Morality and the
Academic Journey: Perspectives of Indigenous Scholars
Frank Deer, University of Manitoba
Rebeca Heringer, University of Manitoba
Authors’ Note
Frank Deer https://orcid.org/0009-0005-5034-4332
This research was funded by the Canada Research Chairs Programme and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Correspondence concerning this article should
be sent to Frank Deer at frank.deer@umanitoba.ca.
Abstract
Following high profile
cross-Canadian examinations of Indigenous[1]
peoples and their experiences such as those of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission of Canada, many universities and colleges have begun to make
commitments that support Indigenous engagement; the
institutional effort to engage with the experiences, histories, and
perspectives of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples to improve the academic journey. These initiatives, called for in many institutional
statements of commitment such as those found in strategic plans, support
institutional change in which the experiences, histories, and perspectives of
Indigenous peoples are central. Many of these initiatives involve the
exploration of Indigenous spiritual and religious orientations that may guide
personal and academic journeys. In this study, we sought to acquire knowledge
on moral understandings that are resident in the consciousness of Indigenous faculty,
professors, and instructors working in universities and colleges across North
America. This study showed that participants found that their professional
situations supported their respective journeys of self-discovery. Participants
also reported that their roles were informed by how they navigated Indigenous
and non-Indigenous values, as well as how they can support and/or mitigate
their institutions’ influence upon the advancement of Indigenous engagement.
Although much of the professional responsibilities of participants, such as
instruction and research, were predominant in their working lives, a prevailing
sense of responsibility to the journey of reconciliation and the support of
Indigenous engagement was reported.
Morality and the
Academic Journey: Perspectives of Indigenous Scholars
In recent decades, Indigenous education has
been a developing area of study and practice in primary, secondary, and
post-secondary schools in Canada. Since 2015, the final report of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission of Canada and its 94 Calls to Action has informed how
many in education have approached institutional change, which improves
Indigenous education. Central to the journey of Reconciliation is an understanding
of the experiences of Indigenous people and their perspectives on such things
as the world in which we live, the relationship we have or may have, and the problems/challenges
that face us all. Given that spirituality and associated ceremonial observances
are important to many Indigenous peoples and have been explored in a number of
schools and universities, their inclusion in academic and non-academic school
programming merits exploration. As many Elders and Knowledge Keepers who work
with various communities use moral frames, such as the traditional medicine
wheel, in order to provide direction and support, the character of the moral
journey may merit consideration, especially in diverse contexts, such as those
found in universities.
An increasing concern
across various fields of study is that of morality. From psychology to neuroscience,
philosophy, sociology, and anthropology, scholars have long been seeking to
understand how moral judgements are developed differently across individuals
and cultures (Haidt, 2008; Hitlin &
Vaisey, 2013; Hofmann
et al., 2014; Zigon, 2020). Haidt (2008) commented that morality is the oldest
topic of study in the history of the world, as the Code of
Hammurabi, the Hindu Vedas, the Egyptian Instructions of Amenemope, and the
Hebrew Bible demonstrate. In surveying the literature on this topic, two broad
approaches to morality emerge: the consequentialist and deontological models. The
former model judges the acceptability of one’s actions based on their outcomes; the latter judges the
acceptability of actions according to a set of rules, regardless of their
consequences (Crockett, 2013). Zigon (2020) expands
on this classification and identifies virtue theory and natural law as
suitable frames for the analysis of morality. Virtue theory, with roots in
Aristotle’s Nicomachean ethics, argues that “what is virtuous can only be
determined in specific situations” (Zigon, 2020, p.
24). Natural law, on the other hand, stems from Stoic thought as it “unites all
of humanity as moral beings through the right use of reason” (p. 26).
A departure from the revealed codes of
conduct resident in many religious orientations, morality as it may be
understood by Indigenous people, is often conceptualized as contextual and
experiential (Cordova, 2004; Stonechild, 2016, 2020). Stonechild (2016)
observes that “Western knowledge
tends to be reductionist and limited to the rational mind. It treats knowledge
as something ‘outside’ and foreign. True knowledge is more holistic and
flexible” (p. 64). For many Indigenous peoples of the prairie regions of North
America, morality is generally
guided by the seven principles, which stem from the Seven Sacred Teachings:
respect, courage, love, generosity, honesty, humility, and wisdom (Stonechild,
2020). While some similarities between the Seven Sacred Teachings and religious
sets of commandments may be cited, Indigenous morality is responsive to ever-changing
human relationships (Stonechild, 2016). Such understanding seems to resonate
with Johnson King (2023), who argues that “it is
unclear precisely what the content of Morality is—or, in other words, precisely
what one grasps when one grasps Morality” (p. 4). The notion that emerges from
explorations of morality in Indigenous consciousness is that it is not
adequately reflected in codified and unchangeable prescriptions upon behaviour,
but rather a dynamic journey for which cyclic and intercultural features of
Indigenous experience are central.
