Lessons from Our Sweetgrass Baskets: A Wholistic Vision of Academic Success for Indigenous Women in Higher Education

Abstract

This qualitative inquiry documents the lessons gleaned from my journey toward the praxis of Indigenous Maternal Pedagogies, an Indigenous women-centred teaching and learning engagement, to offer insights for supporting Indigenous women in higher education. Specifically, this article offers an express vision for Indigenous women’s educational access and success in higher education by sharing a collective research story offered by Indigenous women participants who completed one or more of three courses related to Indigenous women’s literatures and Indigenous maternal theory. Each course was delivered through a decolonial feminist lens, comprised of Indigenous curricular content and engaged students in culturally relevant assessment. This work connects Maternal Pedagogies with Indigenous epistemologies that embrace the “whole student” within educational contexts to establish a teaching and learning environment that can speak to the hearts and minds of students. In the spirit of reconciliation, I position this environment as a safe space where students can be their whole authentic selves and where their realities and lived experiences are positioned as strengths and key assets to establishing an ethical space for cross-cultural and anti-racist dialogue. Collectively, the participant narratives offer four key lessons that are integral to reconciliation education more broadly, and I map these lessons as final recommendations that align with Kirkness and Barnhardt’s timeless work on the “Four Rs” of respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility.

Finding Homeplace within Indigenous Literatures: Honoring the Genealogical Legacies of bell hooks and Lee Maracle

“…This vision of homeplace as liberatory praxis imagines and fosters spaces in classrooms for curriculum and pedagogy to attend to the difficult work our current political moment calls for. I position homeplace as a liberatory praxis that aligns with the work of educational scholars who have theorized about resistance to antiracism education (Schick and St. Denis 2005;Cote-Meek 2014), and offer this as one pedagogical approach to teaching antiracism and social justice (Brant 2017).…”

“…Teaching Indigenous Literatures through the Lens of Homeplace My own praxis of Indigenous maternal pedagogy fosters a pedagogical homeplace through the use of Indigenous literatures so learners can understand the colonial interferences in generations of Indigenous homes (Brant 2017). By centering Indigenous voices through a variety of literatures and making intentional connections with contemporary realities, students are exposed to particular knowledges that will indeed fill the gaps that have arguably been left out of the predominantly colonial education of many students.…”

“…(hooks 2007, 271) As hooks articulated, "domestic space has been a crucial site for organizing, for forming political solidarity" (271). Homeplace is thus more than a physical space but also an intellectual and spiritual site for holistic well-being (Brant 2017). As a site for radical mothering, homeplace is also intergenerational (Gumbs 2016).…”

“…My intention in this article is to write about Indigenous understandings of homeplace and the associated lessons within Indigenous literatures. I write about the implications and intricacies of teaching through the lens of homeplace elsewhere (Brant 2017). The lessons offered here provide a glimpse into the value of Indigenous women's writings for liberatory praxis to "introduce new ideological frameworks, imagine new directions, and navigate toward better and more vibrant Indigenous futurities within feminist philosophy" (Bardwell-Jones and McLaren 2020, 15).…”