Heritage is a right, not a commodity.

Author: Mike Elvidge RPCA and MA student (UBCO; Digital Arts and Humanities) with Cabin Resource Management

Culture is living.
Culture is neither fragile nor diminishing.
It is resilient.

Culture as a resource incorporates it into our economies and defines it as an extractible value like timber or ore –it becomes exhaustible. This disconnects it from the peoples and landscapes it is shaped by and enables control over its access, management, and dispossession by the Province. Cultural Resource Management archaeology has been in practice in British Columbia for over 6 decades yet Indigenous peoples, whose culture is the primary target of ‘resource management practices’, continue to be distanced from their own cultural spaces, belongings, practices, and information and the benefits of archaeological research continue to be held by non-Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous Peoples across the world have their own laws and land-management practices, yet in BC their cultural spaces and objects are controlled by provincial laws and Indigenous peoples have little power in their protection. Culture as a resource is an extension of Canada’s colonial legacy – one that continues to be felt by Indigenous peoples across the country. In 2023, the province of British Columbia formally recognized that “colonialism underpins” the policies and legislation used to manage cultural heritage.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their culture and to management their culture according to their own systems. As Indigenous peoples continue to shape the practice of archaeology, western archaeologists must confront their difficult past – because making space for Indigenous peoples isn’t a privilege, it’s a fundamental human right.

Resources:
Since the bad spirit became our master
First Nations Heritage Planning Toolkit
What We Heard – First Nations – Heritage Conservation Act Transformation Project
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
Indigenous Led Archaeology