SELECTED THESES ON THE CIRCUMPOLAR ARCTIC

The unusual prominence and resonance of the Berger Inquiry into the construction of a Mackenzie Valley pipeline may be explained by the Inquiry's role in the transformation of the fundamental social relations of native societies in the Mackenzie Valley. The Berger Inquiry period comprises one crucial phase in the long process of transformation which began when native societies were first contacted by emissaries of European capitalism during the 18th century. Successive exogenous influences shaped changes in Mackenzie Valley social relations, but these influences did not decisively draw the Dene into capitalist society.
The expansion of the Northwest Territories regional government and the post-Prudhoe Bay oil rush in the late 1960s threatened to achieve this resolution, by legally and practically separating the Dene from the material basis of non-capitalist productive activity -- that is, from the land. Apprehension of this prospect, together with new opportunities for communication and organisation (provided by the Berger Inquiry and in other ways) prompted the self-organisation of Mackenzie Valley native people and their emergence into modern 'politics'. The details of this process, and of the Inquiry's influence, are explored at length.
A subsidiary theme of the thesis is that certain analytical tools developed by Karl Marx in his study of the emergence of capitalism in Europe may be used to comprehend both the transformation of Dene social relations, and the role of the Canadian state in this development. A general conclusion is that because the Dene confront a liberal democratic capitalist state, they may build upon the basis of traditional social relations a new society which preserves significant elements of older ways, including a special relationship to the land.'