The Survivance of Water and Rock: An Environmental History and Settler Autoethnography of Nishnaabeg Thought Worlds, Other-than-Human Personhood, and the Trent-Severn Waterway

Abstract

This dissertation is a combination of environmental history and autoethnography exploring what it means and looks like for the author to earnestly try to take Indigenous Nishnaabeg understandings of other-than-human personhood seriously, when he is a settler, living within a dominant settler Canadian thought world. Within Nishnaabeg thought worlds, other-than-human beings—plants, animals, waters, rocks, and other beings—can be persons, kin, and nations possessing capacities including agency, animacy, and spirit. As a case study, the author contrasts dominant settler narratives of the Trent-Severn Waterway (TSW) with Nishnaabeg understandings of the other-than-human persons that the waterway was built onto and into, gathering information through a walking methodology, semi-structured interviews with Nishnaabeg knowledge keepers and settlers working in solidarity with Nishnaabeg communities along the TSW, textual analysis, and archival research. The TSW is a 386-kilometer-long system of locks, dams, and canals built onto waterbodies throughout what is now considered central Ontario, Canada, to connect Chi’Nibiish (Lake Ontario) with Waasegamaa (Georgian Bay) on Odawa Zaagigan (Lake Huron). Analyzing and applying concepts of settler colonialism, the author demonstrates the settler-colonial imposition and violence of the TSW against Nishnaabeg Nations and their other-than-human relations. The author then considers how settlers might redevelop relationships with other-than-human persons by critically reflecting on his practice of using a walking methodology to spend time with and learn from other-than-human persons impacted by the TSW. Finally, the author explores other-than-human survivance, speculating on how various other-than-human persons actively and agentially survive against and resist the TSW. Through these inquiries, the author centers other-than-human persons in an analysis of settler colonialism and examines how settlers might take other-than-human personhood seriously, in order to develop ethical relationships with other-than-human persons, better align settlers with Nishnaabeg and other Indigenous efforts to dismantle settler colonialism, and explore what possibilities there are for settlers to realize new thought worlds. The dissertation closes with the author considering further areas of inquiry that arise out of this research project and sharing insights on how Nishnaabeg thought worlds might provide inspiration and aspirations for settlers striving to realize new thought worlds.