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Tutelage, Resistance and Co-optation
in Canadian Indian Administration*
NOEL DYCK Simon Fruser University
L’administration des affaires indiennes par 1’Etat canadien a
longtemps suivi une politique de tutelle coercitive visant a accom-
plir la transformation sociale, economique et culturelle des peuples
autochtones et de leurs communautes. En se basant sur l’idee que
les autochtones etaient incapables de gerer leurs propres affaires,
les autorites federales ont impose des bureaucraties visant a assu-
rer le contrale de presque tous les aspects de leur vie, de l’education
des enfants a la gestion des ressources materielles. Ce systeme de
tutelle Btatique a engendre de vastes et profonds mouvements de
resistance chez,les peuples vises. Toutefois, certains aspects des
politiques de 1’Etat federal n’ayant pas ete uniformement rejetes
par l’ensemble de la population autochtone, l’on est en droit de se
demander si une acceptation passive ou m&meune collaboration de
la part de certains autochtones aurait un effet nefaste, direct ou
indirect, sur l’avancement social des Premieres Nations. En s’ap-
puyant sur une etude de cas, cet article examine u n projet unique
en son genre, celui du recyclage de l’ancien pensionnat d‘une reser-
ve indienne, et met en lumiere les methodes de manipulation et
d’incitation a la collaboration qui ont ete employees par les autori-
tes federales pour convaincre les autochtones d’abandonner le
projet. L’auteur se penche egalement sur l’enjeu theorique et
ethnographique pour l’anthropologue, et celui, politique, pour les
autochtones, dans la mesure ou les incitations a la collaboration
peuvent &treinterpretees dans le cadre d’un rapport tutelle-
resistance entre les Premieres Nations e t 1’Etat federal.
The administration of Indian affairs by the Canadian state has
embodied a form of coercive tutelage designed to effect the social,
economic and cultural transformation of aboriginal peoples and
their communities. Working from the premise that aboriginal
peoples did not know what was in their own best interests, federal
officials imposed bureaucratic systems that sought to regulate
* I would like to thank Brian Freer for inviting me to present an earlier version of this paper at the
symposium “Co-optation and Social Justice: Dilemmas in the Ethnography of Dissent” that he
convened for the American Anthropological Association Annual Conference, November 20-24,1996.
in San Francisco. I would also like to acknowledge the generous and helpful comments provided by
Dara Culhane and Peter Harries-Jones. The manuscript of this article was submitted and accepted
in June 1997.334 CRSNRCSA, 34.3 1997
almost every aspect of Indians’ lives, from the rearing of children to
the management of material resources. This system of state tute-
lage in turn generated deep and widespread resistance from abo-
riginal communities, which frequently served to frustrate the
realization of the federal government’s objectives. Nevertheless, not
all aspects of federal Indian administration have been uniformly
resisted by all aboriginal communities o r by all members of given
communities. This raises the question of whether instances of non-
resistance or even of active co-operation on the part of some aborigi-
nal people with certain government policies, initiatives or proce-
dures comprise acts or habits of co-optation that directly or indi-
rectly compromise the attainment of social justice for the greater
aboriginal population. This essay employs a case study to examine
the circumstances under which a unique aboriginal initiative to
transform a former Indian residential school has been undermined
by co-optative state processes. The essay considers what is a t stake
theoretically and ethnographically for anthropologists and politi-
cally for aboriginal communities if co-optation is operationally
defined as an associated element of relations of tutelage and
resistance.
ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND OTHER SOCIAL SCIENTISTS who study
contemporary Canadian aboriginal cultures and communities encounter
an expectation among indigenous peoples that their research ought to
address social justice issues in addition t o matters of more traditional
academic interest. Anthropologists have, accordingly, been obliged to take
into account the Canadian state’s relations with First Nations peoples,
thereby compelling them to investigate a range of troubling questions
pertaining to public policy, past and present. The diverse body of anthro-
pological research into First Nations issues produced under these condi-
tions has, in turn, engendered a lively debate about the intellectual and
ethical implications of combining anthropology with advocacy (Culhane
Speck, 1987; Dyck and Waldram, 1993; Paine, 1985; Warry, 1992). This
debate has also fuelled a growing interest among anthropologists concern-
ing the political, economic and cultural processes by which the agencies
and institutions of the Canadian state seek to manage aboriginal issues
and oppositional movements.
