Taking culture to court: Anthropology, expert witnesses and Aboriginal sense of place in the Interior Plateau of British Columbia

This thesis examines the way in which indigenous oral knowledge is treated in court by Crown anthropological expert witnesses. I argue that the theoretical frameworks that guide these expert opinions are in defiance of widely taught contemporary academic cannons. My specific focus is indigenous sense of place, an issue that is intensely scrutinized in Aboriginal rights and title cases. I begin with a review of relevant academic anthropological literature on this topic, followed by a discussion about the role of anthropological expert witnesses and their expertise. The thesis continues with an analysis of three case studies of Crown expert witnesses who have frequently appeared in Aboriginal rights court cases involving Aboriginal peoples of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia. As I show, their evidence ignores contemporary academic paradigms and practices, and furthermore denies all indigenous cultural, social, and historical contexts of oral histories of place. My thesis concludes with some questions and reflections about alternate ways of treating such evidence, which would do better justice to indigenous ways of constructing meaning, rather than alienating and distorting it.;Keywords: Anthropological Expert Evidence, Aboriginal sense of place, Interior Plateau of British Columbia, legal Anthropology...