Aboriginal Identity and Nation-Building in the Mi’kmaw First Nations of Nova Scotia

Wednesday, February 25^th, 4-5pm – Dr. Simone Poliandri, Bridgewater State University 

This talk focuses on contemporary identity and nation-building dynamics among the Mi’kmaw First Nation people of Eastern Canada. After providing geographic and historical context, I will illustrate some of the elements that have characterized Mi’kmaw identity and its construction in recent times. I will then discuss some of the recent aspects of Indigenous nationhood, or First nationhood as I call it, and nation-building in the Mi’kmaw communities of Nova Scotia, where I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork for the past twenty-five years. I argue that First nationhood has increasingly become one of the strongest and most effective expressions – both ideological and practical – of sovereignty and self-determination. I contend that the efforts to assert First nationhood transform cultural symbols, geopolitical boundaries, governance, and financial success into direct sources of tribal and, more broadly, Aboriginal identification available to the Mi’kmaw people which, in turn, become tangible instruments for institutional and social affirmation. The eclectic nature – cultural, political, economic, and territorial – of First national discourse among the Mi’kmaq makes nation building a promising path toward providing better services to Mi’kmaw families and communities and, at the same time, elevates it to the status of strategic asset for reclaiming treaty and aboriginal rights to self-determination.