We are not You starts with a 1992 court case, Peters v. Campbell, in which Joseph Peters sued fellow members of his Coast Salish people who, at his wife's instigation, forced him to undergo traditional ceremonies in order to resolve various marital difficulties. In the hands of Claude Denis, the case becomes a focal point of interpretations of difference set against the political landscape of Canada's highly charged conflicts of nationalisms.

Observing the ruling and reasoning of the court (which found in favour of Peters), and the way in which that ruling was reported through...