Celia Haig-Brown

Transforming First Nations research with respect and power

Respect and power, two notions that emerged out of discussions on which this article is based, proved informative in seeking transformation of conventional educational research within a Native‐American (First Nations) context. In a directed reading course in critical ethnography, the authors, a First Nations graduate student and a professor of European origins, struggled to develop and articulate approaches which allow for full participation of study participants in the research process. The article serves as a model of written research that strives to transcend power differences. It acknowledges the possibility that researchers and the cultures in which they study may be transformed through the conduct of research. Traditional stories, journals, and “class” transcripts form the basis for a serious look at this process of working across difference in a continuing search for equity and justice.

Returning the Dues: Community and the Personal in a University-School Partnership.

This study uses interviews to explore students’ perspectives of a university path program, one initiative of a university-school partnership. Responses show that the abstraction of the program lives in concrete and personal dimensions for students as they move from high school to university in the same neighborhood. Advanced placement work at the university and the secondment of faculty from the school board blur distinctions between school and university. Most striking is the students’ desire to contribute to the community that has supported them and is most closely associated with their families, the school, and the university that lies, at least geographically, within community bounds.

Decolonizing Diaspora: Whose Traditional Land Are We On?

As a way to consider the possibility of decolonizing discourses of diaspora, the central question posed in this paper asks not only where do people of the diaspora come from. In North America, nations have been superimposed on Indigenous lands and peoples through colonization and domination. Taking this relation seriously in the context of discourses of race, Indigeneity and diaspora within university classrooms interrupts business as usual and promises a richer analysis of one particular similiarity amongst diasporic, as well as settler, groups in North America with possible implications beyond this context. In short, the author asks each reader to respond to the question, “Whose traditional land are you on?” as a step in the long process of decolonizing our countries and our lives. While part of the focus for this paper is on theorizing diaspora, there are obvious implications for all people living in a colonized country. Drawing primarily on three pedagogical strategies and events arising from them, the author takes up some of the possibilities for theory-building that they suggest. Reflections on courses taught, student feedback and texts from Toni Morrison’s to James Clifford’s “Indigenous Articulations” ground the discussion.