By Daniel Sims
As a recent hire at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus, the student newspaper, The Dagligtale, interviewed me. Upon reading the printed story – and much to my surprise – I found that my home community of Tsay Keh Dene had become Tsay Keh Dane, but that it was also a reserve. The first error, I attributed to autocorrect. But since I did not refer to reserves during the interview, I was left wondering if this characterization was based on the assumption all First Nations communities in Canada are, in fact, located on reserves. The editing of interview transcripts is a laborious and complicated task, riddled with complexities, including the adoption of editorial assumptions, biases, and beliefs, which, for instance, were recently seen in an Edmonton Metro article on Rhodes scholar-elect Billy-Ray Belcourt. Inversely, it can also lead to generalizations that cast interviewees as unwitting proponents of a cause or belief. Given the large readership that online and printed media outlets offer, authors and editors harness considerable power over how they and their readers portray indigenous peoples. These generalizations about indigenous peoples in Canada must stop!
Recently, academic debates have centred around the question of whether or not Indigenous Studies courses should be required for all undergraduate students. Almost immediately, some responded against this proposal arguing their field either did not need to know about such things or that the provincially-controlled primary and secondary school systems were already doing a sufficient job at covering this material. Yet in my experience as an instructor, I have repeatedly encountered not only students, but also staff with limited to no knowledge of indigenous peoples or colonialism. These individuals are the best, I find, because they know they tend to acknowledge their knowledge gaps and are – at the very least – willing to listen, if not learn. The worst are those individuals who think they know about the topic, when in fact their knowledge is composed of generalizations. Therefore they judge everything they hear with a confirmation bias based on misinformation that hinders the education process. This is especially troubling when one considers that many of these generalizations, although cloaked as well meaning, are based on the racist belief that indigenous peoples in Canada are all the same.
“Currently there are 617” federally recognized First Nations in Canada, not including the Inuit and Métis.[1] The key word when examining this number is “recognized,” as the number does not included unrecognized First Nations that exist in Canada. Often for simplicity’s sake, these 617 are categorized according to the regional environment of their traditional territory, although – depending on whom you ask – the number and name of these regions are subject to change.[2] Moving away from political and environmental approaches, in 2011 StatsCan found that there were more than 60 indigenous languages used in Canada, (including Inuktitut and Michif), falling into 12 language families.[3] When one considers the number of federally-recognized First Nations, adds in the number of excluded First Nation communities, and factors in differences and similarities in environment and language one is left with a complex understanding of the diversity of groups and individuals that historically fell under the category of Indian (based on Indian Act legislation).
Now one might successfully argue that the number of recognized First Nations is inflated due to the divide and conquer tactics of colonialism, but this argument does not mean diversity does not exist. Yet this diversity is not always recognized in contemporary scholarship and pedagogy in Canada. Granted, the term “Indian” is no longer acceptable on anything other than a federal Status Card, but the replacements (i.e. Aboriginal, Indigenous, Native, Amerindian, First Nations) are equally problematic when they are simply used to replace the concept of ‘Indian.’ This is because the concept of ‘Indian’ suggests a lack of diversity and a false homogeneity that willfully ignores all the evidence to the contrary. It can be used, or modified with adjectives in ways that reflect this diversity, but this has not always been the case. When replaced with new terms, problems remain. As a result language perpetuates not only the lack of recognition of diversity among indigenous peoples, but also stereotypes. Continue reading