The holistic and flexible character of
Indigenous morality is reflected by Gregory Cajete (1994), who explored the
principles of Indigenous moral and religious views. Cajete observed that such
moral frames as best seen not as codified sets of rules or guiding principles,
such as those found in Christianity, but rather as a process for understanding
right and wrong and acting accordingly. Cajete’s work was cited by Friesen
(2000) when he explored how morality is understood by Indigenous peoples: “The
traditional First Nations’ metaphysical belief system did not adhere to an
overall, organized description. It was a way of life, not carefully catalogued
delineation of major and minor doctrines, subdoctrines,
and corollary beliefs” (p. 12).
At a general level of analysis, Indigenous
morality may be understood in this way. It is a landscape upon which the
holistic and flexible character of right and wrong is not only something to be
observed but experienced (Deer, 2018). There may be guidance offered by
frameworks of principles, such as those in the Seven Sacred Teachings, but it
is the responsibility of the individual to navigate this moral landscape in a
righteous manner.
Since the release of
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action in 2015,
universities throughout Canada have been striving to Indigenize their
institutions through such efforts as “providing
equitable employment opportunities for Indigenous faculty and staff and
centering the needs of Indigenous Peoples in teaching and research”
(Universities Canada, 2023, para. 3). One of the benefits of having adequate
number of academic staff who have knowledge and experience in Indigenous
knowledge and consciousness is the support they may offer to Indigenous students,
colleagues, and community members in their respective academic and personal
journeys. This study sought to
investigate how Indigenous understandings of morality may be resident in the
Indigenous experience of Canada, specifically in post-secondary educational
contexts. Through the acquisition of data on how morality may be understood,
the results of this study contribute to the growing academic works out of
Canada and elsewhere that explore how Indigenous knowledge and belief systems
may be made resident in ostensibly secular educational contexts. Furthermore,
this article evidences the many ongoing challenges in the pursuit of genuine
academic Indigenization and reconciliation in Canada.
Indigenous Morality in Canadian
Higher Education
Despite institutions’ apparent
efforts to Indigenize academia, Indigenous Faculty members across different
fields in Canada have consistently expressed the challenges they face when
seeking to meaningfully integrate Indigenous perspectives into the academic and
non-academic aspects of environments on campus (Doria et
al., 2021; Habermacher, 2020; Louie et al., 2017). Besides contradictions
in such Indigenization efforts and the incongruencies Indigenous scholars face
in their institutions (Louie, 2019; Louie et al., 2017; Steinman & Sánchez,
2023), many scholars have also registered the ongoing pervasiveness of racism
and ‘microaggressions’ in Canadian universities (Glauser, 2019; Henry et al.,
2017; Mohamed & Beagan, 2019). As Henry et al. (2017) state, there is a
“lack of adequate mechanisms in most Canadian universities to address racism,
racial harassment, and bullying, or the inhospitable climate faced by
racialized and Indigenous scholars” (p. 8). Such realities may pose obstacles
for the integration of Indigenous knowledge, heritage, and consciousness into
the university ethos. It is such integration that may best support
Indigenization, which will in turn support the academic and spiritual journeys
of Indigenous peoples who study in Canadian post-secondary institutions (Deer,
2024; Gaudry & Lorenz, 2018).
It is within the scope
of Indigenous engagement that many post-secondary institutions are exploring
how support for the academic and spiritual journeys of Indigenous students,
faculty, and community members may be improved. As Deer (2024) stated:
The
moral frames of Indigenous people have become to be reflected in some aspects
of content and programing in schools, universities, and colleges. In a number
of institutions in Canada, frameworks for morality are put forth by invited
Elders and community members who employ this notion of process, reflecting the
act of relationship-making and/or restoration. (p. 7)
The relevance of this
development was one focus of Stonechild (2016), who observed that “if virtues are
undermined, this results in the weakening of relationship ties, the invisible
spiritual bonds that hold a community together” (p. 60). As
Canadian universities continue to be shaped by colonial ways of being and
thinking (Schaefli & Godlewska, 2020; Yeo et al.,
2019), such ontologies and epistemologies must be examined, deconstructed, and
re-constructed in light of Indigenous knowledges.
Any genuine
reconciliatory effort must strive to broaden the horizons of moral
conceptualizations and recognize how Indigenous ways of knowing may (and must)
co-guide education, and that is the rationale that drove this study.
