I enjoyed the following virtual workshop from the Ontario Ministry of Education about the importance of Indigenous perspectives in STEM. The workshop is presented by Joseph Pitawanakwat, the director of Creators Garden, and Haley Higdon, program director of Natural Curiosity.
In my web searches, I discovered a book called Living on the Land that explores the knowledge of Indigenous women that has been largely overlooked by patriarchy-informed Western research. I have not yet had the time to read the book, but have added it to my reading list for the future. The podcast below discusses Living on the Land and the stories within.
The more I read about about Traditional Knowledge and Indigenous Science in education, the more I have come to realize that the wisdom of Elders and Knowledge Keepers is an invaluable resource to educators. Speaking from personal experience, I know that it can be difficult to ask for advice or information from Traditional Knowledge Keepers if one doesn’t know the appropriate protocols for respectful engagement. I was very happy to find this resource that is the result of a meeting between 24 First Nations and Metis Knowledge Keepers from the Cree, Saulteaux, Dene,
and Métis nations across Saskatchewan. I believe that the information contained in this resource can help educators to initiate respectful conversation with members of the Indigenous nations in their local regions.
From the document:
“The goal of this document is to outline the consistencies in protocol that emerged from across the province of Saskatchewan. Therefore, this document is intended to only be a starting point for community agencies to begin working collaboratively with First Nations and Métis Traditional Knowledge Keepers.”
Find the document here.
My final post focuses on the different Indigenous content creators I will be exploring for my final project. I attempted to learn about and explore creators that were situated on the same land as I. I started with looking for Indigenous Toronto based creators, to Ontario and then any within Canada.
The above link is to Scott Wabano’s TikTok account–a Two-Spirit Iyiyuu creator from the Cree Nation of Waskaganish. His content uses a comedy-sense to represent Indigenous fashion and beauty content. He gears his content specifically toward Indigiqueer youths, relating to a wider audience and hoping to bring acceptance for people to feel comfortable and not ashamed to be who they are.
Sherry McKay is Sagkeeng First Nation in Winnipeg, a public speaker and works to empower other Indigenous people to share their content and voices via social media. A previous post I made about TikTok’s accelerator program is made with help of Sherry McKay to assure that the content is culturally responsive. She took uses video as a tool to share the real-life challenges of Indigenous people. For example, racism and bias in stores when they place their hands into their pockets, in a hilarious post, she shares what “pretendians” are (those who fake Indigenous identity) and warns against people using Indigenous identity and culture for self-benefit as it silencing their stories and voices, just to name a few issues she brings up. Her entertaining and approachable content creates conversations and dialogue in her comment section to bring Indigenous issues to the forefront.
Nikita Kahpeaysewat is Nēhiyaw and a storyteller who shares personal experiences and personal style, while advocating for community building, Indigenous peoples’ land rights and environmental autonomy. She uses beautiful photography and thoughtful Instagram captions that are usually stories or thoughts to capture her audience. Her posts are more of a serious and artistic tone to create dialogue with her audience.
This website discusses differences in western worldviews and Indigenous worldviews. They are fairly opposite approaches to knowledge, connectedness, and science. When understanding the differences, you can see how the education system typically does not support Indigenous worldviews. For my final project, I am looking at Indigenizing high school shop class and this site helps to understand the western pedagogy that is typically implemented.
Western Worldviews and Indigenous Worldviews
Missing in my earlier posts in regards to Identity and social media is how it is politically controlled and distributed. In my more recent posts, you will see that I have begun to situate how histories and politics continue to silence Indigenous people or decide for them who they are and what health or care they need or should have. Similarly, social media can be seen as settler colonialism due to the long times that it was unavailable to remote communities until more recently. This demonstrates a sense of ignorant behaviour to Indigenous people again. Alike how officials have yet helped Indigenous people with their contaminated water, this article also demonstrates “Indigenous Elimination” through their exclusion of Indigenous people early on in the roll out of internet use and social media use, but also through racism and cyber bullying that Indigenous people are especially susceptible to. Again, drawing on the same colonialism racism and bullying that occurred in and after residential schools.
