Ranjan Datta | Mount Royal University (original) (raw)

Papers by Ranjan Datta

Australian journal of environmental education, Jul 1, 2012

Polar Geography, Oct 31, 2022

Routledge eBooks, Mar 31, 2023

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Dec 13, 2022

Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 2024

This article explores my relational learning reflections with the Laitu Khyeng Indigenous communi... more This article explores my relational learning reflections with the Laitu Khyeng Indigenous community in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh, focusing on Indigenous perspectives on climate change education. Implementing a relational theoretical framework, I share my reflections on relational learning in this research as part of being accountable to the Indigenous community. Through exploring Indigenous land-based climate change research, five central themes emerge Indigenous land rights, relationship with the environment, community-led relationality as collaboration, intergenerational relational knowledge and relationality as ethical reciprocity. The findings explore the intrinsic connection between Indigenous communities and their ancestral territories, emphasising the significance of upholding Indigenous sovereignty over land for sustainable adaptation to climate change. In this article, I highlight the importance of relational learning as a form of education, fostering resilience rooted in preserving traditional practices and spaces. Relationality with the environment is central to Indigenous climate education, promoting understanding and reciprocity with the land. In my learning, I learned that community dynamics and collaborative learning are essential for effective climate education, emphasising collective action and diverse perspectives. In relational learning, inter-generational knowledge transmission ensures the preservation and sharing of traditional land-based knowledge across generations, forming the foundation for sustainable adaptation strategies. Ethical engagement and reciprocity guide research interactions, emphasising mutual respect and cultural sensitivity. By centring Indigenous perspectives and knowledge systems, this study advocates for community-led approaches to climate change education, fostering resilience and environmental stewardship within Indigenous communities.

International Journal of Global Warming, 2022

Eddy Li received his teacher education from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Universit... more Eddy Li received his teacher education from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Cambridge. His research interests include Chinese learners, inclusive pedagogy in Confucian-heritage Cultures, professional craft knowledge and eLearning strategies. He is particularly interested in constructing/deconstructing the cultural model of inclusion, and exploring how quality education for all could be facilitated in Chinese communities. Jennifer Bunk is an Associate Professor of Psychology at West Chester University. She teaches online and hybrid courses in industrial/organizational psychology and research methods. She is interested in understanding distance education through a psychological lens and also researches workplace stress, workplace incivility and work-family conflict. Rui Li is the Executive Director of Distance Education and Instructional Design at West Chester University. She has taught online/blended courses both nationally and internationally and her resear...

EXPLORE, 2024

This paper represents Youth's involvement in land-based learning in Indigenous culture camps (LLI... more This paper represents Youth's involvement in land-based learning in Indigenous culture camps (LLICP) in a powerful and innovative approach to addressing the pressing global issue of climate change. Following Indigenist and relational approaches, we (Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth and educators) explore the critical aspects of this initiative, highlighting its significance and potential impact. Indigenous communities have long held a deep connection with the land and possess traditional knowledge that is invaluable in combating climate change. The LLICP initiative involves organizing cultural camps designed for youth from diverse backgrounds to learn from Indigenous elders and community leaders about the vital relationship between the environment and Indigenous cultures. The LLICP provides a unique opportunity for young people to engage with Indigenous wisdom, traditional practices, and land-based teachings. Through Indigenous elders and knowledge-keepers guidelines, we learned a holistic understanding of sustainable living, biodiversity conservation, and the importance of preserving ecosystems. Our learning helped us, particularly our youths, to become proactive stewards of the environment and advocates for climate action. The LLICP fosters cross-cultural understanding and collaboration, encouraging a sense of unity among youths. The LLICP inspires innovative solutions to climate-related challenges and empowers youth to take leadership roles in their communities, advocating for sustainable policies and practices. The LLICP offers a powerful means of engaging young people in the fight against climate change while respecting and honoring Indigenous knowledge and heritage. It is a promising step towards a more sustainable and resilient future for all.

