The process of definition -- the definition of anything -- can cut several ways. Theoretically the process of defining something is undertaken in order to make whatever is being defined more specific and more understandable. In practical reality, that result is not always achievable, or even desirable -- particularly when the process of definition is applied to human experience. 

People rarely live their lives in a neat, predictable, or even easily definable way. The process of applying definition to an individual, group, community or even nation results in categorizations which separate and divide elements, and people, from one another. When definition is used as a mechanism to exclude some characteristic in order to simplify complex relationships into definable elements, much damage can be done to the undefined and relatively holistic social fabric of an individual's life and his/her relationship to a particular community and/or heritage. That is precisely what happens when the process of definition is applied to those people of mixed Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal ancestry. 

Having become conscious of that danger, it then becomes possible to use the process of definition in another way. It becomes possible to apply the process of definition so that it is more inclusive and, hopefully, less destructive to the social fabric of the lives of real people. The following text attempts to do just that -- to develop a definition of Métis which reflects how people actually lived and still live, rather than satisfy to social, political or legal ambitions of some individuals, organizations, and governments. 

Certainly it is more difficult to do that. There are many and strong social, political, and legal forces, both outside and within the Aboriginal community, exerting very real pressure to apply restrictive definitions to Métis people. These forces hope to achieve certain short-term political and economic goals for a few thousand people at the expense of the hundred of thousands of people who would be excluded by a restrictive of exclusive process of definition of Metis. This site is dedicated to resisting that process.