We decided to partner with Team Coyote for our dialogue.

“Aboriginal peoples’ intimate knowledge of natural resources and ecosystems of their areas, developed through long and sustained contact, and their respect for the spirits which inhabit these places, moulded their life on the land. Traditional knowledge, in the form of narratives, place names, and ecological lore, bequeathed through oral tradition from generation to generation, embodies and preserves their relationship to the land. Landscapes ‘house’ these stories, and protection of these places is key to their long-term survival in Aboriginal culture” (Buggey 2).

For Indigenous people “land is deeply intertwined with identity” and “concepts of territory, traditions, and customs are not divisible” (Canada, 1996: IV, 137) (Buggey 11), but Canadian literature has failed to reveal this as generalizations and stereotypes have continuously been emphasized. Place is intertwined with identity, and there is a connection between individual Indigenous people and their specific places that shapes their traditions, beliefs, values, identities, and stories. Alison Calder argues that postmodern places are composed of competing and complementary forces that change depending on an individual’s relationship with them. This relationship between a person and a place is determined by factors such as class, race and gender (Calder 114). Calder reveals that truthful representation of Indigenous peoples in literature and media is slim and that neglecting to focus on the specificity of place will erase Indigenous identities completely. Although honest representations of Indigenous peoples are rare, there are artists promoting awareness of this. For example, Cannupu Hanska Luger creates exhibits that reveal the problems with stereotypes of Indigenous peoples and then destroys them to symbolize the act of destroying these stereotypes.

Our team’s research has explored how place and identity are connected, how place has been neglected in Canadian literature and media, and how the importance of specific places, in regards to Indigenous identities, can be emphasized again. Our exploration of these topics has led us to the findings that place and identity is connected because this relationship influences the formation of specific traditions, ideas, beliefs, values and stories. We have also discovered that there are people that are attempting to destroy the generalizations and stereotypes of Indigenous peoples through projects that highlight the importance of individual differences. We have also discovered that Team Coyote’s research compliments our own as they have been researching on the importance of place and identity as well. Through our research and discussion, our team hopes to highlight ways in which the important connection between place and identity can be promoted in Canadian literature.

Main questions we are seeking to answer:

1. How are place and identity connected?
2. How and why have the First Nations of Canada been misrepresented, generalized, and excluded from mainstream Canadian literature and media?
3. In what ways can we change the narrative regarding the First Nations?

Hopes for the research and possible helpful research methodologies:

Our hopes for this research is to begin the discussion on changing the narrative of the First Nations of Canada. We would like to moreover understand the connections that exist between place and identity, and the ways in which this connection can be utilized in modern understanding. Our aim is to focus on articles that promote the development of education and communication throughout all systems and demographics. The hope is that ultimately our discussion will create a ripple effect for the the rest of society to be open to change their perspective.

The focus for our research was to try to present new and unique perspectives on the fundamental problem of the devaluing and demeaning [mis]representations of Indigenous people in Canadian mainstream literature and media. Our discussion focused on three main intervention strategies centered around education; namely, inclusion of Indigenous knowledge making and stories as part of elementary education, addressing and adjusting the biases contained in current western academic frameworks for evaluation, and focusing and educating the Canadian population on the history, culture and significance of specific places within Canada. There was so helpful information and critical thought shared during our open dialogue with our peers. After sorting and processing this discourse we have selected a few quotes from our dialogue that we feel aptly represented our perspectives and the aim of our research.

Major issues:  Indigenous representation and exclusion

“…about the many ways in which we keep the stereotypes alive in our world. The “indian” themed birthday parties, the misrepresentation of the traditional headdress in the media, the use of the wrong imagery being used in advertising. She asks us to “Think twice. Speak out, Educate ourselves. Have a conversation”

(Audrey Baker, “Annotated Bibliography”)

And that is where we want to start – with a conversation; a conversation about the parochial views of westernized literature and media. This quote comes from one of our peer’s comments on our annotated bibliography, and it addresses our teams focal issue; the issue of the generalizing and ignorant representations of First Nations peoples in Canadian literature and media.

Indigenous peoples are so often mocked and belittled through western media, which incessantly promotes ideas that Indigenous peoples are culturally “backward,” uncivilized, or undeveloped, and as we point out in our research these generalizations and theme of the ‘primitive Indian,’ is dehumanizing and belittling to Indigenous peoples. There is a significant issue with popularizing European narratives of First Nations people because it means that society is learning about these cultures from second hand, and potentially ignorant, sources.

