Creating New Intellectual Traditions Through Indigenous and Black Educational Collaborations

• In Event: Dreamweaving Our Radical Elsewhere: Black and Indigenous Women in Educational Leadership on Healing and Purpose

Abstract

Objective or Purpose:
Black and Indigenous peoples respectively draw from rich intellectual traditions to support the education of their communities while, at the same time, resisting the systemic oppression of Western schooling in the historic and contemporary Canadian context. This paper is interested in Black and Indigenous educational collaborations that ultimately produce new modes of knowledge production and educational models. To better understand the pedagogical landscape, I’ve gathered and analyzed the scholarship focused on Indigenous and Black educational collaborations. These were my initial questions:
● What collaborations and initiatives already exist?
● What scholarship has already been conducted?
● What are emergent themes and patterns identified in scholarship and program reviews?

Theoretical Framework:
This research is informed by Black and Indigenous feminist and 2SLGBTQQIA+ theoretical perspectives on education. While my focus concerns the broadly defined communities, I’ve found that Black and Indigenous cisgender and transgender women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ peoples to be leaders in the study of inclusive, non-oppressive community- and nation-building. I am particularly inspired by Indigenous feminist educational scholars like Sheila Cote-Meek (2014), Marie Battiste (2017), Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999), Eve Tuck (2018), Joanne Archibald (2008), and Sandy Grande (2015). Afro-Indigenous and Black feminist educational scholars like Author (2021), Fikile Nxumalo (2019), Rosalind Hampton (2020) have also inspired and informed my theoretical perspective.

Mode of Inquiry:
I conducted a rapid-review literature review into Indigenous and Black-authored scholarship focused on collaborative educational initiatives. While my paper focuses on the Canadian context, this literature review also includes US-based scholarship to consider relevant theoretical, methodological, and ethical frameworks. I narrowed the scope of inquiry to consider place- and land-based education outside of formal schooling.

Data:
Given the mode of inquiry, this research did not gather or analyze original data, but rather synthesize the literature to provide new insights into understanding existing knowledge and information.

Substantiated Conclusions:
From the literature review emerged themes and patterns. A close review of the literature shows emerging interest in educational collaboration informed by the view of interconnected oppression and liberation possibilities.

Scholarly Significance:
In the most basic sense, a literature review identifies emergent trends, patterns, foci, as well as gaps and limitations. This non-exhaustive research explores the breadth and depth of scholarship focused on an emergent area of interest. From this vantage, educational scholars and practitioners are well positioned to continue exploring possibilities for collaboration and creating new models for learning and schooling.

Author

• Megan Scribe, Toronto Metropolitan University