Journal of Indigenous Research, 2024

Traditional cultural camps are distinctive and transformative spaces where Indigenous and Western... more Traditional cultural camps are distinctive and transformative spaces where Indigenous and Western knowledge systems intersect and exchange. These camps represent experiential programs deeply rooted in Indigenous land-based practices, emphasizing traditional teachings, skills, and connections to community learning and cultural preservation. As crucial grounds for fostering mutual understanding, intercultural dialogue, and revitalizing Indigenous cultures, these camps bring together Indigenous land-based knowledge and practices, community members, and Western researchers. In this collaborative setting, ancestral knowledge, cultural practices, and wisdom are transmitted from one generation to another. Integrating Indigenous and Western knowledge systems within these camps opens avenues for bridging gaps, dispelling stereotypes, and building respectful partnerships grounded in reciprocity and trust. This collaborative process transforms traditional cultural camps into powerful catalysts for cultural pride, community resilience, and the co-creation of knowledge, contributing to broader decolonization and cultural revitalization goals. Following our decolonial learning conversation, we, an Indigenous woman land-based educator and a racialized academic scholar, delve into the transformative potential and synergies achieved by integrating Indigenous and Western knowledge systems within the context of traditional cultural camps.

Sustainability, 2024

This study explores the imperative need for decolonizing climate change adaptation strategies by ... more This study explores the imperative need for decolonizing climate change adaptation strategies by focusing on Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. Focusing on the Munda Indigenous communities residing in the coastal areas of Bangladesh, the research offers critical insights into the intricate relationship between Indigenous wisdom and sustainable climate adaptation. By engaging with the Munda Indigenous people and their traditions, this study explores how traditional ecological knowledge and practices can inform and enhance contemporary climate adaptation efforts. Following the decolonial theoretical research framework, this research used participatory research methods and collaboration with the Munda Indigenous community. In this study, we shared our learning reflections to uncover unique approaches to climate resilience, including traditional community-based disaster risk reduction and cultural practices that foster social cohesion. These insights challenge the prevailing Western-centric climate adaptation paradigms, emphasizing recognizing and valuing Indigenous voices in climate discourse. The research underscores the significance of empowering Indigenous communities as key stakeholders in climate adaptation policy and decision-making. It calls for shifting from top-down, colonial approaches towards more inclusive, culturally sensitive strategies. The Munda Indigenous communities’ experiences offer valuable lessons that can inform broader efforts to address climate change, fostering resilience and harmonious coexistence between people and their environment. This study advocates for integrating Indigenous knowledge, practices, and worldviews into climate adaptation frameworks to create more effective, equitable, and sustainable solutions for the challenges posed by climate change.

ARCTIC SUSTAINABILITY TRANSFORMATION WHAT IS IT, WHAT CAN IT BE, AND WHAT DOES IT NEED TO BE?, 2023

The decolonial meaning of transformation is to rethink Research as Action, to reclaim research to... more The decolonial meaning of transformation is to rethink Research as Action, to reclaim research tools for the community to solve its everyday challenges

The International journal of diversity in organisations, communities and nations, 2007

Routledge eBooks, Dec 19, 2022

Australian journal of environmental education, Jul 1, 2012

Polar Geography, Oct 31, 2022

Routledge eBooks, Mar 31, 2023

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Dec 13, 2022

Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 2024

International Journal of Global Warming, 2022

EXPLORE, 2024

Journal of Indigenous Research, 2024

Sustainability, 2024

ARCTIC SUSTAINABILITY TRANSFORMATION WHAT IS IT, WHAT CAN IT BE, AND WHAT DOES IT NEED TO BE?, 2023

The International journal of diversity in organisations, communities and nations, 2007

