The disrupting interview: a framework to approach decolonization

ABSTRACT

We are one Indigenous and three settler academics struggling with the question of what decolonizing means for us in our educational practices at three universities, located in different parts of the territory called Canada and Turtle Island. Drawn to the idea of Decoding the Disciplines as a process for this work, we found ourselves critiquing colonial assumptions underlying the disciplines themselves. This inquiry led us to repurpose the Decoding interview into a process we call Disrupting the Disciplines that we have conducted with colleagues as part of a research study. In this article, we describe and theorize the interview process. Academic developers may find in this process a pathway towards supporting decolonization of others and themselves that forefronts relationality.

KEYWORDS:

• Decolonization
• indigenization
• decoding the disciplines
• disruption

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gabrielle Lindstrom

Gabrielle Lindstrom is a member of the Kainaiwa Nation, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy, and comes to this work positioned as an Indigenous scholar deeply embedded in her Blackfoot ancestral way of knowing. She is invested in processes of decolonizing the teaching and learning contexts in higher education. As an educational development consultant for Indigenous ways of knowing with the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, Dr. Lindstrom works closely with the vice-provosts of teaching and learning and Indigenous engagement to advance Indigenous ways of knowing in campus teaching and learning communities, cultures, and practices at the University of Calgary.

Lee Easton

Lee Easton is a white queer settler scholar working in Treaty 7 territory. His background in critical pedagogy, queer theory, and cultural studies has influenced his teaching in both film studies and comic studies. A professor in the Department of English, Languages, and Cultures at Mount Royal University, Lee has worked collaboratively with Kelly Hewson examining how student reception practices in undergraduate film study classes are inflected by colonial discourses of the Canadian nation. Together, they have been theorizing ways of teaching about the Canada–US border in relation to decolonization. He is working to promote decolonization initiatives at Mount Royal University.

Michelle Yeo

Michelle Yeo is a white settler academic developer, professor, and teacher educator, living and working in Treaty 7 territory. She currently directs the Mokakiiks Centre for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University in Canada and works closely with faculty members thinking deeply about teaching and learning. Her research interests in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning include student experiences of learning, scholarship of educational development, and decolonizing practices. In these roles, she invests herself in teaching and learning communities, importantly now with a commitment to decolonization.

Robin Attas

Robin Attas is a white settler living and working in Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba, Canada. She works as an educational developer focused on equity, diversity, and inclusion at the Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning at the University of Manitoba. Prior to her shift to academic development, Robin was a full-time music theory professor and maintains an active teaching and research in that discipline. Robin’s recent move back to Manitoba after many years away has sparked renewed reflection about her relationships with human and more-than-human beings in the place she calls home and her obligations toward truth, redress, and reconciliation.