“Do you live in a teepee?” Aboriginal students’ experiences with racial microaggressions in Canada.

Abstract

The purpose of the current qualitative investigation was to examine Aboriginal undergraduates' (N ϭ 6) experiences with racial microaggressions at a leading Canadian university. The research team analyzed focus group data using a modified consensual qualitative research approach (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997). The authors identified 5 distinct themes that represented Aboriginal students' experiences with racial microaggressions on campus: (a) encountering expectations of primitiveness, (b) enduring unconstrained voyeurism, (c) withstanding jealous accusations, (d) experiencing curricular elimination or misrepresentation, and (e) living with day-to-day cultural and social isolation. Some themes were similar to previous research, whereas others were novel to the current investigation. Implications for future research and campus interventions are discussed.

Indigenizing Work as “willful work”: Toward Indigenous Transgressive Leadership in Canadian Universities

“…I refer to this response as an Indigenous emotive response (IER). Specifically, IER reveals itself through an embodied feeling in response to a microaggression (Clark, Kleiman, Spanierman, Isaac, & Poolokasingham, 2014;Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007), authoritarianism, co-optation, lateral violence, and colonialracialized-gendered-able bodied Othering of Indigenous peoples and our knowledge systems. The felt experience can manifest into insult, shock, anger or internalized shame.…”

A narrative inquiry into experiences of Indigenous teachers during and after teacher preparation

“…For Wanda and many Indigenous students, having a welcoming and friendly learning environment is therefore important for success. However, for too many Indigenous students, learning does not always occur in friendly and welcoming environments (see, for example, Clark et al 2014). Across Canada, Indigenous students are often suspended in disproportionately high numbers compared to non-Indigenous students (Greflund et al 2014).…”

Mini U Brochures: Advertising Social Exclusion at a Post-Secondary Institution, Canada?

“…Despite anti-racism and human right movements and transnational immigration via globalization, racism is on the rise across our communities and nations (Clark et al, 2014;Guo, 2015;Harrison, 2013;Harwood et al, 2015;Mensah & Williams, 2015;Smith, 2015). It was predicted by many people that both racism and discrimination would be left behind as an old legacy post World War 2 (Satzewich, 2010).…”

“…The current forms of racial discrimination in modern society appear subtle and unintentional. Instead of explicit and forced racism, insidious, persuaded, and civilized modes of social control mechanisms (i.e., invisible forms of racism) (Clark et al, 2014;Douglas & Halas, 2013;Harwood et al, 2015;Ross & Edwards, 2016;Satzewich, 2010) are inevitable. That is, racism has become sophisticated and submerged into our daily life unconsciously, so it is exercised silently and implicitly rather than loudly and explicitly due to the impact of multicultural and civil right movements.…”

“…That is, racism has become sophisticated and submerged into our daily life unconsciously, so it is exercised silently and implicitly rather than loudly and explicitly due to the impact of multicultural and civil right movements. Unlike the previous times, contemporary racial manifestations and expressions are most often invisible to perpetrators so that racism even pervades in many intricate forms (Clark et al, 2014). As a Janus face of racism, whiteness has been continuously evolving accordingly, and the meaning of whiteness is complex in that it embraces concepts of hegemony and power (Frankenberg 1997 as cited in Baffoe et al, 2014), knowledges and norms (Guess 2006 as cited in Baffoe et al, 2014), and racism.…”