Bombardier Abroad: Patterns of Dispossession

Building on a growing and robust interest in the roles of Canadian corporations operating abroad, David P. Thomas offers a critical analysis of the aerospace giant Bombardier.

In Bombardier Abroad, Thomas examines several cases of Bombardier's work in the high-speed rail sector in South Africa, Israel/Palestine and China/Tibet and argues that these projects are deepening existing social and political tensions. Thomas illustrates the ways in which the corporation is inserting itself into highly contested social and political climates and how the rail projects are a form of infrastructure that entrenches and exacerbates existing conditions of dispossession and inequality. Thomas also examines the various ways in which the Canadian state supports the work of Bombardier in these countries.

Centred around a theoretical framework that combines concepts of dispossession, political economy and important interventions from the field of settler colonial studies on the topic of colonial dispossession, Bombardier Abroad is a critical look at the problematic practices of a Canadian corporation and the ways in which the Canadian state is culpable.

About the Author

David P. Thomas is an associate professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Mount Allison University, on unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaw Peoples. His teaching and research interests focus on the role of Canadian actors abroad and on international political economy.

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