Background

Collecting Indigenous authored materials is done by all librarians at SFU Library and for all disciplines. After a few internal conversations with colleagues, this document was created to provide further support on the topic. It was decided to be a public facing document so other libraries, library employees, students in LIS programs, and students and faculty at SFU also have the information. It is not a policy or procedure, but some guiding practices.

Deborah Lee (Cree-Métis) created a collections toolkit for Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan that includes great tips and advice on this topic.

(Note: for collection development in the Indigenous Curriculum Resource Centre, see ICRC collection policy.)

Critical Indigenous Information Literacy

Critical information literacy encourages the reader to go beyond the words of a text and consider the author/creator's motivation behind its creation, and the viewpoint being presented (McNicol, 2016). By engaging in critical information literacy, people are encouraged to ask questions like where the power is in the resource, whose viewpoint is present, and whose is missing (McNichol, 2016, p. 6). Indigenous information literacy (sometimes referred to as critical Indigenous literacy) encourages people to consider identity and Indigenous representation.

When it comes to collection development, we encourage people to use critical Indigenous information literacy to evaluate materials by asking the following questions adapted from questions Haida scholar Sara Florence Davidson (2020) developed for teachers to use in evaluating classroom resources:

Who developed the resource?
- Does the resource indicate if the author or illustrator is Indigenous?
- If yes, is the Nation or community included?
  - Check the author and illustrator biographies
- If no, it’s recommended you look up the author and/or illustrator.
- If no, and it’s clear the author is not Indigenous, does it mention anywhere that the author worked in collaboration with Indigenous people(s) and was given permission to share information?
How are Indigenous Peoples represented in the source? Does the resource portray Indigenous Peoples authentically and accurately?
- Is the topic coming from a strength based or deficit-based approach?
- Does it contain harmful stereotypes or tropes?
  - If yes, in what context? Does it critique them? Or does it reinforce them?
Does the resource contain traditional Indigenous stories?
- If yes, and the author is Indigenous, is it clear they have permission to share the stories?
  - I.e., mention of protocols or people they learned from.
- If yes, and it’s clear the author is not Indigenous, does it mention anywhere that the author worked in collaboration with Indigenous people(s) and was given permission to share information?
Does the resource contain Indigenous art?
- If yes, and it is not an art book, is the artist properly attributed? Is their Nation or community included?
Does the resource contain references to or depictions of ceremonial information?
- If yes, and the author is Indigenous, is it clear they have permission to share the stories?
  - I.e., mention of protocols or people they learned from.
- If yes, and it’s clear the author is not Indigenous, does it mention anywhere that the author worked in collaboration with Indigenous people(s) and was given permission to share information?

Note: often information literacy, critical information literacy, and Indigenous information literacy is talked about in terms of books and readers, but the practices and purpose can be applied to all forms of media and information.

Approach (the “how to”)

In the Canadian context, “Indigenous” is an umbrella terms that includes First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities. There’s a lot of diversity within these three groups, for example there are over 630 federally recognized First Nations in Canada, with nearly 200 of them located in British Columbia. Often the word Indigenous is used as a synonym for First Nations, which erases Métis and Inuit knowledges and voices. Urban Indigenous experiences are also very important to have. When purchasing items, it’s important to make sure all Nations and communities are represented.

Along with diversity in Nations and communities, it’s important to have diversity within gender and sexuality – do you have Indigqueer, Two Spirit and transgendered authored materials? Items written by or with Elders? Youth?

Making sure you have a diversity of voices can be time consuming. The identity aspects mentioned above won’t be known based on an item’s record in the vendor records or cataloguing records (or at least, generally not), so taking time to look up authors is important and often the only way to know. Looking people up will also help identify allied scholars and people who are appropriating Indigenous identity (see below).

While there’s been an increase in books being published by academic presses, smaller (and Indigenous owned) presses have been publishing Indigenous authors for decades.

Here is a list of places to look

Indigenous owned bookstores have great lists of new titles:

GoodMinds (Indigenous owned bookstore in Ontario)
Iron Dog Books (Indigenous owned bookstore in British Columbia)
Massy Books (Indigenous owned bookstore in British Columbia)
StrongNations (Indigenous owned bookstore in British Columbia; is also a publisher)

Some concerns that come up are finding materials published on topics from local Nations. For example, there isn’t currently a publication on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) pedagogy. So, while the advice is to ensure that all Nations are represented it isn’t always possible. There are many reasons why this is, such as barriers to publishing by Indigenous peoples (see Elements of Indigenous Style for information on this topic).

