Meeting the challenges

The IPG project has received a $2.5 million grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to formulate models for indigenous governance that combine the best of modern knowledge with ancient traditions. The IPG is Canada’s largest group of researchers in indigenous law and is collaborating with other researchers in the fields of constitutional law, economics, anthropology, philosophy and political science, as well as with numerous indigenous groups in Canada.

Composed of 40 researchers from 21 Canadian universities, the research team is working with nine indigenous associations to propose models for indigenous governance and relations between sovereign peoples. Together, they will be studying the unique features of indigenous governance in a Canadian context.

The project, in summary

The IPG team is composed of 39 indigenous and non-indigenous researchers (33 co-researchers and 6 collaborators) from 21 different university groups. It is the largest team of its kind in Canada. Professor Pierre Noreau, director of the Centre de recherche en droit public (CRDP) at Université de Montréal heads the project. Professor Noreau is highly regarded in a number of interdisciplinary fields. The CRDP, which is supported by the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC), is itself the largest research centre in its field in Canada, with 14 regular researchers, 31 associate-researchers and close to 25 Canadian and international collaborators. About 100 students study and work at the Centre every year under the supervision of the Centre’s regular researchers. Professor Noreau is also coordinator of the Regroupement stratégique Droit et changements, which receives financial support and institutional collaboration from Université de Montréal, McGill University and Université Laval. The CRDP is linked to a collaborative network that includes more than 15 international research centres. Professor Noreau directs several research teams funded by a variety of sources. His success in organizing collaborative scientific research is demonstrated by the variety of research projects he has directed throughout his career. In addition to his own work and many publications, he has headed a number of collaborative publications in fields related to research in Law including Political Science, Sociology and Criminology. CRDP’s considerable expertise handling major funding and research programs will ensure effective project management. Professor Noreau’s expertise as a senior researcher in Law, Political Science and Sociology will also encourage multidisciplinary cooperation among the researchers.

A project of this scope can only be successfully carried out by clearly assessing existing contemporary research and the nature of the team. A team of this size requires close guidance, both in scientific and administrative terms. This is achievable, given that many of the team members worked collaboratively on an earlier project. The Indigenous Peoples and Governance project comes out of a Quebec research program funded by Valorisation-Recherche Québec. Sixteen of the researchers on the current team worked on that first project, from 2002 – 2006. The current project, which has SSHRC funding, involves more researchers (39), but also benefits from established practices and research collaborations that form the basis of this Canada-wide project being carried out under the Major Collaborative Research Initiatives (MCRI) program.

In scientific terms, the team’s cohesiveness is also aided by the identification of three main areas of research, or domains. In a collaborative process, however, this means that extensive communication and exchange is required. The project therefore calls for an annual one-on-one meeting with researchers, two meetings within each research domain and one meeting of all team members. Exchanges also take the form of ongoing and systematic discussions of texts between team members, within each research domain and between domains. The team has access to a shared Internet network and a website that is open to the national and international scientific community, to project partners, to parties involved in indigenous issues and to the general public. There is a regular electronic newsletter and the use of videoconferencing, teleconferencing and chat functions make it possible for researchers to remain in regular contact. This also makes it easier to organize the scheduled meetings for working groups and domains. The project will also issue publications to share research results and ongoing discussion of research orientations.

Introducing an Ally

Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL)

The AFNQL was formed in May 1985 and holds meetings of the chiefs of 43 communities in the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador about four times a year. Various political issues are discussed at these Assemblies-of-Chiefs. The chiefs also elect the AFNQL Chief for a three-year term. The current Chief, Ghislain Picard, has held the position since 1992 and is in his sixth term.

The AFNQL supports and represents the following 10 communities and nations:

• Abenaki
• Algonquin
• Atikamekw
• Cree
• Hurons-Wendat
• Malecite
• Micmac
• Mohawk
• Montagnais-Innu
• Naskapi

The AFNQL is associated with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) which is headquartered in Ottawa.

At the beginning of 2007, the AFNQL held a Forum on Society and the Economy in the Innu community of Mashteuiatsh. More recently, it unveiled a political platform to direct a series of actions aimed at profound change in First Nations relations with the federal and provincial governments. At the policy launch in November 2007, AFNQL Chief Ghislain Picard said: “We’re done with waiting. We will now take action to bring about the conditions that will allow authentic peaceful coexistence between First Nations and governments. This will be very, very far from the current status quo, which is no longer acceptable.”

