Reciprocal Mentorship as Trans-Systemic Knowledge: A Story of an Indigenous Student and a Non-Indigenous Academic Supervisor Navigating Graduate Research in a Canadian University

Reciprocal mentorship is how Indigenous students and non-Indigenous supervisors can supportively navigate their way through graduate research in higher education. Reciprocal mentorship as trans-systemic knowledge values both Indigenous and Eurocentric worldviews, whereby the student has the expertise from Indigenous community and the academic supervisor has the expertise in the academic world. Through sharing stories of their research journey within a Canadian University, Webster and Bishop offer key insights around engaging in reciprocal mentorship, navigating the two-worlds, finding a common language, and having shared values. As a result, Indigenous and non-Indigenous students and supervisors may see themselves within the stories and seek reciprocal mentorship to be successful in the academic research and educational journey and make an impact in their university and beyond.

“To See Together Without Claiming to Be Another”: Stories as Relations, Against One-Direction Mode of Indigenous Stories Travelling

Once communities’ stories are taken up by researchers and shared within the ivory tower of academia, the stories circulate within the ivory tower. It is often the case that these archived stories from communities are used by researchers, without asking permission from the communities where the stories originate. In this article, we aim to critically review and reflect on underlying theories and practices in conventional Eurocentric academia that allows for a ‘one direction’ mode of storytelling dissemination, allowing researchers to take the ‘version’ of community knowledge and/or stories without seeking the original approval from the communities themselves. We suggest ‘thoughtful’ questions for both settler and Indigenous researchers to consider in hopes of promoting ‘travelling back to original sources’ in their scholarly work.

Ethical Indigenous Economies

In this article, the authors argue that trans-systemic knowledge system analysis of Indigenous-to-Indigenous economics enables generative thinking toward Indigenous futures of economic freedom. The authors apply a trans-systemic lens to critically analyze persistent development philosophy that acts as a barrier to the advancement of Indigenous economic development thinking. By exploring ways in which colonial discourse entraps Indigenous nations within circular logic in service of a normative centre the need for new economic logic is apparent. Shifting to trans-systemic knowledge systems analysis to include diverse insights from Māori and other Indigenous economic philosophy, the authors show that it is not profit and financial growth that matters in and of itself. Rather, according to Indigenous definitions of wealth, economic freedom and development are constituted by value creation that aligns with Indigenous worldviews and principles. Indigenous economic knowledge centred on relationship, reciprocity and interconnectedness fosters Indigenous economic freedom.

Uncovering the Experiences of Engaging Indigenous Knowledges in Colonial Structures of Schooling and Research

In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action (TRC, 2015), a school board teamed with university educators and educational partners to generate a professional learning series to support educators’ engagement with Indigenous knowledges. A research team that assembled two years later interviewed the learning series participants to explore how educators were navigating Indigenous knowledge within a Eurocentric school system. This research acknowledges the challenges of doing this work within shifting institutional policies and initiatives, the wider politics of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations, building intercultural understandings and community partnerships, and negotiating epistemological difference. The researchers — including Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples — echoed resonances with the participants that occurred throughout the data collection process and often spoke about the parallel paths of research and schooling — both historically used as tools of colonization and now having a role in decolonization. To disrupt colonial propensities, we share our reflections as researchers, specifically around complexities and tensions of engaging Indigenous knowledges throughout our research processes concerning the participants’ experiences. By sharing the tensions and (un)learning that emerged on these parallel paths, we honour diverse entry-points and experiences to animate how trans-systemic knowledge building might ensue.

Mi’kmaq / Non-Mi’kmaq Conversational Turn-Taking

Turn-taking during verbal interactions is a linguistic and cultural pattern that regulates who is to speak during a conversation and when. Conversational turn-taking includes the length of time that occurs after the speaker says something and before the person spoken to responds (Ryan & Forrest, 2019). Within the academy at this current time of 2020, diverse knowledge holders, both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous, are actively trying to share and merge knowledge epistemologies across culture and across language. Though sharing is now actively taking place much more frequently between these two groups of scholars within Canadian universities, full comprehension of what is being communicated is not always realized by both parties. This is not due to any fault on the researchers’ part, but because many times two turn-taking paradigms are being used in a conversation instead of one.

Beyond the “Indigenizing the Academy” Trend: Learning from Indigenous Higher Education Land-Based and Intercultural Pedagogies to Build Trans-Systemic Decolonial Education.

Given the UNDRIP’s assertion of Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their education and knowledge systems, and in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s calls to action, many Canadian Universities are considering “Indigenizing the Academy.” Yet, the meaning of such undertaking remains to be clarified. This article explores trans-systemic approaches as a possible avenue for “Indigenizing the Academy,” and, more specifically, what Indigenous higher education programs and institutions can contribute to a trans-systemic approach to education. Considering two existing models I encountered in my doctoral research, namely the Intercultural approach as developed in the Andes (García et al., 2004; Mato, 2009; Sarango, 2009; Walsh, 2012), and land-based pedagogy as developed in North America (Coulthard, 2017; Coulthard & Simpson, 2016; Tuck et al., 2014; Wildcat et al., 2014), I argue they present trans-systemic elements that would allow us to re-think the frameworks in which to engage with Indigenous Peoples’ rights and knowledge systems in the mainstream academy. What could be learned from the principles and practices of these two Indigenous higher education philosophies to articulate Indigenous knowledge into trans-systemic education in the mainstream academy in ways that foster solidarity and mutual understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people?

Generative Learning and the Making of Ethical Space: Indigenizing Forest School Teacher Training in Wabanakik

This reflection on community-driven research in process is written from the perspective of graduate student co-researchers collaborating with Wabanaki community co-researchers on a pilot project involving a Wabanaki and a non-Indigenous organization. Three Nations Education Group Inc. (TNEGI) represents three Wabanaki schools and communities in Northeast Turtle Island. The Child and Nature Alliance of Canada (CNAC) offers a Forest and Nature School Practitioner Course (FNSPC) for educators seeking to operate forest schools. These diverse organizations have developed a pilot FNSPC training for a group of TNEGI educators, with the purpose of Indigenizing the FNSPC. This is necessary to address the Eurocentric forest and nature school practices in Canada, which often fail to recognize the herstories, presence, rights, and diversity of Indigenous Peoples and places. TNEGI educators envision a land-based pedagogy that centers Wabanaki perspectives and merges Indigenous and Western knowledges. In the FNSPC pilot, the co-researchers generated course changes as they progressed through the pilot, decolonizing the content and format as they went. Developing this Indigenized version of the FNSPC will have far-reaching implications for the CNAC Forest School ethos and teacher training delivery. This essay maps our collaborative efforts thus far in creating an ethical research space within this Indigenous/non-Indigenous research initiative and lays out intentions for the road ahead.