The Complexity of Indigenous Identity Formation and Politics in Canada

Self-Determination and Decolonisation

Abstract

Identity politics have been especially prominent in Canadian political discourse since the hegemonic white Anglophone identity was challenged in the 1970s. However, indigenous identity and nationalism have not received the same attention. In the politics of federalism and constitutional amendment, the contestation of the dominant view of Canada and the advancement of citizen and community identities, rather than provincial identity, was met with bemusement by the gatekeepers of Canadian federal and constitutional processes. In this article I trace some of the complexity of the formation and mobilization of Aboriginal identities in the Canadian context, to raise some theoretical and political problems and possibilities that attend to self determination and decolonisation.