20 March 2025 | 13:30 - 14:30 (MST)
Open Session - ON-SITE ONLY
Room: UMC Fourth Floor - 417
Organisers: Kelli Park (University of Southern Maine, USA)
Event Description:
Transformation in this time of complex change demands that we look critically at the ways in which we are in relationship with each other and with our natural surroundings in order to shape a collaborative vision for the future. The question, then, becomes a matter of developing a framework for this vision to ensure that it is grounded in reality with integrative, interdisciplinary approaches that center Indigenous voices in holistic development. It is in the spirit of grassroots social movements taking shape in Indigenous communities that we move forward with this inquiry to develop a framework for integrative educational programming that weaves together many different experiences, areas of content, and opportunities to create a more complete whole that facilitates leadership learning (Komives et al., 2011).
Our focus here will be on indigenizing and decolonizing educational programming with cross-cultural partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, which has been inspired by He Awa Whiria, a Māori approach that translates to “braided river” (Martel et al., 2021). This framework brings together these two paradigms as equals while combining the strengths of two distinct worldviews into a “workable whole” (Martel et al., 2021). This approach weaves together these knowledge streams and systems to reach a shared understanding in the space where they come together (Science Learning Lab, 2022). It is through this lens that we will begin to look critically at the roles of Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators as we collaboratively develop a framework for the path ahead.
We will dig more deeply into this idea of critical ally-building, which leads to community-building and the development of respectful, reciprocal relationships (Marcom & Freeman, 2018). Critical allies refer to non-Indigenous listeners, participants, activists, supporters and advocates of Indigenous rights who see themselves as working with Indigenous peoples as allies and learners, as well as teachers, rather than spokespeople for Indigenous people and rights (McGloin, 2015). This notion of critical alliance requires continual scrutiny and should denote an active role where activism takes the form of a genuine alliance alongside recognition of white privilege and the ongoing effects of colonial power relations (McGloin, 2015).
Our goal here is to encourage an open platform for community discussion based on participants’ diverse lived experiences in order to begin to shape a framework for ally-building going forward. We hope to ground our work in the interconnectedness that exists between humans and living and non-living entities that is essential to Indigenous worldviews and paradigms, the origins of which can be traced back to Indigenous creation stories linking people through genealogy to the land, the stars, and the universe (Tuhiwai Smith, 2022).