Sarah Nickel

Sarah Nickel.  Assembling Unity: Indigenous Politics, Gender, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019).

By contrasting the role played by band leaders, women and the militant base involved in the ideological development of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), Sarah Nickel makes an important contribution to our understanding of contemporary Indigenous leadership, particularly its gendered dimension. Based on solid research in the archives, combined with interviews with former leaders, Nickel offers a sophisticated analysis of the issues related to the search for consensus within the Indigenous political movement. Herself a member of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation, Nickel offers us a clear, concise and solidly argued work, which constitutes a model for future research on the political dynamics at work not only among First Nations, but in Canadian society at large.