INDG 201 Podcast

Janessa Walker reflects on her Indigenous Studies class, highlighting the importance of understanding different perspectives on indigeneity. She discusses the impact of traumatic events on Indigenous communities and the strategic takeover of land by settlers. She emphasizes the ongoing struggles of forgotten Indigenous communities for basic rights. Janessa also explores the difference between Indigenous people and Indigenous peoples, emphasizing the importance of respect and reciprocity in relationships and responsibility in personal and professional life. She acknowledges the need for balance and gratitude for the earth. Janessa finds inspiration in the four R's (respect, reciprocity, responsibility, and relationships) and strives to incorporate them into her daily life. She also discusses the complexity of identity around indigeneity and the importance of preserving Indigenous culture. Hello, this is Janessa Walker and this is my podcast and reflection on Indigenous 201, Intro to Indigenous Studies. The most interesting thing I learned in this class is hard to pick as there was a lot of interesting components. I really enjoyed the class discussions and differing views on what indigeneity means to different people. I have never thought about what Indigenous understanding would be from a person who had not grown up or not been educated in Canada their entire lives. I have grown up in Canada my entire life and my entire recent lineage is from a Canadian understanding. I had a basic understanding of what some of the more traumatic events, such as residential schools and the 60s sweep, that the Canadian government and the Church had done to Indigenous communities. I enjoyed seeing how these events resonated with newcomers and international students and how they could correspond them to events in their own communities. I also enjoyed how lesser known issues were highlighted in this class. For example, watching Colonizer Road taught me how strategically the takeover of land by settlers was. I did not know that they purposely found and displaced communities that had the most amount of resources. It makes sense because the government was looking for profit, but hearing the impact in the film really brought light to this issue. I believe the film also showed in a great way how there are still forgotten Indigenous communities that are fighting for basic rights, such as clean water, access to the mainland and the governments of their own communities without interference. It should have been rectified a long, long time ago and it is important that we know that these issues are still a problem. It really shows the contradiction by the Canadian government as they used the land for their own benefit, but ignore the people that call that land home. The government can build their infrastructure, but ignore the human lives that they are directly affecting. I really enjoyed the material we went over in class, but this class also helped to clear up definitions that I had not known before. For example, the difference between Indigenous people and Indigenous peoples. The Indigenous peoples is defined as a unified group, but differs in cultures and governments. It also brings issues to the individual rights versus the collective rights of the Indigenous communities. I think I used these terms interchangeably, so it was great to have a more clear understanding of the proper terminology for me to use in the future. Really looking at the four R's and how they can relate to me academically, personally and professionally is something that I think a lot about. Respect is a core value in which I hold and try to apply to everybody and everything I interact with in my life. I believe respect is a basic right and should not necessarily need to be earned. When I give love and respect freely, it allows us for individuals to open our hearts and be more loving and also allows us to receive more love from others. I work with children, so I have the opportunity to teach them the importance of respect, not only to adults, but to nature, others and most importantly, themselves. Through the Indigenous ways of knowing and being introduction, I drew that all of the worldview and values they hold are held together through acts of respect. Indigenous people, as a group, have not been respected by the dominant population throughout history and the fact that they can still lead with respect is very powerful and shows that the Indigenous knowledge they keep is something that we should all reflect upon. Taking Indigenous Studies classes makes me think about how I am respecting Mother Earth and in turn allows me to reflect on ways to give more respect to this beautiful land. Admiration is not enough. We need to incorporate aspects of adoration into our respect process as well. Academically, I have a lot of respect for the teachings that will make them more fulfilling. By respecting the things that we learn, we will get more out of them. It also means having respect for the professors, the administration, and the teaching assistants and all of the work they put in to give us the best education possible. I believe reciprocity is misunderstood and resulting in it being forgotten by most of society. The dominant culture in Canada does not have customary acts of reciprocity taught to them from birth like Indigenous culture or Asian cultures. It has to be learned, practiced, and actively thought out by most white people. Personally, reciprocity is something I continue to work on by giving verbal thanks, replenishing what I can to make up for my consumption from what we take from the earth, and supplying others with the most amount of love and happiness I can. The aspects of attitude and respect you can give freely in others as thanks for contributing to your happiness is underrated and can be so easily given when we get caught up in the lives of our own and forget to thank those around us for making our life fulfilling. A continuation of respect and reciprocity is responsibility, and responsibility has many forms in my life, and the easiest to think of are superficial responsibilities like my schooling, my job, and paying bills. Although all