(Re)building first Nations community economies: From forest to frame

Introduction

A colonial legacy has left many First Nations reserves in Canada places of abject poverty with few opportunities for education or employment, and a neo-colonial/liberal present serving primarily to exacerbate such conditions (Palmater, 2011; Peters and Robillard, 2009). Despite billions of dollars in Federal government programs and spending, and increased participation of First Nations in major economic development initiatives over the last several decades, the well-being of many First Nations communities remains elusive. First Nations are statistically disadvantaged in comparison to the general population on almost every socio-economic indicator, and represent 92 of the bottom 100 communities in the community well-being index in Canada (A L Booth and Skelton, 2011b; Cooke et al., 2004). Efforts to integrate First Nations into dominant economic development frameworks have alienated people from their homelands, resulting in a sense of cultural bereavement and ‘spiritual homelessness’, only worsening individual and community health conditions (Christensen, 2013; Wilson, 2003). Housing, because of its link to the economic, social and cultural well-being of a community is perhaps one of the most obvious indicators of this exigency. First Nations in Canada live amongst vast resources and yet are burdened by some of the worst housing in the country including aluminum and not wood framed structures, permeated by mold among other problems. Given this contradiction, housing holds possibility as one of the key drivers of economic change and well-being within First Nations communities and territories in Canada.

In this paper, we explore the nexus of First Nations housing and the (re)building of community economic relations, with the objective of understanding the possibilities for enhancing the creation of local value (in its varied forms) in reference to housing and related activities. Specifically, we examine the possibility for First Nations communities to control and process territorial resources locally, transform them into building materials through value-added enterprises, and use these alongside the necessary skill and labour to construct housing for First Nations members. We ask, how can socially embedded ethical decision making enable First Nations communities to begin to think of productive forestry processes as responsive to the satisfaction of basic material needs? And, what social-institutional innovations are needed within First Nations communities to allow for a transformation of relations and negotiations of interdependence and mutual reliance between end-users and producers?

To answer these questions, we examine various efforts of self-determined housing provision by First Nations through the lens of the diverse economy (Gibson-Graham, 2008) and social innovation (Moulaert, 2008). These frameworks understand the diverse economic activities of individuals and communities as not necessarily driven by formal markets and institutional logics of efficiency (Coase, 1998; Rutherford, 2001), but rather by social organizational principles of solidarity and reciprocity in order to meet common goals and satisfy basic needs (Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2006; Maccallum et al., 2009; Moulaert and Ailenei, 2005). We posit that within the First Nations context, the building of a needs-based housing community economy takes place within three critical and nested spaces of economic interaction and negotiation: (de)commoditization; needs and surplus evaluation; and, transactions and rules of (in) commensurability. These spaces, we argue, can only emerge alongside First Nations engagement with, and contestations against, the many economic, legislative, bureaucratic, and geographic barricades to change that exist within the settler-colonial institutional framework (Collar, 2020).

Diverse First Nations economies

Theoretically, the ‘community’ or ‘diverse’ economy is what Gibson-Graham calls the joining of the formal economy – wage labour and capitalist enterprise – with all the economic others that sustain material survival and well-being (Gibson-Graham, 2005). It represents the sites of everyday activities and familiar institutions, where everyone, living and non-living, employed and unemployed, is a part of the economy through a negotiated interdependence which includes contributions often in different, non-market ways (Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2010). This ‘weak’ theory stems in part from the works of feminist economists who have revealed the household as a major locus of economic production – a production that cannot be called marginal given the value of output and numbers of people involved (Gibson-Graham, 2006b). Similarly, social capital scholars have pointed to the networks of bonding and bridging relationships and communal interdependencies that make up the socio-economic practices rendered non-existent within the confines of capitalist economies and their normal tools of measurement (Roelvink and Martin, 2015). By bringing to the forefront instances of such ‘other’ productive activities and its diverse forms of transactions it becomes clear that many communities (First Nations or not) are actually predominantly sustained by these interactions and exchanges – sometimes referred to as ‘surplus labour’ – where individuals gift, share and engage in the reciprocal exchange of goods and services well beyond those recognized in the marketplace (Gibson-Graham, 2005; Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2010).

Revealing the diverse economies of First Nations communities is a prerequisite to imagining and enacting alternative economic futures to those prescribed through the institutions of settler-colonialism. This necessarily requires deeper analyses into not only what is being produced, but also an understanding of who owns the means of production, whether an economic surplus is generated, how the surplus is appropriated, and how it is used (Morgan, 1987). There exists ample evidence of a diverse community economy amongst First Nations groups today, often in the form of non-market productive or ‘subsistence’ economic activities. Such economic activities entail the local production of goods and services such as hunting, fishing and gathering, which are said also to support the transmission of skills and knowledge as well as cultural values (Natcher, 2009). They have been a way for First Nations peoples to feed, clothe and house themselves for millennia, with surpluses being distributed through institutions of kinship, trading and reciprocity, rather than dictated by purchasing power (Ross and Usher, 1986). Reciprocity is particularly key as a social norm that has persisted in some communities in the form of food sharing but also in the sharing of equipment, and in the sharing of homes (Natcher, 2009; Peters and Robillard, 2009).

