Social and Cultural Studies

This book shares the life story of Anishinaabe artist Rene Meshake in stories, poetry, and Anishinaabemowin “word bundles” that serve as a dictionary of Ojibwe poetics. Meshake was born in the railway town of Nakina in northwestern Ontario in 1948, and spent his early years living off-reserve with his grandmother in a matriarchal land-based community he calls Pagwashing. He was raised through his grandmother’s “bush university,” periodically attending Indian day school, but at the age of ten Rene was scooped into the Indian residential school system, where he suffered sexual abuse as well as the loss of language and connection to family and community. This residential school experience was lifechanging, as it suffocated his artistic expression and resulted in decades of struggle and healing. Now in his twenty-eighth year of sobriety, Rene is a successful multidisciplinary artist, musician and writer. Meshake’s artistic vision and poetic lens provide a unique telling of a story of colonization and recovery.

The material is organized thematically around a series of Meshake’s paintings. It is framed by Kim Anderson, Rene’s Odaanisan (adopted daughter), a scholar of oral history who has worked with Meshake for two decades. Full of teachings that give a glimpse of traditional Anishinaabek lifeways and worldviews, Injichaag: My Soul in Story is “more than a memoir.”

Awards

• 2020 Indigenous Voices Awards Winner for Works in an Indigenous Language
  

Reviews
“This is the story of an Anishinaabe journey across time and space. This is more than an autobiography of trauma, it is a celebration of resilience.”– Margaret Noodin, Associate Professor, English and American Indian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Invocation
Family Tree
Community Tree
Introduction
Section 1 Odinimanganikadjigan
Section 2 Nibinaabe
Section 3 Wikwedong
Section 4 Bimisi
Section 5 Miskwadesshimo
Section 6 Papawangani
Section 7 Migisiwiganj
Epilogue

Additional Information
240 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

The small island of Igloolik lies between the Melville Peninsula and Baffin Island at the northern end of Hudson Bay north of the Arctic Circle. It has fascinated many in the Western world since 1824, when a London publisher printed the narratives by William Parry and his second-in-command, George Lyon, about their two years spent looking for the mythical Northwest Passage.

Nearly a hundred and fifty years later, Bernard Saladin d’Anglure arrived in Igloolik, hoping to complete the study he had been conducting for nearly six months in Arctic Quebec (present-day Nunavik). He was supposed to spend a month on Igloolik, but on his first morning there, Saladin d’Anglure met the elders Ujarak and Iqallijuq. He learned that they had been informants for Knud Rasmussen in 1922. Moreover, they had spent most of their lives in the camps and fully remembered the pre-Christian period.

Ujarak and Iqallijuq soon became Saladin d’Anglure’s friends and initiated him into the symbolism, myths, beliefs, and ancestral rules of the local Inuit. With them and their families, Saladin d’Anglure would work for thirty years, gathering the oral traditions of their people.

First published in French in 2006, Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth contains an in-depth, paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of stories on womb memories, birth, namesaking, and reincarnation. This new English edition introduces this material to a broader audience and contains a new afterword by Saladin d’Anglure.

Contents

Ch. 1—Savviurtalik is Reincarnated
Ch. 2—Inuit Genesis and the Desire for Children
Ch. 3—‘Big Belly’
Ch. 4—Incestuous Moon Brother chases Sun Sister
Ch. 5—A Headstrong Daughter
Ch. 6—A Cheated Husband
Ch. 7—Girls Should not Play at Marriage
Ch. 8—A Battered Wife
Ch. 9—Walrus Skin, a Mistreated Orphan, Rescued by the Moon Man
Ch. 10—The Danger of Being Impregnated by a Spirit
Ch. 11—The First Woman Healer
Ch. 12—The Strange Man and His Whale
Ch. 13—Atanaarjuat, The Fast Runner, a Mythical Hero
Ch. 14—Aaguttaaluk, the Cannibal Forebear
Ch. 15—Qisaruatsiaq, Back to Her Mother’s Womb

Irene Kelleher lived all her life in the shadow of her inheritance. Her local community in British Columbia's Fraser Valley all too often treated her as if she was invisible. The combination of white and Indigenous descent that Irene embodied was beyond the bounds of acceptability by a dominant white society. To be mixed was to not belong.

