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Scrip And Census In The Construction Of Métis Culture And History

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Throughout the past few months of taking this course, I have learnt more about Indigenous Studies than I have in all my prior years of schooling combined. The knowledge I have acquired will be very beneficial to my future career in Social Work. I have greatly broadened my understanding of Métis, First Nations, and Inuit cultures and histories. A few articles in particular really stuck out to me as I feel they are where I learnt the most. The first is the article written by Jennifer Adese, “R” Is for Métis: Contradictions in Scrip and Census in the Construction of a Colonial Métis Identity (2011), as it gave me insight to the Métis script, something I had previously never heard of. Additionally, in the articles about Métis peoples, Who are the …show more content…

(2016), written by Chelsea Vowel. Very informative. Admittedly, I previously had very baseline knowledge about the uniqueness of Métis, Inuit, and First Nations peoples. This piece taught me that there are three steps required in order for someone to legally identify as Métis. In order to identify, individuals must self-identify as Métis, have ancestral ties to a Métis community, as well as receive acceptance from a modern Métis community (Vowel, 2016). Before this article, I was ignorant towards the harm of referring towards Métis peoples as ‘mixed’, but I very quickly learned the history and harm of the term. The “Métis-as-mixed” stereotype can be a very damaging idea as it poses a threat to under representation of who Métis people are and the many obstacles they have had to overcome in order to be considered an individual group. Having this knowledge will be extremely useful in my future as a social worker. I will likely work with Métis peoples and having now been educated on proper terminology and the rich history of Métis peoples, I feel as though this better prepares me to be as understanding as possible. Despite being a short article, the piece published by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (2022), was very impactful. The article shared the stories of multiple female Indigenous veterans who served in Canada. Through the years of racism and discrimination while in the military, all of these women persevered and continued to fight. The short stories about each woman share how some of them would start off doing things such as working in the post office, and slowly but surely move up to things like flying, bombing, and gunnery training school. Specifically, the story of Private Mary Greyeyes stood out most. Greyeyes was the first woman to be accepted into the military, at just 20 years old. On top of this, she was the first Indigenous woman to join Canada’s armed

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