Since the 1970s, Aboriginal people have been more likely to live in
Canadian cities than on reserves or in rural areas. Aboriginal
rural-to-urban migration and the development of urban Aboriginal
communities represent one of the most significant shifts in the
histories and cultures of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The essays in
Aboriginal Peoples in Canadian Cities: Transformations and
Continuities are from contributors directly engaged in urban Aboriginal
communities; they draw on extensive ethnographic research on and by
Aboriginal people and their own lived experiences.
The interdisciplinary studies of urban Aboriginal community and identity
collected in this volume offer narratives of unique experiences and
aspects of urban Aboriginal life. They provide innovative perspectives
on cultural transformation and continuity and demonstrate how
comparative examinations of the diversity within and across urban
Aboriginal experiences contribute to broader understandings of the
relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state and to
theoretical debates about power dynamics in the production of community
and in processes of identity formation.