Indigenous Studies

What relationship do modern treaty-making processes, such as that underway in British Columbia in the twenty-first century, have with the histories of treaty-making across the continent? This chapter explores the political context of current treaty making, comparing it to the era of imperialism, and argues that successful modern treaty processes will need to acknowledge the democratic landscape on which they are taking place. The dense interactions and transformations inside and between indigenous and non-indigenous communities in settled colonies, such as those across the Pacific Northwest, require processes that allow for ongoing negotiation rather than “certainty” and “finality.”

"This work focuses on a case study currently being undertaken in an indigenous community in Malaysian Borneo. The community is of the Penan culture; a nomadic culture that live in and from the rainforest. The people in the community descend from the nomadic Penan, but since they have settled, their lives are different. During preliminary explorations (Reitsma et al., 2013), we discovered that there was a tension between the different generations as to the level of connectedness to ‘Penan identity’. The elders are very proud of the traditional Penan identity, the youngsters are not very interested in this part of the culture since the rainforest, and the life that is connected to that, has never been of the same importance in their lives. Interestingly, the elders see technology as a means to interest the youngsters of the community to learn more about the traditional culture. It was decided through interactions between the community and the designer, that technological designs would be created through which the contemporary Penan identity would be explored. The outcome of these explorations would then be exhibited at an indigenous peoples’ research event, to introduce the contemporary perspective to Penan identity to the surrounding cultures. This event was chosen, since part of the reason why the youngsters seem to disconnect from their cultural background, is that the Penan culture has a negative image among the other cultures. Introducing an exhibition to those other cultures is seen by the community as a positive way to draw attention to the Penan culture.

We introduce this case study as an example of practice-based research to explore the cultural context by making things together with the cultural group aiming to explore. We see our work as valuable inspiration for other projects involving explorations on the cultural context of cultural groups because in such projects there is a chance that designer and the community do not speak the same language and thus introducing a need for reliance on other ways of exploration, such as the ones we propose. By making things together, space for reflection is created, that might be difficult to create with reflections focussing solely on spoken accounts. Working with the community, rather than on a community reflects the humble understanding that outsiders (the designer) are not necessarily experts on the culture and that input from the community gives a richer representation of the cultural context. Even though, this project focussed on creating an exhibition for an indigenous people’s research event, we see the potential of applying similar processes to projects aiming to curate cultural contexts for venues such as museums.  "

For generations, mainstream designed learning systems and literacy programs have been failing Aboriginal peoples. In 2009, an innovative holistic model was developed and implemented to address the complex issues and barriers facing on reserve and urban Aboriginal adult literacy learners.  The model includes three streams of learning 1) Community/Employment Connections; 2) Education/Literacy Development and 3) Self/Cultural Connections. The concepts "communities of attachment", "respectful enculturation" and "resiliency" link literacy, individual, family, and community within contemporary cultural contexts. The Good Minds model has been delivered in urban and on reserve environments six (6) times to over 70 learners since 2009 in 2 week to 6 week module segments. 

""Recent debates in Australia, largely led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island academics over the last five or so years, have focussed on the need for non-Indigenous educators to understand how their practices not only demonstrate lack of understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing but even deny their presence. This debate has serious implications for the non-Indigenous remote educator who wishes to support remote students to achieve ‘success’ through their education. The debates on the one hand advocate the decolonising of knowledge, pedagogy and research methods in order to promote more just or equal approaches to research and education, whilst other voices continue to advocate the pursuit of mainstream dominant Western ‘outcomes’ as the preferred goal for Indigenous students across Australia. This dilemma frames the context for this study.
The Remote Education Systems Project, in the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, seeks to explore these and other questions as part of the broader research agenda being undertaken. This project is particularly focussed on large scale questions such as, ‘What is a remote education for and what would ‘success’ look like in the remote education context?’ We are approaching these research questions from community standpoints and perspectives as a critical starting point for these types of debates and discussions. In doing so, our findings indicate that remote Aboriginal community members have a strong sense of western education and its power to equip young people with critical skills, knowledge and understandings for the future, but also retain a strong sense of their ‘own’ knowledge, skills and understanding’. This presents a complex challenge for educators who are new to this knowledge interface.
Here, we offer the concept of “Red Dirt Thinking’ as a new way to position ourselves and engage in situated dialogue about what remote schooling might be if it took into account power issues around Indigenous knowledges in the current policy context.
This paper questions whether remote communities, schools and systems have, in fact, taken account of the knowledge/power debates that have taken place at an academic level and considers how remote education might consider the implications of stepping outside the ‘Western-Indigenous binary’. It seeks to propose new paradigms that non-Indigenous educators may need to engage in order to de-limit the repositioning of power-laden knowledge and pedagogies offered in remote classrooms.
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His Excellency Evo Morales Ayma, the President of Plurinational State of Bolivia and their UNESCO delegation in Paris, asked me - in aftermath of UNFCCC's Conference of Parties 15 (COP 15) in Copenhagen that had failed to pursue the route of the Kyoto Protocol (COP 3) and the Bali Road Map (COP 13) - to present an update to Cambio Climático y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra (CMPCC), at Cochabamba-Tiquipaya with the geophysical annotations for the First Nations of Americas the United Nations General Assembly Motion 101292 on rapid polar responses (rapid destabilisation of the marine and terrestrial ice cover) that will result from any sustained climatic warming in the Arctic regions.

This essay explores questions of cross-cultural aesthetic appreciation when galleries display indigenous artefacts or artists appropriate religious symbols. In such cases, the work is not necessarily treated with disrespect, and yet can deeply concern or distress to people in the cultures that produce the representation. I suggest that what underlies this response is a different understanding of the metaphysics of art, and the relationship between the symbol and what it represents. Rather than being a 'mere' symbol and conventional sign, such symbols are thought of as participating in what they represent, and the work as externalising spiritual reality. From the perspective of this metaphysical framework, how we 'should' respond to these religious objects is with recognition of the nature of that reality, and that response should express our relationship to that reality, or the order of the world. Finally I argue that such a belief is recognisable to people who do not accept that the symbols have this metaphysical structure, a,s even in contemporary Western societies, people will treat with respect images of that which they hold dear.