This paper comes out of 2009 workshop at the Northern Governance Policy Research Conference called Research the Indigenous Way. It addresses the 22 participants’ sharing circle input on how “alternative” Indigenous research can support Indigenous governance. Specifically, this refers to an Indigenous research paradigm that does not subscribe to or perpetuate “colonial concepts of governance.” (102)

The authors point to the Mackenzie Valley pipeline challenge as a beginning of Indigenous research in the north. They go on to outline the somewhat exploitative and extractive relationship between Indigenous peoples in the north and southern Canadian scholars. While “Indigenous research” is filled with diversity, it shares a common emphasis on relationships “to the environment, the land, and the ancestors” (106). Additionally, participants talked about the role of traditional knowledge, stories and their lessons for environment and governance, suggesting “the stories in themselves are governance… it is not necessary to distil these into abstract policy governance” (112). A young participant acknowledges the difficulty of being an Indigenous researcher and learning from elders if they cannot speak their language (114). Some other defining characteristics of Indigenous research in this paper include reaching out to one’s heritage, working with an eye to continuity over time, and its need to be recognized as a credible foundation for Indigenous self-determination. (118) Furthermore, in an ideal context, Indigenous researchers will have support from non-Indigenous researchers as resource people, rather than vice versa.

Abstract:

This paper is based on experiences, views, and stories shared by the 22 participants who spoke at the Research the Indigenous Way workshop at the Northern Governance Policy Research Conference in November 2009. The paper does not address all the issues raised, but rather focuses specifically on how the workshop sheds new light on the nature of alternative Indigenous research that would support Indigenous governance. The sharing circle format of the workshop is considered as a model reflecting the research paradigm being talked about. This paradigm requires a critique of past northern “Indigenous” research that perpetuates colonial concepts of governance. Key messages from the groundbreaking work of the Traditional Knowledge Practitioners Group in 2008–2009 are combined with narratives from the workshop to provide a picture of current thinking about Indigenous research in the North, and practical considerations in applying this paradigm. Indigenous people have always been engaged in research processes as part of their ethical “responsibility to keep the land alive.”

Access this Resource:

Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health has made this article available online here. 

The full text is also available on ResearchGate.

McGregor, Deborah, Water Bayha, and Deborah Simmons. “‘Our Responsibility to Keep the Land Alive’: Voices of Northern Indigenous Researchers.” Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health 8, no. 1 (2010): 101-123.

From Abstract:

This dissertation examines the ways in which three Aboriginal communities in the Sahtu Region of the Northwest Territories are participating in decisions and activities related to non-renewable resource extraction on Sahtu lands.

Carly Dokis' dissertation was later turned into a book, Where the Rivers Meet. Read about the book and access the Google Book preview on its own item page in this catalogue.   

Access this Resource:

Read the dissertation on the Collections Canada website. 

Read the dissertation from the University of Alberta online repository. 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7939/R3H12M

Dokis, Carly A. People, Land, and Pipelines: Perspectives of Resource Decision Making Processes in the Sahtu Region, Northwest Territories. Doctoral Thesis, University of Alberta, 2010.

Slowey identifies a rhetorical trend that frames the choice between development and land claims as a choice between “capitalism or traditionalism, assimilation or fossilization (2009: 229). This false binary is antithetical to self-determination, which often requires both economic development and cultural preservation as joint efforts (gas for snowmobiles, for example). Slowey further suggests that informal connections in a community are effective mechanisms of creating pragmatic self-governance, while formal agreements are capitulations that normalize “the existing the relations of the state” (Slowey 2009: 236). Nonetheless, self-government is one step towards detachment, if not decolonization, and may be the best possible scenario until Aboriginal communities can grow autonomously.

Access this Resource:

Read Chapter 9 in the Google Book Preview below or on Google Books. 

Slowey, Gabrielle. “A Fine Balance? Aboriginal Peoples in the Canadian North and the Dilemma of Development.” In First Nations, First Thoughts: The Impact of Indigenous Thought in Canada, edited by Annis May Timpson, 229-243. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009. 

Irlbacher-Fox presents her experience with self-government negotiations in the Sahtu. She proposes the existence of a 'dysfunction theodicy,’ within which a colonial state frames a colonized community as suffering, and “shifts responsibility for suffering onto the sufferers, establishing itself through discourse and action as a necessary and legitimate interventionist agent in the lives of Indigenous people alleged to lack the capacity to recognize or alter what the state alleges to be their own suffering-inflicted actions” (107). For example, state intervention in childcare, 'substandard education,’ or 'corrupt local government’ are all manifestations of a dysfunction theodicy.

