Suchergebnisse

"Distorted Descent examines a social phenomenon that has taken off in the twenty-first century: otherwise white, French descendant settlers in Canada shifting into a self-defined "Indigenous" identity. This study is not about individuals who have been dispossessed by colonial policies, or the multi-generational efforts to reconnect that occur in response. Rather, it is about white, French-descendant people discovering an Indigenous ancestor born 300 to 375 years ago through genealogy and using that ancestor as the sole basis for an eventual shift into an "Indigenous" identity today. After setting out the most common genealogical practices that facilitate race shifting, Leroux examines two of the most prominent self-identified "Indigenous" organizations currently operating in Quebec. Both organizations have their origins in committed opposition to Indigenous land and territorial negotiations, and both encourage the use of suspect genealogical practices. Distorted Descent brings to light to how these claims to an "Indigenous" identity are then used politically to oppose actual, living Indigenous peoples, exposing along the way the shifting politics of whiteness, white settler colonialism, and white supremacy."--

This article examines the claims to an Indigenous identity made by the four state-recognized Abenaki tribes in Vermont through an analysis of their petition for federal acknowledgement (1982–2005) and applications for state recognition (2010–2012). A detailed analysis of their claims demonstrates that the tribes are not Abenaki, but instead, represent the descendants of French Canadians who immigrated to the Champlain Valley of northwestern Vermont in the mid-nineteenth century. In this case study of what the anthropologist Circe Sturm has called "race shifting," I demonstrate how the politics of recognition, which do not include the kin-making and relations of Indigenous nations, serve the interests of settler colonialism under the guise of decolonization. I attribute the emergence of race shifting along three vectors: the move away from white identity post-Civil Rights era; the lack of a tribal presence in Vermont; and the flaws in the state recognition process.

This article builds on work examining how hundreds of thousands of white French descendants in the northeastern part of the continent have been shifting into "Indigenous" identities in the past two decades or so. The first part of the paper explains the workings of "aspirational descent," that is, when a French woman from the 1600s is turned into an "Indigenous" ancestor for the purpose of claiming indigeneity in the present. The second part of the paper explores the creation of "family lore" by several French descendants using aspirational descent in courtroom testimony. Overall, the author illustrates how stories about long-ago Indigenous ancestry in white settler families, such as that of Elizabeth Warren, often involve creative interpretations of childhood stories that rely on the logic of elimination inherent to settler colonialism.

Published version ; Two books published in the first half of 2019 by Presses de l'Université Laval - Le statut de Métis au Canada and Les Bois-Brûlés de l'Outaouais - are the latest in a primarily French-language academic subfield ("Eastern métis" studies) that grew out of the Supreme Court of Canada's (SCC) Powley decision in 2003. Authors in the subfield continue to treat knowledge produced by the courts as the ultimate arbiter of truth when it comes to Indigenous identity, all the while harming Indigenous political efforts at self-determination. Another unmistakable feature of the sub-field is its lack of engagement with Indigenous thinkers. Combined with a bedrock of faulty assumptions about the past and a lavish dose of speculative interpretation, the subfield exemplifies how academia is a generative space for colonial revisionism. These two books in particular aim to ensure that individuals claiming an "Eastern métis" (or "Québec métis" or "Acadian-métis") identity continue to take up institutional resources reserved for actual Indigenous individuals, whether in the form of scholarships and bursaries, faculty, administrative or advisory positions, or other things.

Le présent article porte sur le phénomène récent des revendications autochtones chez les descendant·e·s des premiers colons de la Nouvelle-France, à savoir les Franco-Québécois au Québec et les Acadiens en Nouvelle-Écosse. Nous y soutenons que les prétentions actuelles à une identité métisse autochtone revendiquant une reconnaissance juridique en vertu de laLoi constitutionnelle de 1982sont profondément ancrées dans des logiques de colonialisme de peuplement blanc (white settler colonialism). Notre article révèle l'omniprésence de la mythologie du métissage dans différents documents. Pour infirmer de telles revendications, nous démontrons que la politique de la France en Nouvelle-France se voulait avant tout une tentative de francisation des peuples autochtones. En d'autres mots, les colonisateurs français cherchaient plus à assimiler les peuples autochtones qui auraient maintenu un mode de vie autochtone qu'à constituer une société hybride sur le plan culturel. Faute de preuves suffisantes d'un métissage soutenu au début des colonies au Québec et en Acadie, nous passons en revue les arguments de deux principaux organismes représentant les soi-disant métis de l'est.