First Nations, First Thoughts conference: Abstracts and papers |
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First Nations and National Commemoration - Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Heritage Programming
Previous work has identified international trends in the recognition of cultural diversity within states and the character and purposes of the national commemoration of aboriginal people in Canada. Through an analysis of the heritage programs developed by the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, a Yukon first nation, insights into the agenda and interests of aboriginal people and their responses to this national recognition are possible. The paper describes the evolution and content of contemporary heritage programming by the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, explores the intellectual framework underlying this program and suggests ways in which national recognition can more effectively work with aboriginal communities in supporting cultural diversity.
Hidden in Plain Sight: Aboriginal Contributions
to Canada and Canadian Identity
Creating a New Indian Problem
Post colonial indigenous scholarship grounded in indigenous theory and experience works to create a ‘complex understanding’ of indigenous peoples in the contemporary world. The text Hidden in Plain Sight Aboriginal Contributions to Canada and Canadian identity invites a dialogue about aboriginal contribution to the development of the Canadian nation and challenges the prevailing ideas that Aboriginal peoples were passive victims of colonization.
Toward a Cross-Cultural Moral Theorizing of Aboriginal Rights
Prominent non-Aboriginal political theorists who have argued for Aboriginal rights, notably Allen Buchanan and Canada’s Will Kymlicka, have sometimes supposed or suggested explicitly that the advancement of Aboriginal rights in courts and other decision-making bodies requires the excision of certain elements of Aboriginal thinkers’ own conceptions of their rights. Engaging with Charles Taylor’s approach to intercivilizational dialogue on rights, this paper seeks to explore, in a preliminary way, methodologies of seeking a cross-cultural moral theory of Aboriginal rights that can inform and persuade Canadian courts and legislators while remaining true to Aboriginal conceptions of the rights.
Colonial/post-colonial: The Long Relationship Between the Royal Ontario Museum and the Six Nations of the Grand River at Brantford
In 1998 the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and the Woodland Cultural Centre (WCC) at Brantford, Ontario signed a Memorandum of Understanding which recognized the “need to broaden our dialogue and to encourage and strengthen our ongoing relationship.” The principles outlined in the Memorandum have served to guide collaborative projects between the two institutions, in particular, the exhibition “Mohawk Ideals, Victorian Values: Oronhyatekha M.D.” first exhibited in 2001-02 and now being prepared as a travelling exhibition. The ongoing relationship between ROM and Six Nations in fact stretches back over a century to the 1890s when David Boyle, curator-archaeologist of the Canadian Institute Museum (1884-96) and the Ontario Provincial Museum (1896-1911), precursors to the ROM, began archaeological and ethnographic investigations at Six Nations. Based on archival and oral records, this paper discusses the long relationship between the ROM and Six Nations as it has evolved through colonial and post-colonial eras. Of particular interest to the discussion are questions concerning the early influence of Iroquoian perspectives on what materials came into the museum’s collections and how they could be displayed, and the relevance of ROM collections to issues of Iroquoian self-identity and self-determination.
Kindreds and States: Using Anglo-Saxon and Gitxsan Law to Help Reconcile Aboriginal and Crown Sovereignty
The legal orders of the Tsimshianic peoples of northwestern America and the Celtic and Teutonic peoples of early medieval northwestern Europe are strikingly similar. Neither has or had an overarching legal system. Instead, each legal actor acquires an explicit level of status or honour that helps mediate civil law relationships and measures the satisfaction required in compensation/feud dispute resolution law.
The two cultures’ mutual isolation suggests they were constrained by shared factors that drew them into similar legal orders. Other factors caused European culture to develop monarchies and nation states and Tsimshian culture to not. Their similar origins, however, may help reconcile their present coexistence in Canada.
Indigenous Knowledge and its Intertribal Transmission: Sources of Contemporary Mi’kmaq Traditional Practices
The Conne River Mi’Kmaq of Newfoundland host an annual powwow in July conducted according to protocols established by Plains Indian Nations. As evidenced in the powwow itself, centred on dance displays and ceremonies that have Plains Indian origins, individual testimonies also indicate an extensive inter-tribal sharing of traditional knowledge and ceremonies from spiritual leaders belonging to Mohawk, Cree and other First Nations. Questions of identity (e.g. pan-Native American and Provincial), indigeneity (especially in Newfoundland where for a long time only the Beothuk were considered aboriginal), and the sources of contemporary indigenous traditions will be addressed.
