Candace Brunette-Debassige

Researcher | Storyteller | Speaker

Reimagining the four Rs of Indigenous education for literary studies: Learning from and with Indigenous stories in the classroom


Journal article


Candace Brunette-Debassige, Pauline Wakeham
Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL), vol. 32(3-4), 2021, pp. 13-40


Semantic Scholar DOI
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APA   Click to copy
Brunette-Debassige, C., & Wakeham, P. (2021). Reimagining the four Rs of Indigenous education for literary studies: Learning from and with Indigenous stories in the classroom. Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL), 32(3-4), 13–40. https://doi.org/10.1353/ail.2020.0016


Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Brunette-Debassige, Candace, and Pauline Wakeham. “Reimagining the Four Rs of Indigenous Education for Literary Studies: Learning from and with Indigenous Stories in the Classroom.” Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL) 32, no. 3-4 (2021): 13–40.


MLA   Click to copy
Brunette-Debassige, Candace, and Pauline Wakeham. “Reimagining the Four Rs of Indigenous Education for Literary Studies: Learning from and with Indigenous Stories in the Classroom.” Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL), vol. 32, no. 3-4, 2021, pp. 13–40, doi:10.1353/ail.2020.0016.


BibTeX   Click to copy

@article{candace2021a,
  title = {Reimagining the four Rs of Indigenous education for literary studies: Learning from and with Indigenous stories in the classroom},
  year = {2021},
  issue = {3-4},
  journal = {Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL)},
  pages = {13-40},
  volume = {32},
  doi = {10.1353/ail.2020.0016},
  author = {Brunette-Debassige, Candace and Wakeham, Pauline}
}

Abstract

Since the conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015, universities across the country have been grappling with how to respond to its 94 Calls to Action. Given the TRC's focus on the residential school system that, for more than a century, removed Indigenous children from their families and placed them in institutions that attempted to eradicate Indigenous languages, knowledges, and the peoples themselves, many of the Calls to Action target matters of education.1 The response at the post-secondary level has, thus far, been uneven. In some cases, it has involved substantive changes such as implementing Indigenous course requirements and hiring more Indigenous faculty and staff. Unfortunately, the race to "indigenize" campuses has also resulted in "tokenized checklist response[s]" (Pidgeon 78) and the decontextualization and appropriation of Indigenous knowledges under the banner of reconciliation (FitzMaurice 72). Such tokenistic approaches bypass the transformative challenge of both decolonizing Eurocentric institutions—understood as dismantling settler colonial power structures, practices, and ideologies—and Indigenizing these spaces, or supporting the flourishment of Indigenous epistemologies, knowledges, methodologies, and languages. While decolonization and Indigenization may be considered complementary projects that may involve both Indigenous peoples and allies, Indigenization in particular requires Indigenous leadership and Indigenous intellectual sovereignty to prevent further problems of appropriation.2 Together, decolonization and Indigenization can and should be engaged by Canadian universities; ultimately, however, the goals of both projects extend far beyond these sites. As Unangax̂scholar Eve Tuck and allied scholar K. Wayne Yang argue, the ultimate goal of decolonization—and Indigenization, we suggest—is nothing less than "the repatriation of Indigenous land and life" (1). For this reason, while Euro-Canadian universities may be one site for initiating change, they must not be the endpoint.