Entre l’héritage colonial et la recherche d’autonomie politique : les peuples autochtones dans la tourmente des réformes de l’État-providence. Une comparaison de l’expérience australienne, américaine et canadienne

Longtemps exclus, puis victimes de politiques d’assimilation forcée, les peuples autochtones remettent aujourd’hui en question les conditions de leur appartenance et de leur participation au régime de citoyenneté des États issus de la colonisation européenne. Le processus de restructuration de l’État-providence pourrait influencer la dynamique des revendications identitaires autochtones, en modifiant les paramètres de la citoyenneté sociale et la relation des peuples autochtones avec l’État. On tend aujourd’hui, d’une part, à l’intégration programmatique accompagnée de mesures ciblées et, d’autre part, à une plus grande autonomie locale dans la gestion de ces programmes. Le régime de citoyenneté d’après-guerre favorisait plutôt une uniformisation du rapport entre les citoyens et l’État, et donc posait en contradiction l’intégration à ce régime et le maintien d’un régime statutaire distinct pour les autochtones. Le modèle actuel peut ainsi paraître moins réfractaire à la multiplicité et à la différenciation.Long excluded, then victims of forced assimilation, aboriginal peoples are now evaluating the conditions of their belonging to and participation in citizenship regimes in these three former colonies. The processes of welfare state restructuring may influence the dynamic of identity claims of aboriginal peoples, by modifying the parameters of social citizenship and the relations that aboriginal peoples have with the state. These reforms lean, on the one hand, towards integrated policy with targeted programmes and, on the other hand, towards greater local autonomy in programme management. The post-war citizenship regime in contrast favoured a uniform relationship between citizens and the state, thereby setting up a contradiction between the terms of the citizenship regime and maintenance of a distinct legal regime for aboriginal peoples. The current model seems less likely to constitute a block to recognition of multiplicity and differentiation

Writing on Occupied Land

[First paragraph] Reading Indigenous poets such as Joséphine Bacon (Innu) and Jean Sioui (Wendat), one is struck by how marvel before “nature” is intertwined with loss and mourning. The experience of loss derives from the interrelated ills of territorial dispossession and environmental destruction caused by settlers’ violent relationship to the land. When reading their verse, we are reminded that today’s Indigenous poets are writing on occupied land. All of us on Turtle Island are writing on occupied land, of course, but it remains easy for settlers to delude ourselves into thinking the land is either everyone’s or rightfully ours. We rarely if ever see ourselves as occupying land that does not belong to us. Facing this uncomfortable truth appears crucial when thinking about what it means to “write the land:” whose land is being written? by whom? and for what purpose

The Court’s Brain: Neuroscience and Judicial Decision Making in Criminal Sentencing

Cutting-edge neuroscientific studies provide new insights into the inner workings of the human brain. At the same time, innovations in justice-system data collection have allowed researchers to gather and analyze vast quantities of statistical data in criminal-sentencing patterns. The combination of the two genres of study provides us with the first scientifically based demonstration that well-meaning egalitarian judges may have strong neurophysiologic reactions to defendants, victims, experts, and attorneys. These reactions help us explore whether or not race affects judicial decision making. The Model Code of Judicial Conduct, caselaw, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the constitutions of every state prohibit judges from using race as a factor in sentencing.1 However, traditional notions of race bias are based on the idea that disparate outcomes are a simpleminded application of racial bias perpetrated by a select few judges who are not aligned with the values of the justice system.2 The overwhelming majority of judges are committed to fairness and impartiality. The overwhelming majority of judges would also agree that racial bias is abhorrent and that it has no place in our justice system. However, the emerging neuroscience compels the thoughtful analyst to inquire about the role of the brain’s automatic reactions in decision making. Neuroscientists explore the brain’s processes, but the justice system must be provided with an analysis of how the law shapes the ways that a judge’s brain may react. The rigorous analysis required in the application of the four principles of criminal sentencing (i.e., retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and incapacitation)3 may allow or even facilitate problematic neurophysiologic reactions in a judge’s brain and may result in disparate sentencing patterns. Yet the sentencing disparities are not explored, and the proof that racial bias is the cause is not fully accepted.4 This is partially because the ways in which racial bias may manifest in a judge’s brain are not easily understood.