{"id":99,"date":"2020-06-08T14:06:49","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T21:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/?p=99"},"modified":"2022-10-27T12:21:52","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T19:21:52","slug":"academic-indian-job-description-a-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/2020\/06\/08\/academic-indian-job-description-a-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"Academic Indian Job Description, a Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"
Academic Indian job description, a poem<\/strong><\/h5>\n
By Cash Ahenakew<\/strong>
\n<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\"\"
\nPhoto by: Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti<\/span><\/h5>\n
<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nwestern knowledge and education
\nplus the critique of
\nwestern knowledge and education<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nindigenous ‘culture’ and education
\nplus the critique and the critique of the critique of
\nindigenous ‘culture’ and education<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to embody expected authenticity
\nand how to embody expected critique
\nof expected authenticity<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nwhen and where to use indigenous literature
\nand when and where to use the Western canon
\nto build legitimacy and credibility for indigenous thought and experience<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nwhen to vilify, to romanticize, to essentialize
\nwhen to apologize, to complexify, to compromise
\nwhen and who to be accountable to and why<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to reject modernity, how to be a modern Indian
\nhow to ignore contradictions<\/h5>\n
how to deny incommensurabilities<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nwhen and how to perform at the same time
\ncompetence, confidence, boldness, heroic rebelliousness
\nand humility, compliance and gratitude for the opportunity<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to be an intellectual, an activist, a therapist, and an entrepreneur
\nhow to improve retention, attrition and social mobility
\nand how to stop exploitation and ecological disaster<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to educate \u2018your people\u2019, liberal allies, immigrants, colleagues
\nhow to relate to gang members, business sponsors, elders, politicians
\nhow to speak with the crows, the trees, the sea, and the media<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to face and to help others heal inter-generational trauma in
\nself-doubt, self-harm, self-hatred
\nand self-defeating prophecies of self-sabotage<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to read and mirror middle class sense making and sensibility
\nin writing, speech, clothing, arts, taste,<\/h5>\n
as well as waste management, and table manners<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to push back, to show a finger, to ghost dance
\nhow to honour elders, to wash toilets, to carry the weight
\nhow to perform ceremonies, to carry a pipe, and to cure the sick<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to how to spell, to pronounce, to solve and to fix
\ncolonialism, capitalism, racism, slavery, patriarchy,
\nhetero-cis-normativity, ableism, elitism, and intersectional violence<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nlanguages lost and found of family, communities, earth, spirit
\nlanguages imposed of nation, property, individualism, competition
\nand institutional academic language of secular liberal humanism<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to Indigenize and decolonize
\ndisciplines, protocols, ethics and methodologies
\nto make aspiring experts on Indigenous issues feel and look good<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to package all of this in a foreign English language
\nto convince top ranked journals and performance analysts
\nthat you too, against all odds, have market value<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to live with the guilt of having credentials, a secure job
\nand the awareness of compliance with a rigged system
\nbuilt on the broken back and wounded soul of your family members<\/h5>\n
have to know
\nhow to advance the project of reconciliation
\nwith relatives who have harmed seven generations
\nwith destitution, dispossession and \u201ccultural\u201d genocide<\/h5>\n
<\/h5>\n
Apply online now.<\/h5>\n
This poem was first published in the article: Ahenakew, C. (2016). Grafting Indigenous ways of knowing onto non-Indigenous ways of being: The (underestimated) challenges of a decolonial imagination. International Review of Qualitative Research,<\/em> 9(3), 323-340.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Academic Indian job description, a poem By Cash Ahenakew Photo by: Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti have to know western knowledge and education plus the critique of western knowledge and education have to know indigenous ‘culture’ and education plus the critique and the critique of the critique of indigenous ‘culture’ and education have to know how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71658,"featured_media":100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[7,13,49,12,31,18,11],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-welcome","tag-blog-posts","tag-decolonization","tag-faculty-posts","tag-higher-education","tag-indigenous-stories","tag-poetry","tag-social-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71658"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}