Learning at Intercultural Intersections: Towards Equity, Inclusion and Reconciliation

Guest Editors’ Introduction

We would like to acknowledge that the articles in this special issue emerged from a gathering that took place on the unceded, occupied territories of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwépemc'ulucw and home of Region 3 Chartered Communities of the Metis Nation British Columbia. We believe that decolonization and justice require the return of lands and/or the payment of reparations to Indigenous Peoples.

Following the leadership and teachings of Indigenous scholars, activists, and community members, the practice of acknowledging Indigenous territories has become increasingly common at events and institutions in the lands that have come to be called Canada. A central impetus behind the broader uptake of Indigenous land acknowledgements has been a movement to recognise Indigenous Peoples’ historic and ongoing rights to the land, autonomy, and self-determination (Wilkes et al. 2017). From the outset, the uptake of land acknowledgements has been political and controversial. Unsurprisingly, a strong component of resistance to land acknowledgements have come from people who benefit from maintaining the current hierarchies of capitalist patriarchal white supremacist settler colonialism in Canada. Far more important, complex, and nuanced, though, are those critiques coming from Indigenous activists, scholars, and community members (Snelgrove et al. 2014, Daigle 2019, Robinson 2019). A central aspect of these critiques is a concern that such acknowledgements often become little more than a performance of decolonisation that leaves colonial structures and power relations intact, and effectively undercuts more radical change.

The authors and editors in this special issue are collectively committed to moving beyond performance, and towards embedding decolonising and social justice approaches at the heart of intercultural praxis. The act of culturally locating oneself within the context of one’s connection to the land and social context is standard practice within critical and Indigenous approaches. In keeping with this practice and given that we are situated in separate regions of the country, we use our distinct individual voices to acknowledge the Indigenous territories that we live in and to position ourselves within the context of our relationship to both the histories and current realities of these lands we now call Canada.

Kyra (she/her/hers): I acknowledge that I have had the privilege of living on the unceded, occupied territory of theTk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwépemc'ulucw for most of my life. As a white settler of Scottish and Irish heritage, I recognize that my ancestors came to these lands we call Canada with the profound misunderstanding that the lands were open for the taking. This was, and is, the great lie of colonisation and I commit to educating those who come behind me in knowing the truth.

Gabrielle (she/her/hers): I would like to acknowledge that I am located on the traditional lands of the Niitsitapi, Blackfoot Confederacy and the peoples of Treaty 7, which include the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina, the Stoney Nakoda First Nations, and Metis Nation Region 3. As a member of the Kainaiwa Nation, part of the Niitsitapi, I locate my identity within the storied landscape of the Blackfoot Confederacy, honor the sovereignty of the land that has sustained my people for millennia, and renew my commitment to uphold Niitsitapi responsibilities contained within Treaty 7.

Amie (she/her/hers): I would like to acknowledge that I am an uninvited white settler on the unceded, occupied territories of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwépemc'ulucw and home of Region 3 Chartered Communities of the Metis Nation British Columbia. As a person of mixed Dutch and British ancestry, I locate my identity within white working-class migrations of indentured servants, orphans, and World War II resistance fighters. I recognize that in seeking sanctuary, we became complicit in the ongoing violences and genocide of Indigenous peoples. I honour my responsibilities to decolonisation, to the Secwépemc, N’Quatqua, and Lil’wat Peoples, and renew my commitment to social justice.

As participants in the Learning at Intercultural Intersections initiative, we are honoured to have acted as stewards to the powerful and incredibly timely voices in this issue.

Since 2015 an interdisciplinary group of Canadian researchers and educators, together with international colleagues, have been exploring learning at the intersections of culture to consider a broad range of issues related to equity, diversity, and inclusion. The Learning at Intercultural Intersections project seeks to explore and interrogate the spaces and places where inclusive, intercultural education can support both global and local engagement; works to identify and provide tools for bridging across difference, and explores both possibilities for decolonising education and the decolonising potentials of education. We have gathered bi-annually for the Learning at Intercultural Intersections conference to share educational approaches and perspectives related to culture, race, marginalisation, and decolonisation.

The articles in this special issue emerge out of the 2019 conference Learning at Intercultural Intersections: Towards Equity, Inclusion and Reconciliation. There was a confluence of mandates relating to intercultural learning, decolonising practices, and social justice that emerged from that gathering. Readers will notice that themes of reconciliation, decolonisation and indigenisation within intercultural contexts emerged as an especially strong conference theme. In many ways, this reflects important themes and shifts in Canadian society broadly, and post-secondary education in particular.

