Remote communities aren't diseased

Remote.

It's a word that isn't used very much, and rarely to convey a sense of distance or probability. 

When you do see it, it's often like this, or this, or this. 

That usage has prompted Roger Epp to call for a rethinking of remoteness.

"Sad things happen, difficult things happen in what are then described as remote communities. Attawapiskat and La Loche are names that are now familiar to us. The way they are described, often as if the word explains everything, is that they are remote."

Epp, a political science professor at the University of Alberta and the director of UAlberta North, says remoteness has come to be seen as a pathology — a disease or problem needing curing or fixing — and once it's thought of as a problem, communities and the people who live in them are seen as something of the past. 

He says remote and rural communities have been framed by that pathology narrative for more than a generation, but that narrative is amplified when those remote communities also happen to be indigenous ones. 

'An extra edge when it comes to indigenous communities' 

"In that pathology, indigenous communities often suffer from a kind of remoteness plus. We can talk about the challenges facing remote communities in this country...but there's always an extra edge when it comes to indigenous communities." 

As a result Epp says that inevitably prompts a question about feasible that lifestyle is in the long term. 

"Questions about viability and an outmoded attachment to land and place come into play," he says, warning of the danger in people taking on that narrative as an identity of deprivation.

While he acknowledges the challenges around delivering services, Epp argues if Canada comes to only be defined by urban values, it stands to lose the depth and complexity of rural communities. 

"If people don't live in places that they care for, who else is going to care for them?"

Click the play button above to listen to the full interview with guest host Michelle Eliot.