Indigenous Contemporary Issues

An investigation into how Native American identity became a commodity, from cultural appropriation to ethnic fraud to disenrollment

Settler capitalism has been so effective that the very identities of Indigenous people have been usurped, misconstrued, and weaponized. In Who Gets to Be Indian?, scholar and writer Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) explores how ethnic fraud and the commodification of Indianness has resulted in mass confusion about what it means to be Indigenous in the United States.

As an entry point to the seemingly intractable problem of ethnic fraud, Gilio-Whitaker critically looks to the film industry, including a case study of Sacheen Littlefeather, who is most known as the Native American woman that rejected an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973—though later revealed, she was not who she said she was. Gilio-Whitaker argues that this pretendian phenomenon originated in Southern California when the United States was forcing assimilation of Indians into white America culturally, but also into its capitalist economic system. With Indianness becoming a marketized commodity in the Hollywood film business, the field became open to anyone who could convincingly adopt an Indian persona.

Deeply researched using socio-historical analysis, Gilio-Whitaker offers insights from her own experiences grappling with identity to provide clarity and help readers understand how the commodification of Indianness have ultimately left many people of legitimate American Indian heritage to be disconnected from their tribes. Personal and compelling, Gilio-Whitaker takes settler capitalism to task and helps us better understand how we got here in order to counteract the abuses of pretendianism and disenrollment.

Reviews
“This incendiary j’accuse isn’t afraid to name names.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“With clarity and conviction, Dina Gilio-Whitaker exposes what’s at stake for Native people when Indianness becomes a commodity. A sharp, personal, and urgent look at the high cost for actual Native people in a system built to exploit them at every turn.”—Kim TallBear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science

“Indigeneity is caught between truth tellers and tricksters. With abiding concern for tribal nationhood, Dina Gilio-Whitaker boldly espouses our truths while confronting the tricksters among us. Indigenous America needs more truth tellers like her and books like this.”—Gabe Galanda, Indigenous rights attorney

“Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s Who Gets to Be Indian? tackles the problem of the commodification of Native identity at a crucial moment in American history. With incisive analysis, Gilio-Whitaker reveals how settler capitalism has distorted and exploited Indigenous identities and exposes the roots of folks pretending to be Native and its harms to Native communities. This book is a call to action and a vital tool for understanding how we can protect Indigenous people. A must-read for anyone seeking to confront the complexities of Native identity, sovereignty, and power in America.”—Liza Black, author of Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, 1941–1960

“A fresh and unflinching look into the rise of pretendianism—when it became normalized for Hollywood to grant Native American identities to various grifters. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s courageous and original analysis will challenge readers, Indigenous or not, to think deeply about the nature of settler colonialism today.”—Darryl Leroux, author of Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity

Additional Information
280 pages | 6.22" x 9.30" | Hardcover 

An unflinching examination of the impacts of settler colonialism from first contact to the contemporary nation state.

On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples is the first installment in a comprehensive collection investigating settler colonialism as a state mandate, a structuring logic of institutions, and an alibi for violence and death. The book examines how settler identities are fashioned in opposition to nature and how eras of settler colonialism have come to be defined. Scholars and thinkers explore how settlers understood themselves as servants of empire, how settler identities came to be predicated on racialization and white supremacy, and more recently, how they have been constructed in relation to multiculturalism.

Featuring perspectives from Indigenous, Black, mixed-race, and other racialized, queer, and white European-descended thinkers from across a range of disciplines, On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples addresses the fundamental truths of this country. Essays engage contemporary questions on the legacy of displacement that settler colonialism has wrought for Indigenous people and racialized settlers caught up in the global implications of empire.

Asserting that reconciliation is a shared endeavor, the collection’s final section exposes the myth at the heart of Canada’s constitutional legitimacy and describes the importance of affirming Indigenous rights, protecting Indigenous people (especially women) from systemic violence, and holding the Canadian settler nation state—which has benefited from the creation and maintenance of genocidal institutions for generations—accountable.

Reviews
“Remarkable...likely to become a landmark reference work for scholars and interested individuals alike.” — Lorenzo Veracini, author of Colonialism: A Global History

“Positive shared futures with all our relations depend on perpetual truth-telling and (re)conciliation. This book guides us through the dark and toward the light.”— David Garneau, author of Dark Chapters

"A thought-provoking and insightful ‘must read’ for all those seeking reconciliation based on truth, justice, and accountability.” — Paulette Regan, author of Unsettling the Settler Within and former research director for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off! That observation best describes the power of this fabulous book that every Canadian should read.”— Val Napoleon, Professor and Law Foundation Chair of Indigenous Justice and Governance, University of Victoria

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the On Settler Colonialism in Canada series.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 
Contributor Biographies

David B MacDonald and Emily Grafton, “Introduction: Critical Engagements with Canadian Settler Colonialism: Colonization, Land Theft, Gender Violence, Imperialism, and Genocide” 

Section 1: Considering Violence and Genocide in the Canadian Settler State

Karine Duhamel, “I feel like my spirit knows violence: interrogating the language of temporality and crisis for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and LGBTQ people.”

James Daschuck, “The Battleford hangings and the rise of the settler colonial state.”

David B MacDonald, “Match and Exceed: Why Recognizing Genocide in Canada is Only the First Step in Promoting Indigenous Self-Determination.”

Malissa Bryan, “Unsettled Arrivants: Imagining Black & Indigenous Solidarity Under Settler Colonialism.”

Angie Wong, “Labouring and Living in Canada: Early Chinese Arrivants and Making Settler Colonial Canada.” 

Section 2: Logics of Empire, Colonialism, and Unsettlement

Liam Midzain-Gobin, “Imperial circulation, implicatedness and co-conspiracy, racialized interruptions of settler colonialism in Canada.”

Peter Kulchyski, “A Contribution to Periodizing Settler Colonial History in Canada”

Ajay Parasram, “Learning Settler Colonialism: Double Diaspora and Transnational Imperial Refraction.”

Andrew Woolford, “Settler natures: becoming settler against water.” 

Section 3: Settler colonial society: Relating, Reckoning, and Unreconciliation

Chris Lindgren and Michelle Stewart, “Reckoning and Unreconciled: Neil Stonechild, Starlight Tours, and Racialized Policing in the Settler State.”

Fazeela Jiwa, “On shitheads and revolutionaries: claiming my displaced kin.”

Jerome Melancon, “Relying upon the Colonial Project: Francophone Communities in Minority Settings within the Bilingual Settler Colonial State.”

Desmond McAllister, “Straddling Different Worlds.”

Bernie Farber and Len Rudner, “B’Chol Dor v’Dor: In each and Every Generation.” 

Section 4: Asserting Indigenous Knowledges in settler colonial Canada

Solomon Ratt (poetry) “stolen childhood” and “asastîwa – They pile up”

Joyce Green, “Being and Knowing Home.”

Rebecca Major, “Surviving Institutions in Canada’s Polite Society.”

Paul Simard Smith, “On the Illegitimacy of the Canadian Constitutional Order.”

Emily Grafton, “Resistance and Resurgence: Asserting Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Settler Colonial Canada.” 

“Afterword,” Jeremy Patzer

Additional Information
384 pages | 6.02" x 9.01" | Paperback

This book invites readers to step into a space of reflection on your personal relationship with truth, reconciliation, and Orange Shirt Day.

Written in response to the increase of residential school denialism, Phyllis Webstad and Kristy McLeod have collaborated to create a book that encourages readers to face their own biases. This book challenges readers through a series of sensitive conversations that explore decolonization, Indigenization, healing, and every person’s individual responsibility to truth and reconciliation. Centered around the Orange Shirt Day movement, and a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, these conversations encourage readers to unpack and reckon with denialism, biases, privilege, and the journey forward, on both a personal and national level.

Within each chapter, Phyllis Webstad draws on her decade of experience (sharing her Orange Shirt Story on a global level and advocating for the rights of Indigenous Peoples) to offer insights on these topics and stories from her personal journey, which co-author and Métis scholar, Kristy McLeod, helps readers to further navigate. Each section includes real denialist comments taken from social media and Kristy's analysis and response to them. Through empathy-driven truth-telling, this book offers an opportunity to witness, reflect, heal, and be intentional about the seeds we hope to plant for the future, together.

Additional Information
350 pages | 5.70" x 8.25" | Hardcover

From ground zero of this country's most important project: reconciliation

Niigaan Sinclair has been called provocative, revolutionary, and one of this country's most influential thinkers on the issues impacting Indigenous cultures, communities, and reconciliation in Canada. In his debut collection of stories, observations, and thoughts about Winnipeg, the place he calls "ground zero" of Canada's future, read about the complex history and contributions of this place alongside the radical solutions to injustice and violence found here, presenting solutions for a country that has forgotten principles of treaty and inclusivity. It is here, in the place where Canada began—where the land, water, people, and animals meet— that a path "from the centre" is happening for all to see.

At a crucial and fragile moment in Canada's long history with Indigenous peoples, one of our most essential writers begins at the centre, capturing a web spanning centuries of community, art, and resistance.

Based on years' worth of columns, Niigaan Sinclair delivers a defining essay collection on the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Here, we meet the creators, leaders, and everyday people preserving the beauty of their heritage one day at a time. But we also meet the ugliest side of colonialism, the Indian Act, and the communities who suffer most from its atrocities.

Sinclair uses the story of Winnipeg to illuminate the reality of Indigenous life all over what is called Canada. This is a book that demands change and celebrates those fighting for it, that reminds us of what must be reconciled and holds accountable those who must do the work. It's a book that reminds us of the power that comes from loving a place, even as that place is violently taken away from you, and the magic of fighting your way back to it.

Awards

•  Winner of the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Additional Information
384 pages | 5.14" x 7.92" | b&w photos throughout | Paperback

From the bestselling author of 21 Things™ You May Not Know About the Indian Act comes a powerful new book on dismantling the Indian Act and advancing Indigenous self-governance.

Bob Joseph’s 21 Things™You May Not Know About the Indian Act captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of Canadians by shining a light on the Indian Act and the problems associated with it. In that book, readers learned that the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876 has controlled the lives of Indigenous Peoples in Canada for generations, and despite its objective to assimilate Indians into the economic and political mainstream, it has had the opposite effect: segregation. They live under different laws and on different lands.

People came away from that book with questions such as "Can we get rid of the Indian Act?" and "What would that look like? Would self-government work?" These are timely questions, given that 2026 will mark 150 years since the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876. The short answer to these questions is, yes, we can dismantle the Act, and there are current examples of self-government arrangements that are working.

With his trademark wisdom, humility, and deep understanding, Bob Joseph shows us the path forward in 21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act, in which Indigenous self-governance is already happening and not to be feared—and negotiating more such arrangements, sooner rather than later, is an absolute necessity.

21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act is a call to action. Join the conversation now.

Additional Information
200 pages | 5.00" x 8.00" | Paperback

In Beyond Blood Quantum, voices from Indian Country convey the insidious impacts of the Indian Reorganization Act confronting the existential and pragmatic questions facing many Native Nations to determine who is—and who is not—a citizen. The voices of poets, parents, academics, activists, educators, young adults, and elders prompt conversations in consideration of shared cultural values and lived realities outside of the limited confines of blood quantum.

Both informational and poetic, Beyond Blood Quantum: Refusal to Disappear is a guide for conversation in-community and a songline of voices grappling with contemporary Native identity and the sovereignty inherent in defining citizenship with analysis softened by appreciation for kin, land, and promises to future generations from the descendants of generations who continue to resist, who refuse to disappear.

Reviews
“The tough issues of Native American identity come from within our communities as well as the harmful legacy of oppressive federal Indian policy. From the rise in “pretendians” to the fetishization of Native culture, contributors allow readers to explore the complexities of what it means to belong to a Tribe/Native Nation, according to their own customs and governance." —Karen Diver, Senior Advisor to the President for Native American Affairs at the University of Minnesota, Former Chairwoman, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Former Special Assistant to President Obama for Native American Affairs

"Our elders teach us that no man, or government, not even the most powerful nation in the world can take away all that defines who we are as Indigenous people—that the Creator gifted to our foremothers and forefathers at the time of Creation—but ourselves. They say that if we are not mindful of our past experiences of our foremothers and forefathers surviving every conceivable policy and laws imposed upon our people, generation after generation, we can at some point in our journey be capable of becoming our own worst enemy. When we internalize the oppression as exhibited by this nation upon our people, and internalize that oppression, we can become the oppressors. The elders warn and prophesied that when that happens, it will be the beginning of the end of us. It is deviating from our core values as gifted to us by our Creator as the deepest expression of love for us. Blood quantum is the epitome of this departure from the Original Instructions of embracing all sacred beings that our children represent so that our lifeways will continue and thrive. The elders say, they are the sacred beings, gifts from the Creator so that we shall continue as a People. The use of blood, our lifeline, to define our relations and our connections ironically in this time of self determination could be the cause of our end. What the government designed, we shall complete. This cannot be the end of our journey.” —Regis Pecos

“A testament to the refusal to disappear and inherent Indigenous sovereignty, Beyond Blood Quantum offers profound insights and reflections on the path forward.” —Wayne Ducheneaux

“Tribal citizens must become informed of where we are and where we are going on the explosive issue of blood quantum. The chapters in this book are a tool for self-education and constitute possible road maps for the future of Indian nations.”—Henrietta Mann

“Blood quantum is an issue that all tribes need to be aware of as they exercise their sovereign right to set their membership standards.” —John Echohawk

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

Internationally renowned as an expert in Aboriginal law and an advocate for Indigenous rights, Bruce McIvor delivers concise, essential information for Canadians committed to truth and reconciliation.

A shortage of trustworthy information continues to frustrate Canadians with best intentions to fulfill Canada’s commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. To meet this demand, lawyer and historian Bruce McIvor provides concise, plain answers to 100 essential questions being asked by Canadians across the country.

