Storytelling of Indigenous and Racialized Women in the Academy in Toronto: Implication for Building Counternarrative Learning Spaces

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STORYTELLING OF INDIGENOUS AND RACIALIZED WOMEN IN THE ACADEMY IN TORONTO: IMPLICATION FOR BUILDING COUNTERNARRATIVE LEARNING SPACES

By Yumiko Kawano

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto © Copyright by Yumiko Kawano 2019

STORYTELLING OF INDIGENOUS AND RACIALIZED WOMEN IN THE ACADEMY IN TORONTO: IMPLICATION FOR BUILDING COUNTERNARRATIVE LEARNING SPACES Yumiko Kawano Doctor of Philosophy Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto 2019

Abstract Indigenous and racialized women utilize storytelling as a counter-hegemonic practice: a form of resistance in the academy. This research is centered within a graduate program in Social Science and Humanities, where a high volume of intellectual exchange involves sharing personal, cultural and collective experience. For Indigenous and racialized women, however, personal storytelling renders us vulnerable, especially when the stories become subject matter for research conducted within the dominant culture. However, telling our stories is profound because it helps us develop a sense of selfdetermination and supports cultural recovery. This project braids anti-colonial, anti-racist, and feminist theoretical frameworks. It depends on concepts developed by Indigenous elders, activists and scholars: Indigeneity, Resistance and Responsibility/Reciprocity. These discursive lenses enable me to situate my arguments about the narrative consumption of Indigenous and racialized female students in the Eurocentric academic setting. Primary data was obtained from face to face interviews as well as a group-sharing circle. Two of the participants identified as Indigenous women, seven identified as racialized women, two as queer and all as cisii

female. Seven of the participants were graduate students at universities in Toronto, and two of them had already graduated at the time of my interviews in 2014. There are three main findings. First, the act of narration itself enabled us to reclaim our holistic self and resist ongoing historical oppression. Second, the consumption of stories belonging to Indigenous and racialized women by white academics are not isolated experiences. Third, there is a need for mentorship essential to student success. Finding a peer support network among cohort members plays an important role in mitigating daily challenges, however, participants strongly emphasized the importance of institutional support and mentorship from faculty to center the notion of reciprocity. Finally, recommendations focus on the resource development available to Indigenous and racialized women to enhance our experience in the graduate program.

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Acknowledgments There were many times throughout this journey that I felt it was impossible to complete this dissertation. I am very grateful to have had support, encouragement, guidance and unconditional love from individuals and communities both in and out of academic space. It would have been impossible for me to even start my journey away from home in Miyazaki, Japan without love from my father, Hachiro Kawano and my mother, Keiko Kawano. You invested your time and resources into me for so long. Your unconditional support motivates me to finish this journey responsibly. There were days I felt I just wanted to give up. I felt it was impossible for me to have a dissertation in my hands. Sometimes you simply listened to my complaints, you got upset with me when I said I wanted to quit, but most of all, you encouraged me. I have met amazing friends through this academic journey, including Francisco Villegas, Paloma Villegas, Katie Jeffery, Zahra Murad, Mary Louise McCarthy, Donna Outerbridge, Griffin Epstein, and Bryan DePuy. Thank you for being part of my journey and sharing both the tough and happy times together. Thank you, my big siblings, Percy Lezard and Min Kaur. The academy is not an easy place to have a sense of belongingness. We face challenges day in and day out. Thank you for always opening your arms and caring about me, and teaching me to walk the walk, talk the talk. You are my role models. Thank you to Kru Darwin Miranda and Danica Bastidas Miranda who I met when I felt I lost my way in the academy. The

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community you have created through the physical art of Muay Thai has, literally, saved my body, mind, and spirit. Thank you to the people from Krudar community, for always reminding me that I have you all behind me. Thank you to Griffin, Julie Lee and George Yan for taking your time to check the draft. As a person whose second language is English, English as a Second Language, it is often difficult to articulate my ideas correctly. I appreciate your comments and advice. When I decided to apply for graduate studies, many people told me that it would be impossible – getting into a graduate program is hard even for domestic students, and so much harder for an ELL student. Thank you, Bill McMichael — you encouraged me through the application process. Without this belief in me, I would not be who I am today. Professor Njoki Wane, my supervisor as well as my academic advisor, who assisted in navigating not only the scholarship for situating my thesis work, but for pushing me to believe in myself. I still remember when I met Prof Wane before I registered for my Master’s degree. Prof Wane raised me to become a scholar. Working with you on various projects including organizing conferences, course preparation, and research projects, enabled me to develop the academic skills. I am grateful that you pushed me to think differently and critically. I am truly honored and blessed to have learned from you. I have learned many things from Prof Wane but the first thing comes to my mind is you always give, and give back to the community. In a competitive space like academy, it is easy to become self-centered. You have taught me what it means to practice a theory. You opened your arms and welcomed me not only as a student, but v

also as your family. Thank you for always reminding me of my strength and encouraging me not to hesitate, but to own it and claim it. Thank you for your patience. Professor George Dei, my journey in the graduate program begun when I found your edited book Indigenous Knowledge in Global Contexts at the UBC library where I studied as an exchange student. I felt I finally “found” the book that I had been looking for. Thank you for your mentorship and leadership in the academy. It always took me a while to answer the questions and digest your feedback that was provided to me. These critical questions were challenging to take, but these were the questions to make me grow as a scholar. I benefited tremendous from your scholarship. Thank you to Professor John Portelli for agreeing and being a part of my committee without hesitation, even though I asked at the very last minute.

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Dedication I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my sister, Yukari Sakai, who passed away March 1st, 2016. You were always my first fan and one of the biggest emotional supports while I was going through difficulties in Toronto, my home away from home. You are my little sister but also a big sister in my heart. Since you passed away, whenever I encounter challenges I tell myself that I have already been through the most difficult experience of my life, so I can do anything. Here I am. I hope you are proud of me.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ iv Dedication ........................................................................................................................ vii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 1.1. Statement of the Problems ................................................................................................ 1 1.2. Objectives and Research Questions.................................................................................. 3 1.3. Contextualizing Terms Used in this Project .................................................................... 4 1.4. Storytelling in Academic Institutions ............................................................................... 9 1.5. Overviews of Chapters..................................................................................................... 10

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 14 2.1. Historical Context of Canadian Higher Education ....................................................... 14 2.1.1 Eurocentricity in Higher Education ............................................................................. 14 2.1.2 Multiculturalism in Post-Secondary Education ........................................................... 20 2.2. Structural Challenges in Canadian Academic Institutions .......................................... 22 2.3. Historical Narrative Consumption and Dehumanization ............................................ 25 2.4. Narrative Consumption by white academics in the Academy ..................................... 29 2.5. Counter Narratives .......................................................................................................... 34 2.5.1 Narrative and Story ...................................................................................................... 34 2.5.2. Counter Narratives ...................................................................................................... 36 2.6. Storytelling as Counter-Narrative .................................................................................. 40 2.7. Counter-Narrative and Voice ......................................................................................... 42 2.8. Silence as Resistance ........................................................................................................ 45 2.9. Gaps ................................................................................................................................... 48

Chapter 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................... 50 3.1. Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................... 50 3.1.1. Ongoing Colonialism .................................................................................................. 50 3.1.2. Principle of Anti-Racism and Saliency of Race ......................................................... 55 3.1.3. Feminist Reimagining ................................................................................................. 59

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3.2. Dehumanization of Indigeneity within the Colonial Historical Context and its Process ...................................................................................................................................... 62 3.3. Indigenous Reciprocity/Sharing and the Conceptualization of Responsibility: Deep Listening /Active Listening ..................................................................................................... 68 Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 72

Chapter 4 METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................... 73 4.1. Locating Myself ................................................................................................................ 73 4.2. Qualitative Research. ....................................................................................................... 75 4.2.1. Objectivity and Validity ............................................................................................. 77 4.2.2. Qualitative Research Methods .................................................................................... 79 4.3. Methods for Data Collecting ........................................................................................... 82 4.3.1. Recruitment................................................................................................................. 82 4.3.2. Group Open Sharing Circle ........................................................................................ 83 4.3.3. One-on-One Interviews .............................................................................................. 84 4.4. Confidentiality and Informed Consent .......................................................................... 85 4.5. Transcription and Member Checking ............................................................................ 85 4.6. Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 86 4.7. Participants Profiles ......................................................................................................... 88

Chapter 5 THESE ARE OUR STORIES ................................................................... 92 5.1. Violence is a Continuous Shared Experience among and between Indigenous and Racialized Women in the Academy. ...................................................................................... 92 5.2. Colonized Space Allows Continuous Violence .............................................................. 97 5.3. The Dominant Discourse of the Learning Space ......................................................... 100 5.4. What Do You Want Me to Be? ..................................................................................... 102 5.5. Consumption of Stories by white academics ............................................................... 105 5.6. Intervention Facilitation ................................................................................................ 110 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................. 112

Chapter 6 WE WERE, ARE AND WILL BE HERE ............................................ 113 6.1. What is Story and Storytelling? .................................................................................... 113 6.1.1. Don’t Forget. We Were, Are, And Will Be Here. .................................................... 113 6.1.2. Story is Who We Are as Holistic .............................................................................. 115

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6.1.3. Building a “Community” .......................................................................................... 118 6.1.4. Storytelling is Contextual ......................................................................................... 125 6.2. Mentorship ...................................................................................................................... 128 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................. 133

Chapter 7 VIOLENCE CONTINUES TO SHAPE OUR EXPERIENCE IN THE ACADEMY ................................................................................................................... 135 7.1. Violence as a Complicit Connector to our Relationships ........................................... 136 7.2. Space and Ongoing Colonial Relationship................................................................... 138 7.3. The Dominant Discourse of Learning Space ............................................................... 145 7.4. Which Part of Me Do You Want? ................................................................................ 147 7.5. Wanted Narratives and Narrative Consumption ........................................................ 148 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................. 154

Chapter 8 STORIES ARE WHO WE ARE ............................................................. 155 8.1. Storytelling as Self- Determination .............................................................................. 156 8.2. “Community” in the Academic Space .......................................................................... 158 8.3. Mentorship ...................................................................................................................... 161 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................. 167

Chapter 9 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION...................................... 168 References...................................................................................................................... 178 Appendix A .................................................................................................................... 192 Appendix B .................................................................................................................... 193

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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Statement of the Problems In the fall of 2011, I was studying in one of the libraries at the University of Toronto. A young white woman was sitting in front of me. Her friend came to sit beside 1

her, and they started talking about their practicum preparation. One of the white women said “… I am thinking about an assignment plan for a Social Science class…oh! I would love to take up Residential Schooling.” Her friend, also white, replied, “I love it! This is a great topic!” Sitting across from her, I tried to understand her enthusiastic response to cultural genocide and institutionalized sexual violence on Indigenous children. The excitement in her voice offended me deeply. For this obviously non-Indigenous person, the colonial violence that Indigenous children experienced in residential schools was a “great topic.” I did not intervene in the conversation or try to start a dialogue with the woman. Instead, I sat in discomfort and tried to understand her response. How could this white person possibly frame the ground zero of colonial oppression as a “great topic”? This encounter led me back to what I had seen and experienced in classrooms where issues related to social justice, oppression, and colonial histories were discussed. In those supposedly safe settings, the objectification and consumption of stories about Indigenous and racialized “others” was a commonplace practice. However, those stories were consistently presented in the voice of the dominant. I came to view that practice as inherently unsafe. For me it was tantamount to a dominant culture assimilating and 1

The Initial Teacher Education program is one of the few programs that has a compulsory practicum which made me

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displacing the culturally nuanced voices of the oppressed with its own. That made the classroom a safe space only to wreak havoc on marginalized voices. For me, the moral distance between oppression as memory and oppression as “story” rationalizes and maintains colonial power. This distance fails to empower. It is crucial for educators and students to learn the history of colonialism from marginalized perspectives. Memory combines both the contemporary and the historical. The spaces of sharing and listening to memories are sites where notion of whiteness and white privilege are constructed and maintained. In these spaces white academics tend to take the positions of “consumer” or “voyeur,” no matter the intention. The classroom could be one of the most important spaces for sharing trauma. However, when we introduce our trauma, white academics often fail to place themselves in these stories. This allows them to disconnect present from past. It ignores ongoing colonial oppression and its forms of racism by positioning contemporary trauma as history. Doing so can leave the door open to narrative consumption and unlearning of the Others’ memory. When a classroom is understood as a learning space, those of us who share our trauma would hope to be supported in that space of sharing. In this supposedly safe space, dominant bodies must interrogate the impact of their curiosity. Listening must not become the consumption of knowledge for profit. How can the sense of responsibility around listening narratives be understood? What distinguishes the dominant consumers and the implicated listeners in the learning space when the dominant consumers become the implicated listeners, or vice versa? The notion of safe space needs to be interrogated within contexts; otherwise, the “safe” space is secured not for the oppressed who embody 2

memories of oppression and search for empowerment but for the privileged to consume knowledge. Thus, the connection between what I have experienced in a library and classroom brings me to my approach in exploring counter-narratives as resistance in the academy. As Fanon (1967) argues, resistance is not only “talking back” to the master narrative. It is a reclamation of history and spirit. It involves claiming who we are, how we understand ourselves and how we challenge oppression.

1.2. Objectives and Research Questions This project seeks to better understand Indigenous and racialized women’s experience in the academy. It aims to create a space where our voices are centred, and heard. I view this project as a space of resistance. The questions that frame this project are: 1. How do Indigenous and racialized students experience the sharing of personal stories in the academy? 2. Why do Indigenous and racialized students share stories? What does it mean for us to share personal stories? 3. What kind of support and resources do we find helpful in dealing with various challenges that we face from sharing our stories? What are our mechanisms of survival? The first question aims to identify the divergence and convergence of challenges that Indigenous and racialized women face in the academic institutions. It leads to the second question, which aims to understand the ways in which Indigenous and racialized women 3

in the academy practice resistance by voicing our narratives in the academy. The third question explores how we actually practice resistance with our stories.

1.3. Contextualizing Terms Used in this Project It is important to keep in mind that terminology in the field of social justice evolves. The terms and phrases that I chose to use in this dissertation over others are “Indigenous,” “white,” “academy,” “violence,” “racialized,” “body,” and “consumption,” and collective “we/us/our.” In this section, I will explain the reasons why I chose to use these terms, as well as how I understand them. I acknowledge that the words I use are not immune to criticism. My intention in explaining why I did so is to provide a context for this dissertation. My perspective is never static, always evolving. I am always learning. The first term, “Indigenous,” is a collective term for the original inhabitants of Turtle Island, including First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples. I use this term throughout this dissertation when description or discussion is particular to the Canadian context. I especially apply this term for two of the participants, both of who came from specific Indigenous communities in Canada. I acknowledge the diversity and difference within communities. My intention to apply this term is not to erase specificities. Rather, it recognizes common experiences of oppression. This term, as well as the terms identifying particular groups or communities, such as Black, Asian, and Latinx, are capitalized in this dissertation, respecting that these are real identities — acknowledging the historical injustice these communities have suffered.

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With regard to capitalizing these terms, I purposefully leave “white” lower-case, except when I quote from literature. This concept’s value has been internalized. It is important to acknowledge that some scholars use the capitalized term White to project its privilege or consequence. My intention here is not to suggest those who capitalize White are not as decolonial. Rather, I choose to use the lower-case for this term as a way of bridging a decolonial dialogue around race: domination and resistance. A number of critical scholars use the uncapitalized ‘white’ for the same reason. For example, in their dialogue about decolonization and social justice, Peterson and Chatterjee (2017) point out “The socially constructed language of race and privilege is seldom questioned until a shift is made. This shift into lower case w is to create awareness of how this is accepted without question” (p.162). My purpose in using the lowercase is to create a space to challenge internalized values embedded in keywords. Webster’s Dictionary defines violence as “physical force used so as to injure or abuse, damage or destroy” (violence, n.d.). Carraway (1991), as a racialized woman, states that we must challenge this traditional definition of violence, which does not fully capture the experience of women of color. I agree with her claim to name violence on our own terms. A definition of violence must include invisibility, oppressive policies, social and cultural exclusion. Carraway (1991) states, Naming the violence will help us to battle the psychological violence of invisibility. By considering some of the other types of violence perpetrated globally against women of all colors - including economic violence, cultural violence, legislative violence, medical violence, spiritual violence, emotional and educational violence - we can begin to organize and sustain a substantial defense. (p. 1305-1306) 5

Thus, we need to name the violence we experience. I also use the term “racialized” instead of any other term that might refer to a community of people who are non-white. Other related terms such as “people of colour,” or “ethnic, racial, and visible minorities” have been used interchangeably to describe communities of non-white people such as Indigenous, African-descent, Black, Latinx, and East and South East Asian. While these related terms have developed over time, it is important to acknowledge that these terms are contextual, depending on circumstance, including physical environment, generation, identity as well as political stance. I acknowledge in particular that “people of colour” arrived with the solidarity movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a powerful term among non-white communities. It functioned to challenge racial violence and white supremacy in the social justice movements of North America, stressing our shared and common experiences of racism. I choose to use “racialized” throughout this dissertation rather than “people of colour” with the explicit recognition that racialization affects various communities. As Dei (2008) reminds us, groups can be racialized for different purposes. I believe this term creates a space to critically engage in the process of racialization in that it implies the ways in which power is exercised; who has power to racialize, who gets targeted to get racialized, and in what ways. It questions beyond physical and biological aspects of the term (Dei & Kempf, 2013); in fact, it engages discussion about the ways in which power is manifest and exercised. It also questions the impacts and consequences of white people positioning themselves as raceless and normal through naming and categorizing ‘others’ as different and not normal. It is important to stress that racialization does occur for white 6

people. While non-white groups are racialized for punishment, white groups are racialized for privileges. I will discuss the notion of body from an anti-racist perspective in the theoretical framework chapter. Here, I would like to briefly explain why I use the term ‘bodies,’ as in ‘white bodies’ ‘dominant bodies,’ as well as ‘racialized bodies.’ I use this term to emphasize that the body matters. A ‘body’ can be understood as a text to be read and interpreted with socially constructed meanings and values that are marked. Racialized bodies and white bodies are read differently. As Fassin (2011) says, “the body is the site of the racial experience” (p.420). Dei (2017) writes that the body is a site of social relations where power is exercised. Though Dei’s (2017) argument is particular to Black bodies, I believe that his contribution to the discussion on biopolitics is applicable in wider contexts. Dei (2017) notes “[T]he body is always political and must be politicized. In fact, Black body needs to be politicized because it is lived and experienced through racist, colonial and imperial encounters” (p. 206). As the body is a site of social power relations, racialized bodies are read and interpreted in a certain way. This type of reading has material consequences, via policy and access to resources. As Fanon (1952) critically points out in Black Skin White Masks, this reading can occur within the colonized mindset of some racialized people. Racialized people internalize the white gaze and begin to believe that the Eurocentric worldview is superior to other ways of knowing and being. Using the term “body” frequently does not mean that I want to prioritize the body over ideas of mindset; rather, my intention is to emphasize that the body matters as a site of social relations where power is exercised. 7

“Consumption,” refers to how other peoples’ stories are taken up – as in the consumption of stories or narrative consumption. In the literature review chapter, Razack (2007) and Susan Sontag (2004) give critical insights on the consumption of Others’ pain. Blackwell (2010) argues that white students gain academic currency through Others’ stories. I use the term “consumption of stories” in order to question the implication of white bodies having access to the stories of Others’, a practice that is systemically supported. Consumption, in this context, includes attitudes and actions as well as words. It occurs when the white academic takes notes, as if experiences were “artefacts” to be used as part of their research, publication and expertise. For them, listening to our stories is to collect data for their project. They collect the data by asking, “could you tell me more?” This implies the stories of Others become resources for white academics to advance their careers. My purpose here is not to assume intention. They may have “good intentions”; however, “good intentions” should not be used as justification for white privilege that is systemically supported, nor should it perpetuate the violence that racialized people constantly experience. This violence causes further mistrust of white bodies. It results in a constant emotional battle in search for a safe space to talk. We negotiate between willingness and hesitance to share our stories in academic spaces. Stories shared by racialized people are not a subject of study; they are not something to be consumed. There is a responsibility that comes with hearing a story. Thus, the ways in which white people appropriate the stories of Others needs to be challenged.

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The last terms are collective — “we/us/our/ours.” I apply these pronouns throughout this dissertation. I explain my location in this project further in the methodology chapter. It is important, however, for me to give reasons here why I apply the collective “we/us/our/ours” onto Indigenous and racialized women’s voices, experiences and perspectives. It is not to ignore my power and privilege as a researcher, and dismiss the diverse and different histories and experiences that we each have gone through. Rather, I would like to take this writing space to claim our diversity and resist stereotype.

1.4. Storytelling in Academic Institutions In Indigenous, African, Latinx and Asian communities, storytelling has rich tradition. As Thomas King (2003) says, “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (p. 122). Storytelling is an act of written or spoken communication shared for a wide range of purposes; self-expression, entertainment, education and so on. These purposes are personal, social as well as political. Various formats can be used, such as drawing, singing, beads, or knitting. While these are all ways of telling a story, my focus is storytelling, which is shared orally because this is when challenges, oppression, as well as resistance are most immediately felt. I do not mean written or visual storytelling does not face challenges. In fact, non-Eurocentric creative writers struggle to access acknowledgement both in and outside of the academy. Various Indigenous and racialized scholars have claimed storytelling as an important way to share experiences and teach lessons; it is a form of knowledge.

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Storytelling has been a pedagogical tool for First Nations and Metis teachers. As MacLean and Wason-Ellam (2006) write, In using storytelling, (First Nations and Metis teachers) became institutional agents by providing analogies or connections to ideas that students can understand, so that learning is meaningful and transformative. Through sharing stories, the lessons carried a deeper, implicit, or multi-layered message that illustrated shared values. Storytelling created a climate that is responsive to the individual needs of the classroom while making analogies explicit to prior learning. (p.7) While their discussion is carried out within a particular context, it speaks to wider contexts, including post-secondary academic spaces. As I mentioned above, in post-secondary academic spaces, particularly social science and humanities, Indigenous and racialized students may speak of the challenges they face. These spaces could be a site where we claim our voices and cultivate a sense of belongingness and trust. However, the ways in which the academy is maintained creates complexities among students as well as with our faculty. In my individual and group interviews, I found participants expressed their struggles, noting that sharing our stories does not always give us a sense of empowerment. Instead, many realized that sharing our stories sometimes gives white academics an advantage to advance their academic careers.

1.5. Overviews of Chapters This thesis has nine chapters. The first chapter introduces the context of this project, how I came to this project, as well as how I organize this thesis by giving brief explanations about each chapter. 10

In the second chapter, I describe literature relevant to this project. I start with existing literature, which discusses the challenges that Indigenous and racialized people face in relation to Eurocentricity in the academy. I then provide an overview of literature, which talks about the ways in which Indigenous and racialized people utilize storytelling as resistance to historical colonial dehumanization. In this chapter, I also identify certain gaps in the literature that this project attempts to fill. Chapter three provides a discursive framework, introducing critical feminist, antiracist, and anti-colonial thought. This framework allows me to speak to a process of ongoing colonialism and focus on intersectionality of gendered and racialized experiences. Along with calling out contemporary colonialism, it considers Indigenous ways of knowing important. The significance of the anti-colonial framework is more than it’s focus on the colonial process. It fuels the agency of resistance and hope of the marginalized (Dei & Asgharzadeh, 2001). In fact, this integrated framework enables me to situate narrative consumption by white students as ongoing colonial oppression. With these lenses, there are three concepts that are elaborated: Indigeneity, resistance, and responsibility/reciprocity. Chapter four focuses on methodology. I provide the methods employed, including my self-location, the process of recruitment of participants, data collection and analysis. Throughout this project, I look at the ways in which Indigenous and racialized women utilize narratives as resistance. When colonialism is discussed, we focus on the experience of individuals who have been oppressed.

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Chapters five and six discuss my findings. Chapter five is focused on the academic plane. The individual interviews as well as group conversation circle revealed that participants experience continuous systemic violence in the academic institutions. The ways in which consumption of our stories by white academics is awarded demands, but does not yield, critical intervention. This further allows the system to preserve white privilege. While various critical scholars have identified systemic violence and oppression within the academy for decades (Douglas, 2012; Ruck-Simmons, 2006; Battiste, 2013), participants’ accounts confirmed that violence is on going. These Indigenous and racialized women are very aware that when we enter the academic space, we face challenges and violence. For example, when we share our stories, some of us are conscious of the possibility of white students using our experience as academic “resources” to advance their careers. Participants’ accounts in this chapter validate that the consumption of stories is a continuous phenomenon. However, this does not stop us from sharing. These accounts lead to the analysis in chapter seven and eight. Chapter seven focuses on the ongoing violence that participants experience in the post-secondary institutions. Chapter eight focuses on Indigenous and racialized women’s decision to share our experience despite this violence. Moreover, this chapter highlights the fissures torn in the potential of “community,” purported to be the selling point of academic maturation. We view these academic spaces as important sites to connect with one another and build reciprocal relationships. We hope to build a healthy relationship among colleagues and faculty in the academy. We are looking for institutional support, but more specifically, we are looking for support from individual faculty members to assist us in

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navigating the challenges we face in the academy. Our hope also reflects how difficult it is to transform academic spaces into inclusive sites where multiple ways of being and knowing are valued. These ideas are not new; what is new, however, is the clear identification of gaps between theory and practice in the university. This chapter contains a significant academic contribution, discussing how this group of Indigenous and racialized students envision a future in which mentorship from faculty is centered on a healthy, reciprocal relationship. I conclude this work with chapter nine, my final chapter, which synthesizes this analysis into a set of concrete recommendations.

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Chapter2 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews the available literature regarding the experience of Indigenous and racialized women within post-secondary educational institutions. First, I start with existing texts, which identify historical challenges that we face in the academy. I then present literature that frames storytelling and its role though Othered perspectives. This includes discussion of the ways in which Indigenous and racialized people utilize storytelling as resistance to the canonical dehumanization, in part by reclamation of identity, history and humanity. Finally, I explain the gaps in the literature, and examine how my project fills these gaps.

2.1. Historical Context of Canadian Higher Education 2.1.1 Eurocentricity in Higher Education Anti-colonial readings of history and narratives of marginalized groups have begun to flourish within the Canadian educational system. It has brought attention to, as well as challenged, the presence of dominant historical narratives that can be seen in curriculum, classrooms, and communities. However, despite the growing presence of anti-colonial histories, Kempf (2011) argues that, Very little information from these suppressed and marginalized histories persists (and is maintained) between the prevailing narratives that dominate the Eurocentric Canadian educational system, and the actual histories of the peoples who populate Canadian classrooms and communities … the story of Canada is too often a celebration of a dominant minority group and its narratives of wealthy European men situated within a heteronormative structure of colonial and family relations. (p.93)

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In this passage, Kempf (2011) speaks about the ways in which the Canadian educational system is built upon on Eurocentric ideology to maintain white privilege and patriarchy. Eurocentrism is the worldview that privileges culture, ideas, thoughts, values, attitudes as well as practices that propagate European “civilization.” In relation to the dominant narrative of history in Canada, Neeganagwedgin (2011) indicates how history is taught and rewritten in a way that benefits the dominants. She states, ...when she spoke about how her ancestors helped the European newcomers to survive the harsh climate, the teacher told her that it was the other way around (Gloria Thomas, personal communication, January 22, 2005). Some teachers today, much like some of the missionaries and nuns decades ago, frequently discount Aboriginal people and deliberately strive to maintain European dominance. (p.7) While Kempf’s (2011) and Neeganagwedgin's (2011) arguments are situated within the context of K-12 schooling, it is applicable to post-secondary education, in that Eurocentric ways of knowing and being are more privileged than Others. Linking this domination of Eurocentric knowledge production to coloniality, Monchalin (2016) rightly points out the coloniality of Canadian post-secondary education, saying, Historically, education is delivered in a way that validates colonialism. Postsecondary educational institutions are notably reflective of white EuroCanadian content, values, and perspectives. Eurocentrism has become naturalized in Canadian institutions and is now assumed the only world view to embrace in order to arrive at knowledge and “truth.” (p.xxiii) Codifying legitimacy within a specific notion of “truth” further reinforces and maintains the Eurocentric binary between the West and Others. The historical and unbroken domination of Eurocentricity in the Canadian post-secondary institutions has been 15

challenged and discussed by critics for decades (Henry & Tator, 2006; Battiste, 2013; Kanu, 2011). Eurocentrism is not merely a point of view; rather it reinforces the notion of Western superiority. In fact, the Eurocentric paradigm is positioned as central and superior while non-Western or Indigenous perspectives are considered peripheral or irrelevant. In Canadian post-secondary institutions, Eurocentric worldviews dominate the learning styles, curriculums and pedagogies. This infiltrates the physical structure of learning spaces, materials, resources and the expectations of students, instructors and staff. In fact, the Western position has been naturalized and considered as the only valid viewpoint in the Canadian conventional educational system, a move that claims Eurocentric thought as universal. As Battiste (2013) clearly points out, Every university discipline, and its various discourses, has a political and institutional stake in Eurocentric diffusionism and knowledge. Yet, every university has been structured to see the world through the lens of Eurocentrism, which opposes Indigenous perspectives and episteme. The faculty of contemporary universities encourage their students to be the gatekeepers of Eurocentric disciplinary knowledge in the name of universal truth. Yet, Eurocentric knowledge is no more than a Western philosophy invested in history and identity to serve a particular interest. (p.186) Here, Battiste (2013) argues that the Eurocentric worldview is only one of many worldviews. However, the post-secondary institutions continue to legitimate it as the only valid way to approach knowledge production. In other words, the Eurocentric lens reinforces its own sense of what counts as knowledge and what does not. Connecting Eurocentricity and whiteness in the academy, Gabay (2018) utilizes the concept of “Institutional Whiteness,” to describe the ways in which the culture of whiteness operates 16

within an institution — a workspace defined by violence, marginalization and invisibility. Gabay (2018) refers to Ahmed (2012), claiming, [T]he intersection of whiteness and space is designed to produce comfort for White individuals. The interplay of Whiteness and institutions is involved. Institutions such as universities and colleges send messages about diversity and in(ex)clusivity through physical infrastructure, policies, practices, population demographics, and cultural symbols. (p.177) The Eurocentric learning style, curricula and pedagogy affect student experience. European descendants are represented in their learning process. When these students see their home culture reflected in the culture of school, their achievement in the system is better than those whose home culture is not reflected. Sloan (2018) reports a panel discussion about “decolonizing the classroom” at Ryerson university. Susan Preston, a professor of Social Work at Ryerson, shared an incident where an Indigenous student asked her if she could reorganize the classroom set up. Preston stated that the majority of white students were “freaked out.” She said, I came to the classroom and there were no desks. The desks had all been pushed aside. We were sitting in a circle, and it was a very, very different experience. … The majority of students in the class were white students, and many students were really freaking out in that space. How could they take notes? Where were they supposed to put their coffee? (Sloan, 2018) Eurocentric ways of learning not only dominates but also negates other ways of learning. She adds, What [Indigenous] students were experiencing was a place of discomfort, a place of not being sure what to do, and a learning environment that does not really fit with their experience and history… [That’s what] Indigenous students live with every single day in this institution. (Sloan, 2018)

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Indigenous and racialized students are challenged by their omission in the Eurocentric educational system; they do not experience cultural representation in the learning materials, or pedagogy, nor do they feel a connection to their instructors. Connection to instructors is a key to the academic success of many marginalized students. Gallop & Bastien’s (2016) research findings suggest that the quality of relationship that Indigenous students build with instructors during their program is key for their academic success. A non-white instructor can serve as a role model (Thomas & Maultsby, 2017). Although the impact of an instructor’s identity on the student’s learning process is crucial, and thus needs to be addressed, it is important to look beyond the simple connection between the students’ disengagement and instructors’ identities (Dei, Mazzuca, McIsaac & Jasmin, 1997). Dei et al. (1997) argue that increasing representation of Indigenous and racialized instructors must be accompanied by other fundamental changes in the school system, including the centering of curriculum, which is rooted in the student’s cultural background. Representation of knowledge and representation of bodies go hand in hand. Dei et al.’s (1997) work on representation, and its impact on success, engagement, and identity, can be expanded beyond Black youth. Other minority groups, including Indigenous, Asian, Southeast Asian and Latinx students, face similar challenges. Dei et al. (1997) affirm, Problems of representation, whether with respect to the absence of role models or in the abstract production of knowledge, and issues of identity are closely tied to the process of disengagement, and as such require closer analysis. (p.169)

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Bodies and race matter. Physical representation contributes to a student’s capacity to connect as well as develop a sense of belonging in the space of learning. The sense of belonging can affect a student’s desire to engage. In the context of post-secondary educational environments, a growing body of literature continuously suggests that campus cultures shape students’ experiences (Museus & Harris, 2010). Quaye, Griffin and Museus (2014) explore the concept of campus racial culture. Eurocentric values, beliefs and assumptions, deeply embedded in white institutions, shape the norm and behavior of staff, faculty and students. They assert that racialized students’ cultural values are often not reflected in Eurocentric spaces, and note that campus racial culture is shaped by the Eurocentric dominant ideology in very powerful ways (Quaye et al., 2014). Guiffrida, Kiyama, Waterman and Museus (2012) point out that while Western culture is more individualistic, non-Western cultures such as African, Asian, Pacific Islander, Latin American as well as Indigenous cultures tend to be more collectively oriented. This distinction between individualism and collectivism in the learning approach is the one of the most promising factors to affect students’ academic achievement (Ravoi, Gallien & Wighting, 2005). Guiffrida et al. (2012) suggests that navigating racialized students to embrace collective orientation helps them to survive in Eurocentric higher education. Navigational orientation practices include outreach to access local resources and support for culturally based student organizations and programs. In addition to targeting students, educational activities should extend to faculty and staff. Following Dei et al. (1997), Guiffrida et al. (2012) proclaim that fundamental systemic change is necessarily. They suggest, however, that barring 19

institutional restructuring, colleges can take some steps to assist students in navigating their initial transition to more individualistic environments. For example, institutions can support students by providing them with coping strategies. They maintain that institutions that support collective orientation create inclusive learning environments that allow marginalized students to succeed (Guiffrida et al., 2012).

