“There’s People who Need to Hear my Words”: How Hip-Hopping, Queer Métis Youth See Themselves

Abstract

This article focuses on the ways that queer Métis youth who participate(d) in hip-hop cultures come to think about themselves and their identities. Using the voice-centered relational approach to data analysis, I analyzed interviews with 8 Métis youth that had been conducted through online visiting. I explored the ways that the participants discussed themselves within the I poems created out of the transcripts of our interviews. I discuss the way the participants talked about themselves, whether it was with confidence or insecurity, and the way they saw themselves as part of (or not part of) different communities – Métis communities, the Indigenous community more broadly, and within hip-hop cultures. This research has implications for educational research and practice and Métis nationhood.