Nápi and the City: Blackfoot Creation Revisited
Typically, Aboriginal people in Canada are excluded from the prosperity of urban life. When introduced to the fabric of city living, non-Native narratives of extreme dislocation and poverty within a hostile physical and social environment often weave Aboriginal people as culturally dead. Nevertheless, Aboriginal people in Canada continue to urbanize in unpredicted numbers.
To better understand this phenomenon, members of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Treaty 7) living in the Alberta cities of Lethbridge and Calgary took part in an ethnographic research project that revealed the veracity of Aboriginal narrative. Indeed, traditional and contemporary stories and story-telling remain significant to and for urban Aboriginal people. In this paper, we will discuss how Nápi, or Old Man Creator, stories -- which are typically viewed as foundational and original stories fixed in time, or merely archaic legends -- are, in fact, profoundly dynamic and modern in their approach to explaining the city. In particular, we illustrate how Nápi stories speak to not only geographical and architectural landmarks within the city culturally-specific to the Blackfoot, but more importantly how narrative assist in explaining all manner of contemporary urban issues including domestic violence, homelessness, alienation, and poverty.
Federalism and the First Nations: Making Space for First Nations’ Self-Determination in the Federal Inherent Right Policy
Too often, Aboriginal self-government is viewed as an illiberal project that must be carefully constrained to protect liberal democratic values. Yet there is a robust branch of liberal theory that supports self-government for distinct cultural communities. As well, Canadian history demonstrates that the development of self-government, first through responsible government in the colonial period and later through federalism, is part of building liberal democracy. This paper reviews the political theory, the history of Canada’s constitutional development, and both the successes and challenges in negotiating a self-government Agreement-in-Principle among the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, the Government of Canada, and the Government of Saskatchewan that would find common ground for First Nations’ desire to design their own institutions and rules of social ordering and liberal democratic values, and recommends that federal and provincial governments renew their self-government policies to give meaning to the inherent right of self-government.
Colonial Photographs and Post-Colonial Histories: The Kainai-Oxford Photographic Histories Project
In 1925 Beatrice Blackwood, an anthropologist from the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, visited the Kainai Nation, Canada, and took a series of anthropometric photographic portraits. These have recently been used in a visual repatriation project as a focus for recovering Kainai historical and cultural knowledge, and for providing narratives of community strength and resistance usually omitted from mainstream historical and anthropological interpretations. The colonial contexts of these images have become the catalyst for a project in which negotiation and articulation of the research methodology itself has become crucial in effecting challenges to the meaning of photographs and in developing new ways of thinking about historic materials and relationships between museums and First Nations. The project has been guided by Kainai advisors at every step and has prompted the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Kainai Nation to develop new ways of working and project outcomes which reconcile the different perspectives and needs of both project partners. Outcomes include community-based educational resources drawing on the project’s findings and a scholarly book informed by community input and the collaborative framework of the project. The presentation will provide an overview of the pragmatic, methodological, and theoretical dynamics involved in the project, and its implications for the role of museums in disseminating cultural information to multiple audiences, as well as the role of First Nations communities in shaping research projects of this nature.
First Nations’ Government and the Charter of Rights: In Defense of the Charter
Canada’s First Nations’ leaders have traditionally expressed reservations about the application of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to their affairs. They see the Charter as an imposition of Western liberal values that might stifle their ability to be self-governing. This paper examines these concerns with a view to determining if these concerns can be addressed. There is growing evidence that attitudes toward the Charter by some Aboriginal peoples may be changing. This paper proposes that First Nations ought to adopt the Charter to give their governments greater legitimacy in the modern context.
Moccasin Flats: A Landmark in Canadian Television and Canadian Identity
Moccasin Flats is landmark Canadian television. The first dramatic series in North America to be created, written, produced, and performed by Aboriginals, it has received national and international critical acclaim while galvanizing the commitment and creative potential of Regina’s inner city youth. This paper will discuss Moccasin Flats and its important impact on Canadian television and Canadian identity, focusing on its treatment of key issues affecting our Aboriginal cultures, such as masculine posing and violence, the clash between traditional culture and the colonizing potential of hip-hop, or the impulse to escape problem environments versus the desire to stay and be a force for positive change.
