For six weeks in 2012–13, Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence undertook a high-profile ceremonial fast to advocate for improved Canadian-Indigenous relations. Framed by the media as a hunger strike, her fast was both a call to action and a gesture of corporeal sovereignty.

Life against States of Emergency responds to the central question she asked the Canadian public to consider: What does it mean to be in a treaty relationship today? Arguing that treaties are critical and vital matters of environmental justice, Sarah Marie Wiebe offers a nuanced discussion of the political environment that caused treaty relations in Attawapiskat to break down amid a history of repeated state-of-emergency declarations.

This incisive work draws on community-engaged research, lived experiences, critical discourse analysis, ecofeminist and Indigenous studies scholarship, art, activism, and storytelling to advance a transformative, future-oriented approach to treaty relationships. By centring community voices, Life against States of Emergency cultivates a more deliberative, democratic dialogue.

Sarah Marie Wiebe is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Hawai'i, Mānoa.

Sarah Marie Wiebe's profile page

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• Winner, Donald Smiley Prize, Canadian Political Science Association

Wiebe – a settler scholar and writer-activist – is an immensely gifted storyteller … Life Against States of Emergency has arrived at a crucial point for the field of environmental politics, reminding us to recenter relationships as foundational to meaningful engagement with the politics of planetary justice. In doing so, we can better imagine and create alternative ways of being in the world.

Environmental Politics

Life Against States of Emergency is … refreshingly personable … enlivened by Wiebe’s dialogic approach to research and writing … Wiebe makes a deep contribution to critical policy conversations on Indigenous resurgence and futurities in Canada, Indigenous/settler relations, and Treaty-making and remaking.

Critical Policy Studies