With researchers showing an increased interest in engaging with Indigenous community, and UBC looking to grow and support its Indigenous faculty, it is critical we have conversations around how to do this work meaningfully and appropriately. One of the most interesting and challenging topics is around Indigenous data as historically, Indigenous peoples have not seen any benefits or have even been negatively impacted by research and how data is used. It is then very important UBC works towards repairing this damage and establishing reciprocal and decolonial relationships where Indigenous community leads the research process and is in control of their data. Through sharing of their thoughts and experiences this panel of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers will explore some of the many facets of Indigenous data in relation to research, and how Indigenous research and data management can better align with Indigenous values and priorities.

Panelists

Kayla Lar-Son: Originally from Treaty Six Territory, Kayla is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta and holds a Bachelor of Native Studies and a Masters of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) from the University of Alberta. Her professional areas of focus include Indigenous librarianship, Indigenous data sovereignty, and embedded librarianship with Indigenous communities. Kayla is the Indigenous programs and services librarian for the Xwi7xwa library and program manager librarian for the Indigitization program. Kayla has previously been an instructor for the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alberta, where she co-taught and created LIS 598: Indigenous Library and Information Studies (LIS) in a Canadian Context.

Sandra Fox: I am from the Musqueam Indian Band, but have spent much of my life as an uninvited guest in either Syilx or Secwepemc territories. My mother Doris Fox is also from the Musqueam Indian Band, and my father is a third-generation settler of British ancestry. I am a mother to Bryson and Leina, and recently completed my Master of Arts degree here at UBCO where I explored Indigenous identity in post-secondary situations. As the Indigenous Community Liaison in the Office of Research Services, I work to assist in building culturally safe, meaningful, and reciprocal relationships between UBCO researchers and Indigenous communities. I am also working towards providing culturally safe support to Indigenous researchers.

Christian Isbister is Métis with family scattered around North-Central Saskatchewan, especially around Saskatoon. He is the Indigenous Initiatives Librarian at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, and holds a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alberta. Professionally, he is interested in Indigenous librarianship and critical cataloguing efforts.

Dr. Billy Cohen is from the Syilx Okanagan Nation with extensive kinship ties throughout BC and Washington. He is Assistant Professor in the UBC Okanagan School of Education. He is an artist, educator, and story-teller. The focus of Bill’s continuing research is to identify, understand and theorize the transforming potential of Syilx Okanagan knowledge and pedagogy through organic language and cultural knowledge revitalization. He has organized numerous community, school, arts, language, literacy and numeracy projects involving elders, fluent speakers, parents and children.

Margaret Macintyre Latta: As a Director of a School of Education, I feel a huge responsibility towards ongoing associated programmatic decolonizing efforts. Undoubtedly, educators and educational institutions must confront the seriousness of what has happened in the name of education. Globally, classrooms are recognized as sites to address civil, racial, ecological, and social tensions, and inspire reconciliation.  And, a key understanding of the field is that teaching and learning must reflect local traditions, perspectives, ways of being, and concerns.  I currently hold a SSHRC Partnership Grant: Co-Curricular-Making—Honoring Indigenous Connections to Land, Culture, and the Relational Self, attempting to ground curricular decolonizing efforts accordingly.  The grant brings together a cross section of community partners committed to curricular decolonization into continual conversation with each other over extended time. Collectively, we pursue the needed curricular spaces, needed conditions and capacities  alongside the opportunities to do so.  And, most importantly, we are documenting these efforts so we can articulate the significances for teaching and for learning and for the well-being of the greater community.

This panel is part of the RDM Fall Series 2021.

Location Details

Location:

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