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Abstract

The Indian Act controls and validates Indigenous peoples’ identity, membership, and sovereignty. First Nations have absorbed colonial mentalities surrounding authenticity have been absorbed by some First Nations and has been reified in certain dialogues surrounding resurgence. These colonial mentalities have had an especially negative effect on urban Indigenous people and have led to their existence as legitimate, self-determining entities going unrecognized. There is a tension between in resurgence theories that call for the complete separation of First Nations and Canadian government and Urban Indigenous governance. Urban Indigenous collectives represent the intermixing of Indigenous and Canadian culture and their governance systems rely on the overlapping authority and power. The nature of urban Indigenous governance further reveals the necessity of relational sovereignty and creating an environment in which multiple forms of power can co-exist.