| Summary: | The processes of colonization, which are maintained and enforced in a settler-colonial state through ideological apparatuses such as the justice system, health care, social services, and education have been exceedingly detrimental to Indigenous knowledges and ways of life. These apparatuses are primarily constructed to establish or maintain an ideological order such as capitalism, but also to identify and punish deviant or different ideologies, for instance Indigenous relationality. In the context of education and law, my dissertation will show how Indigenous oral traditions and spirituality have historically been attacked as being primitive and uncivilized, which laid a foundation to implement policies such as the Residential School System, as well as to write laws that are designed to erase Indigenous identity and rights, ie. the Indian Act. Despite the attack on Indigenous oral traditions and spirituality, however, traditional forms of Indigenous law and principles of education have survived. This is partly due to the advancement of ‘Aboriginal’ and treaty rights’ in Canada over the past forty years. The evolution of ‘Aboriginal and treaty rights’ is best observed in the context of Canadian case law and ‘Indian’ policy and resistance. In the latest development of this evolutionary process, the Canadian state has committed itself to a policy of reconciliation with Indigenous nations and peoples. In order to fulfill its commitment to reconciliation, the Canadian state must recognize and affirm Indigenous self-determination and cultural resurgence. I argue that the way that this can be accomplished is by recognizing and affirming traditional Indigenous laws, particularly those laws that relate to education. The recognition and affirmation of Indigenous education laws such as kinamaadiwin inaakonigewin is important to the extent that these laws can serve as the legal mechanism with which to fulfill the treaty right to education that was promised in the Numbered Treaties. Once Indigenous education laws are ...
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