Thread by @daniellelorenz

Hello! I’m Danielle Lorenz, PhD candidate at @UAlbertaEd. I’ll be discussing reconciliation, Indigenization, and decolonization as they relate to #CdnPse and the game Mad Libs. 1/11 #MWSOTL

Reconciliation in #CdnPse will be “complete” when all institutions have completed Calls 62-4 of the TRC’s Calls to Action (www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/bri…), and Canadians know their histories, harms inflicted from residential schools, atone for said harms, & make change. 2/11 #MWSOTL

Indigenization in #CdnPse can be divided into three categories: the first two are current, and the third are our (Adam Gaudry’s and mine) hope for the future. 3/11 #MWSOTL
More: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

Similar to decolonial Indigenization, decolonization w/in #CdnPse must involve a radical destructuring of what makes academe a settler colonial bastion. In other words, if the academic ethos is unchanged, it’s not decolonization (Tuck & Yang: jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/…) 4/11 #MWSOTL

Over the years, I’ve heard and read how reconciliation, Indigenization, and decolonization are used as synonyms for each other, and how folks writing about them miss key components (e.g., neglecting the always-already nature of settler colonialism). 5/11 #MWSOTL

This has reduced reconciliation, Indigenization, and decolonization to elements in a game of Mad Libs: non-Indigenous players prompt others for verbs to substitute as blanks in a settler colonial story of higher education, which is then to be read aloud. For fun. 6/11 #MWSOTL

In treating reconciliation, Indigenization, and decolonization like a game, an amusing addition to our syllabi, pedagogy, service work, or annual report, non-Indigenous folks cause harm to Indigenous students and colleagues, and more broadly, Indigenous communities. 7/11 #MWSOTL

Reconciliation, Indigenization, and decolonization are not things to be checked off a list. (I mean, I would love to put “single handedly [lol crip pun] dismantled Canadian academe” in the scholarly contributions section of my annual report, don’t get me wrong.) 8/11 #MWSOTL

The most important thing non-Indigenous folks can do is listen: we often hear, but don't listen. We aren't the experts, & we need to have the humility to recognize that. A decolonial future involves everything we understand about academia being fundamentally altered. 9/11 #MWSOTL

Having humility means not assuming the role of the expert in the room when others with much more knowledge and experience are not given the time or space to speak. @jesbattis made the same point last month better than I ever could (listen to them!). 10/11 #MWSOTL

Again, reconciliation, Indigenization, and decolonization cannot (and should not) simply be checked off a list. Stop acting as if you can check them off a list. 11/11 #MWSOTL

@threadreaderapp unroll, please!