Research the foundation of MRU’s Journey to Indigenization
Guiding campus change and supporting communities
— Mount Royal University | Posted: September 21, 2023
Research is a foundational element of MRU’s Journey to Indigenization.
Indigenous research is at the heart of this year’s Journey to Indigenization at Mount Royal University.
Indigenous researchers explore cultures, histories, and contemporary issues, promoting respect, understanding, and equity for Indigenous peoples. Guiding their work are the four ‘Rs coined by Indigenous scholar Verna Kirkness: Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity and Responsibility.
Guiding university change
One component of this research is studying and critiquing how universities themselves are indigenizing as part of their commitment to following the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s final report.
“In today’s universities, there is growing research into how indigenization happens within the academy that's founded on research of indigenous scholars both current and past,” says John Fischer, interim AVP Indigenization and Decolonization at MRU. “One way to make change is not only to study what universities are doing but to critique how we are doing it. That is a growing thread of knowledge and also a recognition of how universities can undergo change with the assessment and observation of scholars who have a vested interest in the institution.”
Indigenization is an important component of Mount Royal's new Strategic Plan and Academic Plan.
‘Nothing about us without us’
Beyond campus, scholars who engage in Indigenous Studies or research Indigenous communities from other perspectives such as anthropology and biology have shifted their focus to put relationships first. This shift is spelled out in MRU’s Human Research Ethics Board and leads to an onus on ownership, control, access, and possession by Indigenous communities of data and results from research. It is also reflected in the term “nothing about us without us.”
“That is foundational and we want to support a community through research and form those relationships that not only advance knowledge but support the growth and development of communities. We need to have the view that we’re going to form long lasting relationships and that the work that we do there is not ours, it acts as a way of moving forward with a community,” says Fischer.
John Fischer, MRU's interim AVP Indigenization and Decolonization, emphasizes the importance of community in Indigenous research.
“Often in the past, research has been extractive and the knowledge has been bundled and taken away, and now we’ve got principles of research and data integrity that demand that the research is owned by the community, that it is controlled by the community and that the community has participated in it.”
Those underpinnings speak to work by scholars such as Gabrielle Lindstrom, PhD, who conducts interdisciplinary research into health, social work and education.
As an assistant professor at MRU in Indigenous studies and a member of the Kainai Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy, Lindstrom studies Indigenous/Blackfoot resilience and its connection to transformative pedagogy and transformative learning. Her main goal is building respectful, ethical intercultural relationships and focusing on reframing definitions that have been applied to or imposed on Indigenous people.
“I want to ensure that Indigenous perspectives and worldviews are advanced in a way that they are seen as accessible and not wildly different or irrelevant,” Lindstrom says.
Traditional storytelling in science
From another area, an MRU team was recently successful in securing funding from the federal government’s New Frontiers Research Fund (NFRF) for a project on “Integrating the concept of traditional storytelling in exploring the nexus of Arctic environmental change, landscape transformation and evolution of novel antibiotics and resistance.”
Led by Felix Nwaishi, PhD, assistant professor in MRU’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Jeella Acedo, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Physics, the researchers explain that permafrost thaw presents both human health risks and opportunities; while the release of ancient biochemical materials into the environment could introduce novel disease-causing organisms or antimicrobial compounds resistant to antibiotics, at the same time the thawing permafrost is a unique environment that could serve as a potential source of alternative compounds to traditional antibiotics.
“An Indigenous elder who is part of the team will lead the relationship-building process, and once trust is established our team will visit the communities to listen and learn from traditional storytellers and knowledge keepers,” Nwaishi says.
Youth and elders from the community will lead the environmental sampling of water and soil, while the research team provides a guide on how to probe these samples in-situ using portable analytical tools. The team will integrate traditional storytelling with western field and laboratory-based methods to generate empirical data, which can then be applied to robust bioinformatic analysis and epidemiological modelling.
The results generated from the analyses will be interpreted and shared with the community in a format that is accessible using conceptual maps and infographics.
As with so much research at MRU, student research is also a focus. A great example of this is captured on a poster hanging in the Iniskim Centre that outlines psychology student Jacqueline O’Soup’s research into microaggressions.
Researchers focus of this year’s Journey
This year’s Journey to Indigenization will highlight a number of research efforts, and it is that variety that excites Fischer. Examples include:
- Dr. Amanda Williams, PhD, assistant professor in Communications, for example, has analyzed the exclusion of Indigenous women entrepreneurs in Canadian stock imagery. This impetus for Williams’ study emerged out of a noticed absence of images when promoting an event that brought together Indigenous women entrepreneurs in a roundtable format to discuss local ecosystem dynamics.
- Dr. Christopher Grignard, PhD, assistant professor in English, and Elder Joe EagleTail Feathers have been active in sharing their collaborative work. This past summer, the two and MRU’s Academic Media Group visited six sacred sites chosen by Eagle Tail Feathers (Iitsooahp'potah), who served as the guide and shared his knowledge.
- Ranjan Datta, Daniel Craig Mistaken and Teena Starlight will discuss their study, Indigenous Perspectives on Climate Change Challenges and Solutions: Canada and Bangladesh. The interdisciplinary research team of Indigenous Elders, knowledge-keepers, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars explore how recent climate change (and interpretation) is challenging Indigenous food and water sources and what reformed processes can build Indigenous community capacity and support robust decisions.
- While territorial land acknowledgements have become common, the true importance and meaning of territory can become lost. During Journey to Indigenization, Elder Roy Bear Chief, Elder Hayden Melting Tallow, Dr. Stephen Price, PhD, Dean of Health Community and Education, will present a project that tells a story of the Blackfoot Traditional Territory and the partnership with Blackfoot Crossing and Historic Park to develop a blanket exercise to explain in a larger narrative the land that holds many stories, ceremonies, important sites, and other important facts.
“What we hear is land acknowledgments, but people don’t really don’t understand what the territory looked like back then,” said Bear Chief. “There are stories around the territory. It’s giving voice back to the land; that’s what we’re trying to do. When we go through the blanket exercise people have a better understanding of the territory, pre-contact.”
Read more about the Journey to Indigenization research presentations.