Knowing the land as home and alive: Re-centering Snuneymuxw’s relationship to Saysutshun in co-management

The overall goal of this thesis is to center ways Snuneymuxw First Nation (SFN) have known how to live collaboratively and collectively with their territory since time immemorial. This project looks specifically at the co-management of Saysutshun (Newcastle Island Provincial Marine Park) between SFN, BC Parks, and the City of Nanaimo. Co-management has been a strategy used by Indigenous peoples, including Snuneymuxw, to disrupt the power of the colonial state and reclaim aspects of self-determination. However, co-management structures often become another way the state maintains control over land and decision-making. Based in Indigenous methodologies described by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, anthropological policy and document analysis, and interviews Snuneymuxw, this thesis finds that there is a need to move beyond colonially-centered co-management and to re-centre Indigenous processes and institutions.