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Join us for a panel discussion with the Academic Aunties of the Maawndoonganan Anishinaabe Resource Manual to accompany the State of Michigan Social Studies Standards. Hear the inside story of the creation of the document and about the collaborative efforts that went into shaping the future of K-12 Education.

If MSU wants to build and maintain authentic partnerships with American Indians and tribal nations and communities, then university staff members, faculty, and students should know the history of the land that today is recognized as the state of Michigan. This report: -Describes two major tribal Extension efforts: The Federally Recognized Tribes Extension Program, or FRTEP, and the Michigan Inter-Tribal Land-Grant Extension System, or MILES. -Discusses the findings from three MSU Extension staff surveys on tribal Extension educational programs and outreach that were administered in 2012, 2016, and 2019. -Offers recommendations for next steps to MSU Extension and the broader MSU community.

Rematriation is returning home. Today’s perspectives draw on inspiration from Bkejwanong / Walpole Island in Ontario to the Pawnee in Oklahoma, in a broader awareness of Seed Keeping across Turtle Island. We focus on ways seed-beings return to their communities based on lessons to date. Dispossessive settler institutions and projects intentionally separated peoples, kin (not just human) and place as part of systemic land theft, economic devastation and cultural obliteration. Fragments of cultural heritage are dispersed in University institutions – including the University of Michigan and its extensive holdings of Indigenous people’s seeds with the information recorded at the time of removal. Seeking balance and centering identity requires knowing what is retained in settler-institutions, and planning forward. Rematriation is about new beginnings. Please join us. A great thanks / Chi Miigwetch to the many partners (over 100 people) who have been involved with the Heritage Seeds / Indigenous Collaborative Garden to date. Special institutional acknowledgement to the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation & Repatriation Alliance (MACPRA), the Intertribal Agricultural Council – Great Lakes, and the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network (ISKN).

In what ways did the Anishinaabe people enact entrepreneurial sovereignty according to historical accounts? In this presentation, I will discuss literature containing accounts of entrepreneurship by the Anishinaabeg before the twentieth century. By entrepreneurial sovereignty, I mean to suggest an expression of sovereignty similar to Seneca scholar Michelle Raheja, who asserts that sovereignty can be “a way of reimagining Native-centered articulations of self-representation and autonomy ...[but such articulations] do not rely solely on the texts and contexts of Western jurisprudence” (2007, pg. 1163). While Raheja’s scholarship focuses directly on media representations, I seek to apply this to enacting sovereignty through practices of entrepreneurship. This review of literature is critical to my research project, Decolonizing Entrepreneurship: A Comparative Analysis of Cultural Beliefs and Practices in Entrepreneurship by the Anishinaabeg (IRB approval: HS21-1213). Through my analysis, I harvested multiple examples of entrepreneurial practices from histories situated amidst a tension between the Anishinaabe ways of being and the encroachment of European settlers. As one example, I will discuss History of the Ojibway People by William Warren. Originally published in 1885, Warren writes on his first-hand experiences with entrepreneurial endeavors, such as the Fur Trade. These stories provide insight into the relationship between the Anishinaabe people and what has been described as “the onslaught of a corrupt frontier population” (fourth cover, 2009). This presentation aims to not only share a review of literature regarding the entrepreneurial practices of the Anishinaabe people, but also to suggest ideas on how current-day Anishinaabe entrepreneurs might strive to achieve balance and center on their identity.

When we have a truthful relation with ourself, we become more truthful in our relation to Mother Earth. Understanding that we ourselves are nature, we can see that the state of Mother Earth is a direct reflection of our own well-being. Developing a truthful relation with ourselves, we can begin to deconstruct our false beliefs, identities, and values of how we are supposed to live. 6 months ago while sitting in our house, we realized that we were not living in alignment with our true values. So we made the conscious decision to sell our house in Waawiiyaatanong (Detroit, MI) and move into a tent. Bringing us closer to nature than we ever have. The only way we could do this was by challenging the legitimacy of of the way we were living our lives. By doing so, we had to detach from the value system that was instilled in us since childhood, and strengthen our relationship with our own spirit and of all creation.

Firekeeper’s Daughter is an instant #1 New York Times bestselling novel in which a young woman investigates a series of drug-related deaths in her Upper Peninsula community. Yet, at its heart, the story is one of claiming and centering Ojibwe identity. Author Angeline Boulley will compare and contrast her personal journey with that of her main character Daunis Fontaine.