Research on Indigenous issues rarely focuses on life in major metropolitan centres. Instead, there is a tendency to frame rural and remote locations as emblematic of authentic or “real” Indigeneity and as central to the survival of Indigenous cultures and societies. While such a perspective may support Indigenous struggles for territory and recognition as distinct peoples, it fails to account for large swaths of contemporary Indigenous realities, not the least of which is the increased presence of Indigenous people and communities in cities.

The chapters in this volume explore the implications of urbanization on the production of distinctive Indigenous identities in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. Instead of viewing urban experiences in terms of assimilation and social and cultural disruption, this book demonstrates the resilience, creativity, and complexity of the urban Indigenous presence, both in Canada and internationally.

Evelyn Peters is an urban social geographer whose research has focused on First Nations and Métis people in cities. She taught in the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies, where she held a Canada Research Chair in Inner-City Issues, Community Learning, and Engagement.

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Chris Andersen is associate professor, associate dean (research), and the current director of the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research in the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. He is also the current editor of aboriginal policy studies, an online, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing on Métis, non-Status Indian, and urban Aboriginal issues in Canada and abroad. He is co-editor of Indigenous in the City: Contemporary Identities and Cultural Innovation (UBC Press, 2013).

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