The Study
The purpose of this study was to acquire
knowledge on moral understandings as they may be resident in contemporary
Indigenous consciousness. The research team consisted of Frank Deer and Rebeca
Heringer. Deer is Kanien'kehá:ka from Kahnawake. Having previously taught
elementary school in a Cree community in Northern Manitoba as well as in the
culturally diverse Inner City of Winnipeg, Deer’s work and experiences as a Kanien'kehá:ka
educator has informed his contributions to his areas of research. Heringer was born and raised in Brazil and began to
learn about Indigenous knowledges and morality in Canadian contexts after
she moved to Winnipeg in 2016. In a spirit of cultural humility and
reconciliation through her academic endeavours, Heringer seeks to promote anti-racism
education, anti-oppressive research methods, and the holistic well-being of
racial minorities in Canada.
With a focus on how Indigenous scholarship may
consider this topic, this study’s research questions were: 1) What are
Indigenous Faculty members’ understandings of morality? 2) What sources of
knowledge are associated with such understandings?
After receiving their signed consent form, 14 Indigenous Faculty
members of various national backgrounds and academic
fields were recruited from
universities in Canada and the United States. Individual semi-structured
interviews were conducted with each participant, either online or in person. The
initial guiding questions posed in the interviews were designed to foster a
climate of discussion in which participants would share narratives: 1) Please
tell me about yourself (e.g., national identity, home community), 2) Please
describe your experiences in working with Indigenous knowledge, 3) To what
extent has spiritual knowledge and teachings been a part of your experiences?,
4) In what ways has morality been a part of your experiences/learning? In the
spirit of narrative inquiry, participants were invited to share their views,
experiences, and insights; it was through this process that issues related to
Indigenous morality emerged.
Pseudonyms were
attributed to each participant to protect their identity. Any identifiers
(e.g., name of the university) have also been removed during the transcription process
and replaced with a word that would retain their meaning (e.g., “name of the
university”). Each participant had the opportunity to review the transcript of
their interview and make any edits they deemed necessary. An inductive thematic
data analysis process (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) was conducted, and the
emerging themes are presented in the following section.
Findings
Six main themes emerged
from the data analysis: self-discovery; practical values; influence
of non-Indigenous values; values through professional practice; responsibility;
and Indigenous vs. institutional values. Each of these themes helped delineate
how Indigenous Faculty members have come to conceptualize morality the way they
do, how their understandings have influenced their lives, and the challenges
they face when seeking to exercise such values in their daily work.
Self-discovery
Each interview began by
allowing participants to share a little bit about their background, such as
their national identity, cultural identity, home community, and anything else
they thought would be germane to the conversation. As such, each participant
commented on how they came to understand themselves as being an Indigenous
person, what or who influenced them, and where they see themselves in that
journey.
For some participants, that learning came early on
through their upbringing: “My mom worked really hard
to raise me in a cultural, spiritual way, which she was supported by my dad to
do. So I’m very grateful for that because it makes me feel... complete” (Star).
Sparrow, who notes that any cultural teaching was absent from his education at
school, also said: “I was fortunate enough to have my mother, who was very,
very adamant to engage in culture as much as we could, as much as she could and
us as growing up.”
Yet, a common observation among those who were
raised with Indigenous teachings was that this was done experientially (such as
jigging, sash weaving, beading, moccasin making, fishing, hunting, and traditional
harvesting activities), without necessarily labelling it as “culture”:
I would
say that in terms of Indigenous knowledge, we were lucky that we practice and
still do like hunting, fishing. We make maple syrup every spring. So I don’t
think we [say] like, ‘oh, I’m doing Indigenous knowledge stuff’ today. You just
kind of do it, right?
For some participants, however, their
Indigenous identity is something that was developed only later in life, whether
because they did not know they were Indigenous or because they were not taught
traditional teachings. Tiger, for example, felt that there was something
different in him, but which he would only understand as an adult:
It came
later, you know, I mean, there was always something, there was always
something. I felt like my relationship to the world and nature and… how I could
I say… I subconsciously knew that it was something I inherited from the one
that ancestors that wouldn’t give meaning to that, you know, even in hunting
and killing an animal and eating it, that something was missing. And it was
culture. It was how you framed that. But I sensed that. I knew it was there.
In a similar vein, Dove observes that only
later in life was she able to start understanding the importance of her Métis
identity:
Because
I felt, even as a teenager, very disconnected, not understanding who we were
and how much power, how powerful that makes you feel to acknowledge who you are
as an Indigenous person and to be able to be proud of that and learned that
through a lot of teachings and the local and participation in our own community
that was really missing in our family, part of that.
Some participants, therefore, express feeling
as though they had only just begun this process of self-discovery and the
implications it brings for life:
I just
feel like I'm at the start of a journey. I feel like I still have a long way to
go to... I don’t even know how to say this, but to like…to not feel like an
imposter. I think that might be the best way for me to say that. And it’s
something too that I want my children to know about that culture. And part of
me feels a little bit lost, because I didn’t grow up really embracing the
culture. So now I’m like, okay, what do I need to do to make sure that I can
pass on the culture to my children? But I’m still learning about the culture
myself. So, for me, I still feel like I have a lot to learn. (Butterfly)
Regardless of when their self-discovery journey
began, all participants revealed a myriad of values which they carry with them
today, as the next section will depict.
