Indigenous Families Chapter 12 PDF

Indigenous Families C H A P T E R 1 2 BY VA N E S S A WAT T S Indigenous Indigenous families in Canada have a long and unique history that is Families characterized by colonization, cultural genocide, and oppression Indigenous peoples have not alway...

Indigenous Families C H A P T E R 1 2 BY VA N E S S A WAT T S Indigenous Indigenous families in Canada have a long and unique history that is Families characterized by colonization, cultural genocide, and oppression Indigenous peoples have not always had the right to live in a family context of their own choosing, as reflected in previous and ongoing government laws and discourses The legacy and harms of the Residential School experience continue to influence family lives and have been passed from generation to generation Despite different historical legacies and cultural traditions, there are similarities and differences between, and with, contemporary Indigenous and non- Indigenous families Slow but important and promising progress has been made toward improving the well-being and family life trajectories of Indigenous families in this country Indigenous Families Argument: Aboriginal policy has attempted to deculturate and re-mean through cultural genocide practices and impose new values/cultural characteristics such as gender roles and family structures within Indigenous societies. This was carried out, and continues, through the Indian Act, residential schools, in jurisdictional matters, child welfare, and matrimonial property laws. Gender Identities and Family: How are Victorian-era Western notions of gender and the family different from Indigenous ones? Public-Private spheres, men/women and nation building, women’s place and valuation, inheritance, property and matrimonial laws Indigenous women and their societies- the Haudenosaunee Valuation in reproduction- mothering as a political act Relationship to the land Indigenous How do you describe the powerful Families role of mother and the position of women in Indigenous families? Explain Figure 12: Family systems How did Indigenous family structures within Anishinaabeg societies –the operate pre-contact? 4 components Why did colonial policies attack The end result was “the person is set women’s position and the family in adrift” – Explain? its assimilation efforts? Explain what Watts means by “the fur trade is a prime example of how Indigenous notions of gender and family were recognized in Indigenous-European relations before losing their importance” Contact and the fur trade: But eventually Indigenous gender roles and family relationships were transformed into a commodity, Explain?  Treaties and the Indian Act: What was the reason for the treaty process? Indigenou s Families What were the results for Indigenous peoples? The Indian Act: Gender and families- Dictates almost every aspect of “Indian” life – administered by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada Regulation of land set aside in treaty Spiritual practices Resources goverance Gender and families agreements Indigenous Families Gender discrimination embedded in the Indian Act: Indigenous women enfranchised as a Canadian citizen but disenfranchised as an Indian under the act – how? What happened to an Indigenous woman if she married a non-Indigenous person or a non-status Indian? (Figure 12.2) Challenges to this discrimination = Jeannette Corbiere Lavell (1971), Yvonne Bedard, Sandra Lovelace (1974) Bill C-31 An Act to Amend the Indian Act in 1985 – the result in Figure 12.3 But discrimination persists – Figure 12.3 Finally, Bill C-3 2010 – Gender Equity in the Indian Registration Act Why would Indigenous people seek to gain recognition under a discriminatory, race-based act?  Residential Schools: to “kill the Indian Indigenous in the child” How many, timeframe, how many Families children were taken from their families? The purpose of the residential school system? The “Indian problem” was a lack of whiteness What happened to the children? Who was Chanie Wenjack? The induced malnourishment experiment? (similar to the US public health service syphilis study at Tuskeegee (Alabama in 1932) How could we have let this happen? Why did we not know about this long before now? The settlement?  Jurisdiction: Indigenous Families These matters on-reserve are complex and fraught with human rights implications, and chronic underfunding Land = federal fiduciary responsibility Health care, education, labor, and housing are shared federal and provincial responsibilities but little agreement on who is responsible for what 3 jurisdictional issues that arise dealing with family relations: Child welfare Access to health services on- reserve Matrimonial real property Indigenous Families Child Welfare: the Sixties Scoop- Under the Indian Act (1951), child and family services were off- loaded to provinces After the residential schools closed, now where do the Indigenous children in need go? What is the Sixties Scoop? How many Indigenous children were fostered out? Result for children, families? Child Welfare: The Millennium Scoop- Despite Indigenous children representing only 7% of the child population in Canada, why do they represent 48% of the children in care nationally? What are the differences between the sixties scoop and the millennium scoop? First Nations Agency to look after child welfare – intergenerational impacts from the residential school system, children alienated from their culture, heritage and communities Child neglect from not knowing how to parent Skip-Generation Families Indigenous Families What is Jordan’s Principle? Child Welfare: Canadian (2007) Human Rights Tribunal: In 2007, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Findings in 2016-chronic Society and the Assembly of underfunding, lack of Finally in July 2024, the gov’t First Nations files a complaint prevention services and little reached an agreement in against the Canadian gov’t to culturally meaningful and principle to compensate First the Canadian Human rights relevant child welfare Nations peoples with $23.3 Tribunal (CHRT) citing practices, implement the full Billion discrimination for on reserve meaning of Jordan’s Principle child welfare Indigenous Families Indigenous Families: A Global Matrimonial Real Property: View- In the event of marital or family Canada adopts the United Nations breakdown, Indigenous families and Declaration on the Rights of their interests are not protected, Indigenous Peoples in 2016 Why? The goals of the UNDRIP What are some examples of the The rights of Indigenous families family events/disputes where are…? equitable access to family assets What did UN Special Rapporteur are denied? James Anaya (2014), say about What can the First Nations law- Canada’s treatment of Indigenous making authority do? families? His recommendations? Indigenous Families COVID-19: A Right to Health- What did the pandemic expose about the health disparities Indigenous peoples continue to face? “A collective experience of colonialism underlies the every day structural injustices and racialized violence endured by Indigenous peoples, COVID-19 added yet another layer of complexity”. Conclusion: the path forward Federal and provincial gov’ts have continuously resisted, and continue to do so, righting the wrongs of colonialism The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action to address current injustices and appeals to all Canadians to share the burden of righting the wrongs of the past, to decolonize