The Contemporary Territorial Governance of Nitaskinan
Through current negotiations with the federal and provincial governments, the Atikamekw Nehirowisiw First Nation (Québec, Canada) aims to both increase its access to natural resources and transform the decision-making processes and institutions governing Nitaskinan, its ancestral land. Of central importance in the redefinition of institutions of governance and processes is the revitalisation of the territorial chief’s (ka nikaniwitc) traditional and central role in the decision making regarding the land. This paper shows that the Atikamekw Nehirowisiwok are currently building a new system of governance, one with which they can identify and is rooted in their traditions, with the ka nikaniwitc and the family at its core, and yet forward-looking, adaptive, and different from its original form. In this system, the ka nikaniwitc is positioned as a catalyst through whom information concerning the land flows in order to produce land-related decisions that are compatible with nehirowisiwok values and having an impact locally and regionally. Results presented in this paper show Nitaskinan’s negotiated system of governance to be a success, from a Nehirowisiw perspective. It is necessary to reach an agreement that sees shared decision-making as flexible enough to include the evolving perceptions endorsed by the Nehirowisiwok. This can only be achieved if the shared direction of the territory is seen as a flexible exercise of continued construction and revision of the institutions and the environmental knowledge in concert with indigenous social change.