YLE News reports that Finland and Sweden steadfastly refuse to ratify the nearly 22-year-old ILO Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, aka Convention 169, “the only [European Union] countries yet to do so.” The Scandinavian holdouts are embroiled in land disputes with their respective Sámi populations. If you’d like to learn more, Minority Rights Group […]
Not long after complaints to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology compelled it to cancel a series of portraits of missing and murdered women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a family member of one of the victims has spoken out in defense of the exhibition. In a recent article in the Georgia Straight, Ernie Crey — brother of […]
aptn National News had a very interesting story on Friday (Jan 14/11) which you can now view on their website. After supposedly hearing a flood of complaints from its residents, the Cree community of Ouje-Bougoumou in northern Quebec has taken the rather unusual step of banning ‘native spirituality practices’ including sweatlodges, pow wows, rain dances, […]
This week, developments in the disparate fields of arts and law had something in common according to critics: the undue appropriation of Aboriginal voices by non-Aboriginal people. In the first case, we find Tony Merchant, a controversial lawyer attempting to sue Canada on behalf of thousands of people who feel they’ve been unfairly denied the […]
The Seattle police officer who shot and killed a partially-deaf First Nations woodcarver testified on Wednesday at an inquest hearing. John T. Williams, 50, a member of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Dititdaht First Nation on Vancouver Island was gunned down by officer Ian Birk on August 30, 2010 in downtown Seattle. At the time, Williams, who was known for carving […]
