Aboriginal Identification in North American Cities

Abstract / Resume identification processes in cities framed through relatively recent identity theory on self-identification and discursive identification are major concerns of this paper. The challenges involved in identification from across North American cities through controversies over culture specific versus pan-Aboriginal identification, traditions, authenticity and self-identification versus community acceptance are probed. Also investigated is how identification is affected by stereotypes, gender, rural/urban churn, imposed invisibility, inter-generational and mixed blood issues. Without denigrating difference approaches to identification, this paper promotes an identification approach (Schouls 2003) to understanding how in cities identify. Le present article traite principalement des processus d'appartenance a la population autochtone dans les villes, dans le cadre de la theorie relativement recente de l'identite sur l'auto-identification et sur l'identification discursive. Il examine les problemes de l'identification dans les villes nord-americaines en traitant des controverses portant sur l'identification fondee sur la culture particuliere contre l'identification panautochtone, ainsi que sur les traditions, l'authenticite et l'auto-identification contre l'acceptation sociale. L'article examine egalement comment l'identification subit les effets des stereotypes, du sexe des personnes, des deplacements entre la ville et la campagne, de l'invisibilite imposee, ainsi que des questions transgenerationnelles et de metissage. Sans denigrer les approches differentielles a l'identification, l'article fait la promotion d'une approche d'identification (Schouls 2003) pour comprendre comment les Autochtones urbains s'identifient. Introduction Groundbreaking research on central issues and lacunae for understanding in cities across North America has taken place over past five to ten years by small number of scholars across various disciplines.11 discuss key area, identity construction, within current discourse on experience in North American cities. Where relevant, I use my fieldwork with Community Council Project (CCP), an diversion2 project in Toronto, to provide ethnographic insight into this issue. Before proceeding some definitional matters must be addressed. Many people including myself have used Aboriginals to describe or differentiate them from reserve, reservation or rural peoples. This rift is not clear cut because urban and rural flow repeatedly to and from both contexts. Hence, 'Urban' is not a kind of Indian. It is a kind of experience, that most people today have had (Straus and Valentine 2001: 86). Using one generic term is confusing and ambiguous (Fixico 2000: 29). DicksonGilmore and LaPrairie (2005:25) discuss different types of urban areas and different sizes of urban populations making any policy talk about the urban issue difficult at best. I will, therefore, speak of experiences in cities rather than using problematic urban Aboriginals. secondly, at times word Indian is used while at others Aboriginal peoples is utilized. This reflects a divide between American and Canadian usage both in academia and across North America. I also use in Canadian context in order to encompass widest variety of identities from (both status and non-status) to Inuit/Innu to Metis. It is important to note that I am in no way trying to control or appropriate how any individual, group or community defines identity for themselves. I am simply offering a set of concepts to think through, sets of issues that affect identity and how these need to be taken into account when analyzing processes of identification. …

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