Dominant Discourse in Indigenous Consultations

Abstract In Canada, consulting with Indigenous communities over recourse projects, the Crown sometimes avoids critical engagement them, holding to same arguments and counterarguments through regulatory hearing stages. Such hollow moves, produced under Crown’s rules, become embedded in dominant argumentative discourse pass unnoticed. To detect I apply Argument Continuities ( ac s) – a new category of analysis. s are set repeatedly produced/reproduced by arguer an adversarial reasoning process dismiss opposing arguments. have specific life cycle chain dynamics developing path-dependent fashion increasing cost adopting certain argument/counterargument time. test two institutionally diverse cases consultations argue for contingency upon rules exchanges. Determining evidence availability allocating burdens proof consultations, make it more or less likely rebut s.