Conference Program

Day 1

November 18, 2022

Time/Location			Event
8:00 am Parker Atrium	Registration: Parker Atrium • Art Market: 9 am - 5 pm
9:00 am ISLC Round Room, P-107	Opening Song: Paskwa Lightning; Welcome: Elder Shirley Williams; Opening, Maamwizing: Dr. Susan Manitowabi; Opening Remarks: Dominic Beaudry AVPIP; Anishinaabemowin-Teg: Elizabeth Osawamick
9:30 am - 10:30 am ISLC Round Room, P-107	Keynote: Dr. Celeste Pedri-Spade, Dress to Redress: Recentring Anishinabe Story and Land through Fashion
10:30 am - 10:45 am ISLC Hallway	Break
10:45 am - 11:15 am	Block 1
Governors' Lounge, 11th floor Parker Building	Rebecca Beaulne-Stuebing and Sheri Osden-Nault Growing through Asemaa: Michif & Wiisaakode Relations, Anishinaabe Akiing (30 min)
Wiigwam	Alicia Williamson, Julia Pegahmagabow, and Elizabeth Carlson-Manathara Research-in-Reverse: An Indigenous Community-led Initiative of the Maamwizing Indigenous Research Institute (30 min)
ISLC Round Room, P-107	Riley Agowissa, Amikohns Petahtegoose, Keeshig Spade, Kiniw Spade, and Wakinyan Spade Youth Panel: Land and Language, Baby!
11:30 am - 12:00 pm	Block 2
Governors' Lounge, 11th floor Parker Building	Eugenia Eshkawkogan, Alicia Williamson Stories from the Bush (30 min)
Senate Chambers, 11th floor Parker Building	Michelle Kennedy and Julia Pegahmagabow Dish with One Spoon: Fostering Relations Through the Revitalization of Minoomin as a Haudenosaunee Woman living in Anishinawbek Territory (30 min)
ISLC Round Room, P-107	Melissa Robinson Reclamation of Land, Strengthening Youth's Spirits (30 min)
12:00 pm - 1:15 pm ISLC Round Room, P-107	Lunch
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm ISLC Round Room, P-107	Elders Panel in Anishinaabemowin: Elders Shirley Williams, Martina Ozawamick and Leland Bell
2:45 pm - 3:45 pm	Block 3
Wiigwam	Annaleigh Males & Tara Dantouze Aki - Occupation & Ongoing Use (60 min)
Governors' Lounge, 11th floor Parker Building	Jacintha Manitowabi, Yvette Manitowabi, Sandra Peltier, Maureen Peltier, Dr. Shelley Stagg Peterson, and Dr. Jeffrey Wood Anishinaabe Niin (60 min)
Senate Chambers, 11th floor Parker Building	Melanie Smits, Erin Davis, Symbia Barnaby Resistance, Resilience, and Connection to Land, Language, and Culture through Digital Story Telling (60 min)
4:00 pm ISLC Round Room, P-107	Keynote: Dr. Deborah McGregor, Planetary Wellbeing and Reconciliation with the Earth
5:30 pm ISLC Round Room, P-107	Closing: Song: Paskwa Lightning; Prayer: Shirley Williams

 

