Finding Dahshaa
Self-Government, Social Suffering, and Aboriginal Policy in Canada
Based on case studies of three self-government negotiations in the Northwest Territories, Finding Dahshaa is the first ethnographic study of the negotiation of self-government in Canada.
Description
Just as dahshaa ? a rare type of dried, rotted spruce wood ? is essential to the moosehide-tanning process in Dene culture, self-determination and the alleviation of social suffering are necessary to Indigenous survival in Northwest Territories. But is self-government an effective path to self-determination? Finding Dahshaa shows where self-government negotiations between Canada and the Dehcho, D?l?n?, and Inuvialuit and Gwich'in peoples have gone wrong and offers, through descriptions of tanning practices that embody principles and values central to self-determination, an alternative model for negotiations. This book, which includes a foreword by Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus, is the first ethnographic study of self-government negotiations in Canada.