Innu Nation working to flip the thesis on how research is done on Innu land

Jodie Ashini is working to flip how research is done on Innu lands and also have academic research returned to the Innu Nation. 

For generations, researchers have been coming to Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation and the Mushuau Innu First Nation to complete master's degrees and doctorates, said Ashini, the Innu Nation's cultural guardian.

But people often gather interviews for their own gain and then leave, she said. 

"A lot of times we'll never see that researcher again. We'll never figure out what they did with it, or they got their degree and now they're happily gone on their way," Ashini said. 

"It's time now that we have a say."

Ashini said Innu want to be taken seriously as knowledge holders on their own lands and their own culture. Ashini and her team are gathering what Innu want to see researched and is working to have past research interviews — completed by researchers from people across the country and internationally — returned to the Innu Nation. 

"It's going to help with the next steps of self governance and the next step of being able to take back our own writing, our own word," Ashini said. 

Heritage forum gathers topics

Ashini and her team gathered what people in Natuashish and Sheshatshiu wanted to see researched during the second annual Innu Heritage Forum in June. 

Loreena Kuijper, a university student who's studying psychology and hopes to go into counselling but is also interested in Indigenous research, took part.

"A lot of research that's happening right now is super-exciting but I do believe there's an Indigenous perspective that needs to be put into it," Kuijper said. 

Kuijper said an example is focusing less on problems and more on barriers.

She said there's substance abuse in Sheshatshiu but when people go off on the land they report not needing what they had been using. 

Research could be done to explore the barriers of going out on the land and what can be done to help people embrace the traditions they want to, Kuijper said. 

Other topics proposed so far include the history of child care, the implications of the caribou ban on Innu and preserving knowledge of hunting caribou without actively hunting the animal. 

"It's a very exciting process right now, and being able to finally take it back, it's very exciting times," Ashini said. 

The Innu Nation's Greg Nuna said he hopes to see the historic research returned to Innu Nation from universities around the world.

"They're making money off it and stuff but I think that history's got to come back into the community so that other generations will be able to understand what's going on," said Nuna. 

Nuna said those historic interviews would help youths understand who they are and what their heritage is. 

"We can be able to tell the children, 'This is what your great ancestors, grandfathers, said about the country and how they lived it,'" Nuna said. "It's a learning tool."

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