Day 2

Saturday, November 19, 2022

Time/Location			Event
8:00 am Parker Atrium	Registration: Parker Atrium • Art Market: 9 am - 5 pm
9:00 am ISLC Round Room, P-107	Opening Song: Paskwa Lightning; Prayer: Shirley Williams Keynote: Dr. Noelani Arista, I ka wā ma mua, ka wā ma hope: Repatriating the Past to Envision the Future
10:15 am - 11:15 am	Block 4
Senate Chambers, 11th floor Parker Building	Ophelia O'Donnell Indigenous Women’s Experiences Accessing Healthcare: An Indigenous Methodological Approach (20 min)
C-204, 2nd floor Classroom Building	Sheri Cecchetto Beadwork as Resurgence (60 min)
Wiigwam	Nicole Macdonald Ribbon Skirts Tie us to the Land and Language (60 min)
11:30 am - 12:15 pm	Block 5
C-114, 1st floor Classroom Building	Nicole Wemigwans Binoojihns and the Land (45 min)
C-112, 1st floor Classroom Building	Beverly Naokwegijig and Nicole Van Stone Osawamick G'Tigaaning Immersion Language Ranch (45 min)
C-204, 2nd floor Classroom Building	Jason Nakogee Reclaiming the Language (30min)
12:30 pm - 1:45 pm ISLC Round Room, P-107	Lunch Keynote: Joseph Pitawanakwat, Awaadiziwin (knowledge) & Bimaadiziwin (life)
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm	Block 6
Governors’ Lounge, 11th floor Parker Building	Dr. Laura Hall Welcome to the Horror Show: Storytelling, Monstrosity, and Resisting Settler Colonialism (1hr) Break 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
C-114, 1st floor Classroom Building	Dominic Beaudry Anishinaabemowin: Successes of building language and culture (1 hr) Break 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
ISLC Round Room, P-107	Dr. Liz Carlson & Dr. Gladys Rowe Stories of Decolonization: (De)Colonial Relations Film Screening and Filmmaker Conversation
3:45 pm - 4:30 pm	Block 7
C-114, 1st floor Classroom Building	Rob Spade Workshop: Making Dentalium Earrings (45 min) ***Must pre-register for this workshop on Eventbrite ***
C-112, 1st floor Classroom Building	Isak Vaillancourt Collective Resistance: Exploring Indigenous and Black injustices and solidarity efforts on Turtle Island (45 min)
Virtual Presentation C-204, 2nd floor Classroom Building	Dr. Deondre Smiles & Marissa Weaselboy Innate Indigenous Geographies: Language and Sense of Place (45 min)
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm ISLC Round Room, P-107	Conference Summary: Michelle Kennedy Closing Song: Paskwa Lightning; Prayer: Shirley Williams
6:30 pm - 12 am	Round Dance in Atikameksheng Anishnawbek Travelling song to end

Block 1 - Friday 10:45 am - 11:15 am

Growing through Asemaa: Michif & Wiisaakode Relations, Anishinaabe Akiing

Rebecca Beaulne-Stuebing and Sheri Osden-Nault

Governors’ Lounge

This proposed session will welcome participants to engage in a hands-on seed processing activity, and a critical discussion on restoring balance in responsibilities and relationships on Anishinaabe lands. We will invite session participants to work with us to harvest and bundle small Asemaa seeds from their pods, for participants to take home with them, and to contribute to gift-bundles that will be sent to Two-Spirit youth as part of the Gifts for Two-Spirit Youth project in February 2023; and also distributed to Indigenous community members through the Asemaa Circles project. In a kitchen-table style discussion, the facilitators will talk about our relationships and responsibilities as Métis individuals to the Anishinaabe lands we live and work upon. We will share how each of us strives to engage with community responsibilities through land-based projects and learning; that is, we are committed to restoring good relationships with lands, waters, and all relatives in all that we are doing. The relationships which become possible through engaging land responsibilities and relationships provide pathways to restoring balance, which is often in contrast to the actions and decisions of political leadership in this time. We will offer this session as a way of extending what we have been learning through Asemaa directly, what growing and working with this medicine has been teaching us. We will activate our responsibilities in these relationships by sharing seeds, seed knowledges, and a little bit of what we have learned through our working with Asemaa.

 

Research-in-Reverse: An Indigenous Community-led Initiative of the Maamwizing Indigenous Research Institute

Julia Pegahmagabow, Alicia Williamson, and Elizabeth Carlson-Manathara

Wiigwam

Research in reverse starts with, and is led by community. This session describes a researchin-reverse partnership between Akinimooshin, Inc., White Buffalo Road Healing Lodge, and members of Maamwizing Indigenous Research Institute. Akinimooshin is a non-profit learning lodge offering education centred in Anishinaabemowin and Anishinaabe kendaasowin (Anishinaabe language and land-based learning), which is directed by Julia Pegahmagabow. White Buffalo Road Healing Lodge is a non-profit organization that provides Indigenous spiritual health and mental health teachings and programs to Indigenous youth at risk, and it is directed by Vince Pawis, Sr. Recently, members of the Maamwizing Indigenous Research Institute and leaders of these two Indigenous partner organizations received an RGDI (Race, Gender, and Diversity Initiative) research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (SSHRC). This research incorporates ceremony and arts-based methods, and is being designed based on the needs and visions of the partner organizations, with a focus on how land, language, and culture impact the people they serve. In this session, we describe the past, present, and future of this research collaboration, emphasizing the use of its guiding 7 Pointed Star Model and the embodiment of its research-in-reverse process.

