Uncertain Accommodation

A bold analysis of what happened when Canada attempted to extend group rights to Aboriginal people in the early 1980s and why it went wrong.

Dimitrios Panagos is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Memorial University. His research appears in a number of academic journals, including Politics and Gender; Social Sciences Quarterly; Canadian Journal of Political Science; and Commonwealth and Comparative Politics.

…Panagos succeeds in giving the intricate and controversial topic of aboriginality thorough treatment in a concise manner. Uncertain Accommodation generates interesting discussion that accommodates all readers, regardless of legal expertise … [This book] adds to the literature by providing a balanced and sophisticated analysis of where Canadian jurisprudence went wrong regarding the definition of Aboriginal rights, and what can be done to improve the situation.

E. Acevedo, California State University, Los Angeles:

This book is highly recommended for professionals, scholars, and graduate students or simply for those interested in understanding how the state handles identity and group-related rights.

Burke Hendrix, associate professor of political science, University of Oregon, and author of Ownership, Authority, and Self-Determination: Moral Principles and Indigenous Rights Claims:
With clarity and insight, Dimitrios Panagos traces the origins and subsequent judicial interpretations of section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982, and shows that the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence has failed to take seriously the self-understandings of Aboriginal peoples. This highly readable book powerfully demonstrates how theory and legality can illuminate each other, and it reveals the distance that Canada has yet to go to build a sufficiently rich conception of its relationship with Aboriginal peoples.