The politics and co-production of knowledge in Indigenous wildfire management

In settler colonial countries such as Canada, increasing recognition of Indigenous rights and attention to Indigenous fire stewardship systems are resulting in calls for more collaborative decision making and practice. However, many collaborative processes fail to address knowledge inequities or give sufficient attention to the role of power and politics in shaping knowledge outcomes and processes. In this study we use the theoretical lens of co-production to examine how distinct forms of expertise and authority materialize and are co-produced in the context of wildfire response and recovery, and how this shapes processes of Indigenous engagement in collaborative wildfire governance. Drawing on participatory action research with Secwépemc Nation communities in British Columbia, Canada, including over 50 interviews and three years of ethnographic research centred around the 2017 ‘Elephant Hill’ wildfire, we demonstrate how First Nations both resisted the authority of external ‘experts’, and strategically emphasized their own technical expertise, to assert their decision-making authority in wildfire response and recovery. Results also reveal how wildfire agencies’ claims to authority are sustained in reference to knowledge and experience that is credentialled and deemed legitimate by those same agencies, reflecting how expertise and authority are mutually constituted in the context of wildfire risk. We argue that achieving ‘true partnerships’ in wildfire management requires recognizing the distinct authority and expertise that Indigenous peoples and Nations hold throughout their/our territories, and how Indigenous knowledge and fire stewardship systems are inseparable from the enactment of their/our inherent rights on the land.