Slowey identifies a rhetorical trend that frames the choice between development and land claims as a choice between “capitalism or traditionalism, assimilation or fossilization (2009: 229). This false binary is antithetical to self-determination, which often requires both economic development and cultural preservation as joint efforts (gas for snowmobiles, for example). Slowey further suggests that informal connections in a community are effective mechanisms of creating pragmatic self-governance, while formal agreements are capitulations that normalize “the existing the relations of the state” (Slowey 2009: 236). Nonetheless, self-government is one step towards detachment, if not decolonization, and may be the best possible scenario until Aboriginal communities can grow autonomously.

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Slowey, Gabrielle. “A Fine Balance? Aboriginal Peoples in the Canadian North and the Dilemma of Development.” In First Nations, First Thoughts: The Impact of Indigenous Thought in Canada, edited by Annis May Timpson, 229-243. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009.