Canadian higher education faces potentially transformative changes as a result of institutional, provincial, and federal mandates to both Indigenise and internationalise. These two mandates are distinct and should not be conflated. However, they have in common the potential to disrupt the current status-quo and to require educators to develop and adopt more equitable and inclusive curricula, pedagogical approaches, and policies. In 2017 Universities Canada developed principles and an action plan on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) that include increasing capacity for Canadian universities to integrate EDI in teaching, research and governance. Contemporary dynamics are prompting educational researchers and practitioners to re-think pedagogy and curricula to be intercultural and inclusive, particularly in relation to those Indigenous Peoples and communities upon whose lands we live, work, and play.

In 2015, Canadians as a whole were called to examine and address the colonial foundations of their institutions and society with the release of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada. The TRC meticulously documented the human rights abuses, intergenerational trauma, and cultural genocide that is the ongoing legacy of the residential school system in Canada. The system involved white settlers taking Indigenous children away from their homes, families, and communities with the express purpose of destroying Indigenous languages, cultures, and families (TRC, 130). Nor did residential schools stand alone – other social institutions, including the segregated and inferior health care system for Indigenous Peoples – reinforced, replicated, and furthered those abuses. Alongside the Final Report, the TRC also issued 94 Calls to Action. A repeated call in that document emphasises the need for ‘skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism’ by Canadian institutions (Calls 24, 27, 28, 57, 90 iv, 92 iii).

In many ways, the themes that emerged from the conference and that are reflected in this special issue represent a collective attempt to respond to, wrestle with, and meet our obligations to decolonisation and some of the most pressing social justice issues of our times. In ‘Who am I and What is my Role in Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples?’ and ‘Collaborative Poetry Making: Words, Place, and Decolonisation’ educators Ramirez and Waldie with Yeo adopt reflective and creative practices to promote decolonising learning and unlearning. The authors of ‘Constructing Ethical Learning Spaces Through Interdisciplinary Dialogue’ and ‘Pedagogy of Empathy’ share a focus on creating meaningful intercultural learning outcomes for students. In ‘My World is not your World: Sit and Listen and We Can Learn Together’ and ‘Three Tools of Decolonisation: Dialogue with a Ktunaxa Chief on Indigenous Self Determination’ Derrick and Louie with Chung respectively illustrate the tensions that may exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews and ways of being, offering ways they can be balanced – or at least brought into dialogue.

The contributors to this special issue are informed by a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, cultural identities, colonial influences, and life experiences. In sharing this work they also embrace a wide range of styles: from more traditional academic presentation to autoethnography, poetry, storytelling, and dialogue. Some invite the reader to be dislocated from expectations of an academic, cognitive experience and to let the ideas open them to new ways of understanding the complexities of intercultural learning. The writers have been working on these contributions even through the social turmoil of the end of the Trump presidency, the murder of George Floyd, the renewed advocacy of and attention to Black Lives Matter, the terrifying rise of anti-Asian racism, and the profoundly racialised, classed, and gendered shockwaves of a global pandemic. At this particular historical moment, we encourage you to take up the invitation to learn and reflect in ways both familiar and new, as we collectively seek to reimagine and revitalise socially just ways of knowing and being in the world.

In This Issue

In the opening article ‘My World is Not your World’ Jann Derrick, who is of Kanien’keh:ka/Mohawk and British–Irish descent, invites readers to sit and listen and learn together as she describes her own learning and unlearning while working across and within two worldviews. Derrick provides professional and personal insights into how the epistemologies and practices of Western and Indigenous worldviews differ. In doing so, she asks us to shift into another way of understanding the world and ourselves within it. While acknowledging that there are myriad expressions of Indigenous cultures and Indigeneity, Derrick proposes that key features of being and knowing are foundational to most Indigenous cultures. Derrick describes foundational elements of Indigenous worldviews as relationship, Oneness, spirituality, circularity, and balance. Through these descriptions, Derrick provides readers with a sense of how each element infuses Indigenous worldviews in ways that are often foreign to the academy. Derrick also shares other Indigenous values and ways of being that are not always understood by non-Indigenous academics. She goes on to illustrate the impacts of worldviews on research and scholarship by providing varied examples of how research is being transformed by Indigenous and decolonial approaches to knowledge production. We are grateful to Jann for her generosity and for her invitation to ‘sit and listen’.

