This book provides the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of the factors that explain both completed and incomplete treaty negotiations between Aboriginal groups and the federal, provincial, and territorial governments of Canada. Since 1973, groups that have never signed treaties with the Crown have been invited to negotiate what the government calls “comprehensive land claims agreements,” otherwise known as modern treaties, which formally transfer jurisdiction, ownership, and title over selected lands to Aboriginal signatories. Despite their importance, not all groups have completed such agreements – a situation that is problematic not only for governments but for Aboriginal groups interested in rebuilding their communities and economies. Using in-depth interviews with Indigenous, federal, provincial, and territorial officials, Christopher Alcantara compares the experiences of four Aboriginal groups: the Kwanlin Dün First Nation (with a completed treaty) and the Kaska Nations (with incomplete negotiations) in Yukon Territory, and the Inuit (completed) and Innu (incomplete) in Newfoundland and Labrador. Based on the experiences of these groups, Alcantara argues that scholars and policymakers need to pay greater attention to the institutional framework governing treaty negotiations and, most importantly, to the active role that Aboriginal groups play in these processes.

Provides a historical and legal analysis of Micmac landclaims in Newfoundland.

The professionalization of anthropology through practical engagement is a major force underpinning the reformulations of the nature of the anthropological project. It is therefore imperative that anthropologists critically explore the conditions of their practices, to determine the difficulties and limitations to their ethical practice. These essays examine the application of expert knowledge in fields where there is the expectation of considerable cultural, social, and political consequence for human populations as a result of state, corporate, or non-governmental re-organization.

The Rights and Wrongs of Land Restitution: ‘Restoring What Was Ours’ offers a critical, comparative ethnographic, examination of land restitution programs. Drawing on memories and histories of past dispossession, governments, NGOs, informal movements and individual claimants worldwide have attempted to restore and reclaim rights in land. Land restitution programs link the past and the present, and may allow former landholders to reclaim lands which provided the basis of earlier identities and livelihoods. Addressing the practical and theoretical questions that arise, this book offers a critical rethinking of the links between land restitution and property, social transition, injustice, citizenship, the state and the market.

This comprehensive study of the Naskapi Indians of Labrador is based on an anthropologist’s life with them between 1966 and 1968, when families still followed the traditional pattern of hunting on the barrens during the winter and returning to their costal settlements in the summer. Now the Naskapi live in coastal settlements; no longer in possession of their own culture, they have become sedentaries under white tutelage. This description of two antithetical worlds provides valuable insights for anyone interested in contemporary native rights issues.

The Canadian North is witness to some of the most innovative efforts by Aboriginal peoples to reshape their relations with "mainstream" political and economic structures. Northern Quebec and Labrador are particularly dynamic examples of these efforts, composed of First Nations territories that until the 1970s had never been subject to treaty but are subject to escalating industrial demands for natural resources. The essays in this volume illuminate key conditions for autonomy and development: the definition and redefinition of national territories as cultural orders clash and mix; control of resource bases upon which northern economies depend; and renewal and reworking of cultural identity.

For more than fifteen years, Keith Crowe's A History of the Original Peoples of Northern Canada has informed a multitude of residents in and visitors to the Canadian North and has served as a standard text. Now, in a new epilogue, Crowe describes and analyses the changes in the North which have come about since the book's first publication. The success of this book over the years is due in large part to Crowe's approach. While the majority of works on Canadian history are essentially European in perspective, Crowe has endeavoured to interpret the history of the original peoples of northern Canada from a native standpoint. He has attempted to provide a work that native Canadians can use to learn the broad outlines of their cultural and historical development as well as details about their people, places, and events, while giving non-native people a more accurate version of northern Canadian history and ethnology. Crowe begins with the emergence, in prehistoric times, of the three great groups of hunting people -- the Algonkian, Athapaskan, and Inuit -- describing their contribution to the cultural heritage of native peoples today. He devotes particular attention to the various native tribes and some of their outstanding leaders; to the fur trade, its effects, and the emergence of the Métis people; to the devastating consequences of trading and whaling for the Arctic and the Inuit who lived there; to the Yukon Indians and the Gold Rush; to the coming of Christianity; and to the impact of governmental and economic encroachment on the North and the native peoples' response to this -- moving into the boardroom and elected office. In his new epilogue, Crowe surveys the major land claims since 1974 -- some settled, most still under negotiation, and some, like the James Bay hydro-electric project, being challenged. Crowe also explains the complexities of the land-claims process and points out the irony inherent in native peoples having to help create numerous "foreign" laws and institutions in order to protect an essentially simple way of life. He describes the native peoples' movement into and up the ranks of government at all levels and emphasizes the important role played by regional and national native associations, such as the Assembly of First Nations. He outlines the changes and developments in education in the North and provides a detailed assessment of the still very difficult economic situation, stressing the native peoples' concern that economic development in the North not be divorced from environmental considerations. Keith J. Crowe, who served for many years in the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, is now retired but remains privately active in northern and native issues.

Self-determination is on the agenda of Indigenous peoples all over the world. This analysis by an Indigenous feminist scholar challenges the United Nations–based human rights agendas and colonial theory that until now have shaped Indigenous models of self-determination. Gender inequality and gender violence, Dian Million argues, are critically important elements in the process of self-determination. Million contends that nation-state relations are influenced by a theory of trauma ascendant with the rise of neoliberalism. Such use of trauma theory regarding human rights corresponds to a therapeutic narrative by Western governments negotiating with Indigenous nations as they seek self-determination. Focusing on Canada and drawing comparisons with the United States and Australia, Million brings a genealogical understanding of trauma against a historical filter. Illustrating how Indigenous people are positioned differently in Canada, Australia, and the United States in their articulation of trauma, the author particularly addresses the violence against women as a language within a greater politic. The book introduces an Indigenous feminist critique of this violence against the medicalized framework of addressing trauma and looks to the larger goals of decolonization. Noting the influence of humanitarian psychiatry, Million goes on to confront the implications of simply dismissing Indigenous healing and storytelling traditions. Therapeutic Nations is the first book to demonstrate affect and trauma’s wide-ranging historical origins in an Indigenous setting, offering insights into community healing programs. The author’s theoretical sophistication and original research make the book relevant across a range of disciplines as it challenges key concepts of American Indian and Indigenous studies.

Examines the history, culture, changing fortunes, and future prospects of the Montagnais-Naskapi Indians. Includes a picture essay on their crafts.