Creative Works

Because This Land Is Who We Are: 

Indigenous Practices of Environmental Repossession

Book

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Our book is an exploration of environmental repossession, told through a collaborative case study approach, and engaging with Indigenous communities in Canada (Anishinaabe), Hawai'i (Kanaka Maoli) and Aotearoa (Maori). The co-authors are all Indigenous scholars, community leaders and activists who are actively engaged in the movements underway in these locations, and able to describe the unique and common strategies of repossession practices taking place in each community.

This open access book celebrates Indigenous ways of knowing, relating to and honouring the land, and the authors' contributions emphasize the efforts taking place in their own Indigenous land. Through engagement with these varying cultural imperatives, the wider goal of Because This Land Is Who We Are is to broaden both theoretical and applied concepts of environmental repossession, and to empower any Indigenous community around the world which is struggling to assert its rights to land.  

Gifts From the Elders

Documentary

“Gifts from the Elders” follows five Anishinaabe youth on a summer research project with their Elders, whose stories guide them on a journey back to proceeding generations that lived a healthy lifestyle off of the land. Their stories chronicle the devastating impact that environmental and cultural dispossession had on the flow of knowledge from Elders to youth, and ultimately on the health of their people. As their summer comes to an end, the youth emerge with “gifts” of knowledge and teachings from their Elders, inspiring a renewed determination to forge a hopeful and healthy future for the next generation.

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