Indigenous youth and international development: a decolonial analysis of Canada's International Aboriginal Youth Internship programme

ABSTRACT

The international development sector has witnessed an increasing shift towards programming focused on feminist goals and Indigenous inclusion over the past decade. In this context, the government of Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership has branded itself a feminist and progressive leader in the sector. Canada launched its Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), as well as pledged 100 million dollars to small and medium-sized civil society organisations over five years to renew the government’s relationship with Indigenous peoples at home and abroad. These commitments contextualise Canada’s International Aboriginal Youth Internship (IAYI) initiative, where eight organisations have been funded to offer Indigenous Canadian youth professional experience in the international development sector. Indigenous youth, as the programme’s objectives make clear, are expected to act as good ‘Canadian global citizens’ and, in so doing, gain labour market experience that prepares them for employment or education post-internship. This article is sceptical of the IAYI’s objectives, ones that seek to include Indigenous peoples into a historically colonial field without regard for Indigenous peoples’ well-being and knowledge before, during, and after the programme. Drawing on decolonial, Indigenous, and feminist theoretical frameworks, this article undertakes a disruptive discursive analysis of the IAYI. We illuminate how the programme engages in the instrumentalisation of Indigenous youth, superficially celebrating their potential as global citizens, but ultimately leveraging this inclusion to bolster Canada’s international image abroad. Nevertheless, through previous interns’ experiences with the programme, we aim to humbly suggest transformative possibilities for the IAYI.

Au cours des dix dernières années, le secteur du développement international a connu une évolution croissante vers des programmes axés sur des objectifs féministes et l'inclusion des populations autochtones. Dans ce contexte, le gouvernement du Canada, sous la direction du Premier ministre Justin Trudeau, s'est présenté comme un leader féministe et progressiste dans le secteur. Le Canada a lancé sa Politique d'aide internationale féministe (PAIF) et s'est engagé à verser 100 millions de dollars à de petites et moyennes organisations de la société civile sur une période de cinq ans, afin de renouveler les relations du gouvernement avec les peuples autochtones au sein du pays et à l'étranger. Ces engagements donnent un contexte au programme canadien de stages internationaux pour les jeunes autochtones (SIJA), dans le cadre duquel huit organisations ont été financées pour offrir à des jeunes canadiens autochtones une expérience professionnelle dans le secteur du développement international. Comme l'indiquent clairement les objectifs du programme, les jeunes autochtones sont censés agir en bons « citoyens du monde canadiens » et, ce faisant, acquérir une expérience du marché du travail qui les prépare à l'emploi ou à l'éducation après le stage. Cet article exprime un certain scepticisme quant aux objectifs du programme SIJA, qui cherche à inclure les populations autochtones dans un domaine historiquement colonial sans tenir compte du bien-être et des connaissances des peuples autochtones avant, pendant et après le programme. S'appuyant sur des cadres théoriques décoloniaux, autochtones et féministes, cet article entreprend une analyse discursive visant à perturber le programme SIJA. Nous mettons en évidence la manière dont le programme instrumentalise les jeunes autochtones, en célébrant superficiellement leur potentiel en tant que citoyens du monde, mais en exploitant au final cette inclusion pour rehausser l'image internationale du Canada à l'étranger. Néanmoins, sur la base des expériences de stagiaires précédents du programme, nous cherchons à suggérer humblement des possibilités de transformation pour le programme SIJA.

En la última década, el sector del desarrollo internacional experimentó un cambio creciente hacia la implementación de programas centrados en objetivos feministas y en la inclusión de los indígenas. En este contexto, el gobierno de Canadá, bajo el liderazgo del primer ministro Justin Trudeau, se ha erigido como líder feminista y progresista del sector. Para renovar su relación con los pueblos indígenas dentro y fuera del país, el gobierno de Canadá lanzó su Política de Asistencia Internacional Feminista (FIAP, por sus siglas en inglés) y prometió hacer llegar 100 millones de dólares a pequeñas y medianas organizaciones de la sociedad civil a lo largo de cinco años. Estos compromisos contextualizan la iniciativa canadiense llamada Prácticas Internacionales para Jóvenes Aborígenes [International Aboriginal Youth Internship-IAYI), desde la que se ha financiado a ocho organizaciones para que ofrezcan prácticas profesionales en el sector del desarrollo internacional a jóvenes indígenas canadienses. Como dejan claro los objetivos del programa, se espera que éstos actúen como buenos “ciudadanos globales canadienses” y que, al hacerlo, adquieran experiencia en el mercado laboral, preparándose para el empleo o la educación después de las prácticas. En este artículo las autoras expresan su escepticismo respecto a los objetivos de la IAYI, pues consideran que, sin tener en cuenta el bienestar y los conocimientos de los pueblos indígenas antes, durante y después del programa, pretenden incluirlos en un ámbito históricamente colonial. Basándose en marcos teóricos descoloniales, indígenas y feministas, el artículo realiza un análisis discursivo disruptivo sobre las IAYI. A la vez, ilustra cómo el programa contribuye a instrumentalizar a los jóvenes indígenas, celebrando superficialmente su potencial como ciudadanos globales, pero aprovechando, en última instancia, su inclusión para reforzar la imagen de Canadá a nivel internacional. No obstante, examinando las vivencias de anteriores pasantes en el programa, pretendemos sugerir humildemente posibilidades transformadoras para las IAYI.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous youth
• Canadian foreign policy
• decoloniality
• international development
• Indigenous theory

Introduction

The global development sector has long faced criticism concerning its colonial origins and contemporary practices. Despite these, as well as emerging attempts to decolonise the development field (Plaatjie 2013; Rutazibwa 2018), less attention has been afforded to the connections between the coloniality of development practice and those of the settler state. This article seeks to advance these conversations by critically analysing the inclusion of Indigenous youth in Canada’s development sector under Global Affair Canada’s (GAC) International Aboriginal Youth Internships (IAYI) initiative¹ – a programme that the government of Canada is potentially seeking to redraft.

