“Eastern Métis” Studies and White Settler Colonialism Today

Abstract

Two books published in the first half of 2019 by Presses de l’Université Laval - <i> Le statut de Métis au Canada </i> and <i>Les Bois-Brûlés de l’Outaouais</i> - are the latest in a primarily French-language academic subfield (“Eastern métis” studies) that grew out of the Supreme Court of Canada’s (SCC) Powley decision in 2003. Authors in the subfield continue to treat knowledge produced by the courts as the ultimate arbiter of truth when it comes to Indigenous identity, all the while harming Indigenous political efforts at self-determination. Another unmistakable feature of the sub-field is its lack of engagement with Indigenous thinkers. Combined with a bedrock of faulty assumptions about the past and a lavish dose of speculative interpretation, the subfield exemplifies how academia is a generative space for colonial revisionism. These two books in particular aim to ensure that individuals claiming an “Eastern métis” (or “Québec métis” or “Acadian-métis”) identity continue to take up institutional resources reserved for actual Indigenous individuals, whether in the form of scholarships and bursaries, faculty, administrative or advisory positions, or other things.