Well before I get going I want and say a few words today. I'd like to acknowledge the territory. I'd like to acknowledge the land on which we gather today and that it is the traditional ancestral land of the unceded territory of the Musqueam people. I bring greetings to you from the University of Saskatchewan which sits on Treaty 6 territory.
I'm from Treaty 4 territory. I'm Oji Cree from southern Saskatchewan. I belong to Pasqua First Nations and as John was saying SOTO, that's the SOTO First Nations, First Nation.
So, yeah, it's just an absolute delight to be here today, I've got to say. And, you know, when I look out at your faces, and I do know because Dan kind of gave me sort of a little bit of an update that there would be a number of graduate students in the audience, and very often when I have an opportunity to speak, I'm speaking with graduate students. And in the work that I do at the University of Saskatchewan and the teaching that I do, It's very often with graduate students and very often we are talking about Indigenous research.
And so just looking out at the lovely land and looking out at your faces, I'm just absolutely delighted to be here because I think to me it says there's hope, there's a future, and it's just a very optimistic day. So thank you for inviting me here and it's a great privilege. So today I'm going to be doing a little bit of reading, probably going to be doing a little bit. more reading than I normally do as I if I were in a classroom because As some of my students would know that, when I have a PowerPoint and I'm not following any text, two hours later we're still on the first PowerPoint and so I like to do a little bit, I read from text a bit just just so I can stay organized but I'm also actually going to do something a little bit different today and I'm going to share with you a little bit of a writing.
A little bit of slice of my life of Maggie circa 2017. So I'm going to read something for you that I had recently just published but I'll tell you a little bit more about that. But I do want to give an honouring to this land. I am from Saskatchewan, that's true, make my home in Saskatchewan and very very much connected to my home territory. But I lived in BC for a number of years and when I was living in BC I lived in Victoria, I lived in Terrace, I lived in Prince George and currently I have a space in what one of my colleagues calls Maggie's Vancouver Cabin.
So I have a little condo in the city here and so when My spouse and I moved to Saskatchewan about 10 years ago so I could take up the job at the University of Saskatchewan. He grew up in BC on Vancouver Island and we just really couldn't stay away from BC on a long-term basis so we ended up getting that little cabin in the city. So I do make this as a bit of my second home and when I was writing this introduction I was thinking about The Neil You song, I don't know how many folks remember, I mean maybe John you do because it's a song about Northern Ontario. But I thought about it in terms of the West Coast and that the West Coast is very special to me and I thought about Neil You's song and his words, Dream Comfort.
And memory just there. So that's some kind of what I think about when I think about this place and coming back. So yeah, so without further ado, why don't we start a little bit on what I would like to share with you today.
So what I'm going to talk first off is something that probably I feel like I talk a lot about, but often times when I'm asked to do a presentation, people do want to hear a little bit about my thoughts on Indigenous methodologies. And so I'm going to share a little bit about my awarenesses and sort of some insights that I've come to. I've come to know about Indigenous methodologies, I guess that's the way to put it.
And it seems every time then I have an opportunity to dialogue with graduate students, to dialogue with faculty members, to dialogue with other researchers who are working within Indigenous research, I always get a deeper sense of awareness. So what I'm going to talk... to you for the first bit is talk to you about some of the awarenesses that I have gained about Indigenous methodologies and I think some will be familiar some maybe not but let's have an opportunity to dialogue a little bit so I'm hoping that we can have time for that at the end of my talk the other thing that I want to do today As I mentioned, I wanted to share an excerpt from a reading. It's more of a reading, but it's actually I would say the spoken word because I wrote it in a way that it could be spoken. I was thinking about whether or not to share but then I thought this might be a good opportunity to less tell why story is important in our research and maybe just share a little bit of my own story.
And I usually don't share too much about, kind of go in too much about my own story because usually I'm talking about the sort of these are some of the anchors and the checkpoints and the qualities and the tenants of Indigenous research and we don't get a lot into my own story. So I'm not going to share my own story. But I thought today why not share a little bit from Maggie's, a little bit of slice of life from from Maggie's world. So I'm gonna I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna share a little bit of that with you.
But first let's get rolling with the awareness system. Let's just hope we can keep the PowerPoint congruent with what I'm saying. That's always half of the challenge. So the first awareness I would say that I've come to know about Indigenous methodologies. and indigenous research and indigenous knowledges is that one needs to be very clear of the terms and one has to be clear in one's own mind when they're saying for example indigenous research what is it that they mean by indigenous research when they're saying indigenous methodologies what do they mean by indigenous methodologies so now this might be some folks might have a different perspective on this And that's okay because when I'm sharing with you I've went to the research and I've talked to people but I am telling you kind of what I think about Indigenous research and Indigenous methodologies from my own perspective.
So it is it is being filtered through my experience, my thoughts, my eyes, even though it is based on a lot of other knowledges out there and it is definitely It's situated in other people's ideas and thoughts and it's situated within our ancient cultures. And so, but I do want to just put it out there. This is my kind of perspective on it. And so feel free to disagree with it. So I want to tell you first of all how I understand Indigenous research.
I do not equate indigenous research as being equal directly to indigenous methodologies. I believe that the two are related but they are not necessarily one in the same. What I believe Indigenous research involves is research with Indigenous people within Indigenous contexts.
And within those contexts of research with Indigenous people, that could include a whole bunch of different kinds of methodologies. So maybe this will help to kind of clarify what I mean. So I see of Indigenous research in some ways as an umbrella term.
And to me, Indigenous research means research that is conducted with Indigenous peoples. We know that there's all sorts of research that is conducted with Indigenous peoples. This could include quantitative research.
Chris Anderson and Maggie Walters wrote a wonderful book on quantitative research in Indigenous contexts. It could be feminist research, so Indigenous research that are maybe looking at the lives of Indigenous women from a feminist perspective. Could be grounded theory.