That economies of this kind have persisted contemporaneously in the face of colonial and capitalist economic institutions is perhaps indicative of the desire of many First Nations people to continue to seek out livelihoods which provide for that which is needed locally, as opposed to formal employment which facilitates the appropriation by others of labour for the acquisition of surplus and its control (Miller, 2014). It is also indicative of the propensity of First Nations to challenge dominant prescriptions for economic development, most of which are marked by settler-colonial institutions which privilege capitalist, market-based modes of production, valuation and economic transactions. As we will see, although greatly weakened by the values of colonialism and capitalism and the impacts of industrial modes of production, the ethic of ‘mutual aid’ survives within many First Nations communities (Boothroyd and Davis, 1993). And, through diverse economic practices in the realm of housing, First Nations communities can advance institutions which do not undermine cultural and ecological priorities, and which can offer more direct pathways towards well-being (Graham and Healy, 2008; Kuokkanen, 2011).

Housing from forest to frame

The current approach to housing provision in First Nations communities has been described as a ‘supply-driven’ one, meaning external contractors import skills and materials, and depart leaving a product or output (i.e., a house), but little in terms of beneficial outcomes to the community (Orr, 2005). This approach is what has developed after centuries of colonialism and the dismantling of self-sufficient housing systems in First Nations communities and territories. Housing options as they stand have also engendered a sense of economic dependency on the Federal government – namely Indigenous Services Canada and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation – neither of which are capable of providing the necessary resources to house a growing First Nations population. This model also reinforces the creation of developmental and administrative silos between housing departments and other community processes such as economic development, land use planning and natural resource management, rendering it at odds with long-held Indigenous principles of inter-connectivity (Atleo, 2007; Castleden et al., 2009). Further, it is an approach that has forced First Nations into a reliance on low-cost, industrially extracted forest products, and on housing designs inappropriate to local climates and larger cultural priorities and practices (MacTavish et al., 2012; McCartney, 2016).

Efforts to transition towards less government-dependent and more self-determined housing systems in First Nations communities appear to have taken a hard market turn, with growing calls for the creation of private property mechanisms on-reserves fueled by the rationale that such institutions will attract financing, create housing markets and stimulate economic development (Flanagan and Alcantara, 2002; Schmidt, 2018). Such efforts have been characterized as a further dismantling of Indigenous economic, social and cultural institutions through efforts to integrate Indigenous self-governance arrangements with settler notions of economic development, creating Indigenous subjects as property-owning, entrepreneurial citizens, often to the detriment of more important social and cultural priorities (Dempsey et al., 2011; Kuokkanen, 2011). Equally problematic is the growing reliance on revenues from industrial resource extraction projects within First Nations territories as a source of funding for housing and other social projects. This type of ‘progressive extractivism’ (Veltmeyer and Bowles, 2014) has been exposed as a fragile model of development and self-determination, with the most recent downturn in the economy laying bare the cyclical nature of resource rents and the danger of housing funds drying up when those rents inevitably fall or disappear altogether (Bakx, 2020).

For the research partner in this study, Yuneŝit’in (a First Nation community), self-reliance and self-determination have been and continue to be the driving forces behind all of its pursuits and activities, and housing is no exception. Underlying this vision of self-reliance is a fundamental understanding that housing is part of a complex whole, where housing solutions go hand in hand with other processes occurring within the community and within the everyday lives and experiences of Yuneŝit’in and Tŝilhqot’in people. ¹ This approach to ‘home-building’ has been manifest primarily through what Yuneŝit’in refer to as the ‘Forest to Frame’ program (FTF), which seeks to connect territorial forestry activities to local value-added processing, which in turn supplies local housing needs while stimulating local economic development. In other words, through its FTF program, the community has been attempting to re-establish the provisioning of housing as a critical part of building the community economy, (re)connecting community (and the Nation) to their homelands, and resolving the exigent basic need for housing within their community. As (Program Lead and former Chief) Russell Myers-Ross puts it:

I think even just for myself, even before we had Tŝilhqot'in Title, the vision for us was to have that direct connection to our land and be able to use it in ways we find appropriate. If we view housing as a crisis, then it is up to us to take the wood from our own homeland and be able to produce it to build houses. That is the way we want to benefit. Contrary to our interests, why would we want to offer a colonial government to grant a foreign company rights to claim and extract resources from our territory, remove trees from our forest, sell them out of Williams Lake and grant us little in revenue and capacity or the ability to solve our own issues?

