Presenter: Oscar Kistabish, Alex Mapachee, Harry McDougall, Norman Kistabish, Marie-Eve Drouin-Gagné, Benoit Éthier

 - Researchers

Institution : INRS 

The Icinikate Aki Committee is made up of Abitibi8ini Elders and aims to describe the real names of the places, to rebuild and preserve the collective Abitibiwinni memory of the territory, considering that “the territory speaks to us by the names that our ancestors gave it”. The committee has therefore undertaken research in the Abitibiwinni territory that contributes to language conservation by working in the language and the territories. This research also contributes to documenting the history of the Abitibi8ini families who lived on the territory, and the history of Abitibi8ini occupation and community movements. 

The Committee's aim is to gather the memories of the Elders and eventually create pedagogical tools for the transmission of territorial knowledge and the collective memory of the genealogy of places, i.e. the history of the human and non-human people who have shaped the places, the stories of these places, and their names. We will share the Committee’s practices, but more importantly, its long-term goal, which is that this knowledge can be part of educating youths for future generations.