of these responsibilities are there to maintain my active role in society, I think that the more emotional responsibilities are the ones we take for granted. I am responsible for being a kind human, a loving daughter, sister, and friend, and for leaving a positive impact on this earth when I leave it. The underlying responsibilities may seem to be automatic or given, but by working at them daily, I can use all of the important values the Four R's teaches us in order to become a better human being. As a settler, I have the responsibility to my Indigenous brothers and sisters to fight against the injustice they have and continue to endure from colonial setups. This can be done by participating in reconciliation acts, by attending ceremonies, and allowing space to listen. Personally, I may not have a big federal impact, but I have the responsibility to take Indigenous classes, educate myself on issues, and give them the space to speak their truths, not overshadowing what I believe and allowing them to teach. In my career, I have the responsibility to be a strong advocate for my clients. This may be fighting for funding or a diagnosis, but in an Indigenous context, it may be allowing them to use Indigenous knowledge systems in order to provide a most effective treatment plan that suits their needs, beliefs, and worldview. Relationships are quiet connections, but are always there no matter if they are acknowledged or not. In many cultures, there are always references to balance and the relationship to nature. Good vs. evil, light vs. dark, human vs. spirit. We can't have one without the other. Indigenous knowledge has had a strong relationship to the earth, and the earth is a core influence to everything we do. From the land we live on, the weather we face, the food we eat, this relationship is present in every single second of our lives. A lot of people take this relationship for granted and forget to be thankful to what earth provides for us and for the gifts that we receive daily. We need balance in nature and balance in all we do in our lives in order to continue to be a sustainable race. Through Indigenous teachings, I can see that the balance in the medicine wheel and how all four aspects need to be in balance. If you are off in one area, you will be off and not living to your fullest potential. I think that working for this relationship and this balance is a lifelong process and requires work. I use meditation to build my relationship with my inner self, but others may use religion or exercise. A way we can learn about ourselves and our interactions with others is built through the relationship with spirits, land, and our inner being. I build strong relationships with my kids I work with in order to earn their trust, and this trust allows me to connect with them in the most effective way. Without this connection, nothing would be built, and so the relationships we build with others, although they may seem unimportant, are very, very, very important. Some of the issues or concepts that resonated with me through this course came from the previous Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being course I took last fall. The aspects that have and still resonate with me are the four R's. I was very motivated by this mindset and have been trying to implement the values into my everyday life. When we talk more about the four R's in this course and re-reading Leroy Little Bear's work, I got to dig deeper into how I can incorporate these values. Reciprocity for the land really hit me hard when I looked back at how greedy I have been, as well as the dominant society as a whole. Personal changes must be the starting point for all people to enact real change. For example, I have started planting a garden, buying local, and supporting businesses that are sustainable and effective to the earth. Another issue that resonates with me is the complexity of identity around indigeneity because there are so many social and political barriers. There are many ways in which Indigenous people can identify with their own culture, such as traditional language, the connection to the land, ancestral influence, and traditional ceremonies. These identifiers need to be taught, and if they are not elders or knowledge keepers teaching the youth in Indigenous communities, the culture will continue to be lost. The Indian Act and legal structures set up around the legal identification of who is Indigenous can be complex for a lot of people. It comes down to who identifies and what it means to be Indigenous. It makes me think of a friend I know that was adopted into a white family but is Métis. She has little connection to her birth mother but wants her children to understand their Indigenous heritage. They have their Métis cards but have not had the opportunity to participate in a lot of Indigenous teachings and are learning a lot about their Indigenous culture through universities which may be flawed. This part of their identity is complex and causes issues with their personal identities. A lot of outsiders may have issues with them not knowing a lot about their culture but getting the legal benefits of having their Métis cards. This could be the hunting or the cheaper education. They also do not physically look traditionally Indigenous, making it so they have to justify their connection to the Indigenous culture to a lot of people. I think this issue is very important because they have not had a say in the way they are raised. I think the lack of feeling the connection to the community and to the land creates a lot of misunderstanding and crisis for a lot of people. Some of the questions or challenges that I came across regarding Indigeneity and its relevant to my academic career is I find when working through my education and life regarding Indigeneity is overcoming the awkwardness I feel when discussing the struggles of Indigenous people that they have and continue to go through. As someone who is white and grew up in a more conservative section of Alberta, I hear a lot of negative opinions around reconciliation from people who do not understand what reconciliation really means. I think this comes down to the importance of