The Pacification of Indigenous Resistance: An Anti-Security Analysis of Idle No More Protest Policing and Surveillance Operations

This thesis investigates the Canadian state’s response to the Idle No More movement and associated direct actions that took place between December 2012 and March 2013. I critically examine Idle No More protest policing and surveillance operations carried out by a wide range of Canadian institutions as strategies of settler-colonial pacification. I offer evidence that the pacification strategies employed by law enforcement agencies, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and the Canadian military were coordinated through the Government Operations Centre and guided, at least in part, by the production of integrated intelligence that framed Idle No More as a national security threat. By taking an “anti-security” approach, this thesis contributes to a larger political and analytical project that aims to challenge the securitization of discourse surrounding the policing and surveillance of dissent emanating from Indigenous struggles for self-determination.