My purpose here is not to rehearse the case for advocacy,’ but to
identify some of the practical difficulties in anthropological analysis and
advocacy that arise when we fail to take into account the manner in which
governments in liberal democratic states, such as Canada, systematically
operate to control aboriginal lands, communities and claims for social
justice. Specifically, I wish to establish theoretical space within anthropo-
logical models of aboriginal-state relations for identifying and explicating
stratagems and processes of co-optation. The ethnographic context that
will serve to shed light on these matters is that of the Indian residential
1. Peter Harries-Jones 11985; 1991) has already cogently stated the argument in support of this
position.Tutelage, Resistance and Co-optation 335
schooling issue and, in particular, that of an innovative aboriginal educa-
tional and child-care initiative that is in the process of being dismantled
by the complex forces of state co-optation. This case reveals the manner in
which an erstwhile reluctance t o come to terms with co-optative state
practices may not only limit ethnographers’ ability to comprehend contem-
porary First Nations issues but may also undermine aboriginal undertak-
ings t o exercise limited but significant forms of autonomy.
Tutelage and Resistance in Canadian Indian Administration
Although the administration of Indians and Indian lands is one of the
oldest responsibilities of government in Canada, only relatively recently
has anthropology given sustained attention t o relations between aborigi-
nal peoples and the Canadian state.2 Driven by the prospect of the
imminent disappearance of aboriginal peoples, early salvage ethnologists
omitted to examine dealings between First Nations and the Canadian
state (as well as aboriginal peoples’ dealings with Euro-Canadian society
in general) in their published accounts of “authentic” aboriginal cultures.
Subsequent recognition in the early 20th century of the demographic
stabilization of the aboriginal population in Canada coincided roughly
with the development of acculturation theory in anthropology. While the
physical survival of aboriginal peoples may no longer have been in doubt,
there remained a widespread but usually unstated assumption among
anthropologists that indigenous peoples would sooner or later be assimi-
lated into Canadian society. Accordingly, the underlying objective of many
anthropologists working in this field became that of cultural translation.
Applied anthropological studies of aboriginal communities and problems
framed in terms of this genre became commonplace during the 1950s and
1960s.
A turning point in the development of Canadian anthropology oc-
curred during the 1960s when a group of ethnographers and other social
scientists (led by anthropologists Harry Hawthorn and Marc-AdBlard
Tremblay) conducted a government-commissioned national survey of
Canadian Indians (Hawthorn and Tremblay, 1967;Weaver, 1993).Their
study found that the administration of Indian affairs had played and
would likely continue to play an essential part in shaping the lives and
prospects of First Nations peoples. The Hawthorn Report also demon-
strated that ethnographers could usefully devote attention not only to
aboriginal peoples but also t o agencies and administrators empowered to
manage Indian affairs. This re-orientation of Canadian anthropology was
given further impetus by what came to be known as the White Pape?
2. Notable exceptions to this general observation include Hanks and Hanks (1950) and Dunning
(1959a; 1959b3.
3. White paper proposals represent a traditional mechanism of Canadian parliamentary practice. They
represent proposals presented by government for discussion rather than immediate legislative
adoption.336 CRSNRCSA, 34.3 1997
Controversy of 1969-70 (Weaver, 1981). In short, the Canadian govern-
ment was obliged to withdraw a unilateral proposal to impose a policy of
termination upon First Nations, a n outcome forced by an unprecedented
national protest movement mounted by Indian bands and representative
organizations. Ethnographers ceased to look at First Nations as passive
objects of state policy after 1969.