The IAYI programme was initially launched in 2011, alongside its non-Indigenous counterpart, the International Youth Internship Program (IYIP). Although the programme has undergone a series of revisions and refunding efforts between 2011 to 2022, the central objectives of the programme have remained largely similar. The IAYI has long sought to provide Indigenous youth with employment opportunities in the global development sector, through the help of non-profit organisations which employ Indigenous interns. In the words of the Canadian government, the IAYI aims to ‘empower’ Indigenous youth ‘as global citizens in Canada and abroad’ by endowing them with valuable work experience and by contributing to Canada’s international development efforts (Global Affairs Canada 2016a). It is worth noting a significant oversight in the programme’s implementation; the IAYI does not require its partner organisations to be Indigenous-run or have ongoing connections with Indigenous communities. To date, no Indigenous-run organisation has ever been awarded funding under the IAYI.

At first glance, the IAYI may appear as a progressive initiative, striving to redress the colonial exclusions that have historically marginalised Indigenous populations from government employment opportunities. Despite this potential, it is vital to contextualise the programme in the long-standing hesitations of Indigenous scholars over settler attempts at recognition (Coulthard 2014). As these insights reveal, many of these supposed opportunities engage in the ongoing ‘settling’ of Indigenous peoples and their lands (Simpson 2016). In echoing these suspicions, we ask under what conditions, and on whose terms, Indigenous youth are included in Canada’s development sector?

To answer this question, this article undertakes a disruptive and decolonial analysis of the IAYI and its supporting documents. We contend that the IAYI employs an ‘add Indigenous peoples and stir’ approach to Indigenous inclusion and is one that remains not only superficial and shallow but steeped in settler colonial logics. First, although it is a global development programme, it remains centrally interested in ‘developing’ Indigenous peoples, where the programme aims to ‘empower’ Indigenous youth by providing unspecified ‘skills’ necessary for either labour market participation – principally, but not exclusively, in the global development sector – or encouraging enrolment in post-secondary education. These objectives, we argue, echo liberal and capitalist definitions of empowerment, becoming an exercise of building human capital so that interns become fully autonomous and take responsibility for the self – in contrast to the government taking responsibility for citizens. Relatedly, the programme’s principal indicators of success centre on the achievement of post-secondary enrolment or employment post-internship. As we argue, even though the programme stresses global citizenship opportunities, it seems that these opportunities are less important than its emphasis on interns’ employment and educational success. This brings us to the second part of our argument, namely that the IAYI’s emphasis on global citizenship and its notions of Indigenous inclusion into development opportunities abroad serve as a settler colonial veneer, concealing Canada’s interest in ensuring Indigenous youth are productive citizens to the Canadian state.

This veneer, as we demonstrate in the later parts of this article, also hides a much more pernicious truth: the government using this programme to divert attention from its ongoing colonialism, both at home and potentially abroad in its development work. By offering global citizenship opportunities for Indigenous interns, the settler state implies that it is addressing ongoing concerns regarding its mistreatment of Indigenous populations at home. In so doing, it can leverage its renewed image as a truly liberal and multicultural state – one that now appears to meaningfully include Indigenous populations in development work – to then engage in global development as a seemingly good human rights leader and global citizen. Yet, such positive appeals distract from the reality that the state has long sought to offer apologies, recognition, inclusion, and reconciliation to imply that settler colonialism is a matter of the past. Our analysis thus reveals that this programme is likely involved in ensuring settler logics and practices continue – in terms of the ongoing ‘settling’ of Indigenous land and peoples (Simpson 2016) – all with a renewed legitimacy in its superficial gesture of extending development opportunities to Indigenous interns.

Despite our critiques, we are not only interested in what Eve Tuck (2009) calls ‘damage-based research’ – that is, research that over-emphasises pains and failure while minimising hope and self-determination. Rather, we use our critiques as a humble beginning to rethink and reimagine the potential of the programme. We are hesitant to suggest that this reimagination will necessarily resemble true decolonisation or reconciliation between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people, notably because this is a comprehensive and ambitious task. As described by Allison Weir (2017), decolonising requires destabilising settler colonialism. Our hesitations to use the term decolonisation also reflect our weariness of working with the settler state to decolonise a colonial programme, given that this state has a long history of appropriating and diluting such ideas, all while it continues its settler colonial practices. Our tentative suggestions, instead, convey that the potential transformative capacity of the IAYI can only begin when it is not only rethought but reimagined through the lived experiences and knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples. Only by actively prioritising the unique experiences and knowledges of Indigenous communities and past interns can Canada move beyond superficial gestures and towards genuine inclusion. In so doing, it may set a new path towards a development practice that challenges its settler colonial legacy.

Our paper is divided into five parts; the description of the IAYI programme; an overview of the disruptive and decolonial methodological and theoretical underpinnings of our analysis; our substantive analysis of the central themes within the IAYI; a critical discussion of how the IAYI programme and its objectives engage in ongoing settler colonialism; and, finally, our tentative proposals for beginning to rethink not only the IAYI programme, but Canada’s development and settler colonial practices more generally.

The IAYI programme

The IAYI programme was launched under the Conservative government of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2011 alongside its sister initiative, the IYIP, as part of the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) Global Citizens Programme.² Upon launching the programme, then-Minister of International Cooperation, Bev Oda, stressed the outcome-driven nature and instrumental significance of Indigenous peoples’ inclusion into this programme, arguing that: ‘Aboriginal youth have extensive knowledge, experience, and skills that can contribute to the success of international development projects’ (GAC 2011). The IAYI programme originally funded eight Canadian organisations, supporting 63 interns with an extremely modest budget of $941,330. Both the IYIP and the IAYI were extremely short-lived, not being renewed because of a reported lack of financial and human resources (CIDA 2013).

