Upholding Indigenous Economic Relationships: Nehiyawak Narratives

What is the relationship between economic progress in the land now called Canada and the exploitation of Indigenous peoples? And what gifts embedded within Indigenous world views speak to miyo-pimâtisiwin, the good life, and specifically to good economic relations? Upholding Indigenous Economic Relationships draws on the knowledge systems of the nehiyawak (Plains Cree) to argue that economic exploitation was the initial and most enduring relationship between newcomers and Indigenous peoples and that Indigenous economic relationships are constitutive: connections to the land, water, and other human and nonhuman beings form us as individuals and as peoples.

This groundbreaking study employs previously overlooked Indigenous economic theories and relationships and provides contemporary examples of nehiyawak renewing these relationships in resurgent ways. Upholding Indigenous Economic Relationships offers tools that enable us to reimagine how we can aspire to the good life with all our relations.