Since the White Paper Controversy, Canadian anthropology has
become increasingly concerned with tracing both the previously neglected
history of Canadian Indian administration as well as the ways in which
contemporary First Nations issues are shaped by the interplay between
aboriginal and state interests. These analytical developments have en-
couraged reconceptualization of past and present forms of aboriginal-state
dealings, not least in terms of structured relationships of tutelage and
resistance (Dyck, 1991a; Paine, 1977). According to this perspective, the
administration of Indian affairs by the Canadian state has embodied a
form of coercive tutelage designed to effect the social, economic and
cultural transformation of aboriginal peoples and their communities. The
ultimate objective of state policy was ostensibly to rid Indians of their
Indianness and integrate them and their lands into Canadian society.
Operating upon the premise that aboriginal peoples did not know what
was in their own best interests, federal officials sought to regulate almost
every aspect of Indians’ lives, from the rearing of children to the manage-
ment of material resources. This system of state tutelage generated deep
and widespread resistance from aboriginal communities, which served to
frustrate the realization of the federal government’s objectives. Hence,
programmes implemented by the federal Department of Indian Affairs
were unable to accomplish their primary goal of eliminating aboriginal
cultures, notwithstanding the extraordinary administrative and legal
powers granted Indian agents by the terms and provisions of the Indian
Act.
Models of tutelage and resistance have also provided a lucid rhetori-
cal platform from which aboriginal social justice issues can be readily
launched. Thus, the structure and past workings of Canadian Indian
administration have received unprecedented public attention, often in the
context of news media coverage of contentious current dealings between
aboriginal representatives and government leaders. Aboriginal leaders
today regularly attempt to marshal1 the long and inglorious history of
Canadian Indian administration as a means for brow-beating recalcitrant
federal government leaders. These representations typically feature nar-
ratives constructed with clear-cut moral and political cleavages between
aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state. They have served to highlight
political and bureaucratic processes that tended to be overlooked by
anthropologists (as well as historians) who worked within the parameters
of earlier anthropological paradigms.
Nevertheless, careful scrutiny of both past and present dealings
between aboriginal communities and the Canadian state reveals that notTutelage, Resistance and Co-optation 337
all aspects of federal Indian administration have been invariably resisted
by all aboriginal communities or by all members of given First Nations.
This raises the question of whether instances of non-resistance-or even
of active co-operation on the part of some aboriginal people with certain
government policies, initiatives or procedures-comprise co-optation, that
is, acts or habits that directly or indirectly compromise the attainment of
social justice for the greater aboriginal population. Coming to grips with
this question will, of course, require ethnographic specification of the
circumstances under which aboriginal representatives and communities,
past and present, have voluntarily enjoined and/or have been made to
participate in various forms of federal Indian administration. And a more
sophisticated appreciation is required of the manner in which Canadian
Indian administration, like other areas of substantive operation within
liberal democratic states, strategically generates co-optation as an essen-
tial instrument of state practice.
Co-optation, according to Etzioni-Halevy (19901,can be located in the
midst of the overall set of symbolic, material and political resources that
governing elites within liberal democratic states routinely employ to
manage social movements that oppose the status quo. To maintain control
over subordinated groups, state elites use both positive and negative
sanctions. Thus, symbolic resources may be used either for stigmatizing
and humiliating oppositional groups or, more positively, for patronizing
certain aspects of their cultural identity and endorsing some of their
group’s symbolic demands. Material resources may be seized from or
denied t o a group or may, alternately, be judiciously distributed in the form
of rewards for compliant behaviour by both individuals and collectives.
Finally, governing elites may choose to exercise coercive powers, such as
restrictive legislation, or they may opt to permit the leaders of opposition
groups t o gain a certain share of power within existing power structures
in return for their acceptance of those structures (215).
Etzioni-Halevy notes that in recent decades there has been a shift in
preference among governing elites in Western liberal democratic states
from the use of coercive repression to other strategies of control. Positive,
rather than negative, sanctions have proved to be more popular and
effective instrumentalities: “amongst the positive devices, the most promi-
nent has been that of co-optation, of incorporating elites of social move-
ments into existing power structures, in exchange for moderation” (217).