During his nearly three decades advocating for Indigenous rights and teaching Aboriginal law, McIvor has recorded the fundamental questions that Canadians from all corners of society have asked to advance reconciliation: Why do Indigenous people have special rights? What is the Doctrine of Discovery? Who are the Métis? Why was the Calder decision important? What is reconciliation? McIvor supplies the answers Canadians are looking for by scrapping the technical language that confuses the issues, and speaks directly to everyone looking for straight answers. Throughout, McIvor shares his perspective on why reconciliation as envisioned by the courts and Canadian governments frustrates Indigenous people and what needs to change to overcome the impasse. McIvor’s explanations of complex legal issues demonstrate a unique mix of a deep knowledge of the law, the ability to write clearly and concisely, practical experience from the frontlines of advocating for First Nations in courtrooms and at negotiation tables across the country, and a profound passion for justice rooted in his work and personal history.

To ensure the country’s reconciliation project progresses from rhetoric to reality, ordinary Canadians need straightforward answers to fundamental questions. McIvor provides the answers and context to support a thoughtful and respectful national conversation about reconciliation and the fulfillment of Canada’s commitment to a better future for Indigenous people.

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 25 colour and b&w photographs | Paperback

A powerful anthology uniting the voices of Indigenous women, Elders, grassroots community activists, artists, academics, and family members affected by the tragedy of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people from across Turtle Island.

In 2010, Métis artist Jaime Black-Morsette created the REDress Project—an art installation consisting of placing red dresses in public spaces as a call for justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S). Symbolizing both absence and presence, the red dresses ignite a reclamation of voice and place for MMIWG2S. Fifteen years later, the symbol of the empty red dress endures as families continue to call for action.

In this anthology, Jaime Black-Morsette shares her own intimate stories and memories of the REDress Project along with the voices of Indigenous women, Elders, grassroots community activists, artists, academics, and family members affected by this tragedy. Together they use the power of their collective voice to not only call for justice for MMIWG2S, but honour Indigenous women as keepers and protectors of land, culture, and community across Turtle Island.

Reviews
“REDress is a must-read for anyone who seeks to truly understand the hearts of those most impacted by MMIWG2S. For allies and interested citizens, this anthology shows how Canada emboldened and fostered a society to inflict genocide against Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirited and transgendered relatives.”—Sheila North, Former Grand Chief, Creator of hashtag #MMIW, Mother and Kookom

“REDress is a love offering to MMIWG2S and those who are intimately impacted by this epidemic.”—Cathy Mattes, curator, writer, and Associate Professor in History of Art at the University of Winnipeg

"This is a moving look at how women in indigenous communities are using art and activism to keep the the issue at the forefront, despite the lack of progress in solving or preventing the crimes.... A content warning signals that the book contains language concerning violence against women. I’d offer this to activist artists or anyone interested in justice for indigenous communities, in high school and up." - Youth Services Book Review - Stephanie Tournas, Retired librarian, Cambridge, MA 

Educator Information
Content Warning: This book's content deals with violence against Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people; genocide; death; intergenerational trauma; suicide; and residential schools. 

Big Ideas: Diverse and Inclusive Representation: Identity; Land-Based or Place-Based Learning; Social-Emotional Learning: Death, Grief, Bereavement; Social-Emotional Learning: Self Expression, Creative Writing, Art; Social Justice: Citizenship and Social Responsibility; Social Justice: Impacts of Colonization and Colonialism; Social Justice: MMIWG2S; Social Justice: Prejudice and Racism.

Edited by: Jaime Black-Morsette

Contributions by: KC Adams, Mackenzie Anderson Linklater, Marjorie Beaucage, Christi Belcourt, Judy Da Silva,  Karine Duhamel, Deantha Edmunds, Cambria Harris, Jaimie Isaac, Casey Koyczan, Crystal Lepscier, Lee-Ann Martin, Diane Maytwayashing, Cathy Merrick, Sherry Farrell Racette, Gladys Radek, Zoey Roy, Jennifer Lee Smith, and Patti Beardy.

Additional Information
168 pages | 7.00" x 10.00" | Paperback

Your next step on the journey of reconciliation starts here.

What can you do to be a better ally for your Indigenous colleagues, community members, and friends? By actively listening to the history and current lived experiences of Indigenous peoples, you can take steps to address the inequities they continue to face. Author Rose LeMay notes that if you continually educate yourself, you will see many opportunities to be an ally.

This insightful book suggests how to enter the field of reconciliation in a good way, in your community and your workplace. You will learn:

-more about the true history shared by Indigenous peoples and colonial governments
-why reconciliation is mostly the responsibility of non-Indigenous people
-approaches to intervene when you see racism happening
-better ways to respond to emotions that come up when doing the work of an ally
-how to be an active team player for equity and inclusion

LeMay describes key principles to promote reconciliation, deepen your practice of allyship, and contribute to meaningful change.

Additional Information
200 pages | 5.00" x 8.00" | Paperback

Indigenous Peoples have taken physical recreational activity – sport – back from the colonizers. One of very few books to show the two edges of sport: it colonized but is now decolonizing.

Decolonizing Sport tells the stories of sport colonizing Indigenous Peoples and of Indigenous Peoples using sport to decolonize. Spanning several lands — Turtle Island, the US, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Kenya — the authors demonstrate the two sharp edges of sport in the history of colonialism. Colonizers used sport, their own and Indigenous recreational activities they appropriated, as part of the process of dispossession of land and culture. Indigenous mascots and team names, hockey at residential schools, lacrosse and many other examples show the subjugating force of sport. Yet, Indigenous Peoples used sport, playing their own games and those of the colonizers, including hockey, horse racing and fishing, and subverting colonial sport rules as liberation from colonialism. This collection stands apart from recent publications in the area of sport with its focus on Indigenous Peoples, sport and decolonization, as well as in imagining a new way forward.

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Sport, Colonialism and Decolonization (Janice Forsyth, Christine O’Bonsawin, Murray G. Phillips and Russell Field)

Section 1: Storytelling Beyond Competition: An Indigenous Perspective on Organized Sport (Brian Rice)

More Than a Mascot: How the Mascot Debate Erases Indigenous People in Sport (Natalie Welch)

Section 2: Interrogating the Archive Witnessing Painful Pasts: Understanding Images of Sports at Canadian Indian Residential Schools (Taylor McKee and Janice Forsyth)

On the Absence of Indigenous Moving Bodies: Whiteness, Decolonization and Indigenous/Indigenizing Sport History (Malcolm MacLean)

Section 3: Rights and Reconciliation # 87: Reconciliation, Sport History and Indigenous Peoples in Canada (Victoria Paraschak)

Taken at Face Value: The Legal Feasibility of Indigenous-Led Olympic Games (Christine O’Bonsawin)

Section 4: Settler Colonialism Canoe Races to Fishing Guides: Sport and Settler Colonialism in Mi’kma’ki (John Reid)

Moments of Transcending Colonialism? Rodeos and Races in Lethbridge (Robert Kossuth)

“Men Pride Themselves on Feats of Endurance”: Masculinities and Movement Cultures in Kenyan Running History (Michelle M. Sikes)

Section 5: Resistance and Activism Stealing, Drinking and Non-Cooperation: Sport, Everyday Resistance in Aboriginal Settlements in Australia (Gary Osmond)

Let’s Make Baseball! Practices of Unsettling on the Recreational Ball Diamonds of Tkaronto/Toronto (Craig Fortier and Colin Hastings)

Subjugating and Liberating at Once: Indigenous Sport History as a Double Edged Sword (Brendan Hokowhitu)

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

An urgent, informed, intimate condemnation of the Canadian state and its failure to deliver justice to Indigenous people by national bestselling author and former Crown prosecutor Harold R. Johnson. Now with a brand new foreward.

"The night of the decision in the Gerald Stanley trial for the murder of Colten Boushie, I received a text message from a retired provincial court judge. He was feeling ashamed for his time in a system that was so badly tilted. I too feel this way about my time as both defence counsel and as a Crown prosecutor; that I didn't have the courage to stand up in the courtroom and shout 'Enough is enough.' This book is my act of taking responsibility for what I did, for my actions and inactions." -- Harold R. Johnson

In early 2018, the failures of Canada's justice system were sharply and painfully revealed in the verdicts issued in the deaths of Colten Boushie and Tina Fontaine. The outrage and confusion that followed those verdicts inspired former Crown prosecutor and bestselling author Harold R. Johnson to make the case against Canada for its failure to fulfill its duty under Treaty to effectively deliver justice to Indigenous people, worsening the situation and ensuring long-term damage to Indigenous communities.

In this direct, concise, and essential volume, Harold R. Johnson examines the justice system's failures to deliver "peace and good order" to Indigenous people. He explores the part that he understands himself to have played in that mismanagement, drawing on insights he has gained from the experience; insights into the roots and immediate effects of how the justice system has failed Indigenous people, in all the communities in which they live; and insights into the struggle for peace and good order for Indigenous people now.

Additional Information
272 pages | 5.00" x 7.51" | B&W photo spread in text | Paperback

What would Indigenous resurgence look like if the parameters were not set with a focus on the state, settlers, or an achievement of reconciliation? Indigenous Resurgence in an Age of Reconciliation explores the central concerns and challenges facing Indigenous nations in their resurgence efforts, while also mapping the gaps and limitations of both reconciliation and resurgence frameworks.

The essays in this collection centre the work of Indigenous communities, knowledge, and strategies for resurgence and, where appropriate, reconciliation. The book challenges narrow interpretations of indigeneity and resurgence, asking readers to take up a critical analysis of how settler colonial and heteronormative framings have infiltrated our own ways of relating to our selves, one another, and to place. The authors seek to (re)claim Indigenous relationships to the political and offer critical self-reflection to ensure Indigenous resurgence efforts do not reproduce the very conditions and contexts from which liberation is sought.

Illuminating the interconnectivity between and across life in all its forms, this important collection calls on readers to think expansively and critically about Indigenous resurgence in an age of reconciliation.

Reviews
"This book is an undoubtedly critical, original, and powerful contribution to the field of Indigenous studies and beyond. With sound scholarship, the contributors show us how disentangling from reconciliation discourses is not only a tool of critique, but also a methodology for understanding how settler concepts of territoriality and authority have shaped Indigenous peoples’ understandings of themselves, their governments, and their relationships to land and to one another." — Shiri Pasternak, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Toronto Metropolitan University

"The relationship between reconciliation and resurgence is a complicated and, at times, deeply contested one. This volume does an excellent job of situating itself within the wider literature on resurgence and reconciliation and their conflicted and/or complimentary relationship. This is an important contribution to a fraught conversation, and it provides many different perspectives that help to, if not resolve, then guide the conversation beyond its current roadblocks towards something better." — Joshua Nichols, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law, McGill University

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

Written by leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, Voicing Identity examines the issue of cultural appropriation in the contexts of researching, writing, and teaching about Indigenous peoples. This book grapples with the questions of who is qualified to engage in these activities and how this can be done appropriately and respectfully.

The authors address these questions from their individual perspectives and experiences, often revealing their personal struggles and their ongoing attempts to resolve them. There is diversity in perspectives and approaches, but also a common goal: to conduct research and teach in respectful ways that enhance understanding of Indigenous histories, cultures, and rights, and promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

Bringing together contributors with diverse backgrounds and unique experiences, Voicing Identity will be of interest to students and scholars studying Indigenous issues as well as anyone seeking to engage in the work of making Canada a model for just relations between the original peoples and newcomers.

Reviews
"This book is a beautiful and fearless gift to those willing to be challenged about popular public claims regarding a range of cultural appropriation issues. The editors and contributors have created a rich and contextual resource to generate critical conversations about forms of lateral violence and unproductive silencing, and about our need for ‘deliberate unknowing’ so we have space for real learning, practical institutional change, and inclusivity. This collection invites us to ask how ‘Raven steals the sun,’ making sure ‘we look both ways’ when reconsidering history, and thinking about the ‘we’ and the ‘ours.’"— Val Napoleon, IPC, Cree, Saulteau First Nation, Acting Dean and Professor and Law Foundation Chair of Indigenous Justice and Governance, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria

"A highly stimulating and engaging contribution to a much-debated topic – all the more absorbing because the authors come from a wide range of backgrounds and ground their contributions in their personal experiences. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in the subject."— Brian Slattery, Professor Emeritus, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction
John Borrows and Kent McNeil

1. Su-taxwiye: Keeping My Name Clean
Sarah Morales

2. At the Corner of Hawks and Powell: Settler Colonialism, Indigenous People, and the Conundrum of Double Permanence
Keith Carlson

3. Look at Your "Pantses": The Art of Wearing and Representing Indigenous Culture as Performative Relationship
Aimée Craft

4. Indigenous Legal Traditions, De-sacralization, Re-sacralization, and the Space for Not-Knowing
Hadley Friedland

5. Mino-audjiwaewin: Choosing Respect, Even in Times of Conflict
Lindsay Borrows

6. How Could You Sleep When Beds Are Burning? Cultural Appropriation and the Place of Non-Indigenous Academics
Felix Hoehn

7. Who Should Teach Indigenous Law?
Karen Drake and A. Christian Airhart

8. Reflections on Cultural Appropriation
Michael Asch

9. Turning Away from the State: Cultural Appropriation in the Shadow of the Courts
John Borrows

10. Voice and Indigenous Rights
Robert Hamilton

11. Guided by Voices? Perspective and Pluralism in the Constitutional Order
Joshua Nichols

12. NONU WEL,WEL TI,Á NE TȺ,EȻEȽ: Our Canoe Is Really Tippy
kQwa'st'not and Hannah Askew

13. Sharp as a Knife: Judge Begbie and Reconciliation
Hamar Foster

14. On Getting It Right the First Time: Researching the Constitution Express
Emma Feltes

15. Confronting Dignity Injustices
Sa’ke’j Henderson

Contributors

Additional Information
336 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 5 black and white illustrations | Paperback

Reconciliation is for businesses, too.

