Natawitplutaqatiek (We Are Good Lawmakers): Understanding Indigenous Law Librarianship

Abstract

Drawing on Indigenous research methodologies and grounded in qualitative interviews with Indigenous legal scholars, practitioners, librarians, educators, and Knowledge Keepers, this thesis interrogates the colonial underpinnings of Canadian legal information systems and advocates for the development of Indigenous law librarianship as a distinct and necessary discipline. Central to this is the assertion that Indigenous law librarianship must be more than a technical exercise in classification, as the discipline itself can act as a form of lawmaking that honours Indigenous legal knowledge orders and responds to Canada’s multijuridical legal landscape.

This necessitates a paradigm shift in all legal memory institutions so as to support Indigenous law revitalization, not by fitting Indigenous law into colonial structures but by rebuilding those structures altogether. As Indigenous nations continue to assert jurisdiction over their knowledge and territories, law librarians must walk alongside them – not just as knowledge stewards, but as treaty partners and good lawmakers.