The Atikamekw Nehirowisiw Nation has for several years been developing a code of practice (orocowewin notcimik itatcihowin) to regulate hunting, fishing and plant harvesting activities in Nitaskinan, its ancestral territory. The Atikamekw Nehirowisiw code of practice is a collective project that sets out to put its territorial regulations in writing. The project's objective is threefold: to ensure the transmission of territorial knowledge and of rules relating to forest activities; to adapt these rules, passed on by ancestors, to the contemporary context; and to have them recognised by non-natives and the governments of other nations, including the governments of Canada and Quebec. This article presents some of the issues related to the process of writing and coding orocowewin notcimik itatcihowin, the Atikamekw Nehirowisiw code of practice; in particular, the importance of the oral tradition as a means of transmitting knowledge is emphasised. In our language, we say "atisokana ki atisokan"we are infused and transformed by the narratives transmitted orally. This mode of transmission is politically, philosophically and emotionally significant. It is a unique way for us to let the heart speak, through direct contact, without interference.
Treaties and land claims negotiations between state institutions and Indigenous Peoples are necessarily tied to issues of territorial entanglements, resistance and coexistence. Regularly, studies of these negotiation dynamics make explicit the articulation and differentiation of Indigenous “life projects,” referring to the embodiment of socio-cultural desires, visions, aspirations and purposes – vis-à-vis neoliberal development projects. This article focuses precisely on the dynamics of negotiation in which the Atikamekw Nehirowisiwok (north-central Quebec) and state institutions have been involved for the last 40 years under the Comprehensive Land Claims Policy. More specifically, it addresses different policy mechanisms such as the extinguishment policy, burden of proof, debt obligations and results-based approach that are part and parcel of the negotiation process. Without disregarding the unequal power relations, this article also presents the motivations and aspirations expressed by the Atikamekw Nehirowisiwok in the negotiation process. It explains how their engagements are mobilised into nehirowisiw orocowewin – that is, a larger and deeper political and cultural project relating to the affirmation of nehirowisiw miro pimatisiwin, an Indigenous way of life and living well that is tied to the maintenance of a creative and open-ended coexistence based on reciprocity, complementarity, autonomy and consensus.
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