Jennifer Adese

In A People and a Nation, the authors, most of whom are themselves Métis, offer readers a set of lenses through which to consider the complexity of historical and contemporary Métis nationhood and peoplehood. Multidisciplinary chapters on identity, politics, literature, history, spirituality, religion, and kinship networks orient the conversation toward Métis experiences today.

The chapters within are themselves also a reorientation given that the field of Métis Studies has been afflicted by a longstanding tendency to situate Métis within deeply racialized contexts, and/or by an overwhelming focus on the nineteenth century. A People and a Nation confronts such problematic characterizations head on, training a critical gaze on conventional historiographical positionings of the Métis people as a primitive intermediate force that opened up the Canadian West.

A People and a Nation dismantles the impoverished notions that continue to shape political, legal, and social understandings of Métis existence. It is a timely collection that convincingly demonstrates how racialized interpretative frameworks diminish the Métis people and are incompatible with the task of understanding Métis peoplehood and nationhood.

Reviews

Educator Information
This important work will appeal not only to scholars in Métis studies but also to scholars and students of Indigenous studies, political science, sociology, history, and cultural studies, and to policy workers and others seeking a better understanding of the Métis people and the current state of Métis studies.

Table of Contents
Introduction: A New Era of Métis Studies Scholarship / Chris Andersen and Jennifer Adese

1 Peoplehood and the Nation Form: Core Concepts for a Critical Métis Studies / Chris Andersen

2 The Power of Peoplehood: Reimagining Metis Relationships, Research, and Responsibilities / Robert L.A. Hancock

3 The Race Question in Canada and the Politics of Racial Mixing / Daniel Voth

4 Challenging a Racist Fiction: A Closer Look at Métis-First Nations Relations / Robert Alexander Innes

5 Restoring the Balance: Métis Women and Contemporary Nationalist Political Organizing / Jennifer Adese

6 Alcide Morrissette: Oral Histories of a Métis Man on the Prairies in the Mid-Twentieth Century / Jesse Thistle

7 “We’re Still Here and Métis:” Rewriting the 1885 Resistance in Marilyn Dumont’s The Pemmican Eaters / June Scudeler

8 Mary and the Métis: Religion as a Site for New Insight in Métis Studies / Paul L. Gareau

9 Building the Field of Métis Studies: Toward Transformative and Empowering Métis Scholarship / Adam Gaudry

List of Contributors; Index

Additional Information
252 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

Indigenous Celebrity speaks to the possibilities, challenges, and consequences of popular forms of recognition, critically recasting the lens through which we understand Indigenous people’s entanglements with celebrity. It presents a wide range of essays that explore the theoretical, material, social, cultural, and political impacts of celebrity on and for Indigenous people. It questions and critiques the whitestream concept of celebrity and the very juxtaposition of “Indigenous” and “celebrity” and casts a critical lens on celebrity culture’s impact on Indigenous people.

Indigenous people who willingly engage with celebrity culture, or are drawn up into it, enter into a complex terrain of social relations informed by layered dimensions of colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia/transphobia, and classism. Yet this reductive framing of celebrity does not account for the ways that Indigenous people’s own worldviews inform Indigenous engagement with celebrity culture––or rather, popular social and cultural forms of recognition.

Indigenous Celebrity reorients conversations on Indigenous celebrity towards understanding how Indigenous people draw from nation-specific processes of respect and recognition while at the same time navigating external assumptions and expectations. This collection examines the relationship of Indigenous people to the concept of celebrity in past, present, and ongoing contexts, identifying commonalities, tensions, and possibilities.

Reviews
“Indigenous Celebrity is an indispensable, paradigm-shifting study of celebrity that centres Indigenous meaning-making, epistemologies, kinship, and world views, even as it remains attuned to the historical and continuing effects of settler-colonial and other colonizing celebrity systems and dynamics upon Indigenous celebrity. From its analyses of Indigenous celebrity activism, to Indigenous sport celebrity, to celebritized “last” speakers of Indigenous languages, to Indigenous celebrity in Australia and India, and beyond, this thoughtful collection builds a compelling broad-based analysis that is attentive to the crucial specificities of place and community. The burgeoning field of celebrity studies dearly needs this book.” — Lorraine York

“Indigenous Celebrity is the first book to look at celebrity through an Indigenous lens. It addresses a significant gap in the literature – for Indigenous/Native/Aboriginal studies, for celebrity and fame studies, and as a comparative resource for social and cultural studies.” — Julie Pelletier

Educator Information
Other contributors: Daryl Adair, Kim Anderson, Renée E. Mzinegiizhigoo-kwe Bédard, Aadita Chaudhury, Jenny L. Davis, Karen Fox, Christina Giacona, Jonathan G. Hill, Brendan Hokowhitu, Kahente Horn-Miller, David Lakisa, Sheryl Lightfoot, Virginia McLaurin, w. C. sy, Tracy Taylor, Katerina Teaiwa.

Topics: Film & Media Studies, Indigenous Studies, Popular Culture, Social Science

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | index, bibliography