From colonization through the Indian Act and residential schools, there is a lot of complicated history in the country we now call Canada. Between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people there is a disconnect, a fractured relationship we now need to make right. But what does Reconciliation mean, and specifically what does it mean for businesses?

The Canadian Business Owner’s Guide to Reconciliation is about how our history affects the present, and how we need to deal with the past so we can move into the future together. It’s about creating opportunities to include Indigenous voices in business, education around Indigenous history and best practices for businesses, and how we can reverse some of the unfair and unsustainable practices to create a better, more inclusive climate.

Author Alison Tedford brings her experience working with government, business, and nonprofits on Indigenous issues including reconciliation over the past two decades to this book.

If you're in business in Canada, you need to know how you can participate in reconciliation and transforming relations for a brighter future.

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

​Updated and expanded 2nd edition of the national best seller!

First Nations 101 provides a broad overview of the day-to-day lives of Indigenous people, traditional Indigenous communities, colonial interventions used in an attempt to assimilate Indigenous people into mainstream society, the impacts those interventions had on Indigenous families and communities, and how Indigenous people are working towards holistic health and wellness today.

This 2nd edition has over 75 chapters, including new ones on rematriation, water for life, governance ‘options’, Indigenous feminisms, decolonization, (mis)appropriation, Indigenous Knowledge, and how to become a great ally.

Educator Information
Author Lynda Gray’s accessible writing style makes First Nations 101 the perfect primer for all to read. She notes that although governments may encourage and fund reconciliation activities, true reconciliation can only happen through the ongoing commitment and consistent actions of individuals, groups, organizations, governments, and businesses.

$1 from each book sold will be donated to the Ts’msyen Revolution Fund which Lynda Gray and her children, Dr. Robin Gray and artist Phil Gray, started in 2022. The Fund will help support Ts’msyen language and culture revitalization in laxyuubm Ts’msyen (Ts’msyen territory).

Lynda Gray is member of the Ts’msyen Nation from Lax Kw’alaams on the Northwest Coast of B.C. The book’s cover art was created by her son Phil Gray and features a 'neełx (killerwhale) to represent the author and her children’s clan (Gisbutwada).

The 2nd edition has over 75 chapters, with 16 new ones including rematriation, what is reconciliation, traditional economies, water for life, Indigenous feminisms, (mis)appropriation, economic development, Indigenous Knowledge, how to become a great ally, and more.

Additional Information
336 Pages | Updated and expanded 2nd edition

This book deals with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, an extremely painful topic—one that we struggled at times to write or think about, and it raises some painful memories and feelings, not only for us but particularly those whose stories and reflections are within it.

The book includes essays and reflections by both men and women, because it seeks to help bring balance to our collective, equally important and unique, roles and responsibilities. It hopes to incorporate Indigenous knowledge principles about relationships and love in the hope that we can begin to emulate and live our lives in balance. In this circle, we begin in the eastern direction with respect—seeing someone from all sides, and having ‘1,000 cups of tea’ with them; moving into time in the south where we must physically, mentally and spiritually sit and spend time with someone; then to empathy or feeling in the west where our connection to a person is strong enough so we hurt when they are hurting; then finally, into the gift of movement, where caring behaviour in the northern direction drives us to actually do something about it.

Reviews
"It is uncanny how all these writers’ contributions came together in one book. It gives such a comprehensive observation of historical and current systems that create these vulnerabilities. I have to admit, I felt anger rise up in me at all these injustices. This is an important work for anyone in Canada, and will be especially useful to policymakers. Well done! You have just changed the world." - Lorraine Rekmans

"This book is a highly recommended read for persons desiring to hear truth, and to work toward genuine and responsive reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples." - Barbara Waterfall, PhD

Educator Information

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction

1. Colonization, ‘Truth,’ and ‘Reconciliation’ for Indigenous Women and Girls?
By: Kelly M. Bugler, John G. Hansen, & Michael Hankard

2. Taking Me Home: The Life of Mere Hiki
By: Taima Moeke-Pickering

3. Traveling the Spirit Road: Anna Mae Pictou Aquash
By Cynthia Landrum

4. How Are Indigenous Women’s Experiences of Policing and Homelessness Linked to MMIWG?
By: Carol Kauppi & Rebecca Schiff

5. Indigenous Responses to Gendered and Colonial Violence: A View from Baawaating
By: Vivian Jiménez-Estrada &Eva Dabutch

6. Walking the Sweetgrass Road Together
By: Michael Hankard

7. Rites of Passage: Building Strength and Resilience
By: Joey-Lynn Wabie

8. Colonial Exceptionalism and the MMIWG Genocide: Bringing Words of the Silent to the Ears of the Deaf
By: Nawel Hamidi

9. Shinning the Light Into Dark Places: Going Beyond Statistics and Literature Reviews and into the Humanity of MMIWG
By: Sharon L. Acoose, & John E. Charlton

About the Authors

Table 1. Aboriginal Offender Statistics
Graphic 1. Mere Hiki

Additional Information
Pages: 150 | Size: 6” x 9” | Paperback

Canada’s Indian Act is infamously sexist. Through many iterations of the legislation a woman’s status rights flowed from her husband, and even once it was amended to reinstate rights lost through marriage or widowhood, First Nations women could not necessarily pass status on to their descendants.

That injustice has rightly been subject to much scrutiny, but what has it meant for First Nations men? In an original complement to studies focused on the implications of the act for women, Martin J. Cannon challenges the decades-long assumption of case law and politics that the act has affected Indigenous people as either “women” or “Indians” – but not both. He argues that sexism and racialization must instead be understood as interlocking within the law. This double discrimination has been used to disrupt gender complementarity between Indigenous men and women, and to undercut the identities of Indigenous men through their female forebears.

By restorying historically patriarchal legislation and Indigenous masculinity, Men, Masculinity, and the Indian Act encourages Indigenous men to begin to articulate the complex ways in which their life’s journey is shaped by discrimination directed at Indigenous women. Only then can a transformative discussion about Indigenous nationhood, citizenship, and reconciliation take place.

Scholars and students of Indigenous studies and gender studies will find this book of interest, as will activists, legal practitioners, and others concerned with Indigenous rights, feminism, nationhood, identity, and the Indian Act.

Reviews"
We need Martin Cannon’s meticulous and critical work to help us reimagine Indigenous identity in Canada. This book will long be a go-to reference for understanding the intersections of sexism and racism brought on by the Indian Act, and for determining sovereign identity pathways forward." — Kim Anderson, author of A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood

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

The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in the United States that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America.

Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian, Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present. He explores how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled for freedom, sometimes together, and sometimes apart. Whether to end African enslavement and Indigenous removal or eradicate capitalism and colonialism, Mays show how the fervor of Black and Indigenous peoples calls for justice have consistently sought to uproot white supremacy.

Mays uses a wide-array of historical activists and pop culture icons, “sacred” texts, and foundational texts like the Declaration of Independence and Democracy in America. He covers the civil rights movement and freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, and explores current debates around the use of Native American imagery and the cultural appropriation of Black culture. Mays compels us to rethink both our history as well as contemporary debates and to imagine the powerful possibilities of Afro-Indigenous solidarity.

Reviews
“Nuanced and illuminating, this book is a worthy addition to a remarkable series.”—Booklist

“This book reveals uncomfortable truths about the dehumanizing legacies of both capitalism and colonialism while forging a path of reconciliation between the Black and Native communities. Mays offers a solid entry point for further study. An enlightening reexamination of American history.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Accessible and informative . . . Mays’s colloquial voice enlivens the often-distressing history . . . This immersive revisionist history sheds light on an overlooked aspect of the American past.”—Publishers Weekly

“This is a bold and original narrative that is required reading to comprehend the deep historical relationship between the Indigenous peoples who were transported from Africa into chattel slavery and the Indigenous peoples who were displaced by European settler colonialism to profit from the land and resources, two parallel realities in search of self-determination and justice.” —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

“A bold, innovative, and astute analysis of how Blackness and Indigeneity have been forged as distinct yet overlapping social locations through the needs of capital, the logic of the nation-state, and the aims of US empire. While we know that slavery and settler colonialism are intricately linked, Kyle Mays uniquely demonstrates that the afterlives of these two institutions are also linked. They provide the land, bodies, and capital for ‘newer’ systems of bondage to flourish, such as mass incarceration. You will never think of the peoples’ history the same way after reading An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

“Dr. Mays brilliantly makes accessible the knowledge of how Native, Black, and Afro-Indigenous communities, under the oppressive projects of settler colonialism and white supremacy, have navigated points of tension and harm, while simultaneously revealing instances when we’ve resisted by way of solidarity and allyship. Ultimately, he reminds us that both the ‘Indian problem’ and the ‘Negro problem’ are, in fact, a white supremacist problem.”—Melanin Mvskoke, Afro-Indigenous (Mvskoke Creek) activist

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.25" x 9.35" | Hardcover

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

A Canadian bestseller and winner of the 2016 Canadian Historical Association Aboriginal History Book Prize, Unsettling Canada is a landmark text built on a unique collaboration between two First Nations leaders.

Arthur Manuel (1951-2017) was one of the most forceful advocates for Indigenous title and rights in Canada; Grand Chief Ron Derrickson, one of the most successful Indigenous businessmen in the country. Together, they bring a fresh perspective and bold new ideas to Canada's most glaring piece of unfinished business: the place of Indigenous peoples within the country's political and economic space.

This vital second edition features a foreword by award-winning activist Naomi Klein and an all-new chapter co-authored by law professor Nicole Schabus and Manuel's son, Ska7cis, honouring the multi-generational legacy of the Manuel family's work.

Reviews
“Pragmatic and helpful, this is a timely book for our fraught and political moment” — Quill & Quire

"Unsettling Canada is a breathtakingly beautiful story of Indigenous resistance, strength, and movement building. Unsettling Canada echoes the power of George Manuel's The Fourth World, centering the heart of the narrative deep inside a kind of Indigenous intelligence rarely shared outside our communities. This is the critical conversation that Canada and Indigenous peoples must have because it is centred on land, and, therefore, it is one of the most important books on Indigenous politics I've ever read." — Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of Dancing on Our Turtle's Back

Educator Information
This resource would be useful for courses in history, social justice, political science, and social studies.  Recommended for students in grades 10 to 12 or those at a college/university level.

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Faced with a constant stream of news reports of standoffs and confrontations, Canada’s “reconciliation project” has obviously gone off the rails. In this series of concise and thoughtful essays, lawyer and historian Bruce McIvor explains why reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is failing and what needs to be done to fix it.

Widely known as a passionate advocate for Indigenous rights, McIvor reports from the front lines of legal and political disputes that have gripped the nation. From Wet’suwet’en opposition to a pipeline in northern British Columbia, to Mi’kmaw exercising their fishing rights in Nova Scotia, McIvor has been actively involved in advising First Nation clients, fielding industry and non-Indigenous opposition to true reconciliation, and explaining to government officials why their policies are failing.

McIvor’s essays are honest and heartfelt. In clear, plain language he explains the historical and social forces that underpin the development of Indigenous law, criticizes the current legal shortcomings and charts a practical, principled way forward.

By weaving in personal stories of growing up Métis on the fringes of the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba and representing First Nations in court and negotiations, McIvor brings to life the human side of the law and politics surrounding Indigenous peoples’ ongoing struggle for fairness and justice. His writing covers many of the most important issues that have become part of a national dialogue, including systemic racism, treaty rights, violence against Indigenous people, Métis identity, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and the duty to consult.

McIvor’s message is consistent and powerful: if Canadians are brave enough to confront the reality of the country’s colonialist past and present and insist that politicians replace empty promises with concrete, meaningful change, there is a realistic path forward based on respect, recognition and the implementation of Indigenous rights.

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

For 34 years, Lynn Gehl fought against the sex discrimination built into Canada’s Indian Act. This is the story of her challenges and eventual success.

A follow-up to Claiming Anishinaabe, Gehl v Canada is the story of Lynn Gehl’s lifelong journey of survival against the nation-state’s constant genocidal assault against her existence. While Canada set up its colonial powers—including the Supreme Court, House of Commons, Senate Chamber, and the Residences of the Prime Minister and Governor General—on her traditional Algonquin territory, usurping the riches and resources of the land, she was pushed to the margins, exiled to a life of poverty in Toronto’s inner-city.

With only beads in her pocket, Gehl spent her entire life fighting back, and now offers an insider analysis of Indian Act litigation, the narrow remedies the court imposes, and of obfuscating parliamentary discourse, as well as an important critique of the methodology of legal positivism. Drawing on social identity and Indigenous theories, the author presents Disenfranchised Spirit Theory, revealing insights into the identity struggles facing Indigenous Peoples to this day.

Reviews
“Congratulations . . . to Dr. Lynn Gehl for her successful challenge of the Indian Registrar’s refusal to allow her to be registered under the Indian Act. . . . Good win, Lynn!”—The Honourable Murray Sinclair

“With knowledge and experience from years of advocacy before Parliament as well as the courts, and the depth of perception typical of all her scholarly work, Dr. Gehl assesses what more is needed before the Indian Act system can be truly egalitarian. Her book is unique and inspiring.” —Mary Eberts, from the foreword

“[R]emarkable . . . a monument in Indigenous struggles with the colonial Crown.” —Veldon Coburn, Institute of Indigenous Research and Studies at University of Ottawa

“Gehl embodies essential Indigenous wisdom, bravery, and responsibility in her work to dismantle the systems of colonial oppression. Her work serves as a beacon in a network of pathways for our people to make their way home.” —Chief Wendy Jocko, Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation
 
“The legal decision in Gehl v Canada will have profound effects for the future, ensuring that hundreds of thousands of Indigenous mothers will be able to pass their status on to their children. This victory, the product of decades of struggle by Lynn Gehl, is chronicled here. Read it and learn!” —Bonita Lawrence, author of Fractured Homeland

Educator Information
This is the follow-up to Claiming Anishinaabe.