So it could be research with indigenous communities that are coming from a grounded theory perspective. It could be community-based research or participatory action research, which are kind of similar methodologies, but you could be doing community-based research, which is a western form of research methodology. You could do that type of research within indigenous contexts and we could call it Indigenous research. Indigenous methodologies itself is a form, is a type of methodology under the umbrella of indigenous research where it would be most appropriate to use this type of methodology within indigenous contexts.
So In a sense, Indigenous methodology is one type of research methodology that falls under the umbrella of Indigenous research. What I've talked about and what I've written about a lot and done research with is Indigenous methodology. So you might be asking, okay, well what's the difference between Indigenous research and Indigenous methodologies that make them not kind of just an equal sort of Indigenous research is Indigenous methodology? So what kind of disrupts that sort of thinking?
What is different about Indigenous methodologies? To me, Indigenous methodologies is based on Indigenous knowledge systems. So when we think about Indigenous methodology specifically, we need to think about it as a distinctive type of methodology or methodological approach, which has, and we can use, I mean at this point in time I suppose we can use terms like paradigm, we could use term like epistemology, we could use term like a philosophical foundation, we can even use the term as theory.
What I'm thinking about more is when we think about research there's methodologies, there's two pieces, there's the thinking and the doing. So for indigenous methodologies the thinking or the philosophy, whatever term you use, term you want to use is based and founded and embedded in Indigenous knowledge systems. How you do, how you, the methods of Indigenous methodologies then are going to flow and be directed by those knowledge systems.
So one of the key things about Indigenous methodologies is that in order to conduct a research project using Indigenous methodologies you have to have Some sort of knowledge, some sort of grounding, some sort of anchoring in Indigenous knowledge systems. If you do not, it is probably not the best methodology for you to use at this time. Not saying you can't learn, but in order to actually do a project using Indigenous methodologies, you have to have an understanding of Indigenous knowledges, and you have to understand of which Indigenous. Is it Anishinaabe?
Is it So? Is it, well Anishinaabe and So are sort of similar but are from the same, so probably, is it Koselish? Is it Nahiyo?
Is it Cree? Is it Huron? You have to have a kind of an understanding of the specific cultural context, but it is a constant text that's embedded in indigenous worldviews, paradigms, epistemologies, whatever you want to call it.
And One of the key things that's really important is Indigenous knowledge systems are not Western knowledge systems, they are different. And this is one of the, this is a quote I like to read because I think it helps to clarify how Indigenous knowledge systems are different in a pretty straightforward way from Western knowledge systems. And it's a quote that was is from Haudenosaunee member Orion Lyons and this quote was he was quoted in 1977 And Orion Lyons was one of the first Indigenous people to make a statement to the United Nations. And when he made that statement to the United Nations on Indigenous people, Lyons actually critiqued the United Nations because he said they were coming from a very Western, human-centric world view and a very individualistic world view.
And Orion said this, and I quote, I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the Eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior, but we are, after all, a mere part of the creation.
So right there and then that tells you something a little bit different about Western and Indigenous world views and methodologies. So my very first awareness and the key one of all of this when I talk about Indigenous methodologies and you could probably leave now if you wanted to say the major teaching has just been put on the table that I have and that is that Indigenous methodologies are based on Indigenous knowledge systems. We have to be clear about that if we want to use Indigenous methodologies, and we have to be true to Indigenous knowledge systems.
And if we can't do that, then we have to rethink our methodology and maybe use another methodology. It can still be indigenous research, but it most likely will not be indigenous methodologies. So the question then is, okay, if I'm using an Indigenous methodology, how do I kind of know that I'm on the right track? How would someone else know that, say for example, a project and a design that I'm using for my research and I say it's used, is using an Indigenous methodology, how would someone know that?
Well, one of the key things is that there's going to be certain anchors or benchmarks in your research. So you will be hitting certain benchmarks as you go along, and you will know these benchmarks to be true because you are actually being guided by Indigenous knowledge systems, and all these benchmarks are embedded within the knowledge system. So you will know this to be true.
You will also be able to have gone back to other people who have done research before you using Indigenous methodology, and see these benchmark is evident. If you're a faculty member and you're charged with the task of working with graduate students or you're an external examiner and you're examining a PhD that says it's using an indigenous methodology, these are some of the anchors or the benchmarks you should be looking at. So what are they? I'm just going to go through this really, really briefly with you and there's time to think about it. Take it up in your classrooms with your instructors.
and have conversations about it but these are kind of the cold snow version of what should be in a thesis a dissertation a report that is using an indigenous methodology first off there's going to be a protocol of introduction somewhere and you know really at this point it's not that important to me kind of where but we need to know who you are so it follows the protocol of introduction that we do in our communities in our feast halls We introduce ourselves, we tell about our kinship, we tell about our connection to our culture. And so in your thesis you're going to situate yourself and you're going to tell your relationship to your research. And as Graham Smith would say, a Maori scholar would say, we're going to tell it warts and all. So we're going to have a prologue somewhere or an introduction statement somewhere in our research talking about who we are.
There will be indication in your research somewhere of the way that you have prepared for this research. And we're not just talking about you've done your lit review. We're talking about how have you prepared for this research in a way that it is embedded in Indigenous culture. How have you talked to knowledge holders or people and stakeholders in the community?
Maybe you've talked to elders. How have you incorporated ceremony? What are the ways that the Indigenous community would understand this preparation? That has to be a part of your You have to speak to that and we have to see that you've considered that in some way in your research.
The other key that's really, really key, and we've talked about it, is you have to be able to speak to Indigenous knowledges, meaning you have to be able to speak to the epistemological, or you may call it theoretical, foundation. But this is not just about your own story. Indigenous knowledges is the world philosophy.
