ING Postcast Lane Geggie Bowker

The speaker discusses two interesting things they learned in their class. The first is about indigenous artwork on the West Coast and how it represents family stories and teachings. The speaker had a personal connection to this topic through their uncle and aunt. The second interesting thing is about the concept of the gift economy in indigenous knowledge systems. The speaker resonated with this idea and found it powerful in challenging Western economic ideologies. They also talk about the four R framework, which is a way for non-indigenous people to interact with indigenous communities respectfully. However, the speaker believes there is a deeper understanding of indigenous knowledge systems that goes beyond the four R's. They also reflect on the challenges and stigma faced by indigenous cultures and question why it is difficult for others to accept and apply indigenous ways of knowing. They believe that merging both Western and indigenous perspectives can bring benefits and that educ Greetings and welcome to my podcast, I'm your host, Lane Gage Bowker, and on today's episode we're going to be discussing a wide array of topics, anywhere from what was the most interesting thing I learned in this class and why, to the advice I gave to a fellow peer wanting to take this class. As per usual, we will be veering from the script a little bit and speaking from the heart, but I hope you really do enjoy it. My name is Lane Bowker and thank you for listening. What is the most interesting thing that I learned this semester while taking this class and why? I think to answer this question, I have two really standout moments or two really things that really engaged my interest. And I'll speak on both of them and why they're important, but I think the first one is more of a personal one and I think a common theme throughout this class and this semester was it's very personalized and it's very, what you put in is what you get back. And the most interesting thing I learned was while getting the opportunity to research about indigenous artwork on the West Coast, specifically looking at Haida for our presentation, I got the opportunity to talk to my uncle Desmond Bowker and my auntie Helen Haig-Brown. And as I was talking to them, I shared a lot of special moments, but the most key interesting piece I learned is we were talking about stories and what the art represents. And he told me about a lot of Western, I'm sorry, a lot of West Coast and specifically Haida artwork looks at aspects between the uncle and the nephew. And he was showing me this picture of these two orcas, which were a form line artwork, which is very, it has a lot of symmetry, like both aspects are very similar. And as he was telling me this story about these two orcas and what it meant and the story behind it, he mentioned that this story belonged to our family. And how in specifically the Haida culture, a lot of the stories belong to families and are passed down through generation through generation. So therefore, these family teachings, whether that be through artwork, through songs, through verbal stories, through illustrations, there are ways that we can pass on knowledge. And he was saying that this particular one that we are working on belonged to our family. And as he was telling me the story of this uncle and nephew, it really, it really was interesting to me. And it meant a lot to me on a personal level. And I think it was interesting to me because, because I'm not often given the opportunity to take what I am engaging in, in post-secondary education and relate it back to where I'm from, or relate it back to my family or my culture or what my, like what my people hold very dear to them. And I think it was really interesting to me to see some, my uncle who didn't really go to university, but was engaging with the content that we were engaging with. And I think that aspect was really, really cool to me because I was kind of getting his true sense of someone who's lived a very knowledgeable and very open-minded and very many things in the indigenous realm of being someone who's Haida and trying to implement that into school systems. It was very interesting to me seeing him engage kind of with what we were talking about and really sharing it with me. And that just meant a lot on more of a personal level and on more of an academic level of what we engage with in our readings is really with the Robin Whitaker, The Gift Economy. And it was really interesting to me because this class is really the first time that I've ever engaged with indigenous knowledge at the post-secondary level. I've never really been in an indigenous class and university. This is my first one. And it was really interesting to me because there's a lot of aspects that I've never explored. I've heard of Robin Whitaker, but hearing that podcast or that her audio book about talking about it was really interesting to me because I really resonated with a lot of things that she was saying, but I've never really seen it portrayed or written or anything at that high of an academic level. And it was really, really interesting, eye-opening to me about how she was talking about when you build relationships with that being the land, your plots, your school, your friends, it means more and it becomes not one track. It's not because not, it doesn't become transactional. It becomes very gift economy and you care and you nurture the things that you have relationships with. I really resonated with what she was talking about. It was really interesting to me because I've never seen her, the idea of indigenous ideologies and really their core values be brought and very Western robotic economics. And she was battling such a hard topic and such a complex topic so perfectly. And the way that I know a lot of people can resonate with, and I thought it was really powerful and it really opened my eyes to what other literature or what other things at the post-secondary education level, like this class can introduce me to. And I think that was really the most interesting things that opened my eyes to not only on a personal level, but also an academic level. It was really, really, really interesting to me. So those are the two things I would definitely say that were most interesting to me when I took this class. Concepts or issues that resonated with me during the semester. The first concept that I want to discuss is my understandings of the four R framework. The four R's are respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility. Earlier in the semester, we brought up the idea of the four R's, which provided us with this kind of framework when engaging with indigenous cultures and knowledge systems. At first, I thought it was the foundation of