It was only with mounting pressure from non-profit organisations, such as the Atlantic Association of International Cooperation, that both programmes were renewed under Harper for another two-year period in 2014. This time, the IYIP received an increased $11.9 million budget, while the IAYI received $4.2 million. Although this improved budget was much-needed, reviving the project with additional funding appears to pander to on-the-fence liberals who were looking to vote Conservative in the wake of increasing calls to action from Indigenous peoples.³ As a result, the programme at this time emphasised traditional development priorities, including increasing food security, securing the future of children and youth, stimulating sustainable economic growth, advancing democracy, and ensuring security and stability. In alignment with the incoming government’s electoral promises largely directed at Indigenous people, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his administration implemented the third iteration of these programmes between 2017 and 2022, allocating $23.6 million to the IYIP and $10.5 million to the IAYI programme. Here, the IAYI’s primary objectives centred on addressing employment barriers and engaging youth as global citizens.

There are several important concerns underpinning the programme and its implementation that we wish to address. First, aside from the increased budget and incorporation of the FIAP, fundamentally, little has changed between the IAYI’s three iterations. As has been argued, many of Trudeau’s policy decisions and funding priorities are uncritical continuations of the previous Harper government (Lightfoot 2018).⁴ In the case of the IAYI, this is particularly evidenced in Trudeau’s adoption of the Harper government’s ‘best practices’ that frame programmes without providing further support, resources, and obligations for organisations to actually comply with them. Although many of these practices are not necessarily ‘bad’ in themselves – they include, for example, the need to support interns’ re-entry processes, as well as providing support networks for interns while in the field – others emphasise an individualised responsibility for personal safety in the field – where interns, for example, are encouraged to simply ‘say no’ to potentially risky or unsafe situations. Whether under Harper’s or Trudeau’s administration, organisations are also not obligated to employ these best practices, and doing so is constrained by their funding and organisational capacity (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada n.d.).

The IAYI programme is not just an uncritical extension of a previous Harper initiative. Its underlying logic, objectives, and language resonate with ongoing settler state ideology. This is clearly evidenced by Trudeau’s decision to maintain the term ‘Aboriginal’ in the programme’s name – a narrowing term that encompasses First Nation, Métis, and Inuit identities, but does not recognise the international power that ‘Indigenous’ awards in international systems of self-determination and governance as laid out by the United Nations. Likewise, as mentioned, none of the IAYI partner organisations must be Indigenous-run to receive funding. While there are passing indications of the need to integrate the programme within Indigenous communities and their knowledge, the programme’s ‘Call for Proposals’ (available to prospective partner organisations) neither mandates such integration nor specifically allocates funding for involving Indigenous community members beyond the interns themselves.

Decoloniality as a disruptive methodological act

Canada is unquestionably a settler colonial state. Settler colonialism, as described by Lorenzo Veracini (2019, 1), is ‘a specific mode of domination where a community of exogenous settlers permanently displace to a new locale, eliminate or displace indigenous populations and sovereign ties, and constitute an autonomous political body’. It operates as a structure that maintains its existences through logics of elimination (Castellanos 2017; Dhillon 2015; Wolfe 2006), where the state eradicates and replaces Indigenous political orders and ways of life (Simpson 2016; Wolfe 2006) in order to assert itself as the sovereign authority over stolen land despite the various Indigenous nations that exist within its borders (Lightfoot 2016; Midzain-Gobin and Dunton 2021). Settler state practices in Canada include the creation of the residential school system, the abduction of Indigenous children into state custody, ongoing and colonial-motivated policy brutality, and the failures of the Canadian state to protect Indigenous girls and women as the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) continues (Dhillon 2015).

As with many colonial phenomena, settler colonialism is necessarily gendered, operating through heteropatriarchal logics that centre straightness, whiteness, and maleness as dominant governing norms, and in ways that devalue the political status, knowledges, bodies, and lives of Indigenous women and queer peoples (Arvin, Tuck, and Morill, 2013). Since these populations are linked with Indigenous reproduction and renewal, they pose the greatest threat to the existence of the settler state and its sovereignty (Simpson 2016). This speaks to the genocidal rationalities and practices of settler colonialism that inevitably seek elimination and erasure, and where even the physical existence of Indigenous people is treated as a threat to the settler nation (Lawrence and Dua 2005). Indigenous populations with uteruses are most often seen as the personification of this threat, being evidenced by a range of heteropatriarchal settler tactics spanning from the removal of their legal tribal status (Arvin, Tuck, and Morrill, 2013) to their coerced sterilisation (Native Women’s Association of Canada 2023).

This article, therefore, does not take the promises and objectives of the IAYI as stated by the state as a given. Rather, it situates the programme within this settler colonial structure. In so doing, we undertake a decolonial and Indigenous reading of the IAYI using the tools of discourse-theoretical analysis, or DTA (Midzain-Gobin and Dunton 2021; Shepherd 2008). We analysed the IAYI and its supporting documents, as well as government promotional efforts of the programme, which included ministerial calls for participation, as well as IAYI videos and infographics. Using DTA, our paper explores the relationship between the settler government and Indigenous IAYI interns. DTA is particularly effective at analysing deeper meanings and power relations undergirded within government policy documents (Shepherd 2008); these are understood to be ‘discourses as practice’ (Midzain-Gobin and Dunton 2021). This view of discourses captures how textual representations are also materialised as settler governance practices. Additionally, our use of DTA has an emphasis on relationships, especially how ‘discourses produce concepts and meanings and articulate both subjects and objects’ (Midzain-Gobin and Dunton 2021, 36). This emphasis on relationships is significant for our analysis in revealing how settler colonial meaning is created and constructed through relationships (i.e. those between the Canadian government and Indigenous interns), as well as the ways this meaning is established through various IAYI and related government documents.

