KPE240 - Key terms

• The Constitution Act (1982) recognized the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit, as well as their Aboriginal Treaty rights
• The Indian Act (1876) established enfranchisement and legislation, controlling First Nations or Indians from birth to death, with amendments made from 1985 to 2019
• Indigenous Peoples refers to diverse populations with self-determination and sovereignty from law
• DIAND/INAC has been renamed CIRNAC/ISC (Crowned-Indigenous Relations & Northern Affairs Canada + Indigenous Services Canada)
• Status Indians is not an identity, but a racist administrative and legal category
• The Indian Act determines who is a Status Indian in order to determine fiduciary duty
• Bill c-31 and Bill c-3 were introduced because the Canadian Government needed a way to count First Nations people

Entitlement Chart Breakdown

• 6(1): Both parents are First Nations
• 6(2): One parent is First Nation
• Under 6(2), a woman marrying a non-First Nation person loses First Nation status
• Under 6(2), a man marrying a non-First Nation woman gains First Nation status

The Confederacy of the Three Fires

• A nation consisting of the Ojibway, Odawa, and Potawatomi nations
• Ojibway: Providers
• Odawa: Warriors
• Potawatomi: Firekeepers

Metis Identity

• Red River descendants with scripts, peoplehood-language-ceremonies-deep kinships
• Not originating from Métis peoples, but with imagined ancestry and not a “mixed” identity
• Eastern "metis" are mostly non-Indigenous people claiming a fabricated ancestor to signal their mixed identity

Inuit Peoples Regions

• The four distinct areas are Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Nunavik, and Nunatsiavut
• They have a different colonization experience compared to more southern regions
• Mary Simon, the Governor General of Canada, is from Nunavik
• Notable Inuit figures include Tanya Tagaq (throat singer), Hunter Tootoo (parliament), and Jordin Tootoo (NHL player)

History of Colonization

• Included residential schools, forced relocation, and disrupted ways of living.
• The slaughtering of sled dogs done by the federal government was to stop access to their territory

Seven Grandfather Teachings

• Humility, Courage, Respect, Love, Honesty, Truth, and Wisdom represented in a medicine wheel concept

• North: Winter, Elder, Sweetgrass, Bear, Fire

• West: Fall, Adult, Sage, Buffalo, Water

• East: Spring, Infant, Tobacco, Eagle, Air

• South: Summer, Youth, Cedar, Wolf, Earth

• Yellow represents the physical

• Red represents the mental

• Black represents the emotional

• White represents the spiritual

• Colonization involves formal and informal methods (behavioral, ideological, institutional, political, and economic) to maintain the exploitation of Indigenous peoples, land, and resources

• Settler Colonialism involves taking land and controlling it via colonial governments and citizens

• Settler is a critical term that denaturalizes and politicizes bringing ongoing power relations into non-indigenous people's consciousness on Indigenous land

• A settler is not a way to refer to one's self as non-Indigenous

• Settler responsibilities call attention to decentering whiteness, disrupting privilege, and enacting anti-racist relations with Indigenous peoples

• Deficit Perspectives concentrate on problems and rely on outside experts for solutions, focusing on Indigenous issues as objects, fixable, and static, and working WITH Indigenous peoples and communities

• Strengths-Based Perspectives create a space to validate the strengths to address the issue or enhance the situation

• TRC of Canada aims to establish and maintain a mutually respectful relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples

• Acknowledges past harm, leading to atonement and transformative action

• Established in 1996 to study Residential Schools

• From 2008-2015 Commissioners held truth telling events and had 94 calls to action for Indigenous health, education, sport, social inclusion of which 13 have been completed and 81 remain unfulfilled

Afrocentric Ways of Knowing

• Focus on African history, culture, and values as the foundation for understanding the world, particularly the experiences of African descendant peoples and challenges Eurocentric assumptions
• Afrocentric Concepts involve Black-led ways of being, doing, and asserting health
• Traditional Afrocentric Values include relational spirit, interdependence, fellowship, reconciliation, relationality, community friendliness, harmonious relationships, reciprocity, common good, peaceful relations, human dignity, consensus, tolerance, mutual respect
• The 7 Principles are Unity, Self-determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Co-operative Economics, Collective Purpose, Creativity, and Faith in Humankind

Intersectionality

• A conceptual framework that examines how multiple, interlocking social identities intersect to shape individuals' experiences of privilege and oppression within overlapping systems of power and discrimination

Anti-Racism

• A proactive and systemic approach to dismantle individual, institutional, and structural racism by actively advocating for policies, practices, and behaviors that promote racial equity and justice

Self-Determination

• Indigenous peoples are entitled to choose their own forms of government within existing states

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996)

• Recognizes Aboriginal rights are older than Canada itself
• Acknowledges and protects their right of self-government

UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)

• Supports Indigenous peoples to exercise their right of self-determination
• How the federal government meets legal duties for Indigenous Peoples (e.g., community governance, industry, addressing racism etc.)
• Deepen understanding and respect, creating stronger/healthier Indigenous communities, contributing to economic growth.

Structural Racism vs Systemic Racism

• Structural Racism: Societal racism that reinforces systems of housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care and criminal justice

• Systemic Racism: Structures put in place systematically and pervasively put black and indigenous people, and other POC at compounded disadvantages within society

• Decolonization challenges and dismantles colonial systems, beliefs, and practices to reclaim cultural identity and autonomy, promoting social justice and equity

• Diaspora: The voluntary or forced dispersion of a population from its original homeland across multiple geographic regions while maintaining some form of connections to their place of origin while adapting to new socio-cultural environments

• Pathologization: The act of unfairly or wrongly considering someone as a problem, especially as a medical problem that impacts all aspects of perceived deficiencies in Indigenous communities and indigenous-led research is needed to address this issue

• IDEAS: Indigeneity, Diaspora, Equity, Anti Racism, Sport

Segregation vs Integration vs Congregation

• Segregation: Processes where people are divided into groups based on “kinds of people”, supported to primarily engage with others of their group and ensures majority of resources continue to flow to groups who experience more privilege, reproduce social hierarchies, and reduce need for dominant social structures to shift

• Integration: To “include” those on margins, within pre-existing majority-oriented spaces without renegotiation of the now-shared space, rules, and resources

• Congregation: The choice to interact with others based on shared, self-determined identities where policing of outside borders of the space is minimized

• White Fragility: The many ways which white people express defensiveness, anger or shame when confronted with uncomfortable conversations about racism, microaggression and discrimination that works to reinforce racism by putting emphasis on taking care of hurt feelings rather than the racist act