 

Youth Panel: Land and Language, Baby!

Riley Agowissa, Amikohns Petahtegoose, Keeshig Spade, Kiniw Spade, and Wakinyan Spade

ISLC Round Room, P-107

These five Anisinaabe youth will answer questions relating to land, language, and culture and provide us with direction in our work by sharing their hopes and dreams for a better future. These youth were selected based on their strengths, accomplishments, spirit, and participation within their communities.

Block 2 - Friday 11:30 am - 12:00 pm

Stories from the Bush

Eugenia Eshkawkogan and Alicia Williamson

Governors’ Lounge

As Anishinaabek youth, learning about our culture, language and the land is significantly important for our wellbeing and developing a strong sense of identity/being and belonging. Learning is an important avenue for building relationships across communities, with other youth, with Elders, with the land and with ourselves/spirits. For Youth Voices, this is an important project to connect youth across Ontario to learn and build relationships. It is a continuation of a vision of reclamation for youth, a reclamation of culture, language and land to strengthen their identity as Indigenous youth. We live in a time where we are standing up and taking on leadership roles in what Pursuing Indigenous Research in a Good Way • Ni-aabji-ndikendimong Anishinaabe Ndikenjigewin Ezhi-mino-nishing we view as important for our own futures. We have voices that should be heard not only for the mainstream public, but we must also turn to one another and continue working together. We hope to honour the stories shared from each community, and place them in a book of stories with the original storytellers listed as authors. This can help with ensuring stories are kept safe, and used with care for generations to come. As youth, we also feel strongly about the special relationships we hold with Elders and Knowledge Keepers. It is important that we honour and nurture these relationships as they are an important avenue for the transfer of knowledges over generations. We hope to continue to visit, share and learn with each other. We hope to continue to lift up our communities. We hope to highlight the strengths and gifts of our communities and to honour the work they are doing. We also hope to provide the opportunity and share with other communities all around Ontario.

 

Dish with One Spoon: Fostering Relations Through the Revitalization of Minoomin as a Haudenosaunee Woman living in Anishinawbek Territory

Michelle Kennedy and Julia Pegahmagabow

Senate Chambers

Since moving to the Robinson Treaty Territory in 2011, I have been critical of how I can contribute to the Anishnawbek Nations as a Haudenosaunee woman. In the earlier years of my occupation as an uninvited guest, I focused my energy on my studies, learning from Elders and traditional knowledge holders, understanding Anishinaabe resistance to settler colonialism within the area, and beginning relationships with First Nations peoples. One way to be reciprocal to Anishnawbek and the land is to remember the teachings and agreement of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum. The Dish with One Spoon Wampum is between the Anishinaabe Three Fires Confederacy (Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Nations) and Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora) is the most well-known inter-nation ‘one-dish alliances’ (Maracle, Hill, and Decaire, n.d.). While the territory that the wampum was intended for is in southern Ontario, I apply the main theme of taking care of the land as a means to reciprocate thankfulness as an uninvited guest in Anishinaabe territory. In this presentation, I will share how I work towards inter-nation relations through learning about the revitalization of manoomin, gathering funds to support manoomin ceremonies and processes, and spending time on the land to care for and learn from Anishinaabe-kwe and traditional knowledge holders. I will share why and how my efforts in supporting the Anishnawbek community should be standard protocol in honouring living wampum agreements.