Our analysis remains grounded in a broader decolonial methodology, which reflects on the programme’s deeper meaning and contextualisation within (and perpetuation of) colonial logic. Here, we are using the term methodology in its most broad and political sense, referring to our Indigenous and decolonial theoretical commitments, and intentions of being ‘epistemically disobedient’ to the dominant knowledge systems of coloniality and modernity (Mignolo 2011). Our paper is informed by Aradau and Huysmans’ (2014) understanding of methodologies as not merely value-neutral research techniques but, instead, as key sites of politics. Methodology is performative in helping to ‘enact social and political words’, which do not leave the world in which they study untouched (ibid., 598). As practices, they help to shape these worlds. Methodology can be disruptive when practised as ‘acts’ that engage in power struggles within the production of dominant knowledge by turning to alternative knowledge systems (ibid., 608). In this sense, our reading of the IAYI enacts a ‘rupturing scene’ (ibid., 609) by unsettling dominant, settler colonial thinking and knowledge on the programme. In so doing, we aim to incite ‘political rupture’ (ibid., 609); by appealing to decolonial alternatives based in Indigenous knowledge systems, this methodological act aims to transform the colonial working of Canadian (and potentially other states’) development practices.

As our analysis will demonstrate, coloniality underpins the IAYI; how it has historically underpinned the formal development industry, as well as the logic of development that has long existed. This follows Plaatjie’s (2013) understanding of development discourse as an ‘old phenomenon’ that predates the modern development industry. Development discourse ‘is predicated on a Eurocentric truth and ideology, which asserted itself forcefully through colonialism and continues to do so through coloniality’ (ibid., 121). Coloniality, at times used interchangeably or alongside the term the ‘coloniality of power’ (Quijano 2007), is innately tied with modernity (Mignolo 2011), being as disciplinary mode of thinking and onto-epistemic worldview as much as it is a form of material and racial violence. As a ‘cognitive mode of power’ (Castellanos 2017, 778), coloniality not only holds Western knowledge as superior to other forms of knowledge production (Rojas 2016) but holds that it is the ‘neutral, objective, and universal one’ (Rutazibwa 2018, 456). This universal superiority bolsters efforts to control and manage colonised populations and their territories (Rojas 2016). Coloniality, then, is a violent ordering of the world, involving the degradation, devaluation, and dehumanisation of colonised peoples (Lugones 2007), to preserve ideational and material control of those deemed ‘Other’ (Quijano 2007). Using a decolonial methodology attuned to coloniality allows us to understand the IAYI as a colonial governance strategy of Indigenous control and extraction. Importantly, such inclusions of colonised populations remain shallow, if not violent, when they only bolster the control and legitimacy of colonial knowledge production practices (Said 1989).

Notably, this article’s arguments are contextualised within the first-hand experiences of two of our authors’ interactions with the programme – both as programme directors of an IAYI-affiliated organisation, one being a previous IAYI intern. Our arguments, as much as they are rooted in a decolonial methodological and theoretical framework, are shaped by these experiences as insiders to the programme, its implementation, and its administration. We argue that the strength of this ‘first-person’ method is rooted in its merging of the discursive, on the one hand, and the material and embodied, on the other (Roth 2012). Quite simply, our understanding of the discursive power of this programme has been felt and experienced, but also observed, through personal and ongoing interactions with the programme, the Canadian government, and Indigenous interns. Our analysis of the programme is invariably shaped by these encounters and observations with the programme – including Indigenous interns – but we do not suggest that we are speaking on their behalf. Although we appeal to broader decolonial frameworks to bolster our analysis so as not to imply that our experiences are the only, exclusive, or central experiences worth considering, we nevertheless admit that this analysis remains, and is perhaps limited by, our own interpretations, experiences, and contextualisation within the IAYI programme.

This disruptive and political methodology is not merely about analysis and critique, but also resurgence (Weir 2017). In this way, we prioritise alternative ways of knowing, especially those that emphasise reciprocal relationships between the state and Indigenous peoples. As critical Indigenous methodologies suggest, knowledge is not singular or individual, but necessarily community-based and collective (Fast and Kovach 2019), and is often rooted in experience, oral tradition, and storytelling (Whitinui 2014). Likewise, relationality implies thinking about relationships ethically, wherein they are ‘conducted with respect, responsibility, generosity, obligation, and reciprocity’ (Moreton-Robinson 2016, 71). With this in mind, our final section relies on a version of Indigenous auto-ethnography by a previous Indigenous IAYI intern – Lilianna Coyes-Loiselle (Métis from Treaty 6 Territory) – to act as a humble (and not conclusive) starting point to reimagine the programme. As we argue, these efforts at reimagining – both those within this article and those that take place beyond it – must be authorised by Indigenous peoples.

The IAYI: global citizenship and economic empowerment

In our analysis of the Canadian government’s official, promotional, and training material for the IAYI programme, we found that two central themes clearly underpin it: global citizenship and Indigenous economic empowerment. We will analyse each of these objectives in turn before outlining how their logics are interrelated.⁵

The programme positions Indigenous youth as global citizens tasked with furthering Canada’s development initiatives. This emphasis is most vividly illustrated in the programme’s ‘Call for Proposals’, where it explicitly states its ambition to ‘increase the empowerment of Aboriginal youth interns (both female and male) to engage as global citizens in Canada and abroad, including within their communities’ (GAC 2016b). While the programme and GAC do not clearly define what it means by global citizenship, its usage throughout programme and GAC documents seem to indicate the need to mobilise citizens, especially young Canadian citizens, to promote Canadian development efforts globally.

To this end, three of the four IAYI programme objectives identified in the programme’s ‘Call for Proposals’ centre Indigenous interns’ promotion of Canadian international development efforts abroad (GAC n.d. a). Likewise, GAC describes the benefit of the programme to Indigenous interns, stressing how the programme provides ‘Indigenous Canadian youth the opportunity to gain professional experience abroad’ (GAC 2020). In another sense, the programme’s idea of global citizenship emphasises interns’ abilities to have a substantive and positive global impact, while ascertaining skills to be more appealing in the domestic labour force. When announcing the renewal of IAYI and IYIP, for example, Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau not only celebrated the programmes’ ability to ‘create unique opportunities for hundreds of young Canadians’ but also encouraged ‘all eligible Canadian organisations and Aboriginal groups to apply and give our youth the chance to represent Canada and have a significant impact abroad’ (GAC 2016b).