The AFNQL platform is based on four fundamental elements: 1) recognition of First Nations governments; 2) the signing of territorial, tax and funding agreements; 3) replacement of the Indian Act by a government-to-government relationship; 4) implementation of the First Nations action plan.

For more information, visit their new website at www.apnql-afnql.com

The next IPG activity is the conference Recognition and Self-Determination, which will be held February 29 – March 2, 2008 (with a graduate student pre-conference on February 28). It is being jointly sponsored by IPG, MCRI on Indigenous Peoples and Governance and the Consortium on Democratic Constitutionalism (Demcon) project at the University of Victoria.

The Victoria conference marks a turning point in our research project. We are coming up to the mid-way point, which means that we must direct greater attention to the results that could be released between now and the end of the project. This coming year will be extremely important and pivotal. We must submit the mid-term report to the SSHRC, which will be followed by a visit from the Evaluation Committee. To facilitate this process, and because the committee would like to meet team members, we have decided to hold a national conference on October 10 – 11, 2008, at the same time as the visit with the Evaluation Committee.

We are also looking at the possibility of issuing our first publication, a collection of texts based on the most advanced work of some of our researchers.

As well, we will be putting a lot of effort into communications, particularly our website at www.pag-ipg.com. The site was recently revamped and we plan to make it even more dynamic. You will find, for instance, blogs, virtual conferences and discussion forums. Visit us often!

Have a great 2008 and talk to you soon!

Pierre Noreau

Recognition and Self-determination

February 29-March 2, 2008

Co-organizers: Avigail Eisenberg (UVIC Political Science), Jeremy Webber (UVIC Law) and Glen Coultard (PhD candidate, UVIC, Political Science

Please contact Pat Skidmore for more information.

Politics today takes place through the medium of ‘recognition’. Indeed, for the last 25 years, the politics of recognition has been a primary framework by which politics in diverse societies is understood. Recognition in this context refers to the ways in which political and legal institutions mediate relations between different groups by translating, and characterizing the substance of one group’s demands, interests, perspectives, character or identity in a manner that another group can understand or ‘recognize’. A couple of dimensions of recognition are especially important. First, recognition focuses our attention on the ways in which groups are not only dependent on each other but partly constituted by how they are recognized by another. Second, recognition tends to be distorted and potentially damaging when powerful groups attempt to recognize less powerful ones. Even as powerful groups attempt to amend their historical wrongs, they choose how they do so in a manner that can fall well short of recognizing the groups they have wronged as equals.

In addition to exploring at a theoretical level what is or should be meant by recognition, considering how recognition relates to self-determination, and exploring challenges associated with recognition in practice, we expect the workshop to draw intensely upon empirical cases of recognition, especially current developments in institutions and practices that mediate the struggles between indigenous peoples and political institutions. How are current trends in the development of national or international legal capacities for indigenous people changing how they are recognized either by settler states or by the international community? What impact are struggles of recognition having on indigenous communities? What principles should guide recognition in this context? We also want to consider whether the very concept of recognition is or should be varied in its application depending on the context (e.g. indigenous peoples as opposed to cultural minorities produced by immigration).

This workshop will bring together researchers from the MCRI project on Ethnicity and Democratic Governance, the MCRI on Indigenous Peoples and Governance and Consortium on Democratic Constitutionalism at UVIC. Because it is jointly sponsored and because we want to promote an intense interaction where the conversation is likely to progress over the course of the conference, we know that we will have to make some choices about speakers. But we are anxious to know if you are currently working on something central to the topic and would be keen to present. You should also know that we are planning to use at least three means to expand the circle of participants beyond the number of slots in the program: a) a one-day pre-conference for graduate students; b) a discussion forum for papers, including both papers to be presented and papers that are acutely relevant but that cannot be accommodated given our constraints of space; and c) the possibility of drawing on papers additional to those presented in the publication to result from the conference.

We hope you can come! Please do book these dates in your calendar, let your graduate students know about this workshop, and please let us know if you are keen to present. We expect to have an intensely stimulating session as always.

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