Shellfish harvesting in Boundary Bay - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 107

environmental geography . 2 However, the third point, which links the politics of
calculation to ecocolonization, is less developed and is the central focus of this
chapter . 3
Politics of b/ordering and counting
This chapter suggests that much is to be gained by exploring how political and
legal regimes of resource management are operationalized on the ground and how
these regimes impact historically connected communities in different ways.
Unpacking the tensions between the fixity of modern political borders, the fluidity
of natural resources (and pollution inputs), and the socio-political implications of
“counting” and “dividing” ecosystems provide more nuance to the practicalities
of governing resources in a b/ordered landscape.
For many Indigenous communities throughout the world, fragmented post-
colonial landscapes, a rapidly changing physical environment, and social equity issues
complicate access to food (Kauanui, 2008; Robbins, 2012). The Boundary Bay
case demonstrates that technologies of power associated with the politics of
calculation have considerable impacts on Indigenous communities.
Politics of calculation
This chapter stems from and enriches the existing body of geographic literature
that critically examines the interrelationships between space, politics and calculatio n. 4
Mitchell (1991), in particular, helped to lay the foundation for the critical inquiry
of spatial politics in Colonising Egypt , which relocated Heidegger's notion of
enframing and Foucault's work on governmentality to a global context. Mitchell
(2002) furthered his analysis in Rule of experts by linking the modern technologies
of power with the politics of calculation (or “techno-politics”) of Egypt.
Additionally, Elden (2007) described the crucial role of calculation in ordering the
spaces and social processes of modernity. The construction of “calculating subjects”
as a mechanism to create national identities and translocate value systems is a well-
documented form of colonization (Said, 1979; Gregory, 2004). Thus, as Crampton
and Elden (2006) suggest, elucidating relations between the political and the
calculative helps illuminate the political and social costs of enframing or “othering”.
The distinction between quantitative methods of geography and the geographies
of calculation lie in the rationalities associated with the process of enumeration
(Mitchell, 2002; Rose-Redwood, 2012). The former utilizes calculation as a
geographic method, whereas the latter takes calculation itself (and its political effects)
as the “object” of critical geographic analysis. From this rich body of work, I
examine the politics of calculation to inform my analysis of ecocolonization in
Boundary Bay.
The situation in Boundary Bay reflects all aspects of these imperial constructs,
but particularly demonstrates the impacts of calculation on maintaining a traditional
way of life in which access to marine resources is central to identity. Enumerating
and tabulating shellfish, rendering pollution inputs “uncountable”, and governing