Acting Indian: Reflections on Status, Citizenship & Belonging

Bringing together seven First Nation thinkers — Haida, Ts’msyen, St’at’imc, Cree, Anishinaabe, and Mohawk — the report returns, again and again, to a central distinction: status is not belonging, and a registration number is not citizenship.

Jackson Pind traces the coercive history of enfranchisement and its consequences while Christina Gray and Jade Demoulin assess whether legal reform can restore the relationships the Act severed, and Gina Starblanket argues for a return to a
one-parent rule to remedy the discrimination introduced by the 1985 two-parent rule. Turning to community dynamics, Damien Lee cautions against membership codes that reproduce the Act’s exclusions and proposes regional citizenship commissions while Vanessa Watts examines how status has mis-shaped identity verification in post-secondary institutions and Michaela McGuire argues that repair lies not in federal reinstatement but in reviving clan systems, adoption practices, and Nation-based constitutional orders.

In the ongoing debate about S-2, the contributions in this edited volume make the argument that redefining citizenship will only be effective if on Indigenous terms — grounded in reciprocity, relationship, and care.