Routledge eBooks, Dec 19, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the vulnerable portion of society, particularly ... more The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the vulnerable portion of society, particularly Indigenous, immigrant, homeless people. This article shared Indigenous ways of resiliency, resistance, and reconnection through family-based critical autoethnography stories during the COVID-19 pandemic. We, as a minority family from Bangladesh who are current immigrants on another Indigenous land (i.e., Treaty 6 Territory) in Saskatchewan, Canada, explore Indigenous frameworks of pandemic resiliency, mainly focusing on the impact of engaging with Indigenous notions of resistance and reconnection. This article highlights how our Indigenous Elders, Knowledge-keepers, ancestors’ stories, and their guidelines help us build our resistance and reconnection to be active, hopeful, and joyful during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a relational theoretical framework, we, as a family, shared our three months' stories, journal writings, and interactive conversations for exploring three goals: 1) What are the cultural and social impacts as an Indigenous-immigrant family during the COVID-19 pandemic?; 2) How can we increase our self-resistance and resiliency while we are maintaining social isolation?; and 3) Can the Covid-19 pandemic educate us to understand and take more responsibility for the climate change disaster? Coming from Indigenous culture and resistance within on-going colonial legacy, we know that Indigenous people have a long history of resiliency and resistance from either human-created disasters (i.e., colonial) or natural disasters. We present a critical co-constructed autoethnography, which offers a critical analysis of our efforts at building our family-based resiliency. Our critical autoethnography model provides a relational framework for reflecting that we, as humans have a vital responsibility to protect our environment, particularly in the sociology of disaster research.

This chapter situated itself within this context and took a significant step in exploring identit... more This chapter situated itself within this context and took a significant step in exploring identity and justice in relation to immigrant responsibilities for meaningful implications of reconciliation. This chapter also an invitation for all of us to work together—as Indigenist, to build relational networks to the important work of inter-cultural bridge, moving beyond cultural awareness and inclusion—challenging racist ideology as we rethink and re-imagine ourselves in relationship with one another sharing place—mother land.

This chapter outlines my lifelong decolonizing ceremony as a form of reconciliation, which involv... more This chapter outlines my lifelong decolonizing ceremony as a form of reconciliation, which involves an ongoing unlearning and relearning research journey. My ceremony is significant for me as it makes me responsible for sharing my stories regarding how my transformation has changed me from a Western scientific researcher to a relational and participant-oriented researcher. To do this, I situate my lifelong research training as a metaphor for unlearning, learning, situating, and reclaiming my research methodologies and methods. This chapter answers the following questions: How has my Western science-oriented research training been challenged through my relationships with research participant communities? How did my methodological transformation (decolonizing and reclaiming of relational/participant orientation) start? And, how did my ceremony empower me and create my sense of belonging in regards to who I am and what I should do? Finally, I outline the implications of my methodological transformation processes for future research.

Indigenous people, international students, immigrants, and refugee families are particularly vuln... more Indigenous people, international students, immigrants, and refugee families are particularly vulnerable populations that experience lack of empowerment for various reasons including lack of belonging and networks, low income, mental stress, and discrimination. Following a relational participatory action research (PAR) project, this study explores the concept of empowerment among First Nations, visible minorities, and non-visible minorities through intercultural activities, such as dance and music, children’s art activities, anti-racist workshops, traditional story-sharing, land-based learning, and cross-cultural food sharing. This paper argues that intercultural activities among First Nations, visible and non-visible minorities in a community garden can create positive change in an urban environment by empowering communities through intercultural bridging. Throughout the last six years of my participation in various intercultural activities, I have learned that empowerment through intercultural activities adheres to particular forms of agency: interspecies communication, community belonging, and learning about decolonization and reconciliation. This study provides valuable insights for educators whose goals include incorporating land-based learning as well as creating belongingness among cross-cultural communities, ultimately leading to community empowerment.

This edited volume explores the crucial intersections between Indigenous Land-Based Knowledge (IL... more This edited volume explores the crucial intersections between Indigenous Land-Based Knowledge (ILK), sustainability, settler colonialism, and the ongoing environmental crisis.

