Understanding Innu normativity in matters of customary “adoption” and custody1

Abstract

This article presents the preliminary results of a research project on customary custody and “adoption” in the Innu community of Uashat mak Mani-Utenam in northeastern Québec. From a legal pluralist perspective, the authors used a biographical method to understand the workings of the ne kupaniem/ne kupanishkuem Innu legal institution, which can be compared in certain respects to adoption in Western legal systems. The authors present certain characteristics of this institution in order to expose the limits of bills that seek to recognize “indigenous customary adoption” in Québec law. Innu “adoption” stems from an agreement between the concerned persons, which can crystallize gradually, which never breaks the original filial link, and which does not immediately create a new filial link. In theory, this type of adoption is not permanent. As such, a Québec law that only recognizes indigenous adoptions that create a new filial link runs the risk of either being ineffective, or of distorting the Innu legal order.

Systemic and Systematic Implications of Erasure

“…Many First Nations Peoples and supportive allies alike wonder about how colonial settlers with good intentions toward reconciliation today differ, in a meaningful way, from colonial settler's good intentions that have been imposed upon First Nations Peoples and children, since the arrival of the settlers (Daigle, 2019;Manuel & Derrickson, 2017;Tuck & Yang, 2012). Canadian history reveals that when First Nations People (children, youth, women, elders and men) asserted, in good will, their capacity for self-governance as the original peoples, they were hit by the brunt violence of colonial rule and control (Baskin, 2019;Grammond & Guay, 2017;TRC, 2015;Metallic, 2018;Manuel & Derrickson, 2017). The Decolonization theoretical framework applied within this paper outlines how the sovereignty of First Nations Peoples is vital to real progress, and this is especially relevant when First Nations children are concerned.…”

“…Collective wisdom, using language, is a timeless and comprehensive method that sustains First Nations people's ways of being, and ways of knowing, across time (McInnes, 2014). First Nations People's laws are renewable and therefore applicable to today and the evolving nature of any nation's society (Claypool & Preston, 2011;Grammond & Guay, 2017;Rameka, 2011;Tuck & Yang, 2012). First Nations are not only worthy of informing policy and regulatory practices over the safety and protection of First Nations people's children, they can, and must develop it, so that it is epistemologically sound.…”

“…A Canadian law (The Indian Act) intentionally limits opportunities for First Nations Peoples and their children (Barker et al, 2019;Baskin, 2019;Bingham et al, 2019;Bombay et al, 2020;Grammond & Guay, 2017;Ma et al, 2019;Metallic,2018;OHRC, 2018;OMSG), 2018;TRC, 2015). In this way, discriminatory practices are created through existing Canadian policies and regulatory practices that are systematically enacted as necessary for the care and protection of First Nations children.…”

“…According to studies by Bombay et al (2020), First Nations children's attendance in Indian Residential Schools is directly linked to intergenerational trauma and many difficulties experienced within families today; the TRC (2015) has prompted the recognition that Indian Residential Schools were mechanisms of cultural genocide; and OMSG (2018) and Expert Panel (2018) show that child protection services administered by both mainstream and First Nations peoples (under the systemic order of Canada) are neglecting First Nations children to the point of a growing number of child and youth fatalities. Creating various forms of colonial practice, like changing who administers the practice, is not going to make an already dysfunctional system work better for First Nations Peoples and their children (Baskin, 2019;Grammond & Guay, 2017;Tuck & Yang, 2012). When Canada's current colonial laws and governing practices are accepted as the normal, then those who accept it as such, must acknowledge that they are accepting that the disproportionate numbers of First Nations children lost within the CWS system, is somehow acceptable.…”