Indigenous Places and Colonial Spaces

A visionary platform for decolonization: The Red Deal

“…Based on the historical context of colonialism and the involvement of nurses in colonial harms, it becomes clear that colonization is a political structural project built into Canadian institutions. This structure has been architected to profoundly influence the sovereignty and lives of Indigenous Peoples by collapsing their territories, reconfiguring their ways of being and knowing, and changing the terms in which Indigeneity is recognized and represented (Gombay & Palomino‐Schalscha, 2019). As settler colonization is a structure and process that aims to eliminate and reconfigure Indigenous culture and identity (Wolfe, 2006), decolonization and more specifically decolonization of nursing cannot be achieved by changing the language used in established colonial research and school curriculums.…”

“…Decolonization must include critically examining and calling out the nature of past relationships that led to present situation (Donald, 2009) including nursing practices, policies and research. It is a revolutionary project to enable transformation by asking challenging questions and confronting the racist criteria and capitalist power structures that govern the relationships between settlers and Indigenous Peoples (Gombay & Palomino‐Schalscha, 2019). A decolonizing project starts when Indigenous voices are incorporated, and their ontological and epistemological perspectives are acknowledged including the connections between human and nonhuman lives and the ongoing struggle for sovereignty and self‐determination (Barcham, 2022; Bearskin, 2023; The Red Nation, 2021).…”

“…By neglecting the past and denying current racism and oppression, nurses are contributing to colonization. They must therefore recognize that current health inequities are a result of oppressive colonial politics that are still ongoing today and develop a stance to disrupt the harmful assumptions that are disconnected from the past and openly have conversations about contemporary subjugation and marginalization (Gombay & Palomino‐Schalscha, 2019). As nursing plays a pivotal role in addressing Indigenous health inequity, embedding Indigenous history into undergraduate and graduate programs is an appropriate method to transform nursing education, navigate interferences with Indigenous ways of knowing and doing, and advocate for Indigenous health (Bearskin, 2023; Pitama et al, 2018).…”

“…Researchers are accountable to counteract colonization by creating and mobilizing knowledge that reflects caring and relationality transparently and respects multiple values and forms of knowledge (Wilson & Hughes, 2019). Nurses need to refrain from the position of being ‘experts’ and start a ‘cosmopolitan’ approach that fosters listening with a commitment to diversity and contradictions to disrupt binary and universal approaches that supports colonial criteria (Gombay & Palomino‐Schalscha, 2019). Questioning the claimed universality of the Western science paradigm and embracing a ‘multilogical’ approach to knowledge development can challenge the monological Eurocentrism of knowledge production, which is imperative to decolonize nursing research (Chandra, 2010; Kincheloe & Steinberg, 2014).…”

Self-Representation and Decolonial Learning in Library Makerspaces

“…DST focuses on this type of literacy as it centres and values the different ways people can create meaning, whether it is through music choice, visual literacy, or how they vocally perform their story. Henzi (2018) explains that reclaiming Indigenous spaces with new artistic venues and expression "is to give up the belief of powerlessness, to shed the status of the silenced and oppressed, and to learn how to subvert" (p. 72). Stories about Indigenous topics can be told and understood from new, personal-driven perspectives, which can be powerful and inspiring, instead of victimizing or othering.…”