2.1.2 Multiculturalism in Post-Secondary Education Banks (2010) thinks ‘multicultural education’ is multiple things at once: it is an idea or concept, an educational reform movement, and a process. As an idea, multicultural education emphasizes that all students must have an equal opportunity to learn in school, regardless of their gender, social class, and cultural, racial and ethnic backgrounds. The policy of ‘multiculturalism’ was declared in 1971 by the Canadian Liberals with the idea of building an independent national identity distinct from Britain and the United States (Joshee & Winton, 2007). According to Ghosh and Galczynski (2014), Multicultural policy was meant to help all cultural groups develop the capacity to grow and contribute to Canada, to assist minority groups in overcoming cultural barriers to participate fully in Canadian society, to promote inter-group relations, and to provide facilities to minority groups for language learning. (p.32) It is, however, important to look at ‘multiculturalism’ critically, as it came immediately after Trudeau and Chrétien’s White Paper of 1969. It functioned to ensure that Indigenous rights were denied, as it attempted to render Indigenous sovereignty an issue of “cultural difference.” Simon (2011) argues,

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To some, this appeared as if the government was using ‘multiculturalism’ with the goal of silently advancing the premises of the White paper. At any rate, Trudeau introduced a new multiculturalism policy based on ‘equity’ (one of the themes of the White Paper). This strategy made Indigenous ‘special rights’ seems unreasonable. (p.24) In recent years, multicultural education policy in the Canadian context is heavily influenced by neoliberal, neoconservative ideology and liberal social justice discourse. According to Joshee (2014), neoliberal influence is the most evident in the connection between education and preparation for employment. Neoconservative ideology reinforces the dichotomy between them and us. In the we/them paradigm, (for the purpose of this sentence, “we” stands in for Anglo-Canadians) the dominant group, “we,” are considered hard working; while the “they” — Indigenous, racialized, female, poor — are considered lazy. In the name of multiculturalism, those who identify themselves as diverse are considered deficient, lacking in the qualities necessary to succeed, thus the problem (Joshee, 2014). Canadian post-secondary institutions often state that they “value diversity” (Hardy & Strange, 2016; Galabuzi, 2018). They highlight the goal of diversity in their mission statements to make their institutions look proactive. However, Gabay (2018) argues this actually “prevents diversity from becoming habitual” (p.177). According to Ahmed (2012), symbolic commitment to diversity by post-secondary institutions is considered “non-performative,” as there is a gap between talk and effect. Using the concept of non-performativity, Gabay (2018) insists that non-performative diversity policies and discourses in higher educational institutions work as a mechanism for perpetuating whiteness and privilege. 21

2.2. Structural Challenges in Canadian Academic Institutions Canadian society consistently denies the existence of racism, claiming that the nation operates on democratic liberalism, individual freedom, and human rights. Henry and Tator (2006) argue that this democratic liberalism believes that physical differences such as skin colour are unrelated to determining one’s condition. They add, “those who experience racial bias or differential treatment are considered somehow responsible for their state, resulting in a “blame it on the victim” syndrome” (Henry & Tator, 2006, p. 2). Post-secondary institutions are spaces where those beliefs and values are circulated and reproduced, and discriminatory treatment based on one’s social position is perpetual. Regarding experiences of racism in Canadian higher education, Dua and Lawrence (2000) point out that Indigenous and racialized activists and academics have been critiquing racism and colonialism in Canada; formally challenging the colonial framework of the Canadian academy for decades. While the dominance of Eurocentric knowledge and white bodies in the academy is legitimatized; racialized bodies are underrepresented and Indigenous bodies, their knowledge and perspectives, are still treated as supplementary. Furthermore, they argue that the oppression of Indigenous and racialized people in the academy is structurally framed. Henry and Tator (2009) state, Both the structure of the university and its policies and practices reflect the White and Eurocentric cultural values and norms that define it. In the modern Canadian university, there is a deep polarization between how racism is imagined, understood, and acted upon by those with White skin privilege, and those whose life experiences, including their experiences within the academy, are marked by their racialized identities of ‘otherness.’ (p.197) 22

Various strategies have been used to challenge these systemically structured barriers. One of the strategies for transforming universities is to promote employment equity, including hiring Indigenous and racialized people to faculty positions. Dua and Lawrence (2000) indicate that Canadian universities hire a small number of racialized women and a handful of Indigenous women. These women have been taking on the challenge of transforming academic structures. However, they argue that we need to ask about the effectiveness of such inclusion. Does inclusion challenge the structure of the academy? From their research, Henry and Tator (2012) found that factors such as size of the institution and its location affects the degree and the ways in which Indigenous and racialized faculty experience day-to-day racism. Henry and Tator (2012) found that their participants have shared experiences and emotions regarding racial violence. These similarities include hostility from dominant students, lack of support from administration, and a range of reactions from their colleagues. These experiences are acknowledged by various authors’ literature (Verjee, 2013; Dua & Lawrence, 2000). Henry and Tator (2012) argue, It is clear from the many narratives that we uncovered, that universities commonly and powerfully resist any but the most cosmetic changes to core culture. The reputation of the Canadian university as a site of liberal ideology allows this situation to continue, leading to the view that issues of race and racialization are isolated and embedded in the structures and systems operating in the everyday life of the academy. Systemic barriers persist within the Canadian university. Eurocentric frameworks, standards, and content are not only given more resources but also more status, especially when it comes to hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions. (p. 98) Furthermore, Indigenous and racialized faculty experiences of day-to-day racism have serious impact, which cause ill health in both their professional career and personal lives 23

(Dua & Lawrence, 2000). Dua and Lawrence (2000) state, “it points to the need to develop strong procedures that protect instructors from the consequences of teaching Indigenous perspectives and anti-racism” (p.120). They further point out that these Indigenous and racialized women who challenge racial oppression as well as white hegemony in the academy do this in relative isolation without much institutional and administrative support. This furthers their marginalization and the marginalization of their teaching within university. Monture (2009) examines the two barriers in particular that she has faced as an Indigenous scholar. She points to an absence of mentorship in the university, which made the process of tenure application challenging. She points to a lack of understanding of what constitutes ‘knowledge’. Although Indigenous and racialized faculty attempt to include marginalized voices from communities in the classroom in their research, their voices are often not considered ‘scholarly’ contributions. Indigenous and racialized students, administrative staff and faculty perceive higher education as a challenging, hostile environment (Henry & Tator, 2006). Indigenous scholar, Monture (2009), describes the emotional burden that Othered faculty often carry. She states, Sometimes, in the moment, we are left only with emotional reaction; we should return to those moments later to digest them, as emotional reaction diminishes our status in the institution. The work that othered faculty members must invest to just stay in the institution is significant, and the process of staying itself often becomes exhausting. (p.78)

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Emotional reactions and expressions that result from experiences of day to day microaggressions are not only unwelcome in the academic institution, but also reinforce the notion that white landowners are rational while everyone else is emotional, and thus irrational. In the context of law school, Moore (2008) argues, Anger, sadness, and even confusion get constructed as emotional states but calm and reasonableness do not…A state of calm is as much an emotional state as a state of anger, but connecting calm with reason and rationality and anger with emotion in an institutional setting in which emotion is disparaged results in a deep structural protection for power and the reproduction of the status quo…Privileging calm and reason in legal argumentation serves those in positions of power, or as one African American male student said, “Patience is a privilege of those with power.” …Not only will those in power oppress those without access to power, but if those without access to power respond with open anger or sorrow, they can be dismissed as irrational, thereby reinforcing the notion that those in power are deserving of that status. (p. 59) On a daily basis, Indigenous and racialized students constantly have to deal and negotiate a hostile institutional landscape (hooks, 2003; Razack, 1998). Verjee (2013) looks into racialized students’ experience at the University of British Columbia, including undergraduate students, faculty, and non-academic staff. Her research participants spoke about their experience with “daily micro-aggressions and the trauma of being unseen, unheard, devalued, silenced, delegitimized, disempowered, scrutinized, disciplined, and perceived as inferior” (Verjee, 2013, p.24). The learning space held no more joy and excitement for them; rather it became a site of constant fighting.

2.3. Historical Narrative Consumption and Dehumanization Dua and Lawrence (2000) suggest that a classroom is one of the sites where oppression persists in the academy. Much literature is written on the challenges and difficulties of bringing issues of racism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression into 25

this forum. Lee (2014) describes the anti-racist classroom as a confusing, conflicted and unstable space. Many authors have written about the particular difficulty of doing this work with white students, who resist engaging with their privilege and the implications of their complicity in historical colonial oppression (Henry & Tator, 2009; Edwards, 2014; Samuel, 2005). In addition to the negation and violence carried by white academics, Edwards’ (2014) experience as a Black scholar reveals complexities. She writes, I found engaging issues of equity and access almost impossible. The antagonism was all too real. What I was also unprepared for was the frequency with which the White male students attempted to undermine my position as Professor in the classroom…I also struggled not to tell these White men off! I was angry, frustrated, frightened, and I felt like a failure. (Edwards, 2014, p. 19) Her struggle with white male students in particular is shared by other female faculty of color. Pittman (2010) finds that the racialized female faculty that she interviewed felt devalued, challenged and threatened by white male students. While the literature shows many Indigenous and racialized faculty and students’ still experience ignorance and denial of racial oppression, there are other ways white students maintain their privilege and claim the entitlement of “knowing” Others. For example, the narratives of Indigenous and racialized students can become “consumable” for dominant bodies. This occurs when our narratives are referred to as a topic, content, resource, or subject of study in the academy (Razack, 1998, 2007; hooks, 2004) rather than as embodied memories and experiences which we actually live with and carry everywhere, every day. Scholars such as Razack (2007), hooks (2015), Blackwell (2010), as well as Sontag (2004) address the ways in which Others’ experiences and stories are devoured to further 26

enhance the notion of white humanity. Stories are commodified. According to Razack (2007), “stealing the pain of others” occurs when we engage in a process of consumption. Her article, Stealing the Pain of Others: Reflection on Canadian Humanitarian Response, critically interrogates narrative consumption in the context of Canadian humanitarian response to the Rwandan genocide. She argues, “Believing ourselves to be citizens of a compassionate middle power who is largely uninvolved in the brutalities of the world, we have relied on these images and stories to confirm our own humanitarian character” (Razack, 2007, p.376). It is essential to understand Indigenous and racialized women’s embodiment of history, memory and experience. We are living with historical and ancestral memories, which can hardly be separated from the quotidian. Framing our embodied experience as a “topic” or object of study condones the dehumanization of Indigenous and racialized people. It creates binary between “us” and “them”; where the “us” claims entitlement of studying “them.” Narrative consumption is practiced as a temporary act, rather than as a commitment to the entanglement and its responsibilities. This occurs in all valences of the academy — from community college to the Ivy League. The classroom is a locus for critical dialogue. Colonial history, social issues and all forms of oppression are often discussed. Thus, it is one of the spaces in higher education where we experience violence due to the consumption of our personal and collective narratives by white students. In this process of learning and sharing stories, white academics maintain their status quo rather than engaging in a decolonizing process. A great deal has been written on storytelling as a method for marginalized people to 27

claim their experience as a form of self-empowerment and resistance to invisibility in public discourse and school curriculum (Yosso & Solorzano, 2002; Delgado, 1989). However, relatively little research has developed on resistance to narrative sharing and consumption. A number of literatures focus on either the power of storytelling as resistance, on the one hand, or the problematic consumption of stories by dominants, on the other. For example, while Sherene Razack (2007), Susan Sontag (2004), and Deanna Blackwell (2010) all address the consumption of marginalized experience and pain in the service of gaining academic currency, they do not fully attend to the complexities of colonial dynamics, nor do they offer multiple readings on how resistance and agency is taken up and practiced in these contexts. Historically, research has been used as a colonial tool. Getting to know Others is a device of control and domination. Colonial discourse was and is maintained through writing documentation. This practice of writing about Others perpetuates power relations in the academy. The dehumanization of Indigenous and racialized people happens in literature. Writing is a colonial strategy to maintain this dehumanization. This occurs via the maintenance of dichotomized notions of civilized/savage. This dichotomy justifies demonization and infantilization of Indigenous and racialized bodies. In “When the Other is me,” Emma LaRocque (2010) argues that writing and research universalize Eurocentric knowledge. The Eurocentric voice re-invents the meaning of theory and writing, and research is taken over by Western philosophy. This erases Indigenous and racialized people. LaRocque describes strategies that were used by colonial authors to maintain the binary of savage and civilized. 28

When descriptors of savagery such as murder, pillaging, scalping, torturing, and/or sexual assault were assigned to the white character, the violence was individualized and considered uncommon or exceptional; their brutality was attributed to unique behavior rather than collective evolution. As Larocque (2010) puts it, “white savagery was never extended to all Euro-Canadians. However, (presumed) Indian savagery was applied to all Indians” (p.49). Although neither Indigenous people nor Europeans are two-dimensional, the impacts of dehumanization experienced by colonized subjects are vastly different from the class-based dehumanization experienced among white subjects. Larocque (2010) writes “...that we are all potentially more than the sum of our colonial parts does not erase colonial history” (p.61). This is why we need to take the Indigenous principles of relationality and responsibility into consideration when it comes to research, knowing and understanding.

2.4. Narrative Consumption by white academics in the Academy In the classroom, dominant narratives have been reproduced in various ways. Here, I draw on Susan Dion’s (2009) concept of the “perfect stranger” and Carol Schick’s (2000) notions of the “innocent white” to examine how narrative consumption occurs. Both scholars explore the disembodiment of knowledge in the context of K-12 schoolteachers, but their discussion is applicable to all classroom contexts. Russo (2001) has identified white people having defensive responses to issues of racism, colonialism, power and privilege. Typically the dialogue invokes anger and denial. She examines her own defensiveness as a white feminist scholar and educator, 29

In becoming observant of my own and other white feminists’ responses to being challenged on racism, I recognized in our defensiveness a refusal to listen to what is being asked of us and a protectiveness toward our own status. Defensiveness is immobilizing and entrenches me in the status quo. (Russo, 2001, p.209) Their defensive response resonates with Susan Dion’s (2005) notions of “perfect stranger.” She comments, There’s a way in which this position as perfect stranger allows a kind of innocence and a kind of not being responsible... I am a perfect stranger, therefore, I don’t need to worry about it or I can’t do it; therefore, I don’t have a responsibility to do it… (p.2) While her focus is on Indigenous Settler relations, her perspective on the denial of relationship and responsibility is widely applicable. Dion (2009) states that taking the position of the “perfect stranger” in relation to Indigenous peoples is informed by “what teachers know, what they do not know, and what they refuse to know” (p. 9). To her, the attitude of “perfect strangers” is attributed to fear; white teachers fear making a mistake when they introduce controversial issues, or challenge students’ (mis)understandings of the dominant narrative. They also fear challenging their own position and privilege. Taking the position of the “perfect stranger” is also a way to proclaim innocence to, and disconnection from, racial and colonial oppression; it is a way to refuse implication within history. Instead of recognizing their complicity, white teachers individualize oppression and stories: “I did not do that, people in the past did.” Case and Hemmings (2005) call this tactic a “distancing strategy,” a way to escape from being positioned as racist and implicated in systemic oppression, a way to refuse responsibility. White teachers’ desire to maintain privilege and their fear of losing power may be more

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obvious and easier to identify as refusal, than when they express desire to “know” and “learn” and “teach” the oppression of others. When white people do address the history of racism, they still do not necessarily address their whiteness. Instead, this address becomes a way for them to show their “genuinely” good intentions, civility and Western humanity. These postures work to defend their position as an innocent, caring and critical students, scholars, or educators. This becomes a way for white academics to distance themselves from the oppressive relationships organized both historically and in the present. And it further allows the illusion of “progress.” Seemingly opposite to those who take the stance of the “perfect stranger,” there are those who are passionate to know, learn and teach about oppression. Such individuals may position themselves as critical scholars, educators, or allies by articulating colonial and racial oppression and their privileges. While the position of the “perfect stranger” and “critical scholar” seem to be opposite positions, both stances are functional moves towards innocence (Tuck & Yang, 2012), and divestment from responsibility. Schick (2000) argues that “whiteness and innocence are ideologically fixed in that the ‘good intentions’ of white public school teachers establish and confirm them as innocent helpers” (p. 86). The desire of white people to “know” and “teach” about Others is a way to maintain and control them. Schick (2000) further notes that, “their desire to know the other also works as an anti-conquest narrative whereby gaining knowledge of the other is an updated version of the colonization process of possessing the other” (p. 98). Another way of mobilizing a narrative of “innocence” is through sharing a narrative of self31

location. In a university classroom, white students are also asked to locate themselves socially and historically. While they often articulate their white privilege in telling their story, they also validate their personal experiences. In these spaces, one of the ways “innocent” narrative is told by a dominant body is when they equate their “hard,” even “marginalized” experiences within white communities (for example, their experiences of being “bullied” in a school), with experiences of racial violence. The subtext here is, “I understand how Indigenous and racialized people experience oppression because I have also experienced pain.” This claim of equating individual trauma with colonial oppression of Indigenous and racialized people attempts to mask white privilege. It is not my intention here to minimize the experiences of people who have been bullied. I acknowledge that oppression occurs across race, gender, sexuality, age, and ability. However, this speaks to me about the prominence of race in my study (Dei, 1996). Dei (1996) maintains that the saliency of race should not be read as hierarchizing one form of social oppression over others, such as class, gender, and sexuality. Dei (1996) notes that “it is a political decision” (p.65). I also would argue that the metanarrative of white supremacy is reproduced and maintained in such a situation. The notion of “I can hear you, because…” does not necessarily connect to their understanding of and awareness about oppression or their privileges. Rather it is a way of hijacking an Others’ experience to take up space. In other words, this works to re-center the voices of white people. “I can hear you because…” can be seen as sense of entitlement to “affirm” Others’ experiences. When white students claim and verbalize their “good intentions” as white allies with clear articulation of their white privileges, they try to distinguish 32

themselves from “those” white people. I argue that power and whiteness are not defused by taking the position of being critical. Their positive personal experiences with Indigenous and racialized people are used to affirm their own innocence. White feminist scholars claim the importance of listening to learn about the experiences of Indigenous and racialized people. As a white feminist scholar, Ann Russo (2001) states that it is necessary for white anti-racist practice and politics to learn to listen. She refers to Leslie Roman’s “responsible listening” and “listening as an excuse for silent collusion with the status quo of racial and neocolonial inequalities” (p.209). She further states, Listening to women’s anger, sadness, pain and rage in response to racism is essential to transformative politics. Feelings of fear, anger and rage are inevitable in discussions of racism and white supremacy. (p. 209) While her context seems to focus more on the situation where voices of Indigenous and racialized people are not taken seriously, it does not quite capture the “marketability” that stories of Indigenous racialized people carry in the academia today. My work takes up a complex contemporary situation. In the academy today, antiracism and equity studies have currency. These ideas now affect various practices such as publishing or hiring. However, whiteness is still centered. Who gets the publications, who writes whose stories? And whose stories become whose stories? Blackwell (2010) notes that white students make use of the emotional burdens of racialized students in order to learn about racism. She reminds us that those racialized students often become a “resource” for white students to become “experts” on issues of race. White students learn 33

about anti-racism and grow a critical consciousness on issues of racial oppression. This critical consciousness, however, does not lead to healing for those bodies who hold oppression in their muscle and DNA. Instead, Indigenous and racialized peoples’ memories are consumed to the benefit of white academics. White bodies remain safe. In other words, learning about oppression does not threaten their health. Instead, they are enriched with knowledge about history, social justice and equity (Razack, 1998).

2.5. Counter Narratives 2.5.1 Narrative and Story The terms, story and narrative are often used interchangeably. Kim (2015) notes, narrative is a form of knowledge that involves telling. Sharing experience with others is a way of understanding our lives. MacIntyre (1997) says “I am part of [others’ stories], as they are part of mine. The narrative of any one life is part of an interlocking set of narratives” (p.103). She implies that social inequality is relational, which demands responsibility by those who are in a position of privilege. The relational fabric within stories remind us that narrative can analyze how power relations are perpetuated. MacIntyre (1984) states, “it is because we understand our own lives in terms of the narratives that we live out that the form of narrative is appropriate for understanding the actions of others” (p.212). While in the social sciences the definition of narrative varies, Labov and Waletsky (1967) explain narrative as an account of a sequence of events in the order in which they occurred to make a point. On the other hand, Kim (2015) describes a story as a detailed organization of narrative events. In this sense, he says, “a story has a connotation of a full description of lived experience, whereas a narrative has a 34

connotation of a partial description of lived experience” (Kim, 2015, p.9). Therefore, according to him, narratives form stories and stories depend on narratives. In the context of this study, when it comes to the notion of “full” and “partial,” I disagree with this dichotomy. When we share our stories, they are neither full nor partial. Labov and Waletskey’s (1967) position that the ambition of narrative is “to make a point,” links to the politics and purpose of making narrative visible and heard. Frank (2000) also points to the difference between story and narrative, stating narratives are more structured than stories. Johns (2002) refers to Whiltshire (1995), pointing out the notion of authority in narratives. He says, The narrator, in contrast to the storyteller, selects and arranges material, participating by means of implicit reflection on the information and events being described. Narrative is thus “a reflective practice, whereas story is not. And because it is a reflective practice, narrative is connected, as story is not, with authority”(Wiltshire, 1995, P.77). (John 2002, p.232) This suggests a story is more open to interpretation by listeners than narratives. The point of authority is noteworthy as it links to the power, politics and resistance of claiming our voice. I believe our stories are both full and partial when we share them in the academy. Due to the limits of time, we cannot share a complete description of our lived experience. However, it does not mean we do not tell our stories. When we share them with a particular purpose, they can be full, in that these stories are often used to “make a point.” They are not told without context. At the same time, they are partial because our stories are always in progress in relation to who we are. Instead of defining and drawing a clear line between these terms, I use the terms narrative and story interchangeably. Although I 35

do not make a clear distinction between story and narrative in the context of this study, I acknowledge that the differences other scholars made allow me to think through tactical story sharing. When we create a narrative that is a segment of a story for the purpose of political action, reclamation, resistance or empowerment, it is not to fragment and decontexualize, rather it allows us to share our voices strategically. Along this line, we can create our stories to have multiple narratives that allow us to understand our experiences differently and collectively.

2.5.2. Counter Narratives Thomas King (2003) reminds us, “stories are who we are” (P.122). Sharing experience is powerful. Storytelling is an embodied practice. Anishinaabe scholar Sheila Cote-Meek (2010) argues that it is necessary to speak about resilience in spite of ongoing forms of colonization. She suggests we do this by speaking to the inherent violence of contemporary Canada. For Indigenous and racialized students, it is powerful to share collective and personal stories as a form of pedagogy. The embodied knowledge distribution invokes reclamation, resistance, and hope. These are counter-narratives to disrupt the hegemonic hold of colonial history. Counter-narrative can be understood as a counter-hegemonic practice. It can also be seen as a space. hooks (2003) speaks about spaces of marginality not as spaces of deprivation, externally imposed, but of possibility, as “a central location for the production of a counter-hegemonic discourse” (p.157). Critical race theorists developed the term “counter-narratives” as resistance to master narratives. Regarding counternarrative, Delgado (1989) states that subordinated groups have instinctively known the 36

significant role that stories play in our survival and liberation. Counter-narrative, as a method of recounting subordination, challenges the master narrative maintained by a legacy of racial, gender, and class privilege. Counter-narratives give people a way of rejecting, that which is assumed “normative” Andrew, 2004; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). While the term counter-narrative, or counter-story, is widely used in critical race theory, it has also been developed by various scholars in post-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-colonial work both to describe resistance to colonial domination, and as a tool for decolonization. Daniel G. Solorzano and Tara J. Yosso (2002) define the counter-story2 as “a method of telling the stories of those people whose experiences are not often told” (p. 32). Storytelling has rich tradition in Indigenous, African, Latinx and Asian communities. We know stories are essential for our resistance and survival (Delgado, 1989). While counter-story is also used to expose and challenge dominant discourse and racial oppression, Solorzano & Yosso (2002) look at counter-story in broader ways, and claim these stories are not necessarily to be created as a “direct response to majoritarian stories of racial privilege” (p. 32). Ikemoto (1992) suggests, “by responding only to the standard story, we let it dominate the discourse” (p. 488). Solorzano and Yosso (2002) describe three general forms where critical scholars practice counter-storytelling: autobiographical reflection, third person narratives, and composites of autobiography and others.

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Solorzano and Yosso (2002) clarify in a footnote that “story becomes a counter-story when it begins to incorporate the five elements of critical race theory...we refer to people of color who draw on the elements of critical race theory in their writing as telling a story or a counter- story. Storytelling that draws on the elements of critical race theory is synonymous with counter-storytelling” (p. 39). One of these five elements is the importance of experiential knowledge. Therefore, this is embodied storytelling.

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In the context of a court case, Carol A. Aylward (2000) points out several ways that storytelling functions to challenge legal issues. Narratives allow lawyers and Others to “tell the story” within its social context. She also points out that, “narrative can debunk the myths of neutrality and objectivity by placing emphasis upon the confrontational nature of an encounter” (p. 35). Bell (2003) states that, “stories are a bridge between individual and systemic social pattern” (p.4). While counter-narratives have been understood as legitimate sources of knowledge, counter-narrative as an approach is continuously criticized in the social sciences for its “lack of objectivity.” Storytelling has been often uncritically “understood as sentimental, personal and individual horizon as opposed to objective, universal, societal, limitless horizon; often attributed to women, the other of man, and natives, the other of the west” (Razack, 1998, p.37, cited from Minhha, 1993). For example, Henry and Tator (2009) refers to Rosen’s (2000) statement, “in its most radical form, the storytelling movement is a direct assault…on the possibility of objectivity” (p.587), claiming that personal narrative cannot be measured by the tools of rational analysis. His claim here misses the point of how objectivity is constructed. Historically, white subjectivity constructs objectivity. As Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) states, “the authoritative universal voice - usually white male subjectivity masquerading as non-racial, non-gendered objectivity - is merely transferred to those who, but for gender, share many of the same cultural, economic and social characteristics” (p. 365). Thus rationality and objectivity is constructed, understood and valued in a particular way. Counter-narratives are not only generated through storytelling. Experience, ideas, feelings, and emotions take many forms of expression: music, dance, painting and other 38

forms of art. Counter-narratives include messages, statements, or movements, which provide a space to shift the dominant paradigm, and challenge socially constructed common sense. However, we must go beyond tweaking storylines, which maintain the master narrative. Rather, counter-narrative “deconstruct(s) the master narratives and offers alternatives to the dominant discourse in educational research…They also challenge the dominant White and often predominantly male culture that is held to be normative and authoritative” (Stanley, 2007, p.14). According to Henry and Tator (2009), The role of counter-narrative is to challenge dominant discourses that are intended to orchestrate the appearance of unanimity among the dominant group and consent among subordinated groups. The hegemonic dominant narrative acts as a meta-code that shapes the ‘mindset’ from which the dominant group, observe, interpret, and understand the world (see Williams 1999; Eqick and Silbey). These codes exclude or silence other possible interpretations, thereby providing a justification for the maintenance and preservation of existing social hierarchies that are based on socially constructed categories of racial differences. (p. 37) Regarding dominant narrative, Scott (1990) develops the idea of “public transcripts,” through which dominant narratives are reconstructed and legitimized, as well as “hidden transcripts” that offer “a critique of power spoken behind the back of the dominant” (p. xii). This notion of “public transcript” will be further explained in my theoretical framework section. Scott (1990) describes the hidden transcript as “discourse that takes place ‘offstage’ beyond direct observation by power holders. The hidden transcript is thus derivative in the sense that it consists of those offstage speeches, gestures, and practices that confirm, contradict, or inflect what appears in the public transcript” (p. 45). One of the important points of the hidden transcript is that it is not simply limited to 39

speech, but also embodied or performed. Referring to Scott (1990), Bell (2003) writes, “through this hidden transcript, members of socially subordinated groups create counternarratives that contradict and challenge the public transcript” (p. 5). Hidden transcripts, therefore, can be understood as a site of counter-narrative.

