Diamond Mining in Canada’s Northwest Territories: A Colonial Continuity Rebecca Hall Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada; becked@yorku.ca Abstract: The Canadian diamond industry has been lauded as a new approach to resource extraction, one whose institutions are characterized by a greater attention to Indigenous rights and the environment. However, an institutional analysis obfuscates the terrain of unequal relations that is the context for the Canadian diamond boom; an analysis of the effectiveness of social and environmental policies in relation to the extraction of diamonds in the Canadian North suggests that there is an intent on the part of those instigating this extraction (that is, the Canadian state, Canadian capitalist interests and international capitalist interests) to protect the Northern environment and to provide economic benefits to Northern Indigenous communities. This piece argues, instead, that this assumption is erroneous and that the Northern mining industry is part of Canada’s project of internal colonization of Indigenous communities, a project that has intensified and expanded in the neoliberal era. Keywords: Arctic, indigenous, diamond mining, colonialism, Northern Canada, accumulation by dispossession They have been captivating people for centuries. In 1953, movie star Marilyn Munroe celebrated them in song. In 1971, Agent 007 James Bond pursued criminals attempting to smuggle them. Now they are setting the economy of the Northwest Territories on fire. They are diamonds (Bruna Santarossa, International Trade Division, Statistics Canada, 2004). Ever since Canada’s first diamond mine opened in the Northwest Territories (NWT) in 1998, diamond mining has been lauded by State and business interests as a golden goose, both for the Northern economy, and Canadian international trade. The praise is diverse: there are the profit-driven analyses outlining the rare quality of Canadian diamonds and their niche in a market with an abundance of lower- quality gems tainted by the high-profile revelation of blood diamonds. There are the macro analyses of the GDP boom and the proliferation of jobs in the NWT. And then there are the micro-level, environmental and institutional analysts, who, to varying shades and through varying means, distinguish this new industry from the mining of yesteryear in its relative environmental and social responsibility. Their characterization of the current political climate is generally one of greater government regulation and public concern, the latter a rather surprising suggestion given that the weight of neoliberal hegemony has proved so great as to silence the noisy opposition to northern resource development evidenced through the Inquiry into the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline of 30 years past. 1 Antipode Vol. 45 No. 2 2013 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 376–393 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.01012.x C  2012 The Author. Antipode C  2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd.