Aboriginal/Indigenous Studies Resources: Books

In Otter's Journey, Borrows makes use of the Anishinaabe tradition of storytelling to explore how the work in Indigenous language revitalization can inform the emerging field of Indigenous legal revitalization.

Beginning Cree acts as a self-study aid--a much-needed resource in today's world where most students cannot speak Cree fluently.

This book offers detailed empirical coverage of the syntax and semantics of Plains Cree, an Algonquian language of western Canada.

From Griffin Poetry Prize winner Jordan Abel comes a groundbreaking and emotionally devastating autobiographical meditation on the complicated legacies that Canada's reservation school system has cast on his grandparents', his parents' and his own generation.

Confronting the truths of Canada's Indian Residential School system has been likened to waking a sleeping giant. In this book, David B. MacDonald uses genocide as an analytical tool to better understand Canada's past and present relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples.

An essential key to understanding the legacy of Indian residential and day schools, this text is both a documentation of history and a deeply personal story of a human experience.

Making and Breaking Settler Space explores how settler spaces have developed and diversified from contact to the present. Adam Barker traces the trajectory of settler colonialism, drawing out details of its operation that are embedded not only in imperialism but also in contemporary contexts that include problematic activist practices by would-be settler allies.

Kara Granzow demonstrates that mechanisms such as the law, medicine, and control of land and space have been used to entrench violence against Indigenous people in the social construction of Canadian nationhood.

Tanya Talaga explores the alarming rise of youth suicide in Indigenous communities in Canada and beyond. From Northern Ontario to Nunavut, Norway, Brazil, Australia, and the United States, the Indigenous experience in colonized nations is startlingly similar and deeply disturbing.

By bringing to light the truth of Canada's colonial past, the book demonstrates that the overrepresentation of Aboriginal peoples in the Canadian criminal justice system is not an Indian problem but a colonial one.

Exposing the government chicanery at the heart of the negotiations, No Surrender demonstrates that the land remains Indigenous.

This is a study of the problems First Nations have faced since Confederation. The 17 chapters cover the definition of 'Indians,' survey of history, myths, sovereignty, treaties, reserves, the Indian Act, governance, residential schools, incarceration rates, welfare, murdered and missing women, infrastructure, education and health, consultations, land claims, and political correctness.

While the authors address a range of topics, each does so in a way that sheds light on how Indigenous practices of law and governance support the social and economic development of Indigenous peoples.

This book paints a different international picture, testifying to Indigenous peoples as agents of governance innovation and successful developers in their own right, telling stories in their words, from their own experiences and countries. From Indigenous voices, we hear alternative concepts and measures of effectiveness, legitimacy, success and sustainability.

Rather than reproducing settler narratives of Indigenous 'deficiency', we approach Indigenous social media as a space of Indigenous action, production, and creativity; we see Indigenous social media users as powerful agents, who interact with and shape their immediate worlds with skill, flair and nous; and instead of being 'a people of the past', we show that Indigenous digital life is often future-orientated, working towards building better relations, communities and worlds.

Inalienable Properties explores contrasting approaches to property rights by four Indigenous communities to illustrate how inalienability - restrictions on the ability to buy and sell land - is linked to community leadership and decision-making structures that have long-lasting consequences for communities.

At a time when the Métis are becoming increasingly visible in Canadian politics, this unique book offers a practical guide for understanding who they are and the challenges they face on the path to self-government.

Indigenous Peoples Rise Up: The Global Ascendency of Social Media Activism illustrates the impact of social media in expanding the nature of Indigenous communities and social movements.

A wide-ranging, multidisciplinary look at Native American literature through non-narrative texts like lists, albums, recipes, and scrapbooks

By defining Indigenous Knowledge online in terms of "digital bundles," Jennifer Wemigwans elevates both cultural protocol and cultural responsibilities, grounds online projects within Indigenous philosophical paradigms, and highlights new possibilities for both the Internet and Indigenous communities.

This exhibition catalogue introduces historic photographs of Indigenous peoples of Western Canada from a collection housed at the University of Alberta's Bruce Peel Special Collections

"Disguised by a veil of racism and conspiracy, the brutal slaying of Helen Betty Osborne wen unsolved for nearly sixteen years. The murder, known as The Pas case after the Manitoba town in which it occurred, shocked the nation and has had reverberations throughout the judicial system.

In this taut, chilling narrative, the awful truth behind the notorious, headline-making case and cover-up at last comes to light. Reporter Lis Priest, who covered the story for the Winnipeg Free Press, traces the case from the events of November 13, 1971 through to the conviction of Dwayne Johnston more than a decade later. Her riveting account includes exclusive conversations with the convicted man, the victim's family, and the townspeople who, for so long, refused to talk." -- back cover

"Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future" looks to both the past and the future as it examines the foundational work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and the legacy of its 1996 report. It assesses the Commission's influence on subsequent milestones in Indigenous-Canada relations and considers our prospects for a constructive future.