2.6. Storytelling as Counter-Narrative Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009) highlights the importance of multiple stories and the danger of a single story. She challenges the dominance of the master narrative, saying “Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become” (Adichie 2009). In that process, she claims that this cannot be done without power. Adichie (2009) explains power not only as the ability to “tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” She refers to the Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti, who argues that if one wants to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story as “secondary.” She addresses the possibility of shifting dominant paradigms through stories by suggesting that if we start with the stories by Indigenous people on Turtle Island rather than the arrival of the British, we have an entirely different sense of history. Regarding the resistance of Indigenous writers to dehumanizing literature stated above, LaRocque (2010) explores the ways in which Indigenous writers perform resistance in their writing. Their writing as storytelling can be understood as counternarratives. She repeatedly notes that Indigenous resistance focuses on the humanizing of Indigenous characters. For example, she says that Indigenous writers take an

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argumentative, stylistically contrapuntal approach. These writers speak back to the dominant discourse, sending the message: “We are not savages, you are.” Larocque (2010) argues that some people claim the message is “reverse racism”; however, she points out the historical injustice and inhumanity in dominant practice. While she states that the message, “we were not savage, (you are),” can lead to the pitfall of primitive romanticization, she challenges that romantisization itself can be a technique of resistance. In her sense, romanticization enables Indigenous people to reimagine their land. Larocque (2010) claims that, “resistance is our (Indigenous) humanity” (p.158). Simpson (2011) regards resurgence as Indigenous resistance. Razack (1998) primarily focuses on law, where stories rely on the idea of an objective truth and “a straight line between knower and known” (p. 37). In these situations, judges come to “objectively” know the truth and “those whose stories are believed have the power to create fact” (Razack, 1998, p. 37). Her point about the ontological and epistemological questions of storytelling are applicable to educational spaces such as classrooms. In the classroom where white students are present, to what extent do Indigenous and racialized students’ stories function as a means of being accepted or legitimatized by the dominant, rather than as an act of empowerment? There are complexities to consider regarding the power dynamics in this context. Sharing stories works as reclamation, resistance, and hope; however, it may also be functioned to “convince” the dominant that our stories are “true” and “real.” Telling stories can sometimes come with pain, requiring an amount of debriefing. How do we view sharing our stories? 41

2.7. Counter-Narrative and Voice Counter-narratives centre the experiential knowledge of the marginalized. In order to understand counter-narrative, it is important to explore the notion of voice. LaRocque (2010) points out that voice is about positionality and recognition of the relationship between power and knowledge. It cannot be isolated from community, but at the same time it is not a communal replica of the collective. For her, the use of voice is textual resistance, which concerns discourse and presentation. For Larocque (2010), voice is collective scholarship rather than introspection. Her point connects to other racialized scholars’ claims. For example, Mary Louise McCarthy (2010) writes that telling her stories connects her to others who speak of colonial, racial, and gender oppression. hooks (1993) identifies this as “collective unmasking.” She states, Collective unmasking is an important act of resistance. If it remains a mark of our oppression that as black people we cannot be dedicated to truth in our lives without putting ourselves at risk, then it is a mark of our resistance, our commitment to liberation, when we claim the right to speak to the truth of our reality anyway. (hooks, 1993, p. 26) hooks (1989) also points out that speaking is “a way to engage in active selftransformation and rites of passage where one moves from being object to being subject” (p. 12). This notion, which she cites from Freire (1970), is emphasized as a selfempowering practice. hooks (1989) also talks about telling stories from a Black feminist perspective as disclosure to reveal “personal stuff” (p.1). She claims that for some people, openness is not a luxury, but rather a necessity for survival. I believe this is often the case for oppressed people. As hooks (1989) mentions, speaking is simultaneously an act of claiming. She states, 42

For us, true speaking is not solely an expression of creative power; it is an act of resistance, a political gesture that challenges politics of domination that would render us nameless and voiceless. As such, it is courageous act - as such, it represents a threat. (hooks, 1989, p. 8) hooks (1989) discusses the importance of not only speaking to, but also rather speaking with, in our attempt to have a dialogue. She also speaks of relationality between storytellers and listeners. She mentions, …in hearing responses, we come to understand whether our words act to resist, to transform, to move. In consumer culture where we are all led to believe that the value of our voice is not determined by the extent to which it challenges, or makes critical reflection possible, but rather by whether or not it is liked, it is difficult to keep a liberatory message. (hooks, 1989, p.16) Latinx scholars talk about “voicing” as political action for change through testimonio. Cinthya M. Saavedra & Michelle Salazar Perez (2012) note that because testimonio has overt political intention, it leads others to take some form of action. Testimonio became acknowledged as a literary mode in the 1970s and was conceptualized as a liberation effort of geopolitical resistance to domination and imperialism (Reyes & Rodriguez, 2012). Furthermore, cultural studies and postmodern methodologies began to frame critical scholarship as subjective and political in the 1980s to 1990s. This is when Latinx scholars approached the reflective form of testimonio with concepts such as agency and subaltern (Reyes & Rodriguez, 2012). Feminist methodology also helped develop “the narrative format as redemption - as takers of the stories, as readers of the narratives, and as creators of the analysis” (Reyes & Rodriguez, 2012, p. 526). Reyes and Rodriguez (2012) emphasize that testimonio needs to be visible. They state, …to be sure, the testimonio does not remain in its oral state; but rather, it is often taken (as in, interviewed, recorded and transcribed) or written from the outset 43

perhaps in diaries, letters, or journals. What is certain is that testimonio is not meant to be hidden, made intimate, nor kept secret. The objective of the testimonio is to bring to light a wrong, a point of view, or an urgent call for action. Thus, in this manner, the testimonio is different from the qualitative method of in-depth interviewing, oral history narration, prose, or spoken word. The testimonio is intentional and political. (p. 525) Notions of testimonio are located not only within the individual interpretation of personal experience, but also within one’s community (Elenes, 2000). This connects to hooks’ (1993) ‘collective unmasking.’ In this sense, Beverly (1992) makes a distinction between the Western notion of individualistic autobiographical accounts and racialized women’s narratives. He says, Testimonio represents an affirmation of the individual subject, even of individual growth and transformation, but in connection with a group or class situation marked by marginalization, oppression, and struggle. If it loses this connection, it ceases to be testimonio and becomes autobiography, this is, an account of, and also a means of access to, middle-or upper-class, a sort of documentary Bildungroman. (p. 103) His emphasis on communities helps us see “healing” in a broader sense. Healing is not an individual practice but a community-wide experience. Along the same line, Reyes and Rodriguez (2012) further state testimonios evolve “from events experienced by a narrator who seeks empowerment through voicing her or his experience” (p. 527). While sharing personal stories to bear witness to violence and oppression in daily life, through testimonio, Saavedra and Perez (2012) state that oppressed people can connect their “I” to their collective “We.” They consider testimonial text as a construction of solidarity. While possibility and hope cannot and should not be dismissed, it is important to acknowledge that these stories are layered with dilemma. For example, Andrea Smith’s (2006) analysis of racial differentiation in her article “Heteropatriarchy and the Three 44

Pillars of White Supremacy” argues that white supremacy does not work in a singular way. Rather, it is set up by separate and distinct, but still interrelated logics. Along this line, Thobani (2007) suggests that we need to further examine the racial hierarchy developed through the colonial nation building project, the particular role of each racialized group and their impact on the lives of Indigenous people. This nation-building project “invites” racialized people to dislocate Indigenous people from their territory in Turtle Island, as Indigenous people of other lands are forced to leave their own lands due to neo/colonialism. These authors remind us that stories bring a picture of the intricate web of colonialism into the nation-building project. While I believe it is essential to deconstruct these entanglements to decode the logic, my work asserts that this acknowledgement must always be connected to practice and action.

2.8. Silence as Resistance Breaking a silence plays a crucial role for those who have been punished or experienced loss in speaking up or talking back. It is liberating. Collins (1998) calls, “breaking silence represents a moment of insubordination in relations of power” (p.50). To keep silent, however, is not necessarily the opposite. It is also a powerful tool. hooks (1989) notes that the fear of speaking is not solely shyness; rather it is often embedded in socially constructed restrictions against speech in a culture of domination. There is the fear of owning one’s words, of taking a stand. Breaking the silence may often involve remembering trauma.

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Along with hooks (1989), McCarthy (2010) points out unmasking and using her voice is risky, and may proceed with fear — triggering anger, or further violence. Her disclosure depends on a sense of safety. These ideas suggest that when “talking back” it is important to acknowledge both silence and disclosure as resistance. Context — in terms of the question, with whom do we share the story, space, and time — needs to be taken into consideration. Razack (1998) points out that while storytelling is not new to educational theorists or practitioners, critical interrogation of the ways in which dominant relationship is maintained, silenced and resisted is relatively recent. McCarthy (2010) also points out the risks in the ways in which narrative by women of African heritage can be presented as a study for the academic community. Razack (1998) writes, We (people of colour) are always being asked to tell our stories for your (white people) edification, which you cannot hear because of the benefit you derive from hearing them. Suddenly, the world was still white after all and the pedagogy that insisted that the oppressed can come together to critically reflect and share stories seemed a sham. (P .92) In such a context, Razack (1998) claims to respect a “right to silence” while acknowledging that the “idea of silence is extremely unsettling” (p. 53). In a similar vein, Malhotra and Rowe (2013) refer to Margaret Montoya (2000), who point out the difficulties in distinguishing between silence that is repressive and silence that is resistive. Montoya (2000) highlights the danger of dismissing resistive silence by connecting her own experiences and silence on hate crime speech on campus, in a situation where she wrote, but did not send, a letter. She notes “it is hard to know what gives me greater power — holding silence or breaking silence [...] Finally I have decided that this incident silenced me, that my silence has not been volitional. Perhaps that was 46

its purpose” (p. 324). Malhotra and Rowe (2013) state that while her silence may be forced, it also “might be the stance that “gives (her) great power”” (p. 13). Malhotra and Rowe (2013) claim that while they acknowledge the importance of marginalized people breaking silence, they underline an “alternative path: that those in positions of privilege learn to read and respect the silences of marginalized people” (p.14). This underscores the power of listening, and Russo’s insistence that white people (including herself) must listen to racialized peoples’ voices. However, this suggestion does not fully capture the possibility that white people consume the stories of Indigenous and racialized people for their benefit. David Theo Goldberg (1996) writes about visibility by reading Franz Fanon (1967). Fanon’s notion of visibility and invisibility are useful in relation to the continuum of ‘disclosure’ and ‘silence.’ According to Goldberg (1996), “visibility carries with it connotations that tend to be appealing - access, opportunity, ability - in short, power; invisibility has tended to connote absence, lack, incapacity — in short, powerlessness” (p. 179). If we only understand disclosure as visibility and silence as invisibility, we may dismiss people’s agency and limit our understanding of how people take up resistance in different contexts. Francisco Villegas (2010) points out that “strategic invisibility” helps to explain different ways in which invisibility has been adopted by oppressed people in order for them to survive and resist dominant structures.

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2.9. Gaps There are three themes that I would like to point out as gaps found through reviewing literature: the complex relationship among faculty and Indigenous and racialized women, the responsibilities that come with listening (sharing), and the concept of deep listening. First, I want to consider the relations between faculty and students and their impact on each other’s careers and well-being. There has been much research done on how Indigenous and racialized students and faculty experience discrimination, including lack of representation and access to resources. In this research, discrimination is examined in relation to the experience of their white counterparts. We must extend our scope beyond the white/non-white binary to include unique intersectional challenges that we face as marginalized students and faculty. Among ourselves, for example, internalized oppression could affect the capacity to maintain positive mentorship relationships. Marginalized students and faculty experience oppression. Engaging in a conversation about these complexities in relation to contemporary racism can create tensions among oppressed groups. However, it does not mean that we should avoid this type of dialogue. Second, critical race theory takes personal and collective narratives as a “valid” source of knowledge in the academy. However, these narratives are often named as data for research in the field. As I state above, I am interested in the question of who owns narratives when they are shared as notes. Naming someone’s experience as “data” to be studied, interpreted, and analyzed may brace the dehumanization of the embodied narratives of others. In other words, it supports a moral distancing between oppression as 48

embodied memory and oppression as story. Not many scholars talk about the responsibility of listening to stories. Some white scholars address the importance of listening to racialized peoples’ voices, but their work fails to address the power involved and its implications, and, in particular, they ignore the danger inherent in the consumption of marginalized “content.” This listening does not equate action with responsibility. No matter how closely one listens to a story, if one does not act or do anything for change, what does it mean to listen? I am not only interested in responsibility, but also in the idea of deep listening. Counter-narrative discourse pays particular attention to the voice; but there is far less about the ear and the role of listening. Storytelling is not a one-way street, particularly when tellers and listeners are engaged by physical presence. Storytelling is a dynamic and organic process, a call and response. For example, those who tell their story may change or choose what or how they share, depending on who constitutes the audience, how these listeners react, and what relationship the teller has with them. In other words, tellers not only tell their stories but also read their listeners. Storytelling helps us to fill in this gap. It helps us to understand the concept of listening as a complex relational process, which involves the responsibility of community building. To create social change, we must practice deep listening.

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Chapter 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The discursive framework of this project integrates feminist anti-colonial and anti-racist thought. These lenses thus inform my research questions. The proposed framework enables me to situate my arguments about narrative consumption by white academics as extant colonial oppression. These lenses provide scaffolding for thinking through the storytelling of Indigenous and racialized students as forms of resistance within the academic space. In this section, I will provide key principles of anti-colonial, feminist, and critical race theory. Second, I will explain how these key principles help to frame my research project. Within these frameworks, this project also focuses on three main discursive concepts, which will be elaborated throughout. These concepts are Indigeneity, resistance, and responsibility/reciprocity. These theoretical concepts will be elaborated through the process of this project.

3.1. Theoretical Framework 3.1.1. Ongoing Colonialism Dei and Simmons (2012) note that anti-colonial discourse does not belong to the past. They claim that although nations, regions or communities may not be considered as ‘colonized’ anymore since the declaration of political independence, an anti-colonial lens delivers a profound recognition with the term ‘colonial.’ Dei and Asgharzadeh (2001) maintain that colonialism does not only mean occupation by foreign or alien power, but also the imposition, domination and control from within a nation by white people. Thus, political independence does not always end colonial dominant structures, power and 50

privilege. Societies’ political and social structures are still organized around Western values and traditions through historical settler colonial relationships. Kempf (2009) refers to Dei’s broader reading on ‘colonial’ as an imposed and dominating structure in North American contexts. Kempf (2009) writes, This is a departure from previous conceptions of colonialism constituted simply as various forms of territorial imperialism, or of state or cultural control through direct and /or indirect mechanisms. This radical reformation allows for the recentering of objective assessments of power relations, of the myriad ways in which colonialism has shed its skin only to reemerge in a new form — shape shifting to accommodate the needs of the colonizer (newly and broadly conceived). It is this reformulation that allows for a recentering of the agency of the colonized, alongside the accountability of the colonizer. (p.1) Acknowledging that colonial imposition is ongoing is particularly important for the legibility of my study. In the North American context, academic institutions were built upon and show no signs of moving from Indigenous peoples’ land. Tuck and Gaztambide-Fernandez (2013) point out the logic of elimination in the operation of colonialism. They state, “the primary motive for elimination is not race (or religion, ethnicity, grade of civilization, etc.) but access to territory” (p.73). They argue that this “logic of elimination is embedded into every aspect of the settler colonial structure and its disciplines” (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013, p.73). In other words, in the process of building a Canadian nation state, the physical placement of these institutionalized learning spaces on Indigenous peoples’ land is dependant on the continuous colonial imposition. This reinforces the claim of white supremacy and the displacement of Indigenous people. Monture (2010) argues, Much of the colonial oppression that Aboriginal people survived is embedded in the institutions Canada has created. Some of those institutions, such as residential 51

schools, were created solely for that purpose. When people wonder why Aboriginal people just can’t let the past be the past, they don’t understand the present-day impacts of institutional oppression, including the continued suppression of our own ways and social systems that we have survived. (p. 25) Here, Monture (2010) is speaking to the impact of the physicality of institutions on Indigenous peoples’ bodies. Smith (2006) offers a further lens to understand the logic of white supremacy. While her focus is on the United States, the logic is widely applicable to the Canadian context. She states, “white supremacy is constituted by separate and distinct, but still interrelated, logic” (Smith, 2006, p. 67). The logics include Black people’s slaveability, the genocide of Indigenous people and Orientalism. She states the dominant model of organizing resistance by racialized people focuses on organizing around shared victimhood. However, she argues that “we are victims of white supremacy, but complicit in it as well” (Smith, 2006, p. 69). She states, “What keeps us trapped within our particular pillars of white supremacy is that we are seduced by the prospect of being able to participate in the other pillars” (Smith, 2006, p. 69). Therefore, she suggests that solidarity work by racialized people to fight white supremacy needs to organize not only around shared victimhood and oppression, but also take complicity in the oppression of others into consideration. Her logic allows me to connect different experiences and struggles that Indigenous and racialized women have in the academy and think through the ways in which social change in academic institutions could occur. In North American contexts, white people are accommodated within political and social activities such as law, immigration policies, and education. Edwards (2013) explains how schooling perpetuates colonial relationships through higher education. She argues that higher educational institutions historically aimed to prepare colonial elites to 52

control the new colony. The structure of the educational institutions was clearly organized around who had access to knowledge and power, and who was excluded. According to Edwards (2013), the aim of the higher educational institutions was “to perpetuate the ‘white capitalist patriarchal hegemony’ of the North American colony” (referring to Giardina & McCarthy, 2008, p.141). Referring to Asher (2010), who argues that education is always colonial in nature, Edwards (2013) claims, “for better or worse, oppression and privilege are inscribed into the DNA of U.S. higher education” (p.141). She further states that while design of the Euro-American educational institutions enables the institutions to appear objective and equal within Euro-American liberal ideology, their structure continues to reproduce oppression. Moreover, in the contemporary North American context, she notes the ways in which racialized subjects become involved in the maintenance of the colonial structure. She states, “the higher education process becomes ever more vulnerable to functioning as a preparatory agency training the colonized to perpetuate epistemological colonization” (p.141). Thus, colonial structures are not only maintained through those who are in the position of power and privilege, but also through those who are marginalized and oppressed. Anti-colonial lenses require us to see colonial domination as something that is ongoing and, contiguously re-organized. I agree with Dei and Simmons’ (2012) reading of the term ‘colonial’ as “relevant to the present in which both nations, states and communities, as well as bodies and identities are engaged as still colonized and resisting the colonial encounter” (p. 70). Furthermore, it is essential to acknowledge how colonialism links many oppressed groups. Taiaiake Alfred (2010) argues that, 53

Colonialism, as it is understood by most people, consists in such things as the resource exploitation of Indigenous lands, residential school syndrome, racism, expropriation of land, extinguishment of rights, warship, and welfare dependency. And while all of this is certainly colonialism, Indigenous people don’t experience colonialism as theories or as analytic categories. Colonialism is made real in the lives of First nations people when these things go from being a set of imposed externalities to becoming causes of harm to them as people and as communities, limitations placed on their freedom, and disturbing mentalities, psychologies and behaviors. (p. 3) While his argument focuses on the struggles of First Nations peoples, this is applicable to struggles that Indigenous peoples from other lands who also experience dislocation and forced movement. The academy continues to establish colonizing relationships through hierarchical knowledge and power relations. The curriculum remains largely Eurocentric, which reinforces white dominance and privileges. Giroux (1992) describes, “schools are not simply instruction sites but vehicles which legitimize certain forms of knowledge and disclaim others” (p. 14). He argues the politics of erasure where issues of oppression are not addressed in serious terms. Rather, those who argue against the dominant structure and power relations are labeled as “ideological tyrants who are attempting to impose a form of ‘political correctness’” (Giroux, 1992, p.4). This attempt to mark those who challenge the system as radical or politically correct is a way to maintain colonial power relations by reinforcing the us/them dichotomy. The academy also perpetuates colonial relationships by writing about Others. Writing about Others from the dominant gaze is historically legitimized. Anti-colonial frameworks challenge these systemic attempts to re-write our narratives in their terms. These attempts include “the danger of the single story” that is the generalization of marginalized experiences within a hegemonic 54

narrative. Our story has a multiplicity of voices. They are not a single story. An anticolonial lens allows us to center narrative, voice and claim in our terms.

3.1.2. Principle of Anti-Racism and Saliency of Race Along with anti-colonial theory, anti-racism theory centres the notions of power. It understands racism is rooted in individual, institutional and unequal systemic and oppressive power relationships. While anti-colonial theory interrogates the power relationships in knowledge production, anti-racist theory helps us understand the link between particular identity and knowledge production in relation to white privilege. In anti-racist approach, to address racism in an explicit way is critical because we create a space where one cannot deny the racial oppression (Nelson, 2014; Rebollo-Gil & Moras, 2006). In naming and speaking racism, we stress that racial oppression is real. Marginalized students, however, often hesitate to name racism as it causes them fear of having it dismissed by those who are in power (Jiwani, 2006). Rey (1997) claims, “We need to name racism appropriately so that we can engage its specific historical forms and practices of domination” (p. 9). Speaking racism challenges white normalcy and belongingness. In Canadian society, normalcy of whiteness is pervasive. As I discussed previous chapter, policy of multiculturalism provides an example of it (Kobayashi & Johnson, 2007). Pinder (2015) stresses that de-normalizing whiteness by making it visible is a necessarily step to address race relations. Making white privilege visible is naming and speaking racism. Dua (1999) points out from anti-racist feminist perspectives,

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The social and political definitions of who is defined as Canadian reflect the race and gender underpinnings of Canadian society. Underlying this question is the image of a Canadian as someone who is white. This stereotype works to determine who belongs to Canada, who is from elsewhere, who is a hyphenated-Canadian, and who is normal. (p. 7) Rebollo-Gil and Moras (2006) states ‘anti’ of anti-racism becomes difficult to grasp because it is used to refer to a wide range of covert, overt, personal, and institutional acts. However, Dua (1999) refers to Dr. Carrie Best to captures the anti-racist perspectives. I believe it captures what ‘anti’ about anti-racism. Anti-racisism exposes the dynamic of racial oppression that supports and perpetuates the institutions and customs that make Canada what it is. Dua (1999) cites Dr. Carrie Best, If you are a liberal, middle-class white, the word ‘racist’ has a very concrete and narrow definition. Apartheid is racist. Segregation is racist. The political, social and economic systems which enslave human beings, which deny them their identities, their freedom, their dignity and their future are all racist system. This definition is good as far as it goes but it only begins to scratch the surface of racism (Carrie Best, 1968, quoted in Backhouse, 1998). (Dua, 1999, p. 8) White people often do not see themselves ‘raced’ as well as they do not want to be labeled as a racist (Rebollo-Gil & Moras, 2006). Rebollo-Gil & Moras (2006) say “In their view they have nothing to do with the problems People of Color have in getting ahead socially, economically and politically” (p. 385). According to them, effective antiracism gets whites to change completely the direction in which they spend their energy. It includes placing the burden and accountability of racism on whites. They need to see the fact that they are implicated within the issues of race. Although it is essential for whites to be able to see their implication in the issues of race, anti-racism perspective and framework have been developed by marginalized voices, experiences, and scholars. The framework not only challenges white domination, privilege and normalcy but also 56

provides us a tool to understand our experiences of oppression, take voices back, and define who we are on our own terms. Dei (1996) points out principles of anti-racism in educational fields. These include 1) consequences and materiality of “race,” 2) intersectionality of oppression, 3) white privilege and its normalization, 4) marginalized voices, 5) implication of students’ home culture and identity, and 6) pedagogical implication of diversity and difference. While these principles are all important to take into consideration in the analysis of this project, saliency of race and marginalized voices needs to be paid particular attention. It is because body matters when it comes to whose voices have been dismissed or heard. Importantly, who speaks whose voices? How do we take ownership of our own voice back? Anti-racism not only engages in deconstructing race relationships in the society, but also analyzes the power that shapes historically specific patterns of racialization (Dua, 1999). Historically, the fiction of race has been an insidious theoretical device maintained to physically and emotionally exploit Indigenous and racialized people. This has material and spiritual consequences (Memmi, 2000). Dei (2013) points out “Race is identity, but more importantly it is about a lived experience which is real. The reality of race emerges from the everydayness of racism and not the other way around. In other words, it is racism that has made race real” (Dei, 2013, p. 3-4). This realness of body politics and identity and its material consequences leads me to make important connections between bodies and voices. Bodies are read differently. Whose voices are centred and maintained, whose bodies are silenced and rejected?

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The absence of Indigenous and racialized peoples’ voices in educational spaces has been widely discussed (hooks, 1989, 2004; Battiste, 2013). When considering a strategy for making audible the unheard, some argue that dominant subjects could use their privilege to bring attention to the voices of the marginalized. However, I argue that historically this positions the dominants as knowledge producers and authorities in the academy, thus validating their bodies and voices as such. Master narratives centre the dominant. The purpose of the master narrative within white supremacist ideology is to legitimate and conserve the power of Eurocentricity and to value its knowledge production over that of the Others. The master narrative is a site of internalized oppression and privilege. Different values are assigned to different bodies, and they come to seem normal or natural. The dominant discourse, where narratives maintain white privilege, is a “public transcript.” Scott (1990) claims the position of the dominant group is legitimized and normalized through these public transcripts. According to Scott (1990), a public transcript “will typically, by its accommodationist tone, provide convincing evidence for the hegemony of dominant values, for the hegemony of dominant discourses” (p. 4). To maintain and reconstruct the public transcript, dominant groups use their stories strategically. Delgado (1989) writes, “The dominant group creates its own stories. The stories or narratives told by the ingroup remind it of its identity in relation to outgroup and provide it with a form of shared reality in which its own superior position is seen as natural” (p.2412). Thus it perpetuates and maintains power through narrative. It rewards dominance, violence, destruction, as well as the fragmentation of histories and voices of Indigenous and racialized people. 58

3.1.3. Feminist Reimagining My research project focuses on Indigenous and racialized women because I am interested in the point of connection and difference in our experience. The anti-racist lens acknowledges the intersectionality of oppression. Anti-racist discourse often centres on the notion of race over other identities, such as gender, sexuality, or class. Wane (2003) argues that in anti-racist discourse, the focus on oppression should not be limited to race discrimination. Rather, we need to look at the nature of oppression holistically and systematically. She further states, A marginalized group, for example, may have a common history of enslavement, holocaust, genocide, colonialism; however, that oppression has been experienced differently based on social locations, such as class, gender, sex, colour, etc. These differences indicate that our approaches to theorizing marginality should be complicated by such salient variables, which impact on how the individuals experience their lives. (Wane, 2003, p.4) Along with our locations, the various roles and responsibilities we have within a family and community also affect how we engage in the academy. In addition to the saliency of race claimed by Dei (1996), gender identity and sexuality cannot simply be supplements to the analysis, as they have real material and emotional consequences. White mainstream feminism privileges academic feminism and sees patriarchy as universal oppression to all women. Grande (2004) refers to hooks’ critique of the problematic white feminist assumption of universal “sisterhood.” Grande (2004) argues, hooks’s critique resonates deeply for indigenous women who continue to assert the historical-material “difference” of their experiences. Indeed, this analysis joins the voices of Indigenous with African American and other “labeled women” working to create awareness of the interlocking system of domination, 59

particularly those forces that have empowered white women “to act as exploiters and oppressors” (hooks, 1989, p.603). (Grande, 2004, p.125) She further states that white mainstream feminist discourse is structured to serve the emotional and material interest of white middle-class people. The problems they identify do not necessarily speak to the reality Indigenous and racialized women face. It fails to offer a space to discuss the ways in which gender inequality is intertwined with race, sexuality, and class. This not only masks the intersectional oppressions that Indigenous and racialized women experience but also overlooks their agency and resistance. Feminist discourse is not only dominated by white women, according to Grande, it “is principally structured on the basis of white, middle-class experience, serving their ethnopolitical interests and capital investments” (Grande, 2004, p.125). In other words, white feminism stems from the heteropatriarchal white supremacist structure. According to Grande (2004), some claim the idea of white feminism as mainstream is no longer valid, considering the fact that “women of color have long critiqued the racist underpinnings of whitestream feminism” (p.125). She, however, does not agree with the claim; mainstream feminist discourse has not fundamentally changed. Audrey Huntley and Carol Lynne D’Arcangelis (2012) state, Building on the scholarship of other racialized women, Indigenous women contend that mainstream feminism’s lack of an anti-colonial analysis has occluded how settler women have been and are implicated in colonialist processes and has blinded “whitestream” feminists (Grande, 2004) to understanding how colonialist power relations frame the way Indigenous women experience, conceptualize, and contest the violence in their lives and communities. (p. 43) It is important to underline that focusing on the voices of marginalized women neither be simply added-on as a complement to the dominant discourse in the academy nor 60

generalized. While on the surface it appears that including marginalized voices is a positive step, I argue that if the paradigm of interpretation and analysis is still Eurocentric, it only reproduces the dichotomized notion of “us” and “them.” With a feminist, anti-colonial and anti-racist framework, I need to constantly interrogate the way that diversity and difference are understood. Therefore, centering women’s voices requires shifting a paradigm. Adichie (2009) indicates an example in her talk about what shifting a paradigm could be like. She notes that the way in which a story is told involves power – the power to dominate and control, but also challenge and resist. She states, “start the story with the arrows of the Native American and not with the arrival of the British, and you have an entirely different story” (Adichie, 2009). People bring their version of events, which are open to interpretation. Audre Lorde’s (1984) well-known declaration, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (p.112), asks us to move beyond focusing on what exists. Rather, we need to reimagine a different way of being. Considering the convergence and divergence of Anti-colonial, anti-racist and feminist theory, they all address the unequal power relationships. These approaches not only focus on deconstructing colonial, race or gender relations, but also on developing strategies for actual social transformation. Along with questioning systems of oppression, these take the notion of agency and resistance into consideration. As Dei (1996) argues, anti-racism and anti-colonial education is an action-oriented strategy for institutional and systemic change to address racism, social inequality, and intersecting systems of oppression. As an action-oriented strategy, it creates a learning space where multiple 61

centres are shared. In these spaces, centering personal and collective memory is necessary. Stories that create multiple centres allow us to dispute the validity of the “single story.” As convergences among these approaches, anti-colonial theory focuses on the ongoing power relationships and in knowledge production. Anti-racist approaches historically centers the notion of race in its analysis that often does not fully capture the different experiences that Aboriginal and racialized women are going through. This is the reason why integration of anti-colonial, anti-racism and feminist theoretical approach is required in this project.

