Photography as a talking stick
Karoline Truchon
Graduate student, Concordia University
This ethnography explores the incorporation of a visual tool into a research project. Conjointly with local people, I developed a photography project involving Innu youths of Uashat mak Mani-Utenam. Photographs collected show Innu youths’ values and aspects of their daily life while demonstrating that by choosing to participate into this project, youths decided also to empower themselves. This collaboration also produced an exhibition and material for the local monthly paper.
One of my friends[1] told me early into my fieldwork that I was using the camera as a modern talking stick with and for Innu youths of Uashat mak Mani-utenam.[2] Ancestrally, sticks were an important aspect of many Aboriginal peoples’ daily life. When a person was performing a teaching, s/he would bring his or her own decorated talking stick to council meetings and gatherings. The stick was often passed around to audience members when answers were sought by the speaker. Respect and attention ruled as everyone possesses knowledge and experiences worth sharing.
My informants initially challenged the title of this project observing that a talking stick is not strictly Innu. I suggested they propose a culturally adapted title but they told me that “it is more important to achieve the project than to find a title for it.” My informants also directed me to youths to find a title for “it is their project.” I realized that youths invariably spoke about “the photography project.” As a result, both youths and their significant adults were interested in the hands-on approach of this “youths’ photo project,” as it also reflects daily Innu behaviours and language. Yet, when it was time to name the exhibition, youths decided to emphasise their daily challenge by choosing to focus on: Eshi-uapatamat eshi-mishkutshipanit anite nitinniunnat/Notre vision du changement dans notre mode de vie/Our vision of change in our new way of life.
More than 30 youths between the age of 6 and 16 years old participated in formal and informal photo workshops between May 2003 and May 2004. Youths were mainly recruited through the two community youth houses and youth foster care homes. Other youths bluntly asked me for a camera. Most of the participants had at least one of their photographs published in the monthly newspaper Innuvelle, and all of them got their pictures and explanations displayed at the local museum Shaputuan and at Montreal’s First People (Film) Festival.[3]
Giving the photographs back to youths became a crucial, inspirational and illuminating aspect of the workshops. The assignment was simple: “Take pictures of what you like and of what you don’t.” At first, youths were either shy to share their thoughts or found it painful to articulate into French words what they felt. After commenting 5 to 7 photographs, they were nonetheless anxious to talk about the next ones. I saw Alexandra Ambroise-Hervieux, a 10 year-old girl, transform herself through the process of taking three rolls of photographs. After the second roll, she knew what to do: she took the package of pictures, discarded the ones she did not like and numbered the liked ones, from the most preferred until the least (see photo insert).
The photographs collected illustrate values and aspects of the actual Innu cultural landscape for youths. Media tend to portray Aboriginal youths as kids wasted in drugs and alcohol who are living amid such severe social problems as sexual abuse, low literacy, early motherhood, racism and lack of employment. These realities definitely exist. Yet, the Innu youths I worked with chose to express themselves publicly as proof of their commitment to an active life despite the tragic aspects. I think that applied research projects incorporating visual dimensions are particularly important for First Nations people and Photography as a talking stick is one of the many spaces that collectively we can offer Aboriginal youths in order for them to “speak up” while “acting upon.”
[1]I thank Lyse Mérineau for her input.
[2] Uashat mak Mani-utenam is located 1,000 kilometers away from Montreal, on the North Shore of St.Lawrence River in Quebec.
[3] A small grant from the Secrétariat aux affaires autochtones of Quebec enabled to buy disposable cameras and have the pictures processed. The Shaputuan raised the money to mount the exhibition and owns it now.