Covid-19 and In(di)genuity: Lessons from Indigenous resilience, adaptation, and innovation in times of crisis

Abstract

In the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic, educators are invited to pause and reconsider the legacies this crisis will leave for future generations. What lessons do we take forward in a post-Covid-19 curriculum? This article contemplates the value of Indigenous resilience, innovation, and adaptation in times of crisis—“In(di)genuity”, if you will—and considers its implications on Indigenous knowledge and the curricular discourse more broadly. Despite encouraging developments in Indigenous education since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a settler historical consciousness continues to pervade the modern discourse of Indigenous education, insofar as Indigenous knowledge is often perceived as outdated, irrelevant, or inferior to Western knowledge systems. This problematic misconception ignores the resilience, innovation, and adaptation that Indigenous peoples have demonstrated in the face of historical crises. This article offers an Indigenous perspective on crisis, grief, and renewal in the context of Covid-19 and advocates for the renewal of the Canadian curricular landscape.

Trauma and survivance: The impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on Indigenous nursing students

“…Responsive innovation, resilience and ingenuity are not new for Indigenous communities and have been essential for survival on Turtle Island (North America). “For generations, Indigenous peoples traveled and resettled across the continent; adopted other nations and their languages, diets, and cultural practices; and pursued new and inventive ways to modernize and adapt while not losing sight of ancestral teachings” (Brant‐Birioukov, 2021 ; p. 250).…”

“…Responsive innovation, resilience and ingenuity are not new for Indigenous communities and have been essential for survival on Turtle Island (North America). "For generations, Indigenous peoples traveled and resettled across the continent; adopted other nations and their languages, diets, and cultural practices; and pursued new and inventive ways to modernize and adapt while not losing sight of ancestral teachings"(Brant-Birioukov, 2021; p. 250).sharing circles were conducted during a faculty strike which created additional academic disruptions for students. While this resulted in increased enrollment in the study, it may have uniquely influenced students' experiences of nursing education and the pandemic.7 | CONCLUSIONThe pandemic created numerous challenges for Indigenous nursing students increasing psychological distress and amplifying losses in learning and cultural safety.…”

Persistence in Indigenous language work during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…For this reason, we understand persistence not as a label but as action toward what Acoma Pueblo writer Simon Ortiz (2011) calls “continuance,” through “our original Indigenous languages, which empower us” (p. 293). Persistence also holds space for grief, as we take time to mourn and to heal during a time of profound loss ( Brant-Birioukov, 2021 ).…”

“…Emergent scholarship addressing the impacts of the pandemic on Indigenous communities and languages affirms McIvor et al.’s (2009) finding that language is a “protective factor,” creating the “conditions to build resilience” and acting to buffer or even prevent certain risk factors (p. 7). Brant-Birioukov (2021) , of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, writes of the pandemic: [O]ur response to past and present-day crises is intertwined with responsibilities to future generations. Living oral histories make pandemics of the past feel not so distant to us in our Covid-19 realities of 2021.…”

“…Many ILR practitioners used social media as a space to connect around shared commitments to language ( Chew, 2021 ; Gallant, 2021 ), as well as video conferencing to facilitate online language learning and teaching ( Chew, 2021 ; Daurio & Turin, 2022 ; Enari, 2021 ; McIvor, Chew, & Stacey, 2020 ; McIvor, Sterzuk, & Cook, 2020 ). Some communities turned to land-based education in the wake of school closures ( Brant-Birioukov, 2021 ). At Kahnawá:ke, for example, Kahtehrón:ni Stacey worked on a family garden as “a space to sustain familial relationships and center language while planting their original seeds passed down for countless generations” ( McIvor, Chew, & Stacey, 2020 , p. 411).…”