3.2. Dehumanization of Indigeneity within the Colonial Historical Context and its Process The understanding that colonial discourse and domination is ongoing and is organized differently over time is fundamental to anti-colonial discourse. This helps me understand how dehumanization was, and continues to be, imposed on Indigenous and racialized people. Anti-colonial and Indigenous scholars such as Fanon (1967), Cesaire (1972), Tuhiwai Smith (1999) argue that the dehumanization of Indigenous and racialized people is necessary to colonialism. The boundary between who is human and who is not was legitimized through dominants’ eyes. Fanon (1967) describes his experiences as follows: “I am being dissected under white eyes, the only ‘real’ eyes. I am fixed. Having adjusted their microtomes, they objectively cut away slices of my reality” (p.325). Manichaeism reaches its logical conclusion.

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Dehumanization is a conscious process “to divest of human qualities or personality” (LaRocque, 2010, p. 37). It takes various strategies such as maintaining dichotomized notions of civilized/savage. These strategies were used to justify white settler occupation of Indigenous land and resources, as well the destruction of Indigenous peoples’ culture (LaRocque, 2010). Along the same line, Said (1978) argues Orientalism is bound to Western colonialism and imperialism through the representation of “Others.” He describes the Orient as a European invention, “a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences” (p. 1). According to Said (1978), Orientalism’s function is “for dealing with the Orient - dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (p.3). The construction of imaginary Others through literature and research includes and expands to other racialized groups. For example, representations such as the model minority myth of Asians in North America, the hyper-sexualization of Black people and Asian women, the construction of the under-sexualized Asian male, and the criminalization of Black men. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) argues that “[c]colonized peoples have been forced to define what it means to be fully human because there is a deep understanding of what it has meant to be not fully human” (p.26). This dehumanization is based on the Eurocentric idea of what it means to be human within the colonial paradigm. An anticolonial approach allows me to shift this focus. What does it mean to be human from a 63

non-Eurocentric perspective? It helps me to think about ways to avoid replicating colonial paradigms, to think through resistance and its potential, outside of the dominant paradigm (Dei & Asgharzadeh, 2001). Rethinking life from a non-Eurocentric perspective is a form of resistance. In this project I consider: what does it mean to be “human” within the colonial and white supremacist framework, and do we want to fit into this formulation of humanity, given that it has been utilized to control and maintain dominance. Along with dehumanization, the objectification and commodification of Indigenous and racialized people have proven necessary for white supremacy to maintain power and control. To contextualize historical dehumanization through colonialism, I point out the objectification and consumption of Others’ stories in the classroom as a practice of contemporary colonial violence, a power grab. Dehumanization in colonial writing occurred long before we were allowed to enter the university. The contemporary objectification of Indigenous and racialized peoples’ stories within the classroom, and the white entitlement to “learn” and “know” are a type of violence that maintains hierarchical power relations. I draw a distinction between marginalized people claiming Indigenous ontology or epistemology and “re-humanizing” ourselves. For Indigenous and racialized people, claiming humanity from non-Eurocentric perspectives may require more than a straightforward process. The colonized may internalize white supremacist ideology. A sense of inferiority cultivated by the master narrative directs the white gaze back onto racialized communities, burning us all (Tatum, 1997; Fanon, 1967). 64

While the need of the colonized to “re-humanize ourselves” or to claim our humanity may be claimed in some literature as a form of resistance, it is important for me to acknowledge that although dehumanization of racialized people occurs in the master narrative, it does not mean racialized people accept it. For me, the “re” in “rehumanization” conveys the idea that racialized people accepted dehumanization at some point in time, and now need to become human again. I refute this. Furthermore, the concept of “human” is a Eurocentric theory. Andrea Smith (2013) refers to Denise Dasilva’s critique on “the presumption that the problem facing Racialized and colonized peoples is that they have been ‘dehumanized’” (Smith, 2013). She argues that “the human” is already a racial project, which aims towards universality, and “can only exist over and against the particularity of ‘the Other’” (Smith, 2013). She points out two problems out with this racial project. First, she argues there is a presumption of liberation by stating, those who are put in the position of racialized and colonized others presume that liberation will ensue if they can become self-determining subjects — in other words, if they can become fully “human.” However, the humanity to which we aspire still depends on the continued oppression of other racialized/colonized others. Thus, a liberation struggle that does not question the terms by which humanity is understood becomes a liberation struggle that depends on the oppression of others. (Smith, 2013) The second assumption of liberation is that racialized subjects will be granted humanity through approval from the dominant. Smith states, If people understood us better, they would see we are “human” just like they are and would grant us the status of humanity. As a result, anti-racist activist and scholarly projects often become trapped in ethnographic multiculturalism. Ironically, in order to prove our worthiness, we put ourselves in the position of 65

being ethnographic objects so that the white subject to judge our claims for humanity. (Smith, 2013) Focusing on Indigeneity rather than “reclaiming humanity” or “re-humanizing” would be more applicable for the context of this project, in that it does not dismiss the voice, agency and cultural tools or counter-narratives of oppressed peoples. It is important to think about reclamation in a broader way. As Alfred and Corntassel (2005) point out, in their article “Being Indigenous: Resurgences against Contemporary Colonialism,” the concepts of Indigeneity which are discussed in the academy are framed within the colonial and contemporary context. They point to the importance of thinking and acting outside of the colonial framework, saying, “we only need to start to use our Indigenous languages to frame our thoughts, the ethical framework of our philosophies to make decisions and to use our laws and institutions to govern ourselves” (Alfred and Corntassel, 2005, p. 614). Indigeneity is a claim to identity, history, politics, culture and rootedness in a place. Dei (2011) notes, It is about a socio-political consciousness of being as a knowing subject. It is also about an existence outside the purview of colonial encounter and the colonizing relations as over-determining of one’s existence. Indigeneity is about how a body/subject is defined by self and group - a definition of an existence outside and resistant of that identity, which is more often constructed and imposed by the dominant. The politics of claiming Indigeneity in so-called transnational context allows one to construct an identity that is beyond what is constructed within Euro-American hegemony. (p.3) Centering Indigeneity is fundamental to taking an anti-colonial approach. The anticolonial approach not only interrogates the ways in which power and privilege is persistent in ongoing colonialism, but also pays attention to how resistance and agency is understood and practiced. Dei and Simmons (2012) state, 66

Working with the anti-colonial framework means engaging such concepts as colonialism, oppression, colonial encounter, decolonization, power, agency, and resistance, as well as claiming the authenticity of local voice and intellectual agency of people. (p.75) Engaging in stories is resistance, as we are our voice, and making our voice audible is an anti-colonial practice. It is resistance to both historical and continuous dehumanization of Indigenous and racialized women. It is a reclamation of who we are. In feminist, anti-colonial and anti-racism studies, the notion of ‘resistance’ is central to discussion. In spite of acknowledging its importance in these fields, Shahjahan (2011) claims that the concept of “resistance” is undertheorized within higher education and remains scarce in anti-colonial and post-colonial discourses. However, this statement limits an understanding of resistance and agency. When we closely look at the ways in which we claim our paradigms to represent life, our voices and stories are exhibited through writing, art, ceremony, as well as unique cultural tools. We see that resistance is always present. These modes of resistance disrupt the master narrative and maintain a legacy. The anti-colonial lens helps me to understand dehumanization, objectification, consumption of narrative; it also assists me in recognizing that resistance does not just occur in straightforward ways. Anti-colonial and anti-racist discursive frameworks help us recognize that resistance and the decolonial process occur spontaneously rather than in distinct stages. The space where we can reimagine various relationships is a space of decolonization. These discursive frameworks help me to see de-colonial relationships, resistance and decolonization synthesized, not as distinctive stages. This integrated 67

approach is not only about subjugation, oppression and marginalization, but also about subjective agency, resistance, and hope (Dei & Kempf, 2006), which is very central in my research project.

3.3. Indigenous Reciprocity/Sharing and the Conceptualization of Responsibility: Deep Listening /Active Listening Written forms of knowledge production were used as a colonial tool. For marginalized groups, however, writing can be a tool for resistance. In relation to Indigenous writers’ efforts and struggles to bring oral storytelling into written form, Blaeser (1999) states “the relationship between the oral tradition and the written word, between storytelling and story writing and reading informs all contemporary encounters with Native literature” (p.76). She adds, “Contemporary Native authors work to translate not only language, but form, culture and perspective. And within the written words, many attempt to continue the life of the oral reality” (Blaeser, 1999, p. 76). However, she also mentions that participatory storytelling becomes more difficult to attain when cultures move from speech to writing. She points out that storytelling is about survival, affirming one’s individual and collective identity within relation to community. Oral history is and has been always alive. She cites Simon Ortiz (1983) in arguing that Indigenous peoples’ writing goes beyond commitment to their literature and writing. It has many responsibilities. Blaeser (1999) points to the responsiveness between storyteller and listeners in the oral tradition. Active exchange in oral storytelling invokes the listener’s response and response-ability. Blaeser (1999) refers to Scheub (1996) and states, 68

Stories as they might be written down or published are only part of the total intended message. For political reasons they are, in fact, encoded with additional meaning, and the task of interpretation, the task of unraveling their significance or revolutionary meaning, rests with the listener or the reader. (p. 53) Baleser (1999) also explores from her personal conversation with Gerald Vizenor that interactive or reactive storytelling are not “consumable.” While notions of responsibility are often employed in the academic discourse by various scholars and institutional sectors who challenge neo-colonial and hegemonic structures of the academy, Rauna Kuokkanen (2010) states “very rarely, however, one hears an elaboration of what is actually meant by the concept or what is expected and envisioned when we speak of responsibility” (p.61). She claims the need for re-conceptualizing and re-examining responsibility from an Indigenous perspective. Although her argument is situated in relation to the accountability of the academy as an institution of knowledge production, the need to re-conceptualize responsibility and accountability from Indigenous perspectives also applies to narrative sharing and listening. Responsibility and the concept of Indigenous reciprocity are of primary importance here. Koukkanen (2010) stresses that in many Indigenous communities, reciprocal relationships define responsibilities and ways of relating between humans and the ecosystem. It is also a process of identity affirmation: identity in relation to self, community, and land. Koukkanen (2010) draws on Jeannette Armstrong (1996) and states, By recognizing her responsibilities, Armstrong knows her location and her role in her community; in short, she knows who she is. This notion of responsibility stems from a perception of interrelatedness of all life forms—that it is her responsibility to ensure the well-being of the mountains and river because it is 69

directly related to her personal as well as to her community’s well-being. (P.6364) Along the same line, Ortiz (1983) believes that the goal is “to make sure that the voice keeps singing forth so that the earth power will not cease, and that the people remain fully aware of their social, economic, political, cultural and spiritual responsibilities to all things” (pp.vii-viii). Koukkanen (2010) also refers to Derrida (1997), and writing, “responsibility links consciousness with conscience. It is inadequate to merely know one’s responsibilities; one also has to be conscious of the consequences of one’s actions. Without conscience, there is a risk of the arrogance of a ‘clean conscience’” (Koukkanen, 2010, p. 65). She borrows the Okanagan concept of En’Owkin that “signifies a process of group commitment to find the most appropriate solutions through a respectful dialogue” (Koukkanen, 2010, p. 65). Referring to Armstrong (1996), Koukkanen (1983) writes, …the idea of En’owkin is not to make decisions but to hear all the voices. The premise of En’owkin is that nobody alone can have the answers and that if somebody is arguing for his or her point, there is no need to listen. The most important aspect is not to stage an argument but to ensure that every perspective is being heard. In other words, En’owkin implies that one is not participating in the process in order to debate or enforce one’s own agenda but to try to understand the most oppositional thinking to one’s own and recognize its importance so that the difference becomes diversity. If these aspects of listening and dialoguing are not taken into account and followed, there are no rational outcomes and as a result, people are taking serious risks for the next generations. (p. 65-66) The focus on “listening” and community underpins Indigenous scholar Judy Atkinson’s (2002) Daddiri, or deep listening. Atkinson (2002) states that it has been understood as “special quality, a unique gift of Aboriginal people. It is inner deep listening and quiet, still awareness — something like what you call contemplation” (cited Miriam Rose Ungunmerr, 1993). Atkinson (2002) articulates the principles and function of Daddiri as 70

focus on a community, relationality, quiet observation, hearing with more than the ears, non-judgmental consideration of what is being seen and heard, learning from listening, orientation towards action, and responsibility. Anti-colonial, critical feminist and anti-racist frameworks guide this project. In seeking to better understand Indigenous and racialized women’s experience in the academy, it is central to engage in discussions about power and hierarchy and their antidotes, agency and resistance. It is important to first identify the challenges we face as a result of sustained colonial relations. With an anti-racist framework, we can understand how these colonial relations are manifest around the notion of race; the saliency of race. Then we must acknowledge that Indigenous and racialized women experience challenges that are also gendered, sexualized, and classed. Critical feminism takes that into consideration in its analysis. The critical feminist lens offers tools to unpack the complex power relations that are gendered and sexualized; from institutionalized sexual violence to invisible labour. This is why it is important to apply both anti-racist and critical feminist frameworks in this project. An anti-racist and critical feminist framework engages power relations and agency from particular viewpoints. In addition, these lenses offer to centre marginalized voices with the agency necessary to resist the domination. In relation to storytelling or counter-narratives in this project, anti-colonial frameworks place Indigeneity as the central point to start with. Anti-racist and feminist frameworks guide us to know what story to use.

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Conclusion In this chapter, I have explained the discursive frameworks that inform this dissertation. These are anti-colonial, feminist, and anti-racist theoretical frames. These discursive spaces allow me not only to engage with power, colonialism, violence, resistance and decolonization but also to think through how we can disengage the dominant paradigm and reimagine being in relation differently. In inquiring about the ongoing oppression that Indigenous and racialized students face in the academy, three discursive concepts are utilized: Indigeneity, resistance and reciprocity/responsibility. These will be the focus of this dissertation. In the next chapter, I will explain how my methodology is informed by these concepts.

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Chapter 4 METHODOLOGY This chapter discusses the methodology used to undertake this project. In it, I locate myself, and I articulate my research questions, methods, and data collection strategies. Finally, I introduce both the participants that I interviewed, and the themes I identified. This chapter has five subsections. In the first section, I will locate myself in this project. The second subsection will focus on the qualitative research methods employed in this project. It includes the rationale for choosing those qualitative methods. In the third subsection, I provide the ways in which I collected data, including how I recruited participants, and with what conditions. Following that, I will discuss confidentiality and informed consent, including the ways in which confidentiality is ensured and informed consent is gathered. Participants’ profiles are included in this section. In the final section, I will provide the themes that arose.

4.1. Locating Myself I am a heterosexual Japanese woman. I was born in Miyazaki, in the southern part of Japan. Although my experience and challenges intersect race, gender, and class identity, being East Asian has a particular currency and privilege, which allowed me to access higher education in Canada. I treat my reality as a valid source of knowledge because this project began with my own experience as a racialized female student, and expanded as a way to connect to other Indigenous and racialized women to create a space for resistance. Locating myself in this project is important. When I locate myself, I am 73

making a connection and being accountable to who I am, what I do, how I do it, and why I do it. I want to ensure I am accountable to the relationships I have with participants in this project, as well as the land I stand on. I do not simply see these relationships as representative of the present, but also ask how they are implicated historically. These questions provide a foundation to build and maintain a relationship with responsibility. Absolon and Willett (2005) state, “as we locate, we must still account for the relative aspects of who we are thus represent ourselves accordingly and distinctly” (p.110). Thus I include myself as a racialized graduate student in the collective narrative of this project. I acknowledge that my subject location and experiences as a graduate student — a racialized and female person — can influence how I interview, interpret, perceive, code, understand, and analyze events, conversations and participants’ accounts. Participants and I have different but shared experiences as marginalized students in the academy. It is impossible for me to disconnect my experiences and understanding from the analysis. In qualitative critical feminist and anti-oppressive inquiry, the term reflexivity is used to reflect relationality. It is the “researcher’s own self-reflection in the meaningmaking” (Kovach, 2009, p. 32). Kovach (2009) adds, “It provides a research methodology that allows feminist researchers to share the experience of conducting research and their own subjective experience with their research participants throughout the process” (p.32). If research is part of a decolonizing project, Kovach (2009) argues, critical reflexivity that acknowledges the politics of representation is a must. Thus, treating my experience as valid knowledge to include in the analysis is not to re-center

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my perspective over the participants. In this project, my aim is to explore our collective voice as well as create a multicentric space for each voice. I also locate myself in order to make explicit my biases and politics. Creswell (2013) suggests that reflexivity allows researchers to clarify our own bias; as our own socio cultural and historical background shapes our interpretation in the research process. It acknowledges that my subject location, belief, and experiences influence the research findings. Clarifying my subject location creates transparency for a reader (Kovach, 2009). Okolie (2005) claims anti-racist researchers must not hide our biases and politics behind objectivity and value neutrality. Identifying bias and politics is a gesture of responsibility, respect as well as resistance. Dei (2005) asks, “how does involving the self assist us in rethinking the meaning of research within the anti-racist/anti-colonial paradigm (e.g., the search for a new model for research), while working with subjects to collaboratively produce critical knowledge?” (p. 6). Thomas King (2003) writes, “Once you’ve heard a story…Don't say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You've heard it now” (p. 77). This resonates: I want to be accountable to my own experiences and participants accounts.

4.2. Qualitative Research. In order to respond to my research questions above, I use a set of qualitative approaches to understand social relations; focusing on processes of meaning-making and centering experiential knowledge. Leavy and Harris (2018) explain that a number of worldviews, including interpretive, feminist, critical race, Indigenous and queer

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theoretical perspectives, underlie qualitative research. They say no matter what perspectives are employed, qualitative research “values people’s subjective experiences and how people attribute meaning to their own lives and within the broader culture” (Leavy & Harris, 2018, p. 137). Historically, the forms of qualitative research (observation, participation, interviewing or ethnography) have been used as a colonial tool; they serve “the foundation for reports about and representations of the others” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, p. 4). Tuhiwai Smith (1999) argues that traditional Eurocentric ways of pursuing knowledge are “deeply embedded in the multiple layers of imperial and colonial practices” (p. 2). Denzin and Lincoln (2008) argue that, “in the colonial context, research becomes an objective way of representing the dark-skinned other to the White world” (p.4). Although my intention is not to perpetuate the colonial research patterns, I am implicated in dislocating Indigenous peoples by holding space as a researcher within Eurocentric knowledge production. As I described in the previous two chapters, I employ anti-racist, feminist, and anti-colonial lenses to challenge systems of power and oppression and focus on agency and resistance. Although employing these frameworks enable me to participate critically in the colonial system, I acknowledge that I still engage with a Eurocentric academy. I return to Lorde’s (1984) declaration, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (p.112). I am still in the position of using the master’s tools to try to dismantle the master’s house. I understand this single project cannot dismantle the entire colonial structure. But seriously, this dissertation should not be seen as a totalizing or finished project. My hope is that I am moving in the right 76

direction, with community, while ensuring I am always critically reflective of the process. As an anti-racist, feminist, and anti-colonial thinker, I hope this project engages the decolonial dialogue and process without perpetuating colonial paradigms. Eurocentric knowledge production continues to dominate on the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Haudenosaunee people and the Huron-Wendat. Denzin and Lincoln (2008) argue that as non-Indigenous academics who are seeking a dialogue with Indigenous scholars, we need to create stories of resistance, struggle and hope that are grounded within our own context, stories where multicultural conversation occur. Kovach (2009) claims employing stories, as methodology is a way of decolonizing speech. In order not only to avoid replicating the colonial violence embedded in a research paradigm but also to create a space for resistance through this project, it is important for me to employ methods that centre Indigenous and racialized women’s voices.

4.2.1. Objectivity and Validity Lincoln and Guba (2000) claim that positivist research assumes that research can be objective and neutral. Qualitative research does not claim objectivity; it even rejects the notion of researchers’ independence (Tierney & Clemens, 2011). It recognizes research is not free from bias at any level. A researcher’s point of view will always affect the work, from its inception to its design, writing and publication (Tierney & Clemens, 2011). Tierney and Clemens (2011) explain that what qualitative research can provide are context, understanding, depth, and voice. Although it is an approach wherein stories 77

are appreciated and validated, it does not capture the notion of connectedness. From an Indigenous epistemological point of view, Lavallee (2009) argues, Research cannot possibly be completely objective. Individuals conducting the research are necessarily connected to the individuals being researched, and all concerned are connected to all other living things. Emotions are connected to all mental process. Every time we think, we use reason, and figure, emotion is tied to that process; therefore, it is impossible to be free of emotion and subjectivity in research. (p. 23) I agree with her point. In particular, when stories are involved, it is impossible to be free from various mental processes, including interpretation, emotion and subjectivity. In feminist approaches, emotion is considered as knowledge, as in the adage, “the personal is political” (Boler & Zembylas, 2016). Kovach (2009) argues that stories are always personal and undertaking stories as methodology often invokes questions about legitimacy and validity. According to Creswell & Miller (2000), there are eight validation strategies used by qualitative researchers to ensure that stories are seen and understood as valid, including prolonged engagement, persistent observation, clarification, member checking, and self-location. In this project, I employ member checking and self-location in particular. Member checking is used to ensure credibility. According to Creswell (2003), member checking should be used “to determine the accuracy of the qualitative findings by taking the final report or specific descriptions or themes back to participants and determining whether these participants feel that they are accurate” (p.196). Member checking ensures the participants and I are on the same page throughout the process. Moreover, the other reason I consider member checking important is because I understand participants as knowledge co-producers.

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One of the challenges I face at the transcribing stage was that orally shared stories were transcribed and shared as text. This does not necessarily have to be negative. However, it was challenging because it can certainly change the dynamics. The text does not deliver non-verbal expression and embodied emotion, such as the tone of the teller’s voice, facial expressions or body language.These non-verbal expressions are part of each voice. Regarding to orality, Kovach (2009) refers to Gerald Vizenor, Anishinaabe writer, saying “holistic knowing is lost when stories are not delivered orally; ‘So much is lost in translation” (p.102).

4.2.2. Qualitative Research Methods 4.2.2.1. Interview (group sharing circle and one-on-one) In order to understand the divergence and convergence of Indigenous and racialized experiences, and examine why, how, and where we tell our stories, I employed the qualitative methods of group and individual open interview. As Brown and Strega (2005) remind us, qualitative research sees social reality as subjective. Seidman (2013) articulates a view on interviews that feels resonant to my work. She writes, “I interview because I am interested in other people’s stories. Most simply put, stories are a way of knowing” (Seidman, 2013, p.7). Storytelling as an approach to knowledge production is often criticized in the academy for its supposed lack of objectivity. This is because Eurocentric and colonial ideology dominates and controls what counts as knowledge in the academy. This attitude positions Other ways of knowing as inferior, while maintaining Eurocentric versions of knowledge as superior. When we, as a marginalized subject, tell our own stories, our 79

stories are not considered objective critique. However, at the same time, our stories are “wanted,” taken, misinterpreted, and manipulated by researchers who are in the position of power and privilege. In fact, when white academics take and retell the stories of Indigenous and racialized people, those stories become knowledge and get validated. In this project, our voices are centered. Kovach (2009) claims, “Story and Indigenous inquiry are grounded within a relationship-based approach to research” (p.109). Centering our voices means the participants lead inquiry. In order to make sure our voices are centred, I employed informal conversational interviewing strategies. The informal conversational style is often understood as less structured and comprehensive, thus perceived as a weak source of data, in that a lack of formatted questions makes comparison difficult to analyze (Patton, 2014). However, Kovach (2009) describes how unstructured interviews can shift the power from the researcher to the participant, radically changing who controls the research process and its outcome. This allows “participants to share their experiences on their terms” (Kovach, 2009, p. 82). She asserts this can be a strategy of decolonizing, as it shifts the traditional social relations of research. For example, in the process of individual and group interviews, participants found that our conversations always came back to shared concerns or experiences, creating a natural filter to reframe my questions and the project as a whole. They suggested to me that it is important rephrase questions and let me know when I needed to shift the focus concern. That was neither intended nor expected. The participants and I led the direction of this project collectively.

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4.2.2.2. Open Group Sharing Circle It is important to emphasize that this project aims to centre Indigenous and racialized women’s voices. Within that context, I consider this project as a collective inquiry and see participants as co-producers of this knowledge. Thus, when my participants shared concerns and suggested possible directions, I followed their lead. In order to generate the direction collectively, I purposefully set a group-sharing circle first before I had one-on-one interviews. I refer to this method as a “group sharing circle” rather than focus group because sharing stories with participants means more than just “collecting information.” Kovach (2009) makes a distinction between focus group and sharing circle. Although the same information could be obtained through both methods, it is quite different. A sharing circle has sacred meaning for many Indigenous communities. It is used to respect the cultural protocol of a group, community, institution or organization (Kovach, 2009; Lavallee, 2009). I set out to create a space to speak, listen and gather stories through the act of sharing. I wanted to create a context of mutual respect that would encourage relationship building. The sharing circle is an open-ended conversational method that works to respect and center participants’ stories. While this method is widely practiced in Indigenous communities, it is still overlooked or ignored in the academy. 4.2.3.3. Food Individual interviews took place in multiple sites. The participants chose where and when we would meet. Sites include an office room, a shared public space at a University, my house, a participant’s apartment and a restaurant. In order to build 81

relationships with participants, one of the main tools that I incorporated in both individual interviews and group circle was food. I shared food with the group and the individuals. There is a growing scholarly interest on the centrality of women in food practice. Women use food in various sites as a tool to resist colonial gender construction as well as reclaim our identity, roles and responsibility (Avakian & Haber, 2006). In sharing food, I aimed to create a space and time where I could introduce myself and share my stories, including who I am, where I come from, and how I came to this project.

4.3. Methods for Data Collecting 4.3.1. Recruitment To recruit nine participants, I employed a snowball approach. Hennink, Hutter and Bailey (2011) explain that “the snowball technique is based on using social networks in the community and shared knowledge about individuals; therefore, a limitation of this method is that recruited participants are likely to be from the same social network” (p.101). For the initial recruitment process, I used my personal network, which enabled me to reach out those who had some shared experience. All were based at academic institutions in Toronto (Ryerson, York, University of Toronto). I opened conversation and asked permissions in person or by email. Once participants agreed, I asked them to pass on information to their contacts. For potential participants, the invitation was sent by email (Appendix A). Those who showed interest in the project received a copy of the consent form along with detailed information (Appendix B) so that they could understand the parameters before we began. I took my time here because I consider participants as co-knowledge producers in this project. One of the challenges during this process was 82

relationship building. Some of the participants were unfamiliar to me, and with each other. The sharing circle was the first time we all met each other. Ideally, I would have developed these relationships before we began sharing. Two of the participants identified as Indigenous, seven as racialized, seven as heterosexual, two as queer and all are cis-female. There were nine participants in total. Four of them participated in both the individual and group conversations. Four of them opted to work privately. I had eight individual dialogues and one group circle conversation involving five women. These women were at different stages of their graduate programs at the time of interview in 2014. Two of them had already graduated from their program while the others were still enrolled. They have all told personal or ancestral stories while discussing issues of equity, social justice, and colonial history. I focused on Indigenous and racialized experience as these women are negotiating space differently than those who are in power.

4.3.2. Group Open Sharing Circle We had one gathering. Six women were able to make it, including myself. Once I confirmed participants’ interest in this project, I asked for their availability vis-à-vis the group circle and individual interviews. I took time to organize the date and location for the sharing circle in order to reach maximum participation. As a facilitator, it was also my responsibility to ensure the location was accessible. Transit tokens were given to those who needed. The group met at noon. I introduced myself by sharing food. I prepared a meal based on participants’ dietary restrictions and preferences. I cooked Hiyajiru that is the local cuisine of my hometown, Miyazaki. I also provided fruit, 83

sweets and other snacks so that they were physically as well as spiritually fed3. I appreciate the fact that some participants asked if they could also bring food to share. One participant brought wild rice salad. Another participant who knew how much I love cooking, gave me tools: chopping boards and measuring cups. I explained why I chose these particular recipes. I believe sharing stories about ingredients and food preparation helped me to introduce my responsibilities and myself. It contextualized why I incorporate food into the group interview process. From beginning to end, the sharing circle took three and a half hours. After introducing ourselves over lunch, I began the conversation. I shared my own story, and then gave a formal explanation reiterating the text they had read and agreed to. I explained the process as I envisioned it. This allowed me to present my commitment to the project and gave them a compass to direct their thoughts. The conversation evolved from there.

4.3.3. One-on-One Interviews Like the sharing circle, I brought stories and edibles, specifically chosen for each participant. This icebreaker conversation around food, memory, culture, and the responsibilities of women helped us to transition into a conversation about their experience as graduate students. I organized the sharing circle to generate research directions. For those participants who could not make it to the circle, I offered my notes verbally at the beginning of each meeting. The length of the interview varied from half an hour to two hours; most went for an hour and a half. 3

I believe that the act of sharing stories is a spiritual feeding.

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4.4. Confidentiality and Informed Consent Due to my language limitation, the circle was held in English. Because Japanese is my first language, I let participants know that if anyone wanted to conduct an interview in Japanese, which was an option. However, none of the participants were Japanese, all participants were fluent in English, as such, the individual interviews were held in English. Participants received a consent form, which detailed the purpose of the project (Appendix B). These signed forms are kept in a locked drawer at my home. At the beginning of our group session, I read this document and confirmed their consent. I reminded them that they could stop the interview at anytime, for any reason, and that they could also choose to not answer particular questions.

4.5. Transcription and Member Checking Critical research requires an understanding of power dynamics. It is important that the researcher be accountable at every point in the process. I am aware that while this project is the reflection of our struggle to develop dialogue in academic space as marginalized people — final decisions, including the selection of quotes, were mine. Although the initial direction was collectively discussed in the sharing circle, when it came to coding, analysis, and writing, I have all the power. In other words, there are unequal power relationships between the participants and myself. One of the strategies I used to undermine my dominance was to send the work to the participants at each step in the process: including transcription, thematic structuring, initial analysis, the second final draft, and the final product that goes to oral defense.

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Once transcription and coding was complete, all participants received full transcripts of both the group (for those who participated4) and their own one-on-one interview. This was useful for consent and editing purposes. With these transcripts, I also attached a summary of key themes, some initial analysis, and the possible direction I would take to ensure their voices were reflected. I asked participants if there was anything they wanted to omit from the record. In order to maximize confidentiality and privacy, pseudonyms are used. Unless participants gave me clear instruction that they wanted their name to appear, pseudonyms were used in both transcript and final version of my dissertation. However, identifying information has been shared in their narratives. This is a potential limitation in my ability to protect participants’ confidentiality. In the process of writing, I engaged in an email volley as to whether our individual stories and collective claims were reflected properly. The original data is stored in a locked drawer and will be held there for up to five years in case the findings are queried and need to be verified (Sieber, 1991). Only I have access to the original data. No identifying information is contained in the transcripts.

