Ally: A Scoping Review on Practice and Theory

• In Event: Indigenous-Settler Relations in the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Era: The End of the Beginning

Abstract

Indigenous scholars in universities identify some of their colleagues as allies in research, teaching, and service. However, there is little known about how one becomes an ally of Indigenous researchers. To improve our understanding of this term, the author reports on his scoping review of literature in peer reviewed venus that identifies the terms ally, allyship allies, and alliances. The author uses Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) scoping review model--they advise researchers to select a topic, identify all relevant literature, and synthesize the findings. His review of the literature has uncovered mentions of allies in the scholarly fields of Indigenous peoples education, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, and two-spirited studies, age and aging (Chazan, Baldwin, & Evens, 2018), gender, race and racialization, anti-racism (St. Denis, 2007) and anti-sexism, and Indigenous peoples. One finds allies in formal learning settings--such as universities--and in informal spaces, such as activist groups. We learn that allies are active participants in what one calls social movements in education--they participate as they become aware of their positionalities and work on their own liberation (Bishop, 2015). Similarly, allies and alliances have existed throughout history, as a result of encounters and conflicts between Indigenous peoples and between Indigenous nations and colonists. Alliances are as much a way of understanding the past as they were a way for Indigenous and settlers to coexist and benefit one another (Bohaker, 2020).

Prior to conducting this scoping review, the author criticized ally initiatives, especially in higher education, for appearances that were too superficial and mentions that were too casual and too brief to be of any value to teaching, learning, and researching in higher education. The story of allies is usually a sidebar due to the pressing need to story the activism of individuals marginalized by society (Korinek, 2018). Through the scoping review, he gives muscle definition to the brittle rhetoric of the term. As Canada comes to the end of the beginning of its attempts at truth and reconciliation with Indigenous nations, the call for settlers to become allies cannot be muted. It is the author’s argument that as Canadians learn about the Indian residential schools, they must do more than absorb passively the knowledge--they must understand how they can liberate themselves from the mindsets (i.e., practice being allies) and learn how these theories seized the sacred and secular architects of the schools, having an impact on contemporary education.

Author

• Jonathan David Anuik, University of Alberta