Frazer, R., Carlson, B., & Farrelly, T. (2022). Indigenous articulations of social media and digital assemblages of care. Digital Geography and Society, 3, 1-10.
As I look into other benefits or adversities of social media, I came across its power for activism. This article researched by Professor Bronwyn Carlson and written by Susan Skelly (2021), talks about the power of social media. It has the power to quickly spread a message to the masses and it allows Indigenous people to not only share their talent and art in curated spaces but also spread it to the masses regardless of location, age, social status, and many other things. This article tries to differentiate what different social media platforms are used for. For example, Facebook used to connect friends, families and communities, Twitter used for openness invitation and dialogue, and TikTok and instagram used for activism.
Due to social media’s ability to bridge distance and time, mobilize Indigenous people and build “coalitions” so that people can stand in solidarity with Indigenous stories and challenges. It has given Indigenous people and voices more hope and in numbers, help with change. These open platforms dares people to become emotional and feel for each other’s stories, drawing on similarities to Indigenous practices.
https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/august-2021/Social-media-changed-the-game-for-Indigenous-activism-new-book
In my research about how Indigenous people identify as Indigenous, many times I have read that it has often been external. That the Canadian government has mostly identified who was Indigenous. In my research, I did come across stats Canada who gets their definition from the UN. This made me think that again, another external part or group is deciding for Indigenous people who can or cannot be Indigenous and how to identify. This definition is also very broad to include that Indigenous people are those “who identify as First Nations (North American Indian), Métis and/or Inuk (Inuit), and/or those who report being Registered or Treaty Indians (that is, registered under the Indian Act of Canada), and/or those who have membership in a First Nation or Indian band” (Government of Canada, 2021). This definition only uses Western language and does not do justice to the complexity of Indigenous identities.
https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p3Var.pl?Function=DEC&Id=42927
In researching about how Indigenous people use social media for storytelling and to spread their community, identity and culture, I came across TikTok and National Screen Institutes accelerator program meant to teach the ins and outs of using social media. It is aimed at Canadian Indigenous content creators. In developing their program, they did work with an Indigenous content creator, Sherry Mckay to be culturally responsive. The program is meant to help creators develop collaborations with brands, to increase their presence on social media and to learn the best tools and skills to tell their stories. It aligned with my research as it really works to empower Indigenous voices and storytelling, a main theme to why many content creators began their social media presence. I have also included some news articles about people who were chosen for the program. Beyond culture and identity, some of these articles situate social media to a “connector” position. Some have noted how social media was part of their healing or reconnector to lost family members.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/tiktok-indigenous-accelerator-1.6654248
Throughout my cyber-travels, I wanted to find diverse ways in which traditional knowledge can be shared. This travel highlights how Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping can be utilized alongside Indigenous Traditional Knowledge. In the past, mapping has played a significant role in colonizing Indigenous lands. Some of these shared resources begin to change this narrative and center Indigenous people reclaiming mapping. According to the article by PBS Decolonizing the Map: Creating the Indigenous Mapping Collective, they identify how mapping can be used to center Indigenous knowledge.
“Today many Indigenous communities across Turtle Island and beyond use cartographic mapping to track traditional knowledge of their lands and waters. These maps can show sacred sites, the paths of moose or caribou, the best areas to find a particular species of fish, where to pick traditional medicine and much more. Maps are often used when major projects such as mines or oil rigs are proposed on Indigenous land; they illustrate potential impacts these projects could have on the environment and the communities’ way of life.”
With access to online technology platforms, mapping is a space which allows more people to create, shape, and share maps than ever before. In 2014 the Indigenous Mapping Workshop began, and by 2020 the virtual Indigenous Mapping Collective was created to share knowledge and resources with one another. Through this collective, there have been connections to Google, and Canada’s Indigenous Lands have been added to Google Maps and Google Earth.
A collection of Indigenous Studies GIS Resources are available through Carleton University’s Library.