Australian universities have committed to a process of Indigenisation. The University of Tasmania provides a case study in how to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into academic programs.
Children in a forest nature program learn about the ‘mitigomin’ (red oak acorns) not buried by the ‘miadidamoo’ (eastern grey squirrels).
(Shutterstock)
Earth-centred children’s programs that seek to build ethical partnerships with Indigenous communities have an important role in learning about weathering climate change.
Children in the Willows forest nature program in the Humber Valley in west Toronto are drawn to water and sticks, simple materials for exploring and investigating. Here the children explore water accumulated from spring rains.
(Louise Zimanyi)
When parents walk in the forest with their children and us and see how children are drawn to spiral snails, together we see how connections with the land are critical for the Earth’s future.
Bernie Williams, right, a women’s advocate in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, embraces Carmen Paterson while testifying at the final day of hearings at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Richmond, B.C., on April 8, 2018.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
University “Indigenization” efforts using Massive Open Online Courses promise to reach wide audiences. They also raise critical questions about how to embody Indigenous ways of knowing and relating.
A Reconciliation Pole is raised at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., in April 2017. The 17-metre red cedar pole tells the story of the time before, during and after the Indian residential school system. Thousands of copper nails representing thousands of Indigenous children who died in Canada’s residential schools were hammered into the pole by survivors, affected families, school children and others.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
Calls to “indigenize” universities must start with listening - to Indigenous scholars and nations. And real reparation will be painful for settlers, for it will be unsettling.