So I had coffee with a colleague of mine yesterday who does excellent work in ec dev and a range of other areas and is also a PhD student at UVic in Political Science. We had a great conversation as his project is on urban Aboriginal governance, although he’s specifically working in BC. We had a deep discussion about terminology and using Aboriginal or Indigenous. I’m currently contemplating this within my own research project.
I’m currently using the term Aboriginal as my research is meant to encompass First Nations (Status and Non-Status), Metis, and Inuit. The word itself carries a lot of baggage becasue in the community most people don’t like the word due to its association with government and its pan-Indian approach. I use this footnote in my research proposal:
The term Aboriginal is used as a category that includes First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, as specified in section 35.2 of the Constitution Act, 1982. Although useful in that it encompasses the three constitutionally recognized cultural groups within the Indian Act, it is a government-created term that is problematic in that it homogenizes the three distinct cultural groups. In my research, I seek to explore the urban experience of these three groups in Ottawa as well as Non-Status Indians and those of mixed Aboriginal heritage. Although the term Aboriginal is problematic, I employ it for ease of reference and to have an inclusive approach to the research.
Most First Nations, Metis, or Inuit people prefer to use their specific group name. I use it in my research so that it is clear that I seek to study these three groups together although it’s not my preference either. Otherwise I would be writing First Nations, Metis, or Inuit throughout the entire dissertation. However, I don’t particularly like the term myself, although I want to study these three groups together as they do make up the Aboriginal — First Nations, Metis and Inuit — community in Ottawa. Also, I think these distinctions have come about largely due to the Indian Actand in many urban Aboriginal communities those distinction aren’t often used. The urban Aboriginal community in Vancouver is an example of this, which was my experience when I lived and worked there for 7 years. In my opinion the distinctions between these groups seems much more prevalent in Ottawa compared to Vancouver. I think this is likely due to government funding structures and programming, and the presence of the national Aboriginal organizations which seperately represent these groups. My committee has encouraged me to focus on First Nations and Metis, or just First Nations (Status and Non-Status), so I am also considering this although I feel like I will then be buying into the distinctions that I am trying to work around. It was also brought up that the Inuit experience is so different from the others that I should focus on First Nations and Metis.
So because of these considerations I have been considering changing the terminology within my reserach to urban Indigenous. This also provides it’s own set of complications as it’s a term used internationally for Indigenous populations and I am unclear if this term resonates with Metis? I am interested though in including in my literature review a short background on the increasing urban Indigenous population in the developed world and more post-colonial literature. I think this would work better though if my fieldsite weren’t specific to Ottawa. I’m currently considering all of these issues but for the time being I am moving forward with interviewing all three groups.
In our UAPS analysis, we found that Inuit are much more pro-active in maintaining ties to their home communities, to move home, to value living in a traditional way, to foster their language and identity while they live in the city, in comparison to Metis and First Nations responses. We found little difference between the experiences and values between Metis and First Nations overall, albeit some few differences here and there, but nothing significant between those two. When we asked people if they were proud to be First Nations/Metis/Inuit (however they identify), about 8 in ten said very proud of being so. When asked if they were proud to be ‘Aboriginal’, we have an average of 7-8 in ten saying they are very proud to be considered ‘Aboriginal’. And there are significant city differences, with Vancouver and Toronto having the lowest rates, but cities in the prairies having higher rates of pride in being ‘Aboriginal’. And finally, we asked if they were proud to be considered ‘Canadian’, again it was between 7 in ten saying they were very proud to be so, with rates varying between the cities. Metis were a bit less inclined to say they were proud of being “Aboriginal”, and a bit higher rates of First Nations saying they were proud of being “Aboriginal. There was hardly a difference when looking at those who were very proud to be Aboriginal and those who were not and the incidence to whether or not they felt that they belonged to a mostly First Nations/Metis/Inuit/Aboriginal community in the city and had mostly First Nations/Metis/Inuit/Aboriginal friends. Those who felt that their ‘community’ was mostly Aboriginal/Indigenous/etc were just as likely to say they were very proud to be considered Aboriginal as those who rejected the term outright.It is those city differences on the issue of “Aboriginal” that makes a big difference.And this brought up a memory from my days of working with young people in reserves throughout BC. I was using the terms “indigenous” and “native” and “First Nations”, because at that point I personally disliked the term “Aboriginal”. Those kids told me, with an eye roll, that I should be saying “Aboriginal” and said this to me in a “I can’t believe you don’t know this, and once again youth show up the adults again whose the smartest in the room” tone and attitude. It was hilarious! They schooled me. After that I realized after a few more experiences like that, that it is us so called(!) smart indians that find this to be an issue. But even asking my family members, whom aren’t political, and without a degree, or history in advocacy, very average family oriented people, and they along with the youth I worked with, really don’t care less. To them, it is a non-issue. Apparently, some of us, including me, are being left behind as more and more of our people just accept the term Aboriginal, have for some time, and move onto other, more important issues of maintaining culture and identity. And so the struggle is, when do we stop sounding like we are trying to educate everyone with our smartness? On what is right and what is wrong, and why. It rubs people the wrong way. Because while I would be one of the very few, the minority to say I am not proud to be “aboriginal”, the significant majority actually are. *Except for those in Vancouver and Toronto. Oh the lessons I continue to receive from the youth, and from good research.
Ginger, that’s a really good point that as researchers we often overanalyze and overthink these issues. I think my aversion to the term came from my time in the social justice community in BC as an advocate. Perhaps you’re right that the average person in the community doesn’t have a problem with it. Although I have heard community people say the same thing that’s was more n the on-reserve context. It makes me wonder how we can actually align the community perspectives with government, academic and in particular in our writing. As when we are writing about these topics there is some permanence to the written word. Writing it down brings more attention to the implication within the words or concepts. I’m still contemplating a switch to Indigenous but this is also to change the scope of the project to explore these issues as a global phenomenon of indigenous urbanization. Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network