The Elusive Promise Of Indigenous Development : Rights, Culture, Strategy

Barker, J. (2008). Gender, Sovereignty, Rights: Native Women's Activism against Social Inequality and Violence in Canada. American Quarterly, 60(2), 8. Retrieved fro m http://search.Proquest.com.Ez proxy.library.yorku.ca/docview/61688929?Acc ountid=15182.

“Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life across the Borders of Settler States” recounts the situation of indigenous peoples living in their original lands, but refusing to accept “gifts” of state citizen and cultural recognition, as it’s not good for them. The author specifically addresses the situation of the Mohawk peoples who require self-autonomy and their own government as oppose to belonging to a sovereign state such as the United States or Canada.

“He asked me how far I was willing to go. I said, ‘Six feet under.’ And I think that’s what’s going to happen. It’s going to be a death feast,” says an activist from Alanis Obomsawin’s riveting documentary entitled Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance. Indigenous political activism, in any setting, is a struggle against death—the death of a culture, the death of a language, and most insidious of all, the death of resistance. These ‘deaths’, in the political and institutional context

The rights and freedoms of Aboriginal people have changed significantly during the 20th century after facing many years of neglect and inequalities. In that time, change in indigenous rights and freedoms was brought about as a result of government policies, political activism and legal changes.

“However, Aboriginal people still struggle for more than words on paper. They require the enactment of visible justice, where aboriginal people have a pride of place and heritage that can be shared as well as respected.” (king, 2010, p.216).

This rhetorical analysis will define the ethos and pathos in “Allowing the Mind to Wander” by Carole Giangrande. The importance of this article rests on an emotional plea, which provides the reader with a call for justice to the plight of indigenous people in Canadian society. This rhetorical device is part of the pathos of Giangrande’s (1990) article that evokes sadness and pity in the way that white Canadian society has alienated and marginalized the First Peoples. More so, the ethos of the article reveals the problem of an apathetic society that has lost the spirit of the 1960s Civil Rights era, which is desperately needed in the 21st century. The loss of cultural respect for the First Peoples reveals the problem of a white hegemonic society as part of a modern trend in political activism. Giangrande (1990) presents these rhetorical devices to show the loss of moral and civic activism to defend the indigenous peoples of Canada. In essence, this rhetorical analysis will define the importance of pathos and ethos in “Allowing the Mind to Wander” by Carole Giangrande.

The First Nations people of Canada have a long list of treaty rights, as well as many undefined aboriginal rights, from their right to hunt and fish on their land to housing and annuities. However, it’s not all gift-giving and sunshine; while the government of Canada is supposed to respect their rights to hunt on their land and the right to hold title to their land, there are many disputes such as the Ron Sparrow case and the Oka Crisis that show that the Aboriginal peoples’ inherent rights are not always respected, with cases such as that of Don Marshall that show that the government might not exactly be on the First Nation’s side.

Joffe, P., Hartley, J., & Preston, J. (2010). Realizing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Triumph, hope, and action. Saskatoon: Purich Pub.

When looking at activism and social change within indigenous communities I think many non-indigenous individuals often forget what the most important aspect is that these indigenous people are fighting for. Within educational institutions we learn about the ways that indigenous communities are oppressed and marginalized and have been for many years. However, In Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang’s article, Decolonization is not a metaphor they take a very different approach in order to help the reader recognize that decolonization does not take place without being able to give indigenous individuals their land back. As we are often taught that decolonization can refer to social justice means it is usually unclear as to the ways in which this process begins. Decolonization is not merely educating awareness but having