indigenous knowledge systems, but as I read and I engaged more with the content that this course had to offer, I learned more about the ways of knowing through the course. And I came to this conclusion that they are quite different. I learned that the four R's concept is a way for comprehending indigenous ways of life. However, it is more related to strategies for non-indigenous people and organizations to interact with indigenous communities in an ethical and respectful manner. The four R's are important for understanding connecting between indigenous people and settlers, as well as efforts at reconciliation. But at the same time, the larger indigenous pentagram, which I came to learn is much broader and more comprehensive, holistic worldview rooted in indigenous culture, spirituality, relationships, and knowledge transferring among indigenous societies. I think the four R's is a practical framework. However, it goes only so deep. It's a very surface level. It provides a good starting point for healing, for healing and engaging with indigenous cultures and learnings and teachings. However, as we learned, it is fairly one dimensional. When we truly come to understand or learn about the deeper complexities of the indigenous pentagram paradigm, it should be common knowledge to be interacting in this way. But we have so much more learning to do, diving deeper into interconnectedness that the indigenous knowledge systems hold. In doing so, you will start to see and connect in the full way of knowing and being. The colonial patterns and methods are reducted and modeled very simplistically. Questions or challenges that arose regarding indigeneity. Growing up as someone who is half white and half indigenous, I never really understood why there's so much negative connotation towards indigenous culture. Growing up as someone who was very immersed in indigenous culture, I've always had had questions about why there are so many, so much stigma and really negativity towards indigenous people and culture. The older I got and the more I really began to experience life and talk to people and just went through everyday life occurrence, I began to really see that there's really a deep embedded colonial practices that prohibit indigenous ways of knowing and being to be really implemented and applied to not only post-secondary institutions or education, but really everyday practices. I think my question really is, why is something that is so easy for me personally to conceptualize so hard for others to accept and to apply and to use? I think I'm very fortunate enough to be brought up and have half of me in a white western side. In the same breath, I'm also very fortunate to have a very indigenous side and be brought up with songs, stories, and dances, and be brought up with that side to me. I think it's provided me with a really, really unique two-eyed lens to view problems in both a white western and indigenous light. I think that with my identity being on both sides, I think I'm able to see current issues from different lenses. I feel like to answer my own question, the reason it's so hard for individuals to conceptualize these concepts and apply them and really become comfortable and use these concepts, I believe it just comes down to that they're not raised with it. It's abnormal and it's different. It's very different from western ways of looking at things. The western side is very institutionalized. It's very black and white on the indigenous side. It's very community. It's very relationship-based. It's very free-flowing, full circle to all my relations is a saying that is used. I think that they're very different, but there's places where both can see fit on both sides. I think the more that these sides can merge and come together, I think that the benefits of both sides can be played out so beautifully. I think that it starts when they're young and it starts in the education systems. I think a big problem is that the stigma and the negativity comes around what is being portrayed in the schools. I think what's being portrayed is, what I know is being portrayed, is just the history and not the present and not really the true deep underlying messages or ways of being and knowing. In this class is a perfect example of diving into what really needs to be taught. I think what really needs to be taught to erase the stigma but also implement these systems into our everyday practices is why these practices are so important and what the underlying message of these practices are. I think building familiarity with these concepts is so powerful and I think that's really the start. How has this course developed my understanding of Indigenous perspectives in ways that will benefit my life and chosen professions? In the future, I aspire to graduate with a degree in political science and I would like to continue my education into law. Throughout this course, we talked with our profs, with our peers. We talked a lot about conducting ourselves ethically with Indigenous ways of knowing and how to apply these ways of knowing to modern realities and the barriers involved that are entrenched in colonial and western ways of thinking. The class discussion and materials are very helpful. We're a very helpful lens and a reminder that these are strong passions of mine and as I go forward in law or in policy making that these are preserved. These are very preserved and they're unique. The background that I was fortunate enough to get raised in has given me a very strong foundation but it has also deepened my understanding of knowledge. In addition, I know that I have resources that I can refer to and that will help me continue to educate not only myself but also help to educate others. I also was able to see and experience other people's perspectives and learning that people are willing to listen and change. I think a big thing in this class is that as I attended more and as I dived deeper, I really found that there are a lot of other people who share these same ideas as me and it's really encouraging and also motivating that there is a movement for this and this is what you want to, this is what people really want to take on and tackle. It will take people with different mindsets and different mindsets and decolonization approaches to make changes in the future. We will need to be able to have a dialogue and learning together to make change. This course has given me some hope and also a lot of motivation in the future going forward that we can tackle these massive, massive western institutions and systems and change it for the better. How has this course developed my understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing and being, current social and political Indigenous and settler relations? I think when I first