Sider’s (1987) analysis of the complex dialectic of domination and resist-
ance in Indian-white relations underlines the ambiguity and cultural
contradictions that have long ensnared aboriginal peoples within Western
liberal democratic states. Domination of aboriginal peoples by Euro-
American society, argues Sider, has simultaneously entailed both incorpo-
ration and distancing of them vis-8-vis the settler population. Following a
similar line of analysis, MackIem (1993) identifies the opportunistic and
racist manner in which the Canadian state has alternately chosen to
emphasize and act upon presumed similarities and differences between338 CRSA/RCSA, 34.3 1997
aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples. This occurs in a pattern that
systematically disadvantages and maintains the marginality of First
Nations within a hierarchically structured political and economic order.
Unable to achieve success through either collusion or resistance, aborigi-
nal peoples have been obliged to seek partial autonomy by manipulating
differences of interest between various non-aboriginal political, economic
and cultural elites.
As Sider observes, “the fundamental language of this confrontational
and incorporative dialogue is not found in words, or even in symbols. It is
rooted, rather, in the domain ofsocial organization” (1987:22-23).In other
words, the ability of oppositional groups or movements, such as those
created by First Nations peoples, to realize their objectives for change and
socialjustice rests upon their capacity to sustain distinctive forms of social
organization rather than t o create distinctive cultural identities. Accord-
ing to this perspective, of greatest concern to governing elites are social
activities and institutions that enable oppositional groups and movements
to build relationships and capacities that lie beyond the effective control
of the state. Government officials react to any activities they deem to be an
inroad upon state power and interests, even when they are mundane and
low-key. And as I will show, the same government officials prefer timely
deployment of the tactics of co-optation rather than more direct and
obvious forms of sanction and coercion.
The Politics of First Nations Issues
During the White Paper Controversy of 1969, the Canadian government’s
response to the unanticipated emergence of an energetic and effective
aboriginal oppositional movement was t o furnish extensive short-term
funding to a broad range of organizational initiatives proposed by band
councils and provincial and territorial Indian organizations (Dyck, 1991a).
Federal funding not only afforded visible evidence of the government’s
apparent responsiveness t o First Nations social and political claims, but
also served t o occupy increasing portions of the time and attention of
aboriginal leaders. Between the late 1960s and early 1980s, federal
funding underwrote the creation of representational structures and lo-
cally organized social-service programming for aboriginal peoples that
encompassed community development, health liaison, education and
other service fields (Dyck, 1991b).These diverse programmes offered paid
employment to significant numbers of First Nations members and also
generated some innovative proposals for alleviating urgent problems at
the community level. Nevertheless, other issues, such as the resolution of
long-standing aboriginal land claims and the provision of sufficient re-
sources t o facilitate successful economic development programmes at the
reserve level, tended to be dealt with far more reluctantly and cautiously
by state elites.Tutelage, Resistance and Co-optation 339
The election of a Conservative federal government in the mid-1980s
led to a formal review of federal expenditures for Indian affairs (Weaver,
1986a; 1986b). In retrospect, it is clear that this contested initiative
marked the beginning of a determined process of reducing and refocussing
government involvement in this field. Henceforth, federal officials would
steadily tighten their control over funding in order to bring First Nations
into line with government objectives and guidelines. During the constitu-
tional reform debates of the late 1980s and early 199Os, national, provin-
cial and territorial aboriginal organizations did receive substantial media
coverage of their strategic demands for enshrinement of the right to
aboriginal self-government in the Constitution. Nevertheless, their previ-
ous level of influence in designing, if not in delivering, social services was
systematically eroded.
An armed standoff between aboriginal militants and the Canadian
Armed Forces at Oka, Quebec in the summer of 1990 brought about the
creation of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. But the election
of a new federal government did nothing to alter the fundamental course
of dealings between aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state. The new
government moved quickly t o scale back the operations of the federal
department in charge of Indian affairs by fostering the transfer of basic
programme delivery to band and tribal councils. Yet in drawing up and
encouraging the adoption of protocols for transferring social and educa-
tional services, federal officials insisted upon provisions that would leave
First Nations authorities with limited levels of funding and virtually
unlimited responsibilities. In effect, the Canadian state was beginning to
subcontract its responsibilities to aboriginal peoples under the guise of
enacting, piecemeal, the principle of aboriginal self-government.
