Critical Indigenous Studies in the Classroom

Exploring 'the Local' using Primary Evidence

Abstract

Part of the mandate of most Indigenous Studies faculties/departments is to critically examine the historical and contemporary relationship between Aboriginal and settler societies. However, the multidisciplinarity of Indigenous Studies scholars and scholarship means that such critical examination can and does vary widely by institution and even between faculty members within the same institution. This article positions three pedagogical choices - studying ‘the local’, the use of primary evidence and the use of discourse analysis-as promoting the integration of disciplinary methodological differences while imbuing Indigenous Studies with a distinctive disciplinary trajectory. Moreover, I demonstrate how a particular emphasis on local Indigenous/settler relationships denaturalises the structures of racism anchoring the white privilege characterising power relations in colonial nation states like Canada.