Centres Anishinaabe methods of personal truth over western academia.

Introduces readers to the paternity policy of the Indian Art, explaining how this policy was sexual discrimination and bloodless genocide. The paternity policy of the Indian Act required individuals claiming Status to demonstrate the lineage of both parents. Harmful to Indigenous mothers and children, and imposing a high evidentiary burden on Indigenous people claiming Status, it was overturned on April 20, 2017, in what is now known as the Gehl decision. 

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

Though First Nations communities in Canada have historically lacked access to clean water, affordable food, and equitable health care, they have never lacked access to well-funded scientists seeking to study them. Inventing the Thrifty Gene examines the relationship between science and settler colonialism through the lens of “Aboriginal diabetes” and the thrifty gene hypothesis, which posits that Indigenous peoples are genetically predisposed to type 2 diabetes and obesity due to their alleged hunter-gatherer genes.

Hay’s study begins with Charles Darwin’s travels and his observations on the Indigenous peoples he encountered, setting the imperial context for Canadian histories of medicine and colonialism. It continues in the mid-twentieth century with a look at nutritional experimentation during the long career of Percy Moore, the medical director of Indian Affairs (1946–1965). Hay then turns to James Neel’s invention of the thrifty gene hypothesis in 1962 and Robert Hegele’s reinvention and application of the hypothesis to Sandy Lake First Nation in northern Ontario in the 1990s. Finally, Hay demonstrates the way in which settler colonial science was responded to and resisted by Indigenous leadership in Sandy Lake First Nation, who used monies from the thrifty gene study to fund wellness programs in their community.

Inventing the Thrifty Gene exposes the exploitative nature of settler science with Indigenous subjects, the flawed scientific theories stemming from faulty assumptions of Indigenous decline and disappearance, as well as the severe inequities in Canadian health care that persist even today.

Reviews
“Inventing the Thrifty Gene puts a much needed nail in the coffin of the ‘thrifty gene hypothesis’ by exposing its place within a long lineage of exploitative and extractive scientific research on Indigenous peoples.”– Ian Mosby, Department of History, Ryerson University

Educator Information
Afterword from Theresa Redsky Fiddler, who is an Anishinabe Elder originally from Big Grassy and Shoal Lake First Nation. She is an educator, an advocate, and an important figure in Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s Health Transformation initiative.

Table of Contents
Introduction: Underserviced and Over-Studied

Ch 1: On the Origins of Thrifty Genes: Charles Darwin and The H.M.S. Beagle

Ch 2: ‘The Operation of Being Civilized’: Sir Francis Bond Head the Foundations of Federal Indian Policy

Ch 3: Studied to Death: Chief Medical Officers and the Scientization of Federal Indian Policy

Ch 4: The Marrow Thief: James V. Neel and the Invention of the Thrifty Gene

Ch 5: Chief Josias Fiddler: Remembering the Hunger Strike of ’88

Ch 6: The Return of the Thrifty Gene: From the DNA Deal to Its Curious Afterlife

Conclusion: The Grandfather Rocks of Josias Fiddler

Afterword: Josias Fiddler’s Life and Legacy, by Teri Redsky Fiddler

“Our identity, our sense of belonging, our understanding of being human, is all connected to our relationship with the land. And our relationship with these lands span millennia. Our grandfathers and grandmothers that came before us walked these same ridges, valleys, and trails. They fished the same lakes, streams, and rivers. They cherished memories carried in the pungent smell of the fall tundra, in wafts of spruce, cottonwood, and willow smoke. They ventured throughout these lands until their final rest. Our ancestors are literally part of this land. We are part of this land.” –Evon Peter

The North is changing at an unprecedented rate as industrial development and the climate crisis disrupt not only the environment but also long-standing relationships to the land and traditional means of livelihood. Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North explores the ways in which Indigenous peoples in the Arctic have adapted to challenging circumstances, including past cultural and environmental changes. In this beautifully illustrated volume, contributors document how Indigenous communities in Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, and Siberia are seeking ways to maintain and strengthen their cultural identity while also embracing forces of disruption.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors bring together oral history and scholarly research from disciplines such as linguistics, archaeology, and ethnohistory. With an emphasis on Indigenous place names, this volume illuminates how the land—and the memories that are inextricably tied to it—continue to define Indigenous identity. The perspectives presented here also serve to underscore the value of Indigenous knowledge and its essential place in future studies of the Arctic.

Contributions by Vinnie Baron, Hugh Brody, Kenneth Buck, Anna Bunce, Donald Butler, Michael A. Chenlov, Aron L. Crowell, Peter C. Dawson, Martha Dowsley, Robert Drozda, Gary Holton, Colleen Hughes, Peter Jacobs, Emily Kearney-Williams, Igor Krupnik, Apayo Moore, Murielle Nagy, Mark Nuttall, Evon Peter, Louann Rank, William E. Simeone, Felix St-Aubin, and Will Stolz.

Additional Information
448 pages | 8.00" x 10.00" | 172 Colour Illustrations | Paperback

Authenticity Note: This work contains contributions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors. It is up to readers to determine if this is an authentic work for their purposes.

Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future looks to both the past and the future as it examines the foundational work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and the legacy of its 1996 report. It assesses the Commission’s influence on subsequent milestones in Indigenous-Canada relations and considers our prospects for a constructive future.

RCAP’s five-year examination of the relationships of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples to Canada and to non-Indigenous Canadians resulted in a new vision for Canada and provided 440 specific recommendations, many of which informed the subsequent work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Considered too radical and difficult to implement, RCAP’s recommendations were largely ignored, but the TRC reiterates that longstanding inequalities and imbalances in Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples remain and quite literally calls us to action.

With reflections on RCAP’s legacy by its co-chairs, leaders of national Indigenous organizations and the Minister of Indigenous Crown Relations, and leading academics and activists, this collection refocuses our attention on the groundbreaking work already performed by RCAP. Organized thematically, it explores avenues by which we may establish a new relationship, build healthy and powerful communities, engage citizens, and move to action.

Reviews
"Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future provides a critical assessment of the limited progress made in implementing RCAP’s recommendations and consideration of the actions needed to move forward with the TRC’s Calls for Action – that might be a second chance to truly decolonize the situation of Indigenous peoples with homelands in the Canadian territory.” — Peter Russell

“In the current political landscape Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future is an important and necessary work that brings a wealth of scholarship into conversation with post RCAP and TRC realities. By centering the vision of RCAP and asserting decolonial pathways toward Indigenous sovereignty, it will trouble the notion of reconciliation and what that really means in a settler colonial state.” — Jennifer Brant

Educator Information
Other contributors: Marlene Brant Castellano, Frederic Wien, Frances Abele, Erin Alexiuk, Satsan (Herb George), Catherine MacQuarrie, Yvonne Boyer, Josée Lavoie, Derek Kornelson, Jeff Reading, René Dussault, Georges Erasmus, Perry Bellegarde, Natan Obed, Clément Chartier, Robert Bertrand, Carolyn Bennett, Francyne Joe, Jo-ann Archibald (Q’um Q’um Xiiem) Jan Hare, Jennifer S. Dockstator, Jeff S. Denis, Gérard Duhaime, Mark S. Dockstator, Wanda Wuttunee, Charlotte Loppie, John Loxley, Warren Weir, Caroline L. Tait, Devon Napope, Amy Bombay, William Mussell, Carrie Bourassa, Eric Oleson, Sibyl Diver, Janet McElhaney, Cindy Blackstock, Jonathan Dewar, Lynne Davis, Chris Hiller, Aaron Franks, Daniel Salée, Carole Lévesque, Michael Adams

Additional Information
504 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Indigenous peoples in Canada are striving for greater economic prosperity and political self-determination. Investigating specific legal, economic, and political practices, and including research from interviews with Indigenous political and business leaders, this collection seeks to provide insights grounded in lived experience. Covering such critical topics as economic justice and self-determination, and the barriers faced in pursuing each, Wise Practices sets out to understand the issues not in terms of sweeping empirical findings but rather the particular experiences of individuals and communities. The choice to focus on specific practices of law and governance is a conscious rejection of idealized theorizing about law and governance and represents an important step in the existing scholarship.

The volume offers readers a broad scope of perspectives, incorporating contemporary thought on Indigenous law and legal orders, the impact of state law on Indigenous peoples, theories and practices of economic development, and grounded practices of governances. While the authors address a range of topics, each does so in a way that sheds light on how Indigenous practices of law and governance support the social and economic development of Indigenous peoples.

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Part 1: Facilitating and Framing Wise Practices
1. Indigenous Economic Justice and Self-Determination: Wise Practices In Indigenous Law, Governance, And Leadership 
2. A Wise Practices Approach to Indigenous Law, Governance And Leadership: Resistance Against The Imposition Of Law 
3. Wise Practices: Toward A Paradigm of Indigenous Applied Community Economic Development Research And Facilitation 

Part 2: The State of the Law
4. Economic Justice in Practice 
5. Of Spectrums and Foundations: An Investigation into The Limitations Of Aboriginal Rights. 
6. The State Of Canadian Law on Representation and Standing In Aboriginal Rights And Title Litigation 
7. Miyo Pimâtisiwin And The Politics Of Ignorance: Advancing Indigenous ‘Good Living’ Through Dismantling Our Mediated Relations 

Part 3: Alternative in Practice
8. Accepting Responsibility For Your Nationhood Is Worthwhile For Any Nation On Earth, Not Just Indigenous People. 
9. Wise Practices in Indigenous Economic Development & Environmental Protection 
10. Looking Inward, Looking Outward: Finding Solutions in Indigenous and International Law 
11. Victory through Honour: Bridging Canadian Intellectual Property Laws and Kwakwaka’wakw Cultural Property Laws

Recommended for courses in economics, Indigenous studies, Indigenous politics, law and society, and political science.

Additional Information
384 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

When the Red Nation released their call for a Red Deal, it generated coverage in places from Teen Vogue to Jacobin to the New Republic, was endorsed by the DSA, and has galvanized organizing and action. Now, in response to popular demand, the Red Nation expands their original statement filling in the histories and ideas that formed it and forwarding an even more powerful case for the actions it demands.

One-part visionary platform, one-part practical toolkit, the Red Deal is a platform that encompasses everyone, including non-Indigenous comrades and relatives who live on Indigenous land. We—Indigenous, Black and people of color, women and trans folks, migrants, and working people—did not create this disaster, but we have inherited it. We have barely a decade to turn back the tide of climate disaster. It is time to reclaim the life and destiny that has been stolen from us and riseup together to confront this challenge and build a world where all life can thrive. Only mass movements can do what the moment demands. Politicians may or may not follow--it is up to them--but we will design, build, and lead this movement with or without them.

The Red Deal is a call for action beyond the scope of the US colonial state. It’s a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land—an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable for human and other-than-human relatives to live dignified lives. The Red Deal is not a response to the Green New Deal, or a “bargain” with the elite and powerful. It’s a deal with the humble people of the earth; a pact that we shall strive for peace and justice and a declaration that movements for justice must come from below and to the left.

Reviews
“The Red Nation has given us The Red Deal, an Indigenous Peoples’ world view and practice that leads to profound changes in existing human relations. Five hundred years of European colonialism, which produced capitalist economic and social relations, has nearly destroyed life itself. Technology can be marshaled to reverse this death march, but it will require a vision for the future and a path to follow to arrive there, and that is what The Red Deal provides.”—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

"The Red Deal is an incendiary and necessary compilation. With momentum for a Green New Deal mounting, the humble and powerful organizers of The Red Nation remind us that a Green New Deal must also be Red—socialist, committed to class struggle, internationalist in orientation, and opposed to the settler-colonial theft of Indigenous lands and resources. Redistribution also requires reparations and land back. The Red Deal is a profound call to action for us all."—Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism and Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism

“We really need The Red Deal because it forces open a critical conversation on how Land Back can be a platform for mass mobilization and collective struggle. The Red Deal poignantly argues that if we do not foreground decolonization and Indigenous liberation in climate justice strategies such as the Green New Deal, we will reproduce the violence of the original New Deal that dammed life-giving rivers and further dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their lands. Strategically, The Red Deal shows how, if we understand green infrastructure and economic restructuring as anticolonial struggle, as well as an anticapitalist, we can move from reforms that deny Indigenous jurisdiction towards just coalitions for repossession that radically rethink environmental policy and land protection without sacrificing Indigenous life and relations.”—Shiri Pasternak, author of Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State

“The Red Deal asserts that the fight for climate justice must center Native people when it comes to the issues that disproportionately impact Native communities, but it also communicates what the Green New Deal does not — namely, that public lands are stolen lands and climate change is significantly caused by just a few industries, which the government has at worst neglected to hold accountable and at best assisted in their efforts to mine the earth for resources in a move that put profits over people.” —Teen Vogue

“For the Red Nation, living and being interdependent with Mother Nature is explicitly anticapitalist. An ethos merely hinted at in the Green New Deal, The Red Deal understands that capitalism fundamentally protects wealth, not life”—The Politic

“The Red Nation also names Black abolitionists as an inspiration for the Red Deal, citing the links between mass incarceration and detention and climate change. They further note that police departments, prisons, and the U.S. military receive billions of taxpayer dollars annually while doing irreparable harm to Native Americans, Black people, and the Earth.” —Essence

Educator Information
Excerpt from the book:

The Red Deal begins with the oldest yet often forgotten struggle on this continent: ending the occupation. While usually erased from the history of this nation, settler colonial occupation has fundamentally shaped the development of the United States and indeed the world that it dominates economically and politically. Ending the occupation links those of us in the seat of empire with those who face its weapons, soldiers, and policies around the world. Together we share the common enemy of US imperialism, and Indigenous people here have fought against it since the first settlers began to occupy our lands by force. It is important to remember that the very first act of US imperialism was the military and settler incursions on Indigenous land as the fledgling colonies expanded westward. This is why we begin with ending the occupation.