Practical Values
For most participants, the morals they affirm
today stem from their upbringing and the Indigenous knowledges with which they
were taught. As Macaw puts it:
I guess
for me, the morals come from those stories, right? So, not only those
interpersonal stories that are told, those experiential stories, but also our
stories of our legends. Like that, Nanabush, for
example, figures largely amongst the Anishinaabe. You can learn a lot from
those stories. And that’s where our morality comes from. I think part of our
morality comes from anywhere other than, of course, from the Creator. (Macaw)
Rainbow, who notes having been raised with her
aunts, comments that their teaching was sometimes direct, giving her
instructions on what to do. But for the most part, she observes, she would
simply “watch their eyes, to see what they’re thinking,” that is, pay attention
to what they were doing and learning from that. Tiger shares a similar
perspective, observing that his Indigenous knowledge came “directly by growing
up in the community and seeing it, observing it, and then of course, living
it.”
With her aunts, Rainbow was taught the virtue
of humility and to serve others (during a ceremony, for example) without
seeking recognition:
And you
serve the elders first. Notice that an elder doesn’t have food, you go and do
it. These little things that the behind the scenes that happens at these
gatherings. I’ve kind of taken that on as something that I think is really
important, that humility that you’re not the ones taking up space in the room,
but you’re doing the important work. People might not notice that you’ve done
it, but they would notice if it wasn’t happening, kind of work and not doing it
for recognition, but doing it because it’s what you’re supposed to be doing.
Indeed, the importance of family was mentioned
by some participants as being a key aspect of their identity today. As Snow
observes:
We Métis
people, we look out for one another. Family is important. We take care of our
family. We always make time for our family. There’s always room, right? Like if
family asks to stay, if there’s room on the floor, there’s room for family. With
all these different things that I was always being told and just how we
functioned around food, like sharing food, and around visiting, and always
having food, and you know, just different things that I grew up understanding.
Within the family, Tiger commented on the
strong role played by women, the matrilineal value, which is still strong in
his family. Also, within the family, Snow learned the importance of hard work:
“My mother would say, ‘Métis, we’re hard workers. We work really hard. We’re
not lazy.”
Sparrow
grew up understanding that virtues have the purpose of fostering cooperation
and peace, which entails telling the truth and not gossiping or
backstabbing:
The most
important thing is that you want to have peace among your people. That’s why
gossip was such a bad thing. Like the top, top thing that our old ones never
did. You know, lying. Was it bad? Really bad, stealing was bad. You know, even
above murder. All those were the top ones. You know, gossip and lying were the
scourge upon the people because they bred discontent.
Through stories and ceremonies, Tiger was
instructed about the value of reciprocity with the animals and the earth, as
opposed to greed or selfishness. Similarly, generosity was fundamental to
Star’s upbringing; it was “baked into most ceremonies” and evident in the
relationships she witnessed.
But participants who were not necessarily
raised with Indigenous teachings also comment on the values they came to learn
later in life. For instance, Bear mentions that she took a course during her
PhD program, which was focused on the Seven Sacred Teachings that “changed my
world”:
That was
really foundational and pivotal in just my beginning to spiritually incorporate
those ways of knowing, being, and doing. And I always include feeling because
feeling is the first thing we have. You have to feel something before you can
do it, right? So you have to feel it in order to know it.
As the next section will show, other influences
have also played a role in how participants came to shape their worldviews
today.
Influence
of Non-Indigenous Values
Most participants commented on the influence
the Catholic church has had on their lives. Daisy commented:
I
definitely think Christianity has been an influence in my life and also shaping
my worldview … because one of the things out of the Christian tradition that I
grew up in is that part of our reason for being in the world is to be change
agents for good, positive things.
Macaw shared a similar view:
I grew
up in Roman Catholicism. The church was very important in my community and my
family, particularly my grandparents. … I would say that it probably influences
our understanding of spirituality in many ways. … I think that some of our
spiritual practices are definitely modelled after Christianity. I think most
people probably don’t realize it.
Some participants, on the other hand, did not
see a great connection between religious influences on their lives today.
Others, like Eagle, observed that the influence has been a negative one, given
the mistreatment of Indigenous children as he was growing up. Notwithstanding,
Eagle evidenced the value of courage as he commented on his fighting against
the oppressive educational system he was immersed in: “I decided that wasn’t
going to happen to me. They weren’t going to kill my love of learning, right?
