Monthly Archives: December 2007

Pacific Spirit Park and UBC Golf Course: the social construction of place in the context of aboriginal title and rights

Announcing a new Forests and Oceans for the Future research project

This is an ethnographic (anthropological) research project designed to examine the social construction of place amongst non-aboriginal residents of Point Grey -specifically users of the UBC Golf Course and Pacific Spirit Park. This project seeks to explore how non-aboriginal residents construct a sense of place and attachment to place. Key foci will be the use of language, metaphor, story in personal accounts of using places such as the golf course and the park.

Anyone interested in learning more about this project is invited to contact Charles Menzies
Given the recent media attention to the BC/Musqueam Reconciliation agreement (in which Musqueam ownership of the Golf Course and portions of Pacific Spirit Park has been affirmed by the government of BC) and given the creation of a Friends of the Golf Course and a Friends of Pacific Spirit Park this provides an excellent opportunity to explore how non-aboriginal peoples construct their sense of the importance of places such as the UBC Golf Course and Pacific Spirit Park. A subsidiary focus is on the discourse used by golf course and park supporters as they construct a sense of ownership over and sense of belonging to these places.

Research methods include anthropological participant observation (essentially participating in public meetings, rallies, joining people on walks through the park and -perhaps- as they play golf on the golf course. Unstructured research conversations will be held with non-aboriginal people who use and identify with the places identified above.

Classic anthropological methods do not involve ‘sampling’ in the sense that other social sciences might deploy. While appreciating that there are many anthropologies, the approach that I am using is one that traces the construction of meaning through networks of people who interact in a common social space. This means building linkages with people and spending time with them through the course of their daily life.

Explaining Aboriginal Rights and Title

Welcome to the BC Treaty Commission

This page offers some ‘compelling’ reasons for reconciliation and treaty making.

Aboriginal Title and Rights and Public Assets

Speakers at the Friends of Pacific Spirit Park rally on December 9th, 2007, spoke against the ‘transfer’ of a ‘public asset’ to ‘settle a provincial’ debt and to ‘save’ the UBC Golf Course. While the speakers at the rally may not feel or think that they were rallying against the Musqueam Reconciliation Agreement, any First Nations person or any person who has worked with First Nations for any length of time would find it hard to see the fine distinction that the speakers may well think they were making. First Nations communities constantly face non-aboriginal communities who will say “We support legitimate land claims” and then say that the specific item –be it fisheries, forestry, energy, water, or parkland- trumps the ‘particular’ interest of the First Nations because the non-aboriginal claim is in the ‘interest of all of us.’ For over 30 years I have had opportunities to witness many different non-aboriginal groups rally the same arguments in their opposition to resolving land claims and affirming aboriginal title and rights. The current provincial government even entered office opposing many specific aspects of reconciliation but has found, as they matured in office, that their populist opposition to aboriginal title and rights is not supported in law. So, short of a revolution, reconciliation agreements, such as the one entered into with Musqueam, will be the order of the day –whatever the stripe of the government.