Decolonizing by Treaty, with all our Relations

Decolonizing by Treaty, with all our Relations (An Eco-Politics of Living-With and Living Together) Brian Noble (Dalhousie University) and Sherry Pictou, Nova Scotia 

How can we move beyond colonialism, even while it dominates us? How do we advance grassroots politics in a way that makes and keeps trust between us?

Brian Noble will speak on our being tripped up by an over-powering economic-state-“democratic" system which subordinates, assimilates, and asserts its power in everyday, micro- and macro- moves. Power over the decision-making of plural and converging grassroots collectives who strive to create a new politics.  Brian asks: How do we come together, in trust, to break or dissolve this recalcitrant inter-personal / inter-political impasse?

The practice of Indigenous Peoples across “Canada” — Piikani, Mi’kmaw, Secwepemc – suggests we simultaneously work on Living-With relations (inter-personal politics), and Living-Together relations (inter-peoples politics), so as to envision, kindle, enflame and generate a mutually-supporting grassroots to encompassing politics that can renew our inter-political and inter-personal relations, propelled by the demands of our ecological moment.

How can we decolonize these personal and political relations by cultivating “treaty ecologies" and enacting them through deep mutual respect for all things, all humans, all life, the earth? Can we ally with each other in our various collectives, including inter-species kinship ones,by fully respecting the inherent authority of the other - both inter-personally, and inter-politically — so as to live in treaty, as treaty partners, all the way down?

Sherry Pictou will speak on seeking to work - in her community - from Mi’kmaw grounded relations, captured in the notion of M’s-it No’kmaq, which represents a kin-relationship with the land, waters and all living beings. This working toward the resolution of relations, and against the colonial system, is aligned with Indigenous worldviews (land-water-living beings) that work to help resolve the over-exploitation and over-conservation contradiction as well as towards ensuring the inclusion of women and non-conforming gender roles that are most often excluded. 

Brian Noble is a social anthropologist currently addressing anti-colonial resolution of relations between Indigenous Peoples and settler Canada, and the processes animating indigenous land, economic and knowledge authority in global arenas. Brian, and his graduate students, have collaborated with Piikani, Secwepemc, Kwakwka'awakw, Mi'kmaq, and Cree peoples. He is also Co-investigator on the SSHRC-MCRI Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage: Theory, Practice, Policy, Ethics.

Dr. Sherry Pictou is a Mi’kmaw woman from L’sɨtkuk (water cuts through high rocks) known as Bear River First Nation, Nova Scotia.  Sherry is a former Chief for her community and the former Co-Chair of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples. She is a member of the IPBES Task Force on Indigenous and Local Knowledge. She worked as an Assistant Professor in the Women’s Studies Department at Mount Saint Vincent University with a focus on Indigenous Feminism (2017-2020). 

Her research interests include decolonizing treaty relations, Social Justice for Indigenous Women, Indigenous women’s role in food and lifeways, and Indigenous knowledge and food systems.

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