“Reconciliation” in undergraduate education in Canada: the application of Indigenous knowledge in conservation

Settler-colonialism is the broad, ongoing power structure, predicated in part on the Doctrine of Discovery, that underpins contemporary Canada. In settler states such as Canada, non-Indigenous persons seek the erasure, through land appropriation, assimilation, oppression, discrimination, or even outright killing, of Indigenous Peoples. These practices are deeply connected with Canadian natural resource extraction and conservation practice (Sandlos 2007; Miller et al. 2010; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) 2015b; National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls 2019 (MMIWG)). Scholars in fields as diverse as history, rural politics and development, and Indigenous studies have written extensively about this (Nadasdy 2005; Mar 2010; Kelly 2011). The connection between settler power and conservation is slowly being questioned, particularly through Indigenous guardian programs and Indigenous protected and conserved areas creation.

Alongside these changes, both the TRC and MMIWG Inquiry highlighted education’s role in enabling just Indigenous/non-Indigenous relationships. The TRC (2015a, p. 331) expects educators to “build student capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect.” The National MMIWG Inquiry (2019, p. 71) wrote that education must “must include historical and current truths about the genocide against Indigenous People…[and the] teaching [of] Indigenous history, law, and practices from Indigenous perspectives.”

Given this, the academy is striving towards some semblance of “Indigenizing.” Yet, as Marker (2019, p. 501) noted, universities “still exert a centrifugal force to marginalize and resist Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems.” Gaudry and Lorenz (2018b) have written that most efforts to do so amount to Indigenous inclusion, which one can think of as an “add Indigenous and stir” approach. Simply adding in a module or two here and there on Indigenous Peoples and issues is not necessarily undesirable, insofar as it goes, but it is a limited approach and does little to disrupt the underlying “hidden curricula” (Henry and Tator 1994) that centres non-Indigenous peoples (i.e., “experts”) at the university. Nor does such work respond to Tuck and Yang’s (2012) call to avoid decolonization as a metaphor and related moves towards innocence. Generally, we note the evolving literature (e.g., Fellner 2018; Schmidt 2019; Walters et al. 2019; Martin et al. 2020) that comments on reconciliation in the academy; we encourage our readers to peruse it with particular attention given to the differences apparent between Indigenous-led and settler-led scholarship.

In spring 2019, Academic Matters, a journal of higher education, devoted an issue to “Decolonizing the university in an era of truth and reconciliation” (OCUFA 2019). In that issue, Indigenous legal scholar Ashley Courchene (2019, p. 23) observed relationships remain as poor between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples after the release of the TRC report as before. The point of reconciliation, she argues, is to focus the discussion on “conciliation of poor Indigenous–Canadian relations”. Yet, most postsecondary reconciliation efforts seem to instead focus on incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing, doing, and relating into academic spaces.

It is against this backdrop that this paper considers undergraduate education in conservation and related fields. We, the co-authors, share a mutual interest in improving conservation practice in Canada as it relates to Indigenous Peoples. We believe postsecondary educators have an important role in any such improvement. Those who aspire to work in conservation need to be adequately prepared to engage with Indigenous Peoples, knowledge, laws, rights, culture, and visions for the future. This paper presents our thinking on how to ensure such preparation.

First, faculty should focus on developing students’ broad knowledge and skill sets, not on delivering discreet facts. We are not claiming facts are unimportant, but that intercultural, interpersonal, and anti-racist skills and knowledge are a priority. Second, the widespread teaching of Indigenous content requires disruptive transformational change to the academy, valuing Indigenous expertise, and broadly developing faculty knowledge to support Indigenous thought and scholarship. Third, “Indigenizing” the academy entails humility, reciprocity, and a deep commitment to anti-racism. Thus, universities need more than new Indigenous-centered content.

One final introductory word: we are aware of the diverse educational paths towards a career in conservation. Degrees as diverse as botany, marine policy, and natural resources management might all enable one to work for and (or) take on a leadership role within an organization in environmental nongovernment organizations (ENGOs) such as CPAWS (the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society), governments (Parks Canada), or in Indigenous Nations and communities. Mindful of this, we have broadly crafted our comments.

Conservation in Canada has been a part of colonization, used to extend state authority into Indigenous territories (Sandlos 2007; Calverley 2018). Until recently, conservation has relied nearly exclusively on Western science. In the words of Reyes-García and Benyei (2019, p. 657), conservationists’ understanding of Indigenous knowledge is “…in the best of cases, meagre…”. When Indigenous knowledge is considered by practitioners, such inclusion can serve to simply re-inscribe non-Indigenous power (Nadasdy 1999). This is but one example of how non-Indigenous have dominated conservation; Indigenous dispossession for protected area creation is another (Brockington and Igoe 2006).

But conservation is changing. For example, Justin Trudeau’s first government committed $25 million over four years towards Indigenous guardian programs (Environment and Climate Change Canada 2020). Large environmental organizations, such as Nature United are similarly supporting Indigenous-led conservation efforts. In 2019, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council announced a $2.5 million grant to the University of Guelph to lead a pan-Canadian, 