The FTF approach seeks to move communities away from a model of housing provision beholden to the dictates of the state and the market which pressure the import of inappropriate cultural designs, skilled labour and industrially extracted timber. As it stands, that extracted timber is ironically returned to the community as imported products unaffordable through piecemeal Federal government funding. The primary reason for this is that the historical and ongoing Federal policy of on-reserve housing provision is guided by a system of decision making which focuses on what can be excluded and reduced rather than what is needed or desired by First Nations people (Olsen, 2016). Conversely, FTF promotes a continual reinforcement of the convergence of local resources and local labour with local needs, and the building of culturally appropriate homes and economic linkages within Yuneŝit’in, and beyond with other Tŝilhqot’in communities.

Although Yuneŝit’in coined the term Forest to Frame and has directed significant time and resources towards the program, the concept of creating an internal housing supply chain and economy is something that has been discussed, imagined and attempted by various First Nations across British Columbia and Canada over the last century. The rationale stems primarily from the fact that a large portion of costs related to housing on-reserve comes from the importation and transportation of materials (Henry, 2010), and because housing related training, labour and income are often lost opportunities for economic development in First Nations communities (MacTavish et al., 2012). Yet, despite the fact that most First Nations communities in BC are located in commercially productive forest areas and that crown-granted access to timber by First Nations has increased over the past two decades (Nikolakis and Nelson, 2015; Wyatt, 2008), the successful integration of local forestry and housing economies remains elusive.

Importantly, in British Columbia where numerous land claims remain unsettled, key sites of contestations against settler-colonial assumptions are unfolding and creating opportunities for change. The shift to an alternative housing provisioning model by Yunesit’in and the Tŝilhqot’in Nation followed the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada decision which recognized the Tŝilhqot'in Nation aboriginal title to a portion of approximately 1900 square kilometres of their traditional territory within the caretaker area of the community of Xeni Gwet’in. This decision – the first of its kind in Canada – allows for full ownership, benefit and control over the title area by the Tŝilhqot'in people (Tŝilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44). As it stands, there remains great uncertainty as to the potential outcomes of the title decision for the Tŝilhqot’in people at the household level, particularly as concerns socio-economic development, well-being and the satisfaction of critical needs like housing. Although Yunesit’in's and the other Tŝilhqot'in community's Caretaker Areas do not fall within Title lands, the implications of the decision have bearing over other community processes, including housing. It remains uncertain the degree to which the Tŝilhqot’in will be able to wrest control of housing away from the administrative and legislative apparatus of the Canadian state via the Indian Act reserve system. What is clear is that title, and the many other unsettled land claims which exist in British Columbia, Canada, hold the potential to elaborate new Indigenous institutional frameworks upon which alternative economic pathways, including housing provision, can be formulated. Forest to Frame is but one example of this.

Methods

This paper is guided foremost by a long-standing research partnership between the lead author, the Yuneŝit’in Government, the Tŝilhqot’in National Government (TNG) and Ecotrust Canada (a not-for-profit organization based in British Columbia, Canada). The primary purpose of this ongoing relationship is to support Yuneŝit’in (and TNG) in creating an integrated, systems-based approach to housing and community development that is self-determined, self-reliant and consistent with the cultural, economic and ecological goals of the Tŝilhqot’in people. As such, this work seeks to produce actionable findings intended to improve the situation for community members. And, consistent with Indigenous research methods, we strive to make this work relevant, reciprocal, respectful and responsible (Peltier, 2018). In doing so, this work also recognizes the continuous struggle of First Nations people more broadly, and seeks to advance alternative ways of knowing and being through an Indigenous, post-colonial research paradigm (Chilisa, 2011).

We use a comparative case study approach (Yin, 1994), which draws upon our experiences as practitioners working with Yuneŝit’in, TNG and other First Nations communities across British Columbia, Canada and which utilizes multiple-methods and available research materials to develop our analysis. First, we utilize the results of eighteen interviews conducted as a part of a previous study on First Nations Community Sawmill Enterprises (Persaud et al., 2021), drawing upon responses specifically related to housing and economic processes. To preserve anonymity, these interviewees are identified numerically (Interviewees 1–18). In addition to these interviews, we carried out an additional nine interviews with Yuneŝit’in and Tŝilhqot’in National Government staff and leadership. These respondents, with whom we were connected via the Yuneŝit’in Government, were purposively selected (Rubin and Rubin, 2012) as experienced and knowledgeable people in relation to questions of housing and economic development within Tŝilhqot’in territory. They are identified alphabetically throughout the paper for the purposes of anonymity (Interviewees A-I). The interview script, developed in collaboration with the community, was semi-structured, in-depth and open-ended in nature and sought to capture detailed descriptions and their new and emerging thinking on questions related to housing, forestry, community, local economies and well-being (Tracy, 2020). Given COVID-19, all interviews were done by phone and with consent were recorded alongside extensive note taking before being transcribed. We utilized a manual coding process that relied on some pre-determined themes that were developed based on previous experience working with Yuneŝit’in on housing-related research questions, and which evolved as the interviews continued and as the coding process was underway (Basit, 2003; Bhattacherjee, 2012).