4.6. Data Analysis As I have mentioned above, I treat my lived experiences as valid knowledge. This affects how I code, interpret, and analyze the participants’ account. Riessman (2003) states, Stories in research interviews are rarely so clearly bounded, and often there is negotiation between teller and listener about placement and relevance, a process 4

Those who missed the group circle were given the information orally before each individual interview. These include shared concerns and key themes.

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that can be analyzed with transcriptions that include paralinguistic utterances (“uhms”), false starts, interruptions, and other subtle features of interaction. Deciding which segments to analyze and putting boundaries around them is an interpretive decision, shaped in major ways by theoretical interests. Deciding beginnings and endings of narratives is often a complex interpretive task. (p. 334) My aim of this project is not to speak for the participants; I understand that this project gives me a space to speak with them. I identify their challenges as colonial, race related, and as gender related oppressions, not only because theoretical frameworks help me to identify them as such but also because these allow my experiences to speak with them. We have different backgrounds socially, culturally and linguistically. However, I see the connection between their experiences of forced invisibility, negation, being taken advantage of by others to that of mine. My aim is to bring our voices together. My Canadian post-secondary experiences often reinforced the notion of insider and outsider. When white female students laughed at me when I asked a question in a group discussion, I did not understand why they had laughed; I was upset but I felt embarrassed. I wanted to belong to the space where I was. I wanted to claim I had a right to be there. The participants’ accounts point out the both unique and similar feelings and challenges that we have gone through in the Canadian post-secondary institutions. Within the group circle, several themes emerged. We openly and collectively discussed what direction this project could take. Our themes include the consumption of stories, the idea of space, the practice of active listening, self-determination and self-care, the idea of community, resistance, mentorship and reciprocal relationship. Keeping in mind, these themes emerged through the group discussion as a collective direction for coding. I coded using Nvivo qualitative data analysis computer software. With Nvivo, I 87

used theme node. The theme node is a collection of references about a specific topic, concept, idea or experience. There are twelve nodes assigned: stories, why do we share them, space, classroom, listening, community, consumption of stories, identity and sharing stories, connection to our ancestors, mentorship, self-determination, and responsibility. Quotes from participants were categorized into these nodes. As I mentioned above, we had discussed and agreed upon themes to frame the quotes. Member checking was utilized, in that participants gave feedback on the coding of their stories. We often contextualize our stories but the coding technique breaks narrative into pieces. When I found a quote that summarized a topic, I felt I had left our process behind.

4.7. Participants Profiles Nine individuals shared their recommendations. All participants went through graduate programs in Toronto between 2010 and 2014. Two had already graduated when I conducted the interviews; one had finished her Ph.D. and the other her masters. Seven of us were still in the program and enrolled in social science doctoral programs. While we shared a perspective as female graduate students, each of us had a singular experience. These unique commonalities are highlighted in chapter seven. I don’t give detailed descriptions on each participant in order to protect their confidentiality. However, I will introduce them in brief to give some context to this study. Amy is an Indigenous woman, a learner, a survivor of colonial violence. She is also a mother, a mentor, and an educator at multiple educational spaces. She was a Ph.D. candidate in 2014. She could not make it for the group conversation, so I only had a one-

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on-one interview with her. She believes in the importance of taking care of oneself before telling a story. She said she has done a lot of healing work, including group counseling. Without extended healing, she thinks that it would be difficult for her to share her own stories in academic spaces. She credits her ancestors for guidance through the graduate program. Ellie is a racialized woman, a student, a mother, and teacher. She had just completed her Ph.D. when I interviewed her. She spoke of constant challenges as a racialized woman in academic space. She mentioned she has all the credentials to be an instructor in higher education. However, her knowledge and presence in the academy as an instructor and scholar was constantly questioned. Martha is a racialized woman, a graduate student and a mother. In 2014, she was doing her Ph.D. She could not make it to the group conversation, so we only had the opportunity to conduct an individual interview. One of the most prominent themes in our conversation was about feeling safe in the classroom. When she reflected upon her experience as a graduate student, the most pain occurred in classrooms where she felt there was no safety. Molly is a racialized queer woman, a graduate student, a community worker, a teacher and a learner. In 2014, she was doing her Ph.D. With experience as an educator and community worker, she shared critical inquiry into ways of thinking about ‘learning’. She not only challenges the ways in which ‘learning’ is framed in the Eurocentric

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academic institutions but also engages in possible ways to create space where other ways of ‘learning’ is appreciated. Nola is an Indigenous woman, a mother, a graduate student and an educator. We had time conflicts, so I did not have a chance to conduct an individual interview with her. When I hosted the circle, she was doing her Ph.D. The way she opened up her story allowed me to engage in an organic process. She begins by saying, “I don’t know where I’m going with this story for now but I’ll freestyle and come back.” Her freestyling created a circle of meaning that connected her own with the stories of others. Tina is a racialized queer woman, a learner and an educator. Throughout her graduate program, she had engaged issues that racialized students face in post-secondary institutions. In 2014, she had already completed her master’s program. She noted that she did not limit her storytelling to speech or writing: her story telling encompassed music, dance, picture making and other artforms. She shared with us that it was therapeutic to write her thesis; that listening to the stories of other students helped her to understand her own experience of violence and oppression. Kayla is a racialized woman, a learner and an educator. She was doing her Ph.D. at the point of interview. She could not make it to the group circle, but I did record an individual interview with her. She noted that the concept of ‘story’ or ‘sharing stories’ in post-secondary institutions means different things to different people. She admitted that she has begun to think that stories are not necessary to fight racial oppression. Rather, she began to see stories as ways in which white students and teachers can exoticize the 90

Others. She had never looked at a classroom as a site of healing. She confided that she has always shied away from sharing her experience. Naomi is a racialized woman, a learner, an activist as well as a community worker. She had just started her Ph.D. I only had an individual interview with her, as she could not make it to the group circle. The first thing she shared with me was that she did not feel she was a student. She mentioned that she works outside of the academy. She does not hang around on campus, and barely hangs out with students. She said, “I don’t take part in university culture. I just do my own thing.” She was clear that she had a particular agenda while in these post-secondary institutions. Ruby is a racialized woman, a learner and an educator. In 2014, she was doing her Ph.D. When it comes to sharing stories in white academic institutions, she emphasized that space and context are crucial. The academy complicates our ability to share stories, as we are often supposed to be either a producer of knowledge or an ‘object.’ She reminded us that in the presence of white students, sharing stories is not risk free. Out of nine participants, one had completed her Ph.D, one had completed her Masters, and seven were in Ph.D. programs. The cultural background of these women was diverse. Two of the participants came from Indigenous communities in Canada; others came from South Asian and Black communities. While participants came from different graduate programs across Toronto, common challenges were identified throughout the interview processes. 91

Chapter 5 THESE ARE OUR STORIES This chapter explains how ongoing coloniality in the post-secondary institutions is persistent and perpetuated through violence. My findings show that while experiences of violence vary, there are similarities in how violence is enacted in and through the continued narrative consumption of Indigenous and racialized stories by white academics. The major findings consist of five sub themes; violence as a connector, the dominant discourses of the learning space, the politics of bodies, narrative consumption and intervention.

5.1. Violence is a Continuous Shared Experience among and between Indigenous and Racialized Women in the Academy. Ongoing colonial oppression and violence is a part of Indigenous and racialized women’s experience in the academy. Silencing is violence. Rendering colonial history and white privilege invisible is violence, in that it reinforces and normalizes the ideologies that expect Indigenous people to disappear (Smith, 2006). It justifies oppression on Indigenous and racialized people. Every participant expressed that they have experienced oppression and violence in the academy. We experience violence on multiple levels, from individual to systemic. We experience myriad forms of violence, from forced silence to verbal attacks, from invisibility to exclusion. For example, Martha, a racialized woman, received a verbal attack when she gave a presentation in class. As she recounted,

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I don’t even remember the presentation because the attack was so violent. Your body goes into that fight or flight, sensing, or censoring mode. I remember I was at the front of the classroom when I was presenting my three-minute topic, whatever it was. And I finished my presentation and asked for discussion among my peers. A white student stood up and said that she was really tired of listening to me always talk about race and I was perpetuating racism by talking about it. I was shocked. Her experience is not exceptional. Nola, an Indigenous woman and educator, also shares how much her experience in the classroom upset her. She said, “I want to jump out of the window, that’s how terrible the classroom was. And now I feel, thank god, I’m done my coursework.” Violence can be understood as a force to cause injury on multiple levels. For example, the stories of Molly, a racialized queer identified woman, and Ellie, a racialized heterosexual woman, imply a lack of acknowledgement, validation or acceptance. Their enforced silence is experienced as violence. Molly described the lack of acknowledgement from her supervisor as painful. She said, When I published, I sent an email to my supervisor. He did not respond. He said nothing. But when one of his white students published, he made an announcement. Comparing my scholarship with that of others is not what I am doing... but he refused to recognize me. She continued, I was hurt when he did not respond. But I have to do my own work. [It’s] probably because I am not a smart student. I have never ever been smart in school. So, for me, it was a big deal to publish. Maybe that’s part of the “little girl hurt” in there. I would acknowledge that. As you can see, this experience, among others, affected her self-esteem. Ellie calls the academic space she was in as “injurious,” in that it gave her traumatic accretion. She 93

said, For a year, I just dropped out. No one asked how I was. No one knew the injury that I was going through. It was like, “you’re no longer useful. We don’t need you.” I did not talk about my injury because I felt that it would prevent me from finishing. So, I suffered in silence. When I finished, no one even knew that I finished. There was no public announcement. I never existed. Martha called the academy frustrating. She said, As a graduate student, I guess everyday was an experience. I mean it depends, I guess, present tense, on the dynamic of the people around the table. Sometimes it’s difficult to discuss the story or discuss why you are here and why you came to take on this higher education. You are here to get the degree, but the process can be frustrating. Other participants shared this sense of frustration. Nola in particular expressed her frustration in fighting to get her creative writing validated. She said, “We always have to fight, fight, fight, to the point of exhaustion.” At the point of interview, she was writing a piece for publication, going back and forth with editors. She said, They are trying to tell me I cannot use creative writing, but I just keep sending it back to them saying, “if you want it as a chapter, this is what it looks like.” I have to constantly prepare for the fight. In my master’s program, I kept fighting for validation. Now I anticipate more fighting... The constant fighting is not only frustrating, but also exhausting. These experiences of frustration, trauma, violence and injury at multiple levels cause us to seriously consider dropping out from our programs. In the group conversation, Nola asked “Who here has had a thought about dropping out?” Every woman in the space, including myself, laughed as we raised our hands. This shows that the extent of stress, the pressure we experienced physically, emotionally and spiritually, day to day in the academy, was often

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more than we could handle. We became overwhelmed. For Indigenous and racialized women, it is clear that violence, oppression and struggle are not only topics of study, but also a part of our daily experience (Razack, 1998). Furthermore, it is not rare for women to drop out from graduate programs. Nola further explained, It’s so real. Some people are like “I had the thought.” It’s beyond that... I mean, it’s real. People planned and even made steps towards it.

During the interview process, one of the participants actually took this step towards dropping out. The unsupportive environment of the academy had an impact on her physical, mental and spiritual well-being, causing her to suffer serious anxiety and depression. While their experiences of violence are divergent, Ellie, Nola, Martha, and Amy, mentioned violence as a significant connector for other marginalized students in the academy. Ellie pointed out that what we share as Indigenous and racialized women is injury in history. She said, As a woman of color, I felt a connection to Aboriginal experience. I did not go to residential school, but when we look at the history, we have shared such injury in history. All of us experience psychological, spiritual injury. We continue to experience this in the academic space. She continued, “When you talk about injury in the academy... my biggest injury came from people like me.” Martha supported Ellie’s point about violence as shared experience as well as internalized oppression. She said,

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We share a legacy of violence: cultural genocide, residential school, the transatlantic slave trade. We all come to where we are through a history of trauma…either perpetuated by settlers or ...sometimes within our own family. We are broken individuals trying to move forward. We hurt each other without intention but the only way we know how to handle life is by striking out. Violence by white academics was the main focus when I interviewed participants. While all of us mentioned oppression by white people, five of us indicated that we also had experience of injury from racialized individuals. It revealed that the ways in which we experience oppression is not straightforward. Nola describes violence as a connector to her family members and communities. The violence that she and her family have experienced at academic institutions – whether at residential school, high school, or post-secondary institutions – became a point of conversation. She said, I connect with my family members who are traumatized. My mother did not progress much in school. She had a very traumatic experience, which includes racialized violence. [This] caused her to have to drop out. That’s actually the space where we can connect. Even talking with my grandfather who went to residential school... there is a connection we can make between what he experienced back then and what I am experiencing. School is the space where different generations of her family have experienced violence. When it comes to violence as a reference point of Indigenous experience, Amy mentioned media representation of people in her community. In one of the graduate courses she took as a doctoral student, she was asked to bring an artifact to tell a story. She brought a news clipping with misrepresentations of the Indigenous community

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where she grew up.5 She shared the clipping because she wanted to show the class that “this is the kind of violence that I survived, and a lot of kids did not.” She said, The way the media represented us was disgraceful. The words and the ways they described us were so harsh. Words like “falling down drunk.” It’s no wonder that some white guys would drive down there, grab a girl, take her off somewhere and rape her. That was common. That’s what happened to us. What made us so vulnerable was how we were presented in the media: “no good for nothing,” or “drunk.” Despite her intention to share, there was lack of appreciation and acknowledgement by other students. She mentioned that it seemed like a “downer for them, as the artifacts I brought weren’t uplifting and happy at all.” These stories show that violence is a continuous experience shared by Indigenous and racialized women. They also reveal a lack of institutional support.

5.2.

Colonized Space Allows Continuous Violence

In the North American context, the architecture of academic institutions may have changed over time; but the fact remains that these universities were built on Indigenous peoples’ land, to fortify colonial injustice. As Molly articulated it, When you talk about space, you do not only mention a physical sense of space but I am hearing relationship with people, relationship to topic, and relationship to land. Even though we are twenty stories in the air, the ground underneath us is still occupied territory. Nola and Tina also discussed the lack of acknowledgement that academic institutions are built on Indigenous peoples’ land. Nola said,

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This community is unnamed to protect the privacy of the participant.

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The space itself, I think that’s worth talking about. These spaces are on land that is not acknowledged as Indigenous land. Unless you have a very strong professor or facilitator… even if they facilitate the course with honor songs, the institution itself does not recognize and support land acknowledgement. You feel that. Her claim implies that land acknowledgement needs to be at both individual and institutional levels. Institutional support and acknowledgement are the foundation for individuals to make change. Tina’s story about individual acknowledgement and Amy’s story about smudging support this point. Tina shared her experience at an event that she co-hosted at a post-secondary academic institution during February, Black History Month. She wrote the introductory remarks for the event, including a thank you to participants, in which she made an acknowledgement of the Indigenous land the event occupied. When she was asked to forward the introduction to her supervisor, she explained why these acknowledgements were important. Her advisor removed the land acknowledgement, crossing it out with a red line. Tina explained, She asked me why I put land acknowledgement into the opening statement. I told her, “It is because we are on Aboriginal land. This is important to acknowledge because there may be Indigenous people in this space. It shows respect. I strongly believe you should always acknowledge.” However, she (the supervisor) said, “we don’t usually say that. You really don’t need to say that.” Her professor’s use of “we” is important to interrogate. She suggests the statement was not hers as an individual. Instead, the statement was collective; herself being part of “us.” Amy shared her feeling of not being supported as an Indigenous student by an academic institution. She talked about limited time and spaces that are made available for smudging in the academy. She said, 98

Even being able to smudge... seems that you have to fight. Just to be able to have a smudge! It is probably not the best space for it. Those spaces are rare in the academy. Time is not provided... I guess we have to find the time for ourselves. Indigenous students need permission to do their cultural practice from an academic institution that was built on their own land. The fact that Indigenous students cannot practice their own culture without institutional support or permission shows that the academic institution fails to acknowledge whose land we are on. Furthermore, this lack of acknowledgement perpetuates violence in the academy. Nola shared a powerful story about the continuity of structural colonial violence, You are in the classroom, the space that's not being acknowledged. I often think about the structures. I was given a brick as a gift to my family and my partner. When they took down a residential school up north, they were dismantling it to rebuild a new thing on that land. So, they were tearing it apart. An old man that lived near there took a wheelbarrow. He said “This, you cannot just take this down, and forgot that this ever happened.” He collected all the bricks. And then he gave the bricks to people who he thought could try to keep the stories of that building, the physical space. The bricks were passed on to a healer and us... It’s got [the word] Canada stamped into the side of it. It was so heavy. It’s really old. You know bricks made these days are light but one of those old bricks is so heavy to carry around. I look at that and I remember. I was just looking at the bricks in the room, daydreaming… making the connection between the structure, the physical building and the brick. Those bricks have been reused to build this institution, maybe not in the physical sense, but not much has changed… I don’t think these spaces have changed very much. Her claim alludes to why Indigenous and racialized students continue to face challenges in the academic institution. The physical landscape changed, but Eurocentric dominant ideology that operates the institutionalized learning space has not changed much. The violence that Indigenous and racialized women continue to experience are not by chance; they are intentional and systemic.

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5.3.

The Dominant Discourse of the Learning Space

The ways in which the physical spaces of academic institutions (classrooms, offices, and public space) are organized reflect a particular understanding of learning. In the Eurocentric learning space, for example, a classroom is generally designed with desks and chairs in rows facing an instructor. This physical arrangement of a space reflects hierarchy. Moreover, these expectations are normalized and internalized. Most of the participants I spoke to are engaged in the field of education, and they identify themselves as both educators and learners. Molly’s experience in a classroom as an educator illustrates how expectations of the space for learning is limited by our experience. When she taught at a college, she moved chairs and tables into a circular formation. As a result of this, she faced resistance from students. She recalled, The biggest challenge I have as an educator is getting students to move those desks around, right. Because they have one expectation of learning space, you know. I always keep my fingers crossed that I get that classroom that does not have the table and chairs, but has the individual chairs with the little table that you fold over, because that way we can actually form a circle. I actually see physical discomfort when people walk into the space. It shows in their body language. They are angry. They are like “What is this. I have to come to college. What is this non-sense of sitting in a circle? I have come to a post-secondary educational institution to get an education. What is this nonsense that you create here?” I actually had a student say that to me. When I asked her about the resistance she experienced from students, she explained, “It’s because there is one idea of what a learning space is. Learning can only happen in institutions. Learning cannot happen anywhere else.” Molly saw similar fear, confusion and resistance by her colleagues and professors in the graduate level classrooms whenever physical changes were made. After her presentation, those students and the

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professor openly talked about the feelings they had when they saw their classroom changed. Susan Preston from Ryerson University identifies the discomfort aroused by moving tables and chairs in a room, as I indicate in the literature review (see Sloan, 2018). Molly describes the internalization of Eurocentric expectations, the fear of the unknown, which speaks to the legacy of colonization within us. In Eurocentric education, it is often understood that “learning” happens only in a classroom. In the individual conversation with her, she challenged the Eurocentric notion of a learning space that does not validate other ways of learning. She understands learning space and classroom differently. She challenged the Eurocentric understanding of what a classroom is and called for the need to interrogate what a classroom is and how our understanding of classroom is already preset before both students and professor enter the space. She shared, Learning is a space that we create. It is not a classroom. It is not a room in an institution designed for learning, right? If this was a kitchen in a women's shelter, and if it was the largest table we had, the people can gather around. In that moment, it becomes a learning space. That’s one of the things that I constantly introduce in community. If there is a space, that becomes a learning space. I believe the notion that “learning is a space that we create” can shift attention from dominant perspectives towards a decolonial condition of learning. Creating a space is a process – it requires building relationships among those who are in the place. The question to ask is, “how do we understand our responsibilities in the particular space of learning?” This brings back the question of how we acknowledge the land, and what our responsibilities are as people who occupy the physical space of the academy.

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5.4.

What Do You Want Me to Be?

Indigenous and racialized women found it hard to be in the academy. This is not not just, because we face challenges or violence, but also because the academy does not allow us to be our holistic selves. Participants agreed that being themselves in a classroom is often difficult. Nola, for example, believes that she has very strong sense of who she is. It is, however, hard to find herself in the academy. She said, I have a strong sense of self. I don’t think there is any space where I don’t do me. Perhaps the academy doesn't want people to do themselves. They don’t want you to be who you are. They might want a certain little thing, but they don’t want the whole existence, the performance of who you are, the performance of your story. Nola fights to get her “different” style of writing validated in the academy. The editors she was working with wanted a piece of her writing, but they didn’t want her to write it in her own style. In her exchange with editors, she constantly received the message that a part of her is wanted in the academy, but not all of her. While the academy often presents itself as committed to equity, diversity, and representation of the student body, these are often disingenuous statements, used as “selling points” rather than actual practices. Nola pointed out, They start talking about wanting more Indigenous people in the field, wanting greater diversity, and representation. The school uses this as a selling point. “We have so much diversity.” Their front-page banner photograph picked one person from every culture, as if to say “you are all part of our student body.” But the support that’s offered doesn’t exist. This space where we are “welcomed” in theory but not in practice pushes students out after they have enrolled. In the group conversation, we found that all of us stopped going to academic spaces unless we absolutely needed to attend. Nola continued, 102

It’s interesting that a lot of us are talking about how we don’t go unless we have to. I feel like I get further from my spirit in that space. Or something like ...my spirit leaves me to keep itself safe when I’m in there. I’m like a hollow shell. I try to bring my whole body, mind, spirit, everything together in that context, but it’s definitely challenging. Tina also affirms that she had a hard time being herself in a classroom space. She experienced discomfort with the pressure to use academic “big words” even while telling her own stories. These “big words” did not represent what she wanted to say. As she put it, In a smaller group, I'm a vocal person, but in a large group I get very nervous. I was excited to take courses, which explore race and gender issues. In those classroom spaces, although they talk the theoretical importance of storytelling, I don't feel like storytelling was validated. I had to use big words, academic terminologies. When I used these big academic words, I questioned myself, “do I really know what I’m saying?” But I had to use these trendy words if I wanted people to listen. This is cool thing. I have to make sure these are in my thesis. But I did not feel I was being my authentic self. There is an expectation to perform in particular ways in the post-secondary institution. Ellie was told when she came first to the academy “if you don’t know Foucault, you are not a true academic.” Academic language and the celebration of these very particular thinkers create an exclusionary space, full of pressure and intimidation. Tina continued, You have to use certain words, and for me that did not feel safe, and did not feel fair. When I say something in my own words, people would be like, “oh.” Someone else would say the exact same thing but add one academic term, that I don't know, and all of a sudden people are like, "Ya!" You know those moments, I was just kind of like, I do not think this space is for me. What it means to be one’s self and how we can express who we are is limited in the university. When Nola located herself in her final paper, as she was told to do so, she

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used storytelling and creative writing to capture her identities. However, she was told again that she did not locate herself in her paper. She explained, It was in one of my final papers. My instructor asked us to do a personal disclosure in our paper. So, I made a personal disclosure into creative storytelling. It was about me, but me as different characters, animals, different beings, and weird shit happening right, all in this storytelling, and he says, "well you weren't revealing of yourself." I say, “this whole thing is about me. It's creative writing.” Regarding the notion of the holistic self, connection to one’s ancestors is often dismissed in the academic space. However, for us coming from Indigenous and racialized backgrounds, acknowledging that connection plays an important role in knowing who we are. The connection to our cultural backgrounds, lands, and complex histories shape our identity. Molly explained that acknowledging her ancestors is connected to the responsibility portion of who she is. She said, If you ask me what my story is, my story is of that [my ancestors]. That is whom I carry with me, and that is whom I am responsible to. Even though I’m on someone else’s land, because when an Indigenous person calls me to task, when they ask me to be accountable, I’m then accountable to my ancestors, because they are going to look at me and say, “hey, how you are representing us to the people whose lands you are a guest on.” Her understanding of who she is goes beyond the individualized notion of who she is. Rather, it involves communities and ancestors that have been a part of her. While acknowledging the connection to ancestors plays a crucial role in our daily lives, this becomes a challenge in an academic space. Amy points out that when she was struggling in the academy, she visited an elder whom she asked for advice. The elder asked her if she had asked her ancestors for guidance. Amy remembered,

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I had not even thought of it because when you are in this academy there is no such thing as asking your ancestors… I’m glad that I went outside. So, I started there. I never thought to ask my own parents, my mom and dad, for permission to write and tell our story. You know? Is it ok to talk about all those awful things that happened to them? So I did little ceremony in my apartment, asking them, is this ok? Because there are a lot of things that weren’t great. These accounts evoke further questions about what it means to be oneself and bring one’s whole into the academic space. It begs the question; does the academy ever allow us to create such a space for ourselves? In academic classrooms, there is constant rejection of our practice, what we believe and who we are. For Indigenous and racialized women, safety means not only the absence of offensive comments or verbal attack but also being able to say who we are without being questioned.

5.5.

Consumption of Stories by white academics

A classroom is a space where oppression flourishes. In the humanities and social sciences, our individual and collective histories, and the experience of oppression and violence are often subject areas in class discussion. The consumption of Other’s experiences in the academy is ongoing. In the classroom, participants confirmed this as a daily experience. Ruby, a racialized woman, made a critical point regarding the ways in which racialized people are forced to position ourselves in the academy. She said, One of the contradictions I experience is that there is always this push to position you as racialized subject, the push to ideally position you as the object of somebody else’s study, or the unbiased producer of knowledge. Nola’s experience supports Ruby’s point. Nola said, 105

If I have to sit through another residential school lecture... I cannot handle it anymore. It’s too much. A teacher, whether Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, looks at you because they want you to share your family residential school story. I’m like, “Hey, I just don’t want to.” So, I flip it sometimes on people in a class. I ask them “what’s your connection to it?” “What does that mean for you and your family and how you connect to that?” People are like “I don’t have any connection.” I insist “but you do. So, unpack that more, try to get some reciprocity and sharing.” It does not happen a lot either. There are only certain people who share in class spaces. Nola insisted that relationships built among learners in a classroom are not often mutual; rather, as Ruby pointed out, relations develop out of being either the object of study or the subject of knowledge production. Ruby felt that graduate school is a hard space to work with people’s stories. She said, Graduate school is a hard space to do that kind of work. We end up competing for the most relevant, fundable stories. White people then become the arbiters of struggle, [deciding] what stories will be taken up, and how to do that bridging work. She connects to the consumption of people’s stories as a part of academic knowledge production. She continued, The only place [white] people have to go for new material are the people around them. They are not grounded in community. They come into a university, and take ideas from people around them. Then it turns into dangerous times, when you talk about some traumatic experience and what happened to you. And you thought that it would be something that people could honour and hold together in that space. But then it’s found in somebody’s dissertation. How did that happen? Through both individual and group conversation, it became clear that Indigenous and racialized women are conscious of the fact our stories often turn into white students’ research projects. Naomi, a racialized woman, said, This type of consumption is something that I have thought about for years, in terms of how to protect our knowledge and our information from being stolen. 106

Naomi’s reaction is significant, in that it explains Smith’s (2006) argument on “the three pillars of white supremacy.” Naomi explains how she was consistently asked by white students to share her insights on their academic project. [It’s] not just because they hear me talking about race. It’s also the fact that I’m a racialized woman. I’m a Black woman. They see Black bodies as free labour. I can give up my time and my labour to help you make it, like nanny or mammy figure or like a slave, right? I’m just using an example of unpaid labour, but they can never do that for me. If I ever need something from them, I have to pay. She further explained the ways in which white students took advantage of her knowledge, information, and experience outside of the academy. Financial and material rewards went to these white students rather than to her as the source of the information. This caused her to stop sharing her knowledge. As she explained, When I was doing activism and community organizing, I would talk to people about different issues. I realize all these white girls who I was organizing with start doing workshops on anti-police stuff. They were using my knowledge. They were getting paid $100 an hour. I wasn’t getting those jobs, they were, and they were using my info, my stuff, to get funding to do, or get paid to do, these workshops for community groups. This is just one example of how racialized peoples’ bodies become resources that are constantly seen as available and accessible to white academics. In fact, Naomi emphasized how racialized people are continuously seen as unpaid labour. It seems that facing these challenges on a daily basis in both the academic and activist settings stopped her from sharing her knowledge with other people, and perhaps this contributed to her frustration. She said, How are you able to tell your stories without being consumed? I just don’t think you can. It’s not just dealing with white students. It’s dealing with also dominant groups, and class plays huge role in it. And it’s dealing with the race on the level 107

that’s more than just white and colour. It’s dealing with racialized communities as well, and exploitation that happens to certain groups, racialized communities. But I have not, I’ve yet to negotiate how to do that within the academy. How do you do it? Do you even do it? While my project focuses on narrative consumption by white academics, it is important to recognize that this goes beyond tensions between white and racialized people. There are challenges and complexities among the latter. Regarding the material consequences of sharing our stories, Nola said, Whether we choose to share our story or not, we know who is in the audience. I withhold because I know that the people in that space are gleaning those stories in order to access those research dollars. People who are not part of that community, nor sanctioned by a community. Even though we are aware that consumption, violence, and exploitation are happening, it is often beyond our control. Kayla, a racialized woman, shared that, After coming to my program, and being trained by certain scholars, I began to think that stories are not always critical sites for fighting racism...so I shy away from [sharing] stories. She understands that we don’t have control over our stories once they are told. She expressed, You know white people that are intensely racist... problematic... have continued to inflict injury on us people of colour, and Indigenous people, of course. And yet they have mastered the language of communicating. Sometimes stories get us stuck in rhetoric and we do not know how to get out of that rhetoric. She adds “I guess part of narrative is that if you brought your story into this classroom, you should be ready to be consumed, because this is not therapy session.” The expectation that an institutionalized learning space is not a therapy session elicits a question about how our understanding of the classroom gets normalized. It links to 108

Molly’s point, that the meaning of the institutionalized learning space is always already established, even before students enter the space. Eurocentric learning spaces impose normalized expectations on both learners and educators. These expectations are normalized around the dichotomized notions of right/wrong, public/private, emotional/reasonable and so on. Emotions, in particular, are not invited to the classroom. As I emphasize throughout this study, Indigenous and racialized women in graduate programs in the social sciences and humanities are often expected to share their personal and collective experiences – experiences that deal with pain and trauma. This inevitably involves various emotional reactions, including grief, tearfulness and anger. However, the time and space where we can take care of ourselves, debrief, is rarely provided in academia. Amy shared her experience, I remember one time and one class. I was talking, and I think I started crying. One thing that I found missing from people was the inability to hear crying. You know, people rush to grab paper, water, or to shut the person down. Critical scholars have long recognized the need to develop inclusive learning experiences for marginalized students with non-Eurocentric approaches (O’Brien, 2004). However, participants’ response show that it is still rare to find the time and space where inclusive learning approaches are implemented in a classroom. Amy mentions the need to create space and time outside of the classroom. She said, Those spaces are rare. Time is not provided by the institution. I guess we have to make time for it for ourselves, find the time for ourselves. I miss support groups. In facing the daily consumption of our stories in the academy, participants are acutely aware of the gaps between our hope for the classroom, and the actual challenges we face. 109

Molly speaks about how her experience in the graduate program led her to reevaluate her previous beliefs. She had come to know a particular graduate program as a community worker, which led her to believe that there was a space where stories were valued and honored. Working within the department, as a community worker, gave her the opportunity to learn the culture. That experience made her think her stories would be appreciated. She thought, if she ever did go to graduate school that would be the program. It seemed a liberating moment for her as a person who had a challenging history in educational institutions. She shares, “I came here specifically because I felt this was the place where I could hear and learn from stories, ...ironically.” In spite of her hope, she witnessed the consumption of racialized people’s stories and experiences by white students. That led her to start reevaluating what sharing stories might mean in the academic space, who benefits, who takes responsibility, and how stories lead to funding opportunities.

