In this book, the Gitksan and Gitanyow present their response to the use of the treaty process by the Nisga'a to expand into Gitksan and Gitanyow territory on the upper Nass River and demonstrate the ownership of their territory according to their own legal system. They call upon the ancient oral history ("adaawk") and their intimate knowledge of the territory and its geographical features to establish, before witnesses, their title to lands in the upper Nass watershed.
The recognition of Indigenous rights and the management of land and resources have always been fraught with complex power relations and conflicting expressions of identity. Indigenous Encounters with Neoliberalism explores how this issue is playing out in two countries very differently marked by neoliberalism’s local expressions – Canada and Mexico. Weaving together four distinct case studies, this book presents insights from Indigenous feminism, critical geography, political economy, and postcolonial studies. These examples highlight Indigenous people’s responses to neoliberalism, reflecting the tensions that result from how Indigenous identity, gender, and the environment have been connected. Indigenous women’s perspectives are particularly illuminating as they articulate diverse concerns within a wider political framework.
Maps play an indispensable role in indigenous peoples? efforts to secure land rights in the Americas and beyond. Yet indigenous peoples did not invent participatory mapping techniques on their own; they appropriated them from techniques developed for colonial rule and counterinsurgency campaigns, and refined by anthropologists and geographers. Through a series of historical and contemporary examples from Nicaragua, Canada, and Mexico, this book explores the tension between military applications of participatory mapping and its use for political mobilization and advocacy. The authors analyze the emergence of indigenous territories as spaces defined by a collective way of life--and as a particular kind of battleground.
In Faces in the Forest Michael Blackstock, a forester and an artist, takes us into the sacred forest, revealing the mysteries of carvings, paintings, and writings done on living trees by First Nations people. Blackstock details this rare art form through oral histories related by the Elders, blending spiritual and academic perspectives on Native art, cultural geography, and traditional ecological knowledge. Faces in the Forest begins with a review of First Nations cosmology and the historical references to tree art. Blackstock then takes us on a metaphorical journey along the remnants of trading and trapping trails to tree art sites in the Gitxsan, Nisga'a, Tlingit, Carrier, and Dene traditional territories, before concluding with reflections on the function and meaning of tree art, its role within First Nations cosmology, and the need for greater respect for all of our natural resources. This fascinating study of a haunting and little-known cultural phenomenon helps us to see our forests with new eyes.
How did one group of indigenous societies, on the Northwest Coast of North America, manage to live sustainably with their ecosystems for over two thousand years? Can the answer to this question inform the current debate about sustainability in today’s social ecological systems? The answer to the first question involves identification of the key institutions that characterized those societies. It also involves explaining why these institutions, through their interactions with each other and with the non-human components, provided both sustainability and its necessary corollary, resilience. Answering the second question involves investigating ways in which key features of today’s social ecological systems can be changed to move toward sustainability, using some of the rules that proved successful on the Northwest Coast of North America. Ronald L. Trosper shows how human systems connect environmental ethics and sustainable ecological practices through institutions.
The Tsimshian people of coastal British Columbia use a system of hereditary name-titles in which names are treated as objects of inheritable wealth. Human agency and social status reside in names rather than in the individuals who hold these names, and the politics of succession associated with names and name-taking rituals have been, and continue to be, at the center of Tsimshian life. Becoming Tsimshian examines the way in which names link members of a lineage to a past and to the places where that past unfolded. At traditional potlatch feasts, for example, collective social and symbolic behavior �gives the person to the name.� Oral histories recounted at a potlatch describe the origins of the name, of the house lineage, and of the lineage's rights to territories, resources, and heraldic privileges. This ownership is renewed and recognized by successive generations, and the historical relationship to the land is remembered and recounted in the lineage's chronicles, or adawx. In investigating the different dimensions of the Tsimshian naming system, Christopher F. Roth draws extensively on recent literature, archival reference, and elders in Tsimshian communities. Becoming Tsimshian, which covers important themes in linguistic and cultural anthropology and ethnic studies, will be of great value to scholars in Native American studies and Northwest Coast anthropology, as well as in linguistics.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the visual arts were considered central to the formation of a distinct national identity, and the Group of Seven's landscapes became part of a larger program to unify the nation and assert its uniqueness. This book traces the development of this program and illuminates its conflicted history. Leslie Dawn problematizes conventional perceptions of the Group as a national school and underscores the contradictions inherent in international exhibitions showing unpeopled landscapes alongside Northwest Coast Native arts and the "Indian" paintings of Langdon Kihn and Emily Carr. Dawn examines how this dichotomy forced a re-evaluation of the place of First Nations in both Canadian art and nationalism.
