The Iron Alliance Hub

The Nêhiyaw Pwat Relationship Knowledge Hub

This Knowledge Hub explores the relationships between Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwa (Chippewa), Metis, and Assiniboine (Nakoda or Stoney) peoples in present-day Treaty Six. These peoples, historically, were a polyethnic group that maintained complex reciprocal relationships that formed what was called the Iron Alliance.

The Hub seeks to understand how those relations operated and thrived. Working from an Indigenous feminist perspective, its field research will include the collection of oral narratives and ethnographic accounts collected from sacred sites where medicines and knowledge has been gifted.

The intent is to uncover how the relationships within the alliance were built and maintained. It is also expected that the research may offer insights into Indigenous methods, and best practices and tools for partnership building between different peoples, including settlers and marginalized group within a contemporary context.

This work is led by Nêhiyaw scholar and Co-Research Director Dr. Paulina Johnson, who is from Samson Cree Nation and whose family line descends through the Bobtail (Piche) Band, one of the original Nêhiyaw Pwat Nations. This work will be focused in Treaty Six in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The work will focus on 13 distinct Indigenous communities in Alberta and Saskatchewan from the Iron Alliance and the matriarchs of each Nation telling their stories and lived realities as we share the original responsibilities of the Iron Alliance.

This Hub is unique because it’s the first of its kind to examine the role of women through current matriarchs in the Iron Alliance’s relations. More specifically, by shifting research away from a conventional heteronormative perspective, it challenges established settlers’ narratives about Indigenous women and the Nêhiyaw Pwat communities’ ability to establish and maintain alliances and relationships during past and adapting times. Historians and anthropologists have long overlooked women in Indigenous communities and have shared little to no information about their roles that exist and continue to date.

Leaders du savoir :

Hub Lead: Dr. Paulina Johnson, University of Alberta, Department of Sociology
Co-Lead: Dr. JA Morrow, University of Alberta

Objectifs :

We prioritize Indigenous women’s voices and worldviews. This means all creation of materials and research will be approved by the community before they are published. Any academic articles or publications will be reviewed by community contacts first. At the end of the Hub’s duration, the knowledge will be given back to each community.

This Hub’s main intent is to amplify those who have been overlooked in policy discussion, yet have historically been central to building meaningful relationships. Our work is an opportunity to honor and uplift them beyond narratives of damage or victimization. Through this Hub, we give back where Canada has not. The Nêhiyaw Pwat communities have historically shown us that building and maintaining relationships are possible, and their methods and techniques could change the very way we envision collaboration and transform how work is done within academia.

Accountability is fundamental when working within the thirteen identified First Nations, especially with Indigenous women. We will ensure that the community is cared for and respected throughout.

With the Nêhiyaw Pwat, we can present underrepresented knowledge systems that have been overlooked in Canadian heteropatriarchy society that restores the original teachings and responsibilities that are fundamental in this Hub.

In responsibility one, Original Grandmothers, we investigate the conservation of traditional knowledge and philosophical teachings held in the land and language. In responsibility two, Good Relations, we restore the kinship connections that were impacted by colonization. In responsibility three, we focus on the Economies of Resurgence that were the original ways we adapted to and with change and in these knowledges, we expand on what connection, trust, and expectations can mean from an Indigenous worldview. In the last responsibility of Story Medicine, we allow the wellbeing of the communities to thrive in the voices of their women and to uplift them in the roles that power and heteropatriarchy has taken from them.

Fundamental to this Hub is a focus on the well-being of the community, researchers, and the land with a full circle acknowledgement of reciprocity being built within the research objectives and fieldwork.

The Hub will emphasize orality, participatory learning, and research creation. It will develop multiple community-based projects, including documentaries, audio papers, and local material culture cultivation. Through these, the project lead and community collaborators will help Knowledge Keepers and Youth record local stories and ways of knowing.

The documentaries and audio papers will be kept in the community through the training of community curators. Meanwhile, the material culture piece will be presented at a university gallery before being returned to the community for use by local artisans. The point is to help Indigenous Nations initiate a local circular economy for resurgence.