Engaging Indigenous Youth to Revitalize Cree Culture through Participatory Education

ABSTRACT

Traditional food harvesting is an integral part of culture and food security for Indigenous people in Canada and elsewhere. However, new generations are more inclined to consuming market foods rather than traditional foods. We report on a project in Norway House Cree Nation, northern Manitoba, Canada, to engage youth to express their thoughts about traditional food. The objective was to explore the understanding and values of Indigenous youth about traditional foods and to engage them in revitalizing culture toward long-term food security. We used participatory research approaches and engaged participants in focus group discussions followed by a collaborative art project. Our conceptual framework postulates a cycle whereby food security planning depends on engaging youth and the community, and planning in turn energizes further planning and participatory education. The findings of the article are likely of interest to Indigenous communities dealing with planning and intergenerational issues around food security.

Acknowledgments

We would first like to thank the Chief and Band Council of Norway House Cree Nation for providing us the opportunity to work with the community. We are grateful to Mrs. Agnes Mowat, the Principal of Helen Betty Osborne School at Norway House Cree Nation, for granting us permission to work with Ms. Amy Rogalski, the art teacher, and her students for this project. We would like to extend special thanks to the students of Grades 9–11 art class students for participating in this study. The research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair program (http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Durdana Islam

Durdana Islam (MSc, MBA, BSc.) is a PhD candidate at Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba. She received numerous scholarships for her doctoral studies, which include the prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS) Doctoral Award, offered by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada (2010-2013), the Northern Scientific Training program (NSTP) (2011-2012), NRI Provincial Grant (2010-2011), the Manitoba Hydro Graduate Fellowship (2010-2011) and a research grant from Transmedia and Justice Group (2010-2011). Her research interests include food security, Indigenous fisheries, participatory research and community economic development. For her doctoral thesis, Durdana is working with indigenous communities in northern Manitoba, Canada. Her work focuses on assessing the interactions between commercial and subsistence, indigenous fisheries, and using fisheries as a means of addressing food security in aboriginal communities.

Melanie Zurba

Melanie Zurba (PhD, MNRM, BSc.) is an interdisciplinary researcher at the Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Manitoba and instructor in the Department of Geography at the University of Winnipeg. Her research interests include critical assessments of governance systems, collaboration, food security, participatory methodologies, transformation, education and decolonization.

Amy Rogalski

Amy Rogalski is an art teacher in Helen Betty Osborne School in Norway House Cree Nation. Amy likes working with Indigenous youth and participates in cultural activities in the community. She thinks that participatory art is a powerful medium to initiate healthy conversation about tradition and culture among Indigenous youth, planners and community as a whole.

Fikret Berkes

Fikret Berkes is Distinguished Professor, Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba. He holds a PhD degree from McGill University, Montreal. Dr. Berkes has worked on northern harvesting studies and indigenous land use systems. He has expertise on role of indigenous and traditional knowledge in in northern Canada and internationally. Dr. Berkes is best known for his work on linked social-ecological systems (interrelations between societies and their resources) and commons theory. He is the author of Coasts for People (Routledge, 2015), Sacred Ecology (3rd edition, Routledge, 2012), and co-editor of Linking Social and Ecological Systems (Cambridge University Press, 1998), and Navigating Social-Ecological Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2003).