Contributors from cross-cultural communities, including Indigenous, settlers, immigrants, and refugee communities, discuss why ILK and practice hold great potential for tackling our current environmental crises, particularly addressing the settler colonialism that contributes towards the environmental challenges faced in the world. The authors offer insights into sustainable practices, biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and sustainable land management and centre Indigenous perspectives on ILK as a space to practise, preserve, and promote Indigenous cultures. With case studies spanning topics as diverse as land acknowledgements, land-based learning, Indigenous-led water governance, and birth evacuation, this book shows how our responsibility for ILK can benefit collectively by fostering a more inclusive, sustainable, and interconnected world. Through the promotion of Indigenous perspectives and responsibility towards land and community, this volume advocates for a shift in paradigm towards more inclusive and sustainable approaches to environmental sustainability.

This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental sociology, postcolonial studies, and Indigenous studies.

Routledge, 2024

This book centers Indigenous knowledge and practice in community-led climate change solutions. Th... more This book centers Indigenous knowledge and practice in community-led climate change solutions. This book will be one of the first academic books to use the consciousness framework to examine and explain humans' situatedness and role in maintaining ecosystems' health. Drawing on teachings from the Indigenous Adi-Shaiva community, the authors present up-to-date research on meanings and implications of South Asian traditional cosmic knowledge, which focuses on relationality and spirituality connected to climate change. This knowledge can create innovative climate change solutions in areas including land, water, traditional management, sustainability goals and expectations, and state development projects. Overall, this book provides an innovative framework for nonviolent climate solutions, which has its foundations in a traditional cosmic and consciousness-based context. This book, which aims to bridge the gap between Indigenous and Western perspectives by re-educating researchers and decolonizing popular climate change solutions, will be of great interest to students and scholars studying climate change, conservation, environmental anthropology, and Indigenous studies on a broader scale.

MDPI, 2023

This Special Issue aims to highlight the building of sustainabilities from anti-racist perspectiv... more This Special Issue aims to highlight the building of sustainabilities from anti-racist perspectives as a form of resilience, particularly from Indigenous, Black, transnational immigrant, refugee, and settler communities in Canada and beyond. Although a great number of academic researchers have introduced anti-racism in their work, they have not explained what it means to think of anti-racism as a source of knowledge and understanding for transnational Indigenous, Black, immigrant and refugee communities. How can the responsibilities of anti-racism bring resilience to the communities? Why should immigrant, Black, and refugee communities practice land-based anti-racist learning for building sustainabilities? What does it mean to understand "anti-racist practice" as a system of reciprocal social relations and ethical practices and as a framework for sustainabilities? How can the Western concept of sustainability from and within cross-cultural perspectives be decolonized? This Special Issue will discuss these transdisciplinary questions that have not only challenged our static science and social science mindsets, but have also acknowledged the responsibilities of anti-racism—including building respectful relationships with Indigenous, Black, or immigrant people, respecting Indigenous Treaties, taking actions decolonizing our ways, learning the role of the colonized education processes, protecting our land and environment, creating food security, fulfilling food nutrition, creating an intercultural space for social interactions, and developing transnational solidarity.

Routledge, 2023

This book centers Indigenous knowledge and practice in community-led climate change solutions. T... more This book centers Indigenous knowledge and practice in community-led climate change solutions.

This book will be one of the first academic books to use the consciousness framework to examine and explain humans' situatedness and role in maintaining ecosystems' health. Drawing on teachings from the Indigenous Adi-Shaiva community, the authors present up-to-date research on meanings and implications of South Asian traditional cosmic knowledge, which focuses on relationality and spirituality connected to climate change. This knowledge can create climate change solutions in areas including land, water, traditional management, sustainability goals and expectations, and state development projects. Overall, this book provides an innovative framework for non-violent climate solutions, which has its foundations in a traditional cosmic and consciousness-based context.

Bridging the gap between Indigenous and Western perspectives by re-educating researchers and decolonizing popular climate change solutions, this book will be of great interest students and scholars of climate change, conservation, environmental anthropology, and Indigenous studies more broadly.

