Centering Anishinaabeg Studies

Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding World through Stories, edited by Jill Doerfler, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark. East Lansing, Michigan State University Press; Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press, 2013. xxvii, 417 pp. $29.95 Cdn (paper). Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding World through Stories, collection edited by Jill Doerfler, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, demonstrates how Anishinaabeg stories can be used as theoretical frameworks guiding questions in law, history, anthropology, environmental studies, and other fields (p. xvi). Not only can stories be used to frame research questions, but many of contributors show methodological value of stories. Thomas Peacock explains that stories can be used as primary teaching materials to better prepare non-Native teacher candidates for job market. While Peacock provides How-To for Skeptics, readers are encouraged to see every throughout collection as tool. As such, Centering Anishinaabeg Studies is call for Anishinaabeg scholars to validate our intellectual practices--our epistemological frameworks--through (written) practice. Doerfler, Sinclair, and Stark structured their collection to do decolonizing work; both content and form validate Anishinaabeg worldviews. For example, twenty-one chapters are divided into 7 R's: roots, relationships, revelations, resiliency, resistance, reclamation, and reflection (p. xxvii). These seven sections evoke Seven Grandfathers (p. 318). In as Mshkiki: Reflections on Healing and Migratory Practices of Minwaajimo, Dylan T. Miner quotes Kimberly Blaeser to remind us that Indian people don't really instruct their children; they them (p. 330). The Seven Grandfathers story children on desirable character traits and patterns of behaviour. By organizing their collection around number seven, editors ground Anishinaabeg scholars in who we are before showing us what Indigenous--or, Anishinaabeg --Studies could be. The 7 R's thus provide model for future publications: table of contents alone is an example of how we can subtly deploy Anishinaabeg epistemology in overwhelmingly Western spaces of publishing and university teaching. It is fitting that each section is titled a gift (Eko-Bezhig Bagijigan: Stories as Roots roughly translates First Gift; Stories as Roots). In Is That All There Is? Tribal Literature? Basil Johnston challenges scholars to root themselves in Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwa language). Language, we are reminded, is also gift. It is key into the heart and soul and spirit of culture (p. 5). Language and literature is what makes us complex, multi-dimensional beings, and without them, our stories will remain those of wooden Indians ... incapable of love or laughter; or Tontos ... whose sole skills were to make fires (p. 4). Johnston suggests that incorporating language and literature into our works is critical first step in decolonizing academy. Brock Pitawanakwat affirms Johnston's position by revisiting Anishinaabeg understandings of truth--proof, perhaps, that not all ideas can be translated, and that transforming academy will (at times) require new levels of linguistic engagement. Unlike many Western words, there is no direct translation for truth. Instead, Anishinaabeg scholars write from position of the highest degree of accuracy (p

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