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Law Legal History

Colonial Proximities

Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871-1921

by (author) Renisa Mawani

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.

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