In A People and a Nation, the authors, most of whom are themselves Métis, offer readers a set of lenses through which to consider the complexity of historical and contemporary Métis nationhood and peoplehood. The field of Métis Studies has been afflicted by a longstanding tendency to situate Métis within deeply racialized contexts, and/or by an overwhelming focus on the nineteenth century. This volume challenges the pervasive racialization of Métis studies with multidisciplinary chapters on identity, history, politics, literature, spirituality, religion, and kinship networks, reorienting the conversation toward Métis experiences today. In the process, this timely collection dismantles the narrow notions that continue to shape political, legal, and social understanding of Métis existence, and convincingly demonstrates a more robust approach to Métis studies that centres Métis peoplehood and nationhood.

Jennifer Adese is Otipemisiwak/Métis and is the Canada Research Chair in Métis Women, Politics, and Community and an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM). She is the co-editor, with Chris Andersen, of A People and a Nation: New Directions in Contemporary Métis Studies.

Jennifer Adese's profile page

Chris Andersen is associate professor, associate dean (research), and the current director of the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research in the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. He is also the current editor of aboriginal policy studies, an online, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing on Métis, non-Status Indian, and urban Aboriginal issues in Canada and abroad. He is co-editor of Indigenous in the City: Contemporary Identities and Cultural Innovation (UBC Press, 2013).

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This is a timely, potentially paradigm-shifting book.

CHOICE Connect

This is an important text, which has been carefully edited to bring disparate voices together in a way that creates a resonance.

Prairie History