scholarly journals ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF INTEGRATING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGES AND PERSPECTIVES IN ENGINEERING CURRICULA ON STUDENTS’ LEARNING: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CLASSROOM CASE STUDY

Author(s):  
Afua Adobea Mante ◽  
Jillian Seniuk Cicek ◽  
Marcia Friesen ◽  
Leonnie Kavanagh

Indigenous Peoples in Canada have practiced sustainability for centuries. Their knowledges, perspectives and design principles are applicable on both a local and global scale especially in our quest to find sustainable approaches to food security, energy independence, and climate change impacts. However, the opportunities for Indigenous Peoples to fully participate and formally offer knowledge and guidance on sustainable development in engineering education have been limited. Engineering training in Canada requires students to develop competency in the area of assessing the impact of engineering on society and the environment. Within this competency is the ability to understand and apply the concepts of sustainability to engineering activities. Engaging with Indigenous Peoples to understand their perspectives on engineering and society provides a platform to critically assess existing engineering curricula, expand the concept of sustainability, and come closer to a common place of understanding. Understanding the impact of incorporating Indigenous perspectives in the curricula on students’ learning and understandings will help inform the further incorporation of Indigenous perspectives in engineering education. This paper presents the research methodology and instruments for a case study designed to explore students’ learning in one engineering course that integrates an Indigenous Elder’s perspectives on how to effectively communicate, engage, and obtain local knowledge on engineering projects with Indigenous communities in Manitoba. Findings will be used to inform engineering curriculum design that are enhanced by Indigenous knowledges and perspectives.

Author(s):  
Victoria Thomsen ◽  
Jill Seniuk Cicek ◽  
Afua Mante ◽  
Shawn Bailey ◽  
Farhoud Delijani

The University of Manitoba Price Faculty of Engineering is actively working on initiatives to increaseIndigenous representation and ideology in engineering education. The initiatives aim to create ethical and equitable space for Indigenous Peoples, so their knowledges and perspectives are visible and valued in the Price Faculty of Engineering community. An Elder-in- Resident presented to an engineering ethics class the realities Indigenous communities face and how to work with Indigenous Peoples at the intersection of engineering projects such as oil and gas, hydroelectricity, andcommunity infrastructure. This study uses the threedimensional space narrative methodology and boundarycrossing theory to realize the impact on students’ learning.  The student’s perspective negotiated and represented in this study acts as an artifact of boundary crossing and provides insight into the exchange of cross-cultural knowledge. Findings reveal a distinction between relationship and knowledge, where knowledge exchange is dependent on the relationship between people. Key factors contributing to a relationship include identifying each other’s historical backgrounds; situational contexts, and values, which require active listening; genuine curiosity; empathy; and time. The research presented in this paper is part of a more extensive case study exploring the impact onstudents’ learning when integrating Indigenous knowledges and perspectives into engineering education and is approved by the University of Manitoba’s Research Ethics Board.


Author(s):  
George Kilada ◽  
Victoria Thomsen ◽  
Jillian Seniuk Cicek ◽  
Afua Adobe Mante ◽  
Randy Herrmann

A qualitative narrative study was designed to examine the impact on students’ learning when an Elder came to speak to students in a Technology, Society and the Future course in the Price Faculty of Engineering at the University of Manitoba. This study accounts for one student’s story as heard through an open-ended narrative interview facilitated by a team of researchers, and restoried into a problem-solution narrative structure. The preliminary findings highlight the impact of the Elder’s teachings on the student, the importance of Indigenous People’s Knowledges and perspectives in engineering education, and the importance of making space for students to reflect on these learnings.


Author(s):  
Claradina Soto ◽  
Toni Handboy ◽  
Ruth Supranovich ◽  
Eugenia L. Weiss

This chapter describes the impact of colonialism on indigenous women with a focus on the experience of the Lakota women on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota. It explores the experiences of indigenous women as related to history, culture, intrapersonal violence, and internalized oppression. A case study of a Lakota woman is provided as an example of strength and triumph in overcoming adversity and being empowered despite the challenges of marginalization faced by many Native Americans in the United States and indigenous women throughout the world. The chapter discusses how readers can be advocates and actively engage in decolonizing and dismantling systems of oppression to protect future generations and to allow indigenous communities to heal and revitalize.