5.6.

Intervention Facilitation

Martha claims “my most painful experience in the classroom was when there was no safety in the classroom.” Her statement raises questions about the definition of safety. How can we collectively ensure Indigenous and racialized women’s sense of safety in learning spaces? When violence and narrative consumption by white academics occur in the academy, mediation makes a significant difference. Intervention facilitation should not be overlooked. A lack of engagement or inappropriate instruction can cause further violence and injury for marginalized students. This was one of the themes we spoke of

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during the group circle. Three of the participants spoke to how the lack of intervention by a professor negatively affected their experience in the classroom. Nola said, I do not want to remember how problematic it was. Times where I wished, I hoped, and I prayed that the professor would intervene when they did. As a professor myself now, I take the ways I facilitate the space seriously. I want to allow people space to share, but it’s really important to discuss things that are problematic. It does not matter whether I’m going to make people feel awkward or I am going feel awkward. It’s about making sure this is a space for learning. Ruby also witnessed an unacceptable moment in a classroom where a white female student used the n-word in every sentence, and a professor, who writes through an antiracist paradigm and presents herself as anti-racist scholar, just allowed the white student to continue using the word until one of the Black students had to intervene. Participants have agreed that being an exceptional researcher does not guarantee good facilitation skills. Martha refers to the experience where a white student verbally attacked her, I’ve never been a professor, but some professors are better researchers. They are unable to facilitate when there is [disclosure of] trauma and conflict. Like what happened with me, with a student attacking me. Participants acknowledged it is challenging to develop the facilitation skills, especially in research-focused post-secondary institutions. However, they hope there will be better facilitation and intervention in the future. Nola asked, “I think it’s a difficult role to be in for sure, but I don’t know. That has been one of my challenges to understand. Why and when do professors decide if they want to intervene?” It is worth noting that while participants highlighted how the lack of intervention brought further injury or violence, we did not discuss what an experience of successful or appropriate intervention might look like. Nola, Ruby, Martha, and Molly acknowledged that it takes particular skills to 111

facilitate a space. However, the fact that no one mentioned experiencing successful or appropriate intervention from an instructor requires further interrogation. What would appropriate intervention mean? How can we, as learners and facilitators, collectively create the space where appropriate intervention would occur?

Conclusion Edwards (2013) writes that, “Oppression and privilege are inscribed into the DNA of U.S. higher education” (p. 141). This is also applicable to Canada. Participants’ accounts have confirmed that we share a history of colonial violence with our colleagues, family and community. Our experience of violence connects us to each other. The notion of violence as connector is powerful and complex. It is disturbing how persistent colonial violence is. It is also complex because we experience internalized oppression; violence enacted by other marginalized people. Although the violence perpetuated by hierarchy is a constant in the academy, Molly pointed out that we need this space to build relationships. She said, “it’s in those spaces that I found solidarity with people who supported my learning.” Molly’s point is significant, as it centres our learning process rather than centering whiteness and systemic violence. In other words, there is a different way to respond, in which our agency creates a new space to build communities for learning.

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Chapter 6 WE WERE, ARE AND WILL BE HERE The first themes in this chapter are storytelling and relationship building. Mentorship, the third theme, is significant in this study in that it grew organically out of the sharing circle and individual interviews. It is important to mention these themes are not isolated from each other. Rather, I acknowledge that some quotes speak across several themes. Much of this work is interconnected.

6.1. What is Story and Storytelling? Participants’ accounts have shown that narrative consumption by white academics continue to occur in the academy. There are shared as well as distinct perspectives on sharing our stories. While participants acknowledge the power of sharing stories, each participant has a different approach to utilizing stories. As shown in a previous chapter, some of the participants are more cautious about the limitations and burden that Indigenous and racialized women have to carry, while others use storytelling as their tool to claim who they are.

6.1.1. Don’t Forget. We Were, Are, And Will Be Here. The power of storytelling as a tool to challenge injustice and master narratives has been identified and discussed by critical scholars. Participants also recognized the power of story and storytelling in the academy. Indigenous and racialized women are aware that there is a chance for our stories to become the subject of someone else’s research. Although we are aware of this potential, six out of nine participants continue to share their stories. Three participants told me that they became reluctant to share their 113

stories in the classroom after they had seen how white people took stories. Five of the participants who choose to continue sharing refer to stories as central to who they are. Naomi said, “Whether it be oral, written or in other forms, stories are how we interpret our lives and the events of our time.” Martha added, I guess the term story probably means narrative, something fact based. It can be a description of an event. Children’s books are fiction but when we look at our lives truly, we can create our own stories from our own life events. I guess the definition of a story is a retelling of an event that, for whatever reason, may be happy or sad. You retell it to maintain the integrity of the event. Story is the telling of what we have experienced with our body, of what we think and feel. There are multiple reasons for telling a story, such as learning, teaching, or sharing. I agree with Martha’s point that we tell our story to maintain the integrity of what we experienced. One of the reasons we tell stories is so as to never forget what has happened to us. Molly spoke of how the Jewish community honors storytelling, The Jewish community is an example. Jewish people who survived the holocaust want to make sure that nobody forgets. That’s the message: Don’t ever forget. No one forgets. It’s a mantra in the community. And quite clearly with Indigenous people too: Don’t forget. Don’t forget. This is what happened. I know you want to erase us. But we are going to make sure you don’t forget. We tell stories to keep a record of the past, present and future in our own voice. Storytelling is resistance against the attempts of the dominant narrative to erase or rewrite the history and voices of the marginalized. Amy explained that she shared her stories everywhere, No matter what… who is there, not there. Because I think, I feel, like it’s important that people know. You know this is what’s happening, this is what happened, and I’m not going to pretend everything is nice. This is the reality for many, many people. 114

Telling a story is a claim on our existence; stories claim that we were, are and will be here. Ellie sees sharing her stories as claiming her physical and cognitive space as a marginalized body. She said, “I tell my story because I have the right to tell my story, and I claim the space.” She often feels that the academy is already reserved for white academics. She, however, reminds herself that she has the right to be there. Ellie states that, “We all know when we go to the academy who occupies the space. That it’s predominantly white.” She continued, We deserve to be there. When you go into that space, you take up ownership of that space. We should be able to speak what we have to say. When we go into the space, we should be able to speak out, be able to push back to the dominant narrative that always transcends and speaks for us. When I’m in that space, I say what I have to say. There is no intimidation. I claim that space. I’m entitled to justice. Stories bring history, existence and presence back to light. Stories are who we are, telling stories is our existence.

6.1.2. Story is Who We Are as Holistic Molly articulated how her stories are who she is, I share my story because of who I am. And that’s why the internal struggle is to define the balance. I know when I share my story; white people are taking every bit of my story. I’ve learned that, I know that, and I acknowledge that. Someday despite knowing all of that consumption, I share because it actually helps me. It actually validates who I am. It's part of my healing to tell the stories. Molly described sharing the history of one’s pain as an act that is at once vulnerable and empowering. For her, stories bring her back to her holistic self. A story is released and

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reaches a listener with a particular message; at the same time, it heals the storyteller. Tina recalls her experience where she felt powerful sharing her trauma at a conference, I don’t like public speaking, which is the primary reason I was scared. It was scary to be honest. Somebody was recording. My voice was shaking for two reasons. Shaking because I felt powerful. Shaking because I was afraid. ... Somebody hears your voice; they feel and hear your emotion. They can hear your volume, tone, everything. Tina described regaining a sense of her holistic self as liberating, What makes me feel happy is that I’m not hiding. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulder. It’s very liberating to be free, and to be honest, when you think about the history of Black bodies, and how we have literally been shackled. When we are in a space or part of the community in which we can be open, I think that’s a liberating experience but it’s also a political move. Coming from a place where you are supposed to silence yourself or even being made invisible. Being able to tell a story breaks the forced silence. It is self-protection for those who experience trauma and violence. Molly described this self-protection as fear, Being a survivor of violence, when you keep that story, you walk around with a big secret. It is this big secret and pain. Then when you say it, you have that feeling, “oh my god, now people know.” That’s the first reaction. She continued, I recognized protection was actually fear. I live with fear all the time. I don’t want to live with it anymore. It’s exhausting. Again, keep going back to selfdetermination. I choose to share, I choose to disclose. I do this. I knew after I told my story, some white people would use it. I want them to know that when they use it, they are using it off me. The power, the sense of holistic self, is connected to healing as well as resistance. Molly insisted on telling her story as a form of resistance. She says, “when I tell my stories it is because I choose to. And I think the ‘choose to’ is the resistance.” Molly points out how

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sharing something is about respect and giving confidence back to oneself. She said, “It’s vulnerable but it’s also powerful when you share something. When I want to share my experience of violence, it means I have done a lot of work. So, for me that’s where power comes from.” Being able to retell stories is a form of agency. When it comes to trauma, sharing involves activating these memories. Therefore, it would be challenging if a teller hasn’t done any healing work. Amy stressed healing before sharing. She said, I’ve done a lot of healing work for myself. You know, back home, for about 20 years, I was involved in a support group. We did a lot of work together, a lot of co-counseling, taking turns and listening to each other’s stories. Having that background, I think is important, very important. If I was just beginning to come out with this story here in the academy, in the university setting, I don’t think it would be so great. Storytelling also requires confidence. For Indigenous and racialized women, disclosing stories requires a process and self-care. While being able to say and have a sense of “I choose to” is important, Ruby pointed out that it underestimates the systemic dynamics of the university classroom. She said, I think what you are pointing to is the dissonance between “you are” and “we are.” It is radical to say I choose to do this, I choose to be here, and I choose not to shut up. And I guess that’s why it creates these complicated situations because when we are in this space, we are either a producer or an object. Her response demonstrates how complex relationships in the academy are organized around the dominant notion that the scholarly world is the place of knowledge production. With that belief, the categorization of who is and is not considered to be a ‘core’ academic is organized into a hierarchy. This defines who is and is not a knowledge 117

producer. In the academic space, as Ruby notes, “there is even less room for the idea of community practitioners or people who are here to explore.” It is a reminder that resistance is not a straightforward process. As we resist injustice by telling our own stories, there are systemic challenges newly created in the academy. Having said that, participant accounts validate that storytelling is a significant tool for healing historical, systemic injustice. We demonstrate that storytelling creates a movement for change by claiming a voice. Despite the fact that we still share our stories when we know about the consumption practices of white academics; the notion of healing and resistance in storytelling is strong. Storytelling can help the individual regain a holistic self.

6.1.3. Building a “Community” In addition to claiming voice, healing and self-determination, Indigenous and racialized women utilize stories to connect with other marginalized colleagues in order to prevent similar violence from occurring. In other words, sharing stories is a way to create our own network and to ultimately find a support system with which we can share values and belief among marginalized colleagues. Nola noted, “where do we share these stories? Most of the time, we created our own informal social and academic network.” She comments that having a community is a survival tool. She said, Despite our differences, what saved us is connecting with people. I swear if I didn’t connect with the one colleague who I became close to, I would’ve jumped out of the plane. I had the worst experience of my life. Connection with the students’ community, connection with your community, enabled me to move on and speak about it. I'm thankful that I have such a strong connection with family, and such a strong connection to the Indigenous community in Toronto. I reflect on the amazing work they do, every day.

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Participants’ reveal that our experiences in a classroom draw upon relationships made outside of a classroom; among colleagues, their academic advisors and other students. Creating and maintaining these relationships in a positive and meaningful way is crucial. It is important to employ methods to deal with issues of oppression by creating a space in the academy that does not reproduce oppression. The necessity of connection, network and allyship among marginalized students has been identified in both the group circle and the individual interviews. We use stories as a resource for other marginalized colleagues, to prevent similar incidents of violence, or to prepare us for what we might encounter. In other words, we share our experience to support other students. Despite our willingness and efforts to make a community and find a support system, participants claim that there are still challenges in building allyship in the academy. Finding a space where students can connect with those who have similar experiences in order to build a network is key for our survival. Molly describes one of her classroom experiences as giving her a sense of being “bonded.” In this situation, Indigenous and racialized women solidified support groups to challenge and resist the racist attitudes, comments or behavior by white students. Molly said, I walked into a computer lab in my department. I went to use the computer, then accidentally bumped into a white man. His back was towards me, so he did not know who came into the room. He was talking to another woman how there is this very dangerous classroom space, how all the racialized and Indigenous women were really intimidating. She explains how she and her colleagues formed a physical solidarity. That was an interesting space for us because we walked into the classroom and the table was set like that of an angular board. There were four Aboriginal women 119

in that class. With these Aboriginal women, we, women of color, were forming and sitting in the entire L together. This white man was talking to another person about how we are preventing him from being in that space. It is important to pay attention to how this white male called the ways in which these Indigenous and racialized women sat together, “intimidating,” and claimed his sense of being excluded. From what she could ascertain, he failed to acknowledge that this was a common experience for Indigenous and racialized students. Ellie, on the other hand, shared an experience where she found it difficult to connect to other students. She says it was painful when connections among marginalized students did not occur. She was upset by the idea that the classroom space can become a place to compete over oppression. She explained, I’m mixed heritage. You see me. I was saying in that class I am Aboriginal when I go back to my ancestors. However, I don’t have Aboriginal features; I am now amputated from that part of my ancestors being. Claim it, or not claim it, I want to make a connection. How can we connect? And that [desire for] connection was not accepted or validated. It was like “you are not Aboriginal.” A claim on Aboriginal identity from a racialized person has no currency, as opposed to when a white person claims Aboriginal identity. That has more currency. And why is that the case? The tension she faced in claiming her Indigenous mixed heritage not only illustrates the difficulty to make a connection but also the currency and privilege a white body has. The conversation turned toward the “Oppression Olympics.” She said, I think in that course I felt most injured because as we talk about our experiences as Aboriginal women and women of colour, it becomes [a question of] whose experience is worse? We were competing like a race into the marginal oppressions. Who is more oppressed…? One of the questions I had then and continue to have is, how we become allies, in the sense of helping each other to get through these experiences? And not to continue to injure each other by saying my oppression is worse than yours. 120

Before I went through the interview processes, I believed in building a support system in the academy where we can connect through our narratives and experiences. I would call this community. However, I came to realize the gaps between what we all experience in the academy and the vision that each participant has for a community. In other words, there is a gap between the concept of community and the actual practice. Five participants, Martha, Tina, Ellie, Naomi and Ruby commented on how they understood and saw the notion of community taken up in the academy. They clearly highlighted the gaps between theory and practice and claimed that the ways in which the term “community” is used in the academy is “kind of fake” and “misleading.” Martha shared her understanding of community, Well, it's hard for me to define it because I don't really have one. Community comprises individuals who are together for a common cause. Community can be non-profits, community can be people sharing their talents to further a cause, I guess… My notion of community is a little volunteer-based with a lot of specialty. Working together for a common project. I asked, based on her understanding, if she ever felt the academic space as a “community.” She responded, “not really,” and elaborated further, I just had to do what I had to do when I was here. I did my schoolwork. I mean my community was probably my laptop and my bed… I did not feel I have a lot of time to contribute to a community, maybe because I wasn't living in Toronto long enough to feel that I could give attention to individual causes that stem from my academic interest. However, she did acknowledge that she made a connection with other women. She said, I think I did have the smallest bit of community. I connected with a lot of women. We had our own sort of support group as we went through our studies. However, what makes it safe or makes me able to share and feel safe depends on who I am sharing with. 121

Tina noted that it is challenging to experience the academy as community, I feel the challenge with the community in an institutional or classroom space is that certain people whom I want to be part of the community don’t get access to it, for instance, people like my grandmother. She taught me so much. She taught me about history, beyond what school has taught me. She taught me how to interact in relation, how to cook, and so many things. These are the people I wish I could have in a classroom space, but they are not there. When we talked about building community in the classroom, then going out into the community, it’s all theory. And I feel practicing is lacking in a lot of classroom because it’s just so much at stake. If perhaps the academic pressure was taken off, it may be or will be easy to build community, but the pressure was taken off, it probably won't be considered academic and therefore not legitimate. Then, what happens? That's kind of my analyses of community. While we want to make a connection and create a community where we can feel a sense of belongingness, challenges are present. Ellie shared some of her attempts to connect to other students across different identities and social locations. Ellie said, It's interesting that we talk about the concept of community in that space. The concept is used in theory. But when you came to practicality, it wasn't implemented. So, I have to go outside and talk to friends. Because otherwise I would not have been able to understand why people would do anything that they are doing. What do I gain? How do I survive this? I am relying on my own spirituality, knowing that going to the process made me understand that I did not just speak spirituality, I did not speak community, I actually practice. Both Tina and Ellie pointed to gaps between theory and practice. Ellie’s frustration at the lack of “practicing” community rather than just talking about community in the academy hints at the deep-rooted division between theory and practice. It is important to note that while she found it challenging to find herself in the academic community, it does not mean she stopped believing in the concept of community. She continued, “I remember talking to a friend of mine. She said when it falls apart; do you still believe in it? And I

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said yeah, still I believe it.” When I asked her for clarification about whether she believes in an actual community or the concept of community, she responded, I still believe in a concept of community. I still follow my spirituality. I do not walk away as a result of these injuries, saying all of that does not exist. It did not exist in the space because people can injure and exploit me through finding my weakness. My weakness was that I wanted to be part of something that I felt I mattered. That was about reciprocity, it wasn’t about me always giving but me receiving as well. She further explains how she did not experience reciprocity in the academy. She continued, When I say my weakness, that community I mean I was much part of, and I gave everything that I could. I always made myself accessible but when I needed help from the community, it wasn’t there. Ellie emphasized that she must protect her students and colleagues from this insult, not perpetuate the injury done to her. Her responses align her with what Ruby pointed out, that the term “academic community” is purposefully misleading. Ruby said, I think it’s on purpose to misguide you to think it’s a community. I think in some ways it’s about appearing radical. It appears to be the cutting edge. Then I also think some way, if you talk to different kind of graduate students, I think they would seriously tell you that that is the community. You know, I think of those who you’ve done editing work for and they never thanked you. You know, imagine what they would think of you as this member of the community, but they are not self-aware enough to realize the dynamic they created. Naomi referred to the history of the term community. She said, “I was using the word community a lot, but I‘ve been thinking about whether or not I even like the word.” Naomi, who had witnessed ‘drama’ in an academic space, experienced the graduate program as competitive place, referring to it as a television show,

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When I started the Ph.D. program I kept saying it’s like America’s Next Top Model. Do you know the show? Some of the folks when they are in the competition they say like ‘I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to win’. That’s how I treat my time at my graduate program. I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to get through this program and win. She added her thoughts on the difficulties in creating a support group among students. She said “I found it harder to create student bonding in the graduate program. Maybe your program is different. But I don’t feel it’s happening in my department.” Participants agree that building connections with other marginalized students is essential for our survival. However, we also found it challenging to construct such a condition. Throughout the interview process Ellie kept asking, How can we come together? How can we continue to have this dialogue? How can we help each other collectively? How can I make sure that I don’t commit those same injuries in the academy that I experience? How can we be collectively responsible for that? The way Naomi distinguishes “help” and “care” is a point of discussion. She explained that she reached the point where she stopped telling her story in order to protect herself: I know that sounds really cruel. I tried to explain it to her. I’m against helping. But If I care about you, I don’t see this as helping because helping means some sort of chore. Caring about someone... you just do it. But helping is a chore. When you think about how it’s used in countries considered as developing, when you care about someone you don’t see it as help, you just do it. If I care about you I’m doing it because I care about you. It is necessary that we continue to engage these questions. But I wonder how we can filter them through the decolonial gaze? How can we construct relationships in a decolonial fashion? Exploring this line of inquiry entails reimagining how these spaces would look. Molly brought a key point to the table,

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We have been trained to have implicit trust in institutions. This is what Andrea Smith is helping me to disengage with, understanding why we have this implicit trust. Why do we trust the system and structure that oppresses us? She gives the example of reimagining things in a different way. For her, disengaging helps us reimagine ways we could interact with each other, rather than letting institutions define our relationships.

6.1.4. Storytelling is Contextual We continue to share our stories because that’s how we can show our holistic self as we search to connect with other students. Connecting with marginalized students and creating a space to support this lattice is key to survival in the academy. In the interview process, participants implied that context is crucial in our decision to tell or not tell. In this section, I will discuss how shifts in context: regarding role, audience, environment, or one’s condition, impacts how we share or not. Amy and Ellie regarded story as a teaching tool. Amy elaborated, Telling one’s story first hand is a teaching tool. It’s the way we pass down knowledge; we use our real-life experience to teach life lessons. It is part of the healing journey to impart to others what they may find on the road ahead. She explained the way she told her stories changed depending on the audience, while the story itself may stay the same. She said, It’s the same story but it changes. I learn more and more about it as I go and tell each time. But it’s the same story, but the audience, it’s amazing how, I wish I could recorded for myself every time I did it because you have to tell that so that they can hear you. So, you talking to these white people, so you have to tell so that they are able to connect somehow. Her account suggests that to be an effective teaching tool, stories must connect to those who are listening. Connection makes learning possible. Ellie also uses her stories as a 125

teaching tool. She said she brings a personal story into the classroom because that is how students understand we are all implicated in social injustice. Utilizing story as a teaching tool not only affects the students, but ourselves. Molly and Nola spoke about how being a facilitator in a classroom often affects the way they share. Molly described, Sometimes I do share my story. I know that as the basis of why I share, but someday I hold back for sharing because it is too much. Sometimes, I don’t share because it is just too much for me to manage like the day when I’m not grounded well enough. I’m not grounded well enough. While some days I’m going to walk away and say, “ugh, the person’s going to consume my story.” Some days I do share my story because I have to shift it to the point that I’m doing it for me. I’m doing for me. You know. And that goes back again to me when I teach, I tell my stories. I never used to. I used to be so closed, purposefully. Molly stated that when she facilitates a space, it causes her to disclose more. Nola had similar experiences. She said, Teaching has been in a great space. You’ve taught, and you think you did some teaching, but we have the opportunity to facilitate to utilize our stories in the way to create meaning out of the way we want meaning to be created, not appropriated and turning into something else. I’m shocked to how much disclosure I’ve done when I am facilitating. I’m like “wow.” You know I’ve never talked about this in the class as a student. But as a professor I found, how beneficial it is to do selfdisclosure and talk about personal stories and try to actually solicit students to share their stories. Being an instructor requires a different type of responsibility. For example, teachers need to ensure that the learning space is mutually respectful. Taking responsibility as an instructor seems to allow us to disclose our stories. Sharing our stories, I believe, keeps us consistent in our practice. We “walk the talk,” because “stories are who we are.” Engaging in stories as a graduate student requires multiple strategies. Amy strongly maintained that she shared her story everywhere. She stressed, “No matter what, 126

who is there, not there, because I think it’s important that people know.” She talked about how 20 years of healing work enabled her to say and do as such. She said, “First of all, you have to take care of yourself… a classroom is not always the best space to open yourself up because it might get reactions that are very harmful.” After 20 years of selfcare, sharing her story in the academy feels like a triumph and adds to her self-esteem, healing her and her community in tandem. Other participants suggested that they share stories depending on how they feel on that day, who they are with, and where they are. In particular, Martha and Molly explained how the environment changes the way she speaks. Martha maintained that she strategically chooses where and when she shares her stories. She called it “selective storytelling/sharing”: I agree with you about selective sharing. It depends on safety. It depends on how safe you’re feeling and who’s in the room. I mean if it’s one on one and if you feel there is safety and trust, absolutely I would share my story. I mean I, you know, I think I did have the smallest bit of community and a lot of the women that I connected with we have our own sort of support group as we went through our studies. However, what makes it safe or makes me able to share, I think depends on who I’m sharing the story with. It also depends on how I feel at that moment because if you are having a down day, the last thing you want to do is empty your soul of pain. Along the same line, Naomi mentioned that she started selectively sharing her stories in the academy, when she had seen stories how that were shared got misinterpreted. She said, I found the best way to handle academia, handle your personal narratives is to share them with people around you. Your friends, your community, people you trust, who won’t miss you just stories, who don’t find a way to profit off, and don’t try to profit off of it. I don’t know how to negotiate with the way it’s misinterpreted and used for other people’s gain.

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Molly shared similar concerns and frustrations. However, her sense of responsibility as an instructor affects how she comprehends sharing as a student. It moves and shifts based on the circumstance. Sometimes I think ok, this is a group that can listen or hear really close to what I'm going to say. And then I might share something. But sometimes, I feel like “I don't educate any of you, I don't really care.” I shut down. We do the shut down and tune out. I feel a little guilty if I do shut down and tune out because I think how my being integral to what responsibility means to me. Because if I want learning space where we are all comfortable to each other, and there is reciprocity, then part of what I should also be doing is sharing. But then, critical part of me comes up and says, but you know when I share they are just going to take, right? There is this history and ongoing history of them taking, taking, taking. But you know of course I speak to whiteness and white bodies. As can be seen, there is a complex process when we choose to share or not to share our stories. In fact, many of us continue to ask ourselves if our choice was right or not. The fact that each response was personal but shares commonalities is significant in that it infers “stories are who we are.”

6.2. Mentorship Participants agreed that experiences in a classroom embody relationships from outside the room. In addition to peer support, we insisted upon the need for mentorship from our professors. In fact, almost all the participants pointed out the lack of mentorship with professors, and bemoaned the difficulty in building a solid reciprocal relationship with them. Some of the participants described their experience with professors as violent. Participants framed these challenging experiences as not merely isolated events but rather as systemic. We shared our critical analysis to register our experience as both unique and systemic. Our critical analysis demonstrates that these

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challenges were not happening in isolation; rather they have been framed within a Eurocentric academic system that allows such provocations to perpetuate. Throughout the group sharing and interview process, participants pointed to a lack of mentorship and the difficulty in building solid relationships with their professors. Each of the participants shared how they went through various kinds of conflict with the professors. We felt our dynamic was not built upon reciprocity. These experiences further affected our mental and physical well-being, and made it difficult for us to maintain the passion and motivation necessary for graduate work. Amy shared the importance of connecting with an elder through the University: I have one of my mentors on campus here in Toronto. I went to her for help because I really did not know where else to go to. I was new to Toronto and she seems like, you know, a safe, kindhearted, friendly, wise woman. So, I gravitated towards her. Ellie mentioned that she learned from building a relationship with her supervisor what a good mentor means. She said, “He said, trust me, I will see you soon. He did it.” She explained in a very simple way. She continues, “I have total respect or way beyond because there was no inconsistency in who he was and who he is. There was no inconsistency in what he writes about and what he speaks about. There is no difference that I could observe.” She further shared, I’ve been in that space and thinking, whatever you write, you embody. That’s what you are. You aren’t just talking and living. After I go through some traumatic experiences, that’s everything that they’ve written, you think that’s part of who they are, but really not part of who they are at all.

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She remembered the gaps between what some professors write about and their actual practices. Tina also went through a traumatic experience, but this was due to a lack of support from her supervisor. After Tina attempted, in vain, to build a solid relationship with several professors, including her own MA supervisor, it was hard for her to keep motivated. She said, I had to leave because this is not what I saw for myself. When I was working on my Ph.D. application, I came to realize my passion wasn’t there. I tried so hard, but it just wasn’t. I could not even smell. Like I cannot go through another three, four, or five years of this. I can barely remember things. I just shut it down because it was just bad, traumatic for me personally. Nola responded to Tina’s experience, I think it’s important what you’re saying there because it’s showing how sick the institution is. How sick the structure is because it can consume almost anyone. It rewards behaviors that are contrary to what it is that I think we are trying to talk about here, anti-oppressive, critical, even like more spiritual because storytelling is the antithesis to what is awarded in these spaces. In the group conversation, we shared experience that involved emotional pain and injury. While almost all of us called those experiences traumatic, Molly pointed out that this is not a complaint but a reflection of our desire to have guidance from the professors. She said, As we are saying a lot of and sharing, we need to appreciate each other to really share all the traumatic experiences. We still continue, right? The effects of them are still on going. It shows when we were entering to these spaces, how much we desired, for me, specifically desire of mentorship. So, we desired. I had this conversation with my colleagues. We entered into this space with certain expectations like “this person might be my supervisor who guide me” because this is what I’ve heard of graduate experiences. And while I was in that space, I would see that happening to some people. You know they would get invited to the certain, all of that, and we never have that. 130

Furthermore, it is much harder for those who are not full time or those who have multiple responsibilities outside of the academy, to access support. Nola and Molly critically responded to this point. Molly: If you hold full time job, you come at night to one course, and we take your money. When you are not there, and you are not doing work for them for free, or Nola: involved in the politics, and if you decided to disengage in politics, Molly: you disappear right? Molly added, We yearn for mentorship as part of learning. I kept feeling disappointed, and I learned to tell myself to shut that disappointment off. When I published, I sent an email to my supervisor. He did not respond. He said nothing. The last part of her quote was shared in the previous chapter (p.93). However, it is important to mention again the sustained pain and gross disappointment that participants risk with a lack of mentorship. Molly desired to build a healthy dynamic with her supervisor. An accumulation of incidents like this led her to turn down participating in a study group that her supervisor organized once in a while. Along similar lines, Ruby encountered a situation where she felt her work was not valued. She said, I think that our professor also doesn’t necessarily see our values in the way they react to our stories. So, what I am thinking of specifically is like when I did my master with the same supervisor that I’m now Ph.D. with. At the end of my master’s program, four or five of us I think, graduated at the same time. We finished our thesis, and it was like four white students and me. My supervisor invited them all individually to his home to have dinner with his family to celebrate the graduation. And he took them up drinks as a group. I was not invited 131

to any of this. I did not receive any invitation to any of this. He was like I know we have to do something. It’s been so busy, we have to do something of course. Obviously, we never did anything, which is fine. While many participants experienced a lack of acknowledgement from professors, this does not necessarily mean that professors don’t want to build strong relationships with their students. Ruby revealed that a “racialized relationship,” had actual consequences in relation to receiving access to time, resources, supports, and mentorship from our professors. In fact, participants have witnessed how white students often received more attention from their professors. Molly noted, I see that’s happening to people. I see that I think that's not going to happen for me. So, I bumped into another student who is there in study group. When I said, I don’t know I was hurt when he did not respond to my email…So she said well you know he has this way that he seems to be more attention to people who actually need it more, so maybe he is thinking of me as more towards adult. However, she did not take it as compliment. She continued, “I’m not taking as compliment at all because I need guidance too.” Ellie shared similar experiences of being included as well as not included. She said, I felt like I was included at one point. I was invited to places and from outside people feel that I am getting my entire knee to it, which wasn't the case. I was giving service whatever it looks like. So, I was included but when I got to a point where I needed supervision, it was not there. I’m no longer included. I’m now pushed to the side. There was mentoring, all of that. At the end of the day, what the hell just happened? I thought I was included. I mean I bought into the whole concept. Other people said ‘I thought you are finished long time ago. Participants shared their concerns about the lack of reciprocity with our professors. The sense of having a reciprocal relationship is crucial on the graduate level. When a high level of intellectual exchange is required, it is important to create a space where we have

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mutual trust and respect. Molly claimed that it is fair for students to ask professors to sustain a responsible relationship. Because the idea of graduate learning space is one that is different than the undergraduate experience. We should not just be only going to classes. We’re supposed to be engaged in the discourse, intellectual activity, and exchange. Then I think it’s fair of us to build relationship collectively. We have a student code of responsibility that we are expected to follow in the institution. There should be one for faculty in building that relationship with us. One thing we are going to say is we need you to have a relationship with us. You know, and this is where we are finding we are falling short. She further explained that asking to build a relationship is not about making demands. It is fundamental to enhancing our collective commitment to building a mutually respectful and safe learning space. Responses from Indigenous and racialized women regarding the need to create support groups among students as well as the desire to have reciprocal relationship and mentorships from our professor developed organically. Participants agreed that their traumatic experiences are a product of colonial mentality in the Eurocentric academic institutions. The complexities around ‘racialized relationships’ are systemically present.

