Gender, Affect, Environmental Justice, and Indigeneity in the Classroom Amy T. Hamilton

 I watched a knowledge mobilization webinar and the speakers recommended piktochart. I tried using it today to create a summary of my reading notes, and it turned out okay. I had some issues cropping it. And I think that I probably need to use a different template for blogging purposes, because I don't think these are the ideal dimensions. But it's a fun tool to play with. I am also going to try venngage. 

Anyhow, just logging some reading notes here. This was a good article. Basically, the gist of it is that for a long time the author accepted the conventional notion that emotion has no place in analysis. But then she had a moment in front of her class where she felt emotional, and that moment inspired her to inquire into the role of emotion in analysis through the lenses of feminism, environmental justice, and Indigenous studies. And then she arrived at a place where she saw the value of emotion in analysis. 

Gender, Affect, Environmental Justice, and Indigeneity in the Classroom by Amy T. Hamilton

p. 92 “Since I was hired by Northern Michigan University (nmu) in 2008, approximately 70 percent of the courses I have taught have been upper division undergraduate courses in Native American literature. As of the spring 2019 semester, I have taught thirty-two sections of these courses at nmu, or roughly eight hundred students. As a white woman teaching Native American literature to a largely white student population, I am acutely aware that I have—and will always have—a lot to learn. Further, as a non-Native ally scholar and teacher, I have been wary about infringing on areas of cultural knowledge that are not—and should not be—available to me. This positioning has further complicated how I have thought about emotion in the classroom. How can non-Native students and I interrogate our affective responses to course readings without appropriating stories and experiences that belong to someone else? How can I make room in the classroom for multiple emotional responses from Native and non-Native students? How can I be an ethical ally when it comes to emotion?” 

Feminism: Naomi Greyser, bell hooks, Parker Palmer, Paula Moya 

Environmental justice: Kristie Dotson, Kyle Whyte, Sarah Jaquette Ray  

Indigenous studies: Malea Powell, Jay Dolmage, Robin Wall Kimmerer 

p. 96 uses the phrase “ethical analysis” 

p. 101 circulating within a text and among a text, its contexts, and its readers are affects and emotions that help create access to what Dotson and Whyte call “moral terrains,” where values, practices, and emotions are located in space, linking peoples and lands in a complex system that moves well beyond a personal reaction. It is in affective response that we can actually encourage students to craft the deepest and most rigorous, as well as the most meaningful, analytical interventions.

p. 101 As Moya suggests, readers connect to texts intellectually and emotionally, and it is that relationship between heart and head where space is created for interpretation.

p. 102 Far from self-indulgent, affective responses offer us an opportunity for an ethically engaged criticism, what Ray calls “critique as a form of active care.”

Truth Telling - Michelle Good

 My mom loaned me a bunch of books and this was one of them. 

This is a collection of seven essays. I read about half of them. 

The introduction begins with some comments around the phrase truth before reconciliation, and she asserts that it is an anthem of sort that has lost its meaning. Within the first few pages she says "We must step away from the window dressing of reconciliation."  She says these are not academic essays, they are her personal take, and "these essays examine the brutal intentions of colonialism that continue to harm us..."

Based on the introduction's emphasis on non-Indigenous Canadians becoming aware of Indigenous history, I get the strong impression that this book was written primarily with a non-Indigenous audience in mind. 

"The rise and resistance of Indigenous literature" is the chapter which I appreciated the most. She does a great job outlining the chronology of publishing Indigenous literature in Canada, including outlining how Indigenous movers and shakers created structures in which Indigenous authors could thrive. Then, that lead to more mainstream acceptance and demand. It's a well organized chapter which points the reader to a lot of other great readings. I also like the way that she grounded discussion of Indigenous literature within the larger policy context. If I were still teaching, I could see myself using parts of this chapter or the whole thing, depending on the context and level. It's probably also good background reading for anyone who is teaching Indigenous literature and would like to do some accessible background reading on Indigenous literature in Canada. 

The chapter on the sixties scoop ($13.69) is a good introduction to the topic which uses her personal experience to help the reader understand the devastating impact of separating children from their families. 

There were intriguing details about her career throughout. For example, one of her first jobs was a writing contract for UBCIC and she mentions advocacy on behalf of First Nations organizations and residential school survivors, but doesn't go into a lot of detail. She used to be a lawyer. She specialized in residentials school settlements. The book itself focuses mostly on her personal life and her opinions about Canadian public policy (aka colonialism), but doesn't include a lot of detail around her career as an advocate and lawyer. I was very curious about that, so I dug a little bit online. 

