He was both the founder of the Parti Pris editions and of the Revue d’études autochtones.
The archaeologist and co-founder of the Journal of Native Studies (formerly Recherches Amérindiennes au Québec), Laurent Girouard, died on December 20 after requesting assisted death. Laurent Girouard “initiated a current of Quebec archeology in the 1960s, among others in Pointe-du-Buisson and Mandeville”, specifies about him Gérald Mc Kenzie, who also rubbed shoulders with Laurent Girouard at the Parti Pris editions, including Girouard was the founder and first director. . “He set up with his colleagues La Société d’archéologie pré historique du Québec, which marked an important moment in the archeology of North American Natives,” he adds.
While Laurent Girouard co-founded the Native Studies journal with anthropologist Sylvie Vincent, it was also with her that he worked, at the end of his life, with the Innu of Uashat-Itum. “He mapped for the Innus of the North Shore the places where their ancestors lived,” adds Gérald McKenzie. This research made it possible to establish certain claims, particularly in the context of legal proceedings.
In its early days, the Journal of Native Studies assumed more the role of a newsletter. “The birth of this newsletter was part of a socio-political context where the assertion of the Quebec identity was more essential, while anchoring itself to the desire to better know the First Nations and the Inuit”, notes-t- on in the introduction to the 2013 issue of the journal dedicated to Laurent Girouard.
“Laurent Girouard’s contribution to methodology, research and thinking surrounding the scientific discipline is undisputed. This contribution is also marked by a je ne sais quoi of politics and a very clear position, which seems to color each of the man’s gestures and speeches…”, writes about him, in the same issue, Caroline Nantel, who was until very recently director of the Pointe-du-Buisson archeology museum.
Discreet and learned
Although often discreet, Laurent Girouard could be “talkative, passionate, erudite”, underlined in 2013 Sylvie Vincent, also recently deceased.
Singer Paul Piché first knew Laurent Girouard as a professor of archeology and then followed him in the context of archaeological digs.
Piché, again in the issue of Revue d’Etudes aboriginals dedicated to Laurent Girouard, saw in him “the patient, meticulous and committed archaeologist that we know, but also, the literary man, the organizer, the activist, the scientist , and even the diligent mason in the restoration of a historic house”.