Re-Centring Indigenous Ideas

Abstract

The title of First Nations, First Thoughts: The Impact of Indigenous Thought in Canada deliberately echoes—with a strategic difference—Tom Flanagan’s controversial book First Nations? Second Thoughts, which argued against Aboriginal selfdetermination. Almost one decade later, this new collection of essays resoundingly displaces the unmitigated Eurocentrism of Flanagan’s assimilationist agenda by asserting the primary importance of Indigenous epistemologies and intellectual debate in Canada. In particular, the volume is concerned with the broad reach of Indigenous thought, examining its impact “on Canadian public discourse” and in “public institutions” (1). Respecting the capacious potential of Indigenous thought to exceed the limits of disciplinary boundaries, the book features the work of a range of intellectuals writing from within and beyond the fields of education, history, anthropology, health, and Indigenous politics and governance. First Nations, First Thoughts also attends to the varied locations of intellectual labour, highlighting contributions from writers working within (and often negotiating multiple positionalities across) academia, government and Indigenous cultural and political institutions.