Ethical economic interaction and negotiation

In what follows we demonstrate how housing-related productive and redistributive processes within First Nations communities can and do occur within three complex sites of decision-making related to (de) commoditization, needs and surpluses and rules of (in) commensurability. We analyze these sites of decision-making within the context of settler-colonial barricades to institutional and economic change for First Nations communities.

(De) commoditization

While there are numerous studies that examine the socio-economic and ecological characteristics of non-timber forest products, often through the lens of subsistence (Emery and Pierce, 2005), very little research has been carried out which looks at timber as a de-commodified or partially commodified product within forest economies and geographies. Commodity production has been described as a type of instrumental exchange, where producers and consumers engage with one another for self-interested instrumental purposes, and without any intrinsic concern for one another's well-being (Ratner, 2009). Hence commodity production results, according to Ratner, in a certain precariousness and tenuousness of the basic needs of life, where financial wealth dictates one's ability to provide for oneself or the collective whole. Industrial forestry within First Nations territory is a case in point, where export oriented industrial forestry practices aimed primarily for mass-scale commodity production can result in an insecurity of basic housing needs:

I remember I have a good story about when I first started almost 10 years ago, but maybe it was after like a year or two in speaking to a Councillor I think at the time for Yuneŝit'in. And he was really upset because he was saying, you know, it was meant to be a mountain pine beetle cut, like they were meant to go take the deadwood. And he was complaining because they're taking really nice spruce, green spruce out of a pretty sensitive place. And that those are house logs, those would build houses what they're taking right now. And that was, you know, there wasn't really the systems or the organized capacity to stop that. So it happened. (Interviewee E)

In order to fulfill their vision of a sustainable relationship with their homelands, Yuneŝit’in has been practicing a constrained model of forestry which rejects industrial clear cutting. All forestry activity currently underway is done using small equipment to salvage logs under small Forest Licenses to Cut (FLTC). Small scale salvage work for Yuneŝit’in members has proved to be successful and it means relying on ‘old school’ methodology with five members employed harvesting oversized Douglas fir trees attacked by beetles. Yet the challenge of balancing these activities with a community-needs focused economy is expressed by Russell Myers-Ross as follows:

it's still going to be hard trying, in this global economic context to eke out a survival, especially if you want to diversify away from just relying on a heavy forestry-based economy. And you know, I think sometimes it's impossible because I haven't seen that many examples of groups and communities that have been able to do it. So that part is unknown, but as a leader you stick with the vision of the Tŝilhqot'in, of perseverance; if my ancestors can do it, we can do it, having a community having a stronger connection to their land. If you don't want forestry and you don't want clear cuts and the future of the land jeopardized then you have to position yourself to really defending an indigenous lifestyle and try to preserve your territory so that you can continue to hunt and fish, and be able to draw food from your territory.

Understanding this response through the lens of the diverse economy reminds us that a large portion of the production and transactions that sustain community economies is or can be non-commodified. Although the useful transformation of objects in nature by humans can be called products they are not necessarily commodities (Barron, 2015). In making decisions about integrating supply chains in support of the community economy, those governing productive and distributive processes need to make a series of ethical judgements and negotiations that go beyond market metrics of profitability. Indeed, one of the key questions related to diverse economies, is whether such activities should only result in use value or if they can also produce exchange values (Emery and Pierce, 2005). In the context of the FTF, perhaps the answer lies in reformulating territorial timber extraction as a type of subsistence activity of the community economy in support of local housing, thereby allowing those resources to be conferred primarily as use values.

Re-emplacing housing-based forestry as a subsistence activity may serve as a strategy for chipping away at the dictates of markets and the state, instead enacting the types of community economies that many First Nations envision. As an example, for Yuneŝit’in and neighboring community Xeni Gwet’in, Dasiqox Nexwagweẑʔan is an area of asserted Indigenous governance to be utilized for eco-system protection, cultural revitalization and an economy for sustainable livelihoods (Bhattacharyya et al., 2017). Although forest management models within Dasiqox are still under consideration, a priority has been placed on locally-controlled, small-scale value-added forestry practices (the local transformation of timber into useable wood products). What this might mean in practice is a housing subsistence or micro-economy, where felling and processing are carried out in response to current and projected community housing needs. One interviewee explains how such a strategy might be applied to forestry practices for the Yuneŝit’in and the Tŝilhqot’in Nation as a whole:

