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Chris Andersen, "Métis": Race, Recognition, and the Struggle for Indigenous Peoplehood (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press 2014)
"Métis" is both an academic exploration of the meaning of ethnic and/or Aboriginal identity and an impassioned polemic for the recognition of the western Red River Métis as a separate people or nation with the exclusive right to be called "Métis," from a scholar who identifies himself both as a Métis and Métis nationalist. The usual academic discussions of ethnicity, identity, and aboriginality, whether from a sociological/anthropological or historical viewpoint, usually come from presumably disinterested outsiders - those without a personal stake in the game - and seldom from the viewpoint of an insider. But Andersen's work is an example of an increasing number of Métis scholars who are not only attempting to delineate Métis ethnogenesis and history, but are attempting to define how Métis identity should be regarded in contemporary Canadian society. Despite Andersen's personal stake in defining the Métis Nation, this work is a closely reasoned and academically sound discussion of Aboriginal identity in Canada.
The core of Andersen's thesis is straightforward, although profoundly counterintuitive to the pervading perception of "Métis" in Canada. He states categorically that the Métis should not be thought of as a "mixed" race - part "Indian" and part "white" - but as a political construct, a nation, the group that was recognized in the Manitoba Act, 1870, whose rights were recognized in the statutes and orders-in-council from the early 1800s into the 20th century. Andersen makes a convincing case that "mixedness" is an illogical way to differentiate the Métis from other indigenous people. Obviously, all Aboriginal people, First Nations and Inuit included, are at least partially "mixed." Concentrating on Métis hybridity, therefore, ignores the real characteristics that set the Métis apart from other Aboriginal peoples - kinship links...