Border Securitization as Settler Colonialism

The international border that simultaneously separates and joins Canada and the US divides numerous Indigenous nations, ostensibly placing these nations solely under the jurisdiction of either state. While the unique political situations of Indigenous nations remain undertheorized in much of the border studies literature, this paper suggests that exploring post-9/11 security changes at the Canada/US border as a form of settler colonialism connects critical Indigenous scholarship with border studies. I theorize the processes of securitization to highlight the surreptitious ways settler colonialism is perpetuated by removing “the Indigenous” as a geopolitical entity. This article focuses primarily on the Coast Salish of Washington and British Columbia and their ongoing attempts to assert a transnational identity that spans the Canada/US border. Examining security changes at the international border demonstrates that securitization of the Canada/US border perpetuates the settler colonial framework by undermining Indigenous sovereignty – unsuccessfully in many cases. Nevertheless, First Nations and Tribes in the Pacific Northwest, and elsewhere across the continent, have collaborated and implemented innovative strategies that resist securitization. In the Pacific Northwest, this includes deploying a nationalism movement that spans the border. The data for this article derive primarily from ethnographic fieldwork with the Nooksack Tribal Nation, Stó:lō Nation, and other Coast Salish collaborators.