S1E5: Indigenous Language Resurgence with Dr. Mary Ann Corbiere

The hosts sit down with Dr. Mary Ann Corbiere to discuss Indigenous cultural and language resurgence, including some impacts of the Official Languages Act. Dr. Corbiere invites the students to consider how language repression figures into colonial assimilationist policy, and in the First Nations context, the complex relationship between language, culture and identity.

Dr. Corbiere is a member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and is an Associate Professor with the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Sudbury. Dr. Corbiere has a PhD in theory and policy studies in education from the University of Toronto. 

0:40 - Nishnaabemwin (Ojibwe) is Dr. Corbiere’s mother tongue, and she has developed an extensive online dictionary, found here: https://dictionary.nishnaabemwin.atlas-ling.ca/#/help 

5:12 - The Official Languages Act legislated French and English as Canada’s two official languages. All government services must be delivered in both languages. 

5:16 - The National Indian Brotherhood is the former name of what is now known as the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). 

9:03 - The Department of Indian Affairs has evolved into two separate federal government departments: Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC). 

17:30 - Here Dr. Corbiere discusses a viewpoint that separates the Church as an institution from the Christian faith.

8:32 - Views on the Bering Land Bridge/Bering Strait theory are diverse and contested amongst Indigenous peoples

29:32 - The Venture Initiative is an experiential learning initiative involving several courses at the University of Ottawa. https://www2.uottawa.ca/faculty-social-sciences/student-hub/venture-initiative

Produced by: Avia Amon, Maya Crawford, Shannon McQuaid and Reese Rowland-Kosticin.