If you go to the library, you will see, find writings of scholars who have written on Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous scholars. So Indigenous knowledge is not just you yourself alone. If you are speaking about your own story and you're embedding it within Indigenous knowledge systems, know you are connected to world philosophy. You are connected to many different people who have gone before you.
You are connected to your elders, but you're also connected to Indigenous scholars. And at this day and time, if you want to use an Indigenous methodology, we need to know that you know that. Okay, we need to know that you know that.
And it's not just about you knowing that, it's about giving honour. Because that's what we do as Indigenous people. We honour those who have come before us, who we have learned from. It is almost in your own mind as you sit at your computer, an offering of tobacco, as you write a gift of thanks to the people who have came before you and offered these knowledges.
So we need to know that. We need to know about ethics. Research within university context needs to be ethically approved.
We know that yours will need to be ethically approved. But you are also going to have to speak to ethical considerations of doing research with Aboriginal communities and peoples in specific. And I would say go to Chapter 9 of the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Engagement.
It's a good place to start, but also follow the ethics from your elders, from your community, from your people, from your Indigenous scholars. ...from your colleagues about what it means to do ethical research with Indigenous communities because we have to talk a little bit about that. If we were in Nova Scotia and you were doing research with the Mi'kmaq people you would have to go through the Mi'kmaq Ethics Watch. I'm not too sure in BC, I'm out of out of the loop, I'm not too sure if you have to go through a specific Indigenous ethics protocol but you might.
It's something that is not uncommon in universities. So, you need ethic. That story is going to be foundational.
Your story, but also the story that you are seeking from others, so that you can find out more about the question you have in mind. And one of my supervisors, or my, I had a co-supervisor when I was doing, a co-supervisor arrangement when I was doing my PhD, and Leslie Brown, she had said, always remember Maggie. In Latin, the word data or datum is gift.
Okay, so when I think of collecting data I'm thinking of gift. It is a gift. And it is a gift of story that you are gathering, you are hearing, you are being honored to hear.
So treat it with the respect of someone giving you the gift of story. So story is going to be really, really important. And your methods will show ways in which stories can come through. That might be yarning, talk story, story methodology, it might be conversational method. But story will...
be a way of coming through. The interpretation and the insights, the meaning-making that you get from your research will come through an indigenous theoretical lens. So when somebody's reading the findings, if you want to call it, of your research, it's going to feel indigenous. You're just going to know that this has come through an Indigenous perspective.
And one of the ways that will really help you in doing that is how you conceptually frame your research. So there has been so many wonderful works by graduate students in the last four or five years, and I've had the pleasure of being an external examiner, to do metaphorical conceptual framing. And so conceptual framing in ways that resonate with your community, with the Indigenous community, and you can use those. You can use those as ways to tell the story of your research because what you're doing is you're in a sense restoring your research.
Finally, or not, I should say second from finally on this point is that throughout your entire research process you will be thinking about orality. and the oral dissemination of knowledge. That is something that very much sets us apart as Indigenous peoples in terms of distinctiveness of the way we share knowledge is through the spoken word and through orality. So from start to finish you're going to have to be thinking of how orality comes and interweaves its way through your research.
It doesn't mean that you won't have written pieces. That's not what we're talking about. It's not an either or but it is how is orality going to be a part of your research process and if you don't have a good handle on oral dissemination of knowledge that's when you can go back to the communities but that's also an indicator that you might have to do a little more work in terms of finding out you know what you need to do in order to do this thing we call indigenous methodologies Finally and most importantly is that your research needs to serve. In universities we have this kind of wacky compartmentalized sort of way of approaching things. We have teaching as one bundle, research as another bundle, and service as another bundle.
Well in indigenous world research is service, service is research. and we have to be giving back we have to be spending time with our communities that is so so important so reciprocity really really critical and just like with oral dissemination how from the start to the end is that notion of reciprocity being embedded and interwoven throughout okay so those are just Some of the key points. Now I'm going to go and just talk very briefly a little bit about how are we able to do that?
Because that's a tall order. Indigenous methodologies is not an easy peasy, lemon squeezy type of methodology. It takes a lot of work, a lot of time. It's tough.
So how do we do that? How do we have the stamina to do that? Well I want to talk about a couple of things, a couple of awarenesses that I think is really, really critical This is to do our research, our research through an Indigenous methodology.
Purpose. Know your purpose because your purpose is your impact. We talk a lot about the impact factor in academic world. Well, impact factor in Indigenous methodologies will really be connected to your purpose. If you're clear about your purpose, you will make an impact.
So I would say that when we're talking about purpose we have to think about purpose of your, yes think about your individual purpose, what does this mean to your life and your life story and and if you're a graduate student getting your degree, if you're a faculty pre-tenure getting tenure, all of those things. But what does it also mean for the larger purpose of contributing to the community and indigenous people in some way. And one of the quotes that I revisit from time to time and many of you are probably very familiar with it is Kirkness and Bernhardt's four R's and this comes from a 2001 article First Nations and Higher Education and the four R's that they talk about is respect, relevance, reciprocity and responsibility. If your purposes are embedded, if your purpose is embedded in those four R's, It will be purposeful research. So don't forget the four R's.
They'll serve you well. Some of the questions that you might want to ask that just kind of give you a little bit of an opportunity to think is my research serving the community in a purposeful way? Question, is my research respectful to Indigenous people and respectful of Indigenous people? Does my research have relevance to the community or the communities I seek to serve through my research?
Do I have a clear sense of who my community is? Do I know who my Indigenous community is, generally and for the purposes of my research? And will I do research in a way that is responsible and will not cause harm?
So these are just some questions that you can ask yourself as you're going through the process. Another awareness, know your context, the Indigenous community and the academic context. As Indigenous researchers, we have to be mindful of our contexts.