Attracted to the future British Columbia by a gold rush beginning in 1858, Irene's white grandfathers had families with Indigenous women. Theirs was not an uncommon story. Some of the earliest newcomers to do so were in the employ of the fur-trading Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Langley. And yet, more than one hundred and fifty years later, the descendants of these early pioneers are still waiting for their stories to be heard.

Through meticulous research, family records and a personal connection to Irene, Governor General award-winning historian Jean Barman explores this aspect of British Columbia's history and the deeply rooted prejudice faced by families who helped to build Canada. Invisible Generations evokes the Catholic residential school that Irene's parents and so many other ''mixed blood'' children attended. Among Irene's family and friends we meet Josephine, who was separated as a child from her beloved upwardly mobile politician father. When her presence in his socially charged household became untenable, Josephine was dispatched to the same Fraser Valley boarding school. ''The transition from genteel Victoria to St. Mary's Mission was horrendous,'' she wrote. Yet individuals and families survived as best they could, building good lives for themselves and those around them. Irene was determined to be a schoolteacher and taught across the farthest reaches of the province, including Doukhobor children at a time when the community was vehemently opposed to their offspring attending school.

Stories like that of Irene and of her family and friends have been largely forgotten, but in Invisible Generations Barman brings this important conversation into focus, shedding light on a common history across British Columbia and Canada. It is, in Irene's words, ''time to tell the story.''

Reviews
“B.C.’s preeminent historian, Jean Barman, honours the lives of those once disparaged as “half-breeds” and second class citizens. Irene Kelleher and her family persevered with dignity in the face of racism; their stories link us to the fur trade, gold rush and settlement of the province. Indeed, these Invisible Generations helped forge a modern British Columbia. They should be celebrated, not forgotten.”—Mark Forsythe, former CBC British Columbia broadcaster and co-author with Greg Dickson of From the West Coast to the Western Front: British Columbians and the Great War

“Irene Kelleher’s mixed-race ancestry, her adventures, her tribulations and her triumphs combine in this classic Jean Barman study, showing how the lives of ordinary people tell extraordinary truths about British Columbia’s culture and history.”—Michael Kluckner, author of Vanishing British Columbia and Toshiko

Additional Information
192 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Law’s Indigenous Ethics examines the revitalization of Indigenous peoples’ relationship to their own laws and, in so doing, attempts to enrich Canadian constitutional law more generally. Organized around the seven Anishinaabe grandmother and grandfather teachings of love, truth, bravery, humility, wisdom, honesty, and respect, this book explores ethics in relation to Aboriginal issues including title, treaties, legal education, and residential schools.

With characteristic depth and sensitivity, John Borrows brings insights drawn from philosophy, law, and political science to bear on some of the most pressing issues that arise in contemplating the interaction between Canadian state law and Indigenous legal traditions. In the course of a wide-ranging but accessible inquiry, he discusses such topics as Indigenous agency, self-determination, legal pluralism, and power. In its use of Anishinaabe stories and methodologies drawn from the emerging field of Indigenous studies, Law’s Indigenous Ethics makes a significant contribution to scholarly debate and is an essential resource for readers seeking a deeper understanding of Indigenous rights, societies, and cultures.

Reviews
"Law’s Indigenous Ethics addresses very controversial topics in Canada, not just in Indigenous legal studies, but far beyond that. John Borrows employs story work methodology, along with thorough legal research, ensuring that his work is truly leading edge. Law’s Indigenous Ethics will further advance Indigenous studies in Canada and beyond. Borrows’s work moves beyond the binary, divisive, and linear ideologies dominating the Indigenous intellectual landscape in Canada. He provides nuance, complicates dominate narratives, and gives the reader much food for thought and, more importantly, asks the reader to think, reflect, and embrace the principles embedded in the seven grandmother and grandfather teachings as a whole." -Deborah McGregor, Osgoode Hall Law School, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice, York University

"Law’s Indigenous Ethics is extremely novel, important, and has the potential for great influence. Demonstrating tremendous expertise and fluency with its subjects, John Borrows’s arguments are sound and thoughtful, providing a number of important insights that lead me to adjust the way I think about issues that are very familiar to me." -Bethany Berger, Wallace Stevens Professor of Law, University of Connecticut

Additional Information
400 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Exploring intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities — and strategies for healing — with provocative prose and an empathetic approach

Indigenous peoples have shockingly higher rates of addiction, depression, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions than other North Americans. According to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, these are a result of intergenerational trauma: the unresolved terror, anger, fear, and grief created in Indigenous communities by the painful experiences of colonialism, passed down from generation to generation.