Before we analyse the data of the health indicators and data in Aboriginal communities, we must recognise the sheer diversity of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada - who are so dispersed across the nation. This this severely limits our interpretation of data on Aboriginal communities as, there is little data on Aboriginal people who do not live on Aboriginal reservations in Canada (Cardwell and Wilson: 2005). Furthermore, the data that is often used in empirical studies of indigenous communities often condense complex data – making it exceptionally difficult to paint an accurate picture of disparities in the Aboriginal population of Canada. Health disparities are the indicators of a disproportionate burden of disease on a particular population. Whereas, health inequities point to the underlying causes of the disparities - which are related to social, economic, cultural, and political inequities (Adelson, 2005: 45). For example, the urban non-Aboriginal population in Canada has a higher level of education and income than the aboriginal population (Cardwell and Wilson: 2012). This is inherently important for improving the health of Aboriginal communities. As, Canada’s indigenous population are often recognised as some of the most disadvantaged and impoverished people in Canada, particularly when compared to the non-Aboriginal people.

Since the beginning of colonization, indigenous people of Canada have been repressed in many ways by the Westerners. Aboriginal women have been having a really hard time, being not only aboriginal, but also women in a male-dominated society where women are seen as secondary and don’t have all the rights and privileges that men have. We will focus here on the legal discrimination against indigenous women in Canada that came with the Indian Act of 1876 and the amendment of 1985, how those two events influenced women. We will first study why indigenous women have been more discriminated than indigenous men, then how the Indian Act reinforced this inequity. Then we will see how the 1985 amendment came to be, a century later and what are the consequences of legal discrimination for indigenous women in Canada. We will conclude that, in a context of discrimination against natives with colonization, the Indian Act made legal injustices in detriment of indigenous women, and that after years of favouritism against them they finally gained a bit of justice through the amendment of 1985.

In this paper, I chose Toward the 8th fire: The view from Oshkimaadziig Unity Camp by Karl Gardner and Richard Peters (Giibwanisi), Speaking truth to power: Indigenous storytelling as an act of living resistance by Aman Sium and Eric Ritskes and Refusal to forgive: Indigenous women’s love and rage by Rachel Flowers, as the academic papers to use in this assignment. The similarities, differences and whether I agree with these articles will be discussed in this paper. My response to how Canada should decolonized will be discussed as well.

Over the past years, Canadian courts have repeatedly urged that aboriginal title conflicts should be resolved through negotiation, rather than litigation. The primary reason being that litigation is costly and time-consuming. For example, the decision for the Delgamuukw case took a duration of thirteen years. Furthermore, litigations that deal with the issue of aboriginal rights and title are “generally narrowly focused” and “ultimately leaves the question [posed about] how aboriginal rights and title apply unwarned.” For instance, the courts of Canada repeatedly failed to come up with a clear definition on the legal scope of Aboriginal rights despite the fact that they have several opportunities to do so. The Delgamuuku case clearly illustrates this when the Court “did not define how aboriginal title applied for the First Nations involved.” Instead, the Court came to the conclusion that a new trial was required, which ultimately will be more expensive and take longer.

According to the Cornell University Law School’s ‘Legal Information Institute’, self-determination ‘denotes the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order’. As a major concept of international law, self-determination gives people the right to control their own fates under certain fundamental criteria, and can be claimed by a minority that bases its lifestyle on an ethnic identity that is distinguishable from regular society, with a strong desire for cultural preservation. It has been considered to be a framework with the ability to guide legislative reforms within Australia, with an underlying ‘rights- based’ approach to Indigenous Issues. Self-determination is considered to be an important aspect of the legal system in regards to Indigenous Peoples, as it provides them a process of choice, to guarantee the practice of Indigenous social, cultural and economic needs.

Each individual makes up the society as it is, and various characteristics and beliefs makes up an individual. Although, individual lives together with a variety of personal ideologies, emotions, cultures, and rituals, they all differentiate one person from the other making up one’s own identity. This identity makes up who one is inside and out, their behaviour, actions, and words comes from their own practices and values. However, the profound history of Indigenous people raises question in the present about their identities. Who are they really? Do we as the non-native people judge them from the outside or the inside? Regardless of whether the society or the government were involved in their lives, they faced discrimination in every