Constructing Ethical Learning Spaces Through Interdisciplinary Dialogue

ABSTRACT

First piloted in 2017, MacEwan University’s Interdisciplinary Dialogue is a collaborative teaching and learning project that addresses topics relating to social justice across disciplines. In 2019, in collaboration with kihêw waciston Indigenous Centre, the Dialogue expanded its intercultural learning through a partnership with University nuhelot’įne thaiyots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills and explored truth and reconciliation through a focus on Indigenous research. Building on Willie Ermine’s concept of ‘ethical spaces’, this article highlights how ethical learning spaces were created through Indigenous-led educational forums followed by an online student Interdisciplinary Dialogue. The Dialogue positioned students to explore histories of colonial relationships and their attendant harmful research practices; and to centre Indigenous knowledges and methodologies as foundational to Indigenous research. Students questioned oppressions in western pedagogy, and they envisioned a pedagogy of mutual respect for Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing. This article focuses on the online discussions conducted by students in the 2019 Dialogue. It shows how students understood that they were participants in disrupting colonial discourse in academia, reframing education for reconciliation, and expanding the construction of ‘ethical spaces’ across the University and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethical space
• Interdisciplinary Dialogue
• ethical learning spaces
• Indigenous knowledges
• Indigenous research
• reconciliation
• ‘Pedagogy for reconciliation’
• reciprocity
• Indigenous oracy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada website http://www.trc.ca/about-us/our-mandate.html

2 Positionality statement: Both authors have been participants in several Interdisciplinary Dialogues (LD is a founding member of the Dialogue). As non-Indigenous, long term faculty at MacEwan University, the authors witnessed the powerful teachings of this Indigenous-led Dialogue and wanted to share the insights, excitement, and deep learning of our students.

3 Students may use the letter or the co-curricular record to demonstrate their participation in this extra-curricular project and their awareness of Indigenous issues when applying for future programs or graduate school.

4 More information about the Kairos Blanket Exercise can be found at https://www.kairosblanketexercise.org/

5 MacEwan University’s Treaty 6 Land Acknowledgement Statement https://www.macewan.ca/wcm/CampusLife/kihewwaciston/index.htm

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leslie Dawson

Dr. Leslie Dawson is a medical anthropologist and founding member of MacEwan University’s Interdisciplinary Dialogue. She has taught a variety of anthropology courses at MacEwan since 2000 and was presented with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007. Her recent teaching innovations focus on collaborative teaching and learning and on implementing the TRC calls to action through digital pedagogy and storytelling.

Jack Robinson

Dr. Jack Robinson is an Associate Professor who has served as Chair of the English Department. He has taught various literature courses in the fields of Canadian and Indigenous Literature since 1989 and has published in those fields.