Bettina Koschade

The Native Canadian Study Group (NCSG) of the Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) is pleased to announce that Ms. Bettina Koschade has been awarded the 2004 Robin P. Armstrong Memorial Prize for Excellence in Native Studies. The title of Ms. Koschade’s thesis was “The Tay River watershed is our responsibility”: The Ardoch Algonquins and the 2000-2002 Environmental Review Tribunal Hearings. The thesis examined Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and Allies’ (AAFNA) interventions in juridical and legislative settings at the Tay River Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal. AAFNA attempted to introduce their knowledge of the environmental deterioration caused by a Permit To Take Water issued to a multinational corporation by the Ontario Ministry of Environment. The case study explored concepts of Algonquin knowledge, jurisdiction, and responsibility and it examined the strategies AAFNA used to integrate their perspective into legal proceedings constructed by the Canadian government. This case study revealed the way some Algonquin people conceived of space and responsibility in deeply ecological, rather than narrowly juridical, terms. It established that these broad concepts of knowledge, land, and jurisdiction were incompatible with existing Euro-Canadian divisions of legal responsibility and ecological knowledge, but at the same time they served as a means to challenge the current structure of Aboriginal and Canadian relations.

Ms. Koschade completed her M.A. in Geography at Queen’s University, under the supervision of Dr. Evelyn J. Peters. She is currently employed as Executive Assistant at Shelternet and Jan Richardson and Associates. The NCSG wishes to acknowledge the support of the Armstrong family, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Statistics Canada, the CAG, and three anonymous reviewers for making it possible to award this prize.

Information about the Robin Armstrong Memorial Prize can be access at: http://www.statcan.ca/English/liaison/arm.htm