Our collaborative approach

Community research in collaboration with Elders and Lac Ste. Anne Métis Community Association

This project was based on an initial meeting between University of Alberta researcher Eva Lemaire and Michif-speaking Elder Cécile Howse. After several years of tea-drinking and discussion, the shared desire to create videos highlighting Cécile's knowledge and experiences in her mother tongue materialized with an initial series of videoclips in 2018. Additional clips were finalized in 2021. Discussions which were entirely in English initially and for a relatively long time thereafter, are now in English and French (French Michif for Cécile and European French for Eva). As the relationship became established, the opportunity for Cécile to be heard in her mother tongue, a language which she reclaimed, was affirmed.

In 2019, Gunn Métis Local 55/Lac Ste. Anne Métis Community Association enriched the project by proposing collaboration in an Alberta grant application for the creation of new resources focussed more on the language spoken by ancestors in the Lac Ste. Anne (mânitow sâkahikanihk) region. Lac Ste. Anne Métis Community Association suggested that Elders Judy Hilbert, Ken Letendre and Shirley Dion, who were involved in the local revitalization of their language, participate. Judy, Ken and Shirley intend to reclaim their ancestral language and become involved in passing it down to the younger generations.

This long process is part of a methodological approach which Métis C. Gaudet (2019) referred to as the "Keeoukaywin" ("visiting way"). It entails having confidence in the process and the relationship without the expectation of pre-established outcomes. The process of decolonization of academic knowledge on which this project is based (De Oliveira Andreotti et al., 2015) matured as the relationship between all of the collaborators developed.