"You think I will bring my children here?”

The Mount Polley Mine Disaster as a Necropolitical Human Rights Environmental Disaster

Authors

  • Norah Bowman Okanagan College
  • Tara Scurr Amnesty International

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14288/bcs.no221.198582

Keywords:

mining, Mount Polley Mine, disaster response, human geography, pollution control

Abstract

 

This essay analyzes the Mt Polley Mining disaster of 2014 as a human rights event. This article contextualizes the spill as a colonial harm in line with a range of colonial acts of violence against Indigenous Peoples and their lands and waters. The authors consider how the spill fits with an understanding of Canada as a colonial necropolitical state that enforces boundaried zones of protection and exploitation within state borders.

Author Biographies

Norah Bowman, Okanagan College

Norah Bowman, PhD, is a Gender and Sexualities and English Literature professor at Okanagan College in Kelowna, BC, on unceded Syilx Okanagan Territory. Her third book, My Eyes Are Fuses, comes out with Caitlin Press in the fall of 2024

Tara Scurr, Amnesty International

Tara Scurr is a senior campaigner with Amnesty International and co-leads the organization’s work on a just energy transition. Prior to joining Amnesty’s global business and human rights team, she worked
for Amnesty Canada, where she led research and advocacy work on the Mount Polley Mine disaster, investor engagement campaigns related to mining and human rights, and strategic litigation involving Canadian mining companies. Her current work, carried out in collaboration with coalition partners and rights-holders from affected communities, focuses on stopping and remedying human rights abuses in the battery mineral supply chain and ending fossil fuel dependency.

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Published

2024-07-30

Issue

No. 221: Learning from Disaster: A Decade After the Mount Polley Tailings Dam Failure (Spring 2024)

Section

Articles