Rick Colbourne, Rebuilding Dispersed Indigenous Communities: Creating a Joint Urban Reserve

Rebuilding Dispersed Indigenous Communities: Creating a Joint Urban Reserve

Principal Investigator: Rick Colbourne
Partner: Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek, Sand Point First Nation, ON
Funder: SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant

This research focuses on issues and challenges relating to establishing an urban reserve governed by three communities and on social acceptance of the urban reserve by non-Indigenous stakeholders in Thunder Bay. The project has four objectives: investigating how three First Nations, from two different Treaty areas, should set up governance structures when undertaking the reserve’s development; identifying corporate board structure, revenue distribution and decision-making mechanisms to facilitate development; examining how non-Indigenous community misconceptions and attitudes could negatively or positively impact the process; and, developing conceptual models on governance and strategies regarding how to secure ‘buy-in’ from the non-Indigenous community.