Moccasin Tracks: Reading the Narrative in Traditional Indigenous Craft Work

• Main Author: Anton, James Wyatt
• Other Authors: Voyageur, Cora Jane, Henry, Robert, Leason, Jennifer
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Arts 2018
• Subjects: First Nations; Craftwork; Decolonialism; Settler-colonialism; Narrative; Culture; Native American Studies; Sociology; Canada
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1880/106597; https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/31883

The colonization of Canada has produced deleterious effects for the First Nations peoples that originally inhabited the land. Through sharing stories with a number of First Nations craft producers the objective of this research was to capture the endurance of First Nations culture beyond the disastrous effects of colonization and repression faced by the First Peoples of this continent. This study investigates the production of craft goods in First Nations communities by building on the concept of the narrative embedded in the material craft culture. By narrative, this study refers to the culturally specific ways that stories are created and maintained to preserve elements of culture and society. Craft goods continue to be produced and used in these communities as a way of preserving and reproducing the specific tribal knowledges that exist within these groups. Data in this project comes from semi-structured interviews with Indigenous craft makers. The methodology was developed to confront the positionality of a non-Indigenous researcher pursuing research objectives in a First Nations community and with the aim to be mindful and mitigate the effects of social privilege and power in the analysis of the data. Interviews and notes were analyzed through a hybrid of narrative and thematic analysis. The themes emerging from preliminary analysis of the data fit within a theoretical framework that centres and privileges Indigenous experience and perspective. Themes include: spirituality, family, animals, social structure, and resistance. These themes contribute to a larger cultural narrative of relationality and endurance embedded in the Indigenous material craft culture being investigated in the research. Together, these themes offer a clearer vision of the First Nations perspective and what it means to maintain a distinct cultural identity under the ongoing campaign of colonization.