Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: General Anthropology Division

Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students

Primary Theme: Resilience

Secondary Theme: Persistence

(3-0925) Resilient Sovereignties: Land, Language and Resistance in Indigenous-Settler Contexts.

“Resilient Sovereignties” addresses the resilience with which Indigenous communities have exemplified in remaining sovereign polities in a variety of different ways. Reflecting institutional and sectorial divisions, separate discourses, and diverse Indigenous boundaries, "Resilient Sovereignties" brings the various strands together around questions of mistranslation and consequent cross-cultural mis-communication between: disciplines of the academy; between the academy and Indigenous communities; between legal systems and languages; and, between land-based Indigenous laws and Settler laws. The courts and other mainstream institutions increasingly acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have stories about places in their traditional territories. Nonetheless, understandings of land and identity remain mired in taken-for-granted Western assumptions. The storied nature of Indigenous identity and its identification with land must be taken more seriously when demonstrably embedded in culturally meaningful language structures that cannot be translated directly into English. Our panel considers how we might move beyond conventional disciplinary silos of linguistics, political theory, law, anthropology, health and environmental studies to create new audiences and research collaborations beyond the academy. Collaboration with Indigenous communities, especially with their leadership and traditional language speakers, enables an ongoing dialogic reassessment of where barriers to mutual understanding are located and how to move past them. We address issues of accountability to Indigenous protocols of governance and decision-making, facilitate the integration of contemporary oral traditions and pedagogies with archival and other sources, and work collaboratively to create capacity in communities. In doing so, these presentations explore the storied understandings of land and the inalienable relations of people to it that are also the essence of Indigenous laws.

Organizer(s)

• Joshua Smith

  Adjunct Research Professor
  University of Western Ontario

Chair(s)

• Joshua Smith

  Adjunct Research Professor
  University of Western Ontario

Organizer(s)

• Robert Wishart

  Lecturer
  Aberdeen

Presenter(s)

• Robert Wishart

  Lecturer
  Aberdeen

• Maureen Matthews

  Curator of Cultural Anthropology
  The Manitoba Museum

• David Posthumus

  Assistant Professor
  University of South Dakota

• Ian Puppe

  Assistant Professor
  Western University

• Clint Westman

  Associate Professor
  University of Saskatchewan

Discussant(s)

• Regna Darnell

  Distinguished University Professor Emerita, Adjunct Research Professor
  The University of Western Ontario

Presentations:

• 2:00 PM - 2:15 PM

  Inscribing the North with Idioms of Domestication: A re-investigation of some nearly forgotten arguments.
  Robert Wishart – Aberdeen
• 2:15 PM - 2:30 PM

  Mapping The Bear: A.I Hallowell’s Anthropological Legacy in Northeastern Manitoba
  Maureen Anne Matthews – The Manitoba Museum
• 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM

  Journey to “The Center of the Earth”: Exploring Traditional Lakota Conceptions of Place and Landscape
  David C. Posthumus – University of South Dakota
• 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM

  "We've been here forever!": Assertions of Algonquin Presence in Algonquin Provincial Park
  Ian Sorjo Grant Puppe – Western University
• 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

  "Our Land": Political Collectivities in Algonquian Pronouns and Possessives
  Clint Westman – University of Saskatchewan
• 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM

  Discussion
  Regna D. Darnell – The University of Western Ontario