 

Reclamation of Land, Strengthening Youth’s Spirits

Melissa Robinson

ISLC Round Room

Wolf Lake First Nation has been dedicating the last year or so to reclaiming our identity as Anishinaabe people, and sharing traditional knowledge with our youth. We have done this through land-based activities such as camping, paddling, moose and partridge hunting, harvesting fish, and caring for the Elders by sharing out harvest within our community. Last summer we hosted a camping trip at a small lake on our territory and invited youth to join us overnight. We set up tents and provided an opportunity for youth to learn how to paddle canoes and kayaks and shared stories around the fire. Following the success of this trip we decided to continue on this path, and we hosted a moose and partridge hunting trip with two local Knowledge Keepers who taught the youth how to call and track moose, how to hunt partridge and how to clean them afterwards. The goal of this trip was to harvest a moose to share with Elders in the community, and to teach youth about the importance of reciprocity and caring for one another. In the past our communities always shared the harvest with each other so nothing went to waste, and each family was taken care of- we are trying to bring this back to our community because we believe its important to take care of eachother. The youth in our community were struggling with identity, and understanding who we are as Anishinaabe of Wolf Lake First Nation, so I thought what better way than to bring them to where we are from? To show them where our ancestors lived together, and to connect to the land first hand. This experience lit a fire in each of them to learn more, and do more- they are all proud to call themselves Anishinaabe.

Block 3 - Friday 2:45 pm - 3:45 pm

Aki - Occupation & Ongoing use

Annaleigh Males and Tara Dantouze

Wiigwam

A land based presentation takes participants out on the land to discuss land occupation and ongoing use by Timiskaming First Nation, dynamically demonstrating the importance of diversity within our environments. Discussions will cover four key activities of The Wild Basket - Harvesting: The collection of various mushrooms, berries, and other edible plants–the gathering of Plant medicines, such as cedar to provide to the community. Education: Using our forests as an immersive environment to enrich the learning experience of our youth–space allowing for knowledge transmission and regeneration. Economy: stimulates local job creation with culturally relevant jobs, allowing for the freedom to choose how to interact with the markets and how we want to reconnect with our forests. Stewardship: Exercised over the land to ensure a thriving environment for the next generations of children. This is done with the help of Ni Dakinans Environmental monitors.

 

Anishinaabe Niin

Jacinta Manitowabi, Yvette Manitowabi, Maureen Peltier, Sandra Peltier, Shelley Stagg Peterson, Jeffrey Wood

Governors’ Lounge

Anishinaabek educators like us are reconnecting and becoming more comfortable with who we are in spirit. Our role is to give life back to our language and culture by instilling pride within our children. We plant seeds of pride in who we are through Kinoomagewin (land-based learning) and through teaching Anishnaabemowin to our children. Our children are the center of being proud of who we are: Anishinaabe ndaawmi. The strength comes from being. Being is at the center of the Medicine Wheel. Our role is to help the children stay centered within the Medicine Wheel: to keep the balance within. In this presentation, Anishnaabek educators and researchers from the Northern Oral language and Writing through Play (NOW Play partnership) describe collaborative action research geared toward supporting young Indigenous children’s learning of their language and culture. Kinoomagewin is at the heart of our action research, as we aim to help children find strength within themselves and to be proud of who they are as Anishnaabek. The research started with the Niichii (Friend) Project. Niichii, a rabbit puppet, was given an imaginary identity as an Anishnaabek child whose family was from the Anishnaabek educators’ community but had moved far away. Niichii had been sent to the community so that alongside the kindergarten children, Niichii could learn the language and culture. Following from the Niichii Project, the primary teachers continued to carry out Kinoomaagewin. In our presentation, the primary teachers will talk about the Niichii Project and follow-up teaching experiences. To provide context, the principal will talk about the school board’s vision for Kinoomaagewin and the Anishinaabemowin teacher will describe school board resources and practices for supporting teachers in Kinoomaagewin. University researchers will describe the overall NOW Play partnership. The Seven Grandfather teachings will frame a discussion of implications for teaching practice in Indigenous communities.

