Dissertation Project (tentative title):

Reviving kipīkiskwīwinaw: Empowering Communities to Shape Their Education and Prioritize Indigenous Languages

This project is an inquiry into if, how, and in what ways community empowerment and educational self-determination can recenter the ontologies carried within Indigenous languages, confront what is taught within dominant settler canadian education and undo internalized oppression. Across Turtle Island, prior to settler colonialism’s deliberate destruction of Indigenous ways of life, our languages and cultures were passed down naturally to Indigenous children from birth and nurtured throughout their lives. Devastatingly, settler colonialism has and continues to attack Indigenous livelihoods and life-sources. As an extension of the state, the mainstream canadian education system further indoctrinates and entrenches Indigenous oppression through undermining Indigenous sovereignty in its attempt to legitimize settler colonialism (Adams, 1999; Battiste, 2013; Simpson, 2017). I am interested in looking at how Indigenous-led education and Indigenous- and Indigenous community-created curriculum, that is not restricted by settler policies, can shift the foundationally oppressive education system and how it can be implemented as a practice of freedom (Freire, 1991). Furthermore, what might ethical spaces of collaboration look like between non-Indigenous peoples and nīhithawak, within this work? The community-based research project that I am developing is a combination of both a case study and a qualitative design-based research. Heeding Sioux theorist, author and activist Vine Deloria Jr. (1969)’s warning about how, “abstract theories create abstract action“ (p. 86), the second phase will involve enacting the lessons learned from the case study. I will seek to engage, co-produce and weave community knowledge together to create educational tools that will help inform Indigenous language material creation and future Indigenous community-specific language revitalization (ILR) efforts.

^{Adams, H. (1999). A tortured people: The politics of colonization. Theytus Books.}

^{Battiste, Marie (2013). Decolonizing education: Nourishing the learning spirit. Vancouver: UBC Press.}

^{Deloria, V. (1969). Chapter 4: Anthropologists and other friends. In Custer died for your sins; an indian manifesto (pp. 78–100). essay, University of Oklahoma Press.}

^{Simpson, L. (2017). As we have always done Indigenous freedom through radical resistance. University of Minnesota Press.}

^{Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed. [Audiobook]. Tantor Audio.}

Biography

I am an Indigenous (Status First Nations) emerging scholar and artist from Turtle Island (more specifically the settler colonial nation-state that is now known as canada). I am a band member of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band in North-central Saskatchewan on Treaty 6 Territory. I am also proudly and visibly Black and part of the African Diaspora. I hold a B.A. Honours in Indigenous Studies from York University and I am completing my M.Ed. at the University of Saskatchewan.

Fields of interest

● Indigenous Language Revitalization

● Reversing Language Shift

● Settler Colonialism and Decolonial Futurities

● Indigenous Radical Resurgence Theory

● Indigenous Research Methodologies

● Conscientization: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Freire)

● Internalized Oppression