Conclusion The academy might not be a perfect place to share our stories. In researchfocused post-secondary institutions, where Eurocentric knowledge production is the primary focus, our storytelling is not often validated. When it is “appreciated,” it is often because someone else can benefit. When marginalized students experience narrative consumption frequently, we may become more reluctant to share. Nonetheless, many of us continue to tell our stories. Participants have shown diverse reasons why we continue. 133

We use stories as teaching tools, a form of networking, a way to create support systems, and importantly, as a method to regain or maintain a holistic sense of self. One of the significant findings discussed in this chapter is the idea that there is a lack of mentorship at the post-secondary level. Indigenous and racialized students are eager to have mentorship from our professors. Students want to build solid, reciprocal dynamics with faculty. Findings from both chapters can be broken down into four major themes. The themes are: 1) Eurocentric discourse shapes the reality of the colonial learning space, 2) Indigenous and racialized women’s stories are consumed by white academics, 3) Indigenous and racialized women often continue to tell our stories, because we consider their identities are bound to and by story 4) There is a need and desire for mentorship within academic spaces. With these findings, I will provide analysis in the next two chapters. Chapter seven focuses on themes 1) ongoing colonial violence and 2) narrative consumption. The rest are addressed in the chapter eight.

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Chapter 7 VIOLENCE CONTINUES TO SHAPE OUR EXPERIENCE IN THE ACADEMY This project began with an inquiry as to why the challenges I faced in the academic space as a racialized female graduate student were relentless. My personal inquiry was only an entry point to understand that these challenges are systemically regulated. Sharing stories about our similar but unique experiences with other Indigenous and racialized women allowed me to turn a personal inquiry into a collective research question. Despite the fact that intersectional oppression, including race, gender and sexuality have been discussed for decades by critical scholars, these challenges are still a part of daily life for Indigenous and racialized women in the academy (Monchalin, 2016; Battiste, 2013; Henry & Tator, 2006; 2013; Dua & Lawrence, 2000; Monture, 2009; Verjee, 2013). The anti-colonial, anti-racist, as well as critical feminist lenses that I apply in this project enable me to identify these challenges as pervasive, systemically supported and ongoing. Moreover, this combined framework of analysis challenges the ways in which academic institutions are continuously structured around a Eurocentric ideology that grants white people access and rewards, while marginalizing Others. In this chapter, I discuss the ways in which violence continues to shape the experiences of Indigenous and racialized women in the academy.

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7.1. Violence as a Complicit Connector to our Relationships As participants we described our experience of violence in the academy as traumatic, painful, harmful, non-supportive, injurious, hurtful, frustrating, as well as exhausting. Everyone in the group-sharing circle considered prematurely ending our enrollment from our graduate program at some point. Constant fights, lack of space where we feel acknowledged or appreciated, and a lack of support system has led us to moments of apprehension where we feel we need to quit. This needs to be understood not as “dropping out,” but rather “pushing out” (Dei, 1997). As Nola reminded us, the everyday experiences of oppression are “real.” Indigenous and critical feminist scholars have identified that violence manifests itself in various forms and in multiple ways through the academy (Henry &Tator, 2006; Dua & Lawrence, 2000; Monture, 2009). These include experience of verbal attacks, silencing of voice, silencing colonial history, marginalization of non-Eurocentric ways of knowing, spiritual injury, as well as consumption of Indigenous and racialized stories by white students (Ruck-Simmons, 2006; Battiste ,2013; Cote-Meek, 2014; Monture, 2009). Participants affirmed that these types of violence continue to shape our experience in the academy. Saavedra and Perez (2012) state that sharing stories enable marginalized people to connect their personal “I” to their collective “We.” As shown in chapter five, one of the powerful findings in this project was that Indigenous and racialized women described violence as a connector among our family, communities and other marginalized colleagues in the academy. This notion of violence

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as “connector” is understood in two ways in relation to student and faculty relationship. First, violence is a connector in that we also share the history of violence as marginalized. In addition, scholars such as Henry & Tator (2012) and Monture (2009) discuss “being exhausted” as an emotional burden that marginalized faculty must bear in order to stay in the academy. All participants used the same expression - being exhausted- . Secondly, marginalized faculty may replicate the violence they have experienced on their own students. The violence Indigenous and racialized female students continue to experience is thus complex – it not only comes from white students and faculty, but also ones who Ellie referred to as “people like me.” Lateral violence is complex in that internalized oppression is further gendered and racialized as well as classed. My primary focus was on the violence enacted by white academics in the context of narrative consumption. However, participants’ responses indicated that oppressive relations are multivalence, wherein non-white people can cause traumatic experience among each other. Further, while marginalized faculty might be implicated within the oppression that Indigenous and racialized students experience, they, as marginalized faculty themselves, face oppression daily (Turner, 2002; Henry & Tator, 2006; Monture, 2009). Henry et al (2016) reveal that Indigenous and racialized faculty deal with marginalization in terms of representation, income, power, privilege, as well as influence within the predominantly white university. Most Indigenous and racialized faculty themselves often face overwhelming responsibility and expectations (Henry et al, 2016; Henry et al, 2017; Alaoui & Calafell, 2016). These burdens they carry would affect the 137

ways they interact and mentor their students. Thus, the Eurocentric academic institutions systemically control the replication of violence among marginalised people. There are extensive studies and reports on the harmful cycle of oppression that marginalized faculty and students experience. A number of studies focuses on the context of structural barriers that also define white and non-white relations in the academy. (Henry, & Tator, 2012; Henry et.al, 2017; Monture, 2009; Maher & Tetreault, 2007). However, Pyke (2010) claims that the study of internalized oppression among the subordinated and its reproduction of racial inequality among ourselves is still largely ignored. Turner (2012) notes by quoting Lorde (1984) that, Even those who have been victimized by various oppression are still quite capable of oppressing others, and “as women, we must root out internalized patterns of oppression within ourselves if we are to move beyond the most superficial aspects of social change” (Lorde, p. 610–11). (p.274) Indigenous and racialized women encounter violence by faculty not only directly, but also indirectly; for example, through the lack of appropriate facilitation and intervention. Engaging in a conversation about these complexities among marginalized faculty and students may bring further tension, discomfort, and complicated discussions. However, I strongly believe these discussions should not be avoided.

7.2. Space and Ongoing Colonial Relationship With a multicultural policy, many Canadian post-secondary institutions present themselves as valuing diversity and inclusiveness to meet students’ needs. However, as Ahmed (2012) identifies, this valuation is symbolic and non-performative; it does not effectively bring the results in the ways it claims. Terms like diversity, representation, 138

inclusiveness, or transformation are used as “selling points,” even as they are ignored in practice. In fact, participants state that there are gaps between institutional statements about commitment to diversity and the realities within our programs. They encounter perpetual conflict, due to the lack of inclusiveness, the homogeneity of tools and avenues of learning, and the invalidation of their knowledge. The participants remind the academy that it is important to see that the space where we continue to experience exclusion and violence is on land that is not acknowledged. When space is acknowledged as relationship to land, history, ancestors, and people around us, rather than just as a physical construction, we are making a connection to these relationships. When we locate the acknowledgement of these connections as a foundation to understanding our relationship, we recognize that we have a responsibility to these relationships. In other words, when the academy fails or intentionally refuses to acknowledge whose land we are on, it refuses to see itself within these relationships or as Napoleon (2013) puts it “Indigenous legal orders,” thus colonial history and the legacy of colonial violence go unacknowledged. While I agree with the oft-repeated phrase that social change does not happen overnight, it’s important to validate participants’ frustration. Resentment is forged by our constant battle to get experience acknowledged and difference validated. I believe this reveals that the institutional commitment to diversity is symbolic rather than actual. This symbolic commitment further masks the violence that is historically as well as systemically supported in the academy. In fact, it has enormous impact on students’ bodies, minds, and spirituality as we describe our graduate experience as “frustrating and 139

exhausting.” Silencing, rendering colonial history invisible and the lack of land acknowledgement itself is a form of violence in that it reinforces and normalizes the ideology that expects Indigenous people to disappear (Heig-Brown, 2007; Smith, 2006). In the first section of this chapter, I look to the silencing as colonial history in progress another act of systemic violence in the academy. The anti-colonial framework in particular helps me to understand that colonialism is not finished business. As Tuhiwai Smith (1999) argues; dominant hierarchical relationships perpetuate and continue to have profound impacts on the land as well as the lives of Indigenous and racialized people. In Toronto, most academic institutions are located on the land known as treaty territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit. The space is governed by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and historically shared between the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat. Indigenous people have gathered here since the glaciers receded 13,000 years ago. However, it is generally not acknowledged at both institutional and individual levels. As an Indigenous woman, Amy describes a constant struggle to find both place and time to be able to smudge in the academy. In other words, Indigenous students are not even allowed to practice their culture on their own lands. The physical, emotional as well as spiritual regulations and restrictions enacted upon Indigenous people might not be the same as when residential schools were operating. However, when considering this case of systemic manipulation, after The Apology and the TRC, it is shocking that the academy continues to control Indigenous access to practice their tradition.

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Smith (1999) claims Indigenous land is colonized. The occupation is not simply lines on a map, it is ideological. Renaming the land was one of the most effective strategies to connote ideological change. She argues, [T]he Indigenous worldview, the land and the people, have been radically transformed in the spatial image of the West. In other words, indigenous space has been colonized. Land, for example, was viewed as something to be tamed and brought under control. The landscape, the arrangement of nature, could be altered by “Man”…Renaming the land was probably as powerful ideologically as changing the land. Indigenous children in school, for example, were taught the new names for places that they and their parents had lived in for generations. These were the names which appeared on maps and which were used in official communications. This newly named land became increasingly disconnected from the songs and chants used by indigenous people to trace their histories, to bring forth spiritual elements or to carry out the simplest of ceremonies. (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999, p. 51) Smith (1999) points out that the space academic institutions occupy is generally recognized by an English name, rather than the name Indigenous people have identified with their own language. This causes ideological shifts, as colonized space is more than a physical arrangement of space. These changes include the ways in which people understand the land, our relationship and responsibility with it as well as relationships among ourselves within the space. What if academic institutions use the original Indigenous name of the places? Considering that renaming spaces ignites an ideological shift, how would re-naming academic spaces by their original Indigenous name help us decolonize? Why has this not been done yet? What would it take to change the name? Along the same line of Haig-Brown’s (2007) argument that I mentioned prior, about the Canadian state expecting Indigenous people to disappear, Smith (2006)’s discussion about the three pillars of white supremacy provides the logic of how white supremacy works to complicate relationships among the oppressed. She says, “This logic holds that 141

indigenous people must disappear. In fact, they must always be disappearing, in order to allow non-indigenous peoples rightful claim over this land” (Smith, 2006, p. 68). Participants’ accounts affirmed these points in that the academic institutions do not acknowledge the colonial history and whose lands these institutions are on. Using the statement of land acknowledgement at schools, universities, and other public gathering halls, is becoming more common in Canada over past few years. Land acknowledgement comes to be seen as recognition and respect, thus an important step. However, they are often symbolic in that it doesn’t bring enough practical change. Hayden King suggests that when the president of a university addresses the land acknowledgement, some concrete practical change should happen (Winsa, 2017). He notes, I would like them to say “we acknowledge that this is the traditional territories of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee, and as such we’re committed at the university to work towards co-managing our land with these groups, to targeting these students for scholarships and recruitment, to working with researchers to do research to benefit these communities. To focus on language revitalization.” (Winsa, 2017) He asks for institutional commitment to bring actual change within the system so that positive outcomes in the communities and individuals occur. When land acknowledgement remains symbolic, it does not create decolonial space because it does not bring practical and systemic change. There are two questions that are important to ask. 1) What would a decolonial land or territorial acknowledgement look like? 2) How can we reimagine a relationship that is land based in the academy? In other words, how would the land acknowledgement shift the ways in which we build relationships and interact with each other in the academy? These questions need to be asked at both personal and institutional levels. It is also important, however, to consider who is asking 142

as well as answering these questions. We need to follow Indigenous communities’ lead in these questions and answers. Tina’s experience, where the professor did not allow her to give land acknowledgement in the academy, is an example of why institutions must be accountable. It is important to keep in mind that we need to explore these questions in a way that does not return colonial power back to the Eurocentric academic institutions. In this inquiry, we must work with an idea of decolonial space where we imagine a different way to respond to each other. Tina’s experience where the professor failed to open an event with a land acknowledgement by saying, “we don’t usually do that here, you really don’t need to say that,” makes evident the resistance to recognize that we are standing on Indigenous people’s land. Moreover, her use of “we” implies that this is not her individual decision, opinion or statement, rather it is collective. Molly refers to Andrea Smith and reminds us that decolonial space is a space where we can reimagine things in a different way. For Molly, it is essential to reimagine by disengaging with the colonial gaze and its institutions. How would our relationship be different if we were to consistently practice land acknowledgement in the academy? In other words, how would our experience as Indigenous and racialized women change if our understanding about relationship was land based? To acknowledge land is also to know one’s place and to understand our responsibilities in order to create and maintain these connections. Kempf (2009) argues that from an anti-colonial standpoint, the colonial encounter must always be seen as “transhistorical” (p.26). Colonialism is well and alive in cultural, educational and political spaces. Nola’s story about the residential school brick is 143

significant in that it speaks to space and time from a non-Eurocentric perspective, which further helps us to understand the colonial project as ongoing. Contrary to the Eurocentric paradigm, Indigenous notions of time and space are diverse and not static. Tuhiwai Smith (1999) identifies the significance of the concept of time and space from Indigenous perspectives. She states that some Indigenous languages, for example Maori, make no distinction between these two concepts. My claim here is not to generalize the Western and Indigenous paradigms but to acknowledge the validity of Indigenous paradigms and show how they help us to construct a better understanding of our experience. In some Indigenous cultures, these concepts cannot necessarily be described as distinct categories of thought. For example, she explains that, in some Indigenous languages the word for these concepts are the same, or there is no related word for them. Instead, “a series of very precise terms of parts of these ideas, or for relationships between the idea and something else in the environment” (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999, p. 50). On the other hand, Western ideas about these concepts are in distinct categories. She says, “these distinctions are generally part of a taken-for-granted view of the world” (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999, p.50). Nola’s story about the bricks confirmed that space is more than a physical structure. The architecture or landscaping of the academic institution may change over time. However, the colonial value at the core that maintains institutional structures have not changed much. Nola’s description of the Residential School brick as “so heavy,” connects notions of space, time and memory. The feeling of “heaviness” speaks to the burden of colonial violence on Indigenous people under the Canadian government; a form of 144

control that sunk into the brick as memory. The brick makes visual a contemporary colonial violence. Injustice of the past travels into the present within bricks of colonial memory.

7.3. The Dominant Discourse of Learning Space One of the ways in which colonial violence is manifest in Canadian postsecondary institutions is through the normalization of Eurocentricity. Kuokkanen (2007) notes that the academy is generally considered as a “community of intellectual inquiry that nourishes critical thinking….and that allows individuals to cultivate diverse ideas while specializing in a single discipline or field of knowledge” (p. 13). Although terms such as learning, intellectual, critical thinking, scholars, and academy are not the problem, the ways in which these terms are used to reward particular individuals, behavior and actions needs to be interrogated. Molly argues the exclusivity of the Eurocentric notion of learning which assumes that learning only happens in a classroom. This normalizes the understanding of learning to very limited forms. She critiques that the Eurocentric understanding of learning often assumes that a classroom is a learning space. It is preset to make students believe it already exists. Students also come into a classroom with an expectation that they will be given knowledge and information as their given right. Molly’s sense that “learning is the space that we create” is, I believe, significant, in that it shifts the understanding about a classroom from a space that already exists to a space we bring into existence. This shift allows us to think through whether a classroom will become a space for learning or

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trauma. It depends on how we envision and facilitate the space. Creating a space collectively comes with a responsibility to know and understand one’s own location and roles within a space. What does it mean to understand responsibility in relation to each other, to the space we share and to the land? I believe that we must begin our search for answers to these questions with land acknowledgements – this is how the ideological shift can begin. Transformative, decolonial learning spaces require connection to community, culturally responsive pedagogy and holistic approaches to the learning process. Dei (2010) states, [T]he decolonized space is one where learners from disadvantaged backgrounds are able to construct and privilege their own intellectual, cultural, and political knowledge and agency. The decolonized space allows learners to be organically connected with their communities so as to make their learning meaningful in terms of its impact on the daily lives of communities. (p. 9) Decolonization is a process rather than a destination. In this way, it is helpful to use the terms “decolonial” and “decolonizing,” rather than “decolonized.” The work of decolonization is evolving. Despite the fact that discussions about inclusive, transformative and decolonial learning spaces have been happening for decades, participants’ accounts confirmed they have yet to be implemented in any concrete way. There are gaps between what is written and what we actually bring into action. In a decolonial process, the questions I ask should contribute to bridge these gaps in order to manifest actual change.

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7.4. Which Part of Me Do You Want? Violence is understood as a state, event or action that causes trauma, pain or injury. Violence exists in different forms on multiple levels. As a result, any circumstances or environment that negates Indigenous and racialized women’s ability to be our holistic selves is violence. As participants have noted, the academy does not want people to do or be themselves. Nola, for instance, pointed out that the academy is the only place she cannot be herself. She recalled that teachers and editors wanted certain things (characteristics, stories, skills or abilities), but did not want her whole self. I argue that my participants’ stories show that the academy wants parts of Indigenous and racialized women that have value and benefit white academics. Nola discussed the material impacts of this, expressing that her spirit seems to leave her body when she is in the academic space. Keeping whole body, mind, spirit together in the academy is challenging. Wane and Ritskes (2011) state, As alternative epistemological frameworks are widely rejected within academia, the outcome for many students, especially those who come from a background where spiritual knowledges are valued, is disengagement from one’s spiritual ways of understanding and knowing the world. This results in epistemological dissonance. Creative dissociation is a skill developed by many students to allow them to survive the academic experience. (p.xviii) Here, the authors point out how the rejection of alternative epistemological frameworks in the academy shatters students’ holistic sense of self. Why does the academy continue to claim diversity and inclusiveness as a selling point, while refusing to allow our whole selves into the classroom? For some participants, being holistic means to be able to stay connected to our ancestors and bring them into our learning process. Those spaces are

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rare in the academy. Some participants entered their graduate program with hope and for healing. However, despite their hope, it is still hard to find and create such a space in practice. In fact, one of the participants said she has never considered a classroom as a place of healing. I had an expectation that I would hear stories of hope and healing from my participants. However, our conversations focused more on how we face challenges. It does not mean a learning space in the academy will never be a space of healing. Rather, it suggests we have more work to do. This is one of the reasons we continue to tell stories – this is the way in which we feel able to holistically inhabit ourselves. I explore this further in the next chapter.

7.5. Wanted Narratives and Narrative Consumption Among the various spaces in the academy, a classroom where memories, ideas, and opinions are exchanged is one of the most critical forums. In the process of sharing, violence occurs. One of the ways in which whites gain academic currency includes the consumption of Others’ “pain” (Razack, 2007; Blackwell, 2010). Although feminist scholars have called this out for several decades, participants agreed that this is still practiced in the academy (Blackwell, 2010; Duncan, 2014). Razack (1998) states, The problems of voice and identity are packed with internal dilemmas not only for the listeners but also the tellers of the tale. Often women of colour are asked to tell their stories while others will do the theorizing and the writing up. Yet the chance to speak, to enter your reality on the record, as it were, is as irresistible as it is problematic. (p.52) Razack’s (1998) point here connects to the reason why some of the participants become more and more reluctant to share their stories. Having experienced narrative consumption, Kayla, Naomi, and Ruby found it difficult to believe in the positive impact 148

of sharing their stories in the university. They came to resist sharing their stories at all. They felt that the academy often pushes marginalized students to position themselves as the subject of study, while allowing white students to be knowledge producers. Naomi expressed the difficulty in keeping her hope alive, because she does not think we are able to tell our stories without being consumed. In these spaces, sometimes staying silent becomes a form of resistance to narrative consumption. King (2003) writes that “once stories are told, they cannot be called back” (p.10). This speaks to power and responsibility; to the power relations between speaker and listener. When experiences of Indigenous and racialized students are shared, students from the dominant group consume these stories and place them in their notes. I have seen this happen in post-secondary educational spaces, especially in classroom settings. What does it mean to put someone’s oppressive experiences in notes? To whom do these stories now belong? What is missing when writing another’s experience? How does objectifying the memory of oppression allow dominant subjectivities to maintain their privilege and power over knowledge production? Here, I want to echo Razack’s (1998) question– “who will control how… [stories] are used?” (p.37). When I consider white students writing the experiences of others in their notes, I wonder to what extent this act allows detachment between bodies and memories. I see white academics teaching and learning that Others are not real physical and spiritual subjects with our own embodied memories, but rather “materials” or “resources” to learn about the experience of oppression. This act gives white people the space to handle, control, consume, and interpret the Others. This detachment of memories from bodies 149

may make it manageable for whites to introduce and deal with oppressive history in the classroom without losing or disrupting their privilege. Moreover, when white academics re-illustrate these various historical forces: racism, colonialism, as “unfortunate” incidents of the past, it is possible to frame historical oppression within a narrative of “process for social progress.” The embodied intergenerational oppression of Others could be told by white people in the manner that, well, there were violent histories and oppression in the past, but “we” overcame them, thus “we” can move on. This moral distancing of individuals does not occur in isolation. The Eurocentric academy is often understood as a place of knowledge production, where knowledge is preserved, advanced, and disseminated (Kuokkanen, 2007). Koukkanen (2007) explains, “the university is rooted in the particular historical and geographical context” (p. 13). Indigenous and racialized feminist scholars challenge Eurocentricity and incorporate the notion of community into academic space. However, the understanding of academic intellectual community in the Canadian context is still constructed exclusively within a Eurocentric frame. The problem is that the narratives of Indigenous and racialized women are considered as mere data. The way Indigenous and racialized women understand stories should demonstrate that our stories are not simply information, but that stories are who we are. Battiste and Henderson (2000) points out “Every academic discipline has a political and institutional stake in Eurocentric knowledge. Every university has been contrived to interpret the world in a matter that reinforces the Eurocentric interpretation of the world and is thus opposed to Indigenous knowledge” (p. 135). Furthermore, Adjei 150

and Agyepong (2009) critique the ways in which Eurocentricity is legitimized in the academy through knowledge production, validation and dissemination. While the Eurocentric way of knowing is reproduced and privileged, Other ways of knowing such as Indigenous knowledge are not legitimatized or even supported. In fact, as I examined in the literature review, storytelling and counter-narrative have been continuously criticized by social science for their supposed “lack of objectivity.” This critique does not apply to white academics. It is used against marginalized people when we tell their stories. On the other hand, when a dominant body retells marginalized people’s stories, they are not often questioned. It is important to stress that this rejection has multiple implications. One, that needs to point out, is the Eurocentric definition of what stories are. It dominates and controls how stories are treated. It further shapes Indigenous and racialized women’s experiences in the academy. It became clear through interviews that narrative consumption continues to soar in part due to the lack of appropriate facilitation and intervention from a professor. Weber and Hermanson (2015)’s study affirm the importance of intervention. They note, “within university classroom, social settings, and within group work, broader power dynamics tend to reproduce themselves unless there is direct intervention” (p. 50). Alaoui and Calafell (2016) provide an example of what appropriate intervention might look like, sharing an experience where a white student re-centered her story over that of Muslim students, I sat horrified as everything we had discussed over the quarter about the challenges women of colour face in being invited to the table to speak, and not being silenced by White woman, was literally being played out in the front of the 151

classroom…Having the instructor do this, rather than just the student of colour, is important as the burden of unpacking painful moments of performances of privilege should not just be on the person with less power. I don’t know how successful my intervention was because the student left the class upset and dropped the class that evening. However, I know what I did was right because we as instructors have to work to support the most vulnerable students in our course. (p. 67) What does it mean to take an active role in facilitation and intervention in a classroom? As Nola questions, why and when do faculty intervene? Why do they decide not to? Do marginalized students and faculty have common ground regarding what intervention means? In other words, when we wish for intervention by faculty, do faculty get it; can they read the needs of the marginalised students? What counts or not as a necessary moment worthy of intervention? I recognize intersectionality must to be taken into consideration. Differences in race, gender, and sexuality would affect how the instructor takes action, and the consequences thereof. hooks (2003) claims, When progressive white men created the alternative discipline of cultural studies, teaching from progressive standpoints, the success of their programs tended to overshadow the powerful interventions made by women and men of colour simply because of the way white-supremacist thinking and practice rewards white male interventions while making it appear that the progressive interventions made by women and men of colour are not as important. (p. 6) The way in which bodies of Indigenous and racialized faculty are read is applicable in a classroom intervention. Contrary to the rewards and acknowledgement of privilege, Indigenous and racialized faculty are more likely to face resistance when they intervene. Intervention facilitation requires more research and debate. Acknowledging that institutional barriers are beyond individual control, participants implied that intervention facilitation impacts how (and if) Indigenous and racialized women experience violence in the classroom. Intervention facilitation is a hard skill to gain. It takes talent, training, as 152

well as experience, but appropriate intervention facilitation by a professor can implement an inclusive, effective learning space. Faculty and students could work collectively to create protocols for listening. Indigenous as well as most racialized groups centre orality in knowledge production and dissemination. When we share our stories in an institution that relies on written systems, white students listen, document, and disseminate what they have written without permission of the storytellers, then take credit for the information. In university, there is no proper protocol to guide how to take care of Others’ stories responsibly. In fact, spaces that have proper protocol to prevent violence on Indigenous and racialized women are very rare. Can faculty and students share a guideline that enhances the learning process for marginalised people? I believe creating such a template is an important process to enable trust within our learning community. The questions to ask are: 1)

How can faculty and students collectively create guidelines and protocol to ensure that stories are held responsibly?

2)

What would a guideline that acknowledges Indigenous and racialized women as keepers of their own voice look like?

3)

What strategies can facilitators use to push institutions to legitimate orally shared knowledge and prevent Indigenous and racialized students’ narratives from being consumed?

Spade (2012), who entered into the field of law from a background in grassroots activism and legal services, explains how necessary and helpful it is to start a class with a group agreement. Activists have adopted this meeting protocol for some time now. He writes, 153

“the group agreements offer an initial chance to address some of the problems that relate to oppressive dynamics in the classroom” (p.189). Protocol would set the tone of a space. Guidelines need to dismantle the sense of entitlement by white students. The notion of inclusiveness, however, should not be used as justification for white academics to maintain entitlement. Creating inclusive environments is a political act – that is, an act that has an agenda, purpose and goal. Guidelines and protocol must respond to the needs of marginalized students.

Conclusion This chapter discusses violence as a complicit connector among marginalized faculty and students. It examines the gaps between the theory and practice of diversity, a chasm which continuously allows violence to occur to Indigenous and racialized women. These gaps shape our experience of the academy. In order to respond to these issues, there are two main areas of inquiry we need to work on collectively. The first is an ideological shift about relationship through land acknowledgement. The second involves intervention and collective protocol development. The next chapter will focus on stories — our mechanism for survival.

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Chapter 8 STORIES ARE WHO WE ARE In the Social Sciences and Humanities, Indigenous and racialized women share stories. Sharing our stories often puts us in a vulnerable position, in that our experience becomes the subject of white academic research. This includes situations where white academics would advance their career by using our ‘material’, at an emotional cost. This practice, which I have named in previous chapters, is narrative consumption. Throughout this project, I have discussed how the participants are very aware of this threat. It can lead us to approach the classroom strategically, limit our generosity. However, it does not stop us from sharing. Applying feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial theoretical lenses allow me to centre the voices of marginalized students. These lenses focus on the tools Indigenous and racialized women have to navigate the academy. As participants we assert that claiming our space is not just a challenge to whiteness or violence. Rather, sharing our stories is self-determination, empowerment, and affinity. This chapter has three points of focus. First, I examine how the participants in this project use stories as a tool not just to claim who we are in order to fight white supremacy, but most crucial, to bring us back to our holistic selves. Second, I explore reasons we choose to tell our stories, as connection or support for other students. Finally, I assert that our experience in the classroom also takes into account our relationships beyond the classroom space. A lack of mentorship by faculty was the theme that reemerged over and over in the interview process. Those Indigenous and racialized

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women who have myriad responsibilities outside of the academy found it difficult to build a healthy, positive and meaningful relationship with faculty.