But you know, the way forestry has been done over the last 30 years. Yeah, you can't continue the way it was. So it's a question of well then how? And maybe housing is a good way to kind of steer it into because you know, it might mean that it's still economical to cut things in a way that respect the Tŝilhqot’in values because they'd be used for a house, it wouldn't be just a two by four that has to be made under a certain price, otherwise, the company won't make that two by four, because they'll go somewhere else. Yeah. So if it's the Tŝilhqot’in doing it themselves, they might not care that they lose a little on the margins for making whatever they need for the house, taking pride in the fact that it's coming from their own forest and done in a sustainable way. So I feel like there is that opportunity there and the housing piece is really it is the center, it is the prime opportunity to kind of deliver something like that. (Interviewee E)

Broadly, it could be argued that the ongoing pursuit of First Nations across British Columbia and Canada to enact a type of ‘aboriginal forestry’ within Indigenous institutional frameworks and priorities (Wyatt, 2008) might best be reached within a housing-needs based forestry model. Yet, First Nations attempts to connect forestry to housing within their territories has resulted in a legal struggle for Aboriginal rights which have triggered important discussions as to the nature of subsistence activities and whether or not such activities should be able to create both use and exchange values. Early colonial legislation like The Crown Lands Protection Act of 1839 prohibited First Nations from harvesting timber beyond the reserve within their traditional territories ( INAC, 2013 ). It was not until 2006 in the cases of R. v. Sappier and R. v. Gray that the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the Aboriginal right to harvest wood for domestic uses on Crown Land that falls within an Indigenous community's traditional territory, including for the building of homes, so long as there is no commercial dimension to the activity (Makin, 2006; Mills, 2004). However, the uptake of such a right remains limited given that many First Nations have been forced to accept existing forest management systems and the constrained institutional logics of commercial efficiency and productivism which drive them (Pache and Santos, 2010; Wyatt, 2008). As a result, many believe that reform of British Columbia's forest tenure system could also offer new opportunities for First Nations to obtain greater access to territorial forest resources and to create forestry-related enterprises that are more compatible with their visions for housing and economic futures (Annie L. Booth and Skelton, 2011a; Passelac-Ross and Smith, 2013; Persaud et al., 2021). Regardless of such possible institutional changes, the (de)commoditization of timber will inevitably result in financial versus social value trade-offs that can only be reconciled through a certain level of ethical decision making. And although First Nations engagement with the market is likely, productive forestry enterprises might be doing so as a form of counter-institutionalizing, where they are seeking to limit the complete colonization by market forces, while also taking advantage of them.

Needs and surpluses evaluation

The capitalist mode of production is distinguished from other forms of economic organization primarily in terms of its lack of social embeddedness (Jessop, 1999; Polanyi, 1944). Although capitalism has extended its reach into the social and economic lives of First Nations people, there persists a strong social economy which upholds cultural priorities while supporting the distribution of surplus labour to provide for many of the basic needs of individuals within a modern context (Natcher, 2009). Once made visible and coherent, this diverse economy provides a foundation upon which individual and community needs can be articulated and surplus possibilities discovered and integrated into economic strategies (Gibson-Graham, 2005). This is not to say that First Nations community economic strategies should not include wage labour and other means of generating economic capital. In fact most social innovations which take place within community (social) economies do so through a number of organizational forms which exist alongside but separate from capitalism (Blake, 2010). However, in a strong community economy, many of the items that may need to otherwise be obtained through monetary transactions can potentially be provided through community cohesion, reciprocity, collaboration and caring. This, according to Graham and Healy (2008), avoids a ‘circuitous route’ towards well-being via the market, and instead ‘produces well-being directly’.

In many ways the FTF approach seeks to more directly produce well-being in the form of appropriate and high quality housing materials for First Nations people, as well as the various individual and community benefits that occur through the FTF process, both tangible and intangible. These benefits include the creation of employment and associated skills training, renewed social relationships, the expression of cultural and spiritual values, place-based experiences and psycho-social improvements (Breslow et al., 2016; Prout, 2012; Satterfield et al., 2013). FTF also is consistent with ecologically sustainable activities which support well-being, while also highlighting the interconnectivity of the cultural and ecological – and by inference economic worlds (Poe et al., 2016). The application of this approach has, however, proved challenging due to conflicting institutional logics which put notions of productivity and financial viability up against social goals (Doherty et al., 2014; Graham and Healy, 2008). Hence, in order to remain ‘viable’, First Nations community enterprises often continue to maintain economic linking strategies with wider market forces. In practice this has meant for Yuneŝit’in a focus primarily on exports of their value-added forest products, but with hope that any surplus can be principally reinvested in the business or in the community thereby limiting economic leakage. This approach however, essentially amounts to the circuitous route to well-being described above – the primary settler-colonial economic model which has consistently failed to improve the living conditions of many First Nations.

