For Canadians, it was a revelation that seemingly came out of nowhere: the confirmation back in May of over 200 unmarked graves at Kamloops, BC, thought to be the remains of young people who decades ago attended one of Canada’s nearly 140 Indian Residential schools. Children who never got to go home to the families from whom they’d been forcibly removed. But if this first came to light late spring, why discuss it now? Because what began as some 200-odd graves has since multiplied to well over 1,...
Sep 13, 2021•53 min•Ep. 269
On this week’s collected, connected conversations—our final show of the summer—more of our COVID contemplations. Featured voices this podcast include (in order of appearance): • Candis Callison , Associate Professor in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and the School of Journalism, Writing and Media at UBC • Kim TallBear, Professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment • Brock Pit...
Aug 31, 2021•56 min•Ep. 268
On this week’s collected, connected conversations (the eighth in our summer series): part one of our pandemic ponderings. A disease that’s thrown many into disarray, COVID-19 has come up often on this podcast. And for good reason: disproportionately afflicted with health care gaps, Indigenous peoples' vulnerability made them the subject of dire predictions from the outset of this pandemic. Featured voices this podcast include (in order of appearance): • Dr. Jason Pennington , Assistant Professor...
Aug 17, 2021•53 min•Ep. 267
On this week’s collected, connected conversations (the seventh in our summer series): the back half of our education investigation. And this episode, it’s all uni, all the time, where talk of 'Indigenization' is all the rage. Featured voices this podcast include (in order of appearance): • Kim TallBear , associate professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment • Ken Williams , assistant prof...
Aug 05, 2021•58 min•Ep. 266
On this week’s collected, connected conversations (the sixth in our summer series): back to school. Well, not quite yet. But it is around the corner, so we thought we’d help you prep with an education-related retrospective. And with so much material to cover, we’ve set aside two dates on our course calendar. Featured voices this podcast include (in order of appearance): • Brock Pitawanakwat , York University Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies • Ken Williams , assistant professor with the ...
Jul 27, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 265
Moose, elk, bison, lobster, salmon: they're just some of the non-human relatives that Indigenous peoples have relied upon for centuries. A reliance that, in turn, made self-reliance possible for those peoples. That is, until it wasn’t—thanks to the kinds of colonial interference and impediments we discuss here in our fifth episode of the summer series, building on our last episode's look at fights over rights to hunt and harvest. Featured voices this podcast include: • Candis Callison , Associat...
Jul 15, 2021•52 min•Ep. 264
On this week’s collected, connected conversations (the fourth in our summer series), we go on the hunt for some rights recognition. Rights rooted in the ‘radical’ notion that Indigenous peoples ought to be able to live off their lands and waters. But, as we’ll hear over these next two episodes, those harvests are hampered—not only by the imposition of restrictions, but through the endangerment of the non-human relatives we’ve long relied on. Featured voices this podcast include (in order of appe...
Jul 05, 2021•47 min•Ep. 263
On this week’s collected, connected conversations, our summer series walks into the world of leisure and recreation—well, for some, anyway. For, as you’ll hear, it seems us pesky Indians can’t help but spoil settler fun! Featured voices this podcast include (in order of appearance): • Brock Pitawanakwat , York University Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies • Kim TallBear , associate professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta and Canada Research Chair in Indigen...
Jun 28, 2021•59 min•Ep. 262
This episode, the second in our summer series, part two of our look at law and order—emphasis on the latter. Because even though we’ll begin this episode with discussions about the courts and prisons (building on last episode’s walk-through of policing), there’s a much bigger picture at play here: the enforcement and reinforcement of a social order, an order that works hand in glove with the needs of settler colonialism. Featured voices this podcast include (in order of appearance): • Ken Willia...
Jun 17, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 261
With the arrival of warmer weather, it's once again time for another MEDIA INDIGENA Summer Series, our compendia of conversations collected and connected from over the past five years of the podcast. With over 250 episodes to date, there’s certainly lots to choose from. And yet, there’s one subject that’s never far from the surface whenever we get together—justice. And from cops to courts to incarceration, these next two installments will take us on a whirlwind tour of Canada’s so-called justice...
