“University Aunties”: Practices for Indigenous Scholars Navigating Academic Institutions
摘要
In the last decade, calls to decolonize Canadian universities have been at the center of efforts to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action. Studies have shown that decolonization has become a catch-all concept for all things institutions want to fix. However, the lack of engagement within universities to confront their implications in colonial history and ongoing colonialism problematizes such calls. This chapter uses an Indigenous feminist perspective and draws on our experiences as Indigenous scholars with connections to our respective Indigenous communities to explore how initiatives such as decolonization and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion remain embedded in a liberal model of accommodation and social justice that aims at reducing harm within an inherently violent context while reproducing whiteness and white supremacy. We bring forward the complex colonial histories of Indigenous womxn’s experiences in academia to demonstrate not only the gaps and failures of decolonizing universities but also how universities remain extractive. We demonstrate that through market-driven institutions that attempt to decolonize and include Indigenous faculty, some serious faults and tensions are overlooked. All the while simultaneously branding our contributions as their own without confronting the systems at play including our intellectual and emotional labor and our Indigenous knowledge. As Indigenous feminists, we are aware of our positions within these structures. To emerging Indigenous scholars for their research and presence in academe, we offer seven strategies to protect, bring awareness, and, importantly, navigate universities in ways that align with Indigenous ways of being.