“Little Is Known of the Interior”: Applied Historical Cartography and Métis Aboriginal Rights in the Île-à-la-Crosse Region, Saskatchewan

Dans sa décision de principe sur les droits de chasse des Métis rendue à la suite de l’affaire R. c. Powley, la Cour suprême du Canada recourt au concept de mainmise effective pour marquer les limites de la période à considérer afin de déterminer si des pratiques particulières (p. ex., la chasse) font partie intégrante du mode de vie des Métis. Si ces pratiques n’ont pas été explicitement abolies par l’État avant 1982, alors elles font partie aujourd’hui des droits ancestraux des Métis et à ce titre, elles sont protégées par la Constitution. Déterminer la date de la mainmise effective de l’État est un problème empirique qui exige des recherches historiques approfondies. Devant les revendications de la Couronne quant à sa souveraineté et à l’extinction de droits autochtones, diverses activités peuvent servir de critères quant à l’établissement de la mainmise effective sur les régions pionnières (p. ex., les recensements). Des documents historiques montrent que des activités de topométrie et de cartographie ont matérialisé les efforts du gouvernement fédéral pour acquérir des connaissances géographiques. En ce qui concerne la nécessité constante de clarifier les droits ancestraux des Métis, la valeur des sources cartographiques historiques comme moyen de reconstruire la lente évolution des connaissances géographiques de l’État est illustrée par l’exemple de la région d’Ile-à-la-Crosse. La cartographie historique, par conséquent, peut contribuer à clarifier les droits des Métis.

On the breach: Identifying infringements of section 35 rights

Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the Supreme Court of Canada has said, protects existing Aboriginal and treaty rights from unjustified infringement at the hands of federal and provincial legislatures and governments. To give meaningful effect to section 35’s protection, we need, therefore, to understand what counts as infringement of such rights and why. The Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence to date on this question, alas, disappoints; it does not withstand close critical scrutiny. This article calls attention to several shortcomings and inconsistencies in that jurisprudence and proposes for initial consideration a more inclusive approach to infringement identification, one that draws a sharper distinction between the infringement and justification inquiries. Adoption of such an approach, however, could have unwelcome substitution effects, prompting cautious courts to be more selective when asked to authenticate future claims of Aboriginal right, more penurious when construing the constitutionally protected scope of particular treaty or Aboriginal rights and/or more generous to governments during the justification inquiry. If the goal is to optimize the protection that Canadian constitutional law affords to treaty and Aboriginal rights, we shall need to be mindful of the interdependence among the authentication, infringement, and justification inquiries, and we shall need to understand much more clearly than we currently do just where the outer limits are beyond which mainstream Canadian law cannot, or will not, countenance Indigenous ways and why.

Deception and Reception in the Commemorative Landscape of Newcastle, Australia, 1970 to 2020

Contemporary reception of colonial monuments in Australia is informed by global debate on race, memory and representation in public space, typified in the decolonial and anti-racist movements Rhodes Must Fall and Black Lives Matter. While art historians and anti-colonial iconoclasts alike easily conceive of statues as objects for critique, non-figurative sculpture is no less effective when deployed as an ideological tool. Given the typically progressive politics of twentieth-century abstractionists, this study asks how comfortable these artists are with the nation-building function often ascribed to their work by political elites. Through a thematic survey of the commemorative landscape of Newcastle, NSW, this article describes a city punctuated by patriotic references to war, colonialism, and Indigenous absence, exemplified in modernist sculptor Margel Hinder’s (1906–1995) *Civic Park Fountain* (1966). Recounting its relaunch in 1970 as a memorial to Captain James Cook and its vandalism in 2020, the article examines changes in public reception of the fountain, from hostility towards abstract art and government spending to outrage at colonial symbols. Archival reconstruction of Hinder’s responses to local government demonstrates her silence on the fountain’s assimilation to colonial celebration. When contrasted with Hinder’s activities as a lobbyist and camouflage designer, this finding reveals a complex political biography. Without ignoring Hinder’s concern for Aboriginal rights, her attitude towards the instrumentalisation of her work is at best ambivalent. Beyond challenging the apolitical readings of Hinder’s work in existing scholarship, this study provides a key example of the ideological malleability of abstract public art. By producing “empty” signifiers to then “fill” with meaning, abstract sculptors and administrators together help to shape the semiotic and racial topography of urban space.

Notas sobre o direito à memória no ambiente digital e sua relação com os arquivos

Aborda a relação entre o direito à memória e os documentos de arquivo. Recorre à psicologia para conceituar, em um primeiro momento, a memória como um fenômeno individual. Posteriormente, destaca-se a dimensão coletiva que assume ao ser discutida no campo da arquivologia. Apresenta situações nas quais os arquivos são utilizados com a finalidade de permitir o exercício do direito à memória, citando como exemplo o contexto da redemocratização após as ditaduras militares brasileira e argentina. Questiona as possibilidades de construção da memória no ambiente digital. Com o objetivo de investigar iniciativas que tratam dessa temática, conceitua o modelo OAIS, enfatizando as plataformas arquivísticas de descrição, difusão e acesso. É apresentado um estudo de caso de dois sites que se utilizam destas para construção da memória: Mercosur - Guía de Archivos Y Fondos Documentales; e Lesser Slave Lake IRC Treaty Aboriginal Rights. Por fim, reflete sobre a atuação de arquivistas e sua capacidade para lidar com os documentos diante da realidade digital.

Protecting Aboriginal Rights and Title in Canada: A Growing Space for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a landmark decision in Tsilhqot'in Nation v. British Columbia. In this decision, the Supreme Court recognised Aboriginal title to a specific territory for the first time, along with Aboriginal rights to hunt, trap, and engage in other practices. While international human rights law relating to Indigenous peoples, notably the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, was not directly relied upon in this decision, the subsequent negotiations and outcome documents have gradually included the UN Declaration into the discussion, in conjunction with the political and legal shift towards recognition and acceptance of it in Canada. By exploring the political and legal struggles of the Tsilhqot'in, particularly after the 2014 decision, this paper considers a growing space for the UN Declaration in defining the declared Aboriginal rights and title.

A Lifelong Journey in Aboriginal Affairs and Community: Nulungu Reconciliation Lecture 2021

In this 2021 Nulungu Reconciliation lecture, Dr Robert Isaacs AM OAM will explore the meaning of reconciliation and the lessons of his personal journey in two worlds. As part of the Stolen Generation, and born at the dawn of the formal Aboriginal Rights Movement, this lecture outlines the changing social attitudes through the eyes of the lived experience and the evolving national policy framework that has sought to manage, then heal, the wounds that divided a nation. Aspirations of self-determination, assimilation and reconciliation are investigated to unpack the intent versus the outcome, and why the deep challenges not only still exist, but in some locations the divide is growing. The Kimberley is an Aboriginal rights location of global relevance with Noonkanbah at the beating heart. The Kimberley now has 93 percent of the land determined through Native Title yet the Kimberley is home to extreme disadvantage, abuse and hopelessness. Our government agencies are working “nine-to-five” but our youth, by their own declaration, are committing suicide out of official government hours. The theme of the Kimberley underpins this lecture. This is the journey of a man that was of two worlds but now walks with the story of five - the child of the Bibilmum Noongar language group and the boy that was stolen. The man that became a policy leader and the father of a Yawuru-Bibilmum-Noongar family and the proud great-grandson that finally saw the recognition of the courageous act of saving fifty shipwrecked survivors in 1876.