The Canadian North is witness to some of the most innovative efforts by Aboriginal peoples to reshape their relations with "mainstream" political and economic structures. Northern Quebec and Labrador are particularly dynamic examples of these efforts, composed of First Nations territories that until the 1970s had never been subject to treaty but are subject to escalating industrial demands for natural resources. The essays in this volume illuminate key conditions for autonomy and development: the definition and redefinition of national territories as cultural orders clash and mix; control of resource bases upon which northern economies depend; and renewal and reworking of cultural identity.

The passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 focused attention on the ways in which Indigenous peoples are adapting to the pressures of globalization and development. This volume extends the discussion by presenting case studies from around the world that explore how Indigenous peoples are engaging with and challenging globalization and Western views of autonomy. Taken together, these insightful studies reveal that concepts such as globalization and autonomy neither encapsulate nor explain Indigenous peoples' experiences.

It is from the land that the Native peoples of Canada draw their strength.If the people of Quebec claim a right to sovereignty, Inuit of Quebec argue their right of self-determination empowers them with the choice to remain part of Quebec, of Canada or to secede on their own.The James Bay Cree consider Hydro Quebec’s "mad plans to engineer and dam the vast ecosystem" where they have lived for centuries an affront to their own right to control their land.The Labrador Innu are struggling with both the federal and provincial governments to protect their traditional hunting territories from threats imposed by military training flights and mineral exploration.All of these are challenges. As the Native peoples of Canada are meeting them, asserting their right to make choices for themselves, they stand steadfastly "on the land" from which flow their inherent rights to self-determination."We are not willing to be bystanders and spectators. We are not willing to have our political status once again determined by others."– Zebedee Nungak, President of Makivik, representing Inuit of Northern Quebec"Great Whale is only a symptom. The attempted dispossession of my people, and the purported extinguishment of our rights, is the cause."– Matthew Coon Come, Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Cree"The real solution to the problems that face the Innu people is recognition by Canada and Newfoundland of our rights, rights to our land and our way of life. We can not and will not settle for anything less."– Daniel Ashini, Director of Innu Rights and Environment for the Innu Nation.

Maps and cartography have long been used in the lands and resources offices of Canada's indigenous communities in support of land claims and traditional-use studies. Exploring alternative conceptualizations of maps and mapmaking, Maps and Memes theorizes the potentially creative and therapeutic uses of maps for indigenous healing from the legacies of residential schools and colonial dispossession. Gwilym Eades proposes that maps are vehicles for what he calls "place-memes" - units of cultural knowledge that are transmitted through time and across space. Focusing on Cree, Inuit, and northwest coast communities, the book explores intergenerational aspects of mapping, landscape art practice, and identity. Through decades of living in and working with indigenous communities, Eades has constructed an ethnographically rich account of mapping and spatial practices across Canada. His extended participation in northern life also informs this theoretically grounded account of journeying on the land for commemoration and community healing. Interweaving narrative accounts of journeys with academic applications for mapping the phenomena of indigenous suicide and suicide clusters, Maps and Memes lays the groundwork for understanding current struggles of indigenous youth to strengthen their identities and foster greater awareness of traditional territory and place.

Richard Salisbury (1926-1989) was a pioneer in development anthropology and one of the founders of McGill University's anthropology department. His work had immense influence in the areas of economic anthropology, ethnographic practice (New Guinea, northern Canada) and policy formation. This volume commemorates and explores his life and work. Ethnography and Development presents eighteen articles written by Salisbury between 1954 and 1988, framed by seven original essays that explore his basic ideas as well as the intellectual and personal contexts in which he worked. The articles and essays highlight many of the issues that informed those of his generation who worked in economic and political anthropology, the anthropology of development, public anthropology, advocacy and applied anthropology, and in developing the organisational vehicles on which the profession currently depends. Salisbury's broad socio-economic vision, conceptual ideas, and socio-cultural ethnographic theories continue to exert a powerful influence on the discipline. Contributors include Harvey A. Feit (McMaster University), Henry J. Rutz (Hamilton College), and Colin H. Scott (McGill University).

The unique historical, economic, and social features of the Canadian North pose special challenges for the social economy – a sector that includes nonprofits, co-operatives, social enterprises, and community economic development organizations. Northern Communities Working Together highlights the innovative ways in which Northerners are using the social economy to meet their economic, social, and cultural challenges while increasing local control and capabilities. The contributors focus on the special challenges of the North and their impact on the scope of the social economy, including analyses of land claim organizations, hunter support programs, and Indigenous conceptions of the social economy. A welcome resource for scholars and policy-makers studying any aspect of the Canadian North, Northern Communities Working Together is a major contribution to the literature on the social economy in Canada.

Authored as a result of a remarkable collaboration between indigenous people's own leaders, other social activists and scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this volume explores what is happening today to indigenous peoples as they are enmeshed, almost inevitably, in the remorseless expansion of the modern economy and development, at the behest of the pressures of the market-place and government. It is particularly timely, given the rise in criticism of free market capitalism generally, as well as of development. The volume seeks to capture the complex, power-laden, often contradictory features of indigenous agency and relationships. It shows how peoples do not just resist or react to the pressures of market and state, but also initiate and sustain "life projects" of their own which embody local history and incorporate plans to improve their social and economic ways of living.