From Provenance to Practice: Archival Theory and “Return to Community”
Within the professional practice of Archives the Principle of Provenance offers the theoretical framework for understanding the context of records creation and use. Archival Provenance asserts that records originating from the same source must remain together. In the 1980s Canadian archivists enunciated the corollary to the principle of provenance that “any particular set of records should remain as far as possible, in the locale or milieu in which it was created.”
For communities in Nunavut the vast majority of the historical record lies in distant and usually inaccessible libraries and archives. This is because the records were created by sojourners: whalers, missionaries, the RCMP, government officials and deposited outside after the creators left the communities. In the case of institutional records, the records were usually deposited in a corporate or government archives in Southern Canada. This paper shows how archivists can move from a mono-cultural and hierarchical mindset towards a new corollary that names creators and authors as essential components of an expanded archival provenance that respects communities and better serves the development of Archives in Nunavut.
Trickster in the Press
Although editorial cartoons occupy an integral place on the editorial pages of most newspapers, they have seldom been a topic of research, especially First Nations cartoons. Two First Nations tricksters have continually challenged the status quo in both Indian country and mainstream Canada with their editorial cartoons. Everett Soop and Bill Powless fit the description of tricksters through their often ironic and satirical politically charged editorial cartoons published in both Indigenous and mainstream newspapers. This paper provides an introduction to issues associated with Indigenous editorial cartoons by unpacking several images by Soop and Powless.
full paper [PDF] [NB: the figures are not included in this version]
From the Sweat Lodge to the Hockey Rink: Saturday Night Ice Hockey in the Esketemc First Nation
This paper is an analytical response to ethnographic fieldwork conducted on ice-hockey as played by the Esketemc First Nations Peoples in a reserve community in central British Columbia (Alkali Lake), Canada. This paper explores the manner in which ice-hockey has been resituated as an expression of First Nations culture, and, in turn, an important part of the healing process for community members. The paper documents my own participation in cultural practices, i.e. sweat lodge ceremonies, and Saturday night hockey rituals, revealing how hockey has come to reflect the cultural values and beliefs of the Esketemc People and in turn become part of the healing process.
‘Mongrelized Aesthetics’: Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen
This examination of Kiss of the Fur Queen draws on Bakhtin's theories of the novel to explore the discursive and semiotic play of Highway's text. Bakhtin's characterization of the novel as appropriating languages of authority and turning their corresponding socio-ideological systems on their sides helps describe Champion and Dancer's introduction to the residential school and their subsequent struggle to free themselves from its authoritative discourse. In the context of contemporary Native writing, Highway's work traces a subversive entry into the dominant discourse and "exposes the ways in which both Native and non-Native frames of reference constantly undergo revision" (Rainwater xiv).
Québec’s ‘Approche commune’: The Politics of Indigenous Land Rights and the Imperatives of Multicultural/Multinational Citizenship
In recent years, political theorists have gone to great lengths to prove that liberalism and liberal democracies can easily entertain the possibility of multinational and multicultural citizenship. The evolution over the past decade of the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state is often presented as a case in point. The signing of new treaties or territorial agreements such as the Nisga’a Treaty in B.C. or Quebec’s Paix des Braves with the Cree and Approche commune with the Innu, is seen as a positive development toward the establishment of a formal, nation-to-nation interaction between First Peoples and the state, and as an added proof of the great flexibility of liberal-democratic institutional arrangements.
This paper will explore the extent of this flexibility and posit that most of the literature on multinational or multicultural citizenship may well be based on theoretical wishful thinking that does not correspond on the ground with the hard reality of actual political situations. The paper will proceed with a detailed examination of the contradictory interests at play in the recently proposed territorial and administrative agreement dubbed Approche commune and involving four Innu communities, the Quebec and the federal governments. Since its public release in the summer of 2002, the agreement has sparked significant opposition from Quebec’s political elite and more particularly from within the non-Aboriginal populations neighboring the Aboriginal communities. The nature of the opposition, which ranges from resentment at not having been properly consulted to outright racist diatribes, raises serious doubt on the political readiness of a liberal-democratic constituency to adapt to the exigencies of multinational or multicultural citizenship. By looking at the politics behind and the various narratives for and against Approche commune the paper will attempt to shed light on the limitations of liberal-democratic societies to accommodate the requisites of multinational/multicultural citizenship.
