Truth, reconciliation and expanded roles for indigenous elders at universities

• In Event: Indigenous and southern voices

Proposal

TRUTH, RECONCILIATION
AND EXPANDED ROLES FOR INDIGENOUS ELDERS AT UNIVERSITIES

Roger Boshier and Colleen Price


Relevance:

University authorities are being encouraged to engage with indigenous elders. The U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People has influenced governments and universities in many places (e.g. British Columbia, Canada). In New Zealand, Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal hearings have stimulated major changes in white-settler universities and helped foster development of wananga (Maori universities). In Canada, the 94 calls-to-action in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report triggered responses on many campuses. Recommendations 62 to 65 were specific to post-secondary education. Furthermore, the university is positioned to implement other recommendations – on child welfare, education, language, culture, health and justice. However, too many efforts intended to involve indigenous elders in university life are theoretically impoverished and almost entirely concerned with ceremonies and welcomes.

Elders frequently attend campus to welcome guests to ancestral lands. But, following the welcome, the elder goes home. In Canada this is not a respectful and adequate response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Instead, white-settler universities need to have indigenous elders at the centre of (and in all parts) of their operations. Elders should be part of university knowledge-creation processes and associated political actions.

The purpose of this study was to examine ways of moving indigenous elders from the periphery to the centre of university life. The study purpose was achieved by deploying a cartography of social theory.

Relationship to existing work:

In Canada there is a vibrant literature on indigenous “resurgence” and influential scholars who regard “reconciliation” with white colonialism as a sham. In New Zealand, the Waitangi tribunal has restored the mana (reputation) of history as a field of university study. In Australia, populist racism has suppressed earlier preoccupations with “reconciliation.”

Most work on indigenous elders is nested in functionalist analysis and too often designed to enhance (or protect) the reputation, mana or “leadership” of senior university administrators. This paper opens new pathways to the future by exploring alternatives to functionalist orthodoxy. Indigenous elders have much to offer universities. This paper illuminates the theoretical richness and heft of indigenous knowledge, ways-of-knowing and political action in a troubled world.

Situating the theory:

The authors reworked Paulston’s (1996) map of social theory to show options for moving elders from the periphery to the centre of university life. The horizontal axis of our cartography involves ontology – with realist–objectivist to the right and idealist– subjectivist ontological orientations to the left.

Proponents of objectivist ontology dwell in the “real” world of “facts”. Those committed to subjectivist ontology foreground the thoughts, attitudes and feelings of indigenous elders and members of university communities. Subjectivists celebrate indigenous ways of knowing and lifelong learning.

The vertical axis concerns the extent reform efforts reinforce or challenge existing power relationships. Universities are conservative places and reform is difficult. Even so, reform efforts at the top of the change (vertical) axis stress collective action, challenge orthodox wisdom and embrace indigenous ways of knowing – what Chief Richard Atleo (2011) of Nuu-chah-nulth called Tsawalk. University reform efforts at the bottom of the vertical axis are uncritical; they reinforce orthodox wisdom.

[Fig. 1. Current location of indigenous elder university involvement within a cartography of social theory]

The four paradigms in this cartography encompass most theories informing 21st century research on human (and organizational) behaviour, indigeneity, learning, education and university life.

• Functionalism involves rational explanations for social affairs and is the dominant ideology of 21st century science and governance. Its epistemology tends to be positivist. Functionalists have a materialist world-view and want practical solutions to problems. Grant’s (1995) functionalist analysis of indigenous elder involvement in teacher education is an example.

• Humanists are subjectivists and reality is what it is construed to be. Humanist reformers adopt the frame of reference of indigenous people, university staff and students. They emphasize meaning-making and alternative ways of reading social and political situations. Thomas King’s (2012) The Inconvenient Indian is a skilled and engaging manifestation of humanist analysis.

• Radical humanists want to transcend existing social arrangements and are more political and action-oriented than humanists. Radical humanism favours subjectivism and meaning-making. but also foregrounds the need for intelligent collective action needed to foster sustainability. Glen Coulthard’s (2014) Red Skin, White Masks rejection of colonial “recognition” and
“reconciliation” is firmly located in radical humanism.

• Radical functionalists share fundamental assumptions buttressing functionalism but are committed to overthrowing oppressive social structures that build false consciousness. Reform efforts located here focus on the university as a site for exposing and combating inequality and objective (structural) modes of domination. 
Taiaiake Alfred’s (2009) revolutionary “indigenous manifesto” is an example of radical structural analysis.

Implications for practice and policy:

The authors give examples of situations where the work of indigenous elders in universities is constructed within functionalist, humanist, radical humanist and radical structural paradigms. These show how massive acts of imagination and new knowledge can appear when universities deploy alternatives to the banal orthodoxies of functionalism.

As indicated in Fig. 2, the authors envisage a future where, along with offering pastoral care, elders will be researchers, critical analysts and political activists.

As Chief Atleo (2011) demonstrated, indigenous action and ways-of-knowing offer solutions to many pressing problems – likes fires, climate change, terrorism, racial hatred, social instability and deprivations of rural life.

Originality of the contribution:

As far as we know, Paulston’s cartography has never been used to study indigenous issues or elders at the university. However, even with Paulston’s help, it is a tough task to foster indigenous participation in knowledge-creation, data analysis and the political actions of the university and several critical questions will appear on the road ahead.

Empty gestures are not a substitute for meaningful action concerning elders. The modern university obsession with economic performance is not congruent with indigenous worldviews on sustainability and global social issues. White settlers and indigenous people too often act like strangers. Twenty-first century logical positivism and indigenous ways-of-knowing easily collide. University officials frequently have no appreciation for out-of-school learning or the uncredentialled knowledge of indigenous elders.

Authors

• Colleen Price, Vancouver Island University

• Roger Boshier, University of British Columbia