In the Shadow of a Willow Tree: A Community Garden Experiment in Decolonising, Multispecies Research

In 2014 I commenced a postdoctoral project that involved collaboratively planting and maintaining a community garden on a block of land that was once part of the East Armidale Aboriginal Reserve in the so-called New England Tableland region of New South Wales, Australia. At the edge of this block of land is an introduced, invasive willow tree. In this article I write with and alongside the willow tree to interrogate the potential and limitations of anticolonial projects undertaken from colonial subject positions predicated on relations of social and environmental privilege. Anticolonial scholarly activism demands a critique of individual and institutional complicity with ongoing colonial power structures. The following analysis offers a personal narrative of what it has been like to be involved in an anticolonial multispecies research project while working within the confines of the neoliberal university. Exploring the intersection of academic, social and environmental ecologies, I position the community garden as an alternative pedagogical and public environmental humanities research site that interrupts the reproduction of settler colonial power relations by cultivating tactics of collective resistance in alliance with the nonhuman world

Training for Inclusion

There have been many programs initiated in Australia to train Aboriginal students for inclusion in the information technology (IT) sector. These range from Microsoft Unlimited Potential courses, which mainly focus on preparation for office work, to Online Analytical Processing games, which involve students in discovery learning about how computers function. We suggest this latter approach has much more useful ramifications for Indigenous people in terms of engaging them in employment and education. Years of research into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education recommend that education in this sector should focus on practical, discovery learning with cultural and personal relevance, and stress the importance of identity within an Indigenous cultural context

Community perceptions of a Cree immersion program at Cumberland House

This thesis contributes to the literature on language revitalization, a hopeful branch of research that counters the foreboding conclusions of language shift studies. It is based on data collected in May, 1998, at Cumberland House, an Aboriginal community in northeastern Saskatchewan. Fifty-five community members participated in six focus groups organized by the following criteria: administrators, school board trustees, elders, parents, students and teachers. These research participants expressed their vision, expectations, and needs related to an Aboriginal Language Immersion Pilot Program proposed by the Northern Lights School Division. Community members envisioned an education that contributes to their children's Cree and Anglo-Canadian bicultural competence. They expected the Cree immersion program in the provincial school would develop their children's Cree and English bilingual fluency. They needed training, administrative support, materials and ongoing communication between school and community. Factors that instill a sense of optimism about this language revitalization effort, include the role and status of the school, and the strong bonds of kinship and friendship in this community context. The process and content of the research project records the development and product of a research relationship between Aboriginal people. It attests to the value of community involvement in language planning and illustrates the beneficial attributes of community-based participatory action research. Overall, the thesis informs the topic of decolonization at the personal, community, and institutional level

Sahuhlúkhane’ Ukwehuwenéha They Learned to Speak it Again: An Investigation into the Regeneration of the Oneida Language

This study investigated the significance of the Oneida language to two groups of Oneida speakers and learners in the Onʌyota’á:ka’ Oneida Nation of the Thames community. This study’s research questions included: (1) What is the significance of Oneida language to Oneida adult language learners who are seeking to acquire the language and what are they doing to regenerate the language? (2) What is the significance of Oneida language to Oneida adults who are conversationally fluent in Oneida language and what are they doing to regenerate the language? (3) What does an investigation into my personal relationship with Oneida language reveal? The participants’ responses resulted in the following themes: a) intergenerational language use b) cultural meaning and ties to identity, c) Oneida youth, d) language community, and e) language regeneration/ revitalization practices. The findings of this research highlights the importance of Oneida language to learners, speakers and the entire Oneida community

Translating histories: Australian Aboriginal narratives, history and literature

Can literature exist without history? Can history exist without literature? I argue that Indigenous authors and artists are now leading the way towards new tellings of Australian history which go beyond the last ice age. In Australia, the topic of 'Aboriginal History' is conventionally narrated from the starting date of 1788, with the British arrival to the shores around Sydney Harbour. From the late 1970s, historians started to fill the erasure of written narratives. They tried to address the neglected Aboriginal side of an Australian history that had been presented as a white narrative of nation. However, as my own work attests, we historians still followed the same dates as many other authors of national history. In Creating a Nation, a feminist history of Australia that I co-authored with Patricia Grimshaw, Marilyn Lake and Marian Quartly, I wrote about 'Birthplaces' at Port Jackson, a story of gendered encounter. In my edited volume, Contested Ground: Aborigines under the British Crown, it seemed appropriate to start in 1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet of British convicts and the marine officers in charge. I But I no longer believe this is adequate. Such a 'false start' is a narrative trick that we have replayed for too long

We Are More than Baskets, Beads, and Bannock: Expanding Teachers’ Knowledge Through Indigenous Professional Development and In-Service Training

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) explores Megwe\u27g School Board\u27s (MSB, pseudonym) ongoing challenge to integrate Indigenous education into classrooms. The underlying cause is the need for Indigenous professional development and in-service learning opportunities for teachers to teach Indigenous education. Indigenous cultural teachings are embedded within the province\u27s curriculum but are seldom taught as directed by the provincial curriculum guide. Three proposed solutions to the Problem of Practice will be examined. The Appreciative Inquiry change model was utilized as the framework for leading change for the selected proposed solution. Critical Indigenous Theory (CIT) was chosen for the Organizational Improvement Plan. CIT prioritizes the voices and lived experiences of Indigenous Peoples and places particular emphasis on their worldviews. The frameworks that align with CIT are Indigenous and authentic leadership methods. These leadership approaches will guide the proposed change plan in an Indigenous perspective. The Ontario Centre of Excellence’s Knowledge Mobilization Plan framework was implemented to communicate the need for change within the organization. The monitoring and evaluation tool used to measure, track and evaluate proposed change is the Plan-Do-Study-Act- model