The struggle against occupation on this continent has remained strong throughout history and continues to this day. We’ve seen this in the global uprisings led by Black relatives who have been resisting the colonization of Africa and the enslavement and oppression of African people stolen to work on this continent for centuries. The uprisings during the summer of 2020, even with the global COVID-19 pandemic, built upon the decades of Black resistance to police violence and the everyday brutality of American society towards Black people, and exploded into some of the largest mobilizations in US history. The spread of uprisings throughout cities across the country was also marked by the sharpening of tactics and clarity of the roots of the issues, with images of burnt down police precincts and flipped cop cars evoking memories of Black and Indigenous resistance to slave plantations and frontier forts. Calls for abolition of police and prisons arose with renewed volume, stretching forward from a long history of abolitionist struggle.

It is important that we continue nurturing these histories and movements of struggle against occupation on these lands and continue to build relationships with others globally who face the violence of occupation. We begin with addressing those things that act as obstacles to our collective liberation: the prisons and detention centers filled with our family members; the police officers and prison guards who stand between us and the capitalist interests they defend; and the military, police, and vigilantes who murder our relatives. As we know, colonial occupation is upheld by constant threats of violence and in many instances, actual violence. It is therefore no surprise that these obstacles to our life and wellbeing that employ violence in order to maintain the occupation, receive the largest proportions of resources by the US settler state. We seek to dismantle these institutions that get in our way of living good lives, and we aim to divert resources away from them through divestment.

This is just the first step, though. It is not enough to be against any one thing, even something as big, evil, and all-encompassing as colonial occupation. Ending the occupation gives us the space to breathe and envision other possibilities that we are for, and we must be clear about what we are for. We are for Indigenous life, for the life of all human and other-than-human beings. And in order to live good lives, we must heal ourselves from the destruction caused by colonialism and capitalism by stopping what harms us and desecrates our land and begin to build what will sustain us.

Additional Information
144 pages | 5.00" x 7.00" | b&w illustrations

Authenticity Note: The Red Nation is a coalition of Native and non-Native activists, educators, students, and community organizers advocating Native liberation. The Red Deal was written collectively by members of the Red Nation and the allied movements and community members who comprised the Red Deal coalition. Everyone from youth to elders; from knowledge keepers to farmers contributed to the creation of The Red Deal. It's up to readers to determine if this title works as an authentic resource for their purposes

In the last decade, the relationship between settler Canadians and Indigenous Peoples has been highlighted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, the Idle No More movement, the Wet'suwet'en struggle against pipeline development and other Indigenous-led struggles for Indigenous sovereignty and decolonization. Increasing numbers of Canadians are beginning to recognize how settler colonialism continues to shape relationships on these lands. With this recognition comes the question many settler Canadians are now asking, what can I do?

Living in Indigenous Sovereignty lifts up the wisdom of Indigenous scholars, activists and knowledge keepers who speak pointedly to what they are asking of non-Indigenous people. It also shares the experiences of thirteen white settler Canadians who are deeply engaged in solidarity work with Indigenous Peoples. Together, these stories offer inspiration and guidance for settler Canadians who wish to live honourably in relationship with Indigenous Peoples, laws and lands. If Canadians truly want to achieve this goal, Carlson and Rowe argue, they will pursue a reorientation of their lives toward "living in Indigenous sovereignty"-- living in an awareness that these are Indigenous lands, containing relationships, laws, protocols, stories, obligations and opportunities that have been understood and practised by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial.

Collectively, these stories will help settler Canadians understand what transformations we must undertake if we are to fundamentally shift our current relations and find a new way forward, together.

Reviews
“A powerful decolonial reflection and call to action for settler peoples to learn how to work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples in ways that are decolonizing not recolonizing. Guided by teachings from Indigenous elders, scholars, and activists about the importance of creating relationships with kindness, humility, mutual respect and reciprocity, non-Indigenous readers can find inspiration in the life stories of settlers who speak frankly about their ongoing struggles to do this work in a good way.” — Paulette Regan, author of Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada and Senior Researcher/Lead Writer of “Reconciliation,” Volume 6 of the TRC Final Report

“This is the most comprehensive book on anti-colonial practice focused on non-indigenous peoples. It draws on leading scholars and advocates from across the country and incorporates a breadth of concepts that create a solid and encompassing foundation for creating change. By incorporating these ideas, perspectives, experiences and practices, non-Indigenous and Indigenous people will be well prepared for our work and parallel journey ahead.” — Michael Anthony Hart, Vice Provost (Indigenous Engagement), Professor, Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary, author of Seeking Mino-Pimatisiwin and Wicihitowin

Educator Information
Tables of Contents
Foreword By Aimée Craft, Leona Star and Dawnis Kennedy
Acknowledgments
Introductions
Settler Colonialism and Resistance
Introducing the Narratives
Monique Woroniak
Murray Angus
Steve Heinrichs
Franklin Jones
Orienting Toward Indigenous Sovereignty
Joy Eidse
Adam Barker
Susanne McCrea
Kathi Avery Kinew
Rick Wallace
What Indigenous Peoples Have Asked of Us
John Doe
Silvia Straka
Dave Bleakney
Victoria Freeman
Honourings
Conclusions
Afterword
References
Index

Additional Information
264 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Igniting the $100 billion Indigenous economy

It is time. It is time to increase the visibility, role, and responsibility of the emerging modern Indigenous economy and the people involved. This is the foundation for economic reconciliation. This is Indigenomics.

Indigenomics lays out the tenets of the emerging Indigenous economy, built around relationships, multigenerational stewardship of resources, and care for all. Highlights include:

• The ongoing power shift and rise of the modern Indigenous economy
• Voices of leading Indigenous business leaders
• The unfolding story in the law courts that is testing Canada's relationship with Indigenous peoples
• Exposure of the false media narrative of Indigenous dependency
• A new narrative, rooted in the reality on the ground, that Indigenous peoples are economic powerhouses
• On the ground examples of the emerging Indigenous economy.

Indigenomics calls for a new model of development, one that advances Indigenous self-determination, collective well-being, and reconciliation. This is vital reading for business leaders and entrepreneurs, Indigenous organizations and nations, governments and policymakers, and economists.

Awards

• 2022 First Nations Community Reads Award

Educator Information
This book is centered within the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Indigenomics is a new topic and a previously unpublished contribution to new economic thought.

This book is an important work in the emerging modern Indigenous economy. It is a guide to fully realizing the potential of the emerging Indigenous economy. It lays out the emerging power shift and rise of Indigenous economic empowerment. It acknowledges the unfolding story shaping Canada through the law courts that is testing the foundation of the Crown relationship with Indigenous peoples.

Includes interviews with six business leaders, all exceptional in their field.

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 20 b&w illustrations

An exploration of anti-Indigenous systemic racism in Canadian health care and the medical establishment's role in colonial genocide.

Launched by healthcare providers in January 2018, the #aHand2Hold campaign confronted the Quebec government's practice of separating children from their families during medical evacuation airlifts, which disproportionately affected remote and northern Indigenous communities. Pediatric emergency physician Samir Shaheen-Hussain's captivating narrative of this successful campaign, which garnered unprecedented public attention and media coverage, seeks to answer lingering questions about why such a cruel practice remained in place for so long. In doing so it serves as an indispensable case study of contemporary medical colonialism in Quebec.

Fighting for a Hand to Hold exposes the medical establishment's role in the displacement, colonization, and genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Through meticulously gathered government documentation, historical scholarship, media reports, public inquiries, and personal testimonies, Shaheen-Hussain connects the draconian medevac practice with often-disregarded crimes and medical violence inflicted specifically on Indigenous children. This devastating history and ongoing medical colonialism prevent Indigenous communities from attaining internationally recognized measures of health and social well-being because of the pervasive, systemic anti-Indigenous racism that persists in the Canadian public health care system - and in settler society at large.

Shaheen-Hussain's unique perspective combines his experience as a frontline pediatrician with his long-standing involvement in anti-authoritarian social justice movements. Sparked by the indifference and callousness of those in power, this book draws on the innovative work of Indigenous scholars and activists to conclude that a broader decolonization struggle calling for reparations, land reclamation, and self-determination for Indigenous peoples is critical to achieve reconciliation in Canada.

Reviews
"Fighting for a Hand to Hold denounces with ferocity the utterly inhuman, decades-long practice of separating children from their families during emergency medevacs in northern and remote regions of Quebec. In a precise, compelling, and well-documented narrative, Samir Shaheen-Hussain challenges our collective understanding of systemic racism and social determinants of health applied to Indigenous communities most dependent on medevac airlifts and most impacted by the non-accompaniment rule. An eye-opening, tough, and essential book." — Dr Joanne Liu, pediatric emergency physician and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières

"In Fighting for a Hand to Hold Samir Shaheen-Hussain exposes the social, cultural, and historical structures that allow medical colonialism to hide in plain sight as it harms generations of Indigenous children and their families. It is an unflinching analysis that should be required reading in every medical school in the country." —Maureen Lux, professor, Brock University and author of Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s

"The memories of the Inuit children I attended as a young interpreter at the Montreal Children's Hospital came flooding back to me. The sad face of a child looking up at me: nurses informed me that he was not speaking, but I immediately recognized the fear in his face, in his eyes. As soon as I spoke to him in Inuktitut, he looked at me in disbelief, but in the next moment his tears began to roll and I could only sound out the Inuit sound of love, 'mmph,' and tell him it would be all right, that his mom or a relative would be arriving soon. I felt for that child, and as he began to relax and open up, we had a lovely conversation in Inuktitut. He did not feel so alone in this strange place he had just been deposited in, as if he were cargo. To this day, I still feel for him. Throughout all these years, we all have been made to believe that this is how things should work. It was one of those things we stayed quiet about for decades. But no longer. We Inuit, we are a people. We love our children. Fighting for a Hand to Hold helps us understand the issues of colonization in the medical system that have vexed us as Indigenous peoples. Today, we Inuit are working to bring our health back to our communities. Healthy communities and families mean self-governance to us, and the decolonization process will happen." - Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk, vice-president of international affairs, Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada

Educator Information
Foreword by Cindy Blackstock, afterword by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel

Table of Contents

Figures | xiii
Foreword Cindy Blackstock | xv
Preface and Acknowledgments | xxi
A Note to Readers | xxix

Part One Above All, Do No Harm

Timeline | 3
Introduction | 7
1 Medevac Airlifts in Quebec and the Non-Accompaniment Rule | 16
2 The #aHand2Hold Campaign: Confronting a System | 27

Part Two Structural Fault Lines in Health Care

3 Social Determinants of Health: Equality, Equity, and Limitations | 47
4 Recognizing Systemic Racism: A Social Justice Approach | 66
5 Medical Culture and the Myth of Meritocracy | 90

Part Three Medical Colonialism and Indigenous Children

6 A Little Matter of Genocide: Canada and the United Nations Convention | 113
7 From the Smallpox War of Extermination to Tuberculosis Deaths in Residential Schools | 122
8 Experimental Laboratories: Malnutrition, Starvation, and the BCG Vaccine | 135
9 Cruel Treatment: Indian Hospitals, Sanatoria, and Skin Grafting | 150
10 Gendered Violence: Forced Sterilization and Coercive Contraception | 165
11 Breaking Up Families: Child Welfare Services, Mass Evacuations, and Medical Disappearances | 179
12 Oral Histories and the Narrative of Genocide | 207

Part Four The Structural Determinants of Health and Decolonizing Our Future

13 Capitalism and the Cost of Caring | 217
14 History Matters: Colonialism, Land, and Indigenous Self-Determination | 236
15 Decolonizing Health Care: Reparations before Reconciliation | 253
Conclusion | 271

Afterword Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel | 277
References | 283
Index | 315

Additional Information
360 pages | 5.98" x 9.01" | 4 maps, 8 illustrations | Hardcover

A vision shared. A manifesto. This remarkable work argues that Anishinabeg need to reconnect with non-colonized modes of thinking, social organization, and decision making in order to achieve genuine sovereignty. In Our Hearts Are as One Fire, Jerry Fontaine recounts the stories of three Ota’wa, Shawnee, and Ojibway-Anishinabe leaders who challenged aggressive colonial expansion – Obwandiac, Tecumtha, and Shingwauk. He weaves Ojibwaymowin language and knowledge with conversations with elders and descendants of the three leaders. The result is a book that reframes the history of Manitou Aki, sharing a vision of how Anishinabe spiritual, cultural, legal, and political principles will support the leaders of today and tomorrow.

Reviews
"A critically important manifesto written by an Anishinabe leader. Every First Nations leader in North America must read Our Hearts Are as One Fire. It is the book we have all been waiting for." — Matthew L.M. Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, Michigan State University

"makwa ogimaa presents an intimate story of Anishinabe traditional leadership, one that reflects the place of “an ethics of relationship” that is so urgently needed as we search for paradigms of leadership that once again connect us to each other and to the Earth."— Gregory A. Cajete, professor of Native American Studies and Education, University of New Mexico

Educator Information

Table of Contents
Foreword / Lee Anne Cameron

Ah-di-so-kay Anishinabeg / Traditional Storytellers

Maaitaa / Prologue

Nitam igo / Introduction

1 Gah-o-mah-mah-wahn-dah-wi-zid gah-ki-nah-gay-goo ji-gi-kayn-dah-so aki / A prophet is someone who has a completed view of the world

2 Obwandiac / The Man who Travelled and Stopped at Many Places

3 Tecumtha / He Walked Across

4 Shingwauk / The White Pine, Boss of All the Trees

5 N’swi-ish-ko-day-kawn Anishinabeg O’dish-ko-day-kawn / Our Hearts Are as One Fire

6 Meegwetch bi-zhin-dah-wi-yeg / Thank you for listening to me

Wayekwaase / It is finished

Appendix

Timeline

Glossary; Notes; Index

Additional Information
280 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

In a moment where unlawful pipelines are built on Indigenous territories, the RCMP make illegal arrests of land defenders on unceded lands, and anti-Indigenous racism permeates on social media; the government lie that is reconciliation is exposed. Renowned lawyer, author, speaker and activist, Pamela Palmater returns to wade through media headlines and government propaganda and get to heart of key issues lost in the noise.