Environmental and Health Benefits of Hunting Lifestyles and Diets for the Innu of Labrador
The Innu of Northern Labrador, Canada have undergone profound transitions in recent decades with important implications for conservation and health policy. The change from permanent nomadic hunting, gathering and trapping in `the country’ (nutshimit) to sedentary village life (known as ‘sedentarisation’) has been associated with a marked decline in physical and mental health. The overarching response of the national government has been to emphasize village-based and institutional solutions. We show that changing the balance back to country-based activities would address both the primary causes of the crisis and improve the health and well-being of the Innu. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with Innu older people (Tshenut), empirical data on nutrition and activity, and comparative data from the experiences of other indigenous peoples, we identify pertinent biological and environmental transitions of significance to the current plight of the Innu. We show that nutrition and physical activity transitions have had major negative impacts on individual and community health. However, hunting and its associated social and cultural forms is still a viable option as part of a mixed livelihood and economy in the environmentally-significant boreal forests and tundra of Northern Labrador. Cultural continuity through Innu hunting activities is a means to decelerate, and possibly reverse, their decline. We suggest four new policy areas to help restore country-based activities: i) a food policy for country food; ii) an outpost programme; iii) ecotourism; and iv) an amended school calendar. Finally, we indicate the implications of our analysis for people in other countries.
Indigenous Indeterminacy: Auditioning Post(-)coloniality in Canadian Aboriginal Land Claims
Indigenous peoples have been associated with a certain indeterminacy, anxiety, even paralysis, resulting from the inability of governmental and legal descriptive powers and conceptual limits to adequately encompass them. Concepts proposed by Homi Bhabha for understanding the relationship between dominant and subaltern peoples in the contemporary postcolonial environment offer one method of approaching the complex relationship between Canadian Aboriginal peoples, the Canadian Crown, and the law. This paper will explore some of these concepts, their suitability to the Canadian Aboriginal context, and relate them to the development of Aboriginal land title in the Canadian courts.
What is Truth? Farrell Toombs and the National Seminar on Indian Research, 1960
In 1960 a seminar held at Queen’s University focused on national research into the status and future of Indian First Nations in Canada. Implicit in the seminar’s objectives was the issue of Indian assimilation – or integration – into Canadian society. In his paper, Farrell Toombs, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto questioned the assumptions underlying the seminar. This paper examines the discourse of the central papers and contrasts them with Toombs’s.
Touring An Other’s Reality
In 1914, a North American Aboriginal family and a German immigrant photographer made a record of their encounter on the bank of the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton, Alberta. It took the form of two autochromes -- colour glass-plate transparencies. This paper seeks to account for the Aboriginal family's contributions to the image -- surely equal to that of the photographer as they deflect his gaze in posterity. When examined in the light of a post-colonial reclamation of indigenous peoples' agency in colonial relations, reading the autochromes as the product of a cognizant exchange of those involved is key to parsing the complex of meanings and knowledge made.
Rethinking Development: Different Approaches Across Northern Canada
Across northern Canada, many First Nations peoples and communities are divided on the topic of resource development. For some it is a logical choice. For others, it is not an option. Focussing on development strategies employed in a post-claims era by different First Nations across northern Canada, this paper argues that it is time to rethink resource development as a strategy for First Nations self-determination, not only in terms of the implications for the environment or on indigenous knowledge but also in terms of indigenous “development”.
The Art of Exclusion: The Status of Aboriginal Art in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection
Founded in 1965, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (MCAC) was the first public gallery to collect and exhibit exclusively Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian art. During the 1990s, co-founder Robert McMichael embroiled the gallery in a series of legal disputes regarding the collecting practices of the MCAC. The Ontario provincial government intervened in the dispute and passed Bill 112, McMichael Canadian Art Collection Amendment Act, 2000. This amending legislation severely restricted the management of the gallery and removed all mention of Aboriginal art from the gallery’s collecting mandate. In this paper I will argue that the provincial government’s act of writing out the presence of Aboriginal art from the MCAC mandate instantiates cultural racism.