In Leslie Dawson and Jack Robinson’s article titled, ‘Constructing Ethical Learning Spaces,’ they advance Cree scholar Willie Ermine’s vision of the ethical space as the framework for creating ethical learning spaces through dialogue-based educational forums. Issues related to decolonisation and reconciliation are brought to bear as Dawson and Robinson outline the need for exposing the colonial assumptions and aims that are embedded within Eurocentric curricula and pedagogies. Drawing on the works of Indigenous scholars, Dawson and Robinson critically illuminate the power of student-led dialogues in potentiating how Indigenous research methodologies, knowledges and pedagogies can be infused into academic spaces to create the conditions of possibility for decentring Eurocentrism and deconstructing colonialism within academia. Within our universities today, teaching and learning are being mobilised in online spaces at unprecedented levels. Dawson and Robinson’s article comes as an inspiring and hopeful reminder that online asynchronous learning sites can be powerful and generative locations for opening up ethical learning spaces in ways that foster students’ transformation, encourage critical dialogues around Indigenous ways of knowing, and offer perspectives on reframing research. These dialogues highlight the need to unsettle the complicity of academia in ongoing colonisation. Ultimately, Dawson and Robinson’s article offers readers a vision for ethical learning that takes students beyond academic spaces so they might develop a deeper investment in their role in working towards reconciliation.

Somnoma Valerie Ouedraogo’s compelling article, ‘Pedagogy of Empathy,’ is a pedagogical reflection centreing on the development of intercultural capacities within a social work context. Ouedraogo introduces the reader to the Interdisciplinary Dialogue Project as the framework within which she conceptualises and mobilises Manassi’s pedagogy of empathy as an entry point for deepened understandings around the affective role of empathy in experiential learning. Inspired by students’ reflective writings and her own class notes, Ouedraogo highlights the various social justice and human rights issues that are thematically threaded throughout the Interdisciplinary Dialogue Project and advances the notion that a variety of theoretical and pedagogical perspectives are required in order for both students and educators to effectively engage with global issues related to power and oppression within the human experience. Cultivating students’ capacity for empathy through cognitive, affective and behavioural learning pathways is central in developing necessary skills for strengthening their ability to be responsive and to respectfully navigate their way in intercultural encounters. Ouedraogo offers readers a critical and diverse lens to consider the urgent need for exploring multiple theoretical and pedagogical approaches to working within an increasingly diverse social and professional context. Outlining the four steps involved in a pedagogy of empathy, Ouedraogo provides a framework that may assist educators to refine their own pedagogies. She concludes with a collection of provocative questions that encourage readers toward deep reflection and opportunities for critical growth.

In their article ‘Collaborative Poetry Making: Words, Place, and Decolonisation,’ Michelle Yeo and Angela Waldie share the outcomes of a professional development workshop they designed to engage educators in using poetry as a reflective, communicative device to foster creative decolonisation. Their work is founded in a recognition that the storied landscapes of North America have lost their original meanings through the colonised and anglicised process of re-naming. Reviewing Indigenous poets’ powerful sharing of their experiences of colonised landscapes, Yeo and Waldie found deep learning in relating words, place and poetry. Through their love of poetry, they began a journey of understanding themselves as settlers in a land transformed by colonisation. As a result of these transformative experiences, they created a professional development opportunity for colleagues to explore their identities and relationships to the land through collaborative poetry writing. They describe the process through which participants were invited to reflect on the complex questions and emotions associated with decolonisation by exploring words and the land. They recommend that, for academics rooted in deeply colonial disciplines and institutions and often fixed in cognitive spheres, using creative practices provides opportunities to reconnect with one another and the land in new, potentially transformative ways. They illustrate how, through collaborative, creative poetry making we may lower our defenses and see new possibilities for decolonising ourselves and our institutions.

In ‘Who am I and What is My Role in Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples?’ Gloria Ramirez weaves together creative and reflective practices in order to wrestle with her own positionality and relationship to colonialism and decoloniality in Colombia, Canada, and Secwepemcúlecw. Ramirez powerfully draws on theory, scholarship, autoethnography, and poetry to provide a thought-provoking, evocative, and critically reflexive exploration of her own journey towards reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Her technique of interweaving scholarly writing and poetry creates the imaginative space for readers to reflect on the deep implications of these issues for our conceptualisations of self, even as she provides the critical scholarly foundations from which we might build and strengthen our own reflexive practices. She continually situates that exploration within contextually specific histories, scholarship, and lived experiences. In doing so, she captures the ever-shifting complexities of positionality and accountability over the course of her life’s journey and in multiple colonial contexts. Ramirez grapples with questions of what it means to be an ally, and the ongoing commitments and actions required to continuously enact allyship. Towards the close of the article, she provides a series of critically reflexive questions relevant to all of those who might seek to indigenise higher education. Ramirez’s commitment to transformational learning, introspection, humility and reconciliation invites us to consider the conditions of possibility and mechanisms of transformation that might inform our own journeys.