How are we to turn this desperate tide? With passionate argumentation and chillingly clear prose, author and educator Suzanne Methot uses her own and others’ stories to trace the roots of colonial trauma and the mechanisms by which trauma has become intergenerational, and she explores the Indigenous ways of knowing that can lead us toward change.

Reviews
“This book is accessible, relatable, and full of storytelling about real people. It deeply resonates with me as a traditional counsellor, educator, and Indigenous person. Suzanne Methot, a brave Nehiyaw writer and community helper, takes up the challenges of logically explaining a child’s traumatized brain and body and how these impacts continue into adulthood. Methot also explores Indigenous health-care models, proving that Indigenous values provide solutions. This book uncovers the critical need for legislation that moves from creating ‘a renewed relationship’ with Indigenous peoples to creating real structural change.” — Dr. Cyndy Baskin, Mi’kmaq Nation, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, Ryerson University

Educator Information
A version of this work for young adults is available here: Killing the Wittigo: Indigenous Culture-Based Approaches to Waking Up, Taking Action, and Doing the Work of Healing

Additional Information
368 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

At a time when the Métis are becoming increasingly visible on Canada’s political scene, Métis Politics and Governance in Canada offers a novel and practical guide to understand who the Métis are, how they govern themselves, and the challenges they face on the path to self-government.

The Métis have always been a political people. With the culmination of the North-West Resistance in 1885 and the hanging of their spiritual and political leader, Louis Riel, the Métis continued to take political action to give life to Riel’s vision of a self-governing Métis Nation in Canada.

Drawing on interviews with elders, leaders, and community members, Kelly Saunders and Janique Dubois reveal how the Métis have adapted their governance structures in accordance with their way of life as a distinct, rights-bearing Indigenous people. They look to the Métis language – Michif – to identify Métis principles of governance that emerged during the fur trade and that continue to shape Métis governance structures. Both then and now, the Métis continue to negotiate their place alongside federal and provincial partners in Confederation.

As Canada engages in nation-to-nation relationships to advance reconciliation, this book provides timely insight into the Métis Nation’s ongoing struggle to remain a free and self-governing Indigenous people.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in the Métis Nation and Indigenous self-government, including scholars in Political Science, Indigenous Studies, and Public Policy as well as government officials and the general public.

Reviews
"Métis Politics and Governance in Canada explores an aspect of Métis existence in Canada that has been neglected for far too long: the workings of contemporary Métis political organizations at the provincial and national levels. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Métis political organizing, leadership, representation, and the values inherent in Métis political activity." - Joe Sawchuk, co-author of From New Peoples to New Nations: Aspects of Métis History and Identity from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries

"Unlike other academic works that simply look at the Métis Nation’s self-government as frozen in time and tied to 1869/70 or 1885, this book compellingly tells the “rest of the story” up to the present day. Uniquely, it also looks to the Métis Nation’s own language – Michif – to identify and understand key principles of Métis governance that continue to today. This book is essential reading for those who want to better understand the current state of Métis Nation self-government in Canada." - Jason Madden, co-managing partner of Pape Salter Teillet LLP

Additional Information
220 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

Labrador Innu cultural and environmental activist Tshaukuesh Elizabeth Penashue is well-known both within and far beyond the Innu Nation. The recipient of a National Aboriginal Achievement Award and an honorary doctorate from Memorial University, she has been a subject of documentary films, books, and numerous articles. She led the Innu campaign against NATO’s low-level flying and bomb testing on Innu land during the 1980s and ’90s, and was a key respondent in a landmark legal case in which the judge held that the Innu had the “colour of right” to occupy the Canadian Forces base in Goose Bay, Labrador. Over the past twenty years she has led walks and canoe trips in nutshimit, “on the land,” to teach people about Innu culture and knowledge.

Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep the Land Alive began as a diary written in Innu-aimun, in which Tshaukuesh recorded day-to-day experiences, court appearances, and interviews with reporters. Tshaukuesh has always had a strong sense of the importance of documenting what was happening to the Innu and their land. She also found keeping a diary therapeutic, and her writing evolved from brief notes into a detailed account of her own life and reflections on Innu land, culture, politics, and history.

Beautifully illustrated, this work contains numerous images by professional photographers and journalists as well as archival photographs and others from Tshaukuesh’s own collection.

Additional Information
288 pages | 6.00" x 8.50" | 128 colour illustrations | 1 map | bibliography

On Active Grounds considers the themes of agency and time through the burgeoning, interdisciplinary field of the environmental humanities. Fourteen essays and a photo album cover topics such as environmental practices and history, temporal literacy, graphic novels, ecocinema, ecomusicology, animal studies, Indigeneity, wolf reintroduction, environmental history, green conservatism, and social-ecological systems change. The book also speaks to the growing concern regarding environmental issues in the aftermath of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21) and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. This collection is organized as a written and visual appeal to issues such as time (how much is left?) and agency (who is active? what can be done? what does and does not work?). It describes problems and suggests solutions. On Active Grounds is unique in its explicit and twinned emphasis on time and agency in the context of the Environmental Humanities and a requisite interdisciplinarity.

Educator Information
Useful for these course/subject areas: Cultural Studies, Film & Media, Environmental Studies, Indigenous Studies, Environmental Humanities.

Table of Contents
Permissions
List of Figures, Photographs, and Tables
Introduction: EcocriticalAgency in Time | Mario Trono and Robert Boschman

I. Eco-Temporal Literacies
1 “The clock’s wound up”: Critical Reading Practices in the Time of Social Acceleration and Ecological Collapse | Paul Huebener
2 A Better Distribution Deal: Ecocinematic Viewing and Montagist Reply | Mario Trono
3 “Allô, ici la terre”: Agency in Ecological Music Composition, Performance, and Listening | Sabine Feisst
4 The Environmental Vampire: Terror, Time, and Territory after 9/11 | Robert Boschman

II. Timelines and Indigeneity
5 "We are key players...": Creating Indigenous Engagement and Community Control at Blackfoot Heritage Sites in Time | Geneviève Susemihl
6 Mapping a Bleak Time: The Mining Legacy of Navajo Nation | Lea Rekow

Photo Essay
Agency and Time on Active Grounds: A Memoir of Bruno Latour and Gaïa Global Circus | Robert Boschman

III. Animal Agents and Human-NonhumanInteractions
7 The Gaze of Predators, Fleshly Worlds, and the Redefinition of the Human | Karla Armbruster
8 Anim-oils: Wild Animals in Petro-Cultural Landscapes | Pamela Banting
9 Reacting to Wolves: The Historical Construction of Identity and Value | Morgan Zedalis and Sean Gould

IV. Systems Change in Time
10 Declarations of Interdependence: Unexpected Human-Animal Conflict and Bhutanese Nonlinear Policy | Randy Schroeder and Kent Schroeder
11 Future Environmental Action in Canada: The German Energiewende as a Model of Public Agency | Mishka Lysack
12 Culture as Vector: (Re)Locating Agency in Social-Ecological Systems Change | Nancy Doubleday

Additional Information
296 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Text Content Note: Includes some Indigenous content.

How two centuries of Indigenous resistance created the movement proclaiming “Water is life”.

In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.

Reviews
“Embedded in the centuries-long struggle for Indigenous liberation resides our best hope for a safe and just future for everyone on this planet. Few events embody that truth as clearly as the resistance at Standing Rock, and the many deep currents that converged there. In this powerful blend of personal and historical narrative, Nick Estes skillfully weaves together transformative stories of resistance from these front lines, never losing sight of their enormous stakes. A major contribution.”—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything

“In Our History Is the Future historian Nick Estes tells a spellbinding story of the 10 month Indigenous resistance at Standing Rock in 2016, animating the lives and characters of the leaders and organizers, emphasizing the powerful leadership of the women. Alone this would be a brilliant analysis of one of the most significant social movements of this century. But embedded in the story and inseparable from it is the centuries-long history of the Oceti Sakowin’ resistance to United States’ genocidal wars and colonial institutions. And woven into these entwined stories of Indigenous resistance is the true history of the United States as a colonialist state and a global history of European colonialism. This book is a jewel—history and analysis that reads like the best poetry—certain to be a classic work as well as a study guide for continued and accelerated resistance.”—Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

“When state violence against peaceful protest at Standing Rock became part of the national consciousness, many noticed Native people for the first time—again. Our History Is the Future is necessary reading, documenting how Native resistance is met with settler erasure: an outcome shaped by land, resources, and the juggernaut of capitalism. Estes has written a powerful history of Seven Fires resolve that demonstrates how Standing Rock is the outcome of history and the beginning of the future.”—Louise Erdrich, author of the National Book Award winner The Round House

“A touching and necessary manifesto and history featuring firsthand accounts of the recent Indigenous uprising against powerful oil companies … With an urgent voice, Estes reminds us that the greed of private corporations must never be allowed to endanger the health of the majority. An important read about Indigenous protesters fighting to protect their ancestral land and uphold their historic values of clean land and water for all humans.” —Kirkus

“Our History Is the Future is a game-changer. In addition to providing a thorough and cogent history of the long tradition of Indigenous resistance, it is also a personal memoir and homage to the Oceti Sakowin; an entreaty to all their relations that demands the ‘emancipation of the earth.’ Estes continues in the legacy of his ancestors, from Black Elk to Vine Deloria, he turns Indigenous history right-side up as a story of self-defense against settler invasion. In so doing, he is careful and judicious in his telling, working seamlessly across eras, movements, and scholarly literatures, to forge a collective vision for liberation that takes prophecy and revolutionary theory seriously. The book will be an instant classic and go-to text for students and educators working to understand the ‘structure’ undergirding the ‘event’ of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This is what history as Ghost Dance looks like.”—Sandy Grande, author of Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought

“Nick Estes is a forceful writer whose work reflects the defiant spirit of the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future braids together strands of history, theory, manifesto and memoir into a unique and compelling whole that will provoke activists, scholars and readers alike to think deeper, consider broader possibilities and mobilize for action on stolen land.”—Julian Brave Noisecat, 350.org

Additional Information
320 pages | 5.50" x 8.25"

“I feel that it is important to re-establish our Salish footprint upon our lands, to create a visual expression of the link between the past and present that is both accessible and people-friendly. . . . I create unique, ‘original’ artwork that honours both my people and the diverse group of peoples from around the world who have come to live upon our lands on the Northwest Coast. My hope is that my art leaves a lasting impression on visitors, locals, and the surrounding communities.” — Susan Point

This beautifully designed book is the first to explore Susan Point's publicly commissioned artworks from coast to coast.

Susan Point’s unique artworks have been credited with almost single-handedly reviving the traditional Coast Salish art style. Once nearly lost to the effects of colonization, the crescents, wedges, and human and animal forms characteristic of the art of First Nations peoples living around the Salish Sea can now be seen around the world, reinvigorated with modern materials and techniques, in her serigraphs and public art installations—and in the works of a new generation of artists that she’s inspired.

People Among the People beautifully displays the breadth of Susan Point’s public art, from cast-iron manhole covers to massive carved cedar spindle whorls, installed in locations from Vancouver to Zurich. Through extensive interviews and access to her archives, Robert D. Watt tells the story of each piece, whether it’s the evolution from sketch to carving to casting, or the significance of the images and symbolism, which is informed by surviving traditional Salish works Point has studied and the Oral Traditions of her Musqueam family and elders.

In her long quest to re-establish a Coast Salish footprint in Southwest British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the US, Point has received many honours, including the Order of Canada and the Audain Lifetime Achievement Award. This gorgeous and illuminating book makes it clear they are all richly deserved.

Additional Information
208 pages | 10.17" x 12.39" | Colour photographs throughout | Hardcover 

Social action art in book form, Perception: A Photo Series encourages readers to look and then look again.

Tired of reading negative and disparaging remarks directed at Indigenous people of Winnipeg in the press and social media, artist KC Adams created a photo series that presented another perspective. Called “Perception Photo Series,” it confronted common stereotypes of First Nation, Inuit and Métis people to illustrate a more contemporary truthful story.

