Abstract
Championed by Shirley Steinberg in this new Brill/Sense publication, Markides and Forsythe showcase the voices of a new generation of international graduate students, Indigenous and Allies, from the 2017 Graduate Student Symposium in Indigenous Studies, at the University of Manitoba. Dwayne Donald characterizes the volume as a hopeful compilation with a shift to “ethical relationality” and “healing medicine.” The volume ushers in an expansion of imaginings for a Truth and Reconciliation era in Canada with Indigenous perspectives foregrounded.
Adult educators played a significant role in promoting and supporting programs of cultural assimilation into the socio-economies of the nation-state through community development that were extensions of residential school agendas. For example, on the heels of Canadian democratization initiatives post–World War II, Vatican II, repatriation of the constitution and the UNDRIP, adult educators supported the conscientization of the Indigenous and displaced communities, and the 94 Recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Report (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015; Welton, 2005), the challenge is to deal with the structural oppression of Indigenous Canadians. This volume provides adult educators entry points to support this challenge.
The authors organized the essays by using four themes: land, transmitting Indigenous knowledge, redressing colonial legacies, and fostering healing and revitalization of The People.
Resistance, self-governance, and international place-holding triumphs in the history of degradation of the Arctic and its people in the Cold War, uranium mining, and the legacy of waste (Bernauer, chapter 1). Chabot (chapter 2) maintains archeological investigations are necessary to establish a baseline of knowledge. Nduo and Chimonyo (chapter 3) lament that erosion of the ancient African Nguni cattle economy that structures all aspects of life and identity that may bridge them into a new day/world through cattle blood-lines. Lenk (chapter 4) uses cartography to understand the collaborative contribution of defiantly self-identified “Indians.” Water may be life but in Manitoba the rapids that were food and transport ways became hydroelectric power and revenues according to Grima (chapter 5). The result is the relocation of Indigenous people from the bush to the urban centers first for centralized services and then as an intergenerational way of living (Bezamat-Mantes, chapter 6). Welham (chapter 7) maintains that food security is a right whether on the land or in urban areas with the necessity of maintaining local understandings of foodways as a public health policy necessity.
Passing on knowledge and habitus as the means to occupy the land is of international focus. Tatlan language nests (Morris, chapter 8) are featured as the go-to strategy for language revitalization because language is essential to understanding the stories of the ancestors based in the territory. Illustrative is “Winter Spirit” (Murdock and Bone, chapter 9) in which the listener and the teller are bound in common language and ethos of unique oralities. The embodiments of story and style are showcased by Thomason and Bird’s work (Lietz, chapter 10). The lifelong work of Basil Johnston provides an auspicious example of Indigenous scholarship (Murphy, chapter 11). Kim (chapter 12) draws parallels between Indigenous Canadian and Korean epistemologies in the face of Euro-Western hegemony. Bellmore and Braith (chapter 13) move orality through media that amplifies their effects to untapped audiences. Indigenous legal systems bound in orality in rural Mexico are resuscitated through the voices of los Indios (Morales-Good, chapter 14). Countering cultural disruption is central to strategies presented.
Theme three provides counternarratives of resistance to re-dress colonial legacies. Canada continues to develop operational bureaucracies that perpetuate government policies and programs in education that belie sovereignty (Forsythe, chapter 15). Martel (chapter 16) documents the racialization of the settler mindset in the emic/etic distinction of class membership of Métis in Daniels v. Canada. Racialization is amped up online as Nicholson (chapter 17) exposes the White fragility in cyber stories on Indigenous topics in Canadian media. The demons, scientific and Christian beliefs, are paraded for all to see as the elephants in the room (Maton, chapter 18). The “vanishing race” becomes an industry, the artifacts and symbols that abound keep the “Indian” foregrounded in misery and tradition for economic reasons (Martens, chapter 9). Commodification of Salish culture reached a peak during the Winter Olympics but was eclipsed by the Canada 150 celebrations wherein Indigenous arts funding was negligible, but the symbols carried the day (Oostindie, chapter 20). Brazilian Vergolino (chapter 21) wonders how sovereignty can be supported by an education system funded through the delivery of curricula that continues to promote the culture of the colonial state. Appasamy, Szabo, and Tabobondung (chapter 22) surveyed students about the required Indigenous course finding 63% believed their knowledge increased as did their ambivalence. Clearly, there are many issues that are ripe for investigation and remedy.
The final theme brings offerings that redirect healing and strength to foster resurgence and revitalization. York Factory First Nations manufacture moccasins to reclaim planning activities, traditional harvesting of materials, use of indigenous technologies and skills to revitalize sustainable economic development (Moore, chapter 23). By redefining “doing time” in Canadian corrections system, elders bring healing by facilitating worldview synthesis (Quantick, chapter 24). Perry (chapter 25) explores well-being in Northern Manitoba with community members using an Indigenous Research Paradigm. Describing the process of evoking community engagement is the aim of Kowatsch et al. (chapter 27) to encourage more effective medical research. Kiprop (chapter 28) highlights the negotiation of the levels of ethics in the cross-cosmological clashes for formal research. As a two-spirited Anishinaabe, Pajunen (chapter 29) distinguishes between by-standers and allies speaking directly to the reader rather using formalized protocols. Finally, Markides (chapter 30) calls on the ethics of care as a means of engaging in embedded, embodied, ethical wellness research based in the promise of the past. Personal struggles with research as Indigenous, situated researchers bring their experiences as a gift to the academy.
This book makes a contribution to the field of adult education by articulating what was, is, and what Indigenous people desire. In this volume, adult educators can read the emergent field and reorient themselves to the revelations of these authors with a view to support and extend the work with a focus on the issues that evoke the greatest dissonance.