Summer a-term American Indian Studies class: AIS 340 - The Health and Wealth of Native Nations

"Many Indian people throughout the Americas say that a rich person is one who has many relatives. This philosophy epitomizes the Indian world: An Indigenous person always positions himself or herself in a nexus of kin relations."

What are the relationships between American Indian, Alaska Native and Canadian First Nations peoples, their families, their lands and their traditional economies? How were/are these holistic economies related to their cultural, physical/mental, and economic health even today? How have Native peoples perceived their own definitions of family, of community and of health? Today many of these life ways are considered models for humans sustainably living with "place," rather than just "off the land." Native individuals and families articulate and seek revitalized cultural and political nationhood in North America. What is the potential of such a movement? Together we explore and discuss these exciting and unique viewpoints on family, on "wealth," on health and on what it means to honor relations, relations that expand the meaning of our humanity.