Before fully analysing and critiquing the programme’s emphasis on global citizenship, we offer an important intervention into the possessive language and framing of Indigenous interns, those that, as reviewed above, use the language of ‘our youth’ and ‘Indigenous Canadian youth’. Such statements not only erase differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth in Canada but also problematically engages in the settler colonial practice of taking ownership over Indigenous peoples, seeing participants in the IAYI as Canada’s youth who are to represent Canadian values outside its borders. Interns are not seen primarily as representatives of their specific and unique Indigenous nations or in possession of Indigenous values worth global attention, but representatives of the Canadian settler state. These statements carry a paternalistic undertone wherein because the colonial state is providing Indigenous interns with global citizenship opportunities – opportunities, the project implies, that they would likely otherwise not have – Indigenous youth should simply be grateful for this experience. In turn, by providing these opportunities, the state and ‘settlers [can] feel good about themselves while maintaining life as usual’ (Midzain-Gobin and Smith 2020, 489). This awareness of the colonial underpinnings of the programme remains pertinent to remember as we unpack its emphasis on global citizenship.

While the unclear and inconsistent meaning of the term global citizenship remains contentious in academic literature (Davies 2006; Rathburn and Lexier 2016), its meaning is often rooted in notions of cosmopolitanism and a sense of universal humanity. Accordingly, the borders of an individual’s country do not prevent their moral responsibility to enact justice across the world (Cameron 2014). Its proponents view global citizens as members of a worldwide community, acting out of consideration for the greater good rather than self-interest (Dower 2003; Hatley 2019). Broadly, global citizenship embodies a vision driven by ‘compassion and concern for the marginalized and/or poor’ (Tiessen 2011, 573), and this aligns with Canada’s international assistance efforts aimed at poverty reduction and gender equality (GAC 2023). Given Canada’s history of engaging in its development and humanitarian efforts under rationalities of global citizenship, it is hardly surprising that this term underpins this policy and is repeated throughout related government programmes and policies.⁶

However, this seemingly benevolent idea is not without controversy. Critical scholars have scrutinised the concept of global citizenship for its underlying neoliberal and colonial alignment (Andreotti 2011; Hatley 2019; Pashby 2012). They argue that the term’s widespread use often masks a complex web of power relations and subjectivities. Among the common critiques are the underlying narrative of Western superiority (Coelho et al. 2022) and the perception that global citizenship represents a form of recolonisation, where Western constructions of citizenship are exported to non-Western spaces without consultation or regard for local context (Abdi and Shultz 2012). The requirements of global citizens ‘helping Others in need’ (Jefferess 2011, 79) relies on a subject, usually in the North/West, to intervene in the lives of the Other who is situated outside the West. Patronising practices of global citizenship grounded in universal values (Hatley 2019) become disconnected from the historical and structural nature of injustice. This centres Northern individuals as global subjects who act out of charity, treating those of the global South as othered objects of intervention (Tiessen 2011). Although notions of global citizenship, such as those supported by Canada, appeal to a universal humanity to bolster its claims of benevolent assistance abroad, the humanity of those it seeks to impact positively is often negated by its paternalism, wherein ‘the developing world is constituted as comprised of under-developed individuals awaiting the development that the West can provide’ (Tiessen 2011, 580).

Despite these tensions, and in the face of critical efforts to reimagine global citizenship in less-patronising and more-transparent terms (Rathburn and Lexier 2016; Tiessen 2011), the IAYI is contextualised within the Canadian government’s ongoing global citizenship practices, ones that now seemingly aim to engage a broader segment of (not only white) Canadians (GAC n.d.a). This speaks to several tensions inherent to the programme with its inclusion of Indigenous interns as global citizens. Global citizenship, as discussed, is usually predicated on the global North’s paternal benevolence to intervene in the lives of the non-Western Other – yet, under colonial logics, Indigenous peoples typically are not the ideal modern subjects engaged as global citizens doing this intervention. Rather, they themselves are seen as Others to the Canadian nation. Indeed, the relationship between global citizenship and Canadian identity is fraught with contradictions for Indigenous peoples, reflecting a particular notion of ‘Canadian identity’ that resonates both within the country and abroad (Clost 2014), but not necessarily with Indigenous interns.⁷

In short, the IAYI complicates conventional global citizenship practices in its instrumentalisation of the national ‘other’ (i.e. Indigenous peoples) to interact with and ‘develop’ the global ‘other’ (i.e. peoples situated across the global South). This introduces a power dynamic that has yet to be thoroughly examined in the existing literature. At the same time, when Indigenous people are labelled as ‘Canada’s youth’ in the IAYI’s framing of Indigenous interns, a nuanced power dynamic emerges, revealing another layer of negotiation between Indigenous citizenship and imposed Canadian sovereignty. What we mean by this is that despite Indigenous youth’s portrayal as global citizens in the IAYI, this does not necessarily translate into a full realisation of their Indigenous citizenship within Canada’s colonial borders. Indigenous participation in the colonial logics and practices via the IAYI, in this way, may seem odd at first, given that Indigenous peoples have historically been seen as outsiders to conventional, Enlightenment-based notions of modernity and civilisation (Escobar 2015). Yet, their involvement as Canada’s global citizens begins to make sense when we contextualise it within the second objective of the programme, one that seeks to integrate Indigenous interns into employment ‘opportunities’ that are deemed productive to the Canadian state.

As a complement to the objective of global citizenship, the IAYI emphasises interns’ economic empowerment as personified in their attainment of employment, especially in the international development field, or in pursuing higher education. The first of the four programme objectives states that the programme intends to: ‘provide valuable work experience for Canadian Aboriginal youth, raising their employability and/or empowering them to further their formal education post internship’ (GAC 2016a). Similarly, one of the expected outcomes of the programme is interns’ ‘increased participation … in the labour market or in the higher education sector in Canada and abroad, including in the field of international development’ (GAC n.d.a). Along these lines, the programme’s success is evaluated by strict indicators, which require partner organisations to focus on and report the number and percentage of Indigenous interns who are employed, pursuing higher education, and using their skills to support and contribute to the ‘development of their communities’ after the programme (GAC n.d.a). Notably, the programme’s post-exit surveys lack options for self-identification or personal reflection that instead seek impersonal, quantifiable results (GAC n.d.b). This approach reflects the broader tendency of development programming to value quantitative (rather than qualitative) metrics (Springer 2020), which seeks to, by measuring the economic productivity of youth post-internship, produce ‘knowledge useful for policymakers who must demonstrate return on investment’ (Springer 2020, 76). Indigenous youth are, thus, seen ‘as individuals to be acted on, rather than as relational and dynamic community members’ with their own contextualised, socially situated experiences and knowledge worth listening to (Springer 2020, 76).