Warrior Life: Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence is the second collection of writings by Palmater. In keeping with her previous works, numerous op-eds, media commentaries, YouTube channel videos and podcasts, Palmater’s work is fiercely anti-colonial, anti-racist, and more crucial than ever before.

Palmater addresses a range of Indigenous issues — empty political promises, ongoing racism, sexualized genocide, government lawlessness, and the lie that is reconciliation — and makes the complex political and legal implications accessible to the public.

From one of the most important, inspiring and fearless voices in Indigenous rights, decolonization, Canadian politics, social justice, earth justice and beyond, Warrior Life is an unflinching critique of the colonial project that is Canada and a rallying cry for Indigenous peoples and allies alike to forge a path toward a decolonial future through resistance and resurgence.

Reviews
“In this moment of multiple existential crises from climate change to species extinction, ocean degradation, toxic pollution and so on, the Indigenous struggle to regain authority over land provides an opportunity to see our place in the world differently. To me, that is what Palmater’s fiery rhetoric is calling for, a chance to see the world through the lenses of different values.” — David Suzuki

“As governments try to pull the wool over the public eye by suggesting contemporary colonial acts are best for Indigenous peoples, Palmater helps us see the wrongdoing so we can become informed and be respectful change allies. Read this book to see the many faces of colonialism and to learn how truth, justice, and respect can defeat it.” — Cindy Blackstock, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Foreword by Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair
Harper’s Gone, Now It’s Time to Look Within
The Worst Thing That Could Happen Is A First Nations Minister of Indian Affairs
Will We See Real Nation to Nation Respect With Trudeau?
Evidence of Good Faith Lacking in Trudeau’s Indigenous Agenda
Why Is Trudeau Government Opposing Charter Equality for Indigenous Women?
PM Trudeau’s Nation to Nation Relationship Disappeared with Empty Budget Promises
Trudeau’s Dance of Deception on Indigenous Rights
Trudeau’s Forked Tongue Reconciliation At UN
Indigenous Issues Disappear Slowly from Election 2019
Canada’s Ongoing Racial Discrimination Against Indigenous Women and Children Discussed at United Nations
Lethal Impact of Racism on Indigenous Health
Overincarceration Of Indigenous Peoples Nothing Short of Genocide
First Nations Water Crisis Problems A Crisis of Canada’s Own Making
Saskatchewan: The Land of The Living Skies and Lethal Racism
Justice for Our Stolen Children Camp
How Canada Turned A Blind Eye to The Suicide Crises In First Nations
Don’t Forget the Racist Canadians Behind the Racist Systems
The Ongoing Legacies of Canadian Genocide
Sexualized Genocide
Corporate Conquistadors Rape Indigenous Lands and Bodies
Bill S-3 Amendments to The Indian Act and the Never-Ending Battle for Equality for Indigenous Women
What You Need to Know About Sharon McIvor’s UN Victory on Indian Status
The People Left Behind by Trudeau’s Promised Nation to Nation Relationship (Co-Authored with Sharon McIvor)
Federal Budget 2019 Indigenous Women & Children Left Behind Again
Public Inquiry Needed to Address Sexualized Violence in Policing and Corrections
Why Canada Should Stand Trial for Tina Fontaine’s Murder
Justice System Still Not Protecting Indigenous Women and Girls
Missing and Murdered: Canada’s Genocide Cover-Up
Transitional Justice Plan Needed to End Genocide in Canada
Bill C-92’s Indigenous Child Welfare Act More Pan-Indigenous Legislation That Risks Continuing the Status Quo
Bill C-91 An Act Respecting Indigenous Languages: More Hollow Reconciliation
Canada’s Criminalization of The Indigenous Tobacco Trade
Cannabis Legalization Ignores First Nations
NAFTA 2.0 – Time to Get It Right or Kill It
Bill C-51, Anti-Terrorism Act, Testimony and Questions at Senate Committee on Public Safety and National Security
RCMP Invasion of Wet’suwet’en Nation Territory Breaches Canada’s Rule of Law
Killer Whales, Trans Mountain Pipeline and The Public Interest (Part 1)
It’s Up to Indigenous Environmental Groups to Protect the Public Interest (Part 2)
Clearing the lands has always been at the heart of Canada’s Indian Policy
The blockades no one talks about devastate Indigenous economies
The Liberals Plans for Indigenous Reconciliation are Just Beads and Trinkets
Abolishing the Indian Act Means Eliminating First Nations’ Rights
The Source of Our Power Has Always Been in Our Peoples – Not Voting in Federal Elections
Indigenous Rights are Not Conditional on Public Opinion
Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Universities and Colleges
True Test of Reconciliation: Respect the Indigenous Right to Say No
The Indigenous Right to Say No
A Modern Treaty to Save Our Peoples and the Planet
Social Conflict Inevitable in Decolonization Battle
Indigenous Women Warriors are the Heart of Indigenous Resistance
Wet’suwet’en: a wake-up call for Canada
References
Index

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

A powerful case for the essential role of plants and environments in recognizing Indigenous Peoples' land rights around the world.

For millennia, plants and their habitats have been fundamental to the lives of Indigenous Peoples - as sources of food and nutrition, medicines, and technological materials - and central to ceremonial traditions, spiritual beliefs, narratives, and language. While the First Peoples of Canada and other parts of the world have developed deep cultural understandings of plants and their environments, this knowledge is often underrecognized in debates about land rights and title, reconciliation, treaty negotiations, and traditional territories. Plants, People, and Places argues that the time is long past due to recognize and accommodate Indigenous Peoples' relationships with plants and their ecosystems. Essays in this volume, by leading voices in philosophy, Indigenous law, and environmental sustainability, consider the critical importance of botanical and ecological knowledge to land rights and related legal and government policy, planning, and decision making in Canada, the United States, Sweden, and New Zealand. Analyzing specific cases in which Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights to the environment have been denied or restricted, this collection promotes future prosperity through more effective and just recognition of the historical use of and care for plants in Indigenous cultures. A timely book featuring Indigenous perspectives on reconciliation, environmental sustainability, and pathways toward ethnoecological restoration, Plants, People, and Places reveals how much there is to learn from the history of human relationships with nature.

Reviews
"Nancy Turner is respected at every level of the field and this book brings together many of the collaborators she has worked with throughout her career. The chapters they contribute are impressive, and as a whole they comprise the collective research and experience of over forty authors all demonstrating how Indigenous peoples, past and present, have contributed to land rights, policies, ethics, and caring for the earth." - Scott Herron, Ferris State University

Educator Information

Additional Information
554 pages | 6.25" x 9.25"

Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Calls to Action in June 2015, governments, churches, non-profit, professional and community organizations, corporations, schools and universities, clubs and individuals have asked: “How can I/we participate in reconciliation?”

Recognizing that reconciliation is not only an ultimate goal, but a decolonizing process of journeying in ways that embody everyday acts of resistance, resurgence, and solidarity, coupled with renewed commitments to justice, dialogue, and relationship-building, Pathways of Reconciliation helps readers find their way forward.

The essays in Pathways of Reconciliation address the themes of reframing, learning and healing, researching, and living. They engage with different approaches to reconciliation (within a variety of reconciliation frameworks, either explicit or implicit) and illustrate the complexities of the reconciliation process itself. They canvass multiple and varied pathways of reconciliation, from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, reflecting a diversity of approaches to the mandate given to all Canadians by the TRC with its Calls to Action.

Together the authors — academics, practitioners, students and ordinary citizens — demonstrate the importance of trying and learning from new and creative approaches to thinking about and practicing reconciliation and reflect on what they have learned from their attempts (both successful and less successful) in the process.

Reviews
“Alerts Canadians to what must be done if we are to seriously embrace the goal of decolonizing relations with Indigenous peoples." – Peter Russell, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto

Educator & Series Information
Table of Contents
Introduction

Ch. 1—Paved with Comfortable Intentions: Moving Beyond Liberal Multiculturalism and Civil Rights Frames on the Road to Transformative Reconciliation

Ch. 2—Perceptions on Truth and Reconciliation: Lessons from Gacaca in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Ch. 3—Monitoring That Reconciles: Reflecting on the TRC’s Call for a National Council for Reconciliation

Ch. 4—A Move to Distract: Mobilizing Truth and Reconciliation in Settler Colonial States

Ch. 5—Teaching Truth Before Reconciliation

Ch. 6—“The Honour of Righting a Wrong:” Circles for Reconciliation

Ch. 7—What Does Reconciliation Mean to Newcomers Post-TRC?

Ch. 8—Healing from Residential School Experiences: Support Workers and Elders on Healing and the Role of Mental Health Professionals

Ch. 9—Learning and reconciliation for the collaborative governance of forestland in northwestern Ontario, Canada

Ch. 10—Bending to the Prevailing Wind: How Apology Repetition Helps Speakers and Hearers Walk Together

Ch. 11—How do I reconcile Child and Family Services’ practice of cultural genocide with my own practice as a CFS social worker?

Ch. 12—Repatriation, Reconciliation, and Refiguring Relationships. A Case study of the return of children’s artwork from the Alberni Indian Residential School to Survivors and their families

Other contributors to this work include: Peter Bush, Tracey Carr, Brian Chartier, Mary Anne Clarke, Ko’ona Cochrane, Aimée Craft, Raymond F. Currie, Rachel (Yacaa?ał) George, Erica Jurgens, Régine Uwibereyeho King, Sheryl Lightfoot, David B. MacDonald, Benjamin Maiangwa, Cody O’Neil, Paulette Regan, Cathy Rocke, John Sinclair, Andrea Walsh, Melanie Zurba

This book is part of the Perceptions on Truth and Reconciliation series.

Additional Information
336 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

As a follow-up to his award-winning The Knowledge Seeker: Embracing Indigenous Spirituality, Blair Stonechild continues his exploration of the Indigenous spiritual teachings passed down to him by Elders, and then moves his study further afield. He identifies the rise of what he terms a dominant wetigo worldview, marked by an all-consuming and destructive appetite that is antithetical to the relational philosophy of Indigenous thinking whereby all things are interrelated and in need of care and respect.

Based on Stonechild’s work with Indigenous peoples around the world, from Inuit communities in northern Canada, to the Mapuche in Chile, the Dalits in India and the Uighurs in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, The Loss of Indigenous Eden and the Fall of Spirituality brings together and highlights the fundamental commonalities that connect all Indigenous nations, while calling for global recognition and respect of their rights and spirituality.

Reviews
“One of the best articulations in print of some introductory teachings of a contemporary Elder.” —Mark Rumi, professor of Religion and Culture, University of Winnipeg

“It is thought-provoking, philosophical, informative, and celebrates the resilience and strength of Indigenous spirituality and our relationships to the sacred.” —Kathleen E. Absolon-King, author of Kaandossiwin

Additional Information
288 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Indianthusiasm refers to the European fascination with, and fantasies about, Indigenous peoples of North America, and has its roots in nineteenth-century German colonial imagination. Often manifested in romanticized representations of the past, Indianthusiasm has developed into a veritable industry in Germany and other European nations: there are Western and so-called “Indian” theme parks and a German hobbyist scene that attract people of all social backgrounds and ages to join camps and clubs that practise beading, powwow dancing, and Indigenous lifestyles.

Containing interviews with twelve Indigenous authors, artists, and scholars who comment on the German fascination with North American Indigenous Peoples, Indianthusiasm is the first collection to present Indigenous critiques and assessments of this phenomenon. The volume connects two disciplines and strands of scholarship: German Studies and Indigenous Studies, focusing on how Indianthusiam has created both barriers and opportunities for Indigenous peoples with Germans and in Germany.

Educator Information
This work speaks to concepts of representation, Indigeneity, transnationality, and politics of decolonization.  It asks critical questions about authenticity, cultural appropriation, and probes the biased and racist aspects of what is seen as simple "honoring" of Indigenous cultures.  The interviews in this work act as mythbusters but also offer a number of conflicting Indigenous perspectives.  This work explores the transatlantic connections created by Indianthusiam.

Useful for Indigenous Studies and German Studies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction / Hartmut Lutz, Florentine Strzelczyk, and Renae Watchman

2. I thought to myself: “Well, I’ll appropriate from the people who appropriated from us” / Ahmoo Angeconeb

3. Most people can’t be informed because of the way they are being informed / Jeannette Armstrong

4. Germany is my other Heimat now; "Groan" (poem) / John Blackbird

5. The focus on remembering … a sort of superego kind of thing / Warren Cariou

6. When the gaze turns in both directions / Jo-Ann Episkenew

7. I actually never wanted to like Germany / Audrey Huntley

8. The thorn is in my side when I’m talking to Europeans, who begin lecturing me on Indianness / Thomas King

9. You can deal with stereotypes! At least you are dealing with some knowledge / David T. McNab

10. It’s been my job to not only entertain them through my dancing and singing, but also to educate them in the actual original traditional stories / Quentin Pipestem

11. I was definitely an ambassador and sort of a mythbuster in many ways / Waubgeshig Rice

12. You can’t underestimate the influence of Karl May’s Winnetou / Drew Hayden Taylor

13. They want redemption somehow / Emma Lee Warrior

Additional Information
254 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Indigenous Peoples in Canada are continuing to assert their right to self-determination in this era of reconciliation. While dozens of Indigenous communities have signed varying forms of self-government agreements with the federal government, Indigenous Nations still face many obstacles along the path to true self-determination.

As a former Chief of Siksika Nation in southern Alberta, Leroy Wolf Collar dealt with many of the same problems other Indigenous Nations face across the country. From serious housing shortages to the lack of opportunities for youth, Chief Wolf Collar experienced the challenges and frustrations that come from operating in a colonial system still constrained by the Indian Act.