ē kakwē nēhiyaw pimātisiyān ōta nīkihk: THE LIFELONG JOURNEY HOME

nēhiyaw ōma niya, nēhiyawak ōma kiyānaw, pakitwāhkan sāhkihikan ohci niya, māka mīna kihci tipahamātowin nikotwāsihk askiy. niya ohkomimāw, niya okāwīmāw, niya okāwīsimāw, ēkwa niya omīsimāw māka mīna onīkānēw wīci atoskēwin ta pimācihtāhk nēhiyawēwin pēkiskwēwin. In this manuscript-style dissertation, I explore my lifelong journey of language reclamation in a de-colonial approach. In nine papers I share my narrative beginnings, research, and renderings and delve into nēhiyaw epistemology, the main source of ancestral knowledge continuity in nēhiyaw people. I explore the value of dreams, visions, and intuition and how I use them to inform my teaching practice. I also inquire into experiences of ethical space and explore its potential for the field of language revitalization. In gathering, collecting, and interpreting my stories and the stories of others through the medium of talking circles, I rekindle my relationship with the nēhiyaw spirit. My inquiry into my lifelong journey as a practitioner grounded in nēhiyaw intelligence has emerged from these papers. In examining my experiences as a helper, a conduit, and, most important, a language sharer, I attend to the questions, What are the learning processes for new adult speakers of Cree that lead to a reclamation of both language and inherent identity? What is the role of land as curriculum with regard to enhancing Cree identity? What are the conceptual and Indigenous language pedagogical ways that lead learners inward to gain knowledge, and how do they differ from mainstream educational practices? Many Indigenous Peoples are affected by long-term Canadian policies such as the Gradual Civilization Act, Indian Act 1876, residential schools, and forced assimilation and relocation (Johnson, 1998; McCarty, 2003; McIvor, 2012; Simpson, 2017; Sioui, 1992). As a result of the enactment of such policies, many Cree people lack continuity and opportunity in relation to access to land, ancestral knowledge funds, and language transmission or transfer. This lack of continuity and opportunity is a problem because it disconnects Cree people from the critical things we need in terms of our cultural continuity, which is key to our health and wellness. Using narrative inquiry with a blending of Indigenous methodology, I investigate how, through language reclamation, it is possible to find “home.

Indigenous Language Revitalization in British Columbia: Yuneŝit’in strategies for Nenqayni ch’ih or the Tŝilhqot’in language

530 p.Nenqayni ch'ih edo Tîlhqot'in hizkuntza Dene (Atabaskera) familiako mintzaira bat da eta Kanadako Columbia Britaniarreko barnealdean hitz egiten da. Probintziako hizkuntza indigenen artean bizitasun mailarik handiena du, hiztun kopuru handia ez ezik (4.352 Tîlhqot'in-en %19,9; 864 pertsona inguru), hiztun gazteak ere badituelako. Hala ere, Tîlhqot'in-a desagertzeko arriskuan dago; izan ere, belaunaldiz belaunaldiko transmisioa eten egin da, eta, gaur egun, ez da jada umeen ama-hizkuntza. Sei Tîlhqot'in komunitate daude, eta ikerketa hau horietako batean oinarrituta dago: Yune'it'in-en (Gex nats¿enaghilht¿i jatorriz). Ikerketak Tîlhqot'in ikasteko eta hizkuntza komunitatean biziberritzeko estrategiak eta baliabideak identifikatzea dauka helburu nagusitzat. Bigarren mailako beste helburuak ondorengo hauek dira: Yune'it'in komunitateko kideen hizkuntza jakite-maila eta erabilera deskribatzea, komunitateko hizkuntza-galeraren arrazoiak ezagutzea, eta hizkuntza biziberritzearen garrantzia azaltzea. Lan honek metodologia indigena delakoari eta elkarlana, parte-hartzea eta komunitatearen jakintza oinarri dituen ikerketa-ereduari jarraitzen die. Komunitatearen iritziak biltzeko metodoak hauek izan dira: behaketa parte-hartzailea, erdi-bideratutako solasaldia, sharing circle (partekatutako zirkulua), eta dokumentu-azterketa (batzar-agiriak, hizkuntza-materialak, eta horiekin lotutako bestelako baliabideak)

Writing to perform the region: making ‘somewhereness’ visible in post-colonisation Australia

The regions that colonisers know are not generally those of most importance to First Nations people, although the territorial divisions of government administration have had a huge impact on First Nations people in terms of the kinds of policies directed at them and the implementation of those policies. In this paper, I look first at the ways in which Aboriginal experience in Australia has been written out of the landscape, then at some non-territorial ways of looking at such landscapes. I then discuss how a non-Indigenous writer, in working with First Nations people, might help to make visible a different kind of ‘region’