Centuries-old community planning practices in Indigenous communities in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia have, in modern times, been eclipsed by ill-suited western approaches, mostly derived from colonial and neo-colonial traditions. Since planning outcomes have failed to reflect the rights and interests of Indigenous people, attempts to reclaim planning have become a priority for many Indigenous nations throughout the world. In Reclaiming Indigenous Planning, scholars and practitioners connect the past and present to facilitate better planning for the future. With examples from the Canadian Arctic to the Australian desert, and the cities, towns, reserves and reservations in between, contributors engage topics including Indigenous mobilization and resistance, awareness-raising and seven-generations visioning, Indigenous participation in community planning processes, and forms of governance. Relying on case studies and personal narratives, these essays emphasize the critical need for Indigenous communities to reclaim control of the political, socio-cultural, and economic agendas that shape their lives. The first book to bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors together across continents, Reclaiming Indigenous Planning shows how urban and rural communities around the world are reformulating planning practices that incorporate traditional knowledge, cultural identity, and stewardship over land and resources. Contributors include Robert Adkins (Community and Economic Development Consultant, USA), Chris Andersen (Alberta), Giovanni Attili (La Sapienza), Aaron Aubin (Dillon Consulting), Shaun Awatere (Landcare Research, New Zealand), Yale Belanger (Lethbridge), Keith Chaulk (Memorial), Stephen Cornell (Arizona), Sherrie Cross (Macquarie), Kim Doohan (Native Title and Resource Claims Consultant, Australia), Kerri Jo Fortier (Simpcw First Nation), Bethany Haalboom (Victoria University, New Zealand), Lisa Hardess (Hardess Planning Inc.), Garth Harmsworth (Landcare Research, New Zealand), Sharon Hausam (Pueblo of Laguna), Michael Hibbard (Oregon), Richard Howitt (Macquarie), Ted Jojola (New Mexico), Tanira Kingi (AgResearch, New Zealand), Marcus Lane (Griffith), Rebecca Lawrence (Umea), Gaim Lunkapis (Malaysia Sabah), Laura Mannell (Planning Consultant, Canada), Hirini Matunga (Lincoln University, New Zealand), Deborah McGregor (Toronto), Oscar Montes de Oca (AgResearch, New Zealand), Samantha Muller (Flinders), David Natcher (Saskatchewan), Frank Palermo (Dalhousie), Robert Patrick (Saskatchewan), Craig Pauling (Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu), Kurt Peters (Oregon State), Libby Porter (Monash), Andrea Procter (Memorial), Sarah Prout (Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health, Australia), Catherine Robinson (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia), Shadrach Rolleston (Planning Consultant, New Zealand), Leonie Sandercock (British Columbia), Crispin Smith (Planning Consultant, Canada), Sandie Suchet-Pearson (Macquarie), Siri Veland (Brown), Ryan Walker (Saskatchewan), Liz Wedderburn (AgResearch, New Zealand).
Maps and cartography have long been used in the lands and resources offices of Canada's indigenous communities in support of land claims and traditional-use studies. Exploring alternative conceptualizations of maps and mapmaking, Maps and Memes theorizes the potentially creative and therapeutic uses of maps for indigenous healing from the legacies of residential schools and colonial dispossession. Gwilym Eades proposes that maps are vehicles for what he calls "place-memes" - units of cultural knowledge that are transmitted through time and across space. Focusing on Cree, Inuit, and northwest coast communities, the book explores intergenerational aspects of mapping, landscape art practice, and identity. Through decades of living in and working with indigenous communities, Eades has constructed an ethnographically rich account of mapping and spatial practices across Canada. His extended participation in northern life also informs this theoretically grounded account of journeying on the land for commemoration and community healing. Interweaving narrative accounts of journeys with academic applications for mapping the phenomena of indigenous suicide and suicide clusters, Maps and Memes lays the groundwork for understanding current struggles of indigenous youth to strengthen their identities and foster greater awareness of traditional territory and place.
