American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Aboriginal peoples in Canada are increasingly moving to urban communities in search of educational and economic opportunities. For many urbanization is not an easy process, in particular when they move to cities that historically have had few Aboriginal citizens and where social traditions of resistance and resentment towards Aboriginal rights prevail. In this paper we explore one such case through studying the phenomenon known as NIMBY (not in my backyard). We apply critical discourse analysis to understand how concepts of citizenship were taken up when a non-profit society of Aboriginal women sought to establish a transition home for women and children moving to a small Canadian prairie city. Resistance to the women’s plans was expressed in neoliberal discourses that denied the women civic citizenship while affirmation of the women in terms of collective values and relational citizenship was undermined in the political maneuvers of public debate.