Indigenous Writes - by Chelsea Vowel (Paperback)

About the Book

Through 31 essays, Chelsea Vowel, legal scholar, teacher, and intellectual, answers the questions that many people have about the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canada. Use this book to spark further conversations at home, in the classroom, and in the larger community.

Book Synopsis

Are you familiar with the terms listed above? In Indigenous Writes, Chelsea Vowel, legal scholar, teacher, and intellectual, opens an important dialogue about these (and more) concepts and the wider social beliefs associated with the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canada. In 31 essays, Chelsea explores the Indigenous experience from the time of contact to the present, through five categories--Terminology of Relationships; Culture and Identity; Myth-Busting; State Violence; and Land, Learning, Law, and Treaties. She answers the questions that many people have on these topics to spark further conversations at home, in the classroom, and in the larger community.

Indigenous Writes is one title in The Debwe Series.

Review Quotes

Chelsea attacks issues head on, with humour and wit, sarcasm and cynicism and clear, concise and well-organized information. She makes further research easy, as every chapter includes copious endnotes with links to her curated resources. She explains the terminology of identity--status, non-status, registered, membership, Métis, Inuit, cultural appropriation and two-spiritedness.

Vowel's voice and personality remain present throughout each essay. Her use of vernacular, humour, and at times, sarcasm add layers of meaning, underscore arguments and carry her and her readers through discussions of infuriating facts and difficult, often painful issues.

[Chelsea Vowel] punctures the bloated tropes that have frozen Indigenous peoples in time, often to the vanishing point. Reading Indigenous Writes, you feel that you are having a conversation over coffee with a super-smart friend, someone who refuses to simplify, who chooses to amplify, who is unafraid to kick against the darkness... What this book really is, is medicine.

Indigenous Writes is a timely book...and contains enough critical information to challenge harmful assumptions and facilitate understanding. This is a book for everyone--but particularly for non-Indigenous people wishing to better understand their own place in the history of violence against Indigenous peoples, and to find ways to move toward true solutions and right relationships.

A convincing case for rejecting the prevailing policies of "assimilation, control, intrusion and coercion" regarding aboriginal people.

While subtitled A Guide to First Nations, Métis and Inuit Issues in Canada, it would be a mistake to see Indigenous Writes as a book primarily about Indigenous people. Instead, it is much more about all of us--our relationship as non-Indigenous and Indigenous Canadians, and how it has been shaped (and misshaped) by the historic and contemporary governance of these issues.

For any Canadian who wishes to have an informed opinion about the country that we share--or, more to the point, publicly share that opinion--Indigenous Writes is essential reading.

About the Author

Chelsea Vowel is Métis from manitow-sâkahikan (Lac Ste. Anne) Alberta, currently residing in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Mother to six girls, Chelsea is a public intellectual, writer, and educator whose work intersects language, gender, Métis self-determination, and resurgence. Cohost of Indigenous feminist sci-fi podcast Métis in Space, Chelsea blogs at apihtawikosisan.com and makes legendary bannock.