Sovereignty, Self-Government and Self-Determination of the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada
One of the most important outstanding questions of Canadian constitutional law as it pertains to the aboriginal peoples of Canada has been the scope and content of an aboriginal right to self-government. While there has been policy recognition of this right by the Government of Canada, and important implementations of the right in modern land claims agreements, the contours of self-government remain largely unresolved. One of the most important questions has been the relationship between self-government and aboriginal sovereignty. The paper will argue that the external sovereignty of Canada is not appropriately challenged by arguments in favour of aboriginal sovereignty. However, there is much room for the development of robust conceptions of aboriginal self-government, and even conceptions of sharing of internal sovereignty, within the fabric of Canadian constitutional law. The analysis of doctrine will be linked to a normative argument that sharing of decision-making authorities under the Constitution of Canada is more likely to achieve justice than approaches that are based on assimilation or aboriginal independence.
The Meaning of “Bonding with the Land”: An Attempt in Igloolik, Nunavut
This paper looks at a land-skills training course organised by Inuit elders in Igloolik, Nunavut to explore their meanings of bonding with the land. The study demonstrated that for the people involved in the courses being ‘on the land’ was ‘life’ itself, and was tied strongly to their identity and well-being. Their attempts were significant in two ways: first in providing an alternative way to pass on knowledge, substituting traditional modes of transfer, and, second, by signalling that the Western form of education is not ‘universal’. The research points to the notion of ‘respect’ as being central to education for sustainability.
The Haida, Wittgenstein and the Aspects of Justice: James Tully’s Post-Imperial Constitutionalism
One of the most difficult and pressing questions of the modern age is whether a modern constitution can recognise and accommodate cultural diversity. In contemporary political philosophy there are two influential replies to this question, each representing two contested varieties of rights-liberalism. On the one hand, John Rawls’s project of political liberalism defends the priority of right by reinterpreting Kantian constructivism to accommodate ‘reasonable pluralism.’ On the other hand, Charles Taylor defends the priority of good by mobilising the hermeneutical tradition to accommodate the ‘politics of recognition’.
James Tully’s innovative contribution to this debate is to invoke the spirit of Haida Gwaii, and Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘seeing aspects’. The reconciliation of these aboriginal and European perspectives is an example for the reconciliation of modern constitutionalism: a constitutional dialogue (or multilogue) of mutual recognition. This ‘post-imperial’ dialogue on the just constitution of culturally diverse societies is one in which “the participants are recognised and speak in their own languages and customary ways” (Tully, Strange Multiplicity, 24).
Nurturing a reflective awareness of the diversity of cultural perspectives is a major function of Aboriginal storytelling, as well as of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. It is appropriate therefore that Tully compares the two perspectives. The spirit of Haida Gwaii is designed to “awaken and stimulate this dialogical capacity for diversity awareness” while Wittgenstein’s ‘language-games’ are designed to give us the ability “to see and understand aspectivally” (Tully, Multiplicity, 25-26). In both cases the ability to change perspectives is acquired through participation in the dialogue itself. By listening to the different stories, and giving in their own exchange, the participants come to see their common and interwoven histories together from a ‘strange multiplicity’ of paths.
In this way Tully’s dialogical and more historically informed response avoids both the Kantian transcendental standard of cultural neutrality defended by Rawls, and Taylor’s insistence that the demands can be comprehended to some extent within the prevailing constitutional norms and traditions of modern societies.
Contributions to Canadian Pluralism: Foundations for Inuit Common Law
Fundamental to a pluralistic society is the recognition of different legal systems within the boundaries of the State. For aboriginal people in Canada, whose “existing aboriginal and treaty rights” are “recognized and affirmed” by the Constitution Act, 1982, recognition of legal pluralism is essential to cultural survival.
The creation of Nunavut in 1999 opened up the possibility that Inuit legal traditions can provide a foundation for the law of the new territory. This paper addresses the potential and the problems to be encountered in developing this foundation. These are principally of two sorts: technical and historical. The former refers to the problem within existing definitions of common law, of incorporating into a parallel Inuit legal tradition practices not recorded in written form. The latter is a reference to both the limitations presented by historical and written records, and to the relevance of tradition to contemporary practices. The written archival record outlines, in great detail, the history of the relationship between Inuit and the Canadian government. While some of these documents can assist in the interpretation of oral testimony, the observations of those working with Inuit throughout the last century must also be understood in relation to a colonial agenda. The paper discusses these issues with particular reference to Inuit traditions in relation to ‘marriage’, adoptions, sentencing and the development of games laws.
