Engaging Indigenous Youth to Revitalize Cree Culture through Participatory Education

Abstract

A mural painted inside the mall at Norway House Cree Nation which says: "Treat the Earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children"

Amplifying Indigenous community participation in place-based research through boundary work

“…Geographers, mindful of these histories and cognizant of the disempowering and marginalizing effects of ‘researcher-researched’ dichotomies, are seeking to engage with local and Indigenous communities in joint enquiry through participatory and community-based research methodologies that create ‘new spaces for engagement beyond the academy’ (e.g. Pain, 2004; Pain and Kindon, 2007; Marika et al, 2009; Castleden et al, 2012; Maclean and Woodward, 2013; Suchet-Pearson et al, 2013; Coombes et al, 2014; Zurba and Berkes, 2014; Islam et al, 2017; Woodward and McTaggart, 2016). Such approaches aim to unsettle practices which historically excluded local and Indigenous communities and their knowledge in research (attending to the colonial legacy of the discipline) (e.g.…”

“…Furthermore, boundary work has been found to be important for transcending disciplinary fields (Trompette and Vinck, 2009), and creating the ability to either establish or destabilize concepts and practices within (R)CoPs (Lee, 2007). Boundary work can also connect disparate communities (Pawlowski, Robey and Raven, 2000), including multidisciplinary research teams engaging Indigenous people, and can become the catalyst for meaningful connections within and between communities (Lee, 2007; Zurba and Berkes; Zurba and Friesen, 2014; Islam et al, 2017; Rathwell and Armitage, 2016), including policy-makers (Guston, 2001; Berg, 2002; Zurba and Berkes, 2014). Connecting to this, Clark et al (2010) state that ‘improving the ability of research programs to produce useful knowledge for sustainable development will require both greater and differentiated support for multiple forms of boundary work’.…”

“…Participatory visual methods are image-based, participant-centred techniques that ‘facilitate participants in finding their own language to articulate what they know and help them put words to their ideas and share understandings of their worlds, thereby giving participants more control over the research process’ (Enright, 2013). Methods that incorporate art and art-making can simultaneously nurture Indigenous knowledge, bridge knowledge across generations and cultures, and be the site of knowledge co-production (Rathwell and Armitage, 2016; Zurba and Berkes, 2014; Islam et al, 2017). Affirmed by Christie (1992: 17), research steeped in the Western scientific tradition is in great need of structural readjustments that create the potential for diversified knowledge and power sharing:When we remember that every scientific statement carries with it a field of privilege and power for those who prosecute it, and at the same time renders all other possibilities absent, we perceive a need of great urgency to reshape the knowledge making business in Western society so that everybody and everything is given a voice.Examples of visual participatory methodologies resulting in the co-creation of boundary objects include participatory mapping (e.g.…”

“…Chapin et al, 2005; Bryan, 2011; Robinson et al, 2017); Photovoice (e.g. Maclean and Woodward, 2012; Maclean and Bana Yarralji Bubu Inc, 2015; Fantini, 2017); participatory art (Zurba and Berkes, 2014; Zurba and Friesen, 2014; Islam et al, 2017; Rathwell and Armitage, 2016); participatory video and/or film-making (e.g. Kindon, 2003; Parr, 2007; Garrett, 2010; Mistry and Berardi, 2012); and the co-development of art installations (e.g.…”

Long-term and meaningful community leadership and engagement in natural resources and environmental governance through university access programs

“…Communities hold knowledge relating to local environments and have intergenerational (peer-to-peer, elder-to-youth, nature-to-individual) modes for transmitting such knowledge towards long-term planning (Islam, Zurba, Rogalski, & Berkes, 2016). Traditional knowledge (a.k.a., traditional ecological knowledge, local knowledge, Aboriginal traditional knowledge) is an adaptive knowledge system that is passed down through the generations from one knowledge keeper to the next (Armitage et al, 2011;Folke, 2004).…”