John Borrows shares his knowledge of indigenous law in this video captured at a recent Conversations for a One Planet Region event at the Greater Victoria Public Library.
John Borrows is the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria Law School in British Columbia. His publications include Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law (2002), Canada’s Indigenous Constitution (2011), Freedom and Indigenous Constitutionalism (Donald Smiley Award for the best book in Canadian Political Science, 2016), and Law’s Indigenous Ethics (forthcoming). He is the 2017 Killam Prize winner in Social Sciences. John is Anishinaabe/Ojibway and a member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada.
Borrows’ forthcoming book, Law’s Indigenous Ethics, examines how Indigenous law can shed light on Canadian law’s approach to treaties, Aboriginal title, legal education, and the continuing legacy of residential schools. The Anishinaabe legal lens for this event is organized around seven grandmother/grandfather teachings: love, truth, bravery, humility, wisdom, honesty and respect. Anishinaabe stories, language, theories and practices are blended with detailed analysis of Canadian case law, statutes, policies and constitutional practices to illustrate the possibilities and limits of the grandmother/grandfather teachings.