Oil and gas companies now recognize that industrial projects in the Canadian North can only succeed if Aboriginal communities are involved in decision-making processes. Where the Rivers Meet is an ethnographic account of Sahtu Dene involvement in the environmental assessment of the Mackenzie Gas Project, a massive pipeline that, if completed, would have unprecedented effects on Aboriginal communities in the North. The book reveals that while there has been some progress in establishing avenues for Dene participation in decision making, the ultimate assessment of such projects remains rooted in non-local beliefs about the nature of the environment, the commodification of land, and the inevitability of a hydrocarbon-based economy.

Carly A. Dokis' profile page

Carly A. Dokis is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Nipissing University. Her research interests include political ecology, anthropology of development, collaborative research methodologies, and the ethnology of northern Canada. She has worked with communities in northern Ontario and the Northwest Territories with a broad focus on the social, economic, and political consequences of participatory environmental management.

This book represents a significant contribution to our understanding of barriers to procedural justice in Aboriginal communities, and it offers important lessons for regulators, policy makers, and rights advocates well beyond the Northwest Territories. Senior undergraduate or graduate students interested in anthropology, indigenous studies, or political ecology will find the work accessible and very relevant to the contemporary history of development on aboriginal lands.

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