de Costa, Ravi (On sabbatical 2011–2012)
Areas of Academic Interest
- Indigenous politics, history and policy;
- Globalization;
- Comparative political development and political behaviour;
- Social movements.
I originally came to Canada from Australia to take up a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition at McMaster University. Prior to joining FES in 2007, I also taught at Trent University in the Department of Political Studies.
My research and teaching interests are in comparative and global approaches to the legacies of colonialism and Indigenous politics. My PhD dissertation was a comparative study of treaty-making in Canada and reconciliation in Australia. Since my postdoctoral work I have begun to broaden my research to include Indigenous politics beyond the nation-state and to examine Indigenous peoples’ activism both in transnational networks and in global institutions. I plan to continue this work at FES, focusing on Indigenous political behaviour outside nation-state institutions.
"Ravi is a boundary-crosser. Born in Dublin to parents from Sri Lanka and Australia, he lived in various parts of the world before settling in Australia.
Propelled by political shifts in indigenous affairs in Australia in the 1990s, Ravi became active in the reconciliation movement of the day. The protracted issues that both connect and separate the settler and indigenous societies gelled into a complex scholarly program of work for the political scientist.
The “anti-thesis of an indigenous person” himself – having moved multiple times to very different regions of the globe – Ravi has a relational and topological attachment to place. Those relations link particular people and experiences.
While the colonial past and present relegates entire groups of indigenous people(s) into a state of anachronicity, Ravi points to the ever-presence of indigenity/indigenousness in our modern world. Rather than being relics, indigenous people are current reminders of injustice as a global experience."
– FES Professor Roger Keil
Major research projects
Globalization and Autonomy (SSHRC MCRI 2003-2007)
Other positions/affiliations
- Adjunct Researcher, Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Select publications
‘Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg’, co-written with Tom Clark in CanadaWatch (forthcoming, The Harper Revolution).
Aboriginal self-government in Canada 3rd ed. edited by Yale Belanger (Purich Publishing, 2008), in Native Studies Review (forthcoming).
‘Exploring non-Aboriginal Attitudes towards Reconciliation in Canada: The Beginnings of Targeted Focus Group Research’, in Cultivating Canada: reconciliation through the lens of cultural diversity edited by Ashok Mathur et al for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2011).
‘Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples: A survey of developments’, in Prairie Forum (Special Issue on Indigenous Human Rights, January 2011).
Indigenous peoples and autonomy: Insights for a global age. Co-edited with Mario Blaser, Deborah McGregor and Will Coleman (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2010).
‘Reconfiguring the web of life: Indigenous peoples, relationality and globalization’. Co-written with Mario Blaser, Deborah McGregor and Will Coleman. In Indigenous peoples and autonomy: Insights for a global age. Co-edited with Mario Blaser, Deborah McGregor and Will Coleman (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2010), 241-249.
‘Afterword’. In Indigenous peoples and autonomy: Insights for a global age. Co-edited with Mario Blaser, Deborah McGregor and Will Coleman (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2010), 241-249.
‘Church implicated in Canada’s reconciliation project’, co-written with Tom Clark. In Eureka Street Vol. 20 No 12 (July 2010). http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=22168
‘A tale of two apologies’, co-written with Tom Clark. In CanadaWatch (Fall 2009, Multiculturalism and its discontents). http://www.yorku.ca/robarts/projects/canada-watch/pdf/CW_2009_Multiculturalism
A higher authority: Indigenous transnationalism and Australia. (Sydney, University of New South Wales Press, 2006).
'Cosmology, mobility and exchange: Indigenous diplomacies beyond the nation-state', Canadian Foreign Policy Vol 13. No. 3 Special Issue on Indigenous Diplomacies (Spring 2007).
'Identity, authority and the moral worlds of Indigenous petitions', Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 48 No. 3 (July 2006), 669-98.
'History, democracy and treaty-negotiations in British Columbia'. In Alexandra Harmon (ed), The Power of Promises: Pacific Northwest Indian Treaties in National and International Historical Perspective (in press, University of Washington Press, 2007).
'Transnational activism and Indigenous rights'. In Wayne Hudson and Steven Slaughter (eds) Globalisation and Citizenship: the Transnational Challenge (New York, Routledge, 2007), 172-85.
'National encounters between Indigenous and settler peoples'. In Read, Peter et al (eds), 'What good condition', Aboriginal History Monograph Vol. 13 (2007).
'Treaties in British Columbia: Comprehensive Agreement-making in a Democratic Context'. In Langton, Marcia, Maureen Tehan, Lisa Palmer and Kathryn Shain (eds), Honour Among Nations? Treaties and Agreements with Indigenous People (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2004), 133-46.
'Treaties in British Columbia: The search for a new relationship', International Journal of Canadian Studies Vol. 27 (Spring 2003), 173-196.
'Treaty how?', Australian Review of Public Affairs Vol. 4. No. 1 (July 2003), 1-22.
'Reconciliation as abdication', Australian Journal of Social Issues Vol. 37 No. 4 (November 2002), 397-419.
'Reconciliation or identity in Australia', National Identities Vol. 2 No. 3 (November 2000), 277-291.
'Soldiers unknown: Aboriginal warriors and national citizenship', Southern Review: Essays in the New Humanities Vol. 33 No. 1 (2000), 5-21.