First, I read this Canadian Lawyer Magazine article. In the article, she talks about how it was her career in advocacy that led her to eventually go into law as a mature student. She talks about racism that she faced as an Indigenous lawyer. And she talks about how she recovered from her constructive dismissal at the Department of Justice. I think that it would be very interesting to read more about the constructive dismissal, but I would not be surprised if she were not allowed to say much about it. But it would still be nice to hear any advice that she has for Indigenous professionals working in the public sector. 

As she is a lawyer, I plugged her name into CanLii. She self-represented herself against the Department of Justice in 2006. Here are some of the facts:

[6]               The plaintiff is a lawyer in Vancouver.  On the 30th of August 2002, the plaintiff began employment with the Federal Department of Justice office, working as a lawyer on Indian residential school claims and resolutions.  She alleges that her contract-based employment with the defendant was partly in writing and orally, and was for an indefinite duration. 

[7]               The plaintiff states that it was an implied term of her contract that the contract would not be terminated by the defendant for anything but just cause and upon provision of reasonable notice and severance pay in lieu thereof. 

[8]               Approximately two years after her employment began, the defendant gave the plaintiff a performance evaluation which was highly critical of the plaintiff’s interpersonal skills.  The plaintiff filed a grievance under the provisions of the Public Service Relations Act.  The plaintiff alleges that in response to the filing of this grievance on the 23rd of August 2004, the defendant directed that the plaintiff no longer work on any substantive matter and removed the plaintiff from all activities involving prosecution, negotiations, and resolution of residential school claims save and except for work on one file. 

[9]               Additionally, it was alleged that the defendant removed the plaintiff from her working groups email list such that she received no information pertaining to the prosecution, negotiation, and resolution of residential school claims in the office generally.  She further alleges that the defendant forbade her from working with other members of the team in resolution of the residential school claims. 

[10]           It is the plaintiff’s position that the actions of the defendant as noted above were actions in retaliation for the plaintiff exercising her statutory right to file a grievance. 

[11]           On the 8th of September 2004, the plaintiff elected to treat the conduct of the defendant as a repudiation of the contract and to treat the contract as being terminated.  The plaintiff alleges that she was constructively dismissed by the defendant and the dismissal was without just cause and without reasonable or any notice and that it constituted an arbitrary and wilful breach of contract. 

[12]           Additionally, the plaintiff alleges that the defendant has falsely and maliciously defamed her.  A memorandum was generated in June 2004 in regards to the plaintiff.  The memorandum, without repeating the allegations, suggests that a number of cases that the plaintiff was working on were settled for what appears to be too high a dollar figure.  The memorandum also questions whether or not there is any way the plaintiff could have benefited personally from overpaying lawyers who settled claims on behalf of clients.  This memorandum appears to have had limited, if any, circulation.  It was essentially placed in her employment file which was disclosed in these proceedings. 

I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to go through all of that. I think it was brave of her to stand up for herself. The matter was resolved through an out of court settlement. Sometimes I hear non-Indigenous people tell Indigenous professionals that maybe they can work for the government and change things from the inside. That's a really nice idea, but sometimes it doesn't really work out like that, even within processes specifically created in order to further justice for Indigenous people. Colonialism is a powerful force. The Canadian Lawyer Magazine article explains how she was able to overcome this experience, work for another law firm, and eventually begin her own practice. 

I also read the judicial review around an election appeal that she was pursuing, which was also an interesting read. 

Update - I'm finished!

I totally forgot to post here that I finished my PhD. My defense was on January 10th. I think it went well. I talked and talked and talked... and I had to just keep talking. I've never talked so much in my life. At one point, I could hear myself talking, and I thought "is that me? Am I STILL talking?!?" Then, I had minor revisions, and I finished those. That part took a long time because I kind of went on my own little journey with the revisions. Maybe I didn't want it to be over. And then I had a library formatting appointment, and I finished that. And now I am slowly emerging from my nest of books like a bear in the spring. 

Sometimes people say they want to read my dissertation. Eventually it will be public... but I actually feel weird about it. Imagine a book is serving your guest a meal. And an article is serving your guest a snack. A dissertation is like bringing your guest into the kitchen so that they can watch you mull over every decision, talk through why you do what you do, why you don't do what you don't do, and basically second guess every step of the process. It's an open demonstration of the process of inquiry... I don't think of it as a product in and of itself. I challenged myself to use hermeneutics, which was totally new to me, and so it's also an open demonstration of the messy process of growth and working through the awkwardness of trying something new. I'm glad I went through the process and definitely feel like a changed person because of it. 

