Longtime advocate of aboriginal women recognized

BY REBECCA KENDALL

Kim Anderson, a Cree Métis writer and educator and PhD history student, has been awarded the 2005 Brock Scholarship, Guelph's largest and most prestigious doctoral award. Valued at up to $120,000, the award is given to a PhD student who is considered outstanding in his or her field of studies, research work and ability to serve as a mentor and leader to other students in doctoral programs.

For the past decade, Anderson, who grew up near Ottawa and did her undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Toronto, has been an advocate of aboriginal women and has devoted her time to researching and writing about related issues. She has worked with aboriginal organizations and government, producing social and health policy reports and conducting national research studies.

She recently edited an indigenous women's edition of Atlantis, a women's studies journal produced at Halifax's Mount Saint Vincent University, and currently serves as chair of the Aboriginal Women's Health and Healing Research Group. Based in Vancouver and the first of its kind in Canada, the group promotes an aboriginal perspective in community-based research and policy.

Here at Guelph, Anderson is actively involved with the Aboriginal Resource Centre and is an adjunct professor in women's studies. She is also the mother of a 10-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter.

“Finding time and money has always been the most difficult part of continuing with my studies and scholarly writing,” she says, adding that the scholarship will significantly help to reduce the financial and scheduling stresses she experiences.

In 2000, she received national recognition with the release of her first book, A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood. The book, which examines the identity of native women throughout the colonization process and the struggle to regain their place in society, began as an extension of her master's thesis. Based on interviews with women across the nation, the book is a collection of stories and experiences that tell of a time when women had equity and power in their communities.

The book was followed three years later by Strong Women Stories: Native Vision and Community Survival, a collection of 17 essays co-edited with York University professor Bonita Lawrence.

“Having my first child taught me how sacred women and children are and the connection between mothers and children,” says Anderson. Both are important to their communities, she says, and the role of the mother as a caregiver and spiritual guide is often overlooked.

“I'd like to see a sense of well-being for Aboriginal Peoples. For me, that's the core of everything. If societies — both aboriginal and non-aboriginal — want to get better, they have to look at how they treat their women and children.”

Anderson travels all over the country speaking on behalf of her community and working to bring change to native communities as well as hope to a new generation of people who see her not only as a mentor but also as a sister, a friend and a voice for those who aren't being heard.

“What's most rewarding is when I get an aboriginal girl coming up to me saying she's read my book and it really changed everything for her or when people without a high school education tell me they couldn't put it down.”

One story in the book tells of Mi'kmaq women in Nova Scotia who, after realizing the hardships and difficulties their children were experiencing in the public school system, created a school with an emphasis on their native language and lifestyle in an effort to build cultural and community pride. Another story tells of women in Newfoundland working together to reclaim their traditions after centuries of oppression.

“The press on native communities is generally very negative,” says Anderson. “We collected all these wonderful stories of people doing amazing things. It's important to document the genius of the way people are able to survive and how they are striving to rebuild their communities.”

In addition to telling these women's stories, the book is a tool for people to use to reconsider the role of women in native culture and examine its future, she says.

“We're at a point in our history where people are reclaiming their heritage and going back to their traditional ways, but with that, there's a lot of patriarchy and oppression of women, so we're asking some difficult questions.”

Prior to colonization, aboriginal women were extremely strong and valued members of their communities, she says.

Anderson is currently researching the lives of aboriginal women throughout different stages of their lives. To gather information, she is speaking with aboriginal women from across Canada and asking them to talk about their experiences as girls growing up through marriage and childbirth and then as elders.

“It's very powerful how women were celebrated and revered in terms of where they were in their life stages and their role in the community,” she says. “My whole reason for doing this is because it's empowering for our women to be able to understand or see how things were very different historically.”

She says aboriginal women and girls approach her at her speaking engagements asking for more information, and she wants to have answers to their questions.

“There's a need for it as part of our reclamation, and we need to do rigorous research so that we can come up with answers about our traditions.”