On the one hand, such narrow evaluative measures necessitate reflecting on the colonial exclusions of measurement and evaluation. As Kelly and Htwe (2023, 4) argue: ‘Evaluation is colonized when outsiders design the programme, define outcomes and indicators of success, pose evaluation questions, gather and analyse data, and formulate results in ways that ignore and silence Indigenous and local voices’. On the other, these evaluation methods do not confront the structural barriers to employment, education, and other opportunities that Indigenous peoples routinely encounter in Canada, those that include chronically underfunded on-reserve education, racism in hiring practices, workplace discrimination, and the devaluation of Indigenous knowledge and cultural systems (Public Policy Forum 2020).

More foundationally, by stressing educational and employment attainment and success, the programme is not only interested in development work abroad but is also concerned with ‘developing’ Indigenous communities too. Through these employment opportunities, the programme implies that the central role of the Canadian government is to ensure Indigenous interns engage in markers of modernity, namely capitalist productivity and labour market participation. This speaks to the contradictory dynamics at the heart of the IAYI. Despite the government championing the potential of Indigenous interns as global citizens who have the capacity to help distant others, there is an underlying scepticism raised over whether Indigenous youth are truly capable of this – especially with the IAYI’s focus on providing employment and skill-building opportunities where Indigenous interns need, most pivotally, government support to ‘develop’ themselves.

These contradictions only make sense when we are attuned to the colonial logics of the programme. These imply Indigenous interns only become empowered and responsible global citizens when they remove themselves from their Indigenous homes and communities, and, instead, take on government-gifted employment opportunities that they, presumably, are unlikely to otherwise gain on their own. As Simpson (2016, 8) notes, ‘[settler colonial] states have to be involved in this ongoing “moving away” because they fundamentally need this land and its resources to fuel themselves and keep producing themselves of course, as a political order’. Importantly, however, framing Indigenous youth as individual, autonomous economic agents of use to the capitalist marketplace, as opposed to relationally embedded members of their communities, land, and knowledge systems (Moreton-Robinson 2016), represents not empowerment, but potential colonial violence – an important reminder when confronting colonial relations in development more generally. In the words of Taiaike-Alfred (2009, 44), ‘the colonial-capitalist enterprise will not lead to empowerment and reconciliation given that it relies on “the destruction or dispersal of Indigenous populations from their homelands to ensure access to industrial exploitation enterprises”’.

Ongoing colonialism and the IAYI programme

As we have suggested in the above section but want to make clear now, the IAYI’s emphasis on global citizenship serves as a guise for at least two objectives. To speak to this first objective, the IAYI seems to use the language of global citizenship – not only because it echoes previous and ongoing Canadian and global policy priorities and norms but also because this helps to conceal its intended goal of mobilising Indigenous youth to become productive economic subjects for Canada to outwardly harness to improve its international image. This is made clear by the fact that the programme’s success is measured (as indicated in the post-exit surveys and in partner organisations’ assessments of the programme) not based on Indigenous interns’ global citizenship achievements and experiences, but their pursuit and attainment of employment and post-secondary education. Even though the stated objectives of the programme emphasise both employment and education opportunities and global citizenship, the programme’s true intent is made clear by what GAC requires its organisations to report on. GAC requires data on the number of interns who are enrolled in post-secondary education or who are employed upon the end of their internship - although, they do not ask if this employment or education is related to the development sector. In our experience working with GAC on the IAYI programme, the sharp confines of reporting mechanisms shape the scope of the programme and promote an avenue that is intended to align with their strategic priorities in order to maintain funding.

More implicitly, however, the IAYI’s emphasis on global citizenship also contributes to a more insidious logic to the programme. That is, global citizenship can act as a veneer of inclusion – one example of how the Canadian government gestures to critics that it is actively confronting its settler colonial past – without substantively giving up power, engaging with Indigenous interns in a ‘nation-to-nation’ relationship, or confronting its ongoing settler colonial structures. The IAYI’s positive appeals to global citizenship opportunities are immediately suspect when we are reminded that the programme is characterised by unilateral Canadian government authorisation, design, and implementation. Indigenous participants are neither seen as knowledge keepers and representatives of their Indigenous nations, nor are they treated as capable of formulating the objectives and goals of the programme; again Indigenous populations were not consulted in the design of the programme, interns are routinely not asked about their personal experiences or well-being in post-exist surveys or interviews, and its partner organisations – the main bodies that run and overview the programme – are not Indigenous-run organisations (Global Affairs Canada n.d.b). The IAYI is a programme that, thus, re-affirms ‘a hierarchical relationship organised around settler power and authority’ (Midzain-Gobin and Smith 2020, 489). By unilaterally setting the terms of Indigenous participation without consulting Indigenous communities about what they need or want in this programme – or if this programme, as it stands, is even desirable for Indigenous peoples in the first place – it instead treats Indigenous peoples, their bodies, and their labour as another resource, as Simpson (2016) notes, like the settler view of land, from which to extract.

More foundationally, a disruptive decolonial reading of the programme contextualises it within the ongoing criticisms of Indigenous and government relationships, ones that are suspect to settler state claims of seeking Indigenous recognition and reconciliation (Coulthard 2014; Simpson 2016). For Glen Coulthard (2014, 3), ‘the politics of recognition in its contemporary liberal form promises to reproduce the very configurations of colonialist, racist, patriarchal state power that Indigenous peoples’ demands for recognition have historically sought to transcend’. The settler state often engages in superficial attempts at recognition and reconciliation when it fails to address ‘the injustice of colonial dispossession’ (Coulthard 2014, 12). Instead of doing so, it participates in empty gestures of inclusion in the form of opportunities previously out of reach for Indigenous peoples, while even acknowledging and apologising for past historical wrongs (Midzain-Gobin and Smith 2020; Simpson 2016).

