Taiaiake Alfred: What can universities do to support indigenous resurgence?
Speaker Series - The Future of the University and the Future of Learning
About this session
Advancing Indigenous resurgence requires a paradigm shift, says Gerald Taiaiake Alfred.
On April 22, Gerald Taiaiake Alfred tackles the issue of Indigenous resurgence when he comes to Concordia, as part of the speaker series, The Future of the University and the Future of Learning.
The full professor in Indigenous governance and political science at the University of Victoria specializes in studies of traditional governance, the restoration of land-based cultural practices, and decolonization strategies. He is well known for his leadership and groundbreaking research in the fields of Indigenous governance and decolonization.
“Indigenous resurgence has arisen out of the need to look at the effects of Indigenous people being dispossessed from their land and being unable to practise their language, spirituality and culture in relation to the land,” says Alfred, the author of Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom, Peace, Power, Righteousness: an Indigenous Manifesto and Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors.
This grassroots movement focuses on putting Indigenous people back on their land, giving them access to cultural practices on a traditional basis. “This land-based approach is more in tune with environmental ethics that comes from Indigenous practices and focuses on learning and healing,” he says.
“In advancing the agenda for Indigenous resurgence, we are going against the mainstream of First Nations activism and politics that see economic development as the main mechanism to deal with the harm done to Indigenous people,” says Alfred.
While these are important, the more vital issue is addressing cultural dislocation of Indigenous peoples. When asked how universities can support this movement, Alfred said there is no requirement for large capital investments or funding. What is required is a paradigm shift.
“All it takes is a shift to supporting Indigenous people on a different agenda, to be flexible and open to different types of arrangements and knowledge, plus a willingness of faculty to break out of modes of thinking in how to approach Indigenous research,” he says.
What does require funding, however, is hiring Native faculty at a senior level. “You need Aboriginal leaders at a senior level to bring their established connections, so students can take advantage of their deep connections with the community,” says Alfred.
He says that Concordia is well-suited to participate in the movement because of its culture and reputation because it is responsive to the lived reality of the communities it serves.
“The new generation of Indigenous people who want to create a movement to allow them to reculture themselves and create a different experience; create a psychic shift that is possible at Concordia because of its openness and its adaptability compared to other institutions,” he says.
Taiaiake Alfred
Full Professor, Indigenous Governance and Political Science
University of Victoria
Gerald Taiaiake Alfred is a full professor in Indigenous Governance and Political Science at the University of Victoria. He specializes in studies of traditional governance, the restoration of land-based cultural practices, and decolonization strategies. He has been awarded a Canada Research Chair, a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in the field of education, and the Native American Journalists Association award for best column writing.
Educated at Montreal’s Concordia University and Cornell University in New York, Taiaiake's writing includes scholarly articles, essays in newspapers, magazines and journals, stories, book-length research reports for First Nations and Canadian governments, as well as three published scholarly books, Wasáse: Indigenous pathways of action and freedom (University of Toronto Press, 2005), named in 2010 as one of the most influential books in Native Studies by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association; Peace, Power, Righteousness (Oxford University Press, 1999/2009); and Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors (Oxford University Press, 1995).
His current research involves studying the effects of environmental contamination on Indigenous cultural practices, with a special focus on the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. In the context of the United States' Natural Resources Damages Assessment process, he works as a consultant with a number of Indigenous communities to assess cultural injury due to industrial and nuclear contamination of the natural environment, and to design land-based cultural restoration plans. His previous research and consulting work centered on retraditionalization, structural reform, and leadership training for First Nations governments and organizations.
He also spent many a number of years as a researcher, writer, negotiator and advisor for First Nations governments in land claims and self-government processes in his own nation and in British Columbia.
Taiaiake was born in Montreal in 1964 and was raised in the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory. Aside from his service in the U.S. Marine Corps as an infantryman during the 1980s, he lived in Kahnawake until 1996. He now lives on Snaka Mountain in Wsanec Nation Territory on the Saanich peninsula with his wife and three sons, who are all Laksilyu Clan of the Wet'suwet'en Nation.
Source: University of Victoria website
http://web.uvic.ca/igov/index.php/faculty