Canadian Scholar Press, 2023

Decolonization in Practice speaks to the practical work of dismantling colonial ideologies and fe... more Decolonization in Practice speaks to the practical work of dismantling colonial ideologies and features contributions from Indigenous, Black, racialized immigrant, refugee, and ally scholars, researchers, and practitioners who share their experiences enacting decolonizing work in their communities. Each chapter presents stories of inspiration, resistance, unlearning, relearning, and transformation on the journey towards reconciliation. This edited collection asks, "How do we understand anti-racist practice as a framework for reconciliation?" "How can we identify areas of obstacle and opportunity?" and "How can we take responsibility for decolonizing our ways of knowing and acting?" These questions are asked in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's assertion that meaningful engagement among Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous people will be key in advancing reconciliation through anti-racist solidarity. Contributors share personal decolonial stories and explore taking responsibility for building a decolonial community from and within everyday practice for transforming our learning into action to achieve social and environmental justice goals.

Global Shifts in Qualitative Inquiry New Directions, New Challenges, 2023

In this chapter, the author examines a largely neglected area of environmental science education ... more In this chapter, the author examines a largely neglected area of environmental science education (ESE); that is, a land-based approach with Indigenous Elders, Knowledge-keepers, and education. The author focuses specifically on 1) why and how Indigenous land-based learning is an essential research method in ESE, and 2) the challenges in Indigenous land-based learning and how to overcome those challenges from and within community-engaged perspectives. He argues that Indigenous land-based education creates many opportunities for the community, including: bringing together Elders and young people to provide the opportunity for intergenerational transfer of knowledge; empowering youth to develop their connection to the land, protect their land, and to fight for their rights; addressing the need for culturally relevant education for youth; and developing a safe space for healing and learning that can help build community resilience.

Despite its obvious significance, a land-based approach remains a neglected environmental science... more Despite its obvious significance, a land-based approach remains a neglected environmental science education (ESE) area. Following decolonial land-based learning as researcher responsibility, this decolonial auto-ethnography focuses on learning experiences:1) why and how are Indigenous land-based learning an essential research method in ESE?; 2) what are the challenges in Indigenous land-based learning and how to overcome those challenges from and within community-engaged perspectives?. I hope my decolonial auto-ethnographic learning journey inspires researchers and educators to rethink the meaning of ESE and transform education into action for the benefit of the community.

Varieties of Qualitative Research Methods, 2023

The inventor of the term "action research," social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1946, 1952), describe... more The inventor of the term "action research," social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1946, 1952), described action research as proceeding in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of planning, acting, observing, and evaluating the result of the action. Lewin's deliberate overlapping of action and reflection was designed to allow changes in plans for action as people learned from their own experiences. However, ...

Varieties of Qualitative Research Methods, 2023

Even though autoethnography’s intent is to provide scholarly space to the lived experiences of th... more Even though autoethnography’s intent is to provide scholarly space to the lived experiences of the underrepresented, oppressed, and marginalized, academic publishing within this tradition remains limited to the white majority group in North America. However, decolonizing autoethnography illustrates the form that emerges when the colonial and postcolonial (both past and present) are taken as central concerns in autoethnographic writing. For instance, as a method of inquiry, autoethnography emerged in the 1990s parallel to the critical turn in ethnographic research. As both process and product, this approach was a reaction to social-scientific research and the dominance of white/Western voices within the social inquiry.

Varieties of Qualitative Research Methods , 2023

Uses of feminist autoethnography as a research methodology and method started in the late 1980s, ... more Uses of feminist autoethnography as a research methodology and method started in the late 1980s, and early 1990s, particularly in feminist sociology.

Cross-cultural community gardening as an Indigenist methodology: a learning ceremonial journey from a colour settler perspective, 2023

While Indigenous peoples have been using research for centuries, Western research has colonized t... more While Indigenous peoples have been using research for centuries, Western research has colonized the meanings of research and its purposes (Kovach, 2021; Smith, 2019, 2012). The only Western research perspective1 has been challenging to many Indigenous and
minority communities in various parts of the world. Many see the Western perspective as a colonial tool for reinforcing stereotypes, creating distress, or contributing to further bad press...