Appropriation of Indigenous identity

The appropriation of Indigenous identity is a very serious situation and has been occurring for decades. Recently a case of appropriating Inuit identity was successful at convicting under identity fraud. Indigenous identity fraud is purposefully claiming to be Indigenous (that is, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) when someone is not. This is different than someone reconnecting with their heritage. There are many reasons why someone has been disconnected from their family and community, all rooted in colonization. People engaging in Indigenous identity fraud are taking advantage of that. Why? Well, like all fraud it’s for personal gain – employment opportunities, funding, scholarships, etc.

There is no list of Indigenous scholars and authors, and there’s no definitive list of people engaging in Indigenous identity fraud. If you are curious or unsure about an author, our advice is to look them up.

One situation that we’ve talked about is what to do with material if an author/creator has been accused and/or proven to falsely claimed Indigenous identity. If they are the only author/creator of an item, ensuring that it is no longer identified as Indigenous created – this could include changing any subject headings, collections it’s been added to, and any displays it’s used in. Where it is maybe trickier is if the person in question has written a forward, introduction, or chapter of an edited work, or is an editor. The considerations there are for the other Indigenous authors/creators, and the impact that removing the item would have on them. Their work shouldn’t suffer because of someone else’s actions. If possible, be clear on who in the volume is Indigenous. For example, All the way: My life on ice by Jordin Tootoo is about the first Inuk hockey player to make it to the NHL. The book has a forward by Joseph Boyden, who falsely claimed Indigenous identity. Removing the book based on the forward would suppress Jordin Tootoo’s voice. As you can see in the record information, there is no mention of the forward.

Allied Scholarship

While we always recommend uplifting and supporting Indigenous scholars and authors/creators, there is also a space for non-Indigenous authors who write and publish on Indigenous topics. Gregory Younging (Cree) notes that since the 1980s there have been non-Indigenous scholars who are “knowledgeable and supportive of Indigenous People’s political and cultural aspirations,” and who have helped raised awareness of these topics (2018, p. 10). He refers to these scholars and their works as “allied academic literature” (p. 10). He acknowledges that these works are written analytically and from an observational point of view, with too much academic jargon. Indigenous authors are critical of these works, saying that “emotionally, historically, and culturally charged issues [are reduced] to dry information” (Younging, 2018, p. 10).

What is important to look for when purchasing these items is acknowledgement of the Indigenous community / community member the author worked with and a statement about having permission to publish the information. Ideally the community member could be included as a co-author or co-creator.

Example: As I remember it: Teachings (Ɂəms tɑɁɑw) from the Life of a Sliammon Elder, by Elsie Paul, Davis McKenzie, Paige Raibmon & Harmony Johnson

There is also value in non-Indigenous voices writing to share their experience with decolonization and anti-racism. These experiences provide learning opportunities for others.

An example of this is the book White Benevolence: Racism and colonial violence in the helping professions, edited by Amanda Gebhard, Sheelah McLean, and Verna St. Denis.

Culturally sensitive information / extractive research

It also needs to be acknowledged that some material in library collections contain information that should not have been taken out of the community. This information could have been obtained through harmful and extractive research practices and is culturally sensitive. By this we mean information that should only been available to the community, or specific members of the community, or only to be heard/read at certain times of the year. These Knowledge Protocols are very different than Western approaches to information and should be honoured and respected (see Battiste and Henderson, 2000 and Smith, 1999 for more on these topics).

Recently there has been a move to rematriate (or repatriate) knowledge and/or belongings to the community it was taken from. While this is perhaps easier in a museum or archive, libraries should also be considering how to engage in this work out of recognition that information may have been taken and published without community knowledge or consent. The process for rematriating knowledge is going to be different for each item, based on the community and building relationships. SFU Library is currently developing procedures for rematriating or otherwise providing or limiting access to materials with culturally sensitive knowledge.

If you are concerned about an item or an item(s) is brought to your attention as being a concern, please reach out to lib-indigenous@sfu.ca.

References

Battiste, M. and Henderson, J.Y. (2000). Protecting Indigenous knowledge and heritage: A global challenge. Purich Publishing.

Davidson, S.F. (2020). Evaluating Indigenous education resources for classroom use. Teacher Magazine. https://indigenousstorybooks.ca/files/Davidson_2020_May_Teacher_magazine_p22-23.pdf

McNicol, S. (2016). Critical literacy for information professionals. Facet.

Smith, L.T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. Bloomsbury Academic.

Younging, G. (2018). Elements of Indigenous style. Brush Education.

Indigenous materials: Collection development guidelines

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