Jun 07, 2021•53 min•Ep. 260
Pollution is Colonialism Part Two: fresh off part one, host/producer Rick Harp and MI regular Candis Callison once again sit down with author, artist and marine scientist Max Liboiron. And in the back half of this extended conversation, we find out why Land is not so much a noun as it is a verb, and why anti-colonial is not the same as de-colonial, especially when it comes to methods for pollution science, methods which foreground values of humility, equity, and good land relations. // CREDITS: ...
May 29, 2021•57 min•Ep. 259
Pollution is Colonialism: the straight-to-the-point title of a brand new book by Max Liboiron, Assistant Professor of Geography and Associate Vice-President of Indigenous Research at Memorial University, as well as the Director of CLEAR, or Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research. Among the book's core arguments: that any effort looking to resist environmental harms must trace them back to their ultimate source—the violence of colonial land relations. A violence, the author argues, ev...
May 27, 2021•48 min•Ep. 258
This week: redress, compensation and restitution. In short, Cash Back! It's the second half of our effort to put meat on the bones of this call for First Nations economic justice issued in the latest Red Paper of the Yellowhead Institute—viewable at cashback.yellowheadinstitute.org —as we run through the 'Top 10' ways to actually get that cash back from Canada. Joining host/producer Rick Harp once again are Tim Thompson and Naiomi Metallic of the Yellowhead Institute. // Our musical theme is 'ne...
May 23, 2021•50 min
From Wealth to Welfare. Just how did Canada’s economy end up among the world's largest, anyway? Was it the sheer pioneering pluck of can-do Canucks? A steely determination tempered by visionary imagination and innovation? Exactly what has Canada done to amass, command and enjoy such wealth? Well, according to a hot-off-the-presses report from the Yellowhead Institute, they stole it. Entitled Cash Back: A Yellowhead Institute Red Paper , the report impressively details what can only be described ...
May 15, 2021•43 min•Ep. 256
DILEMMA INDIGENA: For Indigenous peoples living under settler colonialism today, there are few choices that aren’t constrained, a predicament at the heart of a discussion in the brand new book, Regime of Obstruction: How Corporate Power Blocks Energy Democracy. Just published by Athabasca University Press, its 30-plus contributors include this week’s special guest, Clifford Atleo, an Assistant Professor of Resource & Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, who joins us to discus...
May 01, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 255
Northern education rooted in the north: for many, it's a vision at the very heart of Laurentian University, a northern Ontario school that today is in turmoil. Administrators now pursuing a dramatic—some say draconian—process of retrenchment and austerity, cutting dozens of programs and positions. Seen as a tricultural hub serving the region’s English, French and Indigenous populations, the institution has not only shared a campus with the University of Sudbury (among others), it’s shared fundin...
Apr 22, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 254
It’s the second half of our conversation with artist Chief Lady Bird about her decision to design a beer can label in support of Indigenous women’s causes. In part one, we learned about how it all came to be and some of the reaction that’s poured forth in its wake. This time, we go deeper into popular misunderstandings and misrepresentations of drugs and addiction, drawing on the insights of a neuroscientist who not only studies drugs but unapologetically enjoys them too. Joining host/producer R...
Apr 17, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 253
It was meant as a gesture in support of Indigenous women. A one of a kind design by an Indigenous artist known for her bold, provocative imagery. But when it comes to her latest work, it’s not what her art shows that’s sparked strife so much as where it’s shown—wrapped around a cold can of beer. Cue the beer can backlash, with some slamming the artist for supposedly glorifying or at least trivializing a substance many blame for violence against and among Indigenous people. This week, the first h...
Apr 13, 2021•53 min
Canine colonial. Is it apt to draw parallels between the worst ills of mainstream child welfare systems and those of animal welfare? It’s the potentially provocative thesis of the Vancouver Humane Society, a thesis they soon hope to put into practice. Joining host/producer Rick Harp for a decolonial discussion on dogs on and off the rez are MI regulars Ken Williams, assistant professor with the University of Alberta’s department of drama, and Kim TallBear, associate professor in the Faculty of N...
Apr 01, 2021•44 min•Ep. 251
They’re one of Canada’s oldest political parties. Heck, they gave the country its first ever prime minister back in 1867. Today, the Conservative Party of Canada hopes to form the next federal government. They may get their chance: rumours of a summer election abound. Making the party’s recent policy convention—and the associated keynote speech of leader Erin O’Toole—possible windows into what another Conservative government might hold in store for Indigenous interests. Joining host/producer Ric...
