Join us in a process of learning and unlearning about Indigenous Peoples, communities, and culture through Project 57.
SFU Library's Project 57 is a response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Call to Action 57, which calls on "federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to provide education to public servants on the history of Aboriginal peoples."
Over 57 weeks, the Decolonizing the Library Working Group is sharing information about topics related to Indigenous Peoples, communities, and culture, including terminology, cultural events, SFU's local Nations, and the impacts of colonial policy.
Indigenous pedagogy
Indigenous pedagogy (or the method and practice of teaching) incorporates Indigenous worldviews into engagement with information. The foundations of Indigenous pedagogy are respect, mutual learning between student and teacher, and positionality or recognizing that everyone has different experiences that brought them to this learning.
Land based pedagogy
Land has meaning beyond material consumption. Instead of seeing the earth as something to exploit, such as land as resources or human beings as expendable, land-based pedagogy “changes people’s relationships to the land” illustrating the connection between the land, water, sky, animals, plants, etc., as more of a “familial relationship” (Land as Teacher, UNESCO).
Indigenous research methodologies
Research methodologies are systems used to understand the information and knowledge we encounter as researchers. Every research methodology (and there are numerous!) has its foundation in specific beliefs and theoretical groundings. Indigenous research methodologies “encompass tribal or Indigenous epistemologies” (Kovach (Nêhiýaw and Saulteaux), 2009, p. 21), meaning Indigenous research methodologies are representative of specific cultural ways of being.
Indigenous intellectual property rights and copyright
Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights are complex and have many different aspects. These systems existed for hundreds of years before colonization (Younging, 2018), and are different for each community (Wemigwans [Ojibwe/Potawatomi], 2018). Often referred to as Indigenous Protocols, these Customary Laws can be found within Oral Traditions and teachings (Younging, 2018). They are dynamic, changing in response to society and community needs (Younging, 2018).