 

Resistance, Resilience, and Connection to Land, Language, and Culture through Digital Story Telling

Melanie Smits, Erin Davis, and Symbia Barnaby

Senate Chambers

Digital storytelling (DS) is a powerful and modern form of storytelling. DS as a research method allows participants to fully engage in the data collection process in a way that is personal and meaningful to them. In doing so, participants explore their own personal experiences, dilemmas, challenges, and systemic injustices at a personal and grass roots level. This participatory action research method is being utilized in Indigenous research to help Indigenous participants explore their Indigenous identities, histories, and connection to land, culture and language. It is also a platform for Indigenous resurgence and aid in decolonization. DS can also help create community resistance, resilience, and can be used to engender change within communities. This study brought together nine Indigenous women and allowed them to tell their stories of sexual, reproductive, prenatal, birthing, and perinatal experiences in empathic and empowering ways. Combining personal photos, music, and voice recordings these nine women created short self-produced videos. Through these videos these women were able to share their stories, experiences, and connect to their culture, land, and language.

For some it was a part of a healing journey. For example, one participant presented how she explored her cultural teachings of the land she grew up on and how sharing these teachings with her own daughters helped shape her identity as a mother, and helped her to raise her daughters in the traditional knowledge of Mother Earth. By sharing their stories these women also connected with each other and built relationships with their audiences. Evaluation of this process shows that digital stories are a powerful way for women to advocate for their needs, share their stories and experiences, connect to culture, land, and language, and is a positive way to remind women of their power, identity, and personal experiences; empowering them. This qualitative data demonstrates the need for further studies utilising digital stories to empower women to share their stories and advocate for needs in their communities. In this Digital story by Melanie Smits, entitled Little Medicine Girls, she explores how cultural teachings of the land shaped her identity as a mother and helped her raise her two girls with the traditional knowledge of Mother Earth.

Block 4 - Saturday 10:15 am - 11:15 am

Indigenous Women’s Experiences Accessing Healthcare: An Indigenous Methodological Approach

Ophelia O’Donnell

Senate Chambers

Aanii kina wiya, Our people have valuable research methods embedded with respectful protocols, as we reclaim our land, we must also reclaim our scholarship and research methods. The reclamation of scholarship results in sovereignty of our own narratives, contributing to change for Indigenous people informed by Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous people face major disparities when accessing healthcare, compared to the nonIndigenous population. Recently, Professor Tasha Beeds experienced racism, preventing her from accessing emergency health care (Barrera, 2022). The current research project is focused on giving Indigenous women the opportunity to share their experiences accessing health care. The main research question is do Indigenous women experience racialized health care. Sub-themes include negative or positive experiences at point of care, and feelings after receiving care. Following Indigenous research methods, language, ceremony, and protocols will be incorporated in the research methodology. Interviews will be formatted to fit a traditional storytelling setting, including offering tobacco and smudging before the sharing of experiences. Additionally, participants will be able to decide where they would like to share their story. Traditionally, some may prefer to be in their home, while others may prefer to be by the water. It is important that the women sharing their stories are in a space that is conducive to an environment that is culturally safe and supportive. In this sense, ‘story’ does not mean make-believe, as the name may imply. Instead, storytelling is a rich method of sharing knowledge and experiences, while connecting with community. Participants will be offered an honorarium for their time.

 

Beadwork as Resurgence

Sheri Ceccheto

Classroom Building

This is an interactive lecture/activity on beading and its connection to my identity as an Anishinaabe kwe. I will link the cultural importance of beading and how the resurgence of this spiritual act is tied to community and its collective identity. I will share my experiences of my beading journey within an urban environment and how I was able to connect to other kweok. I was able to begin reclaiming the Anishinaabe language through beading circles and hearing stories in the language. Each bead represents an individual; alone, we are a single bead but together, we learn who we are and where we are from as a collective community. We represent the ancestors that thought about us seven generations ago. We come from the land, often reflected in our beadwork floral designs. Sitting in a circle to learn to bead, we will listen and share stories, laughter, and teachings. Your stories will become a part of your beadwork as you reflect on your designs and pick the colours of your beads. Beadwork is a reflective practice that brings together the mind and the Spirit. Learning how to bead needs to be shared and passed down to Indigenous Peoples so we can continue to revive our language, traditions, and connection to the land. In this session, we will bead together as a collective as you listen to my story of beading and how it has evolved over the years.

