Takuaimatishutau

Tshishpuatetau tshikauinu assi

The Research Chair in Indigenous Intellectual Traditions and Self Determination(s) is dedicated to the study of Indigenous intellectual traditions and their role in sustaining narrative, normative, and political sovereignties on the ground, as well as within families and communities.

Its research program is guided by a central idea: land and cultural memory are the deep sources of normativity, making genuine intellectual sovereignty possible and enabling effective and sustainable forms of self-determination.

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Research Areas

Grounded in a transdisciplinary approach and Indigenous research methodologies, the chair serves as a space for dialogue, reflection, and action. It supports intellectual sovereignty and self-determination both in practice and in research:

Documenting and Revalidating Ancestral Epistemologies

Highlighting and restoring oral traditions, life stories, family histories and archives, the arts, and practices of inherent responsibilities toward living beings on ancestral lands as valid forms of knowledge.

Analyzing and Critiquing Mechanisms of Erasure and Invalidation of Knowledge

Critically examining contemporary processes of erasure of First Peoples’ knowledge systems, including deterritorialization, policies of forgetting, the epistemicide of women’s histories, and colonial research frameworks, that contribute to their marginalization, distortion, or appropriation.

Supporting Effective Self-Determination

Strengthening First Peoples’ self-determination in research, the protection of ancestral lands, and collective decision-making by developing prototypes and building the capacities of students, researchers, families, political technologies, and Indigenous research centres.

Mobilizing Knowledge for Action

Through applied and collaborative research, the chair transforms knowledge into tools, training, and governance mechanisms for communities. Supported by the Takuaimatishun Laboratory, it strengthens the capacity of families, students, institutions, and communities to exercise effective self-determination in matters of land, culture, and collective decision-making.

Approach and Vision

The chair is dedicated to the renewal of Indigenous knowledge and the exercise of self-determination. It recognizes First Peoples as producers of living intellectual traditions grounded in their own philosophies, norms, memories, and legal orders.

The chair supports the intellectual sovereignty of First Peoples by fostering information sharing, decision-making, and action based on their own frameworks, intellectual traditions, legal orders, and narratives of sovereignty.

It develops Indigenous methodologies that strengthen connections across generations, communities, and territories, while examining the dynamics of memory, forgetting, and resurgence to support institutional transformation and strengthen communities’ capacity to act.

Initiatives

Our work