Situating the IAYI within this literature reveals that the settler states’ (seemingly) positive acts of inclusion remain hollow when they do not seek to confront and transform material colonial injustices – especially those related to land and sovereignty – and, instead, remain steeped in unilateral settler power and authority. Perhaps worse, such settler attempts at inclusion likely do not confront the ongoing nature of settler colonialism; rather, these attempts conceal it. As Simpson (2016) asserts, even though the Canadian state may appear to engage in processes promoting equality for Indigenous peoples, the reality paints a much different picture; ‘the evidence suggests that Canada is quite simply, a settler society whose multicultural, liberal and democratic structure and performance of governance seeks an ongoing “settling” of this land’.

In addition to this ongoing ‘settling’, the Canadian state may seek to include Indigenous populations within the programme to bolster its international image as a good global citizen – especially given that Canada’s history of colonialism and treatment of Indigenous populations has long been held as a dark stain on its human rights record (Lightfoot 2018). The IAYI may participate in ‘the celebration of Indigenous contributions to Canada’, when this celebration only serves to, in reality, obscure its colonial underpinnings (Midzain-Gobin and Smith 2020, 481). With the appearance of Indigenous approval and participation in programmes like the IAYI, not only can settler colonialism continue without further scrutiny, but Canada can also bolster its long-cultivated image as a truly good global citizen and multicultural human rights leader (Rathburn and Lexier 2016). In terms of this latter point, Indigenous participation as Canada’s global citizens helps to strengthen its development efforts globally. Through Indigenous inclusion in the programme, Canada’s multicultural image can be more successfully realised, allowing Canada to assert itself globally as a ‘morally superior guiding light for the rest of the world’ (Midzain-Gobin and Smith 2020, 485). Notably, this approach represents a potent shift in the positionality of Northern-led global development efforts. By engaging Indigenous interns as global citizens, Canada’s development initiatives can present a more-equitable and less-colonial façade. This contrasts sharply with the typical dominance of whiteness often found in development practice, creating at least an appearance that it is more inclusive and less hierarchical.

The IAYI, at least in its current iteration, cannot disturb the coloniality of development. That is, the hierarchical logics of development, ones that actively dehumanise diverse populations across the so-called global South as lesser than the so-called global North is not necessarily disturbed by adding Indigenous people into a settler state development programme that only seeks to legitimise settler state priorities, especially those in the IAYI that are most centrally concerned with manipulating the inclusion of Indigenous peoples as global citizens to bolster its international image. As we close this section, we wish to reassert that these dynamics – that is, the belief that Canada has reconciled, can move on, and act like a multicultural global citizen in development through the superficial display of Indigenous inclusion – only serves to invisiblise Canada’s ongoing colonial violence, both within its borders and outside them.

Reimagining the IAYI: Indigenous knowledges and co-creation

In making these critiques about the IAYI’s colonial view of Indigenous peoples as resources and sources of labour to exploit, we argue that a central issue within the programme is that its incorporation of Indigenous peoples remains detached from efforts to think about or enhance Indigenous wellbeing or cultivate a revitalisation of Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of life. Our arguments on reimaging relationships between the settler state and Indigenous peoples, and revaluing Indigenous knowledges, participate in a much-needed shift from ‘a politics of seeking recognition’ within the settler state ‘to a politics of resurgence’ that prioritises Indigenous wellbeing (Weir 2017, 258). Our analysis primarily focuses on critiquing the programme. However, we also aim to utilise these critiques to envision a better version of the IAYI. Many Indigenous participants have expressed the programme’s potential value, as conveyed through stories shared with the co-authors. We see delivery partners as vehicles to amplify the programme’s potential, as explored below. These suggestions to reimagine the programme are tentative and incomplete. This is deliberate and reflects a sense of humility in our tentative suggestions – especially given that reshaping this programme should be spearheaded by Indigenous people and communities, rather than being restricted to academic discourse.

This section engages with non-traditional and non-Western research practices, primarily those of auto-ethnography as a kind of ‘resistance discourse’ that ‘enables indigenous peoples to narrate our own storied lives’ (Whitinui 2014, 469); while conventional research methodologies may dismiss this approach as merely anecdotal, and therefore not rigorous or authoritative enough to yield reliable findings, we argue that its strengths rely precisely on its narrative character. Through Indigenous stories, we can learn a great deal about the operation of, as well as powerful ways to confront and transform, settler power.

This is not to suggest that any one Indigenous intern can speak for all Indigenous peoples. As Lilianna writes:

it is essential to recognize that not all experiences with the IAYI program are the same. As a former IAYI intern at VIDEA, an international development organization, my experience was strikingly different from other Indigenous youth interns I encountered.

This is largely because VIDEA, the partner organisation that managed her internship, actively embraced a process rooted in reciprocity, relationships, respect, and responsibility to one another and the Land. As it stands, however, partner organisations are not required through any criteria provided by the IAYI programme to engage in these processes. Despite the distinctiveness of Lilianna’s experience, through these personal entanglements and direct experiences with the programme, as well as our contextualisation of these within Indigenous and decolonial research, this section ‘seeks to resist more dominant ideologies’ (Whitinui 2014, 465) where ‘speaking about “self” creates new knowledge’ – that nevertheless ‘[invokes] a deep sense of appreciation for multiple realities and lives concerning indigenous peoples’ ways of knowing’ (Whitinui 2014, 481).