A distressing consequence of this widespread promotion of these stereotypes and misconceptions is that they limit the recognition of non-western ways of knowing; restricting Indigenous peoples’ ability to participate in mainstream knowledge making. As Wilbur is quoted in our research, how will “Native American people … ever been seen as modern or successful, when films and images only present Native American’s as ‘the leathered and feathered vanishing race’“ (Chloë, “Annotated Bibliography”). The persistence of these misrepresentations encourages mass opinions that Indigenous cultures, and knowledge, is primitive and antiquated. These sentiments create a situation where native knowledge and epistemologies are not recognized at valid or valuable, as Sarah Keller commented, lack of appreciation for “cultural ways of knowing may still hinder their [Indigenous peoples’] prospects for being successful in a modern mainstream post-colonial settlement” (Annotated Bibliography”).

Intervention recommendation:  changing elementary curricula

“… in order to change this idea that is portrayed in mass media, we must start with discussion and understanding. The school system is a great way to begin a discussion, to teach children early about the many cultures that collectively form our First Nations identity, and how that moreover forms our Canadian identity. It needs to be discussed that the First Nations offer more than just a history lesson, but their culture is important in understanding how differing cultures can live in harmony. First Nations worldview is moreover an equally important concept to teach in the school systems.”
(Hannah Westerman, “Annotated Bibliography”)

This quotes is taken from Hannah Westerman’s comment on our annotated bibliography, and it is representative of a major focus of our dialogue. Many participants on our dialogue voiced concerns about the misrepresentation and exclusion of Canadian First Nations people, and several agree that an effective intervention method would be curricula reform so students were learning to value, appreciate and respect Indigenous knowledge and knowledge making from a very young age. As our research from professor Sims highlights that there is a major issue with the school system’s lack of knowledge on Indigenous peoples, and he advocates for better education on the First Nations people of Canada, so children will no longer grow up thinking there is just one type of ‘Indian’. There are many ways in which the current system could improve its incorporation of Indigenous knowledge; as Sarah Keller comments, a useful “…intervention would be to change the education system to utilize more indigenous culture and ways of knowing,” and Marissa Birnie points out that, “a good first step is to improve elementary school curriculums in order to introduce different ways of knowing- like oral storytelling- early on.”

Intervention recommendation: changing the epistemological frameworks

“In order to transform the way we see, we must be able to evaluate, expose and discuss the biases that exist in the way we see or the way we were taught to see. Revealing the partiality and “us/them” predispositions that are ingrained in the existing frameworks for studying Canadian literature is a crucial aspect of being able to honestly and effectively examine and discuss the impacts they are having Indigenous communities.”
(Hannah Wagner, “Annotated Bibliography”)

This quote, from Hannah Wagner, expresses the sentiments of our second approach to educational intervention.  Part of our discussion focused on the epistemological issues with westernized thinking, and ways of evaluating literature and non-western knowledge. We recognized that there is a dire need to move away from western, post-enlightenment frameworks of evaluation, and as Coleman points out, in order to accurately understand and learn from non-western, and Indigenous literature, western research “need[s] to move from a politics of recognition … [to] a politics of respect” (Coleman, 125).

The need to challenging commonly accepted forms of research and expand methodological practices to include non-western forms of knowledge making was also present in the research of our partner team, as stated in their annotated bibliography, “we must also refrain from allowing colonialism to shape the narratives … and instead allow for these narratives to flourish through the agency of Indigenous storytelling (Team Coyote).” The idea of reeducating and accepting alternate epistemological frameworks is closely tied to the dialogue concerning the participation of Indigenous peoples in creating their own narrative. There needs to be conscious intervention to equalize the value of non-western and western knowledge-making to help deal with the problem of disharmony between western research and Indigenous traditions; as Sarah Keller commented, “practicing indigenous ways of knowing helps in the reconciliation movement, but changing culture to practice those ways of knowing is difficult to do” (“Annotated Bibliography”).

