Carbon-nation: the relational ontology of carbon scarcity in Canada's boreal forest

Abstract

In Canada, the climate change debate is neatly divided along ideological lines. Conceptualizing the climate change debate in such stark terms, however, obscures much of what is at stake in the climate change furor. Building on insights from postcolonial geography, this paper argues that geographies of race, nature and national identity are central to discourses of forest carbon management as they pertain to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in Canada. It is argued that as the boreal forest of northern Canada is fetishized as a carbon reservoir and materialized through a narrative of carbon scarcity, such a discourse effects a resettlement of numerous identifications. This paper focuses on the relational ontology of Canadian national identity and one of its included exclusions, a flattened, homogeneous aboriginal subjectivity performed through the carbon scarcity narrative.