Since the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015), many of Canada’s post-secondary institutions have set intentions around decolonization. Participant institutions in Manitoba signed the Manitoba Collaborative Indigenous Education Blueprint (2015). Despite these frameworks calling for increased Indigeneity and decolonization of post-secondary institutions, the progress of resource development has been slow. In Brandon, Manitoba, Assiniboine Community College and Brandon University sought to appropriately educate faculty and staff in the histories of Indigenous Peoples, colonization, and decolonization. Through a series of serendipitous events, a collaborative group found a professional learning series: Pulling Together (2018 and ongoing). Published as an open educational resource through BCcampus in British Columbia, Canada, the series’ Foundations Guide (2018) was suitable for adaptation, so the group has taken on adapting the resource to reflect the histories, knowledges, languages, cultures, and geographies of the Indigenous Peoples of Manitoba. The adapted guide is an open resource published in Campus Manitoba’s repository. The decolonized process by which the group came together and developed the resource made use of the 4R’s of Indigenous Education (Kirkness & Brandhardt, 2001). This open resource honoured Indigenous knowledge, cultures, and ways of being while continually seeking to develop and nurture relationships with Indigenous communities to ensure content was valued and culturally appropriate. This process allowed both Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors to learn together, throughout the project.
This panel presentation will include several members of the Manitoba Foundations Group who will describe how the process of building relationships and community was integral to decolonizing the resource. In the end, the content is, and the process was, Indigenous-forward, inclusive, and rooted in a spirit of collaboration and doing things “in a good way.” Panelists will speak on their experiences throughout the project, both the challenges and rewards of working in new ways, as well as discuss how these experiences can be adapted in other spaces and projects.
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about the necessity and value of relationship building when collaborating with Indigenous contributors on open projects
- Describe a collaborative and community-led open project that emphasized the centering of Indigenous voices and disinvest from linear project planning to allow time for reflection of information and knowledge
- Envision collaborative partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors on open projects with a focus on replacing Western interpretations of histories and processes with Indigenous perspectives and lived experiences
