A rare and inspiring guide to the health and well-being of Aboriginal women and their communities.The process of “digging up medicines” - of rediscovering the stories of the past - serves as a powerful healing force in the decolonization and recovery of Aboriginal communities. In Life Stages and Native Women, Kim Anderson shares the teachings of fourteen elders from the Canadian prairies and Ontario to illustrate how different life stages were experienced by Metis, Cree, and Anishinaabe girls and women during the mid-twentieth century. These elders relate stories about their own lives, the experiences of girls and women of their childhood communities, and customs related to pregnancy, birth, post-natal care, infant and child care, puberty rites, gender and age-specific work roles, the distinct roles of post-menopausal women, and women’s roles in managing death. Through these teachings, we learn how evolving responsibilities from infancy to adulthood shaped women’s identities and place within Indigenous society, and were integral to the health and well-being of their communities. By understanding how healthy communities were created in the past, Anderson explains how this traditional knowledge can be applied toward rebuilding healthy Indigenous communities today.

"Amber, Bev, Chantel, Jazmyne, Faith, and Jorgina are six Indigenous women previously involved in street gangs or the street lifestyle in Saskatoon, Regina, and Calgary. In collaboration with Indigenous Studies scholar Robert Henry (Métis), they share their stories using photovoice, an emancipatory research process where participants are understood to be the experts of their own experiences. Each photograph in Indigenous Women and Street Gangs was selected and placed in order to show how the authors have changed with their experiences. Following their photographs, the authors each share a narrative that begins with their earliest memory and continues to the present. Together the photographs and narratives bring a deeper meaning to the women's lived realities. Throughout, these women show us the meaning of survivance, a process of resistance, resurgence, and growth. While often difficult to read, the narratives shared by Amber, Bev, Chantel, Jazmyne, Faith, and Jorgina are direct, explicit, sensitive, and imbued with hope and humour. They provide unparalleled insight into the lives of these women and break all kinds of stereotypes along the way."--

A wave of life stories and autobiographical narratives by Aboriginal women began in the late 1970s and gained momentum a decade later with the publication of Sally Morgan’s My Place (1987), which became a bestseller. While some of the books of the first wave focused mainly (if not exclusively) on the author, Aboriginal women’s life stories widened over time to include transgenerational histories of the family. Reading Aboriginal Women’s Life Stories is an important discussion of books that have shaped our understanding of contemporary Indigenous Australian literature. Anne Brewster provides an in-depth textual analysis of three key titles and situates them in relation to concepts of history, race, gender, family, storytelling and Aboriginality in modern Australia. “Looking back, we can recognise now what an extraordinary phenomenon these life stories are, and how they have changed understandings of Aboriginality and writing … The return of this classic book in a new edition is a welcome reminder that Anne Brewster’s careful, deeply respectful and informed approach to these writings is as necessary now as it ever was.” —Professor Gillian Whitlock FAHA

A searing new novel from leading Indigenous storyteller Tony Birch that explores the lengths we will go to in order to save the people we love.Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their families. When a new policeman arrives in town, determined to enforce the law, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect everything she loves. In The White Girl, Miles-Franklin-shortlisted author Tony Birch shines a spotlight on the 1960s and the devastating government policy of taking Indigenous children from their families.

When Sylvia Van Kirk published her groundbreaking book, Many Tender Ties, in 1980, she revolutionized the historical understanding of the North American fur trade and introduced entirely new areas of inquiry in women’s, social, and Aboriginal history. Finding a Way to the Heart examines race, gender, identity, and colonization from the early nineteenth to the late twentieth century, and illustrates Van Kirk’s extensive influence on a generation of feminist scholarship.

This collection of seventeen essays presents original and critical perspectives from writers, scholars and activists on issues that are pertinent to Aboriginal women and their communities in both rural and urban settings in Canada. Their contributions explore the critical issues facing Native women as they rebuild and revive their communities. Through topics such as the role of tradition, reclaiming identities and protecting Native children and the environment, they identify the restraints that shape their actions and the inspirations that feed their visions.The contributors address issues of youth, health and sexual identity; women's aging, sexuality and health; caring for children and adults living with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; First Nations education and schooling; community-based activism on issues of prostitution and sex workers; and reclaiming cultural identity through art and music.