So I persisted, I just kept on reading and studying and things I didn't have
to, I would just read.” He continued:
But when
classroom discussions came up … where one of the nuns was talking about
Columbus discovering America. So, you know, we were seniors in high school or
juniors in high school at the time. So I raised my hand, and I corrected her. I
said Columbus did not discover America. Columbus never made it to America.
Columbus made it as far as the Caribbean, and Columbus murdered all these Indigenous
people, and Indigenous people were here. (Eagle)
A different perspective was shared by Sparrow,
who stated that the value of gratitude was taught to him, without necessarily
making any religious connection to it: “the way my mom taught us was, ‘you be
thankful for the food’ and you don’t necessarily have to formalize your prayers
at every meal.”
Conversely, because of her negative experiences
with the Catholic church, Rainbow states that she has often pushed back against
any influence from it, which is something she needs to be attentive to when
teaching:
I have
to check myself, especially because so many students are Christian. I want to
make sure that I’m not allowing any sort of bias into my teaching or, you know,
grade or something. For example, when I’m teaching indigenous education, we
often reflect on our own upbringings. And so sometimes it can be hard to read
all these Christian stories about, you know, like families coming in and being
missionaries and all of these things, like trying to keep trying to not react
to those.
As the above quote demonstrates, participants’
worldviews are intrinsically intertwined with their professional practices,
which is something the next section will explore in further detail.
Values
through Professional Practice
When discussing their
professional work, participants evidenced how their values are woven into
practice. The most recurrent virtue discussed by professors interviewed in this
study was that of relationality and the importance of building trust and
collaboration, be that in the position of a teacher or as a service provider.
For example, as a doctor, Dove observed how she began her career trying to
incorporate the ‘Western perspectives and ways of thinking’ she
was taught in medical school and residency. Then, she started noticing that her
work in the community was not being well received, and people in the community
stopped coming to her. She understood the reason later: “I was engaging with
medicine up here [pointing to the head] and I realized where I needed to engage
with medicine was down here [pointing to the heart].” She then learned to “honour
people and the stories that they had ..., to greet people and love them and
meet them where they’re at and to not judge people, [and] to bring humility
back into medicine.” Dove claims this was “one of the most powerful teachings
I’ve ever received as a physician.” She concludes:
And I
think that started me down the path of like, this is how you could integrate
those two things together … I don’t think I'd be a doctor anymore if I hadn’t
gone back to engaging with my Indigenous ways of knowing. And those teachings,
which I feel like are so much more embedded in my heart than anything I learned
at Medical school. (Dove)
In a similar vein, in
her teaching, Macaw also seeks to communicate to students “the
importance of maintaining good relationships”:
Underlying
what we’re doing with the students is teaching them how to develop and maintain
good relationships with whomever they’re working with, whether it’s patients,
their patients in the future or whether it’s elders… So, you know, teaching
students about how to develop a good and positive relationship, I think, is
important because this is kind of like what holds us together.
As Dove pointed out, it is this kind of
collaboration that can lead to meaningful reconciliation. Bear complements this
understanding when she states:
And if
you’re open to working with people in that way, you’re closer to being on a
path towards healing for yourself. Because we all have had trauma in our lives.
We just need to be able to connect to the right person that can help us see the
things in our lives and help lift us out of the things that hold us back. And
that’s what trauma does. It holds a lot of us back.
The importance of relationality seems to go
hand in hand with the virtue of humility. In his work as a health service
provider in a new institution and different place, Peacock deems of utmost
importance to spend time getting to know the people he is working with,
“attending ceremony and figuring out how things are done here before I continue
with what I was doing when I was in [the other province].”
In
their teaching experiences, professors seem to have plenty of opportunities to
share their Indigenous worldviews. Some participants, like Snow, expressed how
they were acutely aware of how their Indigenous identities were informing their
practices: “I understood who I was, as a Michif, as a
Métis person, and what that meant. And so then it was learning how to be a
teacher.” (Snow)
For instance, Star believes in the importance
of holistic education, especially in order to protect their identities. She
tells her students:
I want
to focus on your whole being. And so we’ll try our best to integrate all of
these other things … we’re going to try and integrate your emotional, your
physical, your spiritual health in addition to your intellectual growth... I
think that students appreciate that I’m trying to make a relationship with them
and that that relationship is just supposed to support them in all of their
development, not just one class.
Tiger shared a similar perspective: “I’ve
always tried to bring those things, in terms of not maybe the ceremonial but the
idea of the balance into a classroom to talk about what is a medicine wheel or
whatever’s grounding that knowledge.” This was echoed by Daisy who stated that:
“the way that I teach and mentor my students is also modeled out of Indigenous
ways of knowing, right? Where it’s like about storytelling.”
