Laura Forsythe – författare

Honouring the scholarship of Métis matriarchs

When surveying the field of Indigenous studies, Laura Forsythe and Jennifer Markides recognized a critical need for not only a Métis-focused volume, but one focused on the contributions of Métis women. To address this need, they brought together work by new and established scholars, artists, storytellers, and community leaders that reflects the diversity of research created by Métis women as it is lived, considered, conceptualized, and re-imagined.

With writing by Maria Campbell, Emma LaRocque, and other pioneers of Métis studies, Around the Kitchen Table looks beyond the patriarchy to document and celebrate the scholarship of Métis women. Focusing on experiences in post-secondary environments, Around the Kitchen Table necessarily traverses a range of methodologies. Spanning disciplines of social work, education, history, health care, urban studies, sociology, archaeology, and governence, contributors bring their own stories to explorations of spirituality, material culture, colonialism, land-based education, sexuality, language, and representation. The result is an expansive, heartfelt, and accessible “community of Métis thought” as articulated by Markides in her introduction to the volume.

Reverent and revelatory, this collection centres the strong aunties and grandmothers who have shaped Métis communities, culture, and identities with teachings shared in classrooms, auditoriums, and around the kitchen table.

An enriching and inviting collection, Métis Methodologies clarifies what makes Métis research methods distinct. Insightful and frank reflections on wide-ranging research applications guide readers toward rich research paradigms for ethical and relational scholarship on Métis life, kin, history, and homelands.Positioned in the context of decolonial research, this collection argues that research undertaken by Métis scholars can and should reflect specific Métis experiences of colonization. This collection represents a groundbreaking contribution to Métis research methodologies. It offers a framework for conducting research in Métis contexts and serves as an accessible entry point for those interested in learning about Métis epistemology, ontology, and axiology. In response to a community request, this collection showcases Métis ways of knowing, being, and doing in research. Through grounded examples in research projects on Michif language revitalization, land-based pedagogy, health research, digital storytelling, and literary criticism, readers will learn specific techniques for research in this important contribution to decolonial knowledge production and research methodologies.

Métis Coming Together invites readers to witness the knowledge exchanges that occur in community. Diverse perspectives from Métis across the homeland help us convene a dynamic and generous thinking space to broaden our individual and collective understandings of Métis-ness. Topics addressed from a Métis lens include relationality, kinship, history, storytelling, language revitalization, poetry, futurities, sexuality, feminisms, geographies, religion and spirituality, self-determination, and sovereignty. The collection provides opportunities to learn contemporary Métis ways of knowing and being.

Métis Coming Together invites readers to witness the knowledge exchanges that occur in community. Diverse perspectives from Métis across the homeland help us convene a dynamic and generous thinking space to broaden our individual and collective understandings of Métis-ness. Topics addressed from a Métis lens include relationality, kinship, history, storytelling, language revitalization, poetry, futurities, sexuality, feminisms, geographies, religion and spirituality, self-determination, and sovereignty. The collection provides opportunities to learn contemporary Métis ways of knowing and being.

Looking Back and Living Forward: Indigenous Research Rising Up brings together research from a diverse group of scholars from a variety of disciplines. The work shared in this book is done by and with Indigenous peoples, from across Canada and around the world. Together, the collaborators’ voices resonate with urgency and insights towards resistance and resurgence. The various chapters address historical legacies, environmental concerns, community needs, wisdom teachings, legal issues, personal journeys, educational implications, and more. In these offerings, the contributors share the findings from their literature surveys, document analyses, community-based projects, self-studies, and work with knowledge keepers and elders. The scholarship draws on the teachings of the past, experiences of the present, and will undoubtedly inform research to come.