First appearing on billboards, in storefronts, in bus shelters, and projected onto Winnipeg’s downtown buildings, Adam’s stunning photographs now appear in her new book, Perception: A Photo Series. Meant to challenge the culture of apathy and willful ignorance about Indigenous issues, Adams hopes to unite readers in the fight against prejudice of all kinds.

Reviews
"Indeed, the potential lasting impact of this collection can’t be underestimated; this is socially engaged art at its best." — Kirkus Reviews, March 2019

"KC Adams' Perception series challenges us to bridge thought and reality; emerging on the other side better having challenged ourselves to see Indigenous peoples for what they really are. We are grandparents, parents, children - and everything in between. As Adams shows through this incredible exhibition of faces and feelings, we are beautiful, whole, and complex peoples irreducible to stereotypes and slander." — Romeo Saganash (Cree, father, activist, and dreamer)

"KC Adams's Perception series absolutely captured the most devastating perceptions from the colonial mind, and the accompanying lack of knowledge about the truth of Canada's historical relationship to Indigenous Peoples. Succinctly and beautifully, KC transformed that narrative in this series. It is a prolific piece which will always be a source of inspiration for truth and reconciliation. It is unforgettable. Kichi miigwetch KC Adams!." — Tina Keeper, March 2019

"We hear the saying, “A picture can say a thousand words” quite often, but sometimes we don’t take the time to actually look at what we are seeing and what it is saying. Sometimes photographs are taken for fun, with no real meaning behind them. But there are times when a photograph is taken for a purpose, taken to deliver a message. KC Adams, with Perception, is doing just that. She is not only delivering a message, she is also making a statement in order to break down the racial prejudices and stereotypes towards the indigenous community in Canada.... From looking at the first picture that shows their reaction to what people think of them to looking at their second picture that shows their look of pure happiness coupled with their name, their tribes, and the words they would use to describe themselves is what is causing people to think twice, think differently, and spark conversation." — Leslie Trotter, NetGalley, March 2019

"I admire what KC Adams did when she kept hearing disparaging remarks and slurs against the Native peoples of Canada. As an indigenous person herself, she too, had been subjected to mistreatment and prejudice just be being someone who looks different. She was determined to find a way to get people's perceptions to change. The Native/indigenous people and their cultures were here to stay and non-Native people had to come to terms with and accept that. Adams choose to use her skill as a photographer as a catalyst to address the racism and prejudice head on.... She took a series of two photographs of the same person; one as she said a racist remark, the other as she said something positive about the person. She then put up these pictures as posters around municipal areas. The first picture was headlined with the slur said while filming it, the bottom said "Think again". The second picture (taken when she invoked a positive response in them) told who they were and some things about them. This photography series (now captured in her book Perceptions) helped people recognize their own reactions to Native peoples and realize that they were unfair and untrue.... I love when art is not only creative, but an agent for social change! Kudos, Ms. Adams! Well done!" — Kathy Fuchs, NetGalley, February 2019

"Perception is an impressive collection...an inside look into a living legend’s photography practice (I say this in no uncertain terms) and, more importantly, as Adams intended, a reminder to look past the hurt in search of a love that can bring us all home." — Lindsay Nixon, Editor-at-Large Canadian Art, author nîtisânak, Metonymy Press, March 2019

"This is an amazing portrayal of the indigenous community. The emotions displayed by each individual are clearly defined. I highly recommend this resource be placed in all libraries and used to dispel racism and discriminatory ideas." — Shelley Stefanowich, NetGalley, April 2019

Educator & Series Information
For Grades 9-12 / Young Adults

Foreword by Katherena Vermette; Critical essay by Cathy Mattes

Caution: Mature subject matter/language in some instances as this book is dealing with stereotypes and prejudice (radicalized language and derogatory terminology).

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list for grades 10 to 12 for Art Education, Social Studies, Social Justice, and English Language Arts.

This book is part of The Debwe Series, a collection of exceptional Indigenous writings from across Canada.

Additional Information
120 pages | 6.75" x 9.00" | Hardcover | Foreward from Katherena Vermette

Following the Final Report on Truth and Reconciliation, Performing Turtle Island investigates theatre as a tool for community engagement, education, and resistance.

