Deterritorialisation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Transformation of the Ethnocultural Landscape and Identity

Abstract

The article represents a socio-philosophical analysis of the process of deterritorialisation of indigenous peoples in Canada, in both geographical and socio-cultural terms. It examines the process of forced resettlement and assimilation of aboriginal peoples implemented by the Canadian state throughout the colonial period. Analyzing Canada’s state policy within the framework of constructivist theories, the researcher demonstrates that the colonial policy was based on the ideological opposition of “civilized” European society to “savage” indigenous peoples. The study shows how the categories of “uncivilized”, “backward peoples”, and “non-status Indians” were used by the authorities to represent the indigenous peoples in order to justify the denial of their rights to traditional territories. The analysis reveals that the deterritorialisation of the indigenous peoples of Canada was a comprehensive process implemented through a system of interconnected instruments. The key instrument was the Indian Act of 1876, which legally established the categorisation of the indigenous population into “status” and “non-status”, limited their spatial boundaries through the reservation system, and deprived the aboriginal peoples of the right to their ancestral lands. In socio-cultural terms, this act was aimed at erasing the ethnocultural landscape and identity. Another crucial means of deterritorialisation was the residential school system, which severed the children's spiritual connection to their native places and traditional way of life and disrupted intergenerational continuity. Re-mapping based on the doctrine of “terra nullius” presented the ancestral lands of aboriginal peoples as “no one's lands”, thereby erasing indigeneity from the country's landscape. The industrial development of territories led to the degradation of the environment, the forced relocation of aboriginal communities, and the rupture of the procedural bond between the indigenous peoples and their lands. The article substantiates that the underlying goal of deterritorialis ation was not merely the physical displacement of the indigenous peoples and the deprivation of their rights to traditional territories, but also the transformation of the aboriginal cultural landscape and the recodification of their ethnocultural identity.

For citation: Kaznina I.A. Deterritorialisation ation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Transformation of the Ethnocultural Landscape and Identity. Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2026, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 95–105. https://doi.org/10.37482/2687-1505-V534