Colonial Proximities
Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871-1921
- Publisher
- UBC Press
- Initial publish date
- Jan 2010
- Category
- Legal History, Civil Law, General, General, British Columbia (BC), Cultural, Post-Confederation (1867-), Native American Studies, General, General
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780774858854
- Publish Date
- Jan 2010
- List Price
- $32.95
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780774816342
- Publish Date
- Jan 2010
- List Price
- $32.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780774816335
- Publish Date
- May 2009
- List Price
- $95.00
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Description
Real and imagined encounters among Aboriginal peoples, European colonists, Chinese migrants, and mixed-race populations produced racial anxieties that underwrote crossracial contacts in the salmon canneries, the illicit liquor trade, and the (white) slavery scare in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century British Columbia. Colonial Proximities explores the legal and spatial strategies of rule deployed by Indian agents, missionaries, and legal authorities who aspired to restrict crossracial encounters. By connecting genealogies of aboriginal-European contact with those of Chinese migration, this book reveals that territorial dispossession and Chinese exclusion were never distinct projects but two conjunctive processes in the making of the settler regime.
Drawing on archival documents and historical records, Colonial Proximities historicizes current discussions of multiculturalism and pluralism in modern settler societies by revealing how crossracial interactions in one colonial contact zone inspired juridical racial truths and forms of governance that continue to linger in contemporary racial politics. It is essential reading for students and practitioners of history, anthropology, sociology, colonial/ postcolonial studies, and critical race and legal studies.
About the author
Contributor Notes
Renisa Mawani is an associate professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia.