Academia, Twitter wars, and suffocating social justice in Canada: the case of unrecognised Indigenous peoples

The “woke movement” is now under fire globally. Seeking to right social injustice and battle racism, the woke movement has laudable intentions, but its implementation can exacerbate social inequalities. In the case of Canada, a social movement seeks to ferret out “Pretendians” or those White individuals deemed to be falsely assuming, and thus appropriating, Indigenous identity. Though this movement may seem righteous, the problem arises that individuals targeted are those who are Non-Status Indians and have yet to be recognised by the state, as well as Métis (or mixed-heritage people) whose historical communities have yet to be sanctioned by governments or courts, and who are also portrayed as being “Fétis” or fake Métis. Our challenge as researchers is to do the deep ethnographic, historical, and legal research to provide a nuanced understanding of indigeneity that does not constrain it solely to colonial models as the case studies provided will demonstrate.