Mixed Race Studies

What it means to be Métis: University of Ottawa researcher sharpens our understanding of the term

Research Matters
2017-06-01

Sharon Oosthoek

The University of Ottawa’s Brenda Macdougall brings her expertise in Métis and First Nations history to bear on how a group of people become a nation. (University of Ottawa)

Every second Thursday, we will be featuring an Ontario Research Chair (ORC) from one of the province’s universities. ORCs are university research professorships created to drive provincial research and develop excellence, to create world-class centres of research, and to enhance Ontario’s competitiveness in Canada’s knowledge-based economy. See previous profiles here.

More than a century after being hanged for treason, Métis leader Louis Riel still has the power to polarize Canadians along ethnic lines.

Riel was born in 1844 in a fur-trading community known as the Red River Settlement, near modern-day Winnipeg. He came to fame in the fight for Métis rights and culture as the newly-formed Canadian government sought to expand its reach into his people’s prairie homeland.

Riel remains today one of the most studied figures in Canadian history and his “blood line” is still a topic of heated discussion because he was of French and Dene heritage.

“People talk about Riel in fractions all the time—that he is 1/8 Indian and so more white than native” says Brenda Macdougall. “When we discuss him in this fashion, it not only undermines who Riel was, it undermines who we are.”

Macdougall is the province’s first Chair in Métis Research at the University of Ottawa, a position funded by an endowment from the government of Ontario and the University of Ottawa. As chair, and a Métis woman herself, she has thought deeply about what the term means.

Historically, it was the French word for a person of mixed European and Indian ancestry, much like the word half-breed meant “mixed” in English. But Macdougall says the term has evolved over time to mean something more profound: a people who share a history, culture, and geography…

Read the entire article here.

Multiracial identity recognition with a specific category may be a way to foster a positive racial identity in mixed-race individuals, especially in American society, where the idea of separated racial groups remains. Actually, the development of a healthy and positive racial identity in mixed-race individuals will determine their group membership – if to a single race among the traditional ones, if to more than one (biracial), or if to none (transcendent identity). Also, the consciousness of their multiple racial identities make multiracial Americans and Brazilians able to serve as bridges among races, promoting solidarity and reducing polarization, stereotypes and bias.

Ana Carolina Miguel Gouveia, “Multiracial Identity Recognition – Why Not? A Comparison Between Multiracialism in the United States and Brazil,” PhD diss., University of Ottawa, 2015. 97. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/33178.

Multiracial Identity Recognition – Why Not? A Comparison Between Multiracialism in the United States and Brazil

University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
2015
143 pages

Ana Carolina Miguel Gouveia

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Post-Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a LLM Master degree in Law Graduate Studies in Law

Scholars debate the importance of multiracial identity recognition as the increasing number of self-identified multiracial individuals challenges traditional racial categories. Two reasons justify the count of multiracial individuals on censuses. One is the right to self-identification, derived from personal autonomy. The other is social: the category allows governments to accurately assess affirmative action programs’ results and society’s acceptance of multiracialism. Critical Race Theory and Critical Mixed-Race Studies serve as basis for my analysis over multiracial identity formation and its recognition. Comparing multiracialism in America and Brazil, I verify that both countries are in different stages regarding categorization and social acceptance of multiracial identity. Neither uses multiracial data for social programs, though. I conclude that the growth of mixed-race individuals makes the identification of race-based social programs’ beneficiaries difficult, which demands the use of diverse criteria. Moreover, official recognition can serve to improve the way society deals with race.

Read the entire thesis here.