Structuring a community enterprise such as a sawmill in support of the FTF approach inevitably requires an institutional logic of equity over and above that of productive, market-driven efficiency (Persaud et al., 2021; Rosser, 2005). Generally but certainly not universal, self-sufficient communities do not produce much more than that which is needed, although there is typically some degree of surplus production as a risk management strategy (Groot and Lentjes, 2013). Developing this logic inevitably requires negotiations about production levels of a community sawmill to primarily support housing needs. When communities begin to break down the requirements for local housing provision, what often becomes apparent is the possibility for a limited level of production that runs counter to the dominant industrial development model of manufacturing that has become pervasive under settler-colonialism. What such an analysis can reveal is that the dictates of housing needs in many small First Nations communities in British Columbia are negligible in comparison to the forest resources locally available. This opens up possibilities for a very low-impact type of forestry to emerge, one potentially driven by housing needs rather than market demands.

As a rudimentary example, the latest estimates by Yuneŝit’in Government staff is an immediate need for at least 20 new homes in the community. ² Were Yuneŝit’in to build 20 average two bedroom homes of approximately 1200 ft², this would amount to a need of between 50,000 board feet of lumber for stick frame home designs, and up to 280,000 board feet of lumber for solid wood frame construction designs. ³ The latter maximum requirement would amount to a need for the entire community of under 700 m³ of timber to be processed through a community sawmill, which falls well within accepted definitions of small forestry operations. ⁴

First Nations forestry activities driven by community sawmills operating on a needs-only basis with no intention of surplus distribution for export allows for a certain flexibility that may also have spillover benefits to other aspects of the community economy. By focusing on housing needs over surplus production, there is less pressure for communities to engage in extractive-industrial forestry practices, which in the case of Yuneŝit’in and many other First Nations may be a practical strategy for rebuilding people's connections to homelands, countering some of the ‘invisible’ impacts of industrial forestry (Turner et al., 2008) and creating the types of ecologically resilient forest economies that they envision.

Transactions and rules of (in) commensurability

Economic theory, argues Bourdieu, has reduced the universe of exchanges to that of mercantile, self-interested and profit-maximizing actions, therefore rendering all other forms of exchange as noneconomic and disinterested (Bourdieu, 2001). Under capitalism, money has become the primary source of social bonding, disintegrating the social fabric of communities and advancing individualism by contributing to the autonomy of people as they become less reliant on the family unit (and community) for support (Aglietta, 1998). Although the institutions of family, kin and community have long been traditional sources of economic production, they are now seemingly so removed from economic life that they are considered ‘social’ rather than economic institutions (Ross and Usher, 1986). With this dis-embedding of the economy from social relations, First Nation communities are among the many who in the face of globalized capital must address a lack of compensation for their diverse economic activities, instead incentivizing individuals towards a reliance on paid labour (Bowles and Gintis 1996). Indeed, most prescriptions for economic development within First Nations communities continue to ignore the fundamental social norms, values and economic activities that often sustain such communities today, if only because such systems appear to contradict if not counteract the atomizing incentives and theories of capitalist growth and market-based transactions.

Gibson-Graham articulate in their diverse economy framework that formal market transactions are only one subset of a plethora of transactions that sustain a community economy (Gibson-Graham, 2005). While formal market transactions are underlined by rules of exchange and calculations of commensurability, other economic transactions within the household and the community often rely on cultural rules and norms that are perhaps less calculating, and therefore less immutable, allowing for socially negotiated ‘prices’ which respond to metrics beyond those of mere profit maximization (Gibson-Graham, 2006a). By enacting the FTF approach as a type of social innovation supporting the community economy (needs) rather than a profit-driven productive process responding solely to consumers (demands), communities can move beyond the atomizing incentives of market economics. This can create the space to imagine possibilities for transactions which facilitate relationships between people and resources in new (and old) non-market ways.

Within an FTF approach, and strictly from a supply chain perspective, there are two critical transactions which must be negotiated: the forest to the processing facility (intermediate inputs), and the processing facility to the home (final outputs). In typical market economies the producers, distributers and consumers which take part in these transactions have their own interests predominantly in mind, and so they rely on the market to act as an impartial arbiter. Neoclassical economics tells us that anything other than the price system created by market-based transactions will result in a lack of economic rationality and the inability to make adequate economic calculations (in terms of supply and demand) that market pricing provides (Cockshott, 2008). Yet the boom and bust nature of many capitalist markets indicate that such systems are far from rational, and the marginalizing (if not oppressing) nature of market economics towards those with less purchasing power means that such systems are certainly not ethical. In many First Nations communities, where there often exists somewhat of a greater blurriness between producers, distributers and consumers (and indeed a certain solidarity between them), these transactions can become coordinates of ethical decision making and social innovation. One interviewee expressed the complexity of navigating these transactions as a part of an FTF approach:

Like the housing department would buy wood from them but they're complaining about the quality of the wood. And then the sawmill, you know housing is difficult with them. We were just like why are they even separate? They really should be integrated as part of the same thing. I don't know that whether they will or not, because it's kind of hard because the way things are structured, like one is an enterprise as part of a development corp, and the other is an extension of the band… So whoever else in the nation is doing the budgets for housing for example, they've got to have a house come in at a certain budget under their mandate. And their mandate isn't specifically to you know, to have a social mandate to keep the mill going. Even if that means down running lumber at three times the price they can buy it at the store for, so there's those competing interests within the nation, but certain things that make sense. (Interviewee 3)

These conflicting mandates, as the interviewee put it, can perhaps only be overcome through social innovations which serve to further break down the barriers between producers, consumers and distributers, allowing for new types of commensurability that do not necessarily respond to the market dictates of economic calculation. Through a diverse economic lens, it becomes clear that some communities focused on supporting internal housing needs are finding innovative ways of negotiating rules of commensurability which recognize the multiple values that the FTF approach can bring to the community economy. For example, one interviewee explained the final output transaction as follows:

Yeah, so what we normally sell to outside the village is usually half price to members. And then what we use in the community, you know, so like the housing department if they need lumber for sheds or stuff like that, you know, the housing department, it's kind of like an internal transfer from housing to the mill. (Interviewee 9).

Another interviewee described how the intermediary input transaction takes place:

Yeah, we gotta pay obviously our loggers because they're the ones that fell and skidded laid out the logs and stuff like that. So there's a cost associated with them. It's not the same as buying one log from the local (commercial) sawmill. Now a hundred dollars a cubic meter. We might get it at $40 - $50. (Interviewee 14)

Here the transaction can be understood as a site of ethical decision making, where it is deemed as appropriate to cover the costs of the loggers while also ensuring equity in transactions resulting in lower than market prices for the manufacturing entity.

Of course, there continues to exist a neoclassical trade-off assumption that more equity as a result of socially embedded transactions must mean less efficiency (Hayter, 2004). For example, classical economists theorize that sellers offer friends and relatives lower prices than they could get from strangers as a result of obligations that they feel in these relationships, and that consequently in such settings these may lead to significantly higher operating costs (Granovetter, 1992, 2005). Various interviewees were subject to this logic and made sure to stick to the more readily recognizable capitalist rules of commensurability in order to avoid what was perceived (and indeed has been engrained in practice and discourse) as a pitfall:

I pay basically market value is what I've paid. Generally speaking. It's just trying to keep the business like trying not to do favors like, if I discount it we're just basically taking profits from one business and giving it to the other. So I paid market value is what I've always paid. (Interviewee 2)

Through such a logic, costs continue to be understood solely through financial metrics, and what appear to be incommensurable are the social, cultural and ecological benefits that can counter efficiency reductions as a result of more equitable transactions.

The nature of the FTF approach seeks to transition communities away from an export-based economy subject to exogenous and cyclical economic forces, to more of an exchange-based community economy, where local production is focused foremost on meeting local needs (Colley, 2013; Loxley and Lamb, 2005). Yet such an approach often requires a willingness to pay more for locally produced products than those sourced from outside of the community. This is because the social enterprises forming a part of the FTF process being small and local tend to have a loss of economies of scale resulting in higher than average production costs. This was a dominant theme that emerged from the interviews, with many describing how the economics of the FTF approach often don’t make sense from a monetary value perspective. However, perhaps FTF enterprises need to take into account not only economy of scale cost disadvantages, but also lower transport costs from local sourcing and distribution, sheltered or captive markets (fixed contracts) and subsidization by the state (which can make sense if the social benefits or fiscal returns outweigh the costs of the subsidy) (Loxley, 2007). Further, costs can also be reduced when the eventual occupants of homes volunteer their time to construction. Studies show that when home owners implicate themselves fully in the construction of housing units, labour costs can be reduced by up to 50% through sweat equity (Henry, 2010).

By recognizing the non-monetary and often times intangible values to the community economy that is inherent in the FTF approach, a willingness to pay more for products than would otherwise be obtainable from larger capitalist producers becomes more plausible. For example, one interviewee said the following in relation to the FTF approach:

If you’re getting wood for free, sure then it's probably okay. And if you're using it saying yeah, sure it costs more to make these two by sixes but it means we can have four more people trained for four months longer, I guess then that's the justification for it, and a reasonable one, to train people up. (Interviewee 3).