As a student, overall I found SFU to be a very supportive institution with many supportive faculty members. I was in the ETAP program. It's not a huge program and I didn't have a huge cohort, and I definitely liked that experience. As someone who went to UBC, I always imagined SFU to be a place which encompasses the spirit of the sixties - open minded, free thinking, and creative. It lived up to those expectation. I feel like I had a lot of creative freedom at SFU and that enabled me to take risks I may have otherwise avoided. I intentionally spent a lot of time in a space of uncertainty. I think the biggest benefit of such a space was that it enabled me to go within to look for answers, instead of always looking to authority or others. And so now I have a certain self-knowledge that I did not have before. 

If someone told me that they were thinking of doing their PhD at SFU I would tell them go for it, have fun, and keep an open mind. And don't rush. 

Now I am going to chill out for a bit and spend some time with my family and friends. Once I have chilled for a bit, then I have some projects that I would like to work on. 

The Serviceberry and Braiding Sweetgrass

 In the book Indigenous Earth: Praxis and Transformation, Jeanette Armstrong has a chapter called "Constructing Indigeneity: Syilx Okanagan Oraliterature and Tmixw Centrism. In that chapter, she says that Indigeneity is "an attainment of knowledge, wisdom, and sustainable practice in the scheme of perfect self-perpetuation that nature is." (p.43). Additionally, she proposes "re-indigenization as a path to full sustainability. The thesis proposes that there is a necessity for a common text in the form of literature that demonstrates, embeds, and advocates a regenerative land ethic as a re-indigenization of place in human behavior... the re-indigenization of places can be supported through literature and academia opening a viable path toward a future willingness to engage in a human practice of sustainability for all lifeforms on the planet." (p.45). 

This is the spirit in which I read Robin Wall Kimmerer's work. 

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants combines Kimmerer's Indigenous knowledge with her profession/scholarly expertise of biology. I listened to this years ago as an audiobook, so I have no notes on it, and honestly, I remember the emotive texture of it more than anything. It's a very soothing book. The Sacred and the Superfund, about a lake which has been heavily polluted, is the essay that stands out to me the most. Coming from BC it is difficult for me to comprehend the environmental state of areas like New York. It's difficult for me to comprehend what it would mean to be Indigenous to a highly industrialized region. Braiding Sweetgrass is a collection of essays, and it's about 400 pages long. 

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World is a much smaller book, and it is one long essay with illustrations. It's a nice book. Wendell Berry fans would likely love this book. It's agrarian idealism. It's a very pretty book. If someone were new to the concept of reciprocity, this book would be an excellent introduction to the concept of reciprocity as well as the larger potential social implications of striving towards reciprocity. 

When I reflect on Armstrong's words, I know that it is important to cultivate within mainstream society an appreciation for Indigenous perspectives on the environment. For some people, that is what entices them into larger conversations around land justice. So even though these books are not as overtly political as some other books in the realm of Indigenous non-fiction, I conceptualize these books as a form of soft power, like KPop is to Korean geopolitics. I also appreciate that instead of pitting Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews against each other, she harmoniously integrates both into her work and life. In that way, she models peace and peacefulness. 

Read, Listen, Tell & Learn, Teach, Challenge

 Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island is an anthology of Indigenous stories as well as accompanying critical essays to go with the stories. It's published by Wilfred Laurier Press. It's a great exploration of Indigenous literature across time. I read selections of it, with a focus on the section on Indigenous fantasy and science fiction. I found that it contained a lot of authors who were familiar to me as well as many new-to-me authors. I'll probably return to it at another time. 

Learn, Teach, Challenge: Approaching Indigenous Literatures is it's non-fiction counterpart, also published by Wilfred Laurier. Also published, Deanna Reder and Linda M. Morra. The book is huge, almost 600 pages, and contains essays from Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars. It's an excellent curation of ongoing conversations in Indigenous literary studies. For example there is an essay by Sam McKegney on ethical engagement, and then there is a response to the essay by Robert Appleford. 

Several of the essays look at the question of how to engage with Indigenous literature, including how to do ethical engagement and ethical criticism. There is also an entire section on classroom considerations, presenting various viewpoints on how to responsibly teach Indigenous literature and pedagogy specific to Indigenous literature. 

I think that in the future, when I blog creative works, I am going to try some of these approaches to ethical criticism and ethical engagement. 

I wish that I had both of these books prior to teaching English First Peoples 12 because the essays provide a lot of food for thought. 

The books are part of an Indigenous Studies Series, and Jo-ann Archibald is one of the series editors.