Not Strangers in These Parts: Urban Aboriginal Peoples

Aboriginal people live in cities. This simple declarative statement hides a complex reality. Life in small towns and large cities is part of Aboriginal reality as is life on reserves and in northern and Métis communities. Relationships with urban landlords, searching for employment in urban economies, making spaces for Aboriginal cultures and languages in city places, interacting with neighbours from different cultures and building urban Aboriginal programs and institutions is as much a part of Aboriginal realities as are land claims, conflicts over logging, hunting and treaty rights, and rural economic development. City life is now an integral component of Aboriginal peoples’ lives in Canada. This fact generates new mental images, research frameworks, and policy challenges. (Authors)

Publication Date: 
2003