Heeding The Voices Of Our Ancestors

This book is the first comprehensive study of the driving force behind Native political activism, and the only scholarly treatment of North American Indian politics which integrates an explicitly Native perspective. With a broad historical scope rich in detail, and drawing on the particular experience of the Mohawks of Kahnawake, it offers an explanation of Indian and Inuit political activism focusing on the importance of traditional values and institutions in shaping Native responses to the state. The book explains the recent rise of a militant assertion of sovereignty on the part of Native people in terms of three major factors: the existence of alternative institutions in the body of the nation's traditional culture; the self-conscious development of an alternative identity; and a persistent pattern of negative interaction with the state. It differs from other analyses focusing on similar factors in that it views nationalism not as a movement which activates in response to external factors, but as a persistent feature of political life which manifests itself in either a latent or active form in response to the interaction of the three factors discussed in the model.

In the inaugural set of Seeley Lectures, the distinguished political philosopher James Tully addresses the demands for cultural recognition that constitute the major conflicts of today: supranational associations, nationalism and federalism, linguistic and ethnic minorities, feminism, multiculturalism and aboriginal self government. Neither modern nor post-modern constitutionalism can adjudicate such claims justly. However, by surveying 400 years of constitutional practice, with special attention to the American aboriginal peoples, Tully develops a new philosophy of constitutionalism based on dialogues of conciliation which, he argues, have the capacity to mediate contemporary conflicts and bring peace to the twenty-first century. Strange Multiplicity brings profound historical, critical and philosophical perspectives to our most pressing contemporary conflicts, and provides an authoritative guide to constitutional possibilities in a multicultural age.

Today KahnawÄ:ke (?at the rapids?) is a community of approximately seventy-two hundred Mohawks, located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River near Montreal. One of the largest Mohawk communities, it is known in the modern era for its activism?a traditionalist, energetic impulse with a long history. KahnawÄ:ke examines the development of traditionalism and nationalism in this Kanien?kek¾:ka (Mohawk) community from 1870 to 1940. The core of KahnawÄ:ke?s cultural and political revitalization involved efforts to revive and refashion the community?s traditional political institutions, reforge ties to and identification with the Iroquois Confederacy, and reestablish the traditional longhouse within the community. Gerald F. Reid interprets these developments as the result of the community?s efforts to deal with internal ecological, economic, and political pressures and the external pressures for assimilation, particularly as they stemmed from Canadian Indian policy. Factionalism was a consequence of these pressures and an important ingredient in the development of traditionalist and nationalist responses within the community. These responses within KahnawÄ:ke also contributed to and were supported by similar processes of revitalization in other Iroquois communities. Drawing on primary documents and numerous oral histories, KahnawÄ:ke provides a detailed ethnohistory of a major Kanien?kek¾:ka community at a turbulent and transformative time in its history and the history of the Iroquois Confederacy. It not only makes an important contribution to the understanding of this vital but little studied community but also sheds new light on recent Iroquois history and Native political and cultural revitalization.

"The most we can hope for is that we are paraphrased correctly." In this statement, Lenore Keeshig-Tobias underscores one of the main issues in the representation of Aboriginal peoples by non-Aboriginals. Non-Aboriginal people often fail to understand the sheer diversity, multiplicity, and shifting identities of Aboriginal people. As a result, Aboriginal people are often taken out of their own contexts. Walking a Tightrope plays an important role in the dynamic historical process of ongoing change in the representation of Aboriginal peoples. It locates and examines the multiplicity and distinctiveness of Aboriginal voices and their representations, both as they portray themselves and as others have characterized them. In addition to exploring perspectives and approaches to the representation of Aboriginal peoples, it also looks at Native notions of time (history), land, cultures, identities, and literacies. Until these are understood by non-Aboriginals, Aboriginal people will continue to be misrepresented -- both as individuals and as groups.; By acknowledging the complex and unique legal and historical status of Aboriginal peoples, we can begin to understand the culture of Native peoples in North America. Until then, given the strength of stereotypes, Native people have come to expect no better representation than a paraphrase.

