Glossary of Terms
Key terms and concepts used throughout the MISA Framework. Understanding this language helps create safer, more respectful conversations about Métis identity and rights.
Key Terms
Cultural Humility
A lifelong practice of self-reflection to understand personal and systemic biases, and to build respectful relationships based on mutual trust, curiosity, and openness to learning.
Cultural Safety
An outcome where Métis people feel safe, respected, and valued, free from discrimination, lateral violence, and identity policing. It focuses on power imbalances and systemic barriers, not just individual intent.
Historic Métis Community
A community with an ongoing connection to one of the historic Métis settlements or 'hometowns,' grounded in shared history, kinship networks, culture, and the political organization of the Métis Nation.
Identity Policing
Questioning, challenging, or invalidating someone's Indigenous identity based on physical appearance, documentation, community connection, or other criteria. Identity policing is a form of lateral violence.
Identity Safety
An environment where Métis people can name and express their identity without fear of scrutiny, questioning, gossip, or punishment.
Lateral Kindness
The intentional practice of empathy, support, and care within communities as an alternative to lateral violence. This includes believing people when they share who they are, offering support instead of suspicion, and addressing harm with compassion.
Lateral Oppression
The internalized impact of colonialism that contributes to Métis people directing frustration, anger, or harm toward each other, such as through lateral violence, identity policing, or exclusion, instead of toward the systems that created the conditions of harm.
Lateral Violence
Harm directed at members of one's own community or other Indigenous peoples, including gossip, exclusion, mobbing, identity policing, and undermining behaviours. Lateral violence is often rooted in historic and ongoing trauma.
Métis Nation
One of three recognized Indigenous peoples in Canada, with unique history, culture, languages such as Michif, governance structures, and rights. The Métis Nation emerged as a distinct people in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Métis-Specific
Approaches, policies, or practices that recognize and address the unique experiences, needs, rights, and challenges of Métis people, distinct from other Indigenous peoples and from generic equity, diversity, and inclusion work.
Restorative Justice
An approach to addressing harm that focuses on healing, accountability, and repairing relationships, rather than punishment alone. Restorative processes must never replace required investigations or consequences in cases of serious or repeated harm.
Scrip
A colonial system used by the Canadian government to extinguish Métis Aboriginal title by issuing individual 'scrip' certificates for land or money instead of recognizing collective land rights. In practice, scrip often led to dispossession, fraud, and loss of Métis land bases.
Self-Determination
The right of Métis people to determine their own identity, citizenship, governance, priorities, and pathways, free from external control, gatekeeping, or imposed definitions.
White Passing
A harmful term used to dismiss or invalidate Métis identity based on physical appearance. It is often used to justify exclusion, suspicion, or lateral violence. The MISA Framework rejects this language and the identity policing it represents.
Harmful Phrases & Slurs
These phrases appear in some workplaces and communities. They're named here so organizations can recognize and address them. For awareness, not endorsement.
Not Indigenous Enough / Too White
Phrases used to question or dismiss Métis identity based on appearance, family history, documentation, or community connection. They reinforce identity policing, shame, and lateral violence.
Paper Métis / Card-Carrying Only
Harmful phrases used to dismiss Métis people whose citizenship is formally recognized by a Métis government, implying they lack 'real' community or culture. These terms undermine Métis self-determination and legitimate citizenship processes.
Pretendian
A slang term sometimes used to accuse people of falsely claiming Indigenous identity. While identity fraud is a real issue, this term is often used without due process and can fuel mobbing, gossip, and lateral violence against Métis people and others.
Half-Breed (Historical)
A racist, colonial term historically used in laws, records, and everyday speech to label Métis people and mixed-ancestry Indigenous people. It's now recognized as harmful and dehumanizing and should only be used in historical or legal contexts, with care and critical framing.