“Descendants of the Original Lords of the Soil”: Indignation, Disobedience, and Women Who Jig on Sundays

The new orientation to Métis nationhood developed in this research challenges long-standing patriarchal understandings of Indigenous self-conceptions of who Métis people are and what/who connects Indigenous peoples to the land. While much has been written about Métis history and legal activism, comparatively little research on Métis nationalist self-conceptions has connected the gender-informed traditions of the nation to models of Métis governance. An empirically grounded reimagining of Métis nationalist roots through expressions of being “the descendants of the original lords of the soil” centers Métis and other Indigenous women at the heart of the we of the nation. This self-expression links Indigenous women to claims to land and territory. Such a framework can also be operationalized in the nation’s practices of governance. Two interrelated governance frameworks informed by the reimagining of Métis nationalist roots are developed here: indignant governance and indignant disobedience. Indignant governance seeks to actively orient the way Métis govern themselves with reference to connections between Indigenous women and the land. Indignant disobedience seeks to guard against the demand for women to take up obedient and subservient positions in the service of unity within a nationalist movement. Taken together, these frameworks offer new, gender-informed orientations to Métis nationalism and governance grounded in appropriate, meaning-rich expressions of anger and frustration.