CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF LAW WORKSHOP
presents
Hadley Friedland
University of Alberta
Indigenous Legal Traditions: Roots to Renaissance
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
12:30 - 2:00
Falconer Hall, Solarium (room FA2)
84 Queen's Park
All societies deal with the universal issue of human violence and vulnerability, and all societies develop unique responses to this universal issue, expressed through their legal traditions. However, in Indigenous societies, this essential piece for social order and good governance has been obscured and undermined through colonialism. Today, many Indigenous people are working to recover these legal traditions as part of decolonization and self-determination aspirations, and in response to the urgent human and social issues faced on the ground. In this paper, we contextualize this recovery effort by describing four eras of the debates about Indigenous legal traditions over time: (1) Roots; (2) Repression and Resilience; (3) Recovery and Revitalization and (4) Renaissance. Given the diversity of Indigenous peoples, for clarity, we follow one example of a legal concept pertaining to human violence and vulnerability through the four eras: the wetiko, or windigo legal concept. In the first era, we set out a logical starting point from which to think about the roots of all Indigenous legal traditions. In the second, we discuss both the repression of Indigenous legal traditions that occurred within early colonization and the resilience of these traditions through this dark era. In the third, we explore the contemporary recovery and revitalization of Indigenous laws within the limited spaces afforded to them in the larger frame of state justice systems. In the final era, we describe the latest promising steps toward a renaissance or resurgence of Indigenous law, where it is treated seriously as law, not as isolated relics or artifacts of a fading past, nor merely as cultural customs or practices.
Hadley Friedland is currently Research Coordinator of the Indigenous Bar Association’s “Accessing Justice and Reconciliation” Project. She is a PhD student and Vanier Scholar at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law. Her dissertation explores the contemporary articulation and application of Indigenous legal principles in Canada. Hadley completed an LLB at the University of Victoria and an LLM, focused on Cree legal traditions, at the University of Alberta, entitled, “The Wetiko (Windigo) Legal Principles”. She articled with the Department of Justice, Canada and was called to the Alberta Bar in September 2010. Prior to law school, she worked in the child and family services field for 8 years.
A light lunch will be provided.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
