ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author shares lessons he learned about the nature of expertise and its power to communicate and produce just outcomes in his efforts to support the Indigenous Cross Lake Cree community in Manitoba, Canada, which was engaging in a type of ‘inherent jurisdiction’ lawmaking to recoup money owed to it by the Crown corporation Manitoba Hydro. The author comments on how his academic qualifications automatically granted him a degree of credibility that he was able to leverage to the benefit of the Cross Lake Cree community. Ultimately, the author felt that the best way he could mobilize his anthropological expertise was to reach out to sympathetic audiences both locally and internationally to lend credence to the public statements made by councillors of the Band, whose credibility might otherwise be called into question. The author hopes that by practising an advocacy-oriented anthropology of law and focusing on restorative justice, the profitable translation of the languages of state and Indigenous legal expertise across the boundaries of their jurisdictions can be achieved.
