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‘Authorizing the peril’ : mythologies of (settler) law at the end of time
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Shah, Sahar (2021) ‘Authorizing the peril’ : mythologies of (settler) law at the end of time. Law and Critique, 32 (3). pp. 269-284. doi:10.1007/s10978-021-09307-w ISSN 0957-8536.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10978-021-09307-w
Abstract
The promised paradises of colonial capitalism and neoliberalism are set in a perpetually elusive future (Fitzpatrick 1992). This future is not a set destination, but an endless linear journey set to the thrum of ‘progress’ and ‘development’. This paper considers, in the context of recent cases relating to development in the Athabasca tar sands region, what the law of the Canadian settler state does when it is faced with interruptions and ruptures in its timescape. Drawing on Fitzpatrick’s seminal work, The Mythology of Modern Law, I argue that a conceptualisation of law’s behaviour in these contexts as functionally mythological highlights some of the elusive ways that settler law maintains a stranglehold over legal imaginaries of oil and gas developments: by distorting and flattening the pasts and presents of Indigenous societies that pre-dated (and continue to co-exist with) the settler state on ‘Canadian’ land, by mediating between the ‘origin’ of the settler state and the daily rhythms of colonial time through ‘Eternal Objects’ such as property and economic development, and by asserting a general ‘objectivity’ of law to evade any direct grappling with the stark possibilities of the ‘end of the world’ created by the climate crisis. I conclude, drawing on Indigenous scholarship and the work of de Goede and Randalls, that a meaningful response to the climate crisis requires re-enchanted attachments to life that necessitate a departure from the one-dimensional temporality of the mythologies of settler law.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | K Law [Moys] > KA Jurisprudence K Law [Moys] > KC International Law |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Sociological jurisprudence -- Canada, Myth, Environmental justice, Athabasca Tar Sands Region (Alberta), Climatic changes -- Law and legislation, Colonies -- History | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Law and Critique | ||||||||
Publisher: | Springer Netherlands | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0957-8536 | ||||||||
Official Date: | November 2021 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 32 | ||||||||
Number: | 3 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 269-284 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1007/s10978-021-09307-w | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 9 August 2022 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 23 August 2022 |
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