Recursos externos

Article scientifique

The Akwesasne Cultural Restoration Program: A Mohawk Approach to Land-based Education.

This article tracks the creation of a cultural apprenticeship program in the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. The program aims to give youth in the community the necessary skills, knowledge and experiences in land, language and culture to help the Mohawks of Akwesasne retain and regenerate land based practices in the community. The program arose from Akwesasne’s participation in the Natural Resources Damages Assessment (NRDA) process. This is the legal process that resulted from the 1981 “Superfund” legislation in which corporations must provide redress to communities that have suffered from the egregious pollution of their local environments. Although constrained by the legal requirements of the process, the Mohawks of Akwesasne re-envisioned the process within a context of their own nationhood by focusing on these two questions: How has industrial pollution affected the Akwesasne Mohawks’ people’s way of life? And, what can be done to restore that way of life? This article explains how the research was carried out of the NRDA process and used to negotiate for the funds necessary to establish the cultural apprenticeship program.