And I like this, and I want to just sort of think about community first off. And I like a quote that was put out in 2004 by Cree scholar Williams Ermine. And he has written a lot on ethical spaces.
But this was a quote that came from one of his writings with some other folks. And he defines community. And I want to read how he defines community because I think it's a really good definition for community, indigenous style. So he says, quote, Community is a system of relationships within Indigenous societies in which the nature of personhood is identified. The system of relationships not only includes family, but also extends to comprise the relationships of human, ecological, and spiritual origin.
Community is a structure of support mechanisms that include The personal responsibility for the collective and the collective concern for individual existence. So there's a mutuality there, end quote. So community, I know in geopolitical communities like First Nations, it may be easier to discern who our community is.
However, within urban communities like cities like Vancouver, relationality and community still matter. And indigenous people are often connected to communities, to pockets of communities within these urban centers. So we have to know that indigenous community can be defined in different ways.
But we have to have a clear sense of who it is when we're talking about the Indigenous community within our research. I know from my own experience I was adopted out and so I didn't grow up with my First Nations community although I grew up about a half an hour away but for me connection to community has always been a really personal thing and how do you find it if you were adopted out and you don't have that that lived experience in connection while I was fortunate enough to reconnect when I was 17 I went to university shortly thereafter So between reconnecting initially when I was around 17 and then connecting with indigenous other indigenous students but then connecting with kind of a larger community of indigenous people with With academia then that led out to connections kind of all over the place with Indigenous people. It has been those connections that have been really really important to me and even though I have connection with my family and my community some of my most sustaining connections with the Indigenous community have come within academia.
So there's it you know it really there's powerful Indigenous pockets of Indigenous community. all over and we but we just have to know who our community is and being able to sort of identify it for the purposes of our research We also have to know about the academic context. This is really important for graduate students and for faculty alike.
It's not yet smooth sailing in academia and I think we've made progress in indigenizing the academy but indigenous research, scholarship, truth and reconciliation all exist within a neoliberal individualistic world that continues to promote an individual rather than a collective. response to colonial harm and I want to this is a really good book and I would recommend you read it it's a thoughtful book it's a tough book but it was I was a had a good chew on this book and I really kind of appreciated what the scholar was saying and she's the Dion million and I believe she's a denny scholar and her book is entitled therapeutic nations healing in the age in age of indigenous human rights and this was just an excerpt from that book or a quote from that work and she says I quote neoliberalism is imbued with a powerful belief in the goodness of the market in a claim that individual pursuits of self-interest will promote the public good so reconciliation that is viewed solely within individual trauma discourse of Solely focusing on the healing, divorce from reconciliation of the land and the land rights is a goal of neoliberalism. So we have to make sure that when we're grappling with truth and reconciliation we're grappling with all of it.
We're not just one part of it, with all of it. So in this choppy, I still, it's choppy waters, it's rough seas of academia. As graduate students I want you to know there are people that have your back. There are people who have been there and who've sailed the choppy seas.
Many of those people are Indigenous scholars themselves but there's also allies and just know that we do have your back. And we're there for you. As one Indigenous student said, she shared this at a conference not too long ago, she says, Indigenous scholars they've been my shield.
We're your shield. We're there for you. So I've mentioned a little bit about community and I've mentioned a little bit of academic context.
You might be wondering well how can we get the community involved? You can have perhaps a community advisory committee that's different from your thesis advisory that helps you to get input from your community. So that's one way to get in community involved, particularly if you're in an urban context a practical way.
Also know in terms of the academic context you have your advisory committee like your academic committee or your thesis supervisor your committee members. I know for many Indigenous students because there is still not a large number of Indigenous faculty it may be hard to get an Indigenous faculty member to be a supervisor on the committee but I suggest you try but at any rate make sure you think thoughtfully about who's on your committee. Your committee should be a support to you.
and your committee should be folks that you feel comfortable working with and so even if you are in a situation where the perfect committee might not just appear for you before you still think thoughtfully about your committee your academic committee and know you have choice in that you have choice so I just wanted to put that out So before I go into the little excerpt that'll conclude, well, bit of an excerpt, that'll conclude my talk today. What I wanted to talk to you about is your own story and that your own story matters. And it matters in this work that we do that you remember who you are. Your story matters. Position yourself.
What knowledge and experience do you bring to your research? What knowledge and experience do you bring to your scholarship? It's your story that will bring heart to your research.
It is your story that will have the community interested in listening to you. Do your research. Tell your story in your own way.
Indigenous methodologies are grounded in our own truths, our own story, and our own life. Connected to something larger, but it is grounded in our own experience. In 2005 my research team and I did a study on Indigenous presence in post-secondary landscapes and it was looking at how academics uphold Indigenous knowledges in their work. And there were many rich findings of the study but there was one quote that really stuck out for me and that I it just really resonated with me and this person reflected on being an Indigenous faculty in the Academy and this is what she shared. I was shaped and I was formed and I was mentored and I was tutored in my early career by Indigenous organizations and programming.
