Course Objectives:
This course critically investigates selected issues facing Indigenous peoples living in what is now called Canada. We will focus on these using, for example, a collection of anthropological concepts (e.g., identity, class, racialism, structure and agency, colonialism, and neo-colonialism etc.). Some of the areas we may study are, the role of the state and law in Indigenous lives, national imaginaries, the constitution of individual and community identities, cultural production and appropriation, pan-Aboriginality, justice, law, whiteness and white privilege, surveillance/criminalization and the effects of public policy on all these domains. If you know nothing of Indigenous peoples or Indigenous and non-indigenous relations, then this course will provide you with a base to learn more. If you already have a basic understanding of this set of relations, then this course will take you deeper into them. In the end you will have a critical idea of Indigenous life, its diversity, and an appreciation of the challenges facing Indigenous peoples.
- Teacher: Craig Proulx