Indigenous Cultural Production and Narrative Sovereignty: Whose Story? Whose Medium? Whose Voice?

This project is based on a partnership between Amir Kalan, his research team, and Wapikoni Mobile, an Indigenous non-profit organization based in Montréal. 

Wapikoni supports the artistic expression of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis youth through mobile and virtual film and sound studios. This partnership’s goal is to better understand and define the concept of Narrative Sovereignty. Within Wapikoni’s activities, Narrative Sovereignty has been described as the act of re-creating one’s story on one’s own terms and by doing so having control over one’s artistic representations. 

The partnership aims to create a dialogue about Narrative Sovereignty in order to shape a scholarship that centers the epistemologies of Indigenous artists, activists, and community-workers. This project facilitates exploration of concepts such as narrative identity, Indigenous aesthetics, and cultural ownership.

Principal Investigator: Amir Kalan

In partnership with Wapikoni Mobile

This project is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council - SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant (2023-2024)