 

Ribbon Skirts Tie us to the Land and Language

Nicole Macdonald

Wiigwam

Much thought and effort go into the making of a ribbon skirt since I view it as a direct connection to Mother Earth which provides good energy. Personal interpretation and presentation of flowers and plant appliqués on the skirts are mirrors of the land that surround the maker. The colors and appliqués chosen to adorn them are of special significance to many Anishinabeg. Additionally, the skirts are an integral part of ceremonies which include respected Elders who share their beautiful knowledge in the language we’ve come to know as Anishinaabemowin. Our ancestors and our people have lived on this land for a long time and language is an important component in preserving and retaining our cultural strengths. An expression of our land and language can be seen in ribbon skirts. We understand ribbon skirts are a modern twist on skirts our ancestors wore. It incorporates contemporary ribbons, shiny fabric, and other sewing notions that make each one unique. I will share how I started making ribbon skirts and how it connects me to land, language, and people. In order for me to make a ribbon skirt, I need an idea of the person I am making the skirt for. I envision the skirt and then bring it to life. I also make my learning intentional through Anishinaabemowin words for sewing which I learned in an Maawnjidmi-Getting Together workshop by Crystal Osawamick.

Block 5 - Saturday 11:30 am - 12:15 pm

Binoojihns and the Land

Nicole Wemigwans

Classroom Building

Indigenous pedagogy begins with the land and language and these are taught to us from the time we enter into this physical world. We will explore this understanding through an interactive workshop that focuses on the natural materials that the land provides us through creating tiny moss bags using birch bark, moss, and string. We will discuss the importance of the materials that the land offers and that we can utilize to create our items (ie. tikinagans, sculptures, beads/shells). The group will discuss utilizing the language and will practice words that can be used with our babies and young ones, biinojihn.

 

Osawamick G’Tigaaning Immersion Language Ranch

Beverly Naokwegijig and Nicole Van Stone

Classroom Building

This session involves a presentation and invitation to visit our immersion language ranch. We will share a presentation in English and Anishinaabemowin explaining our programs, past programs and horse therapy Equine Assisted Learning. We also are bringing Ojibwe Spirit Horses to our ranch and hope to have them by the end of October.

 

Reclaiming the Language

Jason Nakogee

Classroom Building

Through the process and harms of colonization, Indigenous languages were extremely impacted. Languages are a way of life and the way to understand our worldviews through the descriptions of the language and the meanings. Language revitalization is critical to the wellness of Indigenous people’s way of life. This session will explore language, the words we can use, and their meanings. Decolonization includes using language and sharing it with our families and is a way to connect and strengthen our communities.

Block 6 - Saturday 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Welcome to the Horror Show: Storytelling, Monstrosity, and Resisting Settler Colonialism

Dr. Laura Hall

Governors Lounge

Settler colonialism is horrifying. The 2019 Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, warming global temperatures, and appropriations of human/ecological rights movements by settler colonial state entities, demand our intersectional and interconnected attentions. Land-based learning as storytelling, in a genre that is so fixated on Indigenous people (see the Indian Burial Ground trope), is the focus of my talk. Horror, like science-fiction, is rooted in colonization, and therefore in land relations and Eurocentric ontologies about the land as inert, as frightening. ‘The Woods are Alive!’ reads a recent Rue Morgue title about the Evil Dead franchise—as though living nature is the real fright. Colonization is horror and so, horror as a genre, must deal somehow with colonization. What then happens, when colonization goes on and on and on, not as a series of awful things in awful places, but as a system or structure of thought? The “logic of elimination” Wolfe (2006) tells us, is a structure of power that “strives for the dissolution of native societies (p.388).” I study horror, as a ‘window’ into understanding the ways that settler society sees land/human relationality (or does not see), how Indigenous Peoples, how civilization/savagery continues to be constructed as a dominant narrative about human existence, and how settler colonialism can be both perpetuated and unsettled by a profoundly unsettled society. At the same time, Indigenous scholars and writers are speaking back to horror. My talk will cover Slash/Back (2022) and Prey (2022) which both feature Indigenous women and girls as Final Survivors.

 

Anishinaabemowin: Successes of Building Language and Culture

Dominic Beaudry

Classroom Building

The presentation will focus on the Anishinaabe historiography as it relates to identity and language over time. The Anishinaabe built massive fish weirs at M’jikaaning, we have celebrated inventors and our modern contributions have been extensive. For students to learn language they require a solid understanding of Anishinaabe people and their role in the modern world.