Our arguments centre on the potential value of fostering ongoing and reciprocal relationships between Indigenous peoples, partner organisations, and the government throughout the entire process of the internship. The programme’s effectiveness and integrity would be exponentially enhanced by embracing a process of co-creation with Indigenous communities and previous interns. That is, rather than the settler government possessively treating Indigenous interns as ‘our Canadian youth’ and continuing to unilaterally hold power and authority over the entirety of the programme – from its design, training, implementation, and post-exit processes – this settler state authority must be negotiated and handed over to Indigenous communities and interns. As Lilianna puts it:

to envision the substantive impact of the program, approaches and practices need to be adopted in the design of future IAYI programs, ones that are rooted in continuous and reciprocal relationships between Indigenous people and the sector.

Similarly, who is carrying out and managing the programme in its day-to-day operations should be substantially reimagined, given that interns’ experiences vary greatly on which organisation oversees their internship. Requirements must be put in place for IAYI partner organisations to (ideally) be Indigenous-led, and if this is not possible, Indigenous interns must be put into decision-making positions within the organisation – and given proper compensation for this additional work – while being consulted about how to better meet the needs of interns throughout the entirety of the internship.

Another central concern is preparing interns before and after the internship. For many, the IAYI is Indigenous youths’ first experience leaving their reserves and land for a substantial period. As it stands, the programme does not recognise many interns’ sacred relationships to land and the complex feelings of leaving it, even if this is temporary.⁸ The programme also does not engage with interns after the programme, not fully preparing them for reintegration into their lives and communities post-internship. Lilianna speaks to this, saying that

too often Indigenous interns from other organizations would share stories of feeling abandoned after the program, experiencing a sense of reverse culture shock in their reintegration, and disconnected from their communities, all without support from the organization that facilitated these feelings.

Beyond these procedure changes, Lilianna’s reflections – those concerning treating Indigenous communities’ interns as reciprocal partners and knowledge keepers who authorise the programme – likely point to the need for the colonial objectives of the programme to be entirely transformed. Its capitalist focus on productively empowering Indigenous interns, in this sense, needs to be abandoned. We do not seek to impose our suggestions of what these objectives may look like in the future; our decolonial approach encourages a humility of not having all the answers. We do not wish to have the final word on this subject. Rather, the nature of these solutions can be revealed in future knowledge gathering from a wide plurality of Indigenous interns. Even still, an external review of the IAYI commissioned by GAC (2022) may suggest a good starting point for what these solutions may look like. Here, a past Indigenous intern not only recognised that the central outcome of the programme currently prioritised future job opportunities for Indigenous youth but argued that there needs to be a shift away from this objective towards relational thinking. As they suggest:

I think the Indigenous lens for that would be more of personal development and connections and lived experiences. Connection with the land and with the people would be the most valuable thing through an Indigenous lens. (Global Affairs Canada 2022, 13).

Transforming the IAYI into a vehicle for genuine empowerment is not neatly contained within the pages of academic analysis or bureaucratic planning. It is found within the lived experiences, knowledge, and aspirations of a plurality of Indigenous communities and past interns. Questions of power concerning the potential appropriation of Indigenous knowledges must be taken seriously in the reimagining of the programme. Yet, we nevertheless suggest that through reciprocal partnerships that seek the collective insights of Indigenous voices in the design, implementation, and ongoing evaluation of the programme, we not only ‘disrupt’ the coloniality of the IAYI in its current iteration but engage in potentially transformative possibilities for Canada’s development practice in the future.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Lynn Thornton and the team at VIDEA for demonstrating the transformative and decolonial potential this programme can have for Indigenous youth.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lindsay Robinson

Lindsay Robinson is an uninvited settler who grew on the traditional lands of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University, Canada, completing her SSHRC-funded research on popular and political representations of teenage girls and young women in climate change politics. Her research interests include feminist theory, decoloniality, Indigenous feminisms, critical interrogations of girlhood, and youth-centred climate justice movements. Email: [email protected]

Brianna Parent-Long

Brianna Parent-Long is an uninvited settler who grew on the traditional lands of the Mi’kmaw Peoples, specifically that of Pabineau, Eel River Bar, and Listuguj First Nations. She is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University, Canada, and the Feminist Programme Coordinator at VIDEA. As a development practitioner, Brianna’s work experience and research interests include decolonial praxis, feminist programming, and climate justice. She currently serves on the Board of the Canadian Association of International Development Professionals (CAIDP) and on Digna’s Advisory Committee.

Lilianna Coyes-Loiselle

Lilianna Coyes-Loiselle was born and raised on Treaty 6 Territory in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and she is a proud member of the Métis Nation of Alberta. She works at the VIDEA as Head of Culture, Stories, and Reconciliation and she is past intern in the IAYI programme. In her role, Lili co-ordinates and collaborates on several programmes addressing gender inequality, climate justice, and colonial violence. Lili currently sits on the Prime Minister’s Youth Council, and she is an alumna of the University of Calgary, holding a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in global development studies and international Indigenous studies.

Notes

1 ‘Indigenous’ is the collective term referring to the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples within and beyond Canada. We use this term, given that it is generally preferred by Indigenous activists, and in international declarations like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Our usage understands the many diverse nations that exist within its umbrella.

2 ‘Aboriginal’ is defined in the programme’s ‘Affirmation of Aboriginal Affiliation Form’ as ‘the Indian, Inuit and Metis peoples of Canada’.

3 This point echoes similar arguments made by Brown (2018).

4 These practices are not necessarily ‘bad’ in and of themselves, but they are rarely implemented in practice. Moreover, this focus of Indigenous community-based incorporation is not contained in any other GAC document.

5 Canadians’ identifications with being ‘good’ global citizens can be traced, for example, to their identification with Pearsonian peace keeping (Rathburn and Lexier 2016).

6 For example, global citizen underpins one of the nine principles of GAC’s Policy for Civil Society Partnerships for International Assistance – a foundational policy that outlines how Canada is to engage with civil society.

7 This notion intersects with the government’s historical control, limitation, and assimilation of Indigenous citizenship – especially that of Indigenous women – through colonial constructs such as band offices and the stipulations of the Indian Act (Green 2001).

8 This relationship is well documented in decolonial and Indigenous literatures (see Coulthard 2014).