How do Indigenous Peoples move on from this defective system? Chief Wolf Collar identifies 17 issues that currently hinder Indigenous Nations—including broken treaty promises, problems with common forms of band administration, and the intrusion of provincial governments—along with potential solutions to overcome them.

This guide is for current and aspiring Indigenous leaders who want to increase their understanding of good governance, management, and leadership, as well as those who want to explore issues around Indigenous self-determination in Canada.

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list for grades 11 and 12 for use in these areas: Law, English Language Arts, and Social Studies.

Additional Information
128 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

While cities like Winnipeg, Minneapolis, Saskatoon, Rapid City, Edmonton, Missoula, Regina, and Tulsa are places where Indigenous marginalization has been most acute, they have also long been sites of Indigenous placemaking and resistance to settler colonialism.

Although such cities have been denigrated as “ordinary” or banal in the broader urban literature, they are exceptional sites to study Indigenous resurgence. T​he urban centres of the continental plains have featured Indigenous housing and food co-operatives, social service agencies, and schools. The American Indian Movement initially developed in Minneapolis in 1968, and Idle No More emerged in Saskatoon in 2013.

The editors and authors of Settler City Limits, both Indigenous and settler, address urban struggles involving Anishinaabek, Cree, Creek, Dakota, Flathead, Lakota, and Métis peoples. Collectively, these studies showcase how Indigenous people in the city resist ongoing processes of colonial dispossession and create spaces for themselves and their families.

Working at intersections of Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, urban studies, geography, and sociology, this book examines how the historical and political conditions of settler colonialism have shaped urban development in the Canadian Prairies and American Plains. Settler City Limits frames cities as Indigenous spaces and places, both in terms of the historical geographies of the regions in which they are embedded, and with respect to ongoing struggles for land, life, and self-determination.

Contributors: Chris Andersen, Nicholas Brown, Elizabeth Comack, Heather Dorries, Nick Estes, Adam Gaudry, Robert Henry, David Hugill, Sharmeen Khan, Corey Laberge, Brenda Macdougall, Tyler McCreary, Lindsey Claire Smith, Michelle Stewart, Zoe Todd, Julie Tomiak

Reviews
“Settler City Limits breaks ground, shattering the powerful authoritative structures of racism that have dichotomized rural and urban space, and Indigenous peoples’ relation to these as a central force sustaining and fortifying settler colonialism.” – Heather A. Howard-Bobiwash, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Michigan State University, and Affiliated Faculty Centre for Indigenous Studies, University of Toronto

Educator Information
Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1 Land and Politics

Part 2 Contestation, Resistance, Solidarities

Part 3 Policing and Social Control

Part 4 Life and Death

Additional Information
368 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Authenticity Note: Contains contributions from both Indigenous peoples and settlers.

Dispatches of radical political engagement from people taking a stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

It is prophecy. A Black Snake will spread itself across the land, bringing destruction while uniting Indigenous nations. The Dakota Access Pipeline is the Black Snake, crossing the Missouri River north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The oil pipeline united communities along its path—from North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois—and galvanized a twenty-first-century Indigenous resistance movement marching under the banner Mni Wiconi—Water Is Life! Standing Rock youth issued a call, and millions around the world and thousands of Water Protectors from more than three hundred Native nations answered. Amid the movement to protect the land and the water that millions depend on for life, the Oceti Sakowin (the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota people) reunited. A nation was reborn with renewed power to protect the environment and support Indigenous grassroots education and organizing. This book assembles the multitude of voices of writers, thinkers, artists, and activists from that movement.

Through poetry and prose, essays, photography, interviews, and polemical interventions, the contributors, including leaders of the Standing Rock movement, reflect on Indigenous history and politics and on the movement’s significance. Their work challenges our understanding of colonial history not simply as “lessons learned” but as essential guideposts for current and future activism.

Contributors: Dave Archambault II, Natalie Avalos, Vanessa Bowen, Alleen Brown, Kevin Bruyneel, Tomoki Mari Birkett, Troy Cochrane, Michelle L. Cook, Deborah Cowen, Andrew Curley, Martin Danyluk, Jaskiran Dhillon, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Liz Ellis, Nick Estes, Marcella Gilbert, Sandy Grande, Craig Howe, Elise Hunchuck, Michelle Latimer, Layli Long Soldier, David Uahikeaikalei‘ohu Maile, Jason Mancini, Sarah Sunshine Manning, Katie Mazer, Teresa Montoya, Chris Newell, The NYC Stands with Standing Rock Collective, Jeffrey Ostler, Will Parrish, Shiri Pasternak, endawnis Spears, Alice Speri, Anne Spice, Kim TallBear, Mark L. Tilsen, Edward Valandra, Joel Waters, Tyler Young.

Reviews
"As our songs and prayers echo across the prairie, we need the public to see that in standing up for our rights, we do so on behalf of the millions of Americans who will be affected by this pipeline."—David Archambault II, from the interior

"There is no alternative to water. There is no alternative to this Earth. This fight has become my life, and it’s not over. I think this is only the beginning for me, for all of us. Do you want a future for your children and grandchildren? If you want them to have a future then stand with Standing Rock because this is just the beginning of a revolution."—Zaysha Grinnell, from the interior

"We will put our best warriors in the front. We are the vanguard. We are the Hunkpapa Lakota. That means the horn of the buffalo. That’s who we are. We are protectors of our nation of Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires. Know who we are."—Phyllis Young

Additional Information
448 pages | 7.00" x 9.00"

A penetrating and deeply moving account of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls of Highway 16, and a searing indictment of the society that failed them.

For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The highway is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis.

Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference has created a climate where Indigenous women and girls are over-policed, yet under-protected. Through interviews with those closest to the victims--mothers and fathers, siblings and friends--McDiarmid provides an intimate, first-hand account of their loss and unflagging fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada--now estimated to number up to 4,000--contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country.

Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and testament to their families and communities' unwavering determination to find it.

Additional Information
352 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

An Indigenous leader who has dedicated her life to Indigenous Rights, Jody Wilson-Raybould has represented both First Nations and the Crown at the highest levels. And she is not afraid to give Canadians what they need most – straight talk on what has to be done to deconstruct the colonial legacy and achieve true reconciliation in Canada.

In this powerful book, drawn from Wilson-Raybould’s speeches and other writings, she urges us all – governments, Indigenous Nations, everyone – to build upon the momentum already gained in the reconciliation process or risk hard-won progress being lost. The choice is stark: support Indigenous-led initiatives for Nation rebuilding or revert to governments just managing “the problem.” Frank and impassioned, she also argues that true reconciliation will never occur so long as governments deny Indigenous Peoples their rights and the Indian Act continues to exist. Until then, we’ll be stuck in the status quo – mired in conflicts and expensive court cases that do nothing to improve people’s lives or heal the country.

The good news is that Indigenous Nations already have the solutions. Now it is time to act and build a shared future based on the foundations of trust, cooperation, good governance, and recognition. Removing the barriers that are keeping these solutions from being put into effect will not only empower Indigenous Peoples – it will enrich all Canadians and make Canada stronger.

From Where I Stand is indispensable reading for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the reconciliation process and know what they can do to make a difference, from engaged citizens and students to leaders and policy-makers, educators and academics, and lawyers and consultants.

Reviews
"From Where I Stand is a must-read book for all Canadians. Puglaas shares a clear understanding of where we have come from, the issues we must address, and the pathways to a transformed future. Having witnessed her remarkable courage and capacity as Canada’s attorney general and her determination to do what is right without succumbing to unrelenting political pressure, Puglaas stands tall among Canadians as a person for whom truth, thoughtfulness, and principle are not mere words – but values to sustain a different kind of policy and politics." - Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (Aki-Kwe), Professor of Law, Allard Law School UBC, and Director of the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre

"Jody Wilson-Raybould's quest for justice has long driven her work. I first saw this when she was a law student and this commitment to justice has only been deepened by subsequent public service. Her unwavering commitment to reconciliation, balance, and good governance springs off every page of this book." - John Borrows, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law, University of Victoria Law School

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction

Moving through the Postcolonial Door
We Truly Have Come a Long Way ...
Idle No More and Recapturing the Spirit and Intent of the Two Row Wampum
On the Parallels, and Differences, between Canada and South Africa
Our Shared Histories and the Path of Reconciliation

Rights and Recognition
Self-Determination and the Inherent Right of Self-Government
Translating Hard-Fought-For Rights into Practical and Meaningful Benefits
UNDRIP Is the Start Not the Finishing Line
Defining the Path of Reconciliation through Section 35
Indigenous Rights Are Human Rights
Implementing UNDRIP

Governance in the Post-Indian Act World
Toppling the Indian Act Tree
First Nations Jurisdiction over Citizenship
Holding and Managing Our Lands
On Accountability and Transparency
Developing a New Fiscal Relationship
The Governance Toolkit and Building on Our Success

Building Business Relationships and the Duty to Consult
Economic Development Depends on Self-Government
First Nations Are Not a Box to Tick Off
Who Owns and Is Responsible for the Water?
On Certainty and Why It’s Elusive

Restoring Balance, Correcting Injustices, and Remaining Vigilant
A Litmus Test for Reconciliation Is the Status of Women
Preventing First Contacts with the Criminal Justice System
On Sticking Our Necks Out
On Obstruction, Denial, and Canada’s Failure to Uphold the Rule of Law
Each of Us, In Our Own Way, Is a Hiligaxste’

Acknowledgments
A Note on Terminology and the Speeches
Index

Additional Information
264 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Every object tells a story.

Picking Up the Pieces tells the story of the making of the Witness Blanket, a living work of art conceived and created by Indigenous artist Carey Newman. It includes hundreds of items collected from residential schools across Canada, everything from bricks, photos and letters to hockey skates, dolls and braids. Every object tells a story.

Carey takes the reader on a journey from the initial idea behind the Witness Blanket to the challenges in making it work to its completion. The story is told through the objects and the Survivors who donated them to the project. At every step in this important journey for children and adults alike, Carey is a guide, sharing his process and motivation behind the art. It's a very personal project. Carey's father is a residential school Survivor. Like the Blanket itself, Picking Up the Pieces calls on readers of all ages to bear witness to the residential school experience, a tragic piece of Canada’s history.

"In the traditions of my Salish ancestors, a blanket is gifted to uplight the spirit, protect the vulnerable or honour the strong. I made this blanket for the Survivors, and for the children who never came home; for the dispossessed, the displaced and the forgotten. I made this blanket so that I will never forget -- so that we will never forget." - Carey Newman

Reviews
"Picking Up the Pieces is both a crucial record of history and an outstanding assertion of love and community. The story behind the creation of the powerful Witness Blanket project is one of great care and consideration, with residential school Survivors and their families at the centre. By sharing his own family's connection to a brutal and shameful part of Canadian history, renowned artist Carey Newman brilliantly guides us through the meticulous and thoughtful process of creating one of the most important pieces of art to exist in this country. I had the privilege of experiencing the Witness Blanket on its tour, and it was a poignant moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Reading how it all came together is yet another vital experience. Like the Witness Blanket itself, Picking Up the Pieces will educate and enlighten Canadians for generations to come. It's a must-read for anyone seeking to understand Canada's residential-school saga. Most importantly, it's a touchstone of community for those survivors and their families still on the path to healing." — Waubgeshig Rice, journalist and author of Moon of the Crusted Snow, March 2019

Educator Information
Themes: Indigenous Art, Reconciliation, Residential Schools, Survivor Stories, Intergenerational Trauma

Suitable for most ages (about 12 years+).  Useful social studies or Indigenous studies resource for pre-teens and teens; however, it does make reference to sexual, emotional, and physical abuse and trauma.

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list for grades 11 and 12 and as a teacher resource.  Useful for these subjects: English Language Arts, Media Studies, Social Studies.

Additional Information
180 pages | 10.75" x 10.00"

We Interrupt This Program tells the story of how Indigenous people are using media tactics in the realms of art, film, television, and journalism to rewrite Canada’s national narratives from Indigenous perspectives.

Miranda Brady and John Kelly showcase the diversity of these interventions by offering personal accounts and reflections on key moments – witnessing survivor testimonies at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, attending the opening night of the ImagineNative Film + Media Festival, and discussing representations of Indigenous people with artists such as Kent Monkman and Dana Claxton and with CBC journalist Duncan McCue. These scene-setting moments bring to life their argument that media tactics, as articulations of Indigenous sovereignty, have the power not only to effect change from within Canadian institutions and through established mediums but also to spark new forms of political and cultural expression in Indigenous communities and among Indigenous youth.

Theoretically sophisticated and eminently readable, We Interrupt This Program reveals how seemingly unrelated acts by Indigenous activists across Canada are decolonizing our cultural institutions from within, one intervention at a time.

This book will appeal to wide spectrum of readers – from students and scholars in communications and media studies to those with a general interest in Canadian art, culture, history, journalism, anthropology, and Indigenous studies.

Reviews
"...the book chronicles the breadth of media interventions employed by Aboriginal media creators, foregrounding Indigenous worldviews, agency and resilience while challenging colonial myths. It is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand Indigenous cultural expression in Canada in the digital age." — Brad Clark, Journalism and Broadcast Media Studies at Mount Royal University, Canadin Journal of Native Studies, Vol. 38, No. 1, January 2018

"[We Interrupt this Program] provides an analytical perspective to help readers reflect on what types of new interruptions may be brewing – or to plan the interventions themselves." — Greg Macdougall, Briarpatch Magazine, June 2018

Educator Information

Table of Contents
Introduction: Indigenous Media Tactics
1 Media Practices and Subversions: Survivor Testimonials in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
2 IsumaTV’s “Testimony by Isuma”: Online Expressions of Inuit Culture and Assimilation
3 Redfacing, Remediation, and Other Indigenous ArtTactics: Challenging Cultural Institutions
4 imagineNATIVE as Industry Intervention: Supporting and Growing Indigenous Media Makers
5 Reporting News in Indigenous Communities: A Conversation with Journalist Duncan McCue on Respect and Relationality
Conclusion: Media Tactics Old and New
Notes; Works Cited; Index

Additional Information
220 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 14 B&W Photos

A reference for BC Indigenous communities and museums, created by and for Indigenous people working in repatriation.