For Snow, a major driving force in her
scholarly work is to promote a better understanding of the Métis identity:
One of
the things is hoping that by doing some of these research and articulating sort
of a more clear understanding of what that means to be and know and how we
learn as Métis, that will also help in terms of, sort of like not really
solidifying, but like supporting other people beyond our own community in
understanding that we are distinct, that we’re Indigenous, we’re not half of
anything, we’re our own people.
Through their scholarly work, participants also
evidence the value of sharing knowledge with others. Tiger, for example, stated
that he had just submitted an article whereby he “got a chance to talk about
what my dad had taught me about culture and spirituality and Indigenous
knowledge that he had gained from his grandfather, my great-grandfather.” As
such, he could “tell stories that my father gave me, handed down to me and
other stories that were actually handed down to me, but maybe handed down to
someone else.”
In reflecting upon how their practice informed
their approach to doing well by their Indigenous background, Bear affirmed the
importance of helping others:
As Indigenous
people, we practice ways of helping that are very different from non-Indigenous
ways of helping, and that comes from that knowledge that has been around for a
long time because it helps us understand that we need to help in a way that’s
really who we are as Indigenous people. We have to centre those ways of
practicing.
Indeed, most interviews revealed ways in which
participants hold a sense of responsibility as an Indigenous professional, as
the next section will outline.
Responsibility
Whether in the role of a teacher or as any
other kind of service provider, participants demonstrated being acutely aware
of the responsibility they have, not only as a professional, but as an
Indigenous person in their workplace. In the classroom, Daisy observes that she
feels a greater responsibility towards those who are marginalized: “I do
prioritize connecting with Indigenous students and students of colour. … Those
are the students we try to work hard to be available for.” As she later
explains, this is particularly to help students “see someone who may have some
similarities to them, even if it is just the fact [that] we both carry the
label of Indigenous.” (Daisy)
With regard to the content being taught,
participants shared how they put great effort into sharing the values they
believe to be necessary for students’ professional lives, especially with
Indigenous communities:
The
values around care, which are family and connection and work … I do feel like I
have an obligation to their future to share the things that I know … when I
look at myself and sort of think about what unique things I have maybe to
offer. And it’s those things that I then try to share and to pass on, you know,
and part of that is like navigating higher education, making good career
decisions that are maybe unconventional…. I try really hard to make myself
available as a mentor (Daisy)
Oak also points out the importance she sees in
mentorship, which is something she seeks to offer as an Indigenous scholar to
support “Indigenous knowledge in academic settings.” Bear observes that in her
classes, she may, for example, look at the utility of fire, water, trees, as
well as the importance of one’s emotional and spiritual well-being, evidencing
many values embedded in her lesson: “there is a process for all of these things
and it’s all about, you know, building humility, respect for the land, respect
for the animals, the things that sacrifice their lives because trees are their
life, right?”
Macaw adds to the conversation, observing that
her job is “to prepare students to be culturally safe physicians.” Alluding to
the value of building trust, which she had discussed earlier, she proceeds:
So I
guess that is implicit, this responsibility that I do feel that I need to
prepare these students to be able to provide that kind of care … I guess my
goal is to educate them in such a way that they will understand how to behave
respectfully … and when they’re practicing physicians, that they’re going to
understand that people have all kinds of different experiences and that there’s,
you know, reasons why patients might be saying or not saying things.
Bear also emphasizes the way in which a
person’s spirituality is not something that can be dismissed by a service
provider:
But
morally, like only because of my own experience, I want to help families, and I
want to help families get back to healing and reconnecting to who they are,
like just spiritually. Just because you need to know who you are. In order to
work with our people, you need to have a connection to your own spirit because
you can’t help people if you are not connected to your spirit. And our people
genuinely know when someone cares about them.
But while participants may claim, as Rainbow
did, “I feel really strongly about making sure teacher candidates feel
comfortable with going out and teaching Métis content,” as Oak observes,
“bringing Indigenous knowledge into the classroom entails a particular
responsibility.” Oak elaborated:
I like
to think I deliver my content in a particular way that is not retraumatizing
students, but I think it’s sort of like all of a sudden having these topics
come up that just by nature of the topic would be retraumatizing. I think that
it’s important to really think carefully, which but for me, like the resistance
from students that are pushing back or like presenting like residential school
denialism or sort of like our times when I’m really concerned about students in
the classroom that might be feeling traumatized by those sorts of negative
occurrences.
Institutions’ strategic plans and policies were
also pointed to by some participants as being a responsibility they embrace.
For instance, Lily observed that her university did “its own little internal
TRC and task force,” which contributed to the development of an Indigenous
Learning Center and other supports to help students navigate the system – an
effort that she believes also has to come from the faculty members.
