Frances Widdowson – författare

How aboriginal deprivation is maintained by a self-serving "industry" of lawyers and consultants.

By examining the root causes of aboriginal problems, Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard expose the industry that has grown up around land claim settlements, showing that aboriginal policy development over the past thirty years has been manipulated by non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants. They analyse all the major aboriginal policies, examine issues that have received little critical attention - child care, health care, education, traditional knowledge - and propose the comprehensive government provision of health, education, and housing rather than deficient delivery through Native self-government.

By examining the root causes of aboriginal problems, Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard expose the industry that has grown up around land claim settlements, showing that aboriginal policy development over the past thirty years has been manipulated by non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants. They analyse all the major aboriginal policies, examine issues that have received little critical attention - child care, health care, education, traditional knowledge - and propose the comprehensive government provision of health, education, and housing rather than deficient delivery through Native self-government.

Separate but Unequal provides an in-depth critique of the ideology of parallelism—the prevailing view that Indigenous cultures and the wider Canadian society should exist separately from one another in a “nation-to-nation” relationship.Using the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples as an example, this historical and material analysis shows how the single-minded pursuit of parallelism will not result in a more balanced relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. On the contrary, it merely restores archaic economic, political, and ideological forms that will continue to isolate the Indigenous population.This book provides an alternative framework for examining Indigenous dependency. This new perspective—the political economy of neotribal rentierism—shows that Indigenous Peoples’ circumstances have been inextricably linked to the development of capitalism in Canada. While Indigenous Peoples were integral participants in the fur trade, the transition from mercantilism to industrial capitalism led to their marginalization.Published in English.