Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage, New Edition
Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage, New Edition
A Canadian Obligation
In 2007, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples became law, extending inherent human rights for the first time to the approximately half a billion Indigenous people around the planet. The declaration sets standards for respecting Indigenous knowledge systems and heritage rights, preserving identity and languages, and decolonizing educational systems. But nation-states have been slow to rethink their laws and policies.
Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage situates Canadian progress in undertaking these reforms within a global context. Tracing decade-long negotiations with British Columbia and Canada, it demonstrates the fundamental role of Indigenous visions, strategies, and advocacy in developing legislation and action plans to implement inherent rights. Among the topics covered are Eurocentric and Indigenous views on cultural and intellectual property; what Indigenous knowledge is, who may use it, and how to provide it with legal protection; and the role of systems that weave together Indigenous and Eurocentric knowledge.
This fully new edition tackles current issues in intellectual property rights and topics such as the revision of educational curricula to incorporate Indigenous content and methodologies. What emerges is a proposal for cooperative legal reform to protect, reconcile, and invigorate Indigenous knowledge systems and heritage.
Canadian and international legal scholars and social scientists interested in safeguarding and advancing Indigenous knowledge and human rights will find this work indispensable from the perspective of ethics, research, and education. Its global scope will also give it a place in law libraries everywhere and a wide readership among Indigenous studies scholars.
This powerful and comprehensive survey of Indigenous knowledge and its relation to law and policy was transformative when it was first published over twenty years ago, and the revised edition is equally important. Today, policy-makers seek to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into current policy developments, and Indigenous Peoples seek to reframe their knowledge within a vibrant framework of self-determination. This book revitalizes and recentres Indigenous knowledge within a global matrix in a way that honours the knowledge holders and fosters accountability.
Marie Battiste is a citizen of the Mi’kmaq Nation of Potlotek First Nations and of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs in Maine. She is professor emerita in the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan. She is a widely published author and editor, an officer in the Order of Canada, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Among her multiple honours are a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, a University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Researcher Award, a Distinguished Academic Award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for Service to Canada.
James (Sa’ke’j) Youngblood Henderson is a member of the Chickasaw Nation and a former director of the Native Law Centre at the University of Saskatchewan. A noted author and human rights lawyer, he has served as a leading constitutional adviser for the Assembly of First Nations and the Mi’kmaw Nation and is a member of the advisory board to the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is a fellow of the Native American Academy and of the Royal Society of Canada, and a recipient of the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Law and Justice.
Exordium
Part 1: The Lodge of Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and Heritage in Modern Thought
1 Eurocentrism and the European Ethnographic Tradition
2 Indigenous Peoples’ Struggles for Respect, Dignity, and Self-Determination
3 What Is Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge?
Part 2: The Indigenous Peoples’ Movement to Reform Knowledge and Heritage Regimes
4 The Indigenous Domain and Eurocentric Intellectual and Cultural Property Rights
5 Rethinking Intellectual Property Rights
6 Indigenous Peoples’ International Reforms of Knowledge and Heritage
7 Protecting Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and Heritage in Canadian Law
8 Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and Heritage in Canada
Part 3: Canadian Law and Policy Reforms
9 Aligning Canadian Law with Indigenous Peoples’ Inherent Rights
10 Decolonizing the Education System
Reflections
Appendix A: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007)
Appendix B: Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (British Columbia, 2019)
Appendix C: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (Canada, 2021)
References; Index