Author(s):  
Paul Havemann

This chapter examines issues surrounding the human rights of Indigenous peoples. The conceptual framework for this chapter is informed by three broad, interrelated, and interdependent types of human rights: the right to existence, the right to self-determination, and individual human rights. After describing who Indigenous peoples are according to international law, the chapter considers the centuries of ambivalence about the recognition of Indigenous peoples. It then discusses the United Nations's establishment of a regime for Indigenous group rights and presents a case study of the impact of climate change on Indigenous peoples. It concludes with a reflection on the possibility of accommodating Indigenous peoples' self-determination with state sovereignty.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. e002442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Browne ◽  
Mark Lock ◽  
Troy Walker ◽  
Mikaela Egan ◽  
Kathryn Backholer

IntroductionIndigenous Peoples worldwide endure unacceptable health disparities with undernutrition and food insecurity often coexisting with obesity and chronic diseases. Policy-level actions are required to eliminate malnutrition in all its forms. However, there has been no systematic synthesis of the evidence of effectiveness of food and nutrition policies for Indigenous Peoples around the world. This review fills that gap.MethodsEight databases were searched for peer-reviewed literature, published between 2000 and 2019. Relevant websites were searched for grey literature. Articles were included if they were original studies, published in English and included data from Indigenous Peoples from Western colonised countries, evaluated a food or nutrition policy (or intervention), and provided quantitative impact/outcome data. Study screening, data extraction and quality assessment were undertaken independently by two authors, at least one of whom was Indigenous. A narrative synthesis was undertaken with studies grouped according to the NOURISHING food policy framework.ResultsWe identified 78 studies from Canada, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and the USA. Most studies evaluated targeted interventions, focused on rural or remote Indigenous communities. The most effective interventions combined educational strategies with policies targeting food price, composition and/or availability, particularly in retail and school environments. Interventions to reduce exposure to unhealthy food advertising was the only area of the NOURISHING framework not represented in the literature. Few studies examined the impact of universal food policies on Indigenous Peoples’ diets, health or well-being.ConclusionBoth targeted and universal policy action can be effective for Indigenous Peoples. Actions that modify the structures and systems governing food supply through improved availability, access and affordability of healthy foods should be prioritised. More high-quality evidence on the impact of universal food and nutrition policy actions for Indigenous Peoples is required, particularly in urban areas and in the area of food marketing.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranjan Datta

<p>This study is responding reconciling Indigenous climate change and food sovereignty in Arctic<strong>.</strong> We will explore, how recent climate change (and interpretation) is challenging to Indigenous food sovereignty sources; and what is at stake in processes such as hunting consultation, impact assessment, regulatory hearings, approvals (including negotiation of benefits), monitoring? and what reformed processes can build Indigenous community capacity and supports robust decisions? The outcomes will assist policy makers and communities to guide future consultations and impacts assessment guideline and climate change planning initiatives. We (as an interdisciplinary research team of Indigenous Elders, knowledge-keepers, Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars) will focus on Indigenous understanding of Indigenous philosophies of climate change and the connectivity between climate change and food sovereignty and sustainability related to the interactions and inter-dependencies with health security, Indigenous environmental and cultural value protection. Indigenous knowledge-ways have much to offer in support of resiliency of climate change and water infrastructure in Indigenous communities, intercultural reconceptualization of research methodologies, environmental sustainability, and educational programs which support Indigenous communities.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Action Plan: Objective: </strong>Supporting Indigenous perspectives on climate change impact management and food sovereignty. This includes involving members of Indigenous community to offer insight into Indigenous cultural and community responsibilities of Indigenous climate change impacts management to inform food sovereignty performance review policy development. <strong>Contribution: </strong>The designing, coordinating, and hosting an interdisciplinary Focused Dialogue Session on the relationship between climate change impacts management and food sovereignty. This Dialogue Session creates new scholarly knowledge about pipeline leak impacts and food sovereignty processes. <strong>Objective:</strong> Developing effective and trustful engagement dialogs to build capacity among Indigenous Elders, Knowledge-keepers, and scholars. <strong>Contribution: </strong>This objective supports Indigenous perspectives through specific, policy-orientated research that positively impacts their vision and allow them to develop new ways of climate change impacts and food sovereignty. This reveals climate change impacts management and food sovereignty policy and practices in Arctic. <strong>Objective: </strong>Mobilize knowledge and partnership for reconciliation (specifically translate research results into evidence for policy-making) through developing an impact assessment policy guideline. <strong>Contribution: </strong>The impact assessment policy guideline shares knowledge and implications of climate change impacts management policy documents local, provincially, and nationally and assist in the articulation and practice of food sovereignty source protection, as culturally and community informed.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Jeanne-Louise Moys