Comprised of multidisciplinary and diverse perspectives, Performing Turtle Island considers theatre as a tool for community engagement, education, and resistance, and examines how communities in turn influence the construction of Indigenous identities through theatre.

Contributors:
Megan Davies (York University)
Spy Dénommé-Welch (Brock University)
Floyd Favel (Poundmaker First Nation)
Carol Greyeyes (University of Saskatchewan)
Michael Greyeyes (Muskeg Lake First Nation)
Kahente Horn-Miller (Carleton University)
Dione Joseph (Onehunga, New Zealand)
Catherine Magowan (Hamilton, ON)
Daniel David Moses (Queen's University)
Yvette Nolan (University of Saskatchewan)
Armand Ruffo (Sagamok Ojibway and Chapleau Cree Fox Lake First Nations, Queen's University)
Annie Smith (Grand Prairie Regional College)

Reviews
“Brilliantly introduces pedagogies that jump scale; a bundling project for future ancestors revealing knowledges for flight into kinstillatory relationships. ” —Karyn Recollet, co-author of In This Together: Blackness, Indigeneity, and Hip Hop

“An important resource for those who want to introduce or incorporate Indigenous artistic perspectives in their course or work. ” —Heather Davis-Fisch, author of Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance

“A very significant and welcome contribution to the growing body of work on Indigenous theatre and performance in the land now called Canada. ” —Ric Knowles, author of Performing the Intercultural City

Educator Information
Understanding Indigenous cultures as critical sources of knowledge and meaning, each essay addresses issues that remind us that the way to reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous peoples is neither straightforward nor easily achieved. Comprised of multidisciplinary and diverse perspectives, Performing Turtle Island considers performance as both a means to self-empowerment and self-determination, and a way of placing Indigenous performance in dialogue with other nations, both on the lands of Turtle Island and on the world stage.

Additional Information
256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 5 photos, 1 table

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"

For over two decades, Manitoban artist Gerald Kuehl has travelled to the far-flung corners of Canada to draw out these answers from the last generation of Indigenous Peoples born on the land, and, pencil in hand, to record their likenesses and experiences. These Elders shared their gripping stories with him so that he might share them with the world.

Picking up where Kuehl’s acclaimed Portraits of the North left off, these pages follow the artist as he crosses the 60th parallel into Nunavut and the Far North, to meet the few Inuit Elders who still remember the days when their people lived entirely off the bounty of the land. The astonishing graphite pencil drawings and accompanying stories within—the result of Kuehl’s travels in Nunavut over thirteen years, hundreds of interviews with Elders, and thousands of hours at the drawing board—provide an unprecedented, poignant account of the changing realities Inuit experienced over the course of the last century, and their bright hopes for the future. These are tales of hardship and survival, of family and tradition, and of optimism and resilience. These are the faces and the voices of the Far North.

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240 pages | 10.25" x 10.50"

A collection of essays inspired by EMMA Talks, a speakers’ series committed to amplifying the voices of thinkers, activists, scholars, artists, and community builders who are also women-identified, trans, and gender-nonconforming folks.

From Idle No More to Black Lives Matter to the Me Too movements and more, one thing is certain: There is a burgeoning collective desire to hear non-dominant voices in subtle, curious, generative ways.

The Vancouver-based EMMA Talks speakers’ series amplifies the voices of women-identified, trans, and gender-nonconforming folks. Curated by carla bergman, the series showcases a diversity of writers, thinkers, activists, scholars, artists, and community builders. Radiant Voices is the anthology inspired by EMMA Talks.

Through engaging essays by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Silvia Federici, Vivek Shraya, Chief Janice George, dr. amina wadud, Astra Taylor, and others, seasoned writers align with emerging writers who share from a worldview that promotes anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-ageism, and anti-ableism, and much more. Themes of connection, rediscovery, creating, social justice, celebration, and matriarchy are revealed in these 23 essays.

This is an era in which the marginalized can publicly share their stories en masse. Now is the time to celebrate the eruption of all these radiant voices.

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Authenticity Note: Because this work has some Indigenous contributors, it has received the Authentic Indigenous Text label.