This interpretation of the actions taken by federal officials since 1969
t o contain and control aboriginal organizations’ scope for political mobili-
zation and initiative does not, however, explain the capacity of the state to
impose its own agenda upon First Nations. To identify and understand the
workings of these processes, it is necessary t o examine particular in-
stances of their operation. Macro-level analyses usually rely on implicit
understandings of the coercive power of the state to accomplish both its
own purposes and those of state elites. And what no generalized account
can discern is the subtle but destructive manner in which aboriginal
organizations and authorities can be manoeuvred into supporting the
undermining of aboriginal initiatives that fall outside the confines of
federal guidelines and preferences.
Residential Schooling and Canadian Indian Administration
Before turning t o a particular instance that illustrates the processes of co-
optation in aboriginal-state relations, it is necessary to situate residential
schooling within the history of Canadian Indian administration. During
the past decade the transformative mission of Indian residential schools340 CRSNRCSA, 34.3 1997
and the awful abuses suffered by many Indian children at the hands of
some church personnel have received much attention from the Canadian
news media. Criminal charges laid against some former residential school
officials have resulted in highly publicized trials, convictions and prison
sentences. A number of critical popular and academic accounts of residen-
tial schooling have been published (Assembly of First Nations, 1994;Bull,
1991;Furniss, 1995;Haig-Brown, 1988;Jaine, 1993;Miller, 1996;Nock,
1988).In contemporary political discourse, residential schooling has thus
become synonymous with the worst excesses of the Canadian state’s past
treatment of First Nations peoples. The adoption of a church-operated,
government-supported programme of residential schooling in the latter
part of the 19th century was a key part of the federal government’s overall
plan to “solve”what was known as the Indian “problem”(Dyck, 1991a).By
separating Indian children from their parents and sending them to
residential schoolswhere they could be educated and culturallyrefashioned
into “civilized” persons, the federal government proposed to eliminate
Indianness while a t the same time dismantling Indian communities and
packaging collectively held reserve lands into private property. This self-
proclaimed “humanitarian” approach to Indian administration was ex-
pected to be a temporary measure that would remain in existence only
until all persons of Indian ancestry could be transformed into members of
Canadian society. As a stratagem for dealing with indigenous peoples, the
creation of residential schools was by no means unique t o Canada; similar
institutions were established in the United States, Australia and other
settler societies.
Although most Indian residential schools in Canada had closed by
the early 1970s,a few continued to operate in the Prairies and were taken
over by tribal councils. In the early 1990sI was approached by one of these
tribal councils to prepare a history of Indian residential schooling in one
Prairie city. The project formed part of a larger operational review of a
residential educational centre for Indian children that had been set up in
a former church-operated, government-financed residential school. The
objective of this review was to demonstrate to federal officials the need to
provide something more secure in the way of funding than the successive
one-year grants that the centre had been forced to rely on since the late
1960s.The tribal council decided to include ahistory ofthe administration
of Indian residential schools in the review so as to contrast that history
with its own recent management of the residential educational centre.
A published account of this history has been presented elsewhere
(Dyck, 1997).For the purposes of this paper, suffice it to say that my review
found that: 1) Indian parents and leaders had exhibited an abiding
interest in obtaining appropriate formal schooling for their children for
more than a century; 2) Indian parents and leaders had endeavoured to
monitor and influence the operations of successive residential schools that
functioned at different times in this particular city but had, by the middle
of the 20th century, been generally ignored by both church and state;Tutelage, Resistance and Co-optation 341
3) by the 1950s the federal government had begun to use residential
schooling in this particular city as an inexpensive means of providing child
welfare services for orphans and other Indian children whose needs could
not then be met in reserve communities; 4) the decision t o keep this
particular institution operating after 1969 (when most residential schools
were closed) was forced by local First Nations leaders, who viewed it as a
means both of advancing the principle of “Indian control of Indian educa-
tion” as well as serving the needs of children who might otherwise be taken
into care by provincial social welfare authorities; 5) federal officials
reluctantly transferred control of the institution to the tribal council in
1985, although they would have preferred to close it permanently and
replace its services by subcontracting to provincial social and educational
agencies; and 6) between 1985 and 1995tribal council employees set about
the task of transforming an institution that had once laboured to strip
Indian children of their language and culture into a very different kind of
residential educational and child-care facility. In short, this locally de-
signed First Nations institution sought to provide a facility that would be
sensitive to some of the alarming social and domestic problems that had
begun to plague children in aboriginal communities. Had the centre
simply ceased to operate-an outcome that federal officials had long
conspired to achieve-troubled First Nations children from the large
northern district served by the centre would then have been routinely
relocated to the non-aboriginal educational and child-care facilities, which
have, to say the very least, a dismal record of serving aboriginal children.
