Diverse perspectives on interdisciplinarity from the Members of the College of the Royal Society of Canada

Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly “interdisciplinarity”, which is used herein) are used to frame education, scholarship, research, and interactions within and outside academia. In principle, the premise of interdisciplinarity may appear to have many strengths; yet, the extent to which interdisciplinarity is embraced by the current generation of academics, the benefits and risks for doing so, and the barriers and facilitators to achieving interdisciplinarity represent inherent challenges. Much has been written on the topic of interdisciplinarity, but to our knowledge there have been few attempts to consider and present diverse perspectives from scholars, artists, and scientists in a cohesive manner. As a team of 57 members from the Canadian College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada (the College) who self-identify as being engaged or interested in interdisciplinarity, we provide diverse intellectual, cultural, and social perspectives. The goal of this paper is to share our collective wisdom on this topic with the broader community and to stimulate discourse and debate on the merits and challenges associated with interdisciplinarity. Perhaps the clearest message emerging from this exercise is that working across established boundaries of scholarly communities is rewarding, necessary, and is more likely to result in impact. However, there are barriers that limit the ease with which this can occur (e.g., lack of institutional structures and funding to facilitate cross-disciplinary exploration). Occasionally, there can be significant risk associated with doing interdisciplinary work (e.g., lack of adequate measurement or recognition of work by disciplinary peers). Solving many of the world’s complex and pressing problems (e.g., climate change, sustainable agriculture, the burden of chronic disease, and aging populations) demand thinking and working across long-standing, but in some ways restrictive, academic boundaries. Academic institutions and key support structures, especially funding bodies, will play an important role in helping to realize what is readily apparent to all who contributed to this paper—that interdisciplinarity is essential for solving complex problems; it is the new norm. Failure to empower and encourage those doing this research will serve as a great impediment to training, knowledge, and addressing societal issues

Writing settlement after Idle No More: non-indigenous responses in Anglo-Canadian poetry

This article examines the representation of settlement in Canada in the wake of Idle No More in recent Anglo-Canadian literature. It argues that Idle No More engendered a new vocabulary for settler-invader citizens to position themselves in relation to this Indigenous movement, with non-Indigenous Canadians self-identifying as “settlers” and “allies” as a means of both orienting themselves with respect to Indigenous resistance to the settler-invader nation-state and signalling an attempted solidarity with Idle No More that would not lapse into appropriation. Four very different poetic texts by non-Indigenous authors demonstrate this reconsideration of settlement in the wake of Idle No More: Arleen Paré’s Lake of Two Mountains (2014); Rachel Zolf’s Janey’s Arcadia (2014); Rita Wong’s undercurrent (2015); and Shane Rhodes’s X (2013). Although only the latter two of these collections make explicit reference to Idle No More, all four of these texts engage with historical and current colonialisms, relationships to land and water, and relationships between Indigenous peoples and settler-invaders, providing examples of new understandings and representations of (neo)colonial settlement in post-Idle No More Canada

Treaty Seven And Guaranteed Representation How Treaty Rights Can Evolve Into Parliamentary Seats

Most of the Canadian plains region is covered by the Numbered Treaties negotiated in the 1870s between the government of the Dominion of Canada, acting for the British Crown, and the nations whose territories encompassed the area. Even at the time that the treaties were negotiated, the various signatories had different assumptions about what they actually meant. During the ensuing century and more that the treaties have existed, their meanings have been reinterpreted. With the repatriation of the Canadian constitution in 1982, giving treaty rights constitutional status and protection from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the actual guarantees of the treaties have often been interpreted in a manner inconsistent with current government policy and quite possibly in a way that none of the treaty negotiators for the Crown could have imagined, let alone predicted, in the 1870s. Although the Crown\u27s prime objective was to avoid American-style Indian wars by securing promises of peace from the First Nations\u27 leaders and to negotiate the surrender of lands that could then be parceled out to incoming Euro-Canadian settlers, the texts of the treaties did promise the Indigenous parties sovereignty on their remaining territory, and particularly in the case of Treaty Seven, established that Indigenous leaders should share the responsibility for maintaining peace and order in the region. While it is always difficult to interpret a document in the light of completely altered circumstances, I make the argument that Treaty Seven, at least, may be legitimately interpreted in such a way as to provide for guaranteed representation, at the federal level, for the First Nations that were parties to the treaty. Although a number of studies have been conducted during the past several years suggesting that guaranteed parliamentary representation for Aboriginal peoples is compatible with the Canadian electoral system, others have suggested that such particularistic representation- giving special electoral rights to one particular group-is unconstitutional. The lack of consensus in the existing literature about the constitutionality of guaranteed Aboriginal representation may be because all of the studies have focused on integrating Aboriginal representation within the existing electoral scheme. Like Iris Marion Young, most scholars have conceptualized guaranteed representation as a means to rectify past injustices and inadequacies in the Canadian political system, but ihhey had examined guaranteed representation as a pre-existing right of Aboriginal peoples from before the repatriation of the constitution they might have arrived at different, more consistent conclusions.1 In this paper I argue that guaranteed parliamentary representation can legitimately be derived from the peace and good order clause that appears in the Numbered Treaties. In Treaty Seven (as in all the Numbered Treaties) the peace and good order or mutual clause reads as follows: And the undersigned Blackfeet, Blood, Piegan [sic] and Sarcee Head Chiefs and Minor Chiefs, and Stony [sic] Chiefs and Councilors on their own behalf and on behalf of all other Indians inhabiting the Tract within ceded do hereby solemnly promise and engage to strictly observe this Treaty, and also to conduct and behave themselves as good and loyal subjects of Her Majesty the Queen. They promise and engage that they will maintain peace and good order between each other and between themselves and other tribes of Indians, and between themselves and others of Her Majesty\u27s subjects, whether Indians, Half Breeds or Whites, now inhabiting or hereafter to inhabit, any part of the said ceded tract; and that they will not molest the person or property of any inhabitant of such ceded tract, or the property of Her Majesty the Queen, or interfere with or trouble any person, passing or traveling through the said tract or any part thereof, and that they will assist the officers of Her Majesty in bringing to justice and punishment any Indian offending against the stipulation of this Treaty, or infringing the laws in force in the country so ceded.

Reconciliation, Resurgence and Renewal: An Alternative Vision for Canada, 2042: Keynote Lecture

With the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC)’s final report and the TRC’s Recommendations/Call to Action in 2015, many Canadians and their governments, institutions, organizations and companies have chosen to take up

Understanding the Impact of Self- Determination on Communities in Crisis

Canada is struggling to recast its relationship with Aboriginal peoples in response to massive disparities, mounting resentment, and emerging political realities. The interplay of racism, paternalism and disempowerment has inflicted a serious toll in terms of social, health, economic, and cultural costs. Many Aboriginal people have lost their language and identity, and this spiritual loss is compounded by skyrocketing rates of alcoholism, substance abuse, domestic violence, suicide, diabetes, and heart disease. The need for structural change is broadly acknowledged by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal leaders alike, but they disagree on how to hasten this transformation from colonial subjects to self-determining peoples. Central to most proposals for restructuring is establishing Aboriginal self-government as a basis for healing (Fleras, 1996, p.122)