18. Crossing Boundaries: Off-Rez Mixed Marriages

Podcast transcript (pdf) Today’s discussion features two couples of mixed marriages – that is, one Indigenous and one non-Indigenous partner. We’ll be exploring what we can learn about dynamic indigenous cultures today, and the personal growth of individuals and couples, through looking at the experiences of off-reservation mixed marriages. Perhaps what we're going to deal with today is a little bit counterintuitive, because there's a prevailing cultural notion that when people marry outside of their ethnic group, or their religious group, that some kind of dilution of culture - some kind of loss of culture - is a great risk. I think what we're going to find today is that that isn't always the case. And sometimes it's the opposite.