8.1. Storytelling as Self- Determination Narrative consumption by white students is beyond our control. We are very aware of this potential loss, especially in a classroom. However, some of us claim that we continue because we feel our stories express the holistic self. The academy, for the most part, does not allow us, Indigenous and Racialized women, to be ourselves. Even those of us who have a strong sense of self, feel that the academy does not want us to be whole. How can one be oneself in a space that negates our existence? Our self-identity is often pre-assumed, while a white body is accepted along with their claim. To return to an example shared by Ellie, when a white body claims “Indigenous” identity, they are not often questioned. On the other hand, when those who are Black Canadian, Asian or Latinx disclose their Indigenous background, skepticism is triggered. While there is no specific physical representation of a body as “Indigenous,” white people can travel through their identities among bodies easily and claim their lineage without being questioned on Indigenous land. While trying to connect with others, challenges like Ellie’s experience with identity and validation still exist. For many of us, stories create a forum where we can be ourselves without being questioned. From an anti-colonial perspective, I would argue that we never lost who we are. Rather, stories affirm our self-determination. To be who we are is the key to inclusion. Whites behave like they own the space with their body

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language, thus the academy is their space. As Molly describes, they have already “won” even before they enter. Their presence is not questioned, it is normalized. Racialized students have to negotiate belonging with questions like “where do you come from?” Indigenous students “disappear” (Smith, 2006), despite the fact that this is their land. Story is a tool, and sharing is a way to dismantle hegemony, challenge the normalization of whiteness, and resist being told who we are. A sense of control is significant. It is connected to the notion of resistance. As Molly pointed out, “I tell my stories because I choose to. And I think the ‘choose to’ is the resistance.” She acknowledges that she does not have control over the condition that creates narrative consumption, because it involves others. It is important to acknowledge that sharing does not always bring positive impacts. Ruby warned us that the positive aspects of sharing stories, such as empowerment and liberation, are often over emphasized. As King (2003) writes, Once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world. So, you have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories that you are told. (p. 10) This quote reminds that stories create dynamics between tellers and listeners, questioning how we understand the responsibility of listening. Having said that, sharing stories does bring powerful moments of liberation and empowerment to marginalized students. Denzin and Lincoln (2008) claim that critical personal narratives are counter-narratives that challenge and disturb the dominant discourse. Crichlow (2015) asserts that storytelling grants marginalized students, who were historically forced not to disclose thoughts or feelings, to regain confidence and use “I, think, I feel, I see, I hear” (p. 194). 157

Breaking this historical forced silence, as Tina described, is liberating. This is a political move. She explained that sharing her story makes her happy because she is not hiding. She feels a weight has lifted. For many of the participants, stories are their voices. Amy points out that Eurocentric academic space does not often allow students to express emotion. Kyla warns, “A classroom is not a “therapy session.” Discussion, or any form of intellectual exchange, is expected to be rational, objective and neutral. I have even heard marginalized students argue that the academy is not a place for emotion, but a place for logic, rationality and debate. This relies on the Eurocentric dichotomy of rational vs. emotional, where rationality is valued. That said, scholars acknowledge and encourage students to utilize stories in the classroom. For example, Crichlow (2015) encourages students to use storytelling in his class, as it creates a space for learning where theory and lived experience connect. He explains “[w]e all know that students who are socially marginalized by intellectual categorizations, are further alienated by the text which serves as authority” (Crichlow, 2015, p194). Storytelling works as a tool to validate experience that is too often erased.

8.2. “Community” in the Academic Space One of the reasons that Indigenous and racialized women continue to share our stories is to build relationships with other marginalized students. What bell hooks (2015) calls homespace is a nurturing, a site of caring, healing, renewal and resistance against violence in white society. The way Naomi distinguishes between help and care can assist

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us in making this idea real. How we can connect with each other from the place of “care”? hooks (2015) writes, “[F]or one of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone” (p. 213). The question is, “is it even possible in the academy?” and “how can we make it possible?” Despite hope, there are significant challenges in forming lines of solidarity among marginalized students. Here, I am reminded of Ellie’s experiences where she was met with what Martinez (1993) refers to as the “Oppression Olympics.” For Martinez (1993), the “Oppression Olympics” are a system of stratification that keeps fundamental power structures the same. Referring to Martinez (1993), Dhamoon (2009) argues that the main implication of the “Oppression Oympic” is that one cannot assume that all Indigenous and racialized women will be allies. She argues “marginalized women should care about the oppression of Others because they are relationally signified and therefore implicated in the conditions that structure and uphold a dominant matrix of meaning-making” (Dhamoon, 2009, p. 142). The idea and terms of community, solidarity and allyship in the academy among marginalized groups have developed over decades. Indigenous and feminist scholars discuss the need to build and strengthen allyship among marginalized women. Yet, as Dhamoon (2009) indicates, we are all implicated in the power that maintains, reproduces as well as regulates our relationships. Dhamoon’s (2009) work connects to Smith (2006)’s three pillars of white supremacy. Smith (2006) further describes how differing marginalized groups are implicated in the continuous colonial violence of white supremacy. Complicit violence produces dynamic complexities among 159

different bodies. As Smith (2006) claims, failing to see these complexities as a logic of white supremacy, may create the conditions for the “Oppression Olympics.” She claims that our organizing efforts need to move beyond the notion of “shared victimization.” Again, is it even possible to create and nurture a community in the context of the university where academic success is still narrowly legitimatized by competition over tenure, funding, research grants, as well as chance of publications? Participants kept asking “how can we connect?” hooks (2003) argues that students who value working for the good of the community experience disconnection and fragmentation that functions to “destroy all pleasure in learning” (p. 49). When we lose our joy of learning due to constant struggle within the academy, how can we expect ourselves to keep the passion to engage in social justice? Ruby pointed out that the academy and community contradict each other. In other words, calling the academy a “community” is misleading. Martha similarly conveys that she does not find community in the academy. The challenges we face speak to difficulty in “practicing” the concept of community at university. Finding a community in the sense that everyone’s presence, works, and voices are acknowledged and heard seems ambitious. This does not mean we don’t believe the concept of community. We all stressed that we do believe in it, however, our responses spoke to the challenge of “practice” and inclusivity in a space where competition is encouraged and particular bodies, behaviors and mindsets are rewarded over others.

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8.3. Mentorship The Indigenous and racialized graduate students I spoke with sought close mentorship from faculty. The theme of mentorship came up organically, repeatedly, in group conversation and individual interviews. Dei (2017) argues mentorship is about building community which is a key to educational and social success. He suggests academic mentorship that centres teamwork, reciprocity and responsibility includes collaborative work with students such as co-publishing, co-researching and co-teaching (Dei, 2017). While we make individual and collective efforts to create such a community in the academy, participants’ accounts suggest we need further interrogation about who is included and who is left behind, intentionally or not. More importantly, how can the practice of inclusivity be ensured? Brunsma, Embric and Shin (2017) examine the experience of graduate students in higher education with a focus on the process of mentoring. According to them, academia, sociology in particular, does not do a good job in mentoring Indigenous and racialized students. They point out a number of reasons for this lack. These include a scarcity of faculty of color in higher education, lack of training, department culture, conflict of interest between students and faculty, and time constraints. Participants have stressed that we are eager to have mentorship from our advisors or supervisors. We are seeking human connection as well as reciprocal relationship. These are often lacking as Nola identifies “...wanting mentor, wanting human connection, you know, with people in the academy, that does not happen.” Mentorship may occur from peers, senior students, advisors, supervisors, or research staffs across disciplines (Lunsford, Crisp, Dolan & Wuethericl, 161

2017). Having acknowledged that, participants are looking for it from their advisors or supervisor. Quality mentoring relationships are essential because graduate students experience various types of stress originating from academic demands: loneliness, physical and cultural isolation, confusion, as well as tight finances (Hadjioannou, Shelton, Fu & Dhanarattigannon, 2007; Gay 2004). Hadjioannou et al. (2007) have stressed that the purpose of mentorship in graduate programs is to enhance students’ academic, professional and personal development. From an historical perspective, Weinberger (1999) describes mentorship as the basis of apprenticeship, saying “typically an old craftsman would take a young person under his wing and train him in all aspects of his craft” (p.7). In the context of youth development, a healthy mentorship is essential for youth to thrive. In fact, a great deal of literature identifies mentorship from faculty as the most important recourse within graduate programs in order for students to succeed in the academy (Brunsma, Embric & Shin, 2017). This links back to the benefit of collaborative work that Dei (2017) suggests. While the positive outcome from these mentoring relationships has been recognized, Lunsford et al. (2017) found that some mentorship experiences hinder students’ success. Mullen (2003), referring to Henrich (1991) and Styles and Radloff (2001), notes, “Interestingly, while doctoral students view an advising and mentoring relationship as ‘the single most important element in graduate education’, it is ‘often perceived as the most disappointing relationship’” (p. 413). Participants’ stories reaffirm this point. We know the impact of mentorship. We are yearning for a reciprocity-based mentorship from faculty. However, participants’ stories indicate the gaps between what 162

we envision and what we receive. This can cause resounding disappointment. In an early study, Turner and Thompson (1993) show the connection between lack of professional socialization, including mentorship, and the academic progress of racialized women as compared to white women. They insist that providing mentorship requires individual behavioral change, and drastic structural change is needed. Studies have shown that mentorship plays an important role in the students’ professional achievement, academic success, as well as sense of belonging. Alaoui and Calafell (2016) point out, however, a lack of literature on mentorship that is inclusive. In other words, the majority of the body of literature is based on white middle-class models, which do not consider that the issues that marginalized women face. Lunsford et al. (2017) stress that “it is important to recognize how mentoring may be experienced similarly or differently by different groups of students” (p. 234). Other scholars support this point. In fact, Alaoui and Calafell (2016) argue that racialized women experience mentorship differently. They state, Women of diverse background experience mentoring situations differently depending on academic environments and their positionalities in those spaces, which could limit and restrict some mentor-mentee advancement while privileging others. (p.63)

As the traditional model does not reflect the voices, experiences, and concerns of Indigenous and racialized women, participants argue the need for moving beyond the traditional model toward the one that includes analysis of institutionalized systems of inequality.

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Both formal and informal mentorship influence the student experience. Wilson, Pereira and Valentine (2002) explain that formal mentorship programs are those that an institution involves the process of planning, development and evaluation. On the other hand, informal mentorship relationships evolve without “organizational sanction” (Pereira et al., 2002, p. 320). Mentorship that occurs in the graduate programs is mostly informal as a student approaches a faculty member we would like to engage, rather than formal mentorship where an institution is involved in the process, such as of matching, training, or assessing. Alaudi and Calafell (2016)’s recommendations suggest that a graduate program with formal mentorship protocols that takes diversity into account is not common. It is necessary to implement more formal departmental or institutional involvement in nurturing mentorship relationships. In their study, Alaoui and Calafell (2016) use their narratives as mentor and mentee of each other to depict reciprocity in their mentoring relationship. They also illustrate tensions they encountered in other mentoring relationships as racialized women in the academy. Programming inclusivity that meets diverse students’ needs, they provide some recommendations including formal mentoring programs, departmental and institutional involvement, documentation that provides guideline principles for mentoring, and protocols for collectively creating ground rules or expectations. Socialization plays a crucial role in nurturing a sense of belonging in the university. Churtin, Steward and Ostrove’s (2013) study reveals that this sense of belonging is correspondent to the level of supervisor support. I agree with this point, assuming the attention we receive is translated into care. The belief faculty may have in 164

us as a student or even as a person has an impact on us, and builds our confidence as a scholar, particularly in the early stages of the graduate program. Throughout the process of group and individual conversation, almost all the participants pointed out a lack of mentorship and their difficulty in building healthy reciprocal relationships with professors. While a student’s desire for mentorship from faculty is obvious, Henry et al. (2017)’s study shows that most Indigenous and racialized faculty members also seek out mentorship as they are often expected to accept overwhelming responsibility. Henry et al. (2017) note, These demands, questions, and expectations, combined with the absence of mentorship, problematic relationships with their White colleagues and students, the insecurity generated by the tenure and promotion processes, and their struggles to be taken seriously and to gain respect, contribute to the precarious work situations and social relationships in which Indigenous and racialized faculty members find themselves, as well as the psychological state of ambivalence, skepticism, uncertainty, low self-esteem, hopelessness, and anguish they feel in their job. (p.112) Along the same line, Alaoui and Calafell (2016) point out, Minority faculty are torn between supporting and investing in the minority students, and the demands of competitive academic community. Besides devoting added time to their students, minority faculty are pressured to serve on various minority related committees. These faculty often become the sole sources of support for minority students, yet at the same time they do not have anyone to mentor them or offer assistance during the tenure process. (p. 64) Jones and Dufor (2012) explain an idea of mentorship that involves active reciprocity. That participants emphasized their desire for reciprocity would suggest a lack thereof. However we do not mean mentorship from faculty does not exist. Participants agreed and have witnessed reciprocal mentorships. Many of us have not, however, personally experienced those relationships. Rather, mentorship is awarded, according to Ruby and 165

Molly, to students who know how to speak theoretically, write well in English, those whose research professors see as “valuable.” Do faculty believe that relationships with those who do not follow traditional academic approaches would somehow not be reciprocal? What do reciprocal relationships means to faculty and students? Do we have the same understanding and expectations from this term in our mentorship relationship? It is important to note that this project centres voices from students’ perspectives. Thus, my focus is not to claim the “truth” of events, rather it is to understand how we, as graduate students, understood and experienced the events in relation to our commitee. In order to develop this conversation, further research, including the accounts of faculty, will be needed. In addition, white students assume and expect mentorship from faculty to happen naturally. On the other hand, Indigenous and racialized women have to request. In other words, mentorship occurs to white students as a natural result of assuming that the academic spaces and resources are not only available for them, but also that those spaces and resources are created for them. It is the sense of entitlement that white students continue to hold and claim as their right. On the other hand, Indigenous and racialized women are not only eager for guidance, but also have to make extra effort to find mentorships. Indigenous and racialized women who take different approaches, such as nonEurocentric, non-“academic,” or Indigenous approaches in their research project, may find it hard to receive adequate mentorship. Considering their lack of access to adequate mentorships, often times they are already set up for failure. 166

Conclusion This chapter attempts to engage with a deeper understanding what sharing stories offers Indigenous and racialized students in the academy. Stories are who we are. We share stories to make our past, present and future visible. We share stories to remain our holistic selves, to seek connection and to build relationship. It is important to note the limitations that exist in the academy, as participants consistently experience violence and complications when sharing and claiming narrative. Having said that, while examining our experience of violence and how the Eurocentric academic system allows this to persist, it is crucial to shift our gaze and reimagine our space by taking the lead of feminist scholars (Smith, 2006; Simpson, 2011; Loard, 1984).

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Chapter 9 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION This project discusses pernicious systemic challenges and resistance of Indigenous and racialized women’s storytelling in the Canadian post-secondary institutions. The literature review chapter identifies a historical context in which Indigenous and racialized people face colonial dehumanization and oppression. Additionally, I provide reference to literature that engages in the dialogue around resistance through story, focusing on the ways in which marginalized people utilize their storytelling. The literature review led me to identify gaps among existing literature; I noted that there had been little study on dynamics in relationships among marginalized students and faculty and in sharing and listening. This dissertation is informed by the work of anti-colonial, anti-racist and critical feminist writers. These theoretical frameworks argue that non-fiction research is not always a way to respond to colonial and racial domination. Lorde (1984) argues that the “masters’ tools will never dismantle the masters’ house” (p.112). Instead, we utilize our own tools to create a space where non-Eurocentric ways of understanding knowing, being, and doing are appreciated. This is, as one of my participants reminded me, a way of reimagining the space of learning. The purpose of this project was to examine the ways in which female Indigenous and racialized graduate students use personal or collective stories as counter-hegemonic practice. We acknowledge that stories are who we are and we tell our stories to claim visibility in a colonial, white supremacist system that forces us to be silent. Stories are our resistance. Having said that, this study 168

challenges the lack of pedagogical platform to provide a safe learning space for Indigenous and racialized female students. Within these theoretical frameworks, I have elaborated three main discursive concepts: Indigeneity, resistance and responsibility/ reciprocity. I have noted that histories of violence connect Indigenous and racialized people in a complex fashion. I have examined how dehumanization was a necessary process of colonization. Tuhiwai Smith (1999) states, “[c]olonized peoples have been forced to define what it means to be fully human because there is a deep understanding of what it has meant to be not fully human” (p.26). There is always resistance whenever there is a power relationship. Claiming Indigeneity is to resist historical dehumanization. It is to make our presence visible, as well as to define our existence and humanity in our own terms outside of the colonial paradigm. It goes beyond human-to-human relationships. It involves holistic relationship with natural elements, environments, spirituality and our ancestors. We claim our existence with respect to these holistic relationships. Throughout this dissertation, participants affirmed, “stories are who we are.” In the academy, we are not allowed to be our holistic selves. For Indigenous and racialized women, regaining a holistic sense of self by telling stories is resistance. Being a holistic self is, in fact, resistance. Lastly, we need to center the concept of responsibility and reciprocity in order to create and maintain relationships. Being able to reimagine these dynamics is a primary process for decolonization. This project begins with my personal experience. Being a graduate student, I have had multiple moments where I felt powerful telling my own story. Story was my way of 169

claiming voice. Namely, the act of telling my story gave me a strong sense of empowerment, and importantly the sense of control. Moreover, I felt powerful not only because I was able to tell my stories, but also, I felt my voice was heard. Having been through embarrassment and frustration of not being heard in the undergraduate program as an exchange student, the moments of being heard was a positive experience for me. Reflecting back to the story that I open this thesis with, where white students enthusiastically named colonial violence as a “great topic,” I became to realize sharing stories is more complex. I came to witness that sharing stories carries dynamics amongst students in correlation with narrative consumption by white students. There were times where I could not help but think that my story was used to serve the curiosity of white academics. These were contradictory sensations. After I shared my story, white academics would ask questions or request a copy of my writing. While it made me feel validated, I also felt uneasy. What would they do with it? Moreover, it has, on occasion, caused regret because I felt I was being used to serve their career. Having acknowledged both the liberating and oppressive moments that sharing stories can offer marginalized students, we persist. This leads me to a simple but important question. “Why do we continue to tell our stories? What do our stories do for us?” I continue to support Thomas King’s (2003) notion that stories are “all we are” (p.122). Most of the participants affirmed this claim while some of us shared our concerns about overemphasizing the positivity, which masks complexities. Anti-colonial, anti-racist, as well as feminist theoretical frameworks informed my research questions, as well as the way in which I engage the participants in this project. 170

Sharing food during the interview processes created an opportunity to share my own story with the participants. Situating the group-sharing circle over a bowl of Hiyajiru not only allowed me to introduce who I am but ensured they were properly nourished. I consider this responsibility one of my core values. Values I learned from my parents and my community. These discursive frameworks remind us that research should not only centre the voice of the marginalized but also contribute to their interests. This is why the project takes participant experience into consideration in its inquiry and direction. With their collective lead, the gap between theory and practice, between policy statement and lack of actual implementation, is a trajectory we agreed to interrogate further. There are three main findings in this project. The first finding is that violence is a connector among marginalized students, faculty, family and community. While many universities in Canada have equity and diversity statements to promote inclusive and accessible learning space for diverse student groups; they are often symbolic. Under these circumstances, participants continue to face forms of violence specific to the learning process. Secondly, the act of telling stories enabled us to re-claim our holistic identity, and our voices in the face of rejection and silencing. Finally, that mentorship from faculty is the key to Indigenous and racialized female students’ success in the academy. In response to the first finding, participants reaffirmed that colonial oppression is not in the past but in the present for Indigenous and racialized women. The violence is enacted in various ways, including verbal attack and silencing voices as well as rejection of non-Eurocentric ways of knowing and being that many marginalized students embody 171

from their home culture. Eurocentric knowledge production is still dominantly “centered” in the Canadian post-secondary institutions while non-Eurocentric pedagogies are still considered as “periphery.” The universities present themselves as if they care about the learning experience of a diverse student body. These sound like promising statements but are frequently symbolic and for those who actually need support, nonperformative. In the academy where knowledge production is the primary focus, bodies are considered as either knowledge producer or subjects of the study. This stance systemically allows narrative consumption to occur while Indigenous and racialized women’s stories become the “research project” of a white academic. Violence is not just a connector among marginalized students, but also among family, and members of a community. This notion of violence as connector is powerful and complex. Participants revealed that violence, as connector, should be understood in two ways. First, whether we are students or faculty, we share the history of violence as marginalized people, and violence continues to shape our experience in the academy. Second, violence becomes a part of the (marginalized) students’ faculty relationship; violence is replicated on these female students by other marginalized students or faculty. This internalized oppression is still largely overlooked in the literature. Interrogation and dialogue about lateral violence may bring further tension and discomfort among marginalized people. However, this conversation should not be avoided. We must have these conversations to ensure we don’t replicate the injury. This includes the discussion around intervention facilitation. Participants maintained that intervention facilitation by faculty has the capacity to reduce the extent to which we experience violence in the 172

classroom. Being able to deliver appropriate intervention facilitation in the classroom is a way to put theory into practice (Alaoui & Calafell, 2016). While acknowledging that it is a hard skill to develop and might involve a particular talent and training, it is important to have further discussion. What are the pedagogical implications of the stories that we have told throughout this project? Nola critically asked the class where she was expected to tell her family stories of colonial violence, “What is your connection to the story?” White academics often shift the responsibility onto our shoulders by asking us to tell our stories to them, rather than telling their relationship to our stories. Participants agreed that dominant bodies should take their roles as being privileged further and responsibly. There are times when we do not want to tell our stories. However, we do not want them to tell our stories. We do tell our own stories when we choose to; not when we are forced to. To conclude, despite white students engage in the consumption of our stories, we take our power back by speaking back. We claim the ownership of our stories and voices. We take it back to where it belongs. In relation to the second finding, story is powerful because it actuates selfdetermination and liberation, especially for those marginalized students who have historically been forced into silence. Sharing our story is resistance. With our stories we ground ourselves. However, the complex dynamics that this sharing triggers should not be overlooked. Some of us became reluctant to share our narrative and found it increasingly difficult to maintain hope that the act of sharing might be liberatory. Most of the Indigenous and racialized women I interviewed continue to tell stories in the 173

academy, while being conscious about narrative consumption. Thus, we sometimes strategize on where, how and with whom to share stories. The reasons why we continue, even though we are aware of narrative consumption by white academics, are not simple but very complex. Stories hold us together. They are relationship with one’s environment, the land and people. Sharing stories is to develop a community. Community building in the academy is an essential inquiry for the survival of marginalized students. However, the concept of “community” and the reality of the “academy” are not compatible. Most of us find it difficult to consider the academy “community,” when they hold opposite values. Although we had hard time envisioning the academy as a space to play with the notion of community, we recognized and valued the bonds we developed with other marginalized students. Indigenous and racialized women are looking for mentorship that is based on reciprocal relationships with faculty members. The impact of mentorship on academic success has been identified for decades. Systemic approaches to enhance mentorship for marginalized students have been discussed just as long. While mentorship from a particular professor may be based on a personal rather than institutional connection, further study is required. I focus on the student’s perspective. Indigenous and racialized women are aware we are implicated in a Eurocentric system, thus tension among marginalized faculty and students arise as a result of systemic discrimination. We see our struggles and tensions in mentorship as structured. They are set up to occur before we enter the room. In fact, racialized faculty also face challenges in the Eurocentric academy, and they require mentorship to navigate the institution. These challenges need 174

to be addressed on an institutional scale to create a platform where marginalized students and faculty can build reciprocal relationships collectively. This project aims to create a better understanding of Indigenous and racialized women’s storytelling, despite narrative consumption by white academics. The discursive frameworks I applied argue that research needs to stimulate social change from the ground. My findings remind us that there is much more work to be done. We may have a long way to go before our voices are truly heard, appreciated, and reflected in the academy. It can be a challenge for us to maintain hope in this course, as constant fighting within the academy is exhausting. The combination of confrontation, burnout and a lack of support further pushes us out from the program. Having said that, we must not give up hope. Our voices evolve through oppression and we are developing strategies to enhance our experience of the academy. There are three main recommendations I would make: 1) Provide post-secondary institutions with information about the gaps between policy statements and implementation. 2) Create material resources for marginalized students. 3) Further collective research on reciprocal mentorship between Indigenous and racialized women and faculty. First, it is vital to highlight the existing gaps between theory and practice regarding equity in the university. Despite the fact that feminist scholars have created recommendations to dissolve the systemic barriers of colonial post-secondary institutions there is still a lack of implementation. Highlighting the mental and physical violence that Indigenous and racialized students face in the academy is the first necessary step toward action for systemic change. The challenges we face are supported by Eurocentric ways of 175

knowing and doing. Eurocentric structures dominate post-secondary institutional spaces, rewarding white people while preventing marginalized students from being successful. I acknowledge that a number of scholars have established dialogues about the equity of each students’ learning process. I believe a fundamental shift, with regards to how we understand relationship, needs to happen for the institution to respond to these recommendations. How can we reimagine our relationship with the institution and its individuals to make the fundamental shift happen? When will land acknowledgement bring actual change? My second recommendation is that there needs to be a document, such as a booklet, or digital resource, based on these findings to help Indigenous and racialized women who are entering graduate programs in the Social Sciences and Humanities. I am not talking about a pamphlet that explains “how to” deal with challenges. Rather, I hope it would help marginalized students get up to speed on the experience of their predecessors, to help them navigate the academic space. We have no control over others’ actions. Sharing our stories might not prevent students new to the graduate program from facing obstacles. However, sharing experiences would give those who are commencing a tool to identify an issue. Having a tool or language to identify and make sense of the experience when they face a challenge is important. Finally, there is a need for collaborative research on reciprocal relationships between Indigenous and racialized women and faculty. Scholarly discussion about mentorship that has complex and intersectional analysis, including race, gender, sexuality and class in the academy needs to include more concrete, practical suggestions. Dei 176

(2017) describes a practical platform that we could create collectively to ensure mentorships are based on reciprocity. I agree that reciprocity must be the central focus in mentorship relation. Regarding the notion of reciprocity, however, we need to continue dialogues. Do we and faculty interpret this term differently based on our positionality as a mentee or mentor? How we can perform reciprocity responsibly and collectively? Indigenous and racialized women are seeking a way to connect collectively with our faculty members. Relationship building between Indigenous and Racialized women and our professors play a very important role in our sense of belonging, completion of our program, and professional achievement as a scholar. Having reciprocal mentorships is a challenging topic as racialized faculty themselves are looking for mentorship to navigate the Eurocentric academy. How can we build mentoring relationship collectively? As discussed above, mentorship exists, not to those who need it most, but to white students and those who follow traditional ‘academic’ approaches. How can we start a dialogue with faculty on this issue in a constructive way, acknowledging we experience violence in complex ways that implicate each other? Mentorship from faculty is essential for Indigenous and racialized female students not only to survive but to also succeed in the academy.

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Appendix A Email Scripts (invitation to the research project) Dear Participant: I hope this email finds you well. My name is Yumiko Kawano. I currently enroll Phd program in the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Social Justice Education (HSSSJE) at the University of Toronto/OISE. I am writing to you as a student as hope that you might be interested in a project I am currently working on. I am looking at the ways in which Indigenous women and women of colour utilize their personal and collective narratives as resistance to continuous colonial and racial oppression in a learning space. The purpose of my research is also to engage in the dialogue around why Indigenous women and women of colour tell their personal and collective stories, and what are some of the barriers, limitations and complexities and how they connect sharing narrative itself with their vision for healing, hope, and decolonizing learning space. I respect and acknowledge that our experiences and stories are important, and also have faced difficulties and challenges in a learning space. In the participation of the project, you only need to share as much as you wish and you need not respond any question if you do not wish to. You can withdraw at anytime without providing any reasons. Your decision to participate or not to participate will be kept confidential. Your identity will be also kept confidential. You can find further information about the process of interview on the attached consent form. If you have any questions or concern about this project or if you are interested in participating in this study, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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Appendix B Information/Consent Letter to Participants Dear Participants, Thank you for considering participating to my research project. As I introduce myself in the first contact, I am currently enrolled in the Phd program at the department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto/ OISE. I am undertaking this doctoral research project under the supervision of Dr. Njoki Wane. This letter aims to provide you information about the process of the project that you need to know and to decide whether you continue to participate to the project or not. Your participation is completely voluntary and you can withdraw at any time without any questions. If you have any concerns about the project or as a research participant, please contact the Ethics Review Office, University of Toronto, at (416) 946-5806. The name of this research project is: Storytelling of Indigenous women and women of colour in the academy in Toronto: Implication for a learning space. This research project comes from my own experiences in the academy as women of colour, and dialogues with my colleagues about our experiences. The purpose of my research it to explore the ways in which Indigenous women and women of colour share their narrative in the academic space. The number of participants will be ten to fifteen women who identify themselves Indigenous/Indigenous and/or women of colour who are and were in the graduate program in the past four years, who have experiences to take a class discussing issues around social justice, equity, racial relationship or histories. What I will is having a two to three focus group interview in the hope that Indigenous women and women of colour share their experience in a graduate course that covers equity issues, social justice, racial relationship and histories. After the focus group, I would like to invite you one to one interview. The reason that I am inviting you to this project is because I respect your experience and stories. For further information: If you agree, your participation to the focus group will be held at the place and time the group mutually available. During the focus group, our conversation will be recorded. Pseudonyms will be used for assuring confidentiality, and any other identifying 193

information that puts you vulnerable position will be omitted unless you give me clear instruction that you want them to appear. I will remind that all focus group members to respect confidentiality of others in the group. However, I cannot assure other members will respect the call. During the focus group, I will take notes. In writing observation, I will use pseudonyms, which also appear on the transcripts and dissertation. Once transcribing is done, the original date will be kept in a locked drawer at my home for five years. Destruction of the original data will take place after five years. Only I, and my thesis committee members, Dr. Njoki Wane, Dr. George Dei, and Dr. Jean-Paul Restoule, can access the original data. Once transcribing is complete, I will share transcription with you and ask whether you want to edit some of your statements, or share concerns and comments. I will also share my initial analysis in the process of writing dissertation in the hope of getting feedback from you. My dissertation will also be sent to you when it is completed. While there may be no direct benefit from participating in this project, potential benefit would be connected to further research on improvement for Indigenous women and women of colours experiences in the academy. I acknowledge that sharing narratives may recall unpleasant memories as well as feelings, and emotion. I will make sure recording to our conversation will be stopped at anytime you request. You only need to share as much as you want to, and you can withdraw your participation anytime without providing a reason.

Additional Information Below, there is a place for you to sign to give your consent to participate in this project if you decided to do so. If you decide to participate, please return one signed and dated copy to me and keep the other for your reference. Once analysis is complete, I will share summary report of the findings.

Thank you.

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To Be Completed by People Choosing to Participate I have read through this document. I understand and am satisfied with the explanations offered, feel that my questions have been addressed, and agree to participate in the ways described. If I am making any exceptions or stipulations, these are:

__________________________________ (Signature) __________________________________ (Printed Name) __________________________________ (Date)

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