 

Stories of Decolonization: (De)Colonial Relations Film Screening and Filmmaker Conversation

Dr. Gladys Rowe and Dr. Elizabeth Carlson-Manathara

ISLC Round Room

Stories of Decolonization is a multilingual, multifilm, interview-based documentary project created by a collaborative group of filmmakers with the aim of providing the public with a basic and accessible understanding of colonization and its continued impacts on everyday Canadian experiences. The film project is intended to fuel the motivation of Canadians to work toward decolonization, with an emphasis on the need for settlers (non-Indigenous peoples) to engage with this work. The interviewees are a diverse group (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) of people who have come to understand themselves in relation to colonization and have engaged in decolonization work. This session involves a screening of the recentlyreleased second film of the project which is available with Anishinaabemowin, French, and English subtitles. In this film, personal stories are woven into key insights regarding ongoing processes and structures of colonialism in Canada, and regarding the relationships and social locations carried by diverse peoples living on lands occupied by the Canadian state. Viewers are challenged to abandon the idea that colonialism in Canada is a thing of the past, and to understand their own connections and complicities with an ongoing colonial project. As one theme, the film explores colonial impacts of the severing of Indigenous peoples from their languages. Not only does this film focus on relationships among humans, but it explores both colonizing and decolonial relationships with land. With sensitivity to the intersectional oppressions experienced by diverse groups and the challenges these present, the film illuminates pathways forward toward solidarity, deeper relationality, and decolonization. The Stories of Decolonization film project responds to the TRC Calls to Action #62 and #63 around curriculum about Indigenous peoples, Treaties, Indigenous knowledges, and intercultural empathy and understanding. The session includes a screening of the 59 minute film and a Q & A period with two of the filmmakers.

Block 7 - Saturday 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Workshop: Making Dentalium Earrings

Rob Spade

Classroom Building

***Must pre-register for this workshop on Eventbrite and pay workshop fees***

This interactive workshop with Rob Spade will include conversation and creating. As a couple or as a single participant you will have the opportunity to create a pair of dentalium earrings. Rob will also share his insights on how Indigenous art is knowledge. Rob will also explain how Inidgenous art is an inherently healing process that is deeply connected to the land.

 

Collective Resistance: Exploring Indigenous and Black Injustices and Solidarity Efforts on Turtle Island

Isak Vaillancourt

Classroom Building

This research-creation project examines the commonalities between Black and Indigenous injustices on Turtle Island, specifically within Tkaronto (which means “where there are trees standing in the water”), later known as Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In addition, this analysis embraces the interwoven histories and complexities of Black and Indigenous relationality to determine possible parameters for collaboration and solidarity among both groups. Using semi-structured audio-visual recorded interviews with 2SLGBTQ+ Afro-Indigenous community leaders and activists, this study demonstrates that Black and Indigenous communities continue to experience similar structural and systemic oppression in Canada. Institutional racism, harmful practices of blood-quantum, and internalization of settler-colonial logic as it relates to land, identity, and capitalism, have further weakened Black and Indigenous unity. As such, solidarity efforts must rely on a decolonized, intersectional framework(s), which acknowledges positionality, shared histories, and new imaginations.

 

Innate Indigenous Geographies: Language and Sense of Place

Dr. Deondre Smiles and Marissa Weaselboy

Virtual presentation Classroom Building

Geography has traditionally been understood as being a discipline of maps, and something that tries to quantify and categorize space and place in ways that can be easily understood and easily consumed. Any forms of Indigenous spatial knowledge were relegated to the peripheries of geography, and viewed as lesser than Western/ European spatial knowledge. However, recent scholarship on Indigenous geographies, written by Indigenous peoples, has pointed towards a multitude of ways of understanding space and place, including means that do not map onto traditional, Western cartography (pun intended) (Goeman, 2009 & 2013; Chang, 2016, Lucchesi, 2018; Smith, 2021). Using language as a central framework, we speak on the ways that Indigenous languages can help to create what Soren Larson and Jay T. Johnson (2013) describe a ‘deeper sense of place’, and speak about how this deeper sense of place influences our personal and academic lives.