Forging new ground in Métis rights & research

Indigenous scholar’s long-standing research related to Métis women comes at a pivotal moment when understanding and standing in solidarity with people who are oppressed is crucial
Carla DeMarco
Image of Professor Jennifer Adese
Professor Jennifer Adese, Department of Sociology
Photo by Drew Lesiuczok

Professor Jennifer Adese has dedicated her efforts to Indigenous research all along her academic path, however it was attending the National Aboriginal Women’s Summit (NAWS) in 2012 that truly sealed her destiny to focus more closely on the experiences of Métis women.

“It was at these proceedings in Ottawa that Indigenous women collectively came together to call on the provincial premiers in attendance to use their power to push the federal government to commit to a national inquiry on the high rates of Indigenous women who have gone missing and/or been murdered,” said Adese during a recent interview for VIEW to the U podcast.

“I had the privilege to sit alongside these women as they met with different members of government, other Indigenous organizations, and even with United Nations’ representatives, and it gave me pretty life-changing insight into – what my academic speak would say – ‘the complex public strategies of resilience practiced by Métis women.’”

Adese, who joined the Department of Sociology at UTM as an associate professor in 2018, says this experience was not a new encounter with the excessively high rates of murdered Indigenous women already a known fact, nor was it her first time countering Canada’s reluctance to reckon with its history of oppression and colonization. However, this event reinvigorated her commitment to be an informed advocate and to lobby for the rights of Métis and all Indigenous communities. Through her work, she continues to examine the history of violence against Métis girls and women and looking into why Métis were largely ignored in the federal government inquiry.

Additionally, in 2019 Adese was funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to pursue her project, “‘No one else can speak for us:’ Métis Women’s Political Organizing, 1970s-Present,” which explores Métis women’s mobilization and activism over the last 50 years.

When the two-year project wraps up, Adese has her sights set on applying for SSHRC Partnership Grant to further bolster Métis research and to strengthen her collaboration with the various academic community and Métis organizations with which she’s currently involved. Through this partnership, she also aims to raise awareness about Métis issues through community engagement and dissemination of their findings.

It is this mobilizing of knowledge that Adese says is key to reaching a higher ground of understanding for people about the ongoing impacts of colonization, dispossession, and racism.

When it comes to the matter of current activism confronting anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism – and racism more generally – taking place in Canada and in the United States, along with a growing global movement, she says a central part of being involved in that struggle is also being informed. In her capacity as an educator she feels that reading and educating oneself is critical in order to move forward and serves as a vital foundation for further action. So, too, is listening to and centering the voices of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour and their experiences with racism and colonization.

As an example, Indigenous histories and perspectives are not sufficiently covered in Canadian curriculum so reading is one way to unlearn and learn anew, and to foreground solidarity with Indigenous communities. Likewise, and especially in the shadow of several school boards’ failure, including the Peel District School Board, to meaningfully address anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in schools, that it is vital that all people, and especially those working in education, become better informed about the history of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in Canada. (She recommends a number of books listed below).

Adese is also just wrapping up a sole-authored book that is being published by UBC Press, titled Aboriginal™, which is an analysis of the term “Aboriginal” and its more frequent usage after the 1982 Canadian Constitution Act was passed.

In addition, Adese is a co-editor of two forthcoming anthologies: A People and a Nation: New Directions in Contemporary Métis Studies that she has worked on with Dr. Chris Andersen from the University of Alberta, and Indigenous Celebrity: Entanglements with Fame (University of Manitoba Press), the first dedicated volume to explore Indigenous people's experiences with celebrity culture; she has co-edited this book with Dr. Robert Alexander Innes from the University of Saskatchewan.

Adese, who in her work is mostly concerned with studying representation using various lenses, visually and through language, as well as in literature, culture, and politics, has a personal interest in this area: she is Métis and draws on her culture via a large family unit, primarily based in Alberta. She says that her relationships with other Métis people and communities provides her with a unique perspective for her work, writing and teaching.

“A lot of previous research has been undertaken and published by non-Métis, and the tendency through that work has been to analyze and discuss Métis people as simply a by-product of the intermarriage of two other populations, broadly First Nations and European,” says Adese.

“That is not how we understand ourselves and our existence as a distinct Indigenous people, and quite often how Indigenous people represent ourselves through art, through literature, through political engagement is very different. So, for us it's very exciting work to push the conversation even further, and for the first time strive for this level of representation within Métis Studies research, but also within Indigenous Studies research.”

Jennifer Adese's book recommendations

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