OTTAWA, April 8, 2019 – The Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences is very pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 Canada Prizes. This year’s winners are Allan Downey for his book The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity, and Indigenous Nationhood (UBC Press) and Denys Delâge and Jean-Philippe Warren for their book Le Piège de la liberté. Les peuples autochtones dans l'engrenage des régimes coloniaux (Les éditions du Boréal).
The Canada Prizes are awarded annually to books in the humanities and social sciences that make an exceptional contribution to scholarship, are engagingly written, and enrich the social, cultural and intellectual life of Canada. Winners are selected from books that have received funding from the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, which is administered by the Federation and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
“It is striking that both winners’ books this year are focused on Indigenous identity and reconciliation. It is a testimony to the growing space that these complex themes are taking and to the contributions that humanities and social sciences scholars make to our understanding of them,” said Guy Laforest, President of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
“One book examines Canada’s national game of lacrosse and how it can serve as a way of understanding Indigenous culture and agency in the face of colonialism, racism and appropriation. The other is a reflection on the relationships between European colonizers and North American Indigenous peoples through the lens of what we call freedom.”
This year’s winners are:
Canada Prize in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Allan Downey, The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity, and Indigenous Nationhood (UBC Press)
From the jury’s citation:
In The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity and Indigenous Nationhood, Dakehl scholar Allan Downey tells the fascinating story of Canada’s national game of lacrosse. This engagingly written book will have wide appeal and makes an important and valuable contribution to Canadian cultural history and social understanding in an era with hopes of reconciliation and better understanding.
Prix du Canada en sciences humaines et sociales
Denys Delâge and Jean-Philippe Warren, Le Piège de la liberté. Les peuples autochtones dans l'engrenage des régimes coloniaux (Les éditions du Boréal)
From the jury’s citation:
Denys Delâge and Jean-Philippe Warren’s engaging and richly documented Le Piège de la liberté offers readers a new reflection on the history of the exchanges between indigenous peoples in America and European societies through the prism of freedom. Delâge and Warren’s book is not only a historical work but a comparative sociology essay, demonstrating the full extent of this chain of events — through time, space and society — that ultimately traps all actors involved.
A media kit including biographies and photos of the 2019 winners, along with the full jury citations, is available on the Federation’s website.
The prizes, each valued at $10,000, will be presented at a ceremony during the 2019 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of British Columbia.
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About the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences promotes research and teaching for the advancement of an inclusive, democratic and prosperous society. With a membership now comprising over 160 universities, colleges and scholarly associations, the Federation represents a diverse community of 91,000 researchers and graduate students across Canada. The Federation organizes Canada’s largest academic gathering, the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, bringing together more than 8,000 participants each year.
Media inquiries
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Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
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