[core topic]
This is part of an ongoing series
on strategically inclusive leadership.
Read the introduction here.
Before COVID, I went to MacEwan University on several different occasions to attend seminars and symposia. Outside, they fly the Treaty 6 flag. On the way in, I noted that each entrance has a land acknowledgement posted in both English and Cree, on a formal plaque.
There is a wonderful Indigenous Student Center with several staff, a resident Elder, cultural ceremonies, tutoring and other educational supports. There are introductory Indigenous awareness courses.
Allard Hall, the university's new Arts and Culture Building, has an atrium named after Elder Jerry Woods, who served as an elder for MacEwan and other institutions for many years. A display on the second level of the atrium commemorates him and his legacy at the school. It has a plaque with his picture and a statement in the middle, with a picture on one side and a framed ribbon shirt on the other. MacEwan also commissioned Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch to create a mural for the university.
Today, these kinds of things tend to be fairly common for many post-secondary educational institutions in Canada. Thirty years ago, were educational institutions doing anything of the sort that I shared about MacEwan?
Not in the slightest…
The foundation of education institutions here in Canada, whether at an elementary or high school level or post secondary, is a Western colonial cisgender heterosexual patriarchal one. Did I miss anything in that description? This includes a denial of what happened to indigenous peoples in Indian Residential Schools, and an insistence on conformity to the dominant culture. This education acts as if Indigenous people were from long long ago and ignores their present reality.
We are going to look at some important concepts of indigenization and the academy related to the above example. Then we will see how these concepts could apply in a roughly parallel way to other organizations and businesses. Finally, a few comments on what we as strategically inclusive leaders can - and cannot - readily do about this, as people involved in ERGs or community organizations.
Let's start with the concepts used to discuss the Indigenisation of the academy. Academics have similar sequences: Peter R. Nelson uses Denial > Indigenization > decolonization > resurgence.
Gaudry and Lorenz start after denial with Indigenous inclusion > reconciliation Indigenization > decolonial Indigenization.
Here are two key definitions:
“One is denial. Denial that Indigenous history, Indigenous philosophies, or ways of being can have an impact on policies, practices, programs, pedagogy, and course content. Denial that in any given course there could be an alternative paradigm that contextually shifts meaning, understanding, and relationships. Denial that history influences the present and future as well as a denial of history.” (Elson, 2018)“Indigenous inclusion is a policy that aims to increase the number of Indigenous students, faculty, and staff in the Canadian academy. Consequently, it does so largely by supporting the adaptation of Indigenous people to the current (often alienating) culture of the Canadian academy.” (Gaudry & Lorenz, p 218)
Note: if you want to know a bit more, there are references and links at the end, so you can look up the source articles.
Over the last few years, some educational institutions have started doing what I shared above -- taking measures that have been referred to as Indigenization or Indigenous inclusion.
Here's what this looks like practically:
Universities and colleges are making it easier to Indigenous students to succeed. They are building Indigenous student centers and providing other specific supports. They are also adding Indigenous-friendly wrappings -- they write their own land acknowledgements, hang the treaty flag, and celebrate Indigenous holidays. Note however:
The key thing about Indigenous inclusion is that
the institution is making it easier for Indigenous students
to succeed in the existing colonial institution.
The institution for its part is not going to change.
It is not going to be transformed.
Power is still held in hierarchical colonial ways.
Western ways of knowing are still privileged.
How we might apply what is happening at academic institutions to other contexts:
BDI - before diversity and inclusion (D&I). That's when no one cared about diversity and inclusion, when it was "okay" to be racist, when the old boys club ruled, before diversity and inclusion action plans…. That's how it was for years.
Today, we have "D&I". Essentially, governments and businesses are making it easier for minoritized and racialized employees to succeed in the organization. The Human Resources staff are doing the usual things like employee surveys and updating policies. They provide the opportunity for employees to start ERGs and they might be providing some additional employment counseling related to minoritized employees making their way up to management.
And, of course, they are realizing some of the business benefits of having a diverse workforce that is happy. Ever notice how businesses always focus on business benefits and ROI when they talk about D&I? Now, that makes perfect sense when it comes to corporations because they are owned by shareholders and regardless of what they sell you in their advertising, they only care about profit and dividends. Governments and non-profit organizations - while wanting to be cost-conscious, do have the option of promoting inclusion because it is the right thing to do, but they almost never do. And there's almost always more talk than action.
So to bring the point home -- corporations and governments are not going to change any time soon. Power will still be held in hierarchical colonial ways. Western ways of knowing will continue to be privileged. Racism and discrimination by managers and leaders will still be overlooked. There will be the performance of diversity and inclusion, but no serious traction.
Just like with academic institutions, there's no point in going on to the next levels of decolonization and resurgence, cuz we aren't anywhere close to that.
rob goetze
(see the forthcoming part 2: exploration, for some practical applications of the ideas shared here)
references
Elson, Peter R. (2018). A Journey Toward Decolonization: One Step at a Time. https://thephilanthropist.ca/2018/11/a-journey-toward-decolonization-one-step-at-a-time/
Gaudry, A. and Lorenz, Danielle (2018). Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: navigating the different visions for indigenizing the Canadian Academy. AlterNative, Vol. 14(3) 218–227. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1177180118785382
appendix: additional definitions of Indigenization
Reconciliation indigenization is a vision that locates indigenization on common ground between Indigenous and Canadian ideals, creating a new, broader consensus on debates such as what counts as knowledge, how should Indigenous knowledges and European-derived knowledges be reconciled, and what types of relationships academic institutions should have with Indigenous communities.
Decolonial indigenization envisions the wholesale overhaul of the academy to fundamentally reorient knowledge production based on balancing power relations between Indigenous peoples and Canadians, transforming the academy into something dynamic and new, etc. (Gaudry and Lorenz 2018, pp 218-219)
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