Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion : Indigenous Peoples Studies
E. H. Butler Library information on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion initiatives, including links to research, local, and national information.
Indigenous Peoples - Indigenous Peoples are distinct social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced. The land and natural resources on which they depend are inextricably linked to their identities, cultures, livelihoods, as well as their physical and spiritual well-being. They often subscribe to their customary leaders and organizations for representation that are distinct or separate from those of the mainstream society or culture. Many Indigenous Peoples still maintain a language distinct from the official language or languages of the country or region in which they reside.
SOURCE: World Bank. (2021, March). Indigenous Peoples. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/indigenouspeoples#1.
The First Frontier by
Frontier: the word carries the inevitable scent of the West. But before Custer or Lewis and Clark, before the first Conestoga wagons rumbled across the Plains, it was the East that marked the frontier--the boundary between complex Native cultures and the first colonizing Europeans. Here is the older, wilder, darker history of a time when the land between the Atlantic and the Appalachians was contested ground--when radically different societies adopted and adapted the ways of the other, while struggling for control of what all considered to be their land. The First Frontier traces two and a half centuries of history through poignant, mostly unheralded personal stories--like that of a Harvard-educated Indian caught up in seventeenth-century civil warfare, a mixed-blood interpreter trying to straddle his white and Native heritage, and a Puritan woman wielding a scalping knife whose bloody deeds still resonate uneasily today. It is the first book in years to paint a sweeping picture of the Eastern frontier, combining vivid storytelling with the latest research to bring to life modern America's tumultuous, uncertain beginnings.
#IdleNoMore by
Idle No More bewildered many Canadians. Launched by four women in Saskatchewan in reaction to a federal omnibus budget bill, the protest became the most powerful demonstration of Aboriginal identity in Canadian history. Thousands of Aboriginal people and their supporters took to the streets, shopping malls, and other venues, drumming, dancing, and singing in a collective voice. Idle No More lasted for almost a year before the rallies dissipated. Many observers described it as a spent force. It was anything but. Idle No More was the most profound declaration of Indigenous identity and confidence in Canadian history, sparked by Aboriginal women and their supporters, sustained by young Indigenous peoples, filled with pride and determination. When the drums slowed, a new and different Canada was left in its wake. Partially stunned by the peaceful celebrations, but perplexed by a movement that seemed to have no centre and no leaders, most Canadians missed the point. Through Idle No More, Aboriginal people have declared that they are a vital and necessary part of Canada's future. The spirit of the drumming, singing and dancing lives on in empowered and confident young Aboriginal people who will shape the future of this country for decades to come.
Reconciling and Rehumanizing Indigenous-Settler Relations by
Reconciling and Rehumanizing Indigenous-Settler Relations: An Applied Anthropological Perspective presents a unique and honest account of an applied anthropologist's experience in working with Indigenous peoples of Canada. It illustrates Dr. Nadia Ferrara's efforts in reconciliation and rehumanization, showing that it is all about recognizing our shared humanity. In this self-reflective narrative, the author describes her personal experience of marginalization and how it contributed to a more in-depth understanding of how others are marginalized, as well as the fundamental sense of belongingness and connectedness. The book is enriched with stories and insights from her fieldwork as a clinician, a university professor, and a bureaucrat. Dr. Ferrara shows how she has applied her experience as an art therapist in Indigenous communities to her current work in policy development to ensure the policies created reflect their current realities. Reconciling and Rehumanizing Indigenous-Settler Relations describes the cultural competency course for public servants Dr. Ferrara is leading, as a means to break down stereotypes and showcase the resilience of Indigenous peoples. She makes a compassionate and urgent call to all North Americans to connect with their responsibility and compassion, and acknowledge the injustices that the original peoples of this land have faced and continue to face. Reconciliation requires concrete action and it starts with the individual's self-reflection, engagement in authentic human-to-human dialogue, learning from one another, and working together towards a better future, all of which is chronicled in this insightful book.
This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the troubled history of Thanksgiving by
Ahead of the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, a new look at the Plymouth colony's founding events, told for the first time with Wampanoag people at the heart of the story. In March 1621, when Plymouth's survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth's governor, John Carver, declared their people's friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the "First Thanksgiving." The treaty remained operative until King Philip's Warin 1675, when 50 years of uneasy peace between the two parties would come to an end. 400 years after that famous meal, historian David J. Silverman sheds profound new light on the events that led to the creation, and bloody dissolution, of this alliance. Focusing on the Wampanoag Indians, Silverman deepens the narrative to consider tensions that developed well before 1620 and lasted long after the devastating war-tracing the Wampanoags' ongoing struggle for self-determination up to this very day. This unsettling history reveals why some modern Native people hold a Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving, a holiday which celebrates a myth of colonialism and white proprietorship of the United States.This Land is Their Landshows that it is time to rethink how we, as a pluralistic nation, tell the history of Thanksgiving.
