I Will Live for Both of Us depicts the colonial relationship between the Inuit people and the Canadian state and shows how the latter serves the extractive industries. The process of dispossession, however, is shown from the perspective of those who have faced it. We see the harsh measures that were imposed on the Inuit along with the manipulative methods of governments and mining companies. Sadly, we also witness the mechanisms of collaboration within the oppressed population.
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Chapter three shows how ‘By 1969, the Baker Lake area was overrun by uranium exploration companies. That year, the federal government issued prospecting permits for one-third of our hunting grounds’ (p.57). Driven by the developing nuclear-power industry, ‘Uranium companies resumed their frenzied search for uranium in northern Canada’ (p.60). Though this faltered, Canada’s participation in a ‘secretive and illegal cartel’ drove up the price of uranium and ‘caused a rapid expansion of … exploration activity near Baker Lake in the 1970s’ (p.60).
Read more & source: https://www.counterfire.org
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