Urbanization Determinants of Innu Communities of the North Shore
This article tackles the links between the developmental history of Uashat, Maliotenam, Pessamit and Nutashkuan, and the morphology of their reserve territory or Innu Assi. With the use of historical, cartographic and literary sources, the study identifies and superposes elements and actors that have influenced this development. Combined with the evolutionary characterization of urban forms (or morphogenesis), this approach reveals chronological coincidences within three periods: 1) the creation of the first reserves, before the Second World War; 2) the intensification of sedentarization and urban growth, in the post-war period; and 3) the contemporary era of decentralization, state disengagement, as well as political and administrative devolution to communities. The results highlight a double rupture within the contemporary Innu Assi through a process of forced sedentarization and the establishment of a living environment thought and built by a people other than the one who inhabits it.