An all-embracing exploration of the struggle over land, To Share, Not Surrender advances the urgent task of reconciliation in Canada.

Reconciling Truths explores the role and implications of public inquiries, particularly their limits and possibilities in an era of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

Decolonizing "Prehistory" combines a critical investigation of the documentation of the American deep past with perspectives from Indigenous traditional knowledges and attention to ongoing systems of intellectual colonialism.

Written primarily by current Royal Society of Canada members, these essays explore the historical contribution of the RSC and of Canadian scholars to the production of ideas and policies that shored up white settler privilege, underpinning the disastrous interaction between Indigenous peoples and white settlers.

Reclaiming Indigenous Research in Higher Education highlights the current scholarship emerging from these scholars of higher education. From understanding how Native American students make their way through school, to tracking tribal college and university transfer students, this book allows Native scholars to take center stage, and shines the light squarely on those least represented among us.

Through close examination of core concepts in reconciliation theory - acknowledgement, apology, redress, and forgiveness - this study exposes the deeply embedded colonial ideologies at the root of reconciliation in Canada.

Expressed with quiet but firm resolve, humour, and piercing intellect, The Reconciliation Manifesto is for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who are willing to look at the real problems and find real solutions.

The name "Donald Marshall Jr." is synonymous with "wrongful conviction" and the fight for Indigenous rights in Canada. In Truth and Conviction, Jane McMillan - Marshall's former partner, an acclaimed anthropologist, and an original defendant in the Supreme Court's Marshall decision - tells the story of how Marshall's life-long battle against injustice permeated Canadian legal consciousness and revitalized Indigenous law.

Tracing settler efforts to dispossess the Kahnawà:ke, The Laws and the Land emphasizes the violent ways settler law clashed with Indigenous law during a series of asymmetrical bouts over land use.

A follow-up to Claiming Anishinaabe, Gehl v Canada is the story of Lynn Gehl's lifelong journey of survival against the nation-state's constant genocidal assault against her existence.

Using this treaty as a pivotal case study, Carole Blackburn analyzes treaty making as a way to address historical injustice and to achieve contemporary legal recognition, and explores the possibilities for a distinct Indigenous citizenship in a settler state.

A collection of stories about culture, history, and nationhood as told by Métis women.

A rare, documented account of the life of a Crow medicine woman, drawn from interviews conducted by legendary writer and ethnographer Frank Bird Linderman and told in her own words.

In presenting a Cree woman's view of her world, the texts in this volume directly reflect the spoken word: Sarah Whitecalf's memoirs are here printed in Cree exactly as she recorded them, with a close English translation on the facing page. They constitute an autobiography of great personal authority and rare authenticity.

Breaking new ground in both historical narratives and community-guided research in North America, Daughters of Aataentsic offers an alternative narrative by considering the ways in which individual women resisted colonialism, preserved their culture, and acted as matriarchs.

In Keetsahnak / Our Murdered and Missing Indigenous Sisters, the tension between personal, political, and public action is brought home starkly as the contributors look at the roots of violence and how it diminishes life for all. Together, they create a model for anti-violence work from an Indigenous perspective.

This controversial work, previously available only in French, conclusively demonstrates that a Métis community emerged in early-nineteenth-century Quebec and can be traced all the way to today.

In A People and a Nation, the authors, most of whom are Métis, offer readers a set of lenses through which to consider the complexity of historical and contemporary Métis nationhood and peoplehood.

Using a methodology rooted in an Indigenous worldview, Fiola interviews eighteen people with Métis ancestry or a historic familial connection to the Red River Métis who participate in Anishinaabe ceremonies, sharing stories about family history, self-identification, and their relationships with Aboriginal and Eurocanadian cultures and spiritualities.

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.

Seven Cree women share memories about their lives and the history of their people, and provide insights into the traditional teachings of a society where practical and spiritual matters are never far apart.

First published in 1980 by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, this study presents narratives from different genres of Rock Cree oral literature in northwestern Manitoba together with interpretive and comparative commentary.

This unique book examines these challenging concepts through the knowledge and stories of Inuit elders and evokes a unique experience whereby Western knowledge--embedded in the participating scholars--works to describe and understand Inuit knowledge and models of traditional law.

Since the 1970s, Louis Bird, a distinguished Aboriginal storyteller and historian, has been recording the stories and memories of Omushkego (Swampy Cree) communities along western Hudson and James Bays.

A valuable treasury of traditional stories from the Sweet Grass Cree, this collection provides insights into the language, culture, and sacred teachings of some of North America's First Nations.