Springer, 2022

This chapter is responding to food security in Indigenous communities in Canada. Using an autoeth... more This chapter is responding to food security in Indigenous communities in Canada. Using an autoethnography research framework, Indigenous meaning was explored in view of community-based food security and why it became a challenging issue for many northern Indigenous communities. The ways of Indigenous knowledge have much to offer in support of resilience against food insecurity, considering intercultural reconceptualization of research methodologies with environmental sustainability and educational programs that support Indigenous communities. The goal of this contribution is to enhance the capacities of Indigenous communities to make informed decisions about their food security short-to-long term by developing new ways of food sovereignty.

Routledge Press, 2021

Land-based learning is an integral part of environmental education, particularly for cross-cultur... more Land-based learning is an integral part of environmental education, particularly for cross-cultural climate change resilience. It typically uses a cross-cultural and environmentally focused approach to education by recognizing the deep physical, mental, and spiritual connection to the land. Land-based environmental education provides the opportunity to learn that each culture is unique, and it can build community connectedness and revitalize cross-cultural knowledge, languages, and practices. This chapter focuses on how land-based environmental learning is useful for developing cross-cultural community-led climate change resilience, particularly for children and youth. Focusing on a relational approach in a cross-cultural community garden setting, the authors wanted to learn from each other how their land-based environmental education had become an opportunity to build community-led climate change resilience, celebrating different cultures, nations, ages, knowledge systems, and practices. To achieve their goal, they first situated themselves as to whom they were as researchers, where they came from, for whom they were doing this research, and how they were responsible for the land on which they lived and the people they lived with. Their positionality helped them understand cross-cultural land-based environmental education as an inter-cultural and intergenerational space to overcome climate change challenges and celebrate successes as resilience.

SUNY, 2021

This chapter engages with and widens Lorraine Code’s ecological thinking epistemological approach... more This chapter engages with and widens Lorraine Code’s ecological thinking epistemological approach by using an Indigenous relational framework. It offers a bridge between Indigenous and Western-situated relational ways of knowing and doing environmental sustainability.

New Society Publishing, 2020

Strong local communities are the foundation of a healthy, participatory, and resilient society. R... more Strong local communities are the foundation of a healthy, participatory, and resilient society. Rather than looking to national governments, corporations, or new technologies to solve environmental and social problems, we can learn and apply the successes of thriving communities to protect the environment, enhance local livelihood, and grow social vitality.

Building Community is an easy-to-use guidebook that distills the success of healthy thriving communities from around the world into twelve universally applicable principles that transcend cultures and locations.

Exploring how community building can be approached by local citizens and their local leaders, Building Community features:

A chapter on each of the 12 Guiding Principles, based on research in 27 countries
Over 30 knowledgeable contributing author-practitioners
Critical practical leadership tools
Notes from the field – with practical dos and don'ts
A wealth of 25 case studies of communities that have learned to thrive, including towns and villages, inner-city neighborhoods, indigenous groups, nonprofits, women's empowerment groups, and a school, business, and faith community
This is essential reading for community leaders, activists, planners, policy makers, and students looking to help their communities thrive.

Myers Education Press, 2020

Chapter Four Traditional storytelling: An effective Indigenous research methodology and its impli... more Chapter Four
Traditional storytelling: An effective Indigenous research methodology and its implications for environmental research

The chapters in this volume collect together perspectives on Indigenous epistemologies. These Indigenous ways of knowing pay particular attention to the relational aspects of language, culture, and place. They are not identified as specific themes, but as integrated parts of a philosophy, for Indigenous epistemologies think within a relational framework, so that all aspects are best understood from this perspective. Indigenous ways of knowing have resisted colonization and oppression, and as such, Indigenous research perspectives exemplify a commitment to social justice, one that recovers knowledges that have been silenced or subjugated. When such knowledge is shared, we can see how to challenge oppressive regimes. We can see how to seek truth in a relational way that’s attendant to being together. Indigenous Research takes up issues of social justice in a way that is informed by Indigenous epistemologies, an important practice in contemporary research, particularly qualitative inquiry.

