Indigenous Making and Sharing: Claywork in an Indigenous STEAM Program

ABSTRACT

In this article we expand on ideas of making and maker spaces to develop Indigenous making and sharing. We draw from an ArtScience participatory design project that involved Indigenous youth, families, community artists, and scientists in a summer Indigenous STEAM program designed to cultivate social and ecologically just nature-culture relations grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and making. In this article we focus specifically on clay making and the ways in which onto-epistemic heterogeneity can be engaged to create transformative maker spaces. We present findings from an analysis of the pedagogies of walking, observing and talking lands and waters to outline principles of Indigenous making and sharing in youth-based learning environments.

Acknowledgements

We thank and acknowledge the following people whose contributions to ISTEAM camp were invaluable and their love for and commitment to Native youth, world changing: Jeanette Bushnell, Roger Fernandes, Fern Renville, Nicole Tiltson, Matt Ecohawk-Hiyashi, Alice Tsoodle, Brett Ramey, Megan McGinty, Priya Pugh, Gabe de los Angeles, Charlene Nolan, Joh Howard, Mario Guerra, Meixi Ng, Ceni Myles, Emma Elliot, Rose O'leary, and La'akea Yoshida.

Additional information

Funding

Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings [1348462].

Notes on contributors

Filiberto Barajas-López

Filiberto Barajas-López (P'urhépecha) is an assistant professor in Curriculum & Instruction in the College of Education at the University of Washington, Seattle. He researches the role of race, culture, and language in mathematics teaching & learning and educational equity in P-12 systems.

Megan Bang

Megan Bang (Ojibwe and Italian decent) is an associate professor in Learning Sciences & Human Development in the College of Education at the University of Washington, Seattle. She researchers culture, learning, and development with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, particularly with Indigenous communities. Her work is focused on creating equitable and nurturing learning environments in formal and informal environments.