Acknowledgements
This guidebook is a collaborative effort by members of Concordia’s Centre for Teaching and Learning, including Josephine Guan, Naj Sumar, Carole Brazeau, Alicia Cundell, and Ariel Harlap. We extend our gratitude to our departmental and faculty collaborators for their valuable contributions to the content. Special thanks to Rachel Harris for her assistance with Pressbooks publishing.
Land acknowledgement
Concordia published its first version of the Indigenous Actions Plan in 2019. The plan was envisioned as a guide and tool to enable all Concordians to move the university towards a more equitable and inclusive future where Indigenous peoples, knowledges, research and scholarship are prioritized and celebrated. It was created in part to respond to the 2015 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
With this living document, Concordia has committed to taking steps towards Decolonizing and Indigenizing curricula and pedagogy. This means considering other systems of knowledge, perspectives, worldviews and ways of learning within curricula and pedagogy. This does not mean excluding, dismissing or replacing existing knowledge systems.
Many other universities across Canada have launched and implemented similar plans, but Concordia is unique in the fact that we have a specific plan for teaching and learning. This strategy and the Office of Decolonizing and Indigenizing the Curriculum and Pedagogy serve to guide the learning community at Concordia with:
- acknowledging historical context,
- ensuring cultural sensitivity and respect,
- incorporating Indigenous knowledge,
- establishing meaningful partnerships with Indigenous communities,
- critically examining Eurocentric canons of thought,
- and integrating research and curriculum resources authored by Indigenous scholars.
As a way to move beyond a land acknowledgement, teaching assistants can reflect on their positionality in and out of the classroom, and invite their students to do the same. Additionally, an interesting tool that you can introduce in class is Native Land, an app that maps Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages. You can see where we are in Tiohtià:ke/ Montreal, explore the rest of Turtle Island, or elsewhere in the world.
Decolonization is "the intelligent, calculated, and active resistance to the forces of colonialism that perpetuate the subjugation and/or exploitation of our minds, bodies and lands – it is engaged for the ultimate purpose of overturning the colonial structure and realizing Indigenous peoples’ liberation"(Wilson & Yellow Bird, 2005).
Indigenization is an ongoing process that involves integrating Indigenous perspectives, knowledge, and practices into various aspects of the university, fostering a more respectful and collaborative relationship with Indigenous communities.
The approaches and activities of teaching.
Refers to work that historically has prioritized and valorized European perspectives, often at the expense of non-European perspectives, thus perpetuating an uneven and narrow understanding of the world and its history.
Positionality refers to where one is located in relation to their various social identities (gender, race, class, ethnicity, ability, geographical location etc.)— the combination of these identities and their intersections shape how we understand and engage with the world, including our knowledges, perspectives, and teaching practices. As individuals and as instructors, we occupy multiple identities that are fluid and dialogical in nature, contextually situated, and continuously amended and reproduced (Alcoff, 1988).