The Earth Is Weeping: The epic story of the Indian wars for the American West by
Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History Winner of the 2017 Caroline Bancroft History Prize Shortlisted for the Military History Magazine Book of the Year Award After the Civil War the Indian Wars would last more than three decades, permanently altering the physical and political landscape of America. Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the intertribal strife over whether to fight or make peace; explores the dreary, squalid lives of frontier soldiers and the imperatives of the Indian warrior culture; and describes the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies. In dramatically relating bloody and tragic events as varied as Wounded Knee, the Nez Perce War, the Sierra Madre campaign, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters, including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of officers, soldiers, and Indian agents, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud and the warriors they led. The Earth Is Weeping is a sweeping, definitive history of the battles and negotiations that destroyed the Indian way of life even as they paved the way for the emergence of the United States we know today. A Smithsonian Top History Book of 2016 A Times (UK) Book of the Year Finalist for the Western Writers of America 2017 Spur Award in Best Western Historical Nonfiction
Reclaiming the Reservation: Histories of Indian sovereignty suppressed and renewed by
In the 1970s the Quinault and Suquamish, like dozens of Indigenous nations across the United States, asserted their sovereignty by applying their laws to everyone on their reservations. This included arresting non-Indians for minor offenses, and two of those arrests triggered federal litigation that had big implications for Indian tribes' place in the American political system. Tribal governments had long sought to manage affairs in their territories, and their bid for all-inclusive reservation jurisdiction was an important, bold move, driven by deeply rooted local histories as well as pan-Indian activism. They believed federal law supported their case. In a 1978 decision that reverberated across Indian country and beyond, the Supreme Court struck a blow to their efforts by ruling in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe that non-Indians were not subject to tribal prosecution for criminal offenses. The court cited two centuries of US legal history to justify their decision but relied solely on the interpretations of non-Indians. In Reclaiming the Reservation, Alexandra Harmon delves into Quinault, Suquamish, and pan-tribal histories to illuminate the roots of Indians' claim of regulatory power in their reserved homelands. She considers the promises and perils of relying on the US legal system to address the damage caused by colonial dispossession. She also shows how tribes have responded since 1978, seeking and often finding new ways to protect their interests and assert their sovereignty.
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the present by
FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named a best book of 2019 by The New York Times, TIME, The Washington Post, NPR, Hudson Booksellers, The New York Public Library, The Dallas Morning News, and Library Journal. "Chapter after chapter, it's like one shattered myth after another." - NPR "An informed, moving and kaleidoscopic portrait... Treuer's powerful book suggests the need for soul-searching about the meanings of American history and the stories we tell ourselves about this nation's past.." - New York Times Book Review, front page A sweeping history--and counter-narrative--of Native American life from the Wounded Knee massacre to the present. The received idea of Native American history--as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee--has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U. S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well. Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear--and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence--the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention. In The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes' distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don't know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.
Métis in Canada by
These twelve essays constitute a groundbreaking volume of new work prepared by leading scholars in the fields of history, anthropology, constitutional law, political science, and sociology, who identify the many facets of what it means to be Métis in Canada today. After the Powley decision in 2003, Métis peoples were no longer conceptually limited to the historical boundaries of the fur trade in Canada. Key ideas explored in this collection include identity, rights, and issues of governance, politics, and economics. The book will be of great interest to scholars in political science and Indigenous studies, the legal community, public administrators, government policy advisors, and people seeking to better understand the Métis past and present. Contributors: Christopher Adams, Gloria Jane Bell, Glen Campbell, Gregg Dahl, Janique Dubois, Tom Flanagan, Liam J. Haggarty, Laura-Lee Kearns, Darren O'Toole, Jeremy Patzer, Ian Peach, Siomonn P. Pulla, Kelly L. Saunders.
Reclaiming Indigenous Governance by
Reclaiming Indigenous Governance examines the efforts of Indigenous peoples in four important countries to reclaim their right to self-govern. Showcasing Native nations, this timely book presents diverse perspectives of both practitioners and researchers involved in Indigenous governance in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States (the CANZUS states). Indigenous governance is dynamic, an ongoing relationship between Indigenous peoples and settler-states. The relationship may be vigorously contested, but it is often fragile--one that ebbs and flows, where hard-won gains can be swiftly lost by the policy reversals of central governments. The legacy of colonial relationships continues to limit advances in self-government. Yet Indigenous peoples in the CANZUS countries are no strangers to setbacks, and their growing movement provides ample evidence of resilience, resourcefulness, and determination to take back control of their own destiny. Demonstrating the struggles and achievements of Indigenous peoples, the chapter authors draw on the wisdom of Indigenous leaders and others involved in rebuilding institutions for governance, strategic issues, and managing lands and resources. This volume brings together the experiences, reflections, and insights of practitioners confronting the challenges of governing, as well as researchers seeking to learn what Indigenous governing involves in these contexts. Three things emerge: the enormity of the Indigenous governance task, the creative agency of Indigenous peoples determined to pursue their own objectives, and the diverse paths they choose to reach their goal.
Indigenous Peoples, National Parks, and Protected Areas by
A vast number of national parks and protected areas throughout the world have been established in the customary territories of Indigenous peoples. In many cases these conservation areas have displaced Indigenous peoples, undermining their cultures, livelihoods, and self-governance, while squandering opportunities to benefit from their knowledge, values, and practices. This book makes the case for a paradigm shift in conservation from exclusionary, uninhabited national parks and wilderness areas to new kinds of protected areas that recognize Indigenous peoples' conservation contributions and rights. It documents the beginnings of such a paradigm shift and issues a clarion call for transforming conservation in ways that could enhance the effectiveness of protected areas and benefit Indigenous peoples in and near tens of thousands of protected areas worldwide. Indigenous Peoples, National Parks, and Protected Areas integrates wide-ranging, multidisciplinary intellectual perspectives with detailed analyses of new kinds of protected areas in diverse parts of the world. Eleven geographers and anthropologists contribute nine substantive fieldwork-based case studies. Their contributions offer insights into experience with new conservation approaches in an array of countries, including Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, South Africa, and the United States. This book breaks new ground with its in-depth exploration of changes in conservation policies and practices--and their profound ramifications for Indigenous peoples, protected areas, and social reconciliation.