But then I ended up here and I didn't realize being here would take me away from Indigenous programs and peoples." As a graduate of my student many years ago, I came across a quote by Sioux leader and thinker and activist, Russell Means. And over the years, these words have run through my mind and at least a couple of months they've run through consistently and that's been a good run now of You know, since I've been in academia since early 1980, so we're looking at a good 30 years here, if my math's correct. This quote by Russell Means, which was published in 1982, and he was commenting upon American Indians entering university and other institutions, and he said this to them, and I quote, If you are there to learn to resist the oppressor in accordance with traditional ways, so be it. I don't know how you manage to combine the two, but perhaps you will succeed. But retain your sense of reality. Beware of coming to believe the Euro world now offers solutions to the problems it confronts us with. He went on to say, draw strength from who you are. Drawing strength from who you are takes energy, and you need to take care of yourself. But know the power of your own story. And so today's, to conclude today's talk, I'd like to, as I said, do something a bit different and share a bit of my own story. So I kind of think in my own mind, Maggie, circa 2017. I wrote it up shortly after the release of the calls for action in the Truth and Reconciliation Report. It's not explicitly related to TRC, and yet TRC was very much on my mind when I wrote it. But it is about my own story. It's now published, but this is the first time I'm, and I'm going to call it, orally disseminating it, because rather than reading, you're going to be listening. and I'm going to be reading to reading it to you and I wrote it as if I would speak it so I'll do I'll conclude with this and then hopefully we'll have time for a little bit of a chat and conversation but first I'm going to take a little sip of coffee right on haven't spilt it yet all right This starts off with a quote by Joseph Campbell. People say that what we're all seeking is the meaning for life. I don't think that is what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experience on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. Stories give our life meaning. Stories gift us with an experience of being alive. Since childhood, I've been a story listener. I've devoured stories in any form. Stories from the talk of the kitchen table, stories of weather on its way, and stories of the first crocuses of spring. Stories of haunting ghosts spilling from my auntie's memories. Hushed stories of adult duplicity. the cities that the grown-ups didn't think the kids could hear and the bedtime stories I love the eclectic bedtime stories that either mum or I would read stories that would entrench in my imagination a diverse crisscrossing world of Jean Valjean and Rapunzel too young to unpack Rapunzel I saw her as a girl with a room and options for letting her hair down to me back then she was a woman with space and The stories of my childhood ignited a spark, an early flash of a budding social consciousness. I return to these stories. We return to our stories because they tell us who we are. I started in this world as a story listener. At three months of age, my parents adopted me. I grew up in a white rural farming community but was not born to it. I was born to be a woman. I was born in Saskatchewan and raised there. I am Cree So To. From the start I knew I was adopted but I didn't know about the first three months of my life. I did not know where I came from nor did I have an inkling of how my identity was interwoven with the social, political and economic narrative of my country. But I knew there was a story there. I share this with you so that you know why stories loom large for me. They always have. With a curiosity embedded early in life, prompting an insatiability for story, it is no wonder that I became an academic. Academics create, channel, receive and involve story, involve ourselves in story all the time. Teaching and research is not possible without chronicling knowledge through descriptive accounts relevant to life. As an Indigenous academic, without story there is no academic me. As Cree scholar Means Wilson says, research is ceremony, story is ceremony. The narratives we share with others and those we silently hold in memory compel me. Increasingly, I am enthused by stories and animated in the moment happening in the presence of companions. Story as event. Story as relational. Story as a moment. And because I'm an Indigenous prof, oral stories of our deep cultural significance. This meandering commentary is a story in itself, with some bookish bits woven within. It is the sharing of my recent thoughts on stories happening, and a word or two about Indigenous oracy in the Academy. August 2017. I had one of those stop in your tracks reckonings as I was sitting in a Kitsilano cafe on an unimaginably beautiful Vancouver BC morning. It struck me that in an effort to streamline my academic life it was beginning to mirror the advice I was giving to my research class on developing a well-crafted research question. Keep it narrow, focused and achievable. My intellectual life was feeling algorithmic with an absence of soulfulness and I knew that action was needed. I was not in the midst of an interpersonal crisis but was experiencing an intellectual craving. In the past several years I noticed a domesticity settling in and like Leonard Cohen's bird on a wire, I could not longer tell if I was free or caged. The remedy I knew meant resuscitating my natural inquisitiveness that brought me to academia in the first place. Reigniting my curiosity meant returning to story. Story would breathe life into the flatness, but I needed a strategy. My plan was modest and achievable. I would select a book, wake up at 6 in the morning, make a coffee, and read a chapter. After finishing one book, I would straight away start another. Over the year I read books, lots of books, academic books, books from popular culture, all kinds of books. They were mostly non-fiction but within each book there was a story woven throughout. I like reading so it wasn't a drain. At first I noticed that I was reading for content but then somewhere by October there was a shift and I noticed that I was falling asleep at night anticipating my morning reading with the author. After my sunrise reading, I shared the ideas and stories with my spouse, he's also an academic, and the stories came alive. My morning book reading shaped shift from a cerebral exercise to a relational happening, and it became a morning ceremony of sorts. Events, happenings, ceremonies, I began to think about what they meant in my life. I thought of ceremonies in both my indigenous and European culture, sweat lodges and baptismals, powwows and foul suppers. One of my morning books was about Gilles Deleuze. Am I pronouncing Gilles Deleuze right? Deleuze thought on the significance of the event and what he identified as an assemblage. The Deleuze perspective of the event. The Delusian event, as articulated by James Williams, is openness and chance in the present. It is guided by the future and the past, not assumed as burdens, but welcomed as gifts to be worthy of. From my understanding, the Delusian event is about the merging of past and future in a present moment, of connecting, merging, becoming. An assemblage is a coming together for which an event can occur. Deleuze's appreciation for mutability and connectivity reminded me of the fluidity of Indigenous thought that exists outside of the box of linear fragmentation seen beyond and across separations, categories and disciplines. It is a holistic, metaparadigmatic and timeless, connecting old and new. I can imagine my Gregory grandmother sharing a story or two with another. Stories of chores and children of pemmican and medicines. It is assemblage and Kokum is careful with stories and words because she knows what Cree oral historian Winona Wheeler reminds