A few years ago, at an airport in Texas, a boisterous man working at a sunglasses kiosk struck up a conversation with me. At one point he laughed and said, “I don’t know what you are, but I know you’re not white.” I often find myself thinking back to that exchange—in many ways, it encapsulated my existence. Throughout my life I’ve been mistaken for Iranian, Algerian, Spanish and other nationalities. I am none of these; rather, I’m an Ojibwe Anishinaabekwe, and a member citizen of Nezaadiikaang (Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation) in Treaty 3 territory, near Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario. My Ojibwe nationhood comes from my mother. My father isn’t Indigenous; his family was part of the large wave of immigrants that came to northwestern Ontario in the 1950s. Experiences like the one in that airport have shown me that identity isn’t always straightforward—we are not always who we might appear to be.

Today I’m an anthropology professor at McGill University and the university’s first Associate Provost of Indigenous Initiatives. In my research, I’ve seen how this same complexity, and ethnic ambiguity, play out in how easily people can slip into false Indigenous identities. In the past few years, case after case of fraud has surfaced in Canadian academia, exposing people who’ve claimed Indigenous identity to advance their careers, accessing scholarships, grants and teaching posts meant to uplift Indigenous peoples.

They include Andrea Smith, an American professor, and Gina Adams, an artist who taught at Emily Carr University in B.C. Both built their reputations on their supposed Indigenous identities, despite lacking documented ancestry. Smith continues to claim Cherokee heritage; Adams resigned from her post in 2022. One of the highest-profile cases has been Carrie Bourassa, a renowned University of Saskatchewan professor who claimed Métis, Anishinaabe and Tlingit heritage. Several years ago, some of her Indigenous colleagues began doubting her claims and decided to investigate. In 2021, the CBC published a story reporting on their work, and in 2022 Bourassa resigned. I was shocked that someone achieved Bourassa’s level of prominence as an Indigenous academic without any evidence that they truly were who they said they were. I thought about the communities and people Bourassa had impacted—her colleagues, students and Elders had placed their trust in her, only to be misled.

Some people who pass as Indigenous are outright liars. Others exploit vague, tenuous ancestral connections to the groups they claim as their own. They reference unverifiable oral histories, DNA test results or broad........

© Macleans