Indigenous knowledge and new materialism

This chapter draws on the British Columbia Thomas and Saik’uz First Nation v Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) Inc case and new materialism to challenge the extractivist thinking, settler colonial logic, and neoliberal hegemony that we argue characterise contemporary debates around climate change and environmental justice. After providing background to the case as well as to new materialism, we draw on legal, governmental, media, and local texts to perform two ‘cuts’ (Liberal-State-Corporate and Indigenous-Nature) which we use to examine the themes of rights, ownership, legal permissibility, global capitalism, and sustainability. We then use this to articulate a robust case for further research and support for Indigenous cosmologies which, from our perspective, are infinitely more capable of offering a way forward - one that challenges environmental violence and centres non-human nature.