Jason Louie and Sae-Hoon Stan Chung move us away from more traditional forms of academic writing and, quite literally, invite us into dialogue. Louie is a fluent Ktunaxa speaker and elected chief of the Yaqan Nukiy band. Chung is a Korean-Canadian scholar, consultant, and writer who is also a Senior Advisor with the Ktunaxa Nation Council. Taking the form of a dialogical, co-constructed ethnographic dialogue, Louie and Chung provide an intercultural performance that is rooted in awareness and at times uncomfortable interrogation of one’s own positionality. In doing so, they invite us to reflect on what our own intercultural dialogues have been, or might be. They discuss and elaborate on three powerful tools for decolonisation: the art of checking in, the practice of informed consent, and the platinum rule. Through their discussion of the art of checking in, they provide practical strategies for decolonising gatherings that are deeply rooted in Indigenous knowledges and practices. Louie and Chung go on to discuss an expanded practice of informed consent, even as they engage in unsettling dialogues regarding colonial patriarchy. Through their contrasting discussion about the gold and platinum rules, they then engage in a nuanced discussion of conceptualisations and applications of equity and equality in colonial contexts. Their work is a reminder of all of the differing perspectives, teachings, lived experiences, strengths and wounds that we carry with us into intercultural dialogues. They further gift us an example of how we might navigate those challenging waters with empathy, compassion, and unflinching accountability.

Concluding Thoughts: Intercultural Praxis as Hope

It has been our honour to act as editors to this special issue. Alone, each article provides insights into the complexity of intercultural learning. Collectively, they provide a mosaic of engaged and engaging voices from diverse positions and perspectives. The authors also represent diverse disciplines and utilise a variety of communicative methods, yet they all demonstrate a willingness to grapple with the sometimes messy work of reflection and dialogue within and across difference. In doing so, they demonstrate the power of intercultural dialogue as praxis.

We recognise that this special issue offers perspectives and experiences of intercultural dialogue in the Canadian context. We hope these voices are valuable to readers in other national and international contexts. Colonial projects were and are global; so too must be decolonializing ones. It is our hope that these examples will resonate not only with readers in other settler colonial contexts, but also with those in lands where colonial projects originated. We are all responsible for reconciliation, the dismantling of racist hierarchies, and undoing persistent and ongoing oppressions and inequities. Intercultural reflection, dialogue, and praxis may offer us tools and strategies to help nurture communication and understanding across difference. This work is especially timely as we all are seeing inequities amplified by the pandemic, the climate crisis, the rise of nationalisms, and increasingly polarised worldviews. The authors in this issue provide us with hope by engaging in intercultural practices as powerful mechanisms for the learning and unlearning necessary for our collective futures. We raise our hands to them.

Disclosure Statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kyra Garson

Dr. Kyra Garson is the Intercultural Coordinator in the Faculty of Student Development at Thompson Rivers University. Kyra is an educator and faculty developer who is interested in intercultural learning, and equitable and inclusive pedagogies. Her role is pan-institutional as she works with faculty, staff, and students to increase intercultural understanding and advance equity in higher education. Her research interests include critical pedagogies, multicultural group work and faculty development. Kyra's doctoral study entitled “Are we graduating Global Citizens?” received the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education's dissertation of the year award in 2014. In 2011, the Canadian Bureau for International Education selected her to receive the Internationalization Award for her work with faculty to intercuturalize the curriculum. In 2017, she was awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award by the British Columbia Council for International Education. Kyra founded the Learning at Intercultural Intersections project and has hosted the conference and guest edited the resulting special issues since 2015.

Gabrielle Lindstrom

Dr. Gabrielle Lindstrom is a member of the Kainaiwa Nation which is a part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. As educational development consultant for Indigenous ways of knowing, Dr. Lindstrom works closely with the TI and vice-provosts of teaching and learning and Indigenous engagement to advance Indigenous ways of knowing in campus teaching and learning communities, cultures and practices. Her teaching background includes instructing in topics around First Nation, Métis and Inuit history and current issues, Indigenous Studies (Canadian and International perspectives), Indigenous cross-cultural approaches, and Indigenous research methods and ethics. Her dissertation research focused on the interplay between trauma and resilience in the postsecondary experiences of Indigenous adult learners. Other research interests include meaningful assessment in higher education, Indigenous homelessness, intercultural parallels in teaching and learning research, Indigenous lived experience of resilience, Indigenous community-based research, parenting assessment tools reform in child welfare, anti-colonial theory and anti-racist pedagogy.

Amie McLean

Dr. Amie McLean is a sociologist and ethnographer whose work focuses on social justice issues in Canadian post-secondary education and the labour market. She has previously published on post-secondary funding policies for Indigenous students, neoliberalisation and trucking industry regulation, and the racialized politics of mobility and excretion among long haul truckers. In her previous role as Intercultural Coordinator at Thompson Rivers University, she was co-chair of the Learning at Intercultural Intersections conference from which this compilation originated. She is currently the Manager for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Curriculum for Work Integrated Learning at Simon Fraser University.