Abstract: 

Just as dahshaa - a rare type of dried, rotted spruce wood - is essential to the Dene moosehide-tanning process, self-determination and the alleviation of social suffering are necessary to Indigenous survival in the Northwest Territories. But is self-government an effective path to self-determination? Finding Dahshaa shows where self-government negotiations between Canada and the Dehcho, Deline, and Inuvialuit and Gwich'in peoples have gone wrong and offers, through descriptions of tanning practices that embody principles and values central to self-determination, an alternative model for negotiations. This accessible book, which includes a foreword by Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus, is the first ethnographic study of self-government negotiations in Canada.

Access this Resource:

Read the Google Books page 

Borrow the full text from your local or institutional library

Irlbacher-Fox, Stephanie. Finding Dahshaa: Self-Government, Social Suffering, and Aboriginal Policy in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009.

The author contends that capitalism and the ways of life it enables are antithetical to Indigenous ways of being, and that a contemporary warrior must tactically resist the negative patterns of a modern, capitalist life. Rather than joining and working within colonial systems, he advocates for restructuring both one’s personal life and society using ancestral teachings and Indigenous ways of being.

Description:

The word Wasáse is the Kanienkeha (Mohawk) word for the ancient war dance ceremony of unity, strength, and commitment to action. The author notes, "This book traces the journey of those Indigenous people who have found a way to transcend the colonial identities which are the legacy of our history and live as Onkwehonwe, original people. It is dialogue and reflection on the process of transcending colonialism in a personal and collective sense: making meaningful change in our lives and transforming society by recreating our personalities, regenerating our cultures, and surging against forces that keep us bound to our colonial past."

Access this Resource: 

Read the Google Book Preview.  

Alfred, Taiaiake. Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2005.

This document describes developing the concept of the Délı̨nę Knowledge Centre, a project which never came to fruition but was intended to be a place for the integration of Dene and scientific knowledge. It would have addressed the themes of culture, health, and environment, while providing a location and impetus for research, intergenerational knowledge transmission, and capacity building for self-government and other future projects.

Abstract: 

The Déline Knowledge Centre vision and mission were developed through three community focus groups during January 31-February 5, 2003 as well as a facilitated workshop and public meeting on February 18-20, 2003. This article provides a brief description of the Déline Knowledge Centre and its benefits to Déline, other northern communities, and all Canadians based on the planning and activities to date that have taken place primarily within our community of Déline.

Our community of Déline, “Where the River Flows,” in the Sahtu Region of the Northwest Territories, is home to approximately 650 Dene, Métis and non-Aboriginal people. It is the only human settlement on Sahtu/Great Bear Lake, the largest lake in Canada and ninth largest in the world in terms of surface area (31,326 km) and volume. Situated within the Arctic Circle, it is the largest lake in the world that is still in a relatively pristine condition, despite historical uranium mining impacts. The Sahtugot’ine have been living with the long-term impacts of the mine that operated at Port Radium on the eastern shores of Great Bear Lake. Port Radium was originally mined for radium in the 1930s and later for uranium ore, all of which was utilized in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. The mine site and surrounding area are now radioactive.

Access this Resource: 

Read this article for free on Pimatisiwin. 

Bayha, Denise, Walter Bayha, Irene Betsidea, Ken Caine, Dennis Kenny, Edith Mackeinzo, Deborah Simmons, and Marlene Tutcho. “The Délı̨nę Knowledge Centre: From Vision to Reality.” Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health 1, no. 2 (2004): 163-172.

This paper provides an overview of change in the Dene economy throughout time, and current potential for creating a sustainable economy that can support self-determination using renewable resources in the Northwest Territories.

Access this Resource:

Search inside the text on Google Books (no full preview available).

Look for the full book at a local or University library. ISBN 0070828075.

Asch, Michael. “The Economics of Dene Self-Determination.” In Challenging Anthropology: A Critical Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology, edited by D. Turner and G. Smith, 339-352. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1979.

Rushforth’s dissertation develops for the first time the crystallized ideas found in his other publications (in the collection of academic resources) written in the 1980s. It is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in the 1970s.

Access this Resource: 

Rushforth's dissertation is available from the University of Arizona: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/289691

Rushforth, Everett Scott. Kinship and social organization among the Great Bear Lake Indians: A cultural decision-making model. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona, 1977.