My progress this first month has been chiefly reading and reflections. Reading Leanne Simpson’s As We Have Always Done and re-reading Dori Tunstall’s Decolonizing Design has caused me to reconsider my relationship with the land as a white colonial settler of European descent. I am grappling with fresh questions about my positionality. In what ways does being a sixth-generation Canadian continue to privilege me and preserve the status quo of white, colonial, and heteropatriarchal power? How can I decenter whiteness and put Indigenous first in personal, professional, and academic contexts? Reading Tunstall’s description of T’karonto and the Great Lakes region was extremely helpful as I had never read the pre-colonial history of the land or the Humber and Don Valley rivers. Further online reading helped me understand the Carrying Place Trail (sometimes called the Toronto Passage) and why it is significant. I’m struck by how little I know about the place I live, or perhaps more importantly, how colonial my understanding of Toronto truly is.
Likewise, As We Have Always Done paints a vivid picture — unlike any Indigenous book, film, or resource I have read — of contemporary Indigenous life, with details, stories and insights into Indigenous intelligence, Traditional Knowledge, and the rich cultural heritage of many Indigenous nations across Canada. Simpson reflects upon place-based acts of radical resistance inside and outside her Nishnaabeg nation, such as her involvement with the Idle No More movement. I was familiar that we are on the land of many nations – The City of Toronto even references it in their official land acknowledgement – yet I had never taken the time to learn what that means, nor how nations are similar or how they are different. Simpson makes it clear that these many nations are interrelated yet distinct. She has a chapter about Nishnaabeg Internationalism and how Nishnaabeg People have international relations based on consent, reciprocity, respect, and empathy.
Through the readings, I have started a renewed process of personal unlearning about Indigenous Peoples and culture; or, perhaps more accurately, I am learning to recognize colonialism and heteropatriarchy for what they are.
In a chapter entitled Constellations of Coresistence, Simpson draws a metaphor from the Nishnaabeg understanding of the skyworld: “Collections of stars within Nishnaabeg thought are beacons of light that work together to create doorways like Bagone’giizhig, into other worlds.” She describes constellations as physical passages and conceptual doorways for Nishnaabeg to return to their core essence, thriving and firmly rooted in grounded normativity. By mobilizing with other allies – predominantly Black and brown individuals – fighting for similar resurgent futures against colonialism, heteropatriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy, Nishnaabeg People can collectively create doorways to radical resistance and change. I am drawn to this beautiful illustration to ground my support as a white ally.
Another relevant text is Elements of Indigenous Style by Gregory Younging. Younging brings a deep understanding of Indigenous cultural property to the text. Indigenous cultural property is a way of understanding and asserting Indigenous ownership in a colonial context. It has been used to assert communal ownership and repatriate items from colonial museums. Cultural property also applies to ideas and intangible things, including cultural heritage, Traditional Knowledge, medicines, and oral traditions. These are defined and protected under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Cultural property is held by Indigenous nations instead of individuals or corporations and is a fundamentally different way of understanding property rights. Unlike Australia, which has written policies protecting these cultural rights for writing, music, and the arts, Canada does not recognize Indigenous cultural property rights in its legislation, including the Copyright Act. Accordingly, it is up to Indigenous creators and collaborators to respect and protect Indigenous intellectual property in other creative ways. I’m also grateful to Elements of Indigenous Style as it has helped me to feel much more confident writing about Indigenous Peoples and using the correct terminology and punctuation.
Thank you for reading! Next time, I’ll go into my preliminary research into Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation. And in a future post I’ll share some of the books I’m using to learn about type design.
Featured image: The Short Portage — The Carrying Place, La Salle on the way over the Humber. George Agnew Reid, n.d. Source: Archives of Ontario