In searching the records pertinent to the past and present history of
Indian residential schooling in this city, I encountered ample evidence of
the interest of aboriginal parents and leaders in establishing educational
facilities designed t o meet the particular needs of their children. The time
devoted to keeping this particular institution open after 1969 and the
effort made to force the federal government to transfer it to tribal council
control in 1985were remarkable. The ingenuity and perseverance of tribal
council personnel at all levels since 1985, which served to change not only
the name of the centre but also its workings and purposes, testifies to the
determination of the people of this council to create a socially and
culturally distinctive aboriginal facility, one where Indian children could
be cared for temporarily when their educational and personal needs could
not be served in their home communities. The records and other findings
readily supported the tribal council’s cumulative claim for long-term
funding for the centre. In no way did the findings suggest that the tribal
council might abruptly reverse its course of action and accept a proposal
from the federal government to close the education centre, yet this is what
happened in August 1995.3 42 CRSNRCSA, 34.3 1997
Accounting for Co-optation
One of the great difficulties in discussing co-optation lies in identifying the
processes through which it occurs. Co-optation, the process of getting an
opponent to join one’s side and accept one’s position as his or her own,
typically occurs in the seams of detailed, complex issues and dealings.
While it is easy to allege that co-optation may have occurred, it is seldom
a straightforward matter to demonstrate this simply and con~lusively.~
To see any given act or relationship as co-optative in its character and
consequences requires some agreement about the so-called facts of the
situation. The endless detail, cumulative history of transactions, and
studied opaqueness of settings where state control is practised make it a
demanding task to marshal1 indisputable evidence of co-optation.
Partisans may choose t o agree that certain outcomes comprise clear-
cut evidence of co-optation, and may be eager to castigate those who are
identified as having succumbed to being co-opted. Yet those who sense that
they may be accused of having capitulated to the blandishments of the
“other side” can be expected to cloak their activities and explain their
decisions in terms that serve to deny or defuse accusations that they may
have “sold out.” To do otherwise would be to accept the negative moral
judgments implicitly or explicitly contained in accusations levelled at
particular organizations or individuals. Thus, focussing upon the per-
ceived motivations and actions of those who are said to have been co-opted
is likely to prompt them to dispute that the interests of “their side” have
in any way been jeopardized or compromised.
For these reasons, it may be appropriate to give greater ethnographic
and analytical priority to discerning state elites’ interests, actions and
involvement in practices of co-optation rather than those of the aboriginal
movements and leaders, whose compliance is sought by the state. The
behaviour and motivations of oppositional organizations and leaders may
be more open to scrutiny and seem easier for their compatriots to interpret
than those of state elites, but this too is an aspect of the power differentials
that underpin such situations. In the absence of comprehensive access t o
information about state elites’interventions, the structural arrangements
that they fashion should, perhaps, be read heuristically as statements of
purpose, rather than merely as coincidental outcomes.
In this particular case, the structural backdrop was a carefully co-
ordinated national plan by which the federal government would move
toward eliminating its active involvement in the provision of services to
Indian people as a means of reducing its expenditures in this field. Since
the White Paper Controversy had effectively closed the door on the option
of redefining Indians as ordinary Canadians and shifting them and their
lands to provincial jurisdiction, the federal government chose to take
4. See Morrow (1996) for a perceptive discussion of the problems entailed in analysing “compliance”
among the Yup’ik of Alaska.Tutelage, Resistance and Co-optation 343
advantage of demands for aboriginal self-government as a means of sub-
contracting its own federal responsibilities t o bands and tribal councils.
