May 25, 2018
On paper, Mount Saint Vincent University professor Martha Walls seems perfectly suited to teach a course called Selected Topics in North American History: Residential Schools. An expert on First Nations history, colonialism and gender, she has crafted a curriculum giving priority to Indigenous narratives and primary sources.
But according to her critics, Walls is missing one important qualification: she is not Indigenous. And when news spread that a “settler” would be teaching students at the Halifax university about residential schools next fall it prompted an immediate backlash.
To Rebecca Thomas, a Mi’kmaq woman and Halifax’s poet laureate, assigning Walls the course perpetuated the notion “that non-Indigenous people have the right and expertise to speak on Indigenous topics.” The proper voice is that of someone with “the lived experience of what it’s like to be a product of these systems within Canada,” she told the Canadian Press. Patricia Doyle-Bedwell, a Mi’kmaq woman and Dalhousie University professor, said the choice of Walls highlights the lack of space for Indigenous professors and “Indigenous knowledge perspectives” in Canadian universities.
The post As universities ‘Indigenize,’ some see a threat to open inquiry – Vancouver Sun appeared first on NationTalk.