It is this idea that is fundamental to the FTF approach, and which points towards the need for a more expansive set of indicators to appropriately measure the costs and benefits accruing to the community economy. Speaking about Yuneŝit’in's FTF program, another interviewee said:

So we can make a product to utilize into some home construction where people were more hands on, they could see the community members working. That's why we bought the mill. And it's been a great support, it's done what we asked from that sort of thing. So a lot of pride within the community… And they probably had the bigger pride factor because you actually see radiate out of them when they made these big eight by eight timbers that they were going to utilize in a home build one day in which they did. (Interviewee 14)

For community economies to be realized they must be evaluated less in comparison to the potential outputs of competitive market enterprises, and more through their own established metrics of success. Doing so means articulating different rules of commensurability than those solely dictated by the price systems of capitalist institutions.

Discussion and conclusion

In this paper, we have attempted to reveal instances of diverse economic practices of First Nations housing provision which in their effectuation often appear to understand housing as a basic material need that is to be provided as a form of collective welfare of the community, rather than as a commodity to be produced and priced according to consumer demands. We have demonstrated how different First Nations communities are navigating (often in latent ways) complex sites of decision-making related to (de) commodification, needs and surpluses, and rules of (in) commensurability. By identifying and articulating sites of ethical negotiation, our aim has been to make real the possibility of First Nations community economies, and ultimately to support ongoing efforts within First Nations communities to establish counter-institutional frameworks. Although the negotiation of modes of production, distribution and allocation have been described as a form of class politics (Gibson-Graham, 2003), it has not been our goal here to advance a Marxist framework, nor is it likely appropriate to do so within the First Nations context (Bedford and Irving, 2001). Rather, we understand such politics to be representative of a First Nations life project of realizing self-determination over the fundamental institutions governing territorial economies, allowing for cultural community economies to flourish alongside or independent of settler-colonial and capitalist pressures.

As we have pointed out, the success of alternative economic approaches for First Nations communities must also be examined in reference to the structural barricades to change that exist within the settler-colonial institutional framework. All First Nations groups in British Columbia are now influenced in one way or another by settler-colonialism, capitalism and the institutional framework that sustains these structures and processes. Prescriptions for economic and institutional development within First Nations communities continue to prioritize economic growth, liberal property rights and market-based approaches to material well-being. The Indian Act continues to hold First Nations governance institutions at bay, relegating them to administrative bands, often empowered only to complete the accounting and financial management tasks necessitated by a paternalistic Crown-First Nations relationship (Friedel and Taylor, 2011). Many First Nations also continue to rely on restrictive housing funding from the state, most of which come in the form of subsidies from Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) which limit their allowable uses. These housing funds are often simply not enough for most and tend to push communities further into a reliance on imported, low-cost materials and inadequate building strategies.

In British Columbia, First Nations must also still contend with the reality of being geographically disbursed across 1500 small reserves accounting for slightly more than one third of 1 percent of the land of the province (Harris, 2002). These reserve spaces simply cannot accommodate the type of development required for sustainable community transformation (Dempsey et al., 2011). Today, the area covered by reserves is generally small, providing little land to be self-supporting (Peters and Robillard, 2009), and there is very little ‘serviceable’ land available for the building of homes (Palmer et al., 2007). This has deprived First Nations of the land and resources needed to make both their desired livings and places of living. Legal victories such as that of Tŝilhqot’in Nation title case, and other land and governance negotiations underway are important steps towards change. What is certain is that alternative economic approaches can only come to fruition through continued assertions by First Nations which contest both the material and symbolic ‘native spaces’ that settler-colonialism has created (Harris, 2002).

It is also becoming increasingly apparent that new ways of advancing culturally appropriate modes of development require more explicit challenges and deconstructive approaches to the structural forms of power, whether it be colonialism or capitalism, which have served to subjectify and oppress First Nations individuals and communities. As Kuokkanen argues, if the global market economy played a significant role in the loss of political and economic autonomy of Indigenous societies, then rebuilding such societies on the same economic model is likely not sustainable or meaningful, and rather a reversion to traditional institutions of governance and economy is needed (Kuokkanen 2011). The Dasiqox Nexwagwez?an (tribal park) and Yunesit’in forest to frame initiatives represent such examples, yet it remains an ongoing project for First Nations communities to establish appropriate governance institutions which integrate their visions for housing and economic futures within a modern context.

It is said that sites of socio-economic experimentation which challenge the hegemony of capitalism are irrelevant to the world at large because they will not emerge under ‘normal’ conditions (i.e., dominant institutional frameworks)(Graham and Healy, 2008). Yet, in British Columbia, Canada where some 198 distinct First Nations face structurally and symptomatically similar socio-economic and housing circumstances as a result of both colonial and capitalist forces alike, seemingly unique and isolated examples of community economies offer strong potential for replicability and expansion. As First Nations continue to leverage emerging rights and title to advance territorial self-governance, strengthen self-reliance and take control over services critical to the fulfillment of basic needs, it is paramount that new ways of enacting housing and community economies are shared and supported.