Seeds of Dispersion: Inuit Contributions to the Provision of Public Health in Canada: 1900 - 1930
This paper examines the provision of western medicine to Inuit in the period from 1900 to 1930, paying particular attention to 'Inuit voice.' This is a voice hardly recorded but which can be inferred from archival and other records from the period.
We explore this history, noting the reluctance with which the State introduced medical care to Inuit, starting with the first Eastern Arctic Patrol of 1922, the decade culminating in the building of two hospitals; one at Pangnirtung, Baffin Island, and the other at Chesterfield Inlet. Why bother? This is a question examined in terms of sovereignty concerns, public health issues, the 'civilizing' mission of the churches and economic considerations related to the fox fur trade.
Mother Tongues/Government Speak: Language Politics in Nunavut
Language politics in Nunavut raise important questions about the legitimacy and sustainability of Canada’s Eurocentric vision of official languages. Drawing on interviews conducted by the author in Iqaluit, Pond Inlet and Ottawa, this paper examines how questions about the protection and promotion of indigenous and settler languages have been addressed by federal and territorial government policy makers, as well as by stakeholders representing language interests in Nunavut.
Ilagiit and Tuqluratuq: Inuit Understandings of Kinship and Social Relatedness
Anthropological understandings of Inuit kinship have focused on the Inuktitut concept of ilagiit, which has generally been understood as equivalent to the English concept of “kindred” (both in extended and more limited forms). This has led researchers to conclude that Inuit kinship pragmatically selects kin out of the range of “kindred” to meet the requirements of flexibility and choice supposedly necessary in a harsh environment. This paper will initially review the use of the term and the conclusions that have appeared in the literature. A critical perspective begins to emerge with the realization that ilagiit is based on the root ila- which simply means “to be with” or “accompany”.
Research conducted in Arctic Bay, Nunavut, revealed that Inuit more often spoke about tuqluraqtuq (the North Baffin form of the word) which can have a range of meanings including “nickname” but more precisely refers to “the term by which one calls another person”. This term does not appear in any of the literature on Inuit kinship, and yet the use of this term points to the importance of naming, and the naming system for Inuit understandings of their own kinship system. This paper proposes that by shifting the analysis to the range of meanings associated with tuqluraqtuq an entirely new understanding of Inuit kinship can be generated, which is more in line with Inuit understandings of themselves. As a result, one develops a critical perspective on existing kinship theories within Western discourse.
Health Care, Aboriginal People and the State, 1845-1900: A Case Study of the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia
While the provision of health services in contemporary Canada is usually linked to late nineteenth-century treaty making, colonial governments in the eastern part of British North America provided medical care from the late eighteenth century. Here, the long period of contact and the close proximity between aboriginal and white communities shaped the delivery of medical services in ways that were distinct from western Canada. The provision of health services to aboriginal people in Nova Scotia provides an important opportunity to discern the connections between colonization, the regulation of aboriginal people and the emerging Canadian state.
Knowledge and Enskilment in a Northern Marine Environment
Inuit in the Nunavut community of Arviat, on the northwest coast of Hudson Bay, make use of the sea on a daily basis, for subsistence hunting as well as travel and leisure. This paper examines the growth, production and reproduction of sea-related knowledge and skill. A distinction will be made between knowledge of sea and knowledge at sea. The former is that knowledge which is acquired through informal story-telling; information-sharing throughout the community through the media of CB and local radio; and informal education such as map-making classes. Knowledge at sea, meanwhile, is that which is gained through the embodied practices of hunting and travelling on the sea; through long-term attentiveness and attunement to the marine environment; and through being in the world. Through the paper I will show how these two, inseparable aspects of knowledge acquisition allow for ongoing learning throughout a lifetime spent on and by the sea.
Two Legal Traditions: Any Room for Integration?
