“The New Generation”

Modern research into Aboriginal education focuses on the de-culturation, physical, and emotional abuse that Indigenous students experienced at school. This focus results, in part, from an emphasis on sources written by settlers, which detail little of the lived experience of Indigenous students. Using a series of interviews conducted in Kenora, Ontario, with the Anishinabek woman Matilda (Ogimaamaashiik) Martin of Dalles 38C Indian Reserve, this paper examines that lived experience and concludes that Aboriginal education was more collaborative than has been described, particularly before the enforcement of aggressive civilization. This collaboration, however, occurred in the context of ongoing colonial incursions in to Aboriginal land and life, which gradually edged out Aboriginal forms of education.

Ghost Dancing with Colonialism: Decolonization and Indigenous Rights at the Supreme Court of Canada, Grace Li Xiu Woo (Vancouver: UBS Press 2011)

I write this review at the request of the Alberta Law Review. I assume they asked me for a couple of reasons. First, I sat as a judge for over thirty years, presiding over most of the cases arising on the Stoney Indian Reserve at Morley, Alberta. Second, I have written a book, based on that experience, entitled Bad Medicine: A Judge’s Struggle for Justice in a First Nations Community.