The strategic abandonment of a bitterly contested policy to compel
the integration of Indian children into non-Indian public schools repre-
sented an essential step toward achieving this objective. Accordingly,
band-administered schools were established on many Indian reserves,
although little provision was made for increasing the size, capacity and
funding of these schools in the likely event of substantial population
increases. Implementation of service programmes that would involve
band and tribal councils administering their own social services in the
field of child and family protection was a second essential step. This would
eventually reduce the federal Department of Indian Affairs t o little more
than an agency for monitoring federal government funding of First
Nations services. The determined drive to shrink the Department of
Indian Affairs down t o a skeleton structure has coincided with a comple-
mentary expansion of First Nations government and service agencies. In
addition, these subcontracting arrangements in various service fields
place the onus for attending to the many demanding problems of reserve
residents squarely upon the shoulders of band and tribal council leaders
and employees.
Whereas in the early 1970s aboriginal leaders had been able to co-
ordinate their activities t o exploit divisions that existed within large-scale
government bureaucracies (Dyck, 19831, by the mid-1990s this situation
had been effectively reversed. The business of the Department of Indian
Affairs was no longer that of building for the future but of searching out
opportunities that might enable the federal government to abandon its
involvement and restrict its financial liability with respect to aboriginal
communities, rights and social and economic problems. The particular
tribal council we are concerned with here had been careful not to become
involved prematurely in any of the programme transfer agreements
proposed by the federal government. It proposed to wait until sufficient
expertise was collected and an understanding arrived at regarding the
service fields to be taken over, thereby enabling its leaders to negotiate the
terms of such transfers on a more equitable basis. The deliberate care
taken by this tribal council to grow at a carefully measured pace was in
sharp contrast with the meteoric growth of many other councils. The tribal
council had over many years patiently and thoroughly refashioned a
former residential school facility into an Indian student education centre
that was demonstrably meeting the needs of an increasingly troubled
clientele, and its stance was in keeping with this. As one of only eight such
Indian student residential facilities still operatingin Canada in the 1980s,
this centre represented the type of funding commitment that federal
bureaucrats were keen to jettison. Moreover, as the only such centre t o
have dedicated itself to meeting the challenging needs of children who
could not be readily accommodated in reserve schools, this institution was
anomalous. It had been built to meet local, rather than federal govern-344 CRSNRCSA, 34.3 1997
ment, priorities. Remarkable internal discipline had been required to
maintain this centre, let alone keep it on its own chosen course in the face
of chronic insecurity caused by the stubborn insistence of federal officials
to keep it on an extraordinarily short leash through annually renewable
funding contracts.
The unwillingness of this particular tribal council to rush into
accepting federal funding t o establish Indian child and family welfare
services at the reserve level reflected the experience of tribal council
officials, who appreciated just how long i t might take to develop a good
working understanding of what resources would be required t o operate a
new social service programme effectively.Indeed, the overlap between the
proposed child and family services programme and the operations of the
Indian education centre put the tribal council in a better position than
most to appreciate the long-term shortcomings of the transfer proposal
offered by the Department of Indian Affairs. In practice, the initial funding
agreed upon for such new programmes would thereafter effectively act as
a partial cap on future levels of federal financial support.
In summary, the closure of this education centre (along with others
in the province) would not only reduce overall federal expenditures in the
region but, more particularly, would allow the regional director-general of
the department to meet required across-the-board percentage reductions
in government spending more or less in one stroke. The closure of the
facility would also create an additional and immediate pressure upon the
tribal council and its member bands to adopt federally promoted Indian
child and family service programmes to replace the service capacity until
then offered by the centre. The tribal council’s long-standing commitment
to the centre, however, seemed to stand directly in the way of accomplish-
ing this outcome.
Bearing Witness to Co-optation
Although the tribal council’s residential education centre had hardly made
a secret of its special focus on troubled children, federal bureaucrats
continued to label it as though it was merely another educational facility.
