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Victim of Deceit and Self-Deceit: The Role of the State in Undermining Jim Brady’s Radical Métis Socialist Politics
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- Author / Creator
- Swain, Molly S
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James (Jim) Brady (1908-1967) was a Métis communist community organizer in Alberta and Saskatchewan through the mid-20th century. He played an instrumental role in the creation of the Métis Association of Alberta and the Alberta Métis Settlements, and spent four decades organizing resource cooperatives in predominantly Indigenous communities in the northern prairies. Using the James Brady fonds, housed at the Glenbow Museum, archival materials from the Gabriel Dumont Institute, and the small body of secondary literature pertaining to Brady, I conduct a discourse analysis informed by Mary Jane McCallum’s Indigenous right of reply, Chris Andersen’s concept of density, and Kim TallBear’s “standing with” methodology to approach Brady’s life and work.
My research outlines Brady’s political vision: Métis socialist liberation in solidarity with the broader working class, and how his struggle to realize this vision through his work establishing the Settlements and resource cooperatives was sabotaged by the actions and policy decisions of the state at the provincial level. Rather than supporting self-determination, the capitalist Alberta and socialist Saskatchewan governments’ actions undermined Métis political and economic success, and reinforced their marginalization. Understanding Brady’s life and work provides important lessons for contemporary Métis radicals on the need to orient our efforts away from state recognition and involvement to solidarity-based relational praxis. -
- Graduation date
- Fall 2018
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Arts
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.