Star notes that she “push[es]…colleagues to
hire people of color and Indigenous peoples.” In a similar vein, Butterfly states
that the admission process in her institution has changed for Indigenous
applicants:
That was
something pretty important to us, the way that we would engage with the
applicants. It just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel good. And so we now bring
on a knowledge keeper or an elder for all of our interviews.
The same participant also commented that she
was working with another colleague “trying to create a personalized land
acknowledgment that speaks to the [name of school] so it’s not just a check the
box kind of thing. I really can’t stand that.”
Most participants discussed how they seek to
make the most out of the opportunities they have when designing their
curriculum in order to incorporate Indigenous knowledge. However, they also
express great respect and see their responsibility often entailing bringing
Indigenous knowledge keepers or Elders to help guide the classroom discussion.
And as Bear points out, “when you see [Indigenous knowledge] being
incorporated into university education, I think that this knowledge is healing.
You know, there are opportunities to heal.”
But such responsibility goes beyond the
boundaries of one’s workplace. Many participants also expressed feeling
responsible for giving back to their community. For instance, Snow feels
responsible to give back to her Métis community, who have supported her journey
becoming a teacher: “I worked hard to get this PhD, now how can I use it to
benefit my community?” Therefore, she seeks to focus her time and attention on what
her community expressed to be necessary for them, such as Michif
language revitalization. Bear shared a similar perspective, declaring that “my
only wish is to be able to contribute to a community that invested in me to go
to school.”
However, as the next section will present, many
are the challenges that participants encounter in their daily work, evidencing
a tension between their Indigenous values and those of the institutions where
they work.
Indigenous vs.
Institutional Values
The most common challenge participants seem to
experience in their institutions is the feeling of being used merely as a box
to be checked. As Oak observes:
I feel
like I am constantly asked to get on different committees, sit on different
tables, so that they can sort of like check the reconciliation box. But
oftentimes I find that I don’t have a voice in those spaces. And I’ve even been
learning to be a little bit more protective of what I agreed to do or what I
agree to participate in.
Oak also comments on several tokenistic efforts
taking place in her workplace, such as smudging in a faculty meeting:
I didn’t
think that was appropriate at all. And it seems like a superficial gesture. And
if we are going to like, why do they want to have a smudging ceremony to open
our faculty meeting when there are only one or two Indigenous faculty members
among the 80 people that will be there, what is their intention? And if they
wanted to have a smudging ceremony, and this is my opinion, then they should
not have invited an Elder to do that, to introduce faculty members in the room
instead of putting that on them to do. It just felt very performative.
Tiger also emphasizes how, in his institution,
he frequently witnessed reconciliatory efforts that are empty:
Part of
it is a spectacle as a machine. Even without evoking calculation… Part of it is
token. Part of it is like, oh, okay, reconciliation time, let’s set up this and
that and let’s invite an Indigenous faculty every time we have an event for
everything and make sure we check the books. In the end, it means nothing, you
know?
Peacock also observes that he is often asked to
provide a quick and simple guide to traditional Indigenous knowledge to be
objectively studied in his field. But as Star observes, Indigenous knowledges stand
in a completely different dimension from Western ones, and
are not something that can be simply merged. For instance, she comments with
regard to achievement:
The way
indigenous knowledge works is not the way that Western knowledge works. It
doesn't work with grades. It's not about that type of achievement … you only
get as good as you give, regardless. It has nothing to do with grades. (Star)
As a consequence, participants are often found having
to prove themselves to the academic community:
And I
think the Indigenous people themselves, the faculty themselves, have been
pushing constantly for that, and you know, making a lot more work for ourselves doing that, but doing the evaluations so people,
the non-Indigenous people, can see that this person has done this amount of
work. This is what we consider Indigenous work, and it's equivalent to
scholarly activities, kind of this idea. So this is what we do. What we do is,
you know, you do extra to make it visible to them. (Lily)
Or as Daisy puts it: “We often spend a lot of time having to make the
argument of how [something] is evidence-based when it’s not like evidence-based
in the Western framing of health interventions and evidence.” Daisy also
observed that although she would seek support from her Elder council to make
professional decisions, this is not something she felt comfortable sharing in
her workplace at first, for in the Western worldview, a neighbour, brother,
uncle, etc., is not deemed a qualified professional:
I felt
like I had to do a lot of justifying and explaining of like Indigenous
perspectives and knowledges coming in. Whereas now, because of my different
place in life and different place in the institution, etc., I don’t feel like I
have to justify myself anymore, but so now I can kind of just be more inclusive
and incorporating it into the things that I do.
