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Décoloniser et/ou autochtoniser ? Perspectives de recherche pour une meilleure inclusion des épistémologies autochtones

Elisa Tripotin and Mélisande Séguin

Le parcours d’intégration d’une langue autochtone dans le programme scolaire : le cas du kali’na en Guyane française

Laïsa Pivert
Linguistic and cultural diversity is at the heart of contemporary educational issues shaping the dynamics of school systems in varied contexts (Wotherspoon 2018). Some Indigenous leaders and researchers are calling for this diversity to be considered with the aim of recognizing and promoting Indigenous knowledge (Battiste 2002). However, this is also a disputed territory. Individuals and/or institutions may resist integrating this knowledge into school curricula because they see it as a threat to traditional Western education or because they do not understand the value and importance of indigenous knowledge (Battiste 1998; Biermann 2011). Despite everything, initiatives to integrate this knowledge are put in place but vary from one country to another, from one community to another. This study aims to document one of the initiatives underway in French Guiana within two indigenous Kali'na communities. Based on field research data from 43 semi-structured interviews, I was able to document the motivations underlying the demand for linguistic integration and examine emerging obstacles and resistance within the communities and the educational environment. The challenges encountered during the implementation of the project, as well as some of the present outcomes, also emerged during this research and are presented in this article.

Allyship, réflexivité et humilité : retour sur une prise de position vers la décolonisation en travail social universitaire

Karine Croteau, Marc Molgat, Cyndy Wylde and Jennifer Matsunaga
Since 2018, the Kinistòtàdimin Circle (KC) of the School of Social Work (SSW) at the University of Ottawa has been working to decolonize the SSW and its programs. This self-reflective analysis builds on the recognition of a plurality/diversity of knowledge and the formal adoption, in March 2022, of a resolution regarding traditional Indigenous knowledge to ensure its integration into the SSW and guarantee a holistic approach to education that is respectful of Indigenous learners and Nations. Based on two half-day study sessions, a talking circle held in Kitigan Zibi, and strategic planning notes, the authors of this article place the role and responsibilities of non-Indigenous allies at the heart of the discussion. Gehl's (2012) “Charter of Ally Responsibilities” provides a way to interrogate desirable avenues and attitudes to avoid. The article concludes with the “next steps” regarding ongoing decolonization initiatives at the SSW. At the request of an Anishinabe-Algonquin traditional knowledge holder active in the KC and recent legislative developments under the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children, youth and families (hereinafter, "Bill C-92"), a new microprogram (9 credits) in Indigenous Child and Family services is offered since September 2024.

L’histoire d’un projet communautaire inuit porteur d’initiatives d’autochtonisation de l’éducation

Véronique Paul, Virginie D. de la Chevrotière, Glorya Pellerin, Elisapie Uitangak Tukalak and Siaja Mark Mangiuk
In Nunavik, indigenization in education takes place in a historical context marked by compulsory school attendance and recent settlement. This text will describe three initiatives that go back to a school project whose partners were the communities of Ivujivik, Puvirnituq and the University of Quebec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT). First, at the request of the main stakeholders, a history PhD student examined a project for local management of schooling in Ivujivik and Puvirnituq between 1950 and 1990. The concepts of institutionalization and resistance were used to explain how the two communities lived through this effort of local empowerment. We then describe a second initiative: a project to share the knowledge collected for the thesis. The aim was to return the research findings to the northern school by explaining them in Inuktitut and using culturally adapted tools. Finally, we conclude by presenting an ongoing initiative: a project to develop a curriculum for teaching Inuktitut. This last project is considered a case of an adaptation of a tool coming from Western European culture for the purpose of improving the educational attainment and school success of young people.

La décolonisation des savoirs : est-il possible de penser l’anthropologie en dehors du rapport colonial ?

Pierre Beaucage
For several years now, Indigenous peoples and many researchers have been rejecting a colonial conception of anthropology that made the non-indigenous specialist the only voice authorised to interpret the words of his indigenous interlocutors, who were reduced to the status of 'informants', and expropriated their knowledge from them. In our long-term research with the Maseual-Nahuas of the Sierra Nororiental de Puebla, Mexico, we have been trying since 1984 to practise a different kind of anthropology, based on a dialogue of knowledge (Pérez Ruíz and Argueta Vilamar 2019). The result has been a profound change in the power relations between the anthropologist and the indigenous co-researchers of the Taller de Tradición Oral Totamachilis. Both the fieldwork and the interpretation of the data and the writing of that typical product of ethnography, the anthropological monograph, have been transformed as a result. Our research, the themes of which were determined in dialogue with the Taller, has covered historical tradition, flora and fauna, toponymy, traditional medicine and shamanism over almost forty years. As for publications, priority has been given to bilingual texts (in Maseualtajtol and Spanish), distributed at low cost in the region.

PIOLAT, Jérémie, 2021, Portrait du colonialiste. L’effet boomerang de sa violence et de ses destructions [nouvelle édition révisée et augmentée], Paris : Éditions Libre, 198 pages

Julie Graff