Abstract
Indigenous political movements that challenge liberal governmentality (Foucault 1991) have developed in a number of (post)colonial settler states. These events run directly counter to social science predictions about the decreasing salience of ethnic identity and the lessening of ethnic conflict in such "advanced" Western states (Gurr 2000; Heisler 1990). What are the implications of this development for the theory and practice of multicultural democracy? This dissertation applies Jacques Derrida's framework of "spectropolitics" (1993) to (post)coloniality in order to investigate the emergence of indigenous peoples' movements, advances a poststructural approach to the analysis of liberal politics based upon the historical sociology of Michel Foucault, and critically engages the literatures on ethnic politics, critical legal studies, and Multicultural democracy. In addition, two historical case dossiers (the Mabo v. Queensland decision and its aftermath in Australia; and the diverse legal strategies of First Nations activism in Canada following the Delgamuukw v. B.C. decision) focus on the "strategic space" in which new indigenous political identities are produced and performed.