education through high school and universities as lots of people do not attend university. I still at times struggle with adjusting my mindset to better fit the academic understanding of Indigeneity and what I see around me. I think we are so influenced by what we hear and we do not fully understand what is being said. Being so disconnected from the actual source distorts a lot of the truth and understanding I could have. I think that is why introductory Indigenous courses are very important and should be requirements for a majority of majors, if not all of them. We will interact with Indigenous peoples throughout our lives and without contradicting biases a lot more prejudice has room to grow. How has this course developed your understanding of Indigenous perspectives in ways that will be helpful to you in your life and chosen profession? In June, I will be travelling to Uganda to work with other university students in rural communities to better understand each other and learn together to enhance all of our lives. The valuable information about colonization and how it has touched every single person, whether directly or indirectly, will enhance my base knowledge and allow myself to go into this experience. I believe that the common ground is to first step into reconciliation and enhance the international climate of the world. By taking these courses, I learned about the UN and all that they do and all about the international Indigenous community and how international organizations have taken small steps to protect their rights, but how they need to continue to grow in not just first world countries like Canada, but also more impoverished third world countries. And how I can go into differing Indigenous communities with compassion and knowledge in order to respect their ways of life fully. Coming in as a colonizer with a colonizer background, it may be hard for these communities to accept that as a white person, I am not here as a saviour or as someone who wants to change their ways of life. It is hard to see the different ways in which we live here in Canada and I think that will translate to the African communities I work with as well. I want to be the most educated I can be on Indigenous issues prior so I can come back and spread the knowledge I learned from these communities with ways I interact with life here. I believe that connecting with people and learning and having an open heart is the only way we will step out of the boxes we are put in and open our arms to the most amount of people. My major is Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies and I want to continue on to take my Masters in either Physical Therapy or Occupational Therapy. Currently I work with children in their homes which can be very vulnerable as I get to see every aspect of their lives. I take this as a huge responsibility because I want to respect and appreciate the cultures of all of the children I work with. The background I have learned from this course will allow me to broaden my mind and maybe even change my approach to the type of healthcare I practice. One system of Indigenous values that I learned in Indigenous 303 last fall that directly relates is that Indigenous people do not see disability as a negative trait or an issue that needs to be fixed. By connecting the classes I have a greater understanding of collective identity and how they value individualistic gifts in order to enhance the collective community. I see this in all of the kids that I work with as they are all so special and the Western definition of disability really lessens their impact that they will have in this world. Question six, how has this course developed your understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing and being in current social and political Indigenous and settler relationships? After learning more about Indigenous ways of knowing and being and colonization I have found a different outlook on the higher rate of homelessness in Indigenous individuals. There are so many factors that go into homelessness such as social determinants of health, susceptibility to addiction and generational trauma. Many cases of homelessness and the situations that these Indigenous youth are put in are a result of the effects of colonization. Because of the suppression placed onto Indigenous people by white settlers it leaves this generation at a disadvantage and makes the steps through life more difficult. The solution to this horrible problem has not been agreed upon especially because Indigenous leaders and colonial government have different views on the most effective solution. Indigenous ways of knowing and being use the medicine wheel and holistic approach to healing and community along with connection to the land and other things that need to support the people. While Western ideals value capitalism and an individualistic mindset this blames others for the situation they have put in when in reality it is the systems in place. This blind outlook leaves people to suffer with little free resources available. It always makes me think of the way conservative people usually more white than anything else complain and complain about the homeless population but refuse to aid the individuals who are struggling. I believe this is the way that modern colonization is still in effect. Although individual settlers are not actively sealing land or maybe being outright racist but refusing to aid those who are fighting against a system that the settlers have put in place to suppress Indigenous peoples we are continuing with those ideals and no reconciliation can be achieved if we do not start walking towards each other and not away from each other. I really believe that no solution will be 100% effective right away but by working on solutions to fix the underfunding of reservations, inaccessibility for rural youth to access post-secondary education and social discrimination will make the road to higher education a lot less difficult for those who do not hold the privilege placed upon them by colonialism. I really enjoy taking Indigenous Studies courses and to continue to build my understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Thank you.