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.
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 is 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 advisor 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
Chapter 1: Eurocentrism and the European Ethnographic Tradition
Chapter 2: Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle for Respect, Dignity, and Self-Determination
Chapter 3: What Is Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge?
Part 2: The Indigenous Peoples’ Movement to Reform Knowledge and Heritage Regimes
Chapter 4: The Indigenous Domain and Eurocentric Intellectual and Cultural Property Rights
Chapter 5: Rethinking Intellectual Property Rights
Chapter 6: Indigenous Peoples’ International Reforms of Knowledge and Heritage
Chapter 7: Protecting Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and Heritage in Canadian Law
Chapter 8: Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and Heritage in Canada
Part 3: Canadian Law and Policy Reforms
Chapter 9: Aligning Canadian Law with Indigenous Peoples’ Inherent Rights
Chapter 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 (2019)
Appendix C: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (2021)
References
Index
