In trying to learn about the Haudenosaunee people near me, I watched this documentary on youtube:
It focusses a lot on the very tense protests against housing developments on Haudenosaunee land in 2006, near Caledonia, Ontario and the leadership of the Clan Mothers in that protest.
My thinking this week has been shaped by Indigenous women leaders specifically. 🙂
I live in Hamilton, Ontario and in September I got a new Hamilton-focussed magazine in my mailbox. In the first issue of this new magazine, there is an article about three extremely impressive Indigenous leaders in my city:
https://hamiltoncitymagazine.ca/new-faces-of-leadership/
I found Savage Bear especially interesting person. She’s a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan but has moved to Hamilton and regarding place, she says
“This isn’t our territory. As much as [I’m] in a leadership position, it doesn’t matter who you are, you need to know where you tread,” says Bear. “You need to know the land and the people of the land. This past year has been getting to know my colleagues, the students, and external and internal stakeholders here and in and around Hamilton.”
In this post, I went on a journey to further explore Indigenous storytelling and video but also wanted to investigate the role of reflection (motivated by the readings and discussion within Week 10). This concept of reflection within the interpretation of videos is an important component of video within pedagogy.
1. This is an interesting Halloween inspired news story that also includes some additional features related to Indigenous storytelling
Indigenous storytelling (scary stories)
2. Storytelling video featuring an elder
-effective and appropriate approach to Indigenous storytelling through video
The video is part of a series created by the TreadRight Foundation.
3. Dan Nanamkin describes the power of sharing history through story-telling within a TEDs Talk from Spokane.
4. I appreciated the introspection of this post regarding using reflection as a tool for Indigenizing
As the author says “Reflection helps us understand our experiences, navigate hardships, and act strategically.”
https://nativegov.org/news/reflection-a-tool-for-indigenizing-the-future/
5. This Q&A investigates the manner in which the Royal Ontario Museum is decolonizing through the eyes of two of their facilitators.
I was looking at the website of ImagiNATIVE, the world’s largest presenter of Indigenous screen content, just to find out that they had a film and media art festival in October. “The Festival celebrates Indigenous storytelling in film + video, audio, and digital + interactive art through screenings, exhibitions, special events, and more.”
In their screening schedule, I saw they showed the “Bones of Crows” movie, which is a drama about a residential school survivor. The following movie is a brief interview with the director of the movie.
When you think about Indigenous technology, what comes to your mind?
Maybe the following article can help you:
Move Slow and Empower People: Animikii’s Approach to Indigenous Technology
in which Indigenous technology is defined to be equal to respectful, beneficial, appropriate, wellness, and ethical technology.
How is that helpful? Just check the following flowchart:
All My Relation podcast is a shared project by Matika Wilbur, a visual storyteller from the Swinomish and Tulalip peoples of coastal Washington and Adrienne Keene is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. In their podcast series, they explore different topics about being native and the relationship of Indigenous people with their lands and cultural values.
I believe this is a very good example of using technology to make the world hear the voice of Indigenous communities.
“Canadians don’t always think of Indigenous peoples as technologists and entrepreneurs, but we’re reclaiming those identities”. ––Jeff Ward, Animikii
Another use of technology that I found is the mapping and recording place-based oral histories initiated by the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT). They try to map real places and locations that oral histories and stories refer to.
In their methodology, they explain that: “ACT has actually long been aware of the importance of storytelling for maintaining communities’ cultural identity and their relationship to ancestral landscapes. As an organization with decades of experience working with communities to map their territories, we realized very early on the need to capture some of the histories attached to specific places in the community’s real-world geography to supplement the map.” ACT_OralHistories_Guide_2019_ENGLISH
“For many communities across the world, like the indigenous communities of the Americas, oral history storytelling is a cultural tradition imbued with traditional knowledge and associated with practices and values essential to developing personal identity.In many cases expressed primarily in oral form, oral histories are passed down from generation to generation, and can be essential to the development of the worldview of young members of a community. In ACT’s experience working with indigenous and other traditional communities in South America, oral histories are very often place-based, referencing important or sacred sites in the community’s territory.” (p. 9)
Their work resulted in an interactive map associated with stories (in different formats, video, audio, and text) connected to a particular place on the map.
The following video is a bit long, showing how this works and is worth watching.
I was interested in learning more about how Indigenous people feel and think about using and being involved in developing digital technologies. We all have citizenship to a world, even if it is unwanted and the modern digital world. So, how can we use the wisdom and traditional knowledge of Indigenous communities all around the planet to enhance this world? How can we combine that knowledge with this technology?
For the last part of this blog, I decided to look at some of the ongoing and done projects (including the creation of media)and research studies around the topic of technology and Indigenous people.
I found many projects with the main focus on climate change. One of the very interesting projects is using artificial intelligence and Indigenous knowledge to save baby turtles on their journey from the shore to the water.
For my last blog of the term, I would like to focus on the book entitled: Resurgence: Engaging with Indigenous Narratives and Cultural Expressions In and Beyond the Classroom by Christina M’Lot and Katya Adamov Feguson. I wanted to share this book because it was introduced to me at a workshop a couple of weeks ago and it is now a book that my school district is holding a book club on to dive into further. I have had a chance to read a few sections of the book. The book is dedicated to showing educators how to concretely and meaningfully introduce Indigenous art, technologies, stories, and more into a classroom setting. This book is for intermediate and high school grades (grade 6 and up) and I sometimes struggle to find resources dedicated to older students and this is extremely helpful. There are even sections on mental health from an Indigenous perspective that are relevant and can be easily implemented into a classroom setting.
I included a previous CBC Kids video in Module 3, I also used another video from CBC Kids talking about what Reconciliation is with my students. I liked this particular video discussing allyship to young kids because I think this is where true allyship can start and students being able to recognize how they can be an ally from Indigenous leaders and activist who are able to share their advice in how authentic allyship should look like. I like that many videos are targeted towards students of a younger age now as that will help to start this knowledge at a young age.