Aoksisowaato’op

Learning From Place: Developing a Relationship With the Land and Our Partners

“…Integral in our work is a sense of dwelling-in-place, a stance dependent on listening as a "highly reflective and revelatory mode of communication that can open one to the mysteries of unity between the physical and spiritual, to the relationships between natural and human forms, and to the intimate links between places and persons" (Carbaugh, 1999, p. 250). It is these intimate links between places and persons that many researchers acknowledge (Blood, Chambers, Donald, Hasebe-Ludt, Big Head, 2012;Cajete, 2000;Chambers, 2006Chambers, , 2008Kissling, 2012;Kulnieks, Longboat, & Young, 2013;Little Bear, 2000). In the Blackfoot context, balance and harmony with the environment are recognized as part of the knowledge system.…”

The School Bus Symposium: A Poetic Journey of Co-created Conference Space

“…Using language(s) as praxis opens new ways of listening to a charged colonial past (Simon, 2012;Tuck & GaztambideFernández, 2012;Stanley, 1999), cultures, and citizenship (Byram, 2010). In fact, repairing some of the impacts of the annihilation of educational rights to language(s) (Egéa-Kuehne, 2012) cannot be achieved without re-claiming indigenous languages and place-based learning (Simpson, 2014;Battiste, Kovachs, & Balzer, 2010;Chambers, 1999;Blood, Chambers, Donald, Hasebe-Ludt & Big Head, 2012;Farley, 2009). As the bus starts moving, I look out the window and dream that imagination transcends nations.…”

A Sensory Experiment into Languages as (R)evolution

“…Land -Aoksisowaato'op Blood et al (2012) explain that for the Blackfoot the term aoksisowaato'p means "the ethical importance of visiting a place as an act of relational renewal that is lifegiving and life-sustaining, both to the place and to ourselves" (p. 48).…”

“…Gardner Seawright (2014) reminds us that "an effective place-based education not only reshapes abstract understandings of nature and land, but provides a pathway for the tearing down and reconstruction of oppressive ontological relationships with the natural world" (p. 570). Entering respectfully into the paths of others, including Ted Aoki (1996Aoki ( /2005, Deborah Britzman (1998), Erika Hasebe-Ludt, Cynthia Chambers, Carl Leggo, andWanda Hurren (Hasebe-Ludt, Chambers, &Leggo, 2009;Chambers, 2004a;Chambers, 2004 b;Hurren & Hasebe-Ludt, 2014), Narcisse Blood, Dwayne Donald, and Ramona Big Head (Blood, Chambers, Donald, Hasebe-Ludt, & Big Head, 2012), we ask: Can we learn from marginalised relationships to languages? How might this inform the writing of academic papers, in general, and this paper, in particular?…”