Drawing on the insights of Indigenous feminist legal theory, Emily Snyder examines representations of Cree law and gender in books, videos, graphic novels, educational websites, online lectures, and a video game. Although these resources promote the revitalization of Cree law and the principle of miyo-wîcêhtowin (good relations), Snyder argues that they do not capture the complexities of gendered power relations. The majority of these resources either erase women’s legal authority by not mentioning them, or they diminish their agency by portraying Cree laws and gender roles in inflexible, aesthetically pleasing ways that overlook power imbalances and other forms of oppression.

Drawing on the insights of Indigenous feminist legal theory, Emily Snyder examines representations of Cree law and gender in books, videos, graphic novels, educational websites, online lectures, and a video game. Although these resources promote the revitalization of Cree law and the principle of miyo-wîcêhtowin (good relations), Snyder argues that they do not capture the complexities of gendered power dynamics. The majority of the resources either erase women’s legal authority by not mentioning them, or they diminish women’s agency by portraying them primarily as mothers and nurturers. Although these latter roles are celebrated, Snyder argues that Cree laws and gender roles are represented in inflexible, aesthetically pleasing ways that overlook power imbalances and difficult questions regarding interpretations of tradition. What happens when good relations are represented in ways that are oppressive? Grappling with this question, Snyder makes the case that educators need to critically engage with issues of gender and power in order to create inclusive resources that meaningfully address the everyday messiness of law. As with all legal orders, gendered oppression can be perpetuated through Cree law, but Cree law is also a dynamic resource for challenging gendered oppression.

Indigenous laws are complexly gendered yet there is a lack of research on this subject. As the field of indigenous law is growing, and as indigenous laws are being revitalized, it is crucial that gender analyses be included given that law and decolonization politics are not disconnected from broader social dynamics. In this dissertation, I engage in a discussion about the possibilities and challenges relating to research on indigenous laws and gender by examining Cree legal educational materials. This study focuses on: 1) how the educational materials, which are meant to advocate empowerment of Cree people and laws, represent Cree women as legal agents, and 2) whether and how indigenous feminist legal theory and methodology facilitate this research. Indigenous feminist legal theory provides an analytic tool that is attentive to gendered power dynamics in indigenous laws. This theoretical approach informs indigenous feminist legal methodology, which is used to examine discourse and representations. These theoretical and methodological approaches have not yet been articulated and I demonstrate that they are vital tools for anti-oppressive interpretations of law. My research shows that Cree women are represented in limited ways in the educational materials - first, through the absence of women, and second, through limited representations which include women only in relation to traditional gender roles and 'women's issues.' Indigenous feminist legal analysis necessitates moving beyond these tendencies and aims to work with tensions as they arise in my analysis. The educational materials most often present Cree law in aesthetically pleasing ways, and indigenous feminist legal analysis demands more difficult aesthetics. While it is important to examine how and why these representations are being positively deployed, it is also crucial to examine what is lost when gendered realities are absent or erased. For Cree women to be represented as complex legal agents, Cree law and revitalization need to be gendered in the educational materials, and beyond. Indigenous feminist legal analysis encourages scholarship on indigenous laws that treats Cree law (and other indigenous legal orders) as a living intellectual and practical resource that can be critically engaged with to discuss and challenge gendered conflict.

While colonial imposition of the Canadian legal order has undermined Indigenous law, creating gaps and sometimes distortions, Indigenous peoples have taken up the challenge of rebuilding their laws, governance, and economies. Indigenous conceptions of land and property are central to this project. Creating Indigenous Property identifies how contemporary Indigenous conceptions of property are rooted in and informed by their societally specific norms, meanings, and ethics. Through detailed analysis, the authors illustrate that unexamined and unresolved contradictions between the historic and the present have created powerful competing versions of Indigenous law, legal authorities, and practices that reverberate through Indigenous communities. They have identified the contradictions and conflicts within Indigenous communities about relationships to land and non-human life forms, about responsibilities to one another, about environmental decisions, and about wealth distribution. Creating Indigenous Property contributes to identifying the way that Indigenous discourses, processes, and institutions can empower the use of Indigenous law. The book explores different questions generated by these dynamics, including: Where is the public/private divide in Indigenous and Canadian law, and why should it matter? How do land and property shape local economies? Whose voices are heard in debates over property and why are certain voices missing? How does gender matter to the conceptualization of property and the Indigenous legal imagination? What is the role and promise of Indigenous law in negotiating new relationships between Indigenous peoples and Canada? In grappling with these questions, readers will join the authors in exploring the conditions under which Canadian and Indigenous legal orders can productively co-exist.

This edited collection is an interdisciplinary and international collaborative book that critically investigates the growing phenomenon of Indigenous-industry agreements – agreements that are formed between Indigenous peoples and companies involved in the extractive natural resource industry. These agreements are growing in number and relevance, but there has yet to be a systematic study of their formation and implementation. This groundbreaking collection is situated within frameworks that critically analyze and navigate relationships between Indigenous peoples and the extraction of natural resources. These relationships generate important questions in the context of Indigenous-industry agreements in diverse resource-rich countries including Australia and Canada, and regions such as Africa and Latin America. Beyond domestic legal and political contexts, the collection also interprets, navigates, and deploys international instruments such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in order to fully comprehend the diverse expressions of Indigenous-industry agreements. Indigenous-Industry Agreements, Natural Resources and the Law presents chapters that comprehensively review agreements between Indigenous peoples and extractive companies. It situates these agreements within the broader framework of domestic and international law and politics, which define and are defined by the relationships between Indigenous peoples, extractive companies, governments, and other actors. The book presents the latest state of knowledge and insights on the subject and will be of value to researchers, academics, practitioners, Indigenous communities, policymakers, and students interested in extractive industries, public international law, Indigenous rights, contracts, natural resources law, and environmental law.

In Canada and elsewhere, recent political, economic, and social shifts have brought gender to the forefront of politics as never before, from gender-based analyses and “feminist budgets” to the #MeToo, Idle No More, and Black Lives Matter movements. Detailing these gendered and turbulent political times, this book features state-of-the art scholarship from diverse contributors that encompasses both contemporary challenges as well as avenues for change now and into the future. This collection represents a complex treatment of both gender and politics, in which gender is examined in light of other collective identities and their intersections and politics refers to both institutional and movement and countermovement politics.

Freedom is celebrated as the definitive ideal of modern western civilization. Yet in western thought and practice, freedom has been defined through opposition to the unfreedom of most of the world's people. Allison Weir draws on Indigenous political theories and practices of decolonization in dialogue with western theories, to reconstruct a tradition of relational freedom as a distinctive political conception of freedom: a radically democratic mode of engagement and participation in social and political relations with an infinite range of strange and diverse beings perceived as free agents in interdependent relations in a shared world.