Diversity Reading List

Abstract: The Inuit have experienced colonization and the resulting disregard for the societal systems, beliefs and support structures foundational to Inuit culture for generations. While much research has articulated the impacts of colonization and recognized that Indigenous cultures and worldviews are central to the well-being of Indigenous peoples and communities, little work has been done to preserve Inuit culture. Unfortunately, most people have a very limited understanding of Inuit culture, and often apply only a few trappings of culture -- past practices, artifacts and catchwords --to projects to justify cultural relevance. Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit -- meaning all the extensive knowledge and experience passed from generation to generation -- is a collection of contributions by well- known and respected Inuit Elders. The book functions as a way of preserving important knowledge and tradition, contextualizing that knowledge within Canada's colonial legacy and providing an Inuit perspective on how we relate to each other, to other living beings and the environment.

Abstract: This paper offers a comparison between Navajo conceptions of law and justice based on the community's experiences to those of Anglo-european law and justice.

Publisher’s Note:

Translating to 'an investigation', this is the first of two 17th century ethical and rational treatises from present-day Ethiopia. Zera Yacob (Zär'a Ya'eqob, Wärqe) is most noted for his philosophy surrounding the principle of harmony. He asserted that an action's morality is decided by whether it advances or degrades overall harmony in the world. While he did believe in a deity, whom he referred to as God, he criticised several sets of religious beliefs. Rather than deriving beliefs from any organized religion, Yacob sought the truth in observing the natural world. In Hatata, Zera Yacob applied the idea of a first cause to produce a proof for the existence of God, thus proposing a cosmological argument. "If I say that my father and my mother created me, then I must search for the creator of my parents and of the parents of my parents until they arrive at the first who were not created as we [are] but who came into this world in some other way without being generated." However, the knowability of God does not depend on human intellect, but "Our soul has the power of having the concept of God and of seeing him mentally. God did not give this power purposelessly; as he gave the power, so did he give the reality." Yacob's work was continued in a second Hatata by his pupil and patron's son, Walda Heywat (Wäldä Hewat).