us, quote, words have power, have great power. They can heal, protect, and counsel, but they can also harm. Speaking words to another is doing something in a holy manner, making sacred, making something sacred, making ceremony. I imagine Kokum speaking, sharing story, choosing words, discerning, nodding, intonating. Words matter because they sustain relationship and keep communities together. Story, indigenous style, is relational, animated, oral, and yet, I sit my fingers pressing lightly on my keyboard. I am writing. I am an academic. Academics are conjurers of the narrative. I'm writing now because as an academic it is what we do. My currency beyond all else is the written published word. Knowledge on paper, expository writing. Academics explain and use the written word to provide evidence. The term publish or perish is ingrained in the psyche of the Western world academic. Published writing is what counts and it is what is counted. We need to honor the written words, but I'm also an indigenous academic. My bloodline summons connection. I work in and through Indigenous knowledges. My scholarship demands that I respect orality as a relational encounter that my community requires. We need to honour spoken words. Words offered in the presence of our community is a requirement of the Indigenous academic who works through Indigenous knowledges. It is what gives us credibility and currency. This currency arises from pre-contact Indigenous philosophy that is wedded in orality. This is recognized and affirmed in a 1997 Canadian Supreme Court decision on oral testimony in Dalgamuth v. British Columbia. In reflecting on Dalgamuth and the oral testimony given, Chamberlain writes, quote, For the Gitsan that Duke My John performed was proof of the truth of the events it described. That is to say, the storytelling tradition itself, with its stylized language and its ceremonial protocol, was its own guarantor of truth. end quote for indigenous people or see is fundamental in knowledge dissemination and truth claims or see and the relationship it creates and sustains remains primary to indigenous culture without its due recognition a shadow is cast upon indigenization as put forward by universities Canadian universities abstract language of indigenization decolonization and reconciliation are molded to align with the language of institutional plans strategies and mandates words words words times it feels like Polonius and Hamlet trying to figure it out coyote dances across my keyboard the trickster with a secret smile raises a brow Maybe there is more than parched words in the full story. I think, hmm, yes, there is healing words, felt words, meaningful words, trustworthy words. This is also a part of the story. Narrative gives space for transformative possibilities in teaching and learning, and story is implied in research discovery. This includes quantitative research where we know that behind every statistic there is a story. Story is a powerful communicative event. The sharing of story, the witnessing of story, and the learning from story that the Indigenous elders knew held the potential for shifts in consciousness. This is a transformative shift that first happens in the performative testimonial space that is viscerally known in the relationships that embrace story. For me, as critical educator, this is where social justice starts. Story is how we will decolonize teaching and research. Story is how we will decolonize the academy. It is spring 2008 and the academic year is coming to an end. The conversations, connections and stories of this past year flicker and move through my mind as I conclude this commentary. I close with a thank you to my students for allowing me to see that although we may live in a world full of birds on wires birds we still are and to all who have gifted me this year through morning book dialogues women's assemblages office talks and Skype calls and the generosity of spirit as you found my rambling emails in your inbox you've kept me engaged You've reminded me that story is ceremony. Miigwech. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, it would be. So we have some time for some questions. We'll turn to the audience now and give you a moment to reflect and also a moment to ask something if you'd like. Wow, that's quite a bunch. Where can we find this new article published in 2018? Oh yeah, it's actually a really good little, it's an online article, or an online journal that's called Learning Landscapes, it's put out by, so the article's called A Story in the Talent and the Journal of Learning Landscapes. It's... and if you just Google that with my name you'll find it. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing your own story as well as your picture with us. My name is Daisy Rosenblum and I'm on the faculty here at First Nations and Endangered Languages. So I'm a non-indigenous scholar who works very closely with indigenous communities. And I have a separate question about that, but my most pressing question at the moment is about What kind of advice do you give to graduate students who are indigenous, who are in departments and disciplines where the kind of theoretical architecture that they're being taught is deeply colonial and Eurocentric, such as an anthropology department, and how they can navigate that, or how I can help them navigate that so that they can hold on to the resources that they need. What are the things that they want to do and find a place for it within a system like that? Well, first of all, just to give you the context, I'm actually in a kind of a privileged position because the department that I belong to in the College of Education, I belong to the Department of Educational Foundations, and there's 12 of us and five are Indigenous. So, it's, you know, that's a very privileged position at this day and age to be in a, it's a mainstream, like it's a, it's not an Indigenous specific department and there's a large number of Indigenous faculty. And so, I, in a sense, it takes me a while to sort of empathize with, again, with students who are working in departments where they may be only, you know, one Indigenous faculty, but imagine, you know, 30 people kind of thing. And what I do say to Indigenous students, number one, have your support. Find ways to connect with your own supports and that might be connecting with other graduate students, connecting with the Aboriginal Students Association. So that's one piece. Just have somebody you can talk to who might have an understanding of what you're going through because they might be going through that in other departments. The other thing I say is try and get a sense of who your allies are, because departments will have allies. I find more and more we're finding folks within departments where you can at least get one or two allies, people who have either done work with Indigenous communities or have involved themselves in some way with with research that has sort of looked at indigenous issues or context in some way shape or manner so know who your allies are like and this is where I'm saying be thoughtful about your your committee if you're doing a thesis or a dissertation like do the time to talk to people and get to know people and that's why it's also good to talk to other graduate students because they they know right it's a moccasin telegraph So there's that piece of it. And then there's the other piece, and also I say go to conferences. Or, you know, if there's a conference, AERA has a pre-conference day that's connected with Indigenous. I go to a wonderful conference every year. It's the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. It happens every year. It's on methodology and we have a pre-conference day that's devoted specifically to Indigenous. methodologies and indigenous research and People just form really solid relationships. So that's what I say. In terms of busting the paradigms or, you know, sort of trying to punch a hole in kind of the gaze, the western gaze, that's tough. That's a really tough one because as academics we know we hang on to