretical and practical policies that underwrote colonialism. In doing so, it helps to explain how the history of dispossession became inseparable from the rise of nation-states such as Canada.
The Canadian Journal of History
This is the most informative, penetrating and best-written account that I have read on the topic.
The Advocate
Cole Harris has produced an eloquent compilation of work on settler colonialism in Canada.
BC Studies, Issue 209
Other titles by
A Bounded Land
Reflections on Settler Colonialism in Canada
Ranch in the Slocan
A Biography of a Kootenay Farm, 1896–2017
The Resettlement of British Columbia
Essays on Colonialism and Geographical Change
The Reluctant Land
Society, Space, and Environment in Canada before Confederation
Making Native Space
Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia