Banff, Alberta, September 2, 2014 -- Banff Centre Press is proud to announce the release of Restorying Indigenous Leadership: Wise Practices in Community Development, a collection of essays and a foundational resource of recent scholarly work on Indigenous leadership. Edited by Cora Voyageur, Laura Brearley, and Brian Calliou with foreword by W. Brett Wilson, Restorying Indigenous Leadership is available for purchase at All Lit Up, Indigo, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com. To learn more about the publication visit banffcentre.ca/banff-centre-press
Restorying Indigenous Leadership is a diverse collection of iterative and future-oriented ways to achieve community growth that acknowledges the centrality of Indigenous culture and identity. The nine authors in the anthology share their research through non-fictional narratives, innovative approaches to Indigenous community leadership, and inspiring accounts of success. Presenting many models for Indigenous leadership development, these stories are followed by a Wise Practices section which features seven significant contemporary case study summaries.
“So much of social scientific literature up to this point highlights the problems in Indigenous communities,” states Brain Calliou, program director of Indigenous Leadership and Management at The Banff Centre and co-editor of Restorying Indigenous Leadership. “We’re telling a different story with Restorying Indigenous Leadership – we’re talking about the strengths and successes in these communities. The premise being that there’s a lot of wisdom in Indigenous communities that we can learn from.”
Restorying Indigenous Leadership features a foreword by W. Brett Wilson and work by Laura Brearley, Brian Calliou, Michelle Evans, Dennis Foley, Miriam Jorgensen, Bob Kayseas, Cora Voyageur, Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, and Christopher Wetzel.
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About The Banff Centre: The Banff Centre's mission is inspiring creativity. Thousands of artists, leaders, and researchers from across Canada and around the world participate in programs at The Banff Centre every year. Through its multidisciplinary programming, The Banff Centre provides the support needed to create, to develop solutions, and to make the impossible possible. Moving forward, the Centre will disseminate art and ideas developed in Banff through initiatives in digital, web, radio, and broadcast media.
About Banff Centre Press: The Banff Centre Press is uniquely positioned to publish the great wealth and diversity of content written at and commissioned by The Banff Centre, the world’s largest arts and creativity incubator.
About the contributors:
Dr. Cora Voyageur is First Nations and a sociologist at the University of Calgary. Her research explores the Indigenous experience in Canada. Her books include Firekeepers of the Twenty-First Century: First Nations Women Chiefs and My Heroes Have Always Been Indians. She co-edited Hidden in Plain Sight: Contributions of Aboriginal Peoples to Canadian Identity and Culture, Volumes I and II.
Dr. Laura Brearley coordinates the Deep Listening Project, an international creative exchange between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, musicians, and researchers. The Project grew out of the Koori Cohort of Researchers that she established at RMIT University and Monash University. Laura is a creative research specialist and an adjunct professor at Swinburne University in Melbourne.
Brian Calliou has been the program director of Indigenous Leadership and Management at The Banff Centre since August 2003. His work has appeared in various academic journals and books including Indigenous Peoples and the Modern State and Power and Resistance: Critical Thinking about Canadian Issues. His research interests include Aboriginal leadership, self-government, economic development, and treaty rights.
W. Brett Wilson, CM, is one of Canada's best-known businessmen and most respected philanthropists. His innovative approaches to philanthropy have generated tens of millions of dollars for many charitable initiatives. His celebration of entrepreneurship has helped inspire our nation to creatively explore and identify new business opportunities. Wilson is chairman of both Canoe Financial and his Prairie Merchant Corporation. Even in reruns, he remains the hugely popular co-star of CBC's award-winning Dragons' Den and Slice's Risky Business. He is a member of the Order of Canada.