Power to the people: exploring glocality as a framework for SDG implementation at universities in Canada and Mexico

ABSTRACT

This paper uses the concept of glocality to illuminate the ways in which the global operates as a hegemonic social construct for settler and colonial states to infiltrate and repress other local epistemological domains to assert and maintain control. Identifying four prominent and interconnected themes in the glocality literature: developing deep understanding; addressing power dynamics; privileging Indigenous knowledge systems; and accountability to place, the authors draw on their experience working in health scholarship to reflect upon how the social development goals can be approached by universities in ways that do not reify colonial relationships with Indigenous peoples.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous partnerships
• indigenization
• globalization
• sustainable development goals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: [Grant Number 611-2021-0166].

Notes on contributors

Lana Ray

Dr. Lana Ray (Waaskone Giizigook): From Opwaaganasiniing, Dr. Ray is an Associate Professor at Lakehead University. Her work seeks to advance Indigenous social, cultural and political realities through resurgent and decolonial praxis and she has worked toward this goal as the Principal Investigator on several projects, including The Waasegiizhig Nanaandawe'iyewigamig Mino-Bimaadiziwin Project: Cancer Prevention through Traditional Healing. She is a renowned public speaker locally and globally in regard to Indigenization and Indigenous research in the health and education sectors.

Aurelio Sánchez Suárez

Dr. Aurelio Sánchez Suárez: Maya, native from Nunkiní. Research Professor, currently Coordinator of the Social Sciences Unit of the Autonomous University of Yucatán. An expert member of the International Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage of ICOMOS. His line of research addresses topics on the preservation of cultural and biocultural heritage, cultural landscape, territory, knowledge, and Mayan culture, of which he has coordinated interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects.

Kristin Burnett

Dr. Kristin Burnett: Professor in the Department of Indigenous Learning at Lakehead University. Burnett is a settler scholar whose research interests can broadly be defined as: Indigenous history, settler colonial and critical race studies, women and gender history, the social history of health and medicine, and Canadian history.