We Story the Land: Exploring Mi'kmaq food sovereignty, Indigenous law and treaty relations

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between Indigenous Food Sovereignty and the resurgence of Indigenous law through an examination of the Mi'kmaq concept of Netukulimk. We present a case study of L'sɨtkuk First Nation's exploration of the original spirit and intent of the eighteenth-century Peace and Friendship Treaties and their enactment of the Mi'kmaq always those treaties are anchored in, focusing on insights coming out of We Story the Land, our documentary film about L'sɨtkuk youth and their mentors on a canoe journey to reclaim a series of ancient routes leaving from the reserve to cross their traditional territory.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous food sovereignty
• Mi’kmaq
• Indigenous law
• treaty relations
• Indigenous knowledge systems
• Indigenous resurgence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In Canada, Indigenous Law and in this case, Mi'kmaw law, is distinguished from Aboriginal Law. Aboriginal Law is a body of Canadian Law relating to Indigenous Peoples; whereas Indigenous Law derives from Indigenous nations and is informed by Indigenous customs, traditions, and cultural practices (Borrows 2002).

2 Mi'kmaw is the singular form of Mi’kmaq; Mi’kmaw is also used as an adjective, for example, ‘Mi’kmaw people’, or ‘Mi’kmaw law’.

3 Mi’kma’ki is divided into seven traditional districts. L’sitkuk is part of the Kespukwitk district, which roughly corresponds with SouthWest Nova Scotia. The name Kespukwitk means ‘end of the flow’.

4 We have struggled over the course of this research with the language to describe L’sitkuk’s intentions. While we have settled (pun intended) on ‘reclaiming’, we do so with much trepidation, which we explore later in this paper. While this term makes explicit L’sitkuk’s resistance against settler-colonial structures, it also embodies the ontological premise that land is property, which L’sitkuk’s project counters.

5 The seizure – and on-going dispossession – of Indigenous land, is a central feature of the enduring structure of settler colonialism (Wolfe 2006); a structure where farming has, and continues to play an important role. See Daschuk (2013) for one example of the calculus employed by the Canadian state to destroy Indigenous food systems and dispossess Indigenous peoples of their traditional territories, so as to clear the way for (white, European) agricultural-based settlement. See Daschuk (2013) and Carter (1990) for a discussion of the ways the Canadian state employed the Indian Act to discourage participation by Indigenous farmers in this new agricultural economy. See Rotz (2017) for a discussion of the ways structural racism and white identity formation tend to blind farmers (among other white settlers) to their relative privilege and participation in this on-going dispossession.

6 The term ‘Turtle Island’ originates from similar creation stories from various Indigenous Nations and denotes a decolonizing practice of reinstating Indigenous place names prior to the imposition of colonial borders.

7 People of the Dawn, otherwise known as the Wabanaki Confederacy, consisted of Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Peoples. Sherry Pictou’s Grandmother, Leona Pictou (Jeremy) referred to the People of the Dawn as Wejkwapniaqewa; Mi’kmaw spelling in Smith and Peck (2004).

8 In Southwest Nova Scotia, racist backlash on the part of many non-native fishermen echoed the violence Mi’kmaq communities had endured two-decades previous. It is beyond the scope of this paper to chronicle the intensification of neoliberal dynamics in the fisheries, the inaction on part of DFO, and the RCMP enabling of violence that contextualizes the on-going dispute. The situation points to deeply engrained racism in Nova Scotia; and the continued refusal of the federal government to cede jurisdictional authority or make space for Mi’kmaq legal orders in the fisheries.

9 The small-boat inshore lobster fishery is the only fishing sector left in Maritime Canada that has not been subject to Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) management. ITQs are a key strategy to facilitate the corporate concentration of ownership of a fleet, which from a neoliberal fisheries management point of view, is advantageous in that it allows for the streamlining of management. For an analysis of ITQs and the importance of effort-controlled management to preserving the independent character of the small boat lobster fishery, see Stiegman (2009).

10 Mi’kmaq dialects vary across the seven traditional districts of Mi’kma’ki. In L’sitkuk’s district of Kespuwick, in the south-west, words are spelled with ‘k’; for example ankukamkewe. In the northernmost district of Gesgapegiag of Mi’kma’ki the ‘k’ is pronounced as a ‘g’. Ankukamkewe becomes angugamgwe.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martha Stiegman

Martha Stiegman is an associate professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. She is a white settler of mixed French ancestry, from Mi'kma'ki/Nova Scotia. Her community-based research and collaborative video work examine Indigenous/settler treaty relations in their historic and contemporary manifestations, with particular attention to food sovereignty and justice as well as participatory and visual research methodologies.

Sherry Pictou

Dr. Sherry Pictou is a Mi'kmaw woman from L'sɨtkuk (water cuts through high rocks) known as Bear River First Nation, in Eastern Canada. She is an associate professor of Law and Management and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Governance at Dalhousie University. She is a former Chief for her community and the former Co-Chair of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples. Her research interests include decolonizing treaty relations, Social Justice for Indigenous Women, Indigenous women's role in food and lifeways, and Indigenous knowledge and food systems.