got into this class, I had a pretty good concept of a lot of the things that we were talking about and a lot of the discussions that we were bringing up in class weren't necessarily new to me but as we developed and we started talking and everybody kind of became accustomed to the way this classroom was functioning, I think it really deepened my understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing and being by listening to my peers collaborate and talk about the different challenges and political Indigenous and settler relationships that people from Alberta face. I know we had people from the Northwest Territories face and I think it really in that sense borne my scope and really shaped how what I really thought before us. It was very narrow-minded in the sense that I think one solution was going to fix it all but it's very different. Each settler relationships in each territory or province is completely different from the next and I think finding a one problem or a one solution fix all is not the case here obviously and I didn't know that before coming into this and I think hearing again, hearing my peers collaborate and sharing their experiences, sharing their problems really deepened my views and kind of got me to fully grasp what we're dealing with on kind of the social and political and settler relationship side of Indigenous problems and I think to go along with that, I think it's the idea of when we started introducing the idea of Indigenous epistemologies and Indigenous ideologies and really diving deep into Indigenous ways of knowing and I think if you look at the text and if you read the readings, you start to kind of unpack and you see the vision of what needs to be done in the sense of it's rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing on how to incorporate these and why they're so crucial and I think going back to what I've already said a lot in this podcast is the serviceberry and the gift economy is a beautiful example of how everything is a relationship and when we look at the social and political side of that, if we treat everybody as a relationship instead of a commodity or a transactional thing, we're going to face problems instead of treating things like relationships on the political side and even on the settler relationship side so I think it all ties in to each other very beautifully and that's really listening to my peers and hearing what they have to say and their challenges really deepened my understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing of being and current social and political Indigenous and settler relationships. What advice would I give to a friend planning to take this class? When I first saw this question, I thought it'd be pretty easy but as I kind of delved deeper into what this question meant, it kind of opened my eyes to what this class offered me and my takeaways from this class and really what advice I'd give to someone is you have to be open to what we're learning about, what we're talking about. If you're not somebody from Indigenous, who's been around Indigenous culture, the ways that they've learned or you're familiar with it, I feel like at the beginning of the class you're going to have some a little bit of struggles with with wrapping your head around it because it's new and it's fresh but as you more give to the class and as you more participate and really engage with the material, I think you'll really understand and you'll resonate more with it. With that being said, I think you also have to come to the class challenging what you already know like your preconceived notions and ideas around topics and there's really a particular example in class regarding when we were talking about that our paper that we had to do and it was a reflective paper and I think not to say names or anything but I think some people had some really hard time grasping the freeness and kind of the it's your education and it's your paper and it's your personal play but I think some kids have troubles grasping and they really tried to meticulously follow the outline but for me and how I interpreted how the project was presented to me was it's my personal essay and I'm gonna write about really what I think about the course material and it was really free and I kind of understood that because I've been around I don't know I've been around and I grew up with indigenous knowledge systems and interacting with I just understood I don't know what the words describe it but I understood kind of the free-flowing application of like what we were trying to do and I think that's really the main advice if I had to put one at the forefront is come open it's more of a conversation amongst the prof the students and the more you engage with that the more you're going to get back from the class and also it's a relationship I felt like definitely in the class nearing the end like I built relationships definitely with the prof I was a lot more open to talking and sharing my presentation and with my classmates I'm a lot more open because it's a small classroom and you're building and you're always engaging in conversation throughout the whole semester and I really really did value that and to go back to what I was saying before my last point is it's your learning and what I mean by it's your learning is like each project that you're given it's all open-ended and it's all about you so you're going to learn and and value as much as you put into what you're whether that be one of the readings whether that be coming to class you're going to take away what you put into it and I think this class has definitely been one of my favorite classes just because it's very familiar to me and how I grew up whether in my household or it's a free-forming conversation and it's a gift to get knowledge from my peers from my family from my elders and this class really felt like that and it really emulated those core values so it's kind of the advice that I give to a friend planning to take this class I think to break it down I think be open to challenging what you already know your preconceived notions and ideas it's a conversation and it's a relationship between the prof and your students and your peers and it's your learning it's really what you put into it is what you're going to get and I think it's going to clash with a lot of colonial ways of teaching that you've been presented but it's such a beautiful way of going about teaching and learning and it's very personalized and it was really a beautiful class so that's my advice I'd give to a peer. Thank you for tuning in on this reflective journey remember tune in next time as we continue to explore the diverse perspectives that shape our world until then take care and keep seeking knowledge I'm your host Lane Bowker.