Although our work focuses on explorations of history and landscapes with our Indigenous partners, this work frequently intersects with institutional structures. Indeed, our efforts anticipate addressing colonial audiences in government, universities, legal arenas, etc., often with a purpose of defending rights against incursion. For some of us, this work has taken on a specific trajectory in scholarship, policy documents and legal briefs. These issues intersect. Legislative structures create the laws by which Indigenous heritage is encountered, managed, preserved, and impacted. Many of these are decades old and in the process of being refined in light of, for example, the federal recognition of the principles of UNDRIP (the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). Policy tends to include the ways that legislation is interpreted by bureaucracies and other structures and applied in management systems. Legal contexts are the main venue in which conflict regarding issues of heritage and rights are debated and ruled upon; while the colonial state considers this this largely as Aboriginal (i.e., Canadian colonial) law, but Indigenous communities have their own legal systems that determine these rights. These areas are beginning to intersect. Lastly, scholarship is a space within which to explore these structures, their operation and intersection, and the ways that they frame their authorities as well as the places where they omit knowledge.
Policy Analyses
This work focuses on the management and implementation of legislation, often in the context of legal decisions and - to a lesser extent - scholarship.
Legislative Analyses
This work analyzes the genesis, impacts and evaluations of laws that impact heritage and related subjects. In Canada, heritage legislation is the domain of provinces and territories, although federal policies are implemented on federally controlled lands.
Legal Analyses
Heritage has a long an uneven role in Canadian courts, ruling in which have considerable impact on Indigenous rights.