Sarah brought up a very good point about the difficult of changing western epistemological frameworks. And well a mainstream move away from the western frameworks that dictate what is relevant, appropriate and valuable is overdue, this is not an intervention strategy that can be employed suddenly. This strategy will take deliberate and compelling action by many scholars across a variety of disciplines and fields of study. This type of intervention will require not only reeducation but conscious effort and consistent awareness of the way in which we are contextualizing the literature we study. However, if we [all who study literature] can learn overcome our systematically entrenched ethnocentrism, we will be able to expand both our personal understanding of Indigenous peoples and knowledge, as well as our ability to honestly contextualize Canadian literature and identity.

Intervention recommendation: focusing on place specificity and all that comes along with a place

“…by taking away the specificities in the places that First Nations live in, Calder is saying that we’re essentially erasing their identities.”
(Chloe Lee, “Annotated Bibliography”)

The final areas of intervention highlighted in our research dialogue is the concept of place specificity. As this quote, from Chloe, demonstrates there is a unique relationship between place and identity. Our dialogue discussed how sense of place in literature encompasses not only the physical landscape, but peoples, cultures and the history related to the land, and when literature is removed from its specific context it can lose its ability to connect to the cultures, peoples and identities attached to the specific place. As Chloë commented, “land is connected to people in specific ways through physicality as well as mentality, place is unstable and there can be a multitude of perceptions about place, erasing place specificity erases Indigenous identities.”

Our research identified the strong link between identity and land by highlighting the sacred value Indigenous cultures place in the spirituality of the land; as Chloe points out, “generations of intricate oral culture, spirituality, stories, and heritage are passed down through these lands.” So much of Canada hold sacred value to a variety of Indigenous cultures, yet all too often, Canadian literature is removed from the significance of this connection. Because the literature is removed from specificity of its place the intimate relationship between the land and identity is left unacknowledged, undervalued or completely lost.

Grounding literary analysis in specific places is important because understanding Indigenous stories and knowledge is much more difficult when it is removed from the significance of place. Additionally, in the study of Canadian literature the estrangement from the land has cause the loss of the important contextualization that comes from the lands association with specific Indigenous cultures, knowledge and stories. If Canadian literary analysis is grounded in the specificity of place, then it will regain its connection to the Indigenous cultures, traditions and stories that came before it. Contextualizing contemporary Canadian literature within the spatial narratives of the land will allow Indigenous voices, histories and knowledge to be heard through the dominant narrative; ultimately, giving First Nations voices a more prominent position in mainstream literature, and subliminally reeducating the masses through exposure to Indigenous identities.

An area that requires further research is how to implement different learning techniques, values and practices in education. Our team’s research and dialogue emphasizes the changing of the elementary curriculum as an intervention, but this area can be further explored to uncover multitudes of ways of how to accomplish change in all educational environments. For example, the creation of educational programs for teachers and students of all ages, about Indigenous cultures, would be a good step towards changing stereotypes and generalizations of Indigenous peoples. From our own research and dialogue, it is evident that there are writers, teachers, researchers, artists and individuals that are attempting to change the images of Native American culture highlighted in our past and current literature and media. However, so much of media and literature still neglects to focus on the impact of place and “by taking away the specificities in the places that First Nations live in … we’re essentially erasing their identities” (Chloe Lee, “Annotated Bibliography”).

We believe that further research should involve questioning why and how place has been ignored in literature and media. When place specificity is neglected, stereotypes and generalizations form because individuality something intangible. Cannupa Hanska Luger is an artist who has revealed and emphasized the issues with the generalizations and stereotypes of Indigenous peoples. His exhibits reflect stereotypes of Native Americans and the power in the destruction of them. Luger’s action of destroying his exhibits, supports an idea that individual identities cannot exist as long as stereotypes and generalizations consume literature and media. Nancy Marie Mithlo’s TedTalk also reveals that choosing not to think about the harm generalized and stereotypical images impose upon Native Americans, will result in continuous negative images and negative perspectives. Further research should involve finding proactive ways for ending generalizations and stereotypes, whether this is through literature, media, or personal conversations. In changing images of Indigenous people, we need to find a way to represent their diversity within Canadian literature and focusing on place’s relationship with identity is a good start. Through our research we have discovered that there are educational ways of promoting a change in perspectives about Indigenous cultures. Further research should also seek to provide creative ways of emphasizing the relationship between place and identity, such as through media projects like Matika Wilbur’s “Project 562” that connects place with identity by combining the voices of Indigenous individuals with photographs of each of them embracing their individualities and homes.