The Creator's Game: A Talk by Dr. Allan Downey

Date: January 17, 2019
Time: 11:30 am
Location: Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre

The Department of Indigenous Studies and the Aboriginal Students' Centre are pleased to bring Dr. Allan Downey (PhD) to the University of Saskatchewan to present a talk titled "The Creator's Game."

In his book, The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity and Indigenous Nationhood, Dr. Downey explores Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations and Indigenous identity formation. While lacrosse and its cultural and ceremonial significance was being stripped from Indigenous people and used to construct a new identity for the nation-state of Canada, it was also being used by Indigenous peoples for multiple ends: to resist residential school experiences; initiate pan-Indigenous political mobilization; and articulate Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood on the world stage.

The multi-layered story of lacrosse serves as a potent illustration of how identity and nationhood are formed and reformed.

Downey is Dakelh, Nak’azdli Whut’en and an associate professor in the Department of History at McMaster University, where his research and teaching focus on the history of Indigenous nationhood, sovereignty and self-determination. He is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University (PhD History, 2014) and a recent recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Columbia University. He previously served as chair of the Indigenous Studies Program and as an assistant professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University from 2015-2018.