This Is An Emergency Broadcast connects Indigenous political advocacy with the forms of communication offered by community radio, countering power chronicles of state and corporate media and, in its self-determination, offering space for reignited narratives. A project with artist and activist Marianne Nicolson (Musga̱maḵw Dzawada̱’enux̱w), This Is An Emergency Broadcast occupies the Belkin space with audio recordings that clarify a history of Indigenous articulation, collective organization and opposition to colonial forces.

This reading room offers resources relating to the themes and works present in this exhibition.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Kesler, L., K. Crey, E. Hanson, C. Cruz, J. Deutsch, A. Huang, V. LeBlanc, A. Lee, S. Paul, J. Rosinski, T. Salomons and J. Wilson. (2009). Welcome to Indigenous Foundations. Indigenous Foundations. https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home.

The First Nations Studies Program at the University of British Columbia created Indigenous Foundations to serve as a resource centre to access accurate cultural, historical and political information regarding Indigenous communities in Canada. The timeline presented by Indigenous foundations reflects the history of advocacy within Indigenous communities and includes information relevant to highlighted political events in This Is An Emergency Broadcast.

 

Canadian Communications Foundation. “History of Aboriginal Broadcasting.” The History of Canadian Broadcasting Archive. https://broadcasting-history.ca/in-depth/history-of-aboriginal-broadcasting/.

The “History of Aboriginal Broadcasting” discloses a brief history of Indigenous broadcasting, beginning during the Second World War and continuing into present day. This webpage follows the cultivation of radio to service Indigenous individuals that led to the dissemination of Indigenous cultural programming through shortwave radio service. Radio that serviced Indigenous communities was made possible through federal funding, which also sponsored the eventual establishment of Indigenous radio and television stations.

 

Indigenous Culture & Media Innovations. “Nuxalk Radio – Spoken From the Heart Podcast.” YouTube Video, 15:01. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is9QUOjdXog.

Posted under Indigenous Culture & Media Innovations (ICMI), the “Spoken from the Heart Podcast” follows the development of 91.1 FM Nuxalk Radio as a medium to recover and promote Nuxalk language which suffered due to the suppression and attempted erasure of Indigenous language and culture through federal enforcement of oppressive legislature, the residential school system and other methods of disenfranchisement by the Canadian government. Through audio interviews, the ICMI video compiles accounts of the many ways in which Nuxalk radio is a platform that works to decolonize the airwaves and connect the community to their voice. Incorporating Nuxalk language, songs and stories, the station is a constant assertion of Nuxalk Nationhood that affirms Nuxalk presence, survivance and sovereignty.

 

Nicolson, Marianne. “Seeing You and Looking Back: Display as Land Rights and Title.” International Contemporary Art, (2018, Winter): 56-57. https://cmagazine.com/articles/seeing-you-and-looking-back-display-as-land-rights-and-title.

In her exhibition review of Seeing You and Looking Back: Display as Land Rights and Title, Marianne Nicolson explains the negative implications the McKenna-McBride Royal Commission had on Indigenous communities with government sanctioned land theft and additions to the Indian act that made it impossible to regain stolen land. Nicolson articulates the importance of land and ceremony among the Kwakwaka’wakw community and presents examples that explain the Indigenous connection between land and heritage, a relationship that cannot be measured in material value.

 

Coulthard, Glen Sean, “Introduction: Subjects of Empire, ” Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, 1–24. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt9qh3cv.5.

In his book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, Glen Coulthard addresses the structural issues within Indigenous cultural recognition policies in Canada. Coulthard follows the modern political history of Canadian oppression of Aboriginal bodies and the shifting of colonial structures after key political crises that necessitated the defense of Indigenous cultural traditions. Red Skin, White Masks expands upon the relationship between capitalism and colonialism that prioritizes ideologies of land ownership over land stewardship.

 

Kheraj, S. and T. Peace. “Historical Document 2: Red Paper, 1970.” In DRAFT: Open History Seminar. Creative Commons. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/chotr/chapter/copy/.

This historical document is a response to the 1969 White Paper, a statement proposed by the Canadian government on Indigenous policy that attempted to assimilate Indigenous peoples through the elimination of their “Indian” status. Historical Document 2: Red Paper, 1970, drafted by the Indian Association of Alberta, rejects the White Paper and seeks to protect the status, culture, services and territories available to Indigenous communities.

 

Nickel, Sarah A. “Sovereignty.” In Assembling Unity: Indigenous Politics, Gender, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, 146-167. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018.

Tk’emlupsemc historian Sarah Nickel outlines the ways in which competing ideas of sovereignty caused rifts between Indigenous people and the Canadian government leading up to the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982. Following the Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), Nickel traces the shifting strategies employed by UBCIC amidst patriation debates, as the group navigated working within and outside settler-colonial constructions of sovereignty. Culminating in the Constitution Express and lobbying on an international level, the chapter draws out the complex ways in which Indigenous sovereignty was defined and limited by competing understandings of gender, status and politics.

 

Obomsawin, Alanis. Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance. Montreal: National Film Board of Canada, 1993. https://www.nfb.ca/film/kanehsatake_270_years_of_resistance/.

Acclaimed Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin documents the events of the Kanehsatà:ke Resistance, also known as the Mohawk Resistance or the Oka Crisis. The mayor of Oka, a town in Quebec, announced a development plan to build a townhouse complex and expand a golf course onto Kanien’kéhaka burial grounds, sparking months of protest which were first met by a SWAT team and eventually escalated by the employment of the Sûreté du Québec, the Quebec Provincial Police. Filming the 78-day standoff at the site of the armed conflict, Obomsawin weaves together a narrative that not only accounts for the protests in 1990 but also recalls the long history of settler-colonial exploitation that led up to the Mohawk Resistance and the government-sanctioned violence that followed.

 

Manuel, Arthur and Ronald M. Derrickson. “Days of Protest: Young Activists Come Together.” In Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call, 159-168. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2021.

Arthur Manuel, a late Secwepemc leader and political activist, recounts the role of young activists and Indigenous women in the fight against exploitative legislature. Reflecting on Indigenous activism in Canada leading up to the Idle No More movement, Manuel highlights the ways in which resistance efforts revealed the weaknesses of the Assembly of First Nations and exposed the need for demands of action rather than process. The chapter concludes with Manuel’s insights into the necessary action required to not only bring justice and liberation to Indigenous communities across Canada but also to ensure a sustainable future for the nation-state at large.

 

Image (above): George Manuel’s son, Bob Manuel, confronting Pierre Trudeau outside of the Vancouver Four Seasons hotel in 1981. Courtesy of the Pacific Tribune Photo Collection, Simon Fraser University. Photo: Josh Berson