Canada is often called a pluralist state, but few commentators view Aboriginal self-government from the perspective of political pluralism. Instead, Aboriginal identity is framed in terms of cultural and national traits, while self-government is taken to represent an Aboriginal desire to protect those traits. Shifting Boundaries challenges this view, arguing that it fosters a woefully incomplete understanding of the politics of self-government. Taking the position that a relational theory of pluralism offers a more accurate interpretation, Tim Schouls contends that self-government is better understood when an “identification” perspective on Aboriginal identity is adopted instead of a “cultural” or “national” one. He shows that self-government is not about preserving cultural and national differences as goods in and of themselves, but rather is about equalizing current imbalances in power to allow Aboriginal peoples to construct their own identities. In focusing on relational pluralism, Shifting Boundaries adds an important perspective to existing theoretical approaches to Aboriginal self-government. It will appeal to academics, students, and policy analysts interested in Aboriginal governance, cultural studies, political theory, nationalism studies, and constitutional theory.

Countless books and articles have traced the impact of colonialism and public policy on Canada's First Nations, but few have explored the impact of Aboriginal thought on public discourse and policy development in Canada. First Nations, First Thoughts brings together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars who cut through the prevailing orthodoxy to reveal Indigenous thinkers and activists as a pervasive presence in diverse political, constitutional, and cultural debates and arenas, including urban spaces, historical texts, public policy, and cultural heritage preservation. This innovative, thought-provoking collection contributes to the decolonization process by encouraging us to imagine a stronger, fairer Canada in which Aboriginal self-government and expression can be fully realized.

This important collection makes a compelling argument for the importance of theory in Native studies. Within the field, there has been understandable suspicion of theory stemming both from concerns about urgent political issues needing to take precedence over theoretical speculations and from hostility toward theory as an inherently Western, imperialist epistemology. The editors of Theorizing Native Studies take these concerns as the ground for recasting theoretical endeavors as attempts to identify the larger institutional and political structures that enable racism, inequities, and the displacement of indigenous peoples. They emphasize the need for Native people to be recognized as legitimate theorists and for the theoretical work happening outside the academy, in Native activist groups and communities, to be acknowledged. Many of the essays demonstrate how Native studies can productively engage with others seeking to dismantle and decolonize the settler state, including scholars putting theory to use in critical ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and postcolonial studies. Taken together, the essays demonstrate how theory can serve as a decolonizing practice. Contributors. Christopher Bracken, Glen Coulthard, Mishuana Goeman, Dian Million, Scott Morgensen, Robert Nichols, Vera Palmer, Mark Rifkin, Audra Simpson, Andrea Smith, Teresia Teaiwa

WINNER OF: Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book from the Caribbean Philosophical Association Canadian Political Science Association’s C.B. MacPherson Prize Studies in Political Economy Book Prize Over the past forty years, recognition has become the dominant mode of negotiation and decolonization between the nation-state and Indigenous nations in North America. The term “recognition” shapes debates over Indigenous cultural distinctiveness, Indigenous rights to land and self-government, and Indigenous peoples’ right to benefit from the development of their lands and resources. In a work of critically engaged political theory, Glen Sean Coulthard challenges recognition as a method of organizing difference and identity in liberal politics, questioning the assumption that contemporary difference and past histories of destructive colonialism between the state and Indigenous peoples can be reconciled through a process of acknowledgment. Beyond this, Coulthard examines an alternative politics—one that seeks to revalue, reconstruct, and redeploy Indigenous cultural practices based on self-recognition rather than on seeking appreciation from the very agents of colonialism. Coulthard demonstrates how a “place-based” modification of Karl Marx’s theory of “primitive accumulation” throws light on Indigenous–state relations in settler-colonial contexts and how Frantz Fanon’s critique of colonial recognition shows that this relationship reproduces itself over time. This framework strengthens his exploration of the ways that the politics of recognition has come to serve the interests of settler-colonial power. In addressing the core tenets of Indigenous resistance movements, like Red Power and Idle No More, Coulthard offers fresh insights into the politics of active decolonization.