In its formal communications with the tribal council, little or no recogni-
tion was given t o the special nature ofthis institution. Steadfastly defining
the centre as a school rather than as a residential educational facility that
offered specialized counselling and treatment services to children who, for
various reasons, could not be accommodated in their own communities,
federal Officials continued t o depict the centre as a rather costly school
rather than as a remarkably inexpensive yet responsive child treatment
facility.
The immediate circumstances surrounding the tribal council’s ac-
ceptance of an agreement-in-principle to close the centre can be summa-
rized succinctly. First, all capital hnding for band schools in the province
was suddenly, arbitrarily and indefinitely “frozen”by federal officials onTutelage, Resistance and Co-optation 345
the pretext of projected costs for making required repairs to the small
number of remaining residential education centres being so great that it
would not be possible to extend any further capital funding for “education”
until the “future” of the student residences was decided. This meant that
various bands across the province, who had been waiting more or less
patiently for many years for individual reserve schools to be constructed
or expanded, were informed by federal government officials that these
projects would be suspended because of the demands being made by the
student residences. According t o student residence administrators, the
projected capital requirements of the student residences cited by federal
officials represented an intentionally inflated and misleading figure.
Nonetheless, the student residential facilities were suddenly defined as
being in competition with band schools for scarce resources.
In the case of the particular tribal council we have been concerned
with, this “freeze” on capital funding was followed some time later by a
meeting between the tribal council and a senior federal official. Absent
from this meeting was the tribal council grand chief. In his absence,
alternate representatives endorsed a closure of the residential education
centre within two years in return for a firm commitment from the federal
government to build a new school on the home reserve of one of the leaders
attending the meeting. In fact, this band’s request for a new schoolhad not
been listed anywhere near the top of the tribal council’s prioritized list of
required education capital projects. What needs to be emphasized in this
case, however, is not so much the nature of the reward that was claimed
but rather the unquestioned ability of state officials to procure, distribute
and generally manipulate public resources as they would their personal
property.
Once the tribal council had committed itself to this agreement-in-
principle, even the grand chief (who had long been a staunch supporter of
the residential education centre but who had been unable to attend the
meeting that day) saw little possibility of this opportunistically achieved
agreement being reversed. Ironically, tribal council officials who were
involved in making this decision justified their actions with variations of
a statement previously offered by the Minister of Indian Affairs, namely,
that the continued operation of residential education centres for Indian
children was not necessarily a wise policy because it was now commonly
recognized that residential schools had been harmful t o Indian children.
Thus, even evocations of some of the worst excesses of past Canadian
Indian administration can be marshalled to serve the purposes of state
elites and so obscure the processes of co-optation.
The account offered above is necessarily incomplete. I have not been
in a position t o speak to all of the principals involved in this episode and
to seek their comments upon my interpretation of events. Although access
to correspondence between federal officials and the tribal council under-
pins this summary account, I doubt that any instance of purported co-
optation is ever likely to be confirmed by all parties. Yet acknowledging346 CRSNRCSA, 34.3 1997
this by no means relieves anthropologists of the need to equip themselves
to recognize and report relationships and instances of apparent co-
optation and to refine their ability to comprehend these important but
invariably contested situations. Failure to do so will confine efforts to
understand aboriginal-state relations and limit our address of social
justice issues to a risible level of naivete.
Taking account of losses entailed in instances of co-optation com-
prises, at the very least, avaluable act ofwitnessing. The well-trained staff
and effective working procedures painstakingly developed during a dec-
ade of endeavour at this particular residential education centre have now
been disassembled. It is important t o remember and document the accom-
plishments registered by First Nations people in creating and operating
this low-key but essential undertaking, even though federal officials
steadfastly refuse to acknowledge these facets of its operation. But ethno-
graphic accounts of such instances of co-optation need not be merely
narratives of loss and acrimony. From these accounts we can also begin to
construct more perceptive understandings of the means by which state
elites systematically work to achieve their objectives by through processes
of co-optation, along with other instrumentalities of power. Accounts that
serve to draw our attention to the possibility that co-optation is not an
unusual, but rather a familiar-and thus easily overlooked-feature of
aboriginal-state relationships contribute substantially both to the quality
of anthropological analyses and to our ability to respond more effectively
to social justice issues.
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