Symposium: What Can Indigenous Feminist Knowledge and Practices Bring to "Indigenizing" the Academy (original) (raw)
Related papers
What Can Indigenous Feminist Knowledge and Practices Bring to “indigenizing” the Academy?
2019
More than a decade has passed since North American Indigenous scholars began a public dialogue on how we might "Indigenize the academy." Discussions around how to "Indigenize" and whether it's possible to "decolonize" the academy in Canada have proliferated as a result of the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada (TRC), which calls upon Canadians to learn the truth about colonial relations and reconcile the damage that is ongoing. Indigenous scholars are increasingly leading and writing about efforts in their institutions; efforts include land-and Indigenous language-based pedagogies, transformative community-based research, Indigenous theorizing, and dual governance structures. Kim Anderson's paper invites dialogue about how Indigenous feminist approaches can spark unique Indigenizing practices, with a focus on how we might activate Indigenous feminist spaces and places in the academy. In their responses, Elena Flores Ruíz uses Mexican feminist Indigenizing discourse to ask what can be done to promote plurifeminist indigenizing practices and North-South dialogues that acknowledge dynamic Indigenous pasts and diverse contexts for present interactions on Turtle Island. Georgina Tuari Stewart proceeds to describe Mana Wahine indigenous feminist theory from Aotearoa before proceeding to develop a "kitchen logic" of mana, which parallels Anderson's understanding of tawow. Finally, Madina Tlostanova reflects on how several ways of advancing indigenous feminist academic activism described by Anderson intersect with examples from her own native Adyghe indigenous culture divided between the neocolonial situation and the post-Soviet trauma.
Cedar, Tea and Stories: Two Indigenous Women Scholars Talk About Indigenizing the Academy
Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 2019
In an effort to redress the educational needs of Indigenous peoples as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s call to action (2015), two Indigenous colleagues, Elizabeth Brulé and Ruth Koleszar-Green, came together to engage in a collective reflection on what Indigenizing the curriculum has meant to each of them. Through a collective dialogue that affirms that knowledge is created through our individual and collective storytelling, they discussed the challenges and successes that Indigenous women have encountered in their attempts to indigenize the curriculum over the past decade in the province of Ontario, Canada. Collaborative work such as this has not only provided them with an enriching intellectual and collective experience but has also given them cause for hope in their pursuit for truth and reconciliation. Through this collective dialogue, issues of Indigeneity, pedagogy, reconciliation and sisterhood are discussed.
Social Justice Studies, 2020
Abstract: In this article, I review contemporary Indigenous women’s scholarship, describing transformations from 1985 to the present, first to characterize this scholarship on its own terms and second to situate this literature with respect to recent, nascent dialogues with anti-racist feminisms. What is the focus and range of Indigenous women’s scholarship, from 1985 until today? What does this work seek to do, that is, what are the intertwined political and scholarly aims of this scholarship? I suggest that Indigenous women’s scholarly writing is concerned with resilience, or survival, resistance or challenges to colonial power and relationships, and resurgence, or a turning-inward to renew Indigenous knowledges and practices. In the discussion, I briefly consider how the increasingly rich and diverse field of Indigenous women’s theorizing and praxis informs an emerging dialogue with antiracist feminist scholars within the academy and in the broader context of colonial Canada.
The Privilege of Not Walking Away: Indigenous Women’s Perspectives of Reconciliation in the Academy
2021
The release of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report titled “Honouring the Truth and Reconciling for the Future” has evoked a persistent call within learning institutions to Indigenize education, decolonize systems of power, and reconcile Indigenous–settler relations and knowledge. Within this context, the TRC’s “Calls to Action” are frequently invoked by institutions attempting to achieve just action. While reconciliation remains a complex, political, and settler-driven endeavour, there has been an effort to “fill the gap” with Indigenous presence, knowledge, and students within academic institutions. Given the limited research on the gendered aspect of reconciliation, our paper contributes to this conversation by examining the impact of the “filling effort” on our critical community work and the ways in which we as Indigenous women engage in reconciliation. By this, we mean the ways we live and understand reconciliation by looking inward toward each other as wo...
The Challenges of Indigenous Studies: A voice from both sides of the desk
Our Schools/ Our Selves, "Mass Historia: Exploring history, narrative, and citizenship in our classrooms"., 2016
A conversation between Red Haircrow and Meg Singer on the challenges both Native and non-Native students and educators can face in Native American and Indigenous Studies courses, but often for very different reasons. Including topics of white supremacist ideology and privilege in society and academia, Europeanized history and educational materials and how going beyond the Native stereotypes that have been learned and taught in all aspects of western society is imperative. Originally published in Red Rising Magazine (2016), then reprinted with permission by The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "
Oral History Review , 2018
This article is about Indigenous oral histories and Indigenous feminisms as understood by a settler. It builds from critiques that urge gender and women’s studies to break out of the focus on parity and consider intersecting issues of settler colonialism and the decolonizing work necessary for achieving autonomy locally. I draw from my research collaboration with the Cree Nation of Chisasibi that traces the community’s process of developing a culturally safe model of care to explore epistemological and methodological practices codeveloped with my research partners. I then explore the ways in which these practices can inform the field of feminist oral history by insisting on foregrounding place-based culturally informed priorities.