Charlotte Cote
Associate Professor Charlotte Coté (Tseshaht/Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation) has been teaching in AIS since 2001. Dr. Coté holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, a B.A. in Political Science from Simon Fraser University in B.C., and a Diploma in Broadcast Communications from the B.C. Institute of Technology. She is Affiliated Faculty in the Canadian Studies Center of the UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Dr. Coté is the author of Spirits of Our Whaling Ancestors: Revitalizing Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth Traditions.
Dr. Coté is chair of the UW’s wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ (a Lushootseed word meaning “Intellectual House”) Advisory Committee; a two-phase project coordinated by Dr. Coté and other UW faculty, students, and staff to build a facility on the Seattle campus that honors Coast Salish culture and architecture and provides a cultural and intellectual space that exemplifies the spirit of sharing, cooperation, and commitment to Indigenous knowledges and communities. Phase One was completed in March, 2015.
Dr. Coté is co-founder and chair of the UW’s annual “The Living Breath of wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ” Indigenous Foods and Ecological Knowledge Symposium held in May. She also serves as co-editor for the UW Press’ Indigenous Confluences series with Dr. Coll Thrush and co-hosts the UWTV’s Voices of the First People’s film series with Professor Daniel Hart.
Dr. Coté’s teaching and research interests include Indigenous food traditions and ecological knowledge systems, environmental justice, Indigenous resistance and resurgence movements, Indigenous film/media, and federal Indian law and policy. She currently teaches: AIS 270 — Native Peoples of the Northwest Coast, AIS 480 — Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence Movements in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, AIS 335 — Native Americans and the Law, AIS 461 — First Nations Government and Politics in Canada, and AIS 465 — First Nations Filmmaking in Canada.
Dr. Coté is very active in the region’s Native community and is the President of the Native-led nonprofit organization, Potlatch Fund.
Books (2)
Synopsis:
In the dense rainforest of the west coast of Vancouver Island, the Somass River (c̓uumaʕas) brings sockeye salmon (miʕaat) into the Nuu-chah-nulth community of Tseshaht. C̓uumaʕas and miʕaat are central to the sacred food practices that have been a crucial part of the Indigenous community’s efforts to enact food sovereignty, decolonize their diet, and preserve their ancestral knowledge.
In A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other, Charlotte Coté shares contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth practices of traditional food revitalization in the context of broader efforts to re-Indigenize contemporary diets on the Northwest Coast. Coté offers evocative stories of her Tseshaht community’s and her own work to revitalize relationships to haʔum (traditional food) as a way to nurture health and wellness. As Indigenous peoples continue to face food insecurity due to ongoing inequality, environmental degradation, and the Westernization of traditional diets, Coté foregrounds healing and cultural sustenance via everyday enactments of food sovereignty: berry picking, salmon fishing, and building a community garden on reclaimed residential school grounds. This book is for everyone concerned about the major role food plays in physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness.
Reviews
"A powerful philosophy of food sovereignty. Coté successfully navigates myriad scholarly and nonscholarly voices, telling a compelling comprehensive story that helps us understand the practices and policies needed to make change in our food systems." — Kyle Whyte, Michigan State University
"Adeptly uses a deep storytelling method, including both lived experience and critical analysis of history and theory, to examine experiences and transformations of Indigenous foodways." — Hannah Wittman, University of British Columbia
"I am so grateful for Charlotte Cote’s A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other, which creates a path into the living foodways and thoughtways of her people. Her warm, storytelling voice and sharing of collective knowledge embody the generous spirit of a feast, and this book itself, is a feast." — Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi), SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry
Additional Information
208 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 17 b&w illustrations | 2 maps | Paperback
Synopsis:
Following the removal of the gray whale from the Endangered Species list in 1994, the Makah tribe of northwest Washington State and the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation of British Columbia announced that they would revive their whale hunts. The Makah whale hunt of 1999 was met with enthusiastic support and vehement opposition. A member of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation, Charlotte Coté offers a valuable perspective on the issues surrounding Indigenous whaling. Her analysis includes major Aboriginal studies and contemporary Aboriginal rights issues, addressing environmentalism, animal rights activism, anti-treaty conservatism, and the public’s expectations about what it means to be “Indian.”
Our logo reflects the greater Nation we live within—Turtle Island (North America)—and the strength
and core of the Pacific Northwest Coast peoples—the Cedar Tree, known as the Tree of Life. We are
here to support the building of strong nations and help share Indigenous voices.
