Contesting Land and Power: Colonialism, Capitalism,and Resistance at Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek

Abstract

Protests at Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek started with a small group of activists and quickly grew to become a large movement that included direct action at multiple sites on the West Coast of Vancouver Island as well as a large online following that spanned across the country and to other parts of the world. The actions taken to stop logging at Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek by protesters and the various responses to those actions have raised many questions about decision making in the face of climate change, biodiversity loss, and increasing numbers of old-growth-forest-dependent species at risk. It has also drawn attention to crown-industry-Indigenous relations and to questions about land including title rights, jurisdiction, and responsibilities to the land and to each other on both unceded and treaty land in British Columbia. Marxist state theories, theories of colonialism and racial capitalism help explain different facets of these interrelated questions, all of which can be tied to colonialism and the resulting ongoing quest for control over land, the goal of extinguishing Indigenous peoples either through assimilation or genocide, the expansion of colonial capitalist system, as well as the ongoing resistance to these systems and relations. Scholarship has noted that current realities cannot be isolated from their histories and that to both understand current events and enact change one must understand past actions and the traces these have left. Situating the Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek case in economic, social, and environmental context and in a British Columbia influenced by colonialism, capitalism, and climate change, this paper examines the historical preconditions for the controversy at Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek and how these conditions remain reflected in current events and conversations that have taken place during the protests.