Research Project

The Innu Nation Land Claims

Principal Investigator
Profession Colin Samson and Dr Ebba Lekvall
This project is in partnership with The Innu Nation and Survival International.
This project will support the Innu Nation land claims being made in negotiation with the Canadian government. The project will involve research to bolster Innu claims through investigating colonial documents in the National Archive at Kew, summarising and fact-checking documents produced by the Innu Nation and other groups, literature reviews. It will also involve interviewing and liaising with Innu leaders and their legal team and with members of Survival International in London. Students will rely on relevant international legal standards to provide a full picture of the legal recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights, with particular attention to collective identity issues and rights to Innu land (Nitassinan).

The Innu are the indigenous people of most of the Labrador-Quebec peninsula, in eastern Canada. Survival International is a human rights organisation formed in 1969 that campaigns for the rights of Indigenous and/or tribal peoples and uncontacted peoples.