Hi there! Here are my thoughts on the materials for Week 2: 

When reading “Introduction” (Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View) I was reminded of many of the concepts I learned in another course: HIST302, History of the Indigenous Peoples of North America. Firstly, I note that in our reading, Linda Tuhiwai Smith talks about how settler scholars are still trying to “convince [Indigenous scholars] that they ‘know best’,” and to “fix [them] up,” and save Indigenous scholars from themselves (Smith 6). This attitude is not only prevalent in education and amongst intellectuals; as I learned in HIST302, this “paternalistic” notion of “saving” Indigenous people is in part what fuelled colonization of what are now the Americas. Colonizers justified their seizure of Indigenous land, and their attempts to assimilate Indigenous people, with the idea that they were somehow making their lives better and doing them a favour by transforming them into the white ideal.  

I also wanted to discuss how the book itself can represent a reclamation of Indigenous values in the face of prevalent colonial academic disciplinary frameworks. I have written a previous essay on how Indigenous history has too often been written in the colonial voice, and typical anthropological narratives can be a dangerous way of conveying Indigenous history. The books’ format itself challenges the colonial academic framework the authors are working to dismantle, as seen in the following quote on page 16: “the chapters and organization of this book do not readily adhere to the more typical divisions within education as a broad field.” Rather, ideas and concepts shift between disciplines and even have a “river-like design” (16). Similarly, Kelsey Dayle John’s chapter in this book, “Rez Ponies and Confronting Sacred Junctures in Decolonizing and Indigenous Education,” discusses incommensurability and decolonization “without using academic theory as the carrier and conduit of thinking on these matters” (17). As per the reading guides, I think this would be considered a performative way of enacting decolonization – by demonstrating decolonization through format itself. 

Here’s a website that teaches about ɬaʔamɩn history while departing from colonial frameworks:

http://publications.ravenspacepublishing.org/as-i-remember-it/index