our gaze pretty tightly because in many ways that's our currency. So that's where I have to do my work as an Indigenous. faculty member and allies have to do their work in terms of really out advocating and pushing for what does indigenous scholarship mean how is it connected to indigenous methodologies and if you want to indigenize the Academy it's non-negotiable you've got to come on board otherwise it's not going to happen but that's when it takes your higher-ups to come down it was very fortunate have just saw some really movement to use ask with some of the You know at the provost level saying this is important and we have to we have to really think it through because we can't just say that oh yeah we're doing indigenous research but it's gonna it's gonna look like Western research or it's gonna look this way that we understand it's going to be indigenous research on our terms a lot of what I get is that people want to say oh it's just community-based research No, no, no, no. Indigenous methodologies is not community-based research. They're aligned, but community-based research comes from a Western epistemological perspective that involves the community. Indigenous methodologies does come from a perspective that involves community, but it comes from a foundational basis that is grounded in Indigenous knowledges. And if you're like, you know, if we listen to Orion Lyons. It's a different thing. So that's where we have to keep doing the instruction. Yeah, so that's what I say, like know there's people out there, but also make those connections, go to conferences, get, you know, get support because it's really those relational supports that's going to kind of get you through and be able to advocate for yourself because in Indigenous research the advocacy piece Being a self-advocate, being an indigenous scholarship research advocate, they all come part of the parcel. Did you have a second question? I think that I'll give some other people a chance. Okay, if there's a moment of silence we'll come back to you. Yes, here. So we just say thank you for welcoming us this way. We're from South Australia. Oh, welcome! So I'm here with the auntie. I was her final state in my PhD studies. Congratulations. And this is one of the indigenous elders from South Australia. Hello. Lovely to meet you. Oh, thank you. Well, from me, personally, it's not my territory, but welcome. It's lovely. I'm happy to have you here. I've spent a lot of time in Australia, so in Perth and Cairns, probably pronouncing it wrong. So don't leave right away, am I? Yes, over here. So thanks so much for the talk, it's really insightful. You know, you give me a lot of things to think about. So I was wondering about other fields like say biology or economics. How do indigenous methodologies apply there and how important do you think it is to start incorporating those ideas into that? Well I think what we really have to do is, you know, sort of I'm not in the hard sciences, but I think what we really have to do is, you know, sort of I'm not in the hard sciences, Right, and so how do we take up indigenous methodologies in the hard sciences? You know, I'm not too sure I would give, you know, an answer that... would totally fit the context because I don't have the experience being someone in the hard sciences but what I will say and what I think is absolutely important is that that we have to start talking like we're doing work within the professional practices like education health social work law and in the social sciences you're hearing more and more conversation like it particularly see a lot of good work coming out of literature like English and sociology to some extent psychology so I'm seeing the conversation I'm not getting a lot of invitations or I'm not hearing a lot of requests for more information or anything from the heart sciences and the heart sciences just needs to I think Find a way to feel that they're part of this conversation, right? And then we have to be having a conversation across the different areas, the different disciplines. But one of the key things I would say about Indigenous... Methodologies is some of, and this is where you need folks who are indigenous and are strongly connected to science, so who are doing work in that area, come and have a conversation to talk about, okay, well how does indigenous methodologies make sense when we're thinking of science from a world view that's coming from an indigenous perspective. How can it make sense? So that's where, you know, we just have to be connecting with each other to find the right people. But I think the first step is being part of the conversation, right? The first step is just, you know, you being here is one of the first steps, you know. And we just have to keep talking and having these conversations because otherwise... But, you know, can I say to you? This is how it is. So if you follow this, there's a checklist if you just go Google on and this is how an indigenous methodologies applies to the hard sciences. There's nothing that really exists because it's so emergent still, right? And so it's it's kind of in that sense really cool because it's it's a time where we're really sort of thinking about scholarship in new ways and we're thinking about Doing some paradigm busting. I mean we haven't you know we haven't done that a long time and and so you know are we capable intellectually do we have the wherewithal to be able to do this because it is really asking indigenous scholarship is putting forward to universities in Canada the great intellectual kind of Activity. Can we think in different ways? Do we constantly go back to what we've done before? Yeah. ...to lecture when we invite you back. As you can see. So, yes? Just kind of follow up on that. If you have, like, what advice or thoughts would you offer that we're still, as communist scholars, we're still being pushed to justify and validate our methodologies against or in relation to the Western New York Senate. And Western, the word itself is problematic, because I'm Western, you're Western, but we're not recognized in these economies. So how do we How do we stand strong and stop that and say, no, I'm not going to justify myself in relation to Foucault or Gauffin or any of those that say that our indigenous methodologies are valid because of that, and just that they're valid because they're valid? Well, you assert it, right? You just assert it. And if people are really, and if you're working with faculty members who are really concerned about the literature, then you go to the literature, and we have a canon of literature right now. Indigenous scholars that speak specifically around Indigenous knowledge systems, and you go to the literature if that's what they need, but you just simply assert it. And that's where the question about, well, how do you do it when you're the lone person asserting it and you don't have, you know, support or someone's in your corner, and that's where you have to kind of do the relational work to find out who is in my corner, how can I have that person be a part of my team? But I do recognize it's easy for me to say, right, when a lot of you, I mean the statistics is really sort of troubling. So I was doing a project on, John and I were kind of looking at some stuff on just indigenous scholarship more broadly than just kind of research specifically, but I did I did a little bit of research on where is the indigenous professor at at today in 2018. So apparently in 2006, and this is according to COT, so the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and they got the information from StatsCan, or they got the information, but it's, I got the information from a COT publication, that we were 1% of the Canadian professorate. So Aboriginal academics were 1% of the Canadian professorate. 