Description
Edited by Jeffery Hewitt, mixed-descent Cree and works with Rama First Nation as well as various Indigenous elders, leaders and organizers in the promotion of Indigenous legal orders. He is a past president of the Indigenous Bar Association of Canada and served as general counsel to Rama First Nation for 14 years. He is an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University; Beverly Jacobs, Mohawk Nation of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, Bear Clan, and the senior advisor to the President on Indigenous Relations and Outreach and an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor; and Richard Moon, a distinguished university professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor.
This collection explores Indigenous spiritual practices, their suppression by the Canadian state, and the intersection of Indigenous legal orders with Canadian law.
Indigenous Spirituality and Religious Freedom investigates the complex relationship between Indigenous legal orders and Canadian law, emphasizing the richness of Indigenous spiritual practices alongside their historical and ongoing suppression by the Canadian state. It critically examines the role and limitations of the Canadian Charter of Right’s Section 2(a), which guarantees freedom of religion, in protecting the spiritual lives of Indigenous communities.
The book highlights the holistic nature of Indigenous spiritual beliefs which view the spiritual as immanent and closely tied to land and specific locations. The book reveals how, in contrast, the Anglo-American conception of religious freedom often separates spiritual and religious matters from civic and political concerns, and so fails to provide meaningful protection for Indigenous cultural and spiritual practices.
Many essays in this collection propose alternative approaches to the relationship between Canadian law and Indigenous legal orders, particularly regarding Indigenous spiritual practices. Ultimately, Indigenous Spirituality and Religious Freedom reveals the challenges – and perhaps the futility – of seeking significant protection for Indigenous spiritual practices within the existing framework of religious freedom.