This case study explores how a students-as-partners approach is helping students in the Graphic Communication programme at the University of Reading gain experience of community through a curriculum design project. The “I am, we are … different by design” project began as a partnership initiative aimed at identifying strategies to extend students’ experience of diversity in the curriculum. Drawing on a mid-project evaluation, the case study presented here explores student partners’ perceptions of achievements and challenges, including developing a sense of community and the impact on career development. It also highlights how supporting opportunities for visibility and recognition throughout a project may contribute to sustaining a culture of reciprocity in partnership.


Author(s):  
Philippe Lemey ◽  
Samuel Hong ◽  
Verity Hill ◽  
Guy Baele ◽  
Chiara Poletto ◽  
...  

AbstractSpatiotemporal bias in genome sequence sampling can severely confound phylogeographic inference based on discrete trait ancestral reconstruction. This has impeded our ability to accurately track the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the availability of unprecedented numbers of SARS-CoV-2 genomes on a global scale, evolutionary reconstructions are hindered by the slow accumulation of sequence divergence over its relatively short transmission history. When confronted with these issues, incorporating additional contextual data may critically inform phylodynamic reconstructions. Here, we present a new approach to integrate individual travel history data in Bayesian phylogeographic inference and apply it to the early spread of SARS-CoV-2, while also including global air transportation data. We demonstrate that including travel history data for each SARS-CoV-2 genome yields more realistic reconstructions of virus spread, particularly when travelers from undersampled locations are included to mitigate sampling bias. We further explore methods to ameliorate the impact of sampling bias by augmenting the phylogeographic analysis with lineages from undersampled locations in the analyses. Our reconstructions reinforce specific transmission hypotheses suggested by the inclusion of travel history data, but also suggest alternative routes of virus migration that are plausible within the epidemiological context but are not apparent with current sampling efforts. Although further research is needed to fully examine the performance of our travel-aware phylogeographic analyses with unsampled diversity and to further improve them, they represent multiple new avenues for directly addressing the colossal issue of sample bias in phylogeographic inference.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramón Martínez Coria ◽  
Jesús Armando Haro Encinas

El planteamiento enfoca la situación que enfrentan los pueblos indígenas de México en relación con los procesos de despojo territorial y desplazamiento forzado de poblaciones por los intereses privados, así como el impacto de estos procesos en la supervivencia de sus comunidades y la continuidad de sus patrimonios bioculturales. Buscamos hacer un recuento de los avances y limitaciones de nuestra legislación en el reconocimiento de sus derechos colectivos territoriales específicos, de acuerdo con los estándares internacionales signados por el Estado mexicano, así como su contraste con la aprobación de reformas neoliberales que atentan contra sus territorios y formas culturales, describiendo la emergencia de movimientos de lucha por la justiciabilidad de sus derechos políticos colectivos y de resistencia contra la corrupción generalizada de funcionarios y la privatización de tierras y recursos naturales. TERRITORIAL RIGHTS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN MEXICO: A STRUGGLE FOR SOVEREIGNTY AND NATIONHOOD This article focuses on the situation faced by indigenous peoples in Mexico with regard to processes of territorial dispossession and forced displacement of populations in response to private interests, as well as the impact these processes have on the survival of indigenous communities and the continuity of their biocultural heritage. This article aims to report on the advances and limitations of Mexican law in recognizing specific collective territorial rights following the international standards signed by the Mexican State. These rights are also contrasted with the approved neoliberal reforms, which are an attempt against indigenous territories and cultural forms. It describes the emergence of movements that struggle for the justiciability of their collective political rights and the resistance to generalized corruption among public officials and the privatization of land and natural resources.


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