One of the readings for this past week in LABR 2P93, my global working-class history for the Department of Labour Studies at Brock University, was Eileen Ford’s, “Insurgent Citizenships.” This chapter in World Histories from Below[1] ranges all over the world and covers more than two hundred years in a readable thirty pages. It touches on revolutions and rebellions, strikes and demonstrations, and other forms of resistance to oppression and marginalization. It’s a bit of a wild ride, but there is a sensible argument that ties together what can appear to be disparate events.
Ford argues that the historical nature of citizenship was limited, often exclusive, and always unequal. It was also a progressive ideal and bundle of practical rights that inspired the activism of oppressed and marginalized peoples since the Age of Democratic Revolutions. This is what she means by “insurgent citizenship”; collective activism from below was citizenship in practice.
Recent events in Canada show that this conception of citizenship is not out of date in our supposedly more enlightened times. The acquittal of Gerald Stanley in the death of Colten Boushie was the outcome of a justice system vulnerable to the prejudices of the majority.[2] The colonial nature of the system that freed Stanley is one particular dimension to this story whose history in the Canadian west is easy to trace. For example, Boushie’s death on Stanley’s Saskatchewan farm was investigated by a police force whose roots go back to the organization invented to assert the Canadian state’s law in its new domain.
Equality before the law is a truism of descriptions of democratic citizenship, but racism and social inequality erode the right to justice. The other day, The Star published three articles about the results of an investigation into jury selection and jury trials by the Star and researchers at the Ryerson University School of Journalism. This piece sums up some of the key findings, which include the evidence that juries are disproportionately white and above average in terms of their wealth.[3] The reason is partly to do with the data used to call potential jurors, which are property assessment rolls, and partly to do with the below minimum wage compensation offered jurors to offset loss of income. The system practically guarantees precarious workers, who are disproportionately non-white, will avoid jury duty, or never be called in the first place.
R Blake Brown’s piece for ActiveHistory.ca the other day was inspired by these issues and the Stanley acquittal.[4] I am not familiar with his book on nineteenth-century juries in Canada, but I was interested to read his insight into the nature of jury selection and debates about its significance for justice. Several of the news items I read about the Stanley trial referred to Justice Iacobucci’s 2013 report on the lack of Indigenous representation on Ontario juries. Brown refers to it too, but goes further by including some of the historical perspective Iacobucci offered. The Justice noted in his report that jury selection in the present is plagued by nineteenth-century problems, namely, its failure to overcome discrimination and class barriers to participation.
Citation
Nathan Smith, “Citizenship and Inequality,” HIS241.com, 12 February 2018, http://www.his241.com/?p=528
[1] Eileen Ford, “Insurgent Citizenships: Armed Rebellions and Everyday Acts of Resistance in the Global South,” Chapter 3 in World Histories from Below: Disruption and Dissent, 1750 to the Present, eds. Antoinette Burton and Tony Ballantyne, p75-106 (Bloomsbury, 2016). Ford’s use of the plural of “citizenship” makes sense, but is not necessary in my opinion.
[2] Joe Friesen, “Gerald Stanley acquitted in the shooting death of Colten Boushie,” 9 February 2018, The Globe and Mail, online at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/gerald-stanley-acquitted-in-death-of-colten-boushie/article37929427/ (last updated 10 February 2018, accessed 19 February 2018)
[3] Ebyan Abdigir, et al, “How a broken jury list makes Ontario justice whiter, richer and less like your community,” 16 February 2018, TheStar.com, https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/02/16/how-a-broken-jury-list-makes-ontario-justice-whiter-richer-and-less-like-your-community.html , accessed 19 February 2018
[4] R. Blake Brown, “Jury Selection and the Gerald Stanley Decision,” ActiveHistory.ca, 16 February 2018, http://activehistory.ca/2018/02/jury-selection/ , accessed 18 February 2018
