Erased by Policy: How Africville Was Silenced by Technocratic Governance

On a cold January day in 1970, the last house in Africville, Nova Scotia was torn down. What had once been a vibrant Black community with roots dating back to the 18th century was officially no more. But Africville’s destruction wasn’t just a result of poor planning or social neglect—it was the outcome of policy decisions shaped by exclusionary governance and constrained political narratives.

This blog post draws from research into how exclusion operates not just through direct discrimination, but through the very architecture of how policy is made and who is allowed to participate in it.

Beyond Pipes and Permits: Understanding Politico-Technical Networks

Halifax’s early decisions about who would receive sewer services—who was included, who was excluded, and who had the power to decide—reveal more than just infrastructure planning. These decisions illuminate the formation of what political scientists call policy networks: groups of experts, officials, and stakeholders who make decisions on behalf of the public, often without significant public input.

While these networks are sometimes seen as efficient or scientific, they also tend to exclude those who aren’t perceived as experts. This bias is reflected in the views of scholars like U. Wagle, who argued that policymaking should be “scientific,” and J. Petts and C. Brooks, who noted that experts often distrust public knowledge. In effect, these views contribute to a broader policy narrative that sidelines communities like Africville.

When Expertise Becomes Exclusion

It’s easy to think that consulting experts is always the best path forward in policymaking. But when technical knowledge becomes

the sole basis for decisions, democratic deliberation suffers. As environmental scholar K. Backstrand has argued, public protest can be seen as a rejection of this “scientization of politics”—a system that prefers technical fixes over community voices.

This is more than just a philosophical problem. In practice, these systems operate by exclusion. The key question then becomes: who is excluded from the policymaking process, and why?

Constraint: A Quiet Form of Control

While outright exclusion is easy to spot, constraint within policy networks is more subtle—and just as powerful. Scholars W. G. Coleman and G. Skogstad describe constraint as a defining feature of Canadian policy networks. Policies are often shaped by precedent and bureaucratic habit, which means that new decisions tend to reinforce existing inequalities.

This tendency toward incrementalism—the slow, cautious approach to change—leads to reactive policymaking. Instead of addressing historical injustices head-on, governments often replicate them, cloaked in the language of process and prudence.

Africville, which was denied basic services for decades, suddenly became the subject of city planning—only to be dismantled in the name of modernization. The result? A community erased by a policy process that claimed to be acting in the public interest.

Distrust, Participation, and the Myth of Neutral Policy

Why do communities like Africville distrust government and experts? Because when policy networks operate as closed systems, they become unaccountable. Public concerns, as Petts and Brooks explain, often challenge not just individual policies but the assumptions behind them. These include who gets to define a problem, whose knowledge counts, and who benefits from a “solution.”

L. Adkin proposes the idea of “green democratic theory,” which advocates for environmental citizenship and highlights the power struggles embedded in policymaking. This lens is crucial in understanding Africville—not simply as a casualty of poor

governance, but as a victim of a broader system that privileges elite knowledge over lived experience.

Visibility Isn’t Always Empowerment

Paying attention to marginalized communities doesn’t always result in justice. Sociologist K. Duke warns that focusing on “powerless groups” can sometimes reinforce their stigmatization, portraying them as problems rather than partners.

In Africville’s case, official attention did not lead to investment, infrastructure, or empowerment—it led to eviction. This contradiction reveals the danger of constrained policy narratives: they may acknowledge marginalized communities without ever granting them real power.

Africville and the Politics of Erasure

Historian B. Pachai divides the Black experience in Maritime Canada into three periods: neglect (1815–1960), discovery (1960–1980), and coexistence (1980–present). Africville was demolished during the so-called “period of discovery,” when governments turned their attention to long-ignored communities. But this attention, shaped by technocratic assumptions and constrained narratives, resulted not in justice—but in destruction.

Africville’s story is a powerful reminder that policy is never neutral. It reflects values, priorities, and assumptions—often ones that exclude the very people most affected. By understanding how exclusion is built into the way decisions are made, we can begin to imagine a different kind of policymaking: one rooted not in constraint, but in care, justice, and community voice.