A lot has been said, written and discussed about the fact that Canada is a mosaic of cultures combining the past, present and future. But how far does the law actually take account of the mosaic of cultures in terms of their legal traditions? This paper explores aboriginal and non-aboriginal perspectives on how law is created, applied and interpreted. It analyses landmark cases on aboriginal title dealing with conflicting perspectives on rights and duties, and looks to see how far the Courts have integrated both aboriginal and non-aboriginal perspectives. In particular, the type of evidence presented is crucial to the outcome of such cases, so an obvious indication of integration of legal traditions is how far the Courts are willing and able to accept aboriginal oral tradition.
A Visual Autobiography: The Self-Portraits of Carl Beam
This paper aims to investigate Beam's self-portraits for their relationship to the tradition of portraiture and as a vehicle for exploring self-identity. This visual biography of Carl Beam with world events, cultural heroes, historical figures, personal history, the environment, Native symbols, and issues of contemporary concern, such as land claims and residential schools, is presented like a puzzle; the fragments of each composition add a facet or two to the overall construction of Carl Beam, the person and the artist. To approach this end, this paper considers the self-portraits of Beam as a role player and as a concerned citizen.
Native Ways of Knowing: Let Me Count the Ways
This paper reviews Native Ways of Knowing and similar terms in academic scholarship. Part I introduces questions to guide a discussion on Native Ways of Knowing. Part II deals with the assumptions or general framework for this discussion and definitions. Part III describes a continuum to analyze the use of the terms Native Ways of Knowing (NWK), indigenous ways of knowing, and traditional culture in academic venues. The description is helpful as means of placing scholarship on Native Ways of Knowing contextually and temporally in mainstream academic review. Part IV deals with sample scholarship described using a non-hierarchical typology of process, position, person, and product (results). It draws on twenty-five pieces of scholarship in the last decade. Part V presents a term lattice derived from use of the terms in representative publications and draws conclusions about the use of terms.
Culture Clash: Traditional Knowledge and Euro-Canadian Governance Processes in Northern Claims Boards
The co-management and regulatory boards established under the comprehensive land claim agreements in Canada’s territorial North make possible significant Aboriginal influence over governmental decisions affecting land and wildlife. In part this influence reflects the boards’ commitment to Traditional Knowledge (TK). This paper argues that although some boards have made significant progress in employing certain elements of TK in reaching decisions, they have largely been unable to bring other, fundamental components of TK to bear in their operations. Essential elements of TK are simply incompatible with Western, EuroCanadian governance norms and processes. In exploring this incompatibility, specific illustrations are drawn from the experiences of the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board.
The Killing of Political Economy: How the Inclusion of ‘Aboriginal Perspectives’ is Murdering our Understanding of Canadian Development
In Canadian political economy, it has been argued that including “Aboriginal perspectives” will enhance the current understanding of this country’s development. Perspectives identified as “Aboriginal”, however, often rely on a “conception of history” that contradicts the wider objectives of political economy. Political economy in Canada has traditionally conceptualized political and economic structures as historically evolving phenomena, yet “Indigenous thought” generally denies the progressive character of Canadian history and humanity more generally. It offers a romanticized interpretation of the past that exaggerates aboriginal economic and political development, which obscures the economic forces that continue to shape political conflicts in Canadian society. This undermines the field’s ability to understand the character of Canada’s development, preventing aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples from facing the truth about their shared history and learning to peacefully co-exist with one another.
Tradition and Community in Shelley Niro’s Honey Moccasin
Honey Moccasin, a film by Mohawk photographer, visual artist, and filmmaker
Shelley Niro, is considered the first feature-length fictional narrative film
written and directed by a First Nations person in Canada. It raises questions
about contemporary First Nations identities, the potential fluidity or instability
of such identities, and the relation between cultural tradition and innovation.
It suggests that there is a kind of dialectic between self and community--but
that belonging or participating in the community is critically important. While
its focus is on comedy, it doesn’t ignore the sad, the serious, or the
tragic. That’s important, particularly when films by non-Aboriginal filmmakers,
however well-intentioned, tend to only see Aboriginal peoples from the outside,
putting them into standardized, even stereotyped categories. Honey Moccasin,
in contrast, in spite of its rough-edged aesthetic , presents a much more complex
representation of Aboriginal people. This paper will examine the complexity
of that representation, with a particular focus on its treatment of themes
of community and tradition.