Mar 31, 2021•54 min•Ep. 250
A crapload of controversy. Did an Indigenous member of the Manitoba Legislature cross the line when she claimed members of the governing Conservative party "just don't give a crap about Indigenous women and girls in this province"? The Speaker sure thought so: ejecting the member for refusing to apologize or withdraw her so-called indecorous language. Meanwhile, not so long ago, an Indigenous MP in New Zealand was also ejected from that Parliament for not wearing a tie, or, as he put it, “a colo...
Mar 21, 2021•39 min•Ep. 249
With COVID-19 immunization programs now underway in Canada and beyond, the basic questions of who, when and where have leapt to the fore. Will the most vulnerable be the most vaccinated in time? Some, like the Métis of Manitoba, say they’ve been left exposed, prompting their efforts to try and cut out the provincial middle man by going straight to the manufacturers. A situation that arguably raises questions about just how much control or capacity Indigenous governments actually have when it com...
Mar 13, 2021•49 min
This week, high hopes for Deb Haaland —the congresswoman from New Mexico and citizen of the Laguna Pueblo who could make history as the first Indigenous person to ever serve as Secretary of the Interior for the United States. First things first, though: she still needs to be confirmed by the U-S Senate. Although committee hearings have wrapped up, a vote has yet to be held. But amidst all the excitement over her potential appointment, some have struck a more cautious tone about what it may—or ma...
Feb 28, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 247
Punishment for Pretendians: the back half of our extended look at colonial cosplay. And if part one was all about the problem, this part’s all about solutions. Just what is to be done about all these faux First Nations actors, authors and academics? What mechanisms might we use, and by whose authority? Does it make sense to target all the players, or would it be better to re-write the rules of the game? Back with host/producer Rick Harp to assess what's been put forth as ways to sift through the...
Feb 27, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 246
With issues of identity reaching a fever pitch of late, we thought we’d take its temperature. From Michelle Latimer’s contested claims to Indigeneity, to an ever-growing, quasi-underground list of Alleged Pretendians, not to mention a Twitter tempest over light-skin privilege, we’ll break down what’s at play, what’s at stake and—in part two—what might be ways out of this messy business. Joining host/producer Rick Harp at the roundtable are Kim TallBear, associate professor in the Faculty of Nati...
Feb 24, 2021•41 min•Ep. 245
Medically-assisted death. It’s a controversial subject to say the least, precisely why any effort to legislate it has proven just as contentious. So it is in Canada, where laws have been challenged and critiqued, both in and out of court, as either too broad, too narrow or even both, depending on who’s doing the talking—and whom they’re talking about. And with the federal government poised to re-codify medical assistance in dying (MAID), there are those concerned the law’s expansion of access to...
Feb 21, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 244
A new brief from the Yellowhead Institute has shone a light on yet another Canadian government attack on the spirit if not the letter of a human rights order demanding equity for First Nations kids. Issued by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, the order supports the right of First Nations children to access the same essential public services as any other kid in Canada, free of delays due to disputes over who should pay for it. It's known as Jordan's Principle, named for the late Jordan River An...
Jan 31, 2021•41 min•Ep. 243
Repping the Queen. With Canada’s last Governor-General stepping down due to scandal , there are those who say her replacement ought to be a First Nations person. And while the idea seems innocuous on its face—what with the bulk of their day-to-day duties confined to ribbon-cutting and rubber-stamping—there is one potential complication: the fact the role literally represents a foreign monarch whose assertion of dominion over Indigenous territories is still kind of controversial. Joining host/pro...
Jan 27, 2021•36 min•Ep. 242
This week, the back half of our two-part foray into fish farms. Part one discussed the myriad problems with such aquaculture; this time around, we look at proposed solutions. Might they swap one set of issues for another, or represent a genuine step toward a truly sustainable future for species so central to coastal First Nations? Back with host/producer Rick Harp are Kim TallBear, associate professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta and Canada Research Chair in Indi...
Jan 22, 2021•42 min•Ep. 241
Fish farm phase-out. And with the end of aquaculture as we know it in sight on British Columbia’s central coast, there is hope it could help spark a revival in the region’s once rich wild salmon population. Or, at the very least, halt the decline of species said to be at the foundation of numerous Indigenous cultures. But not everyone’s glad to see the farms fade away. In fact, there are those First Nations with a stake in the industry. Wading into these troubled waters with host/producer Rick H...
Jan 19, 2021•38 min•Ep. 240
