New Reference Library Resources Available - Have a Look!

Good Morning! 

We promised you training opportunities this year, why not add training resources to the mix?

In effort to better incorporate EDI (Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) resources and move our Unlocking Community Museum Collections calls to action forward, we've been working on reviewing and diversifying the ANSM Reference Library. We recognised that our library was lacking in terms of content authored by First Nations Peoples and we sought to remedy this. 

The following titles were recommended to us by the Millbrook Cultural & Heritage Centre and primarily centre a First Nations' perspective. Browse the new books below:

Marie Battiste - Living Treaties: Narrating Mi'kmaw Treaty Relations

First Nations, Métis and Inuit lands and resources are tied to treaties and other documents, their relevance forever in dispute. Contributors share how they came to know about treaties, about the key family members and events that shaped their thinking and their activism and life’s work.

Marie Battiste - Visioning A Mi'kmaw Humanities: Indigenizing the Academy. Second Edition

In what may be termed cognitive imperialism, the academy has largely ignored Aboriginal perspectives of humanity. In this volume, Mi’kmaw and non-Mi’kmaw scholars, teachers and educators posit an interdisciplinary approach to explicate and animate a Mi’kmaw Humanities.

Doug Knockwood & Friends  - Doug Knockwood: Stories, Memories, Reflections 

Freeman Douglas Knockwood is a highly respected Elder in Mi'kmaw Territory and one of Canada's premier addictions recovery counsellors. The story of his life is one of unimaginable colonial trauma, recovery and hope.

Isabelle Knockwood - Out of the Depths: The Experience of Mi'kmaw Children at the Indian Residential School at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. Fourth Edition. 

In this newly updated fourth edition, Knockwood speaks to twenty-one survivors of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School about their reaction to the apology by the Canadian government in 2008. Is it now possible to move forward?

Paula C. Madden - African Nova Scotian - Mi'kmaw Relations 

The Indigenous people of Nova Scotia, the Mi’kmaq, have been dispossessed of their lands and, since the early 1820s, confined to reserves. African Nova Scotians have also been dispossessed of lands originally granted to them by white colonial governments and settled in communities with names like Africville, Preston or Birchtown. Yet “the story of Africville, and other stories of dispossession,” argues author Paula C. Madden, “cannot be told and understood outside the context of the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.

Pamela Palmater - Indigenous Nationhood: Empowering Grassroots Citizens

Indigenous Nationhood is a selection of blog posts by well-known lawyer, activist and academic Pamela Palmater. Palmater offers critical legal and political commentary and analysis on legislation, Aboriginal rights, Canadian politics, First Nations politics and social issues such as murdered and missing Indigenous women, poverty, economics, identity and culture.

Daniel N. Paul - We Were Not the Savages

The title of this book We Were Not the Savages speaks to the truth of what happened when Europeans invaded Mi’kmaw lands in the 17th century. Prior to the European invasion the Mi’kmaq lived healthy lives and for thousands of years had lived in harmony with nature in the land they called Mi’kma’ki.

Trudy Sable & Bernie Francis - The Language of This Land, Mi'kma'ki

The Language of this Land, Mi’kma’ki is an exploration of Mi’kmaw world view as expressed in language, legends, song and dance. Using imagery as codes, these include not only place names and geologic history, but act as maps of the landscape. Sable and Francis illustrate the fluid nature of reality inherent in its expression – its embodiment in networks of relationships with the landscape integral to the cultural psyche and spirituality of the Mi’kmaq.

Ruth Holmes Whitehead - The Old Man Told Us: Excerpts from Mi'kmaw History 1500-1900

The Mi’kmaw people have been living in what is now Atlantic Canada for two thousand years or more, yet written history has largely ignored them, presenting them merely as a homogeneous mass or as statistics. Renowned historian and ethnologist Ruth Holmes Whitehead tries to redress that omission by restoring to the collective memory a true sense of the Mi’kmaw people. 

ANSM Members may borrow up to three items from the library at a time, for a maximum of three months. Please email Brittany (services@ansm.ns.ca) if interested in borrowing any of these titles.

Happy Reading!