Therefore, besides facing racism and lateral
violence, participants daily experience the challenge of having to “walk in two
worlds,” that is, to be “conversant in Indigenous knowledge and academic
knowledge” (Star). Participants want to incorporate their Indigenous worldviews
into their work, but feel how incongruent those are in
academic framing and thus feel that they are constantly pushed back. For
example, Star, for whom generosity is a key value, as mentioned earlier,
observed how “[generosity] is incongruent with what the university is, which is
the corporation, essentially. So that’s frustrating.” Or in Tiger’s words: “There is
quite a misunderstanding about what is meant by Indigenous knowledge in
universities, or when we say traditional knowledge … they think it’s a kind of
pity thing that’s not serious.” What this participant is citing is a phenomenon
in which traditional Indigenous knowledge is not an important part of academic
activities or culture, but is accepted for purposes
related to the increasing attention paid toward such things as equity,
diversity, and inclusion policies.
A prevailing view amongst participants is that,
despite bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience with them, academic
institutions continue to fall short of being genuinely welcoming to Indigenous scholars
and their ways of knowing. Numerous participants cited a lack of involvement
and consultation in academic decision-making. Many stated concerns about not
being enabled to develop new course programming that focuses on Indigenous
topics. Some stated that their respective institutions or colleagues were
forthcoming in their disrespect for Indigenous knowledge and its use in
scholarly activities. This study points to a need for increased accountability
and initiative on the part of universities in North America to better address
Indigenous engagement.
Discussion
One of the perennial
needs of academic programs of post-secondary institutions (regardless of
discipline) is to host learned scholars with expertise that is relevant to their
respective academic programs. Thus, a department of physics would require
physicists with sufficient knowledge that support learning and research within
the discipline of physics. Although academic disciplines develop over time,
such that the specific expertise required of new scholars is subject to change,
it is the disciplinary expertise of academics that is considered the most
important aspect of their qualifications for their respective academic roles.
The relatively new area
of Indigenous engagement has amended the frame through which institutions view
the disciplinary qualifications of new scholars, particularly those who study
in areas that are germane to Indigenous engagement. As intimated earlier, developing
concerns associated with reconciliation have contributed to the emergence of
Indigenous engagement in such a way that indigenization has become an important
part of institutional change. Gaudry & Lorenz (2018) produced a valuable
framework for understanding indigenization in which their conceptualization of
decolonial indigenization has become the vision for approaching Indigenous
engagement. In this frame of indigenization, decolonial approaches to
scholarship, including research and teaching, are centralized in an institution
for which the production of knowledge is reoriented within an institutional
ethos for which relations of power are made equitable. These sorts of changes
are necessary to adequately address some of the realities of the contemporary university,
where curriculum is predominantly Eurocentric, approaches to research are
frequently grounded in non-indigenous mores and imperatives to which
researchers must abide, and Indigenous students find themselves studying in
institutional contexts that are at least culturally foreign and at most unsafe.
Post-secondary institutions of research and learning must unsettle and
dismantle settler colonialism – for this is the approach that decolonization
demands (Tuck & Yang, 2012).
What this means for the current discussion on
academic expertise is something like this: any discipline that wishes to
incorporate Indigenous perspectives into their academic programming will have
to confront what many cited here have adduced—that in addition to the
disciplinary content knowledge, scholars ought to be prepared to explore the
unique manifestations of Indigenous knowledge, heritage, consciousness, and
tradition that may be germane to their field. Although this claim may seem controversial
for some who have essentialized the features of their respective discipline, the
notion that there is an interpretive frame that provides a bridge between facts
and values lends support to the notion that Indigenous worldviews have become acknowledged
as a valuable frame between academic matters and the efforts of Indigenization.
One aspect of Indigenous worldviews that has been employed in service to
Indigenous engagement is that of spirituality. As the reconciliatory journey of
post-secondary institutions has developed, spirituality resident in learning,
research, and student support has grown.
The themes that emerged in the analysis may be
understood to reflect the understandings held by participants in two general
ways: those themes that reflect traditional approaches toward morality and
those that emerged through professional interface. Regarding the former, there
appeared to be little controversy amongst participants regarding what
constituted traditional Indigenous knowledge in their lives and the sources for
it. Regarding the latter, some participants reported that some understandings of
morality were informed by their interaction with other Indigenous faculty and
staff.
Although an emergent theme of its own, the
topic of responsibility was a prevailing and recurrent feature of the moral
frames of participants across the emergent themes. Participants made frequent
mention of commitments to such things as community, traditions, and collective
values; it was clear that participants felt that they had obligations to go
about their academic work while maintaining Indigenous approaches, as well as
to support students through their guidance. What ought to be considered by
institutions of higher learning that are committed to Indigenous engagement is
to consider how Indigenous conceptions of morality (e.g., responsibility) may
be resident in the ethos of the institution that will support the academic and
personal journeys of Indigenous students, staff, faculty, and community
members.
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[1] In this
article, the term Indigenous refers to the First Nations, Inuit, and
Métis peoples of Canada and related territories.