University of British Columbia Press Colonial Proximities: Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871-1921 (Law and Society)

Encounters among Aboriginal peoples, European colonists, Chinese migrants, and mixed-race populations generated a range of racial anxieties that underwrote colonialism in BC. By focusing on these points of contact, this book forges critical links between histories of migration and dispossession. The book highlights the legal and spatial strategies of rule mobilized by Indian agents, missionaries, and legal authorities who sought to restrict crossracial encounters. Mawani illustrates how interracial proximities in one colonial contact zone inspired the production of juridical racial truths and modes of governance that continue to linger in the racial politics of contemporary settler societies. Review "This book offers fascinating new perspectives on the roots of Canadian racism. Moving beyond traditional narratives of Aboriginal-European contact and Chinese-European relations, Renisa Mawani probes the unsettled landscape of crossracial encounters between "Indians" and "Chinese" in British Columbia history. She deftly captures the frenzied anxieties that whites harboured over ungovernable mixed-race activities, and brilliantly dissects the renewed state racisms that were born of such encounters. - Constance Backhouse, Distinguished University Professor and University Research Chair, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa" About the Author Renisa Mawani is an associate professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia.