Michael Lickers (lickers@telus.net) teaches in the Master of Arts in Leadership and Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS) programs at Royal Roads University. He is also a senior advisor with Suncor Energy, Indigenous Relations and Community Development; Teara Fraser (teara.fraser@elibirdaero.ca) teaches in the Master of Arts in Leadership program at Royal Roads University and is an aviator and the founder of Iskwew Air and elibird aero; Catherine Etmanski (catherine.etmanski@royalroads.ca) is a Professor in the School of Leadership Studies, Royal Roads University Victoria BC Canada; Cheryl Heykoop (cheryl.1heykoop@royalroads.ca) and Niels Agger-Gupta (niels.agger-gupta@royalroads.ca) are Associate Professors in the School of Leadership Studies, Royal Roads University Victoria BC Canada; Rebeccah Nelems (rebeccah.nelems@royalroads.ca) teaches in the Master of Arts in Leadership program at Royal Roads University and is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at McGill University’s Faculty of Law.

Opening Ceremony

In January of 2020, the role of Indigenous Scholar in Residence (hereafter, Indigenous Scholar) was introduced into the Master of Arts in Leadership (MAL) program at Royal Roads University, situated on Xwsepsum (Esquimalt) and lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees) ancestral lands. A key purpose was to support the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) calls to action by centering Indigenous ways of knowing and inquiring, and actively disrupting the ways in which Western knowledge systems have been used as a tool of colonialism. In an effort to model what we are teaching, this chapter introduces ideas in the Rationale, Overview, and Reflections sections in a way that follows the four directions of the medicine wheel and is aligned with teachings from the two faculty authors (Michael and Teara) who have both served as Indigenous Scholars.

To centre Indigenous knowledges as a core part of the program, the two-week intensive residencies at the start of the first and second years of the MAL begin and end in ceremony led by the Indigenous Scholar. Aligning ourselves with this practice, we open this chapter and represent ceremony through the written word with a teaching from the late Richard Wagamese, Ojibway author from the Wabaseemoong Nation:

My people say that there will also come a time when a new flame is lit. A new fire will burn and the human family will gather about it for shelter, warmth, community and belonging. This new flame will be ignited by the embers of those old tribal fires we have in common. There will be a returning to teachings that draw us together instead of pushing us apart. As these teachings are renewed, the human family will gather together and the energy of that joining will heal the planet—if we allow it. (Wagamese, 2019, p. 23)

Teachings from the East: Rationale

In the second year blended residency term of the MAL program, faculty members help students: (a) overcome the fear of doing research; (b) systematically and thoughtfully plan their collaborative capstone research project; (c) develop a viable support system for their research; (d) think about how to engage a wide range of stakeholders to maximize the impact of their research findings; and (e) engage with the ethical dimensions of research, including researchers’ responsibility to be relationally accountable to all to whom their research is pertinent. In this era of truth-telling and efforts toward reconciliation (TRC, 2015), as authors, we see it as a critical responsibility to not only introduce students to Indigenous methodologies, but also to encourage reconciliaction through their capstone research.

More than teaching about Indigenous research, this chapter is a story of a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people working together to increase our capacity for mutual understanding, decolonizing efforts, and deepening human connection through the energy of love. As we increase these capacities within ourselves and collectively, it is our hope and belief that this work ripples outwards among our colleagues, students, friends, and family. The purpose of our work is to create new learning for all leaders, from all backgrounds, about Indigenous peoples’ and nations’ past and present realities in these lands that are today also known as Canada. From the deep and multi-faceted wounds caused by the historical and ongoing structures of colonization and racism, this chapter intends to support students and faculty to consider alternate ways of working and being through ceremony and systems thinking. In addition to teaching about Indigenous Methodologies, the role of Indigenous Scholar includes sharing the impact of ongoing racist, cisheteropatriarchal, hierarchical, anthropocentric, and capitalist values that lead to cognitive imperialism (Simpson, 2011), extractive practices, and ways of working that permeate our organizations and communities in Canada. Decolonizing inquiry involves both humility and a commitment to an ongoing collaborative learning process of raising leaders’ consciousness about how they and we might uproot and transform colonial ways of thinking, being, relating, and leading.

Teachings from the South: Overview

The Indigenous Scholar is an active member of both the first year and second year faculty teams. A key purpose of the role as it relates to active learning for real-world inquiry is to support leadership students to critically consider their research methodologies, ethics, and methods through a decolonizing lens, as well as to introduce and/or deepen students’ knowledge of Indigenous and decolonizing research principles, methodologies and methods (Archibald, et al., 2019; Kovach, 2009; Tuhiwai-Smith, 1999; Wilson, 2008). This includes supporting students to consider Indigenous perspectives as they decide: the scope of their topic; their overarching design and research plan; their research paradigms, methodologies, data gathering and analysis methods; how to represent findings and conclusions; and collaboratively creating actionable recommendations.

Building on Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall Sr.’s methodology of Two-Eyed Seeing (Peltier, 2018), the second year, on-campus residency endeavours to respectfully engage students in learning about collaborative and action-oriented approaches that are rooted in both Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies as well as Western participatory and systems-thinking epistemologies. Melanie Goodchild and colleagues (2021) offer the Two-Row Wampum belt as a model for balancing these epistemologies: “the 1613 Two-Row Wampum treaty was formed between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Dutch merchants arriving near Albany NY” (p. 82). In addition,

The two-row wampum treaty explicitly outlined a dialogical Indigenous-European framework for how healthy relationships between peoples from different ‘laws and beliefs’ can be established…. [It was based on] reciprocity between autonomous powers and serves as a guide for cross-cultural, cross-epistemological research. (Goodchild et al., 2021, p. 83)

In working to bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous approaches to leadership into dialogue through the program, the instructors endeavour to model “relational accountability” (Wilson 2008) that “attend[s] to a deeper level of consciousness that exists in a particular teaching place, a place between epistemologies” (Goodchild et al., 2021, p. 80) or what Ermine (2007) calls the ethical space. Indigenous students are also supported to use Indigenous methodologies and methods without having to position them in relation to Western research methods, recognizing that centering Indigenous ways of knowing is critical practice in disrupting colonial knowledge systems.

In teaching Indigenous leadership, two formal sessions are held during the residency. In the first, the Indigenous Scholar and a non-Indigenous faculty member present collaboratively on decolonizing methodologies using the Indigenous methods of storytelling and talking circles, modeling a dialogical approach to teaching and learning that is consistent with Indigenous relational epistemologies. This gives leadership students the opportunity to experience Indigenous modes of inquiry, giving life to core principles of Indigenous research that are introduced, such as Wilson’s (2008) notion of relational accountability and relational validity. Additionally, students experience first-hand the types of data and outcomes that such methods generate in contrast to the non-Indigenous data collection methods they are exploring during residency. Additionally, the Indigenous Scholar leads a session specifically on Indigenous methods and their use, addressing how to honour Indigenous research participants, Elders, Old Ones, and knowledge-keepers with gifts and other topics relevant to students’ projects.

Teachings from the West: Reflection

First and foremost, it is important that a sacred space for learning is created and nurtured.

Indigenous methodologies can serve to challenge colonial systems with intent and purpose. The Indigenous Scholar also supports non-Indigenous people to consider what it might mean to engage Indigenous knowledges while avoiding cultural appropriation: “Cultural appropriation is an issue that we must engage with all potential non-Indigenous allies. When colonizers appropriate aspects of our culture, this is just another part of a long colonial history” (Waziyatawin, 2009, p. 154). The Indigenous Scholar provides one-to-one or team coaching and facilitates plenary workshops, in addition to lunchtime open sessions and spiritual support or guidance as requested.

By non-Indigenous students learning through a trusting relationship with the Indigenous Scholar and asking questions about, as Michael says, everything they always wanted to know but were afraid to ask, leaders from across Canada deepen their approach to decolonizing their thinking and leadership behaviours and engage in research and leadership for change.

Four Arrows (2016) says, “Indigenous worldview is literally rooted in the earth. It is about interconnected relationships across the spectrum of the visible and invisible universe” (p. 135). “Indigenous ways of learning have always been about the inner journey that respects intuition, spirituality, artfulness, interconnectedness, Mother Earth, and situated experience as the ultimate ‘primary resources’ for ‘data’” (Four Arrows, 2009, p. 5). This is an epistemology of learning and inquiry frequently at odds with what many mid-career non-Indigenous students have internalized from their socialization in Canada. However, it is a perspective, as faculty and students have found, that offers a much-needed systems-thinking paradigm for living, learning, and reconciliation based on deep respect for all people and for our planet.

As Teara shared, an Indigenous Scholar can shine light on the ways that dominant social, political, economic, and judicial structures and systems have overshadowed Indigenous ways of knowing while sharing, honouring, and amplifying the worldviews of Indigenous peoples and communities. However, to be successful, the Indigenous Scholar cannot be expected to take on the task of changing student and faculty paradigms by themselves. The path must be prepared collaboratively with other Indigenous and non-Indigenous faculty incorporating Indigenous authors and content into the curriculum. Students need to know why this inclusion is essential in the course or program.

The Indigenous Scholar role is new; we are co-creating a process to mindfully harvest good learnings from each term that translate into awareness, advocacy, and action. The key elements of Wilson’s three Rs of Respect, Reciprocity, and Relationality are a core part of the culture of this group (Wilson, 2008).

We offer that this role is not just for students; through authentic relationships with colleagues, the Indigenous Scholar has also served as a decolonizing guide for faculty and staff. However, this responsibility does not rest solely with the Indigenous Scholar; we expect non-Indigenous faculty to take responsibility for their own learning about decolonization and we have offered several learning opportunities in the School. We have learned that integrating this role into faculty planning meetings ensures that attentiveness to Indigenous epistemologies and worldviews might become more centred across all aspects of the course. Such awareness among non-Indigenous faculty and staff ultimately better supports Indigenous Scholars in their role, and both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

The Indigenous Scholar is a specified role in MAL; we have collectively designed it as a teaching, consulting, and mentoring role, which does not include grading and assessment. Including an Indigenous Scholar on a faculty team does not (and should not) preclude hiring other faculty team members who self-identify as Indigenous. We recognize the diversity of Indigenous cultures in the land now known as Canada—and globally—and that there is no singular way of being Indigenous or of being a teacher. Three Indigenous scholars have served in this role, and each has been amazing in their own right, as they have shared stories, advised students, faculty, and staff, and have brought their unique gifts, varied teachings, research interests, and different styles to the Indigenous Scholar role, in service of student and teaching team collective learning.

The Indigenous Scholar has contributed to student learning as noted in student evaluations:

It was amazing. Michael was an amazing role model and created the space for us to ask questions without judgement. He provided me with resources to continue learning and encouraged me to do my part! He is inspiring and provided such important information and had the courage to share his story and culture with us. Having an Indigenous Scholar in Residence was very impactful (Anonymous student evaluations, 2020).

Teara did an amazing job of connecting us with Indigenous history and current realities in Canada. She changed my way of thinking from focusing on my immediate system, to focusing on the impacts of my system as well (Anonymous student evaluations, 2020).

Teachings from the North: Closing in Ceremony

Our journey with this integral role in our program continues. The experience we have shared here is but the starting point to a journey of discovery and reconciliation toward a new co-created story that is beneficial to our students and faculty alike. Various fora are being used to capture ongoing learnings from Indigenous and non-Indigenous students and faculty. There will be challenges, no doubt, but they provide us with our greatest learnings. We hope you have as much joy and discovery in this highly rewarding undertaking as we have experienced from this learning. As an appendix, we have included two resources to support your further exploration:

1. a lesson plan on “Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Ethics and Methodologies” to demonstrate a key session led by the Michael and Rebeccah; and
2. a list of recommended readings.

All our relations.

Note: In the time since this chapter was written, we have expanded the Indigenous Scholar role to the MA-Leadership Health Specialization, as well as the MA in Climate Action Leadership. Please contact the authors to learn more about innovations specific to these two programs.

References

Anonymous student evaluations [unpublished], Royal Roads University, 2020.

Archibald, J., Xiiem, Q., Lee-Morgan, J. B. J., & De Santolo, J. (Eds.). (2019). Decolonizing research: Indigenous storywork as methodology. Zed Books.

Ermine, W. (2007). The ethical space of engagement. Indigenous Law Journal, 6(1), 193–203.

Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs). (2016). Point of departure: Returning to our more authentic worldview for education and survival. Information Age.

Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs). (2009). The authentic dissertation: Alternative ways of knowing, research and representation. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Goodchild, M., with Senge, P., Scharmer, O., Roronhiakewen Longboat, D., Kahontakwas Longboat, D. K., Hill, R., Ka’nahsohon Deer, K. (2021). Relational systems thinking: That’s how change is going to come, from our earth mother. Journal of Awareness Based Systems Change, 1(1), 75–103. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v1i1.577

Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.

Kovach, M. E. (2010). Indigenous methodologies: Characteristics, conversations, and contexts. University of Toronto Press.

Peltier, C. (2018). An application of two-eyed seeing: Indigenous research methods with participatory action research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17(1), 1–12.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf

Tuhiwai Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books.

Waziyatawin. (2009). Understanding colonizer status. In W. I. Win, S. DeMuth, & Unsettling Minnesota collective (Eds.), Reflections and resources for deconstructing colonial mentality: A sourcebook compiled by the Unsettling Minnesota collective (pp. 152–155). Unsettling Minnesota collective. https://unsettlingminnesota.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/um_sourcebook_jan10_revision.pdf

Wagamese, R. (2019). One drum: Stories and ceremonies for a planet. Douglas & McIntyre.

Wilson, S. (2008). Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Fernwood.

Dr. Michael Lickers. I am a Mohawk citizen from the Six Nations of the Grand River currently living in Treaty 7 territory (Moh-kins-tsis/ Calgary). I am an alumnus of the MA Leadership and Training and Doctor of Social Sciences programs at RRU. I serve as the Indigenous Scholar in Residence for the MA Leadership program, Associate Faculty in the MA Interdisciplinary Studies, and cultural support for the MA Climate Action Leadership program. My life has been dedicated to supporting and serving youth and community. I currently work as a Senior Advisor of Indigenous Relations at Suncor Energy in Alberta.

Teara Fraser. I am a proud Métis woman, a disrupter, a bridge-builder, a convener, and a co-creator. Born in the Northwest Territories and with relational ties to Fort Chipewyan, I feel the stories and the wisdom of my ancestors in my heart.

Graduating with a Master of Arts in Leadership degree from Royal Roads University was such a huge accomplishment for me, and the journey of learning now takes me back to Royal Roads as an Adjunct Professor in the same program.

It has been a joy to see the vision of the Raven Institute, Iskwew Air, elibird aero, and the Indigenous LIFT Collective and bring these ventures to life. I believe that together, in sacred spaces, we can reimagine, rematriate, and rebuild systems centering equity, justice, and sustainability.

Catherine Etmanski. I am a descendant of immigrants whose first known family members arrived from Scotland in 1772 in the lands now understood as Canada. They were settlers on Prince Edward Island. Through my mother, I am Irish-American, Dutch, and British. Through my father, I am Kashubian from Poland, and Scottish from Clan MacDonald of Clanranald. I have a deep curiosity for learning and research through the arts and a commitment to decolonizing efforts and reconciliation, within myself and in my identity as an educator. I currently serve as a professor in the School of Leadership Studies at RRU.

Cheryl Heykoop. I grew up in Ontario on the ancestral lands of Anishinabewaki and Huron-Wendat Peoples. Through my father, I am Dutch. Through my mother, I am British and my grandfather’s origin is unknown. I am deeply committed to exploring how we can support decolonization and reconciliation in action and I want to raise my children to walk on the earth in a good way.  I am an assistant professor with the School of Leadership Studies at RRU.

Niels Agger-Gupta. Born in Germany to German-Norwegian parents, I grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on nêhiyawak (Cree), Oceti Sakowin (Sioux), and Métis territory, before living in Calgary on the Niitsitapi / Siksika (Blackfoot) and the Tsuut’ina (Sarcee) Nations, in California (Chumash), and now on the ancestral lands of the Xwsepsum and lək̓ʷəŋən families. An associate professor with the School of Leadership Studies at RRU, I am committed to decolonization, understanding learning, culture, and identity, and addressing injustice in its intersectional dimensions, personally, in my work supporting mid-career leaders to create empowering change in their own communities, and in the world, using an appreciative inquiry stance.

Rebeccah Nelems. I am a sixth generation descendant of Irish immigrants on the lands of the Coast Salish peoples, today living on the lands of the Xwsepsum and lək̓ʷəŋən families and ancestors where RRU is also based. With children who are seventh generation guests on these lands, living in ways that are relationally accountable to and with the Indigenous peoples and nations on whose lands we reside is core to all aspects of my personal and professional life. I strive to address the historical and ongoing structures of colonialism through my scholarship on eco-social justice, relational leadership and decolonizing research methodologies. I also strive to do this through my everyday relationships and actions, and creating spaces for sympogogy in academic and non-academic settings. With an orientation of lifelong learning and humility, I am deeply honoured by the teachings that Indigenous communities, colleagues and friends share with me. I am Associate Faculty with the School of Leadership Studies at RRU.

Appendix

Session Outline: Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Ethics and Methodologies

As qualitative researchers supporting and leading change initiatives with organizations and communities, understanding and respecting ethical principles are integral to practice. As you engage in your capstone at Royal Roads University (RRU), you are required to have formal ethical approval from the Research Ethics Board (REB) prior to beginning your inquiry. However, the engaged, collaborative researcher acknowledges that everything you do in a research process is an ethical decision – from the questions you ask, the methods you use, to how you engage your partner and participants in your research. Being aware of the ethical orientation of one’s research approach entails being aware of the every day decisions one is making and their methodological reference points, as well as understanding where your research is situated within distinctive knowledge production systems.

In order to make these decisions, one often turns to precedent, evidence-based and established practice either implicitly or explicitly. But what do you do when you learn that the precedents, evidence and established practices are themselves not neutral? Western research is historically embedded in a Western worldview and knowledge systems with particular historical and ethical orientations to the world. As systems thinkers, this session gives you the opportunity to reflect on the contours and features of the systems out of which Western research and scholarship was born, and within which it is still to large degree, historically embedded. It will encourage you to consider Indigenous and non-Western knowledge systems and research methodologies. What might it mean to bring a decolonizing lens to Western conceptions of knowledge, evidence, and ethical engagement? How do Indigenous conceptions of relationality transform engagement, research and leadership?

Across Canada, in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), universities have been engaging in questions with respect to how to “decolonize” and/or “Indigenize” courses, programs and knowledge. From the vantage point of many Indigenous thinkers, the invitation of reconciliation is not an invitation to participate in either-or thinking where only one way of knowing is left standing, nor an act of ‘tweaking’ the existing system. Instead, Indigenous methodology itself invites one to consider how centering Indigenous ways of knowing, being and relating might transform and deepen, enrich and unsettle, Western ways of knowing.

This session will encourage you to critically and self-reflectively consider the ethical and methodological decisions you make in your research in the context of distinctive knowledge traditions. You will be asked to reflect on the ethical, methodological and leadership orientations of your capstone project from the vantage point of questions such as “Whose knowledge, about whom, and for whom?” We will also explore concepts such as “two-eyed seeing” (Peltier, 2018), or ideas about how Western and Indigenous approaches can be brought together in complimentary, enriching but non-assimilative ways, to offer greater depth of insight and understanding in your capstone project. We will discuss relational research methods such as those described in the decolonizing literature on methodologies, and explore their focus on non-extraction, collaborative practice and relational engagement.

Recommended Readings

Atleo, E. R. / Umeek. (2004). “Prologue”; “Introduction: Development of an Indigenous Theory”; Chapter 1, Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth worldview. UBC Press.

Kovach, M. (2015). Emerging from the margins: Indigenous methodologies. In L.A. Brown, & S. Strega (Eds.), Research as resistance: Revisiting critical, Indigenous and anti- oppressive approaches. Canadian Scholar’s Press.

Lahman, M., Geist, M., Rodriguez, K., Graglia, P., & DeRoche, K. (2011). Culturally responsive relational reflexive ethics in research: The three Rs. Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 45(6), 1397-1414. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-010-9347-3.

Peltier, C. (2018). An application of two-eyed seeing: Indigenous research methods with participatory action research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406918812346

Potts, K. L., & Brown, L. (2015). Chapter 1: Becoming an anti-oppressive researcher. In S. Strega & L. A. Brown (Eds.), Research as resistance: Revisiting critical, indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches (Second edition., pp. 17–41). Canadian Scholars’ Press & Google Books.

Qwul’sih’yah’maht (Robina Anne Thomas). (2005). “Honouring the Oral Traditions of My Ancestors Through Storytelling.” In L.A. Brown and S. Strega (Eds.), Research as resistance: Critical, Indigenous and anti-oppressive approaches. (pp. 237-254) Canadian Scholar’s Press, Inc. 5

Smith, L. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (2nd edition). Zed Books.

Strega, S. (2005). “The View from the Poststructural Margins: Epistemology and Methodology Reconsidered.” In L.A. Brown and S. Strega (Eds.), Research as resistance: Critical, Indigenous and anti-oppressive approaches (pp. 199-236). Canadian Scholar’s Press, Inc.

Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(No. 1), 1–40. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630

Wilson, S. (2009). “Foreword and Conclusion”, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 5 in Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods.  Fernwood Publishing Co., Ltd.