Increasing the diversity of voices and having a few people making small and steady changes can lead to a big movement
Last fall, students in a Native Studies course worked to improve representations of Indigenous peoples on one of the most popular websites in the world. The course, Colonialism and the Criminal Justice System, saw students create Wikipedia articles on issues that dealt with Indigenous peoples and Canada’s criminal legal system, filling some of the site’s…
New director of U of A institute sees her mission as reimagining the relationship between archeology and Indigenous histories
Métis archeologist Dr. Kisha Supernant views her mission as nothing less than a radical reimagining of her discipline. “Archeology’s history is grounded in settler colonialism – this idea that non-Indigenous people come onto the land and interpret Indigenous history by studying their material,” says the new director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Prairie and…
Reporting on the George Floyd and Colten Boushie deaths twisted the facts to meet the agendas of mainstream media
Derek Chauvin is the Minneapolis police officer who achieved international notoriety for his role in the death of George Floyd. A video showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes, as Floyd pleads that he can’t breathe, has been viewed millions of times around the globe. Floyd’s death sparked months of protests, rioting, looting…
Building viable businesses and services on First Nations is the best way to build self-respect, self-determination and self-reliance
There’s little doubt that the condition of Indigenous people is desperate in Canada, especially for those living in the 600 or so small, isolated First Nations communities. Most Canadians know some facts about the quality of lives of the people in these communities but let’s refresh our minds with a few statistics. First Nations have…
Canadian elites accepted the old-world model of political and social organization based on identification with racial groups
Columnist and author Richard Gwyn wrote that the 1950s was a time “when Canadians came to realize and believe that a ‘new nationality’ could be political rather than ethnic, or composed of values and attitudes, rather than races.” Gwyn, author of Nation Maker – Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times, a biography of Canada’s first prime…
Confronting the horrors of our past and trying to make things right isn’t an easy task but a peace comes from doing the right thing
It seems that everywhere we turn we find a new scandal, some memory from the past that haunts us. Though virtually every state and institution has something to hide, there’s something liberating in speaking the truth. While his tenure hasn’t been without controversy, many around the world have been relieved to see the openness and…
Project to develop culturally appropriate program is among 19 projects to receive funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research
A University of Alberta researcher will consult with two Indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories to co-create a culturally appropriate promotion program for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection and the main cause of cervical cancer worldwide, but it is preventable with a vaccine for females aged nine to…
Artifact found in a cave in Utah reveals precolonial connection between Canadian Subarctic and American Southwest
A piece of leather from an 800-year-old moccasin found in a Utah cave has helped researchers retrace the ancient steps of a remarkable migration that saw some Dene (Athapaskan) people leave their homes in the continent’s Subarctic and eventually create new homes scattered across the southern United States as Dineh (Navajo) and Ndee (Apache) ancestors,…
Two-spirit Indigenous nurse will share insights at upcoming Inclusive Health Conference
Pronouns are a matter of life or death for Keith King, a registered nurse who identifies as two-spirit and Métis. “When I greet a new patient I’ll say, ‘Hi, my name’s Keith, I’m a registered nurse and my pronouns are he/him. What can I do for you today?’” King said. “And that just sets the stage…
After finding few digital resources available, Delaney Lothian decided to create a game and app for learning Cree language
Delaney Lothian jumped at the chance to take an introductory Cree language course – an opportunity to expand beyond the programming languages of her computing science major at the University of Alberta. Like any 21st-century student, she turned to the internet for help. To her surprise, she found very few digital resources for Cree. “The…
Last fall, students in a Native Studies course worked to improve representations of Indigenous peoples on one of the most popular websites in the world. The course, Colonialism and the Criminal Justice System, saw students create Wikipedia articles on issues that dealt with Indigenous peoples and Canada’s criminal legal system, filling some of the site’s…