2016, 1.4. And 2016, and we're talking indigenization, we're talking about decolonization, less than 0.4% increase. So there's a real problem there, right? And it's not just about recruitment. It's about retention. We're not keeping indigenous scholars. They're not getting through the ranks so they can stay. or want to stay. So something's going on and it has to do with how we are thinking about Indigenous research. For one way I think we're thinking about Indigenous research in a really kind of mainstream way and that's just closing the door on Indigenous scholars who are thinking about research from a very Indigenous way and so they're just I can't deal with this anymore I'm gone. Or there, you know, it's, and the numbers are showing it. Less than Less than 0.5%, less than a half a percent in 10 years. It's not a good scene. So we have to figure out how to do it on all sorts of levels, but on a very individual level. It's just, if possible, find out who your allies are and just claim it. And then if they need the publications, if they need the citations, go to the library and get the citations. Do whatever you can to make your claim. Because... Nobody will believe it's just my story anymore. Like we have to really, we have to argue the case, yeah. President! So Novo! We have time for one more question. Oh, we've got several here. Dorothy, yes. My name is Dorothy Chris and I'm from the interior and I just completed my PhD at the BCU. Congratulations! Thank you. It's been a year now. I have a question in terms of, just as a segway, From what you've just discussed, what do institutions need to do to support, like what has changed administratively to keep, like retain indigenous faculty? Well, first of all, You know, to me, you're the future, right? People who have come today are the future of the 21st century great Canadian university. You sitting here because you know that this is important. And you know the thing is and and when I go to speak for the most part it's graduate students or folks who have just you know newly completed or folks who are tenure-track that are in the audience. You know who we need to have in the audience? We need to have your president, we need to have your Provost, we need to have your VP. We need to have the upper echelons of the administration here, and we need to have your faculty associations. We need to have the people who can make the decisions and put the pressure on. As long as they're not in the room, we're waiting until those of you who are in the room take on these higher level positions, and we know that's a, what do they call it in sports, a long game? But you know it's it's it but right now what is problematic well no it's not really problem at well it is problematic for transforming the Academy but what is really kind of cool is that graduate students in in I would say graduate students no no I'm I don't have any research this is just answered a little But I would say graduate students in the universities in Canada know more about Indigenous research and Indigenous methodologies than probably the higher the higher-ups, the leaders. And in a lot of the majority, well I wouldn't say again majority, I don't know what the numbers are, but in a lot of universities across Canada in the mission statements, in the strategic plans, it's about indigenization. So how do you move forward with indigenization if your leadership doesn't have a good understanding what it means, right? And so that's why we have to have everybody at the table. But I mean, this is like the fact that graduate students are participating in these conversations to me is really empowering. It's like because This will be, you know, sort of the discourse of the coming next 10 years. But at the same time, if we want to do something now, we've got to get the stakeholders in the room. We really do. Yeah. We have time for one more question and then we're going to Thank you. Thank you. My name is Nicole, I'm 18 from Saskatchewan. I actually went to UMass and did an education degree there before your time. And now I'm at SFU, I'm in psychology. And I'm only an indigenous grad student in psychology. But I was wondering about your thoughts on recruitment. Because you've only changed our department as being where they're having indigenous students in the department. And now you're a lab student. About recruitment of students or faculty? And also, if you think it is one of the avenues to change in the park. Well, I do think that there needs to be, you know, there needs to be work on recruitment both for students and for faculty. But one of the key things that Indigenous students look for is Indigenous faculty. So we can't separate them, right? Recruitment, retention, Indigenous faculty and students, they're bundled, right? And so we have to work on that. Plus we have to, it's an educational piece in terms of Really, if we want to indigenize the academy, there's a lot of educational work that we have to do in order to get the word out what indigenization is about and what it's going to... You can't just say... The thing is, to me, from my perspective, we can't just say indigenization and poof, it happens. It's going to take time, money, resources. It's going to take human capacity. It's a long-term plan, but we have to get started today if we want to move in that direction. So there are a number of pieces, but one of the things that it starts with is with departments saying that it matters. It has to matter. if and and the way that you know the way that departments understand that it matters is when you know sort of they hear it either from their faculty association or they hear it from their you know their Dean's they hear it from their Provost It has to come from people saying this matters and because it matters to our institution it's going to matter to your department and when we say matter that means you have to have at least two or three faculty that are indigenous and you have to do have a recruitment plan for engaging indigenous communities engaging indigenous students so you know it has to come like like be be that explicit. How do you change people? Well, I know 10 years ago when I started talking about Indigenous methodologies, Means Wilson's book was out there, the Steinhauer's, maybe a couple of others. Not very many people were talking about Indigenous methodologies. Now it's like, it's, it's... For in education, I would say in health, in law, in social work, and in a number of sort of the disciplines within universities, it's a viable option. So you just keep talking. You don't let it off the radar screen. You just keep talking. It's like when I come out and talk, it's like, oh my god, hasn't everybody heard enough from me about Indigenous methodologies? But part of the reason why, I mean I love coming out and talking to graduate students, it's great, but part of it is I continue to talk because that's the way you keep it on the radar screen. You just don't shut up about it. Yeah, yeah, and you just have to let it keep skipping. You just have to keep doing it, and that's kind of the energy, because that's how you keep it in the consciousness of the university. And then if you don't know how it kind of, the domino effect, right, the ripples of it, and it has, like in Indigenous methodologies, has taken on, I would say it's, yeah, it's got some gravitas. So... This really wouldn't be about karaoke. We're going to go into karaoke, but really, when you talk about the metaphor of the broken record, it was a form of karaoke. I can't put it that way. And I really want to say, a big thank you for you sharing, or building our awareness. You're talking through these kinds of awarenesses, for all of us, building that for us. And I think that's been very important. And certainly, this isn't about being, a broken record. This is really about asserting, you know, our ways of knowing into the academy. And people need to keep hearing this over and over at different levels. So I just, I think it's so appropriate that you're standing between not only a transformation post, but I think about this post and these three human figures at the top, standing side by side. And that's solidarity. And so these are the kinds of processes of transformation and solidarity that we need in the academy. So on that note, I want to thank you. Thank you very much.