Fernwood Publishing, 2020

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a report designed to facilitate reconci... more In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a report designed to facilitate reconciliation between the Canadian State and Indigenous peoples. Among it’s recommendations was the reminder that “We are all Treaty People” - including immigrants and refugees living in Canada. The contributors to this volume, many of whom are themselves immigrants and refugees, take up the challenge of imagining what it means for immigrants and refugees to live as Treaty people. Through essays, personal reflections and poetry the contributors to this volume explore what reconciliation is and what it means to live in relationship with Indigenous peoples.

Speaking from their personal experience—whether from the education and health care systems, through research and a community garden, or from experiences of discrimination and marginalization—contributors share their stories of what it means to live Reconciliation in Practice. They write about building respectful relationships with Indigenous people, respecting Indigenous Treaties, decolonizing our ways of knowing and acting, learning the role of colonized education processes, protecting our land and environment, creating food security, and creating an intercultural space for social interactions.

Perhaps most importantly, Reconciliation in Practice reminds us that reconciliation is an ongoing process, not an event, and that decolonizing our relationships and building new ones based on understanding and respect is empowering for all of us, Indigenous, settler, immigrant and refugee, alike.

Contents

Reconciliation: Challenges and Possibilities (Ranjan Datta)
• Sámi Reconciliation in Practice: A Long and Ongoing Process (Irja Seurujärvi-Kari and Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen)
Reconciliation: A White Settler Learning from the Land (Janet McVittie) • Integrating Indigenous Knowledge in Practice and Research: A New Way Forward for the Immigrant Health Professionals (Farzana Ali) • Reconciliation Through Transnational Lenses: An Immigrant Women’s Learning Journey (Jebunnessa Chapola)
• Letter to John A. MacDonald (Chris Scribe) • Reconciliation as Ceremonial Responsibility: An Immigrant’s Story (Ranjan Datta) • Reconciliation via Building Respectful Relationships and Community Engagement in Indigenous Research (Valerie Onyinyechi Umaefulam) Reconciliation and New Canadians (Ali Abukar)
• Holes and Gray (Khodi Dill) • Refernces

Fernwood Publishing, 2020

This book will response to the call of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Canada that ... more This book will response to the call of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Canada that meaningful engagement among Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Canadians will be key in advancing reconciliation. Various cross-cultural community-oriented activities will represent to showcase how to understand and take the responsibilities, we can begin to identify areas of opportunity as well as current obstacles to progress.

This chapter discusses Indigenous sustainability perspectives by focusing on policy and practice.... more This chapter discusses Indigenous sustainability perspectives by focusing on policy and practice. This chapter’s discussion is centred on four main topics in relation to the Laitu Khyeng Indigenous community’s natural resource management and sustainability: the meaning of land and water, the understanding and practices of management, the impact of colonialism, and the community’s imagined goals in pursuit of sustainability. This chapter includes a commentary on the implications of the research for policy and practice and suggestions for future research. This chapter ends with the researcher’s personal reflections on the process of conducting this collective study.

This chapter answers some key challenges that face us today: What can Western science learn from ... more This chapter answers some key challenges that face us today: What can Western science learn from traditional land-water management? How can we bridge between Western and Indigenous land-water management? Do we have within us the necessary wisdom and knowledge to make this happen? To answer these questions, this chapter focuses on exploring the meanings of land-water and management from Indigenous people’s everyday lives and their natural resource embodiment.

Ranjan Datta, 2019

Speaking from my personal experience — whether from the education and activities, through researc... more Speaking from my personal experience — whether from the education and activities, through research and a community garden, or from experiences of discrimination and marginalization — contributors share my stories of what reconciliation means in practice. My presentation focuses on building respectful relationships with Indigenous Peoples, respecting Indigenous Treaties, decolonizing our ways of knowing and acting, learning the role of colonized education processes, protecting our land and environment, creating food security and creating an intercultural space for social interactions. Perhaps most importantly, Reconciliation in Practice reminds us that reconciliation is an ongoing process, not an event, and that decolonizing our relationships and building new ones based on understanding and respect is empowering for all of us — Indigenous, settler, immigrant and refugee alike.