"Our late friend and brother Rod Naknakim said, 'Reconciliation and repatriation cannot and should not be separated. The two must anchor our conversation and guide our efforts as we move forward collectively with common purpose and understanding.'" - Dan Smith, BCMA Indigenous Advisory Chair, Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre

We are in a new era of reconciliation that involves repatriation - the return of Indigenous objects and Ancestral remains to their home communities - and the creation of meaningful relationships between museums and Indigenous communities. This handbook, the first to be created by and for Indigenous people, provides practical information that will enable each of the 34 unique Indigenous language and cultural groups in BC to carry out the process of repatriation in ways that align with the cultural traditions of each respective community. It also provides information that will be helpful to museums, and to Indigenous communities across Canada.

Educator Information
Acknowledgements vii
Message from Lucy Bell, Head of the Indigenous Collections and
Repatriation Department, Royal BC Museum ix
Message from Professor Jack Lohman CBE, Chief Executive Officer,
Royal BC Museum, and Tracey Herbert, CEO, First Peoples’
Cultural Council x
Part 1: Introduction 1
Part 2: Organizing a Successful Repatriation 13
Part 3: Conducting Research 29
Part 4: Repatriation from the Royal BC Museum 39
Part 5: Repatriation from Other Institutions 49
Part 6: For Institutions Wishing to Repatriate to Indigenous Peoples in BC 61
Part 7: Case Study: Repatriation Journey of the Haida Nation 67
Appendix A: Glossary of Terms 74
Appendix B: Indigenous Museums and Cultural Centres in Canada 77
Appendix C: Organizational Templates, Procedures and Examples 80
Appendix D: Fundraising Resources 98
Appendix E: Sample Letters to Museums 105
Appendix F: Tips for Planning for Travel and Transport 111
Appendix G: Global Museums with Major Indigenous Collections from BC 116
Appendix H: Resources on Education in Indigenous Museology 150
Appendix I: Frequently Asked Questions about Repatriation 154
Appendix J: Repatriation Success Stories 158

Additional Information
174 pages | 8.50" x 10.98"

The story of Native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community’s rich history of activism.

Through the unique lens of “Indigenized environmental justice,” Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores the fraught history of treaty violations, struggles for food and water security, and protection of sacred sites, while highlighting the important leadership of Indigenous women in this centuries-long struggle. As Long As Grass Grows gives readers an accessible history of Indigenous resistance to government and corporate incursions on their lands and offers new approaches to environmental justice activism and policy.

Throughout 2016, the Standing Rock protest put a national spotlight on Indigenous activists, but it also underscored how little Americans know about the longtime historical tensions between Native peoples and the mainstream environmental movement. Ultimately, she argues, modern environmentalists must look to the history of Indigenous resistance for wisdom and inspiration in our common fight for a just and sustainable future.

Reviews
“Highly recommended for American Indian studies and environmental justice students and scholars.” —Library Journal

“The process of genocide, which began five centuries ago with the colonization of the Americas and the extermination of indigenous people, has now spread to the planetary level, pushing two hundred species per day to extinction and threatening the entire human species. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s As Long as Grass Grows makes these connections, holding the seeds of resistance, the seeds of freedom, and the promise of a future.” —Vandana Shiva, author of Earth Democracy

“As Long as Grass Grows honors Indigenous voices powerfully and centers Indigenous histories, values, and experiences. It tells crucial stories, both inspiring and heartrending, that will transform how readers understand environmental justice. I know many readers will come away with new ideas and actions for how they can protect our planet from forces that seek to destroy some of our most sacred relationships connecting human and nonhuman worlds—relationships that offer some of the greatest possibilities for achieving sustainability.” —Kyle Powys White, associate professor, Michigan State University

“From Standing Rock’s stand against a damaging pipeline to antinuclear and climate change activism, Indigenous peoples have always been and remain in the vanguard of the struggle for environmental justice. As Long as Grass Grows could not be of more relevance in the twenty-first century. Gilio-Whitaker has produced a sweeping history of these peoples’ fight for our fragile planet, from colonization to the present moment. There is nothing else like it. Read and heed this book.” —Jace Weaver, author of Defending Mother Earth

“In As Long as Grass Grows, Gilio-Whitaker skillfully delineates the stakes—and the distinctive character—of environmental justice for Indigenous communities. Bold, extensive, accessible, and inspiring, this book is for anyone interested in Indigenous environmental politics and the unique forms of environmentalism that arise from Native communities. Indeed, as Gilio-Whitaker shows, these topics are intertwined with a pressing issue that concerns all people: justice for the very lands we collectively inhabit.” —Clint Carroll, author of Roots of Our Renewal

“As Long as Grass Grows is a hallmark book of our time. By confronting climate change from an Indigenous perspective, not only does Gilio-Whitaker look at the history of Indigenous resistance to environmental colonization, but she points to a way forward beyond Western conceptions of environmental justice—toward decolonization as the only viable solution.” —Nick Estes, assistant professor, University of New Mexico, and author of Our History Is the Future

“As Long as Grass Grows, in the way no other study has done, brilliantly connects historic and ongoing Native American resistance to US colonialism with the movement for environmental justice. This book helps teach us the central importance of Native theory and practice to transforming the radically imbalanced world that corporate capitalism has made into a world of balance through extended kinship with the social and natural environments on which human beings are dependent for life.” —Eric Cheyfitz, professor, Cornell University, and author of The Disinformation Age: The Collapse of Liberal Democracy in the United States

“This groundbreaking new book will ignite conversations about environmentalism and environmental justice. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s beautifully written account of environmental politics compels readers to understand how Indigenous people and the nonhuman world are caught in the gears of settler colonialism—and how an indigenized environmental justice framework can powerfully reframe our debate and our relations to one another and to the natural world around us. As Long as Grass Grows is perfectly timed to offer a fresh and captivating take on some of our most urgent issues of environmental and social justice.” —Traci Voyles, author of Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country

Educator Information

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Author’s Note

INTRODUCTION
The Standing Rock Saga

CHAPTER ONE
Environmental Justice Theory and Its Limitations for Indigenous Peoples

CHAPTER TWO
Genocide by Any Other Name
A History of Indigenous Environmental Injustice

CHAPTER THREE
The Complicated Legacy of Western Expansion and the Industrial Revolution

CHAPTER FOUR
Food Is Medicine, Water Is Life
American Indian Health and the Environment

CHAPTER FIVE
(Not So) Strange Bedfellows
Indian Country’s Ambivalent Relationship with the Environmental Movement

CHAPTER SIX
Hearts Not on the Ground
Indigenous Women’s Leadership and More Cultural Clashes

CHAPTER SEVEN
Sacred Sites and Environmental Justice

CHAPTER EIGHT
Ways Forward for Environmental Justice in Indian Country

Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.99" x 8.98" | Paperback

A gripping account of the unsolved death of an Indigenous teenager, and the detective determined to find her killer, set against the backdrop of a troubled city.

On August 17, 2014, the body of fifteen-year-old runaway Tina Fontaine was found in Winnipeg's Red River. It was wrapped in material and weighted down with rocks. Red River Girl is a gripping account of that murder investigation and the unusual police detective who pursued the killer with every legal means at his disposal. The book, like the movie Spotlight, chronicles the behind-the-scenes stages of a lengthy and meticulously planned investigation. It reveals characters and social tensions that bring vivid life to a story that made national headlines.

Award-winning BBC reporter and documentary maker Joanna Jolly delves into the troubled life of Tina Fontaine, the half-Ojibway, half-Cree murder victim, starting with her childhood on the Sagkeeng First Nation Reserve. Tina's journey to the capital city is a harrowing one, culminating in drug abuse, sexual exploitation, and death.

Aware of the reality of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Jolly has chronicled Tina Fontaine's life as a reminder that she was more than a statistic. Raised by her father, and then by her great-aunt, Tina was a good student. But the violent death of her father hit Tina hard. She ran away, was found and put into the care of Child and Family Services, which she also sought to escape from. That choice left her in danger.

Red River Girl focuses not on the grisly event itself, but on the efforts to seek justice. In December 2015, the police charged Raymond Cormier, a drifter, with second-degree murder. Jolly's book will cover the trial, which resulted in an acquittal. The verdict caused dismay across the country.

The book is not only a true crime story, but a portrait of a community where Indigenous women are disproportionately more likely to be hurt or killed. Jolly asks questions about how Indigenous women, sex workers, community leaders, and activists are fighting back to protect themselves and change perceptions. Most importantly, the book will chronicle whether Tina's family will find justice.

Reviews
“Tina Fontaine brought international attention to the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit folks. This retelling of her life and the investigation into her death is a breathtaking account of the fight to find justice for Tina.” —Wab Kinew, Leader of the Manitoba NDP and author of The Reason You Walk

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Inconvenient Skin challenges how reconciliation has become a contested buzzword filled with promises and good intentions but rarely any meaningful follow-through. While Canada's history is filled with darkness, these poems aim to unpack that history to clean the wounds so the nation can finally heal. Powerful and thought-provoking, this collection will draw you in and make you reconsider Canada's colonial legacy. The cover features the art of Kent Monkman, and the interior features work by Joseph Sanchez, a member of the Indian Group of Seven.

Written in English and Cree.

Educator Information
This collection of poems features Shane Koyczan's well-known poem, "Inconvenient Skin," delivered in a dual-language format of English and Cree and paired with illustrations, artwork, and photography.

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list as being useful for grades 11 and 12 for these subjects: Art Education, English Language Arts.

This poem talks about sexual assault, genocide, and violence.  Some of the artwork shows violence and nudity.  This could be triggering for some readers.

Additional Information
80 pages | 8.50" x 8.50" | Colour Illustrations

A bold and profound work by Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a personal and critical meditation on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America. 

In an urgent and visceral work that asks essential questions about the treatment of Native people in North America while drawing on intimate details of her own life and experience with intergenerational trauma, Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight and understanding to the ongoing legacy of colonialism. What are the links between depression, colonialism and loss of language--both figurative and literal? How does white privilege operate in different contexts? How do we navigate the painful contours of mental illness in loved ones without turning them into their sickness? How does colonialism operate on the level of literary criticism?

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is Alicia Elliott's attempt to answer these questions and more. In the process, she engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, writing and representation. Elliott makes connections both large and small between the past and present, the personal and political--from overcoming a years-long history with head lice to the way Native writers are treated within the Canadian literary industry; her unplanned teenage pregnancy to the history of dark matter and how it relates to racism in the court system; her childhood diet of Kraft dinner to how systematic oppression is linked to depression in Native communities. With deep consideration and searing prose, Elliott extends far beyond her own experiences to provide a candid look at our past, an illuminating portrait of our present and a powerful tool for a better future.

Reviews
"This book is hard, vital medicine. It is a dance of survival and cultural resurgence. Above all, it is breathtakingly contemporary Indigenous philosophy, in which the street is also part of the land, and the very act of thinking is conditioned by struggles for justice and well-being." —Warren Cariou, author of Lake of the Prairies

"These essays are of fiercest intelligence and courageous revelation. Here, colonialism and poverty are not only social urgencies, but violence felt and fought in the raw of the everyday, in embodied life and intimate relations. This is a stunning, vital triumph of writing." —David Chariandy, author of Brother

"Wildly brave and wholly original, Alicia Elliot is the voice that rouses us from the mundane, speaks political poetry and brings us to the ceremony of everyday survival. Her words remind us to carry both our weapons and our medicines, to hold both our strength and our open, weeping hearts. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is what happens when you come in a good way to offer prayer, and instead, end up telling the entire damn truth of it all." —Cherie Dimaline, author of The Marrow Thieves

"A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a new lens on Indigenous Canadian literature." —Terese Marie Mailhot, author of Heart Berries

"We need to clone Alicia Elliott because the world needs more of this badass writer. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground showcases her peculiar alchemy, lighting the darkest corners of racism, classism, sexism with her laser-focused intellect and kind-hearted soul-searching. A fresh and revolutionary cultural critic alternately witty, vulnerable and piercing." —Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster and Trickster Drift

"The future of CanLit is female, is Indigenous—is Alicia Elliott. I anticipate this book to be featured on every 'best of' and award list in 2019, and revered for years to come." —Vivek Shraya, author of I’m Afraid of Men and even this page is white

"In A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Elliott invites readers into her unceded mind and heart, taking us on a beautiful, incisive and punk rock tour of Tuscarora brilliance. Elliott's voice is fire with warmth, light, rage and endless transformation." —Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of This Accident of Being Lost

"Alicia Elliott has gifted us with an Indigenous woman's coming of age story, told through engagingly thoughtful, painfully poignant and enraging essays on race, love and belonging. With poetic prose and searing honesty, she lays bare what it is like to grow up Indigenous and exist in a country proud of its tolerance, but one that has proven to be anything but. She opens eyes and captures hearts, leading you by the hand to see our fractured world through her eyes. Alicia is exactly the voice we need to hear now." —Tanya Talaga, author of Seven Fallen Feathers

"Incisive. That's the word I keep coming back to. A Mind Spread out on the Ground is incredibly incisive. Alicia Elliot slices through the sometimes complicated, often avoided issues affecting so many of us in this place now called Canada. She is at once political, personal, smart, funny, global and, best of all, divinely human. Necessary. That's the other word I keep thinking about. In every chapter, she manages to find the perfect word and the precise argument needed—I found myself saying 'yes, yes, that is exactly it' more than once. I am so grateful for her work." —Katherena Vermette, author of The Break

"A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is an astonishing book of insightful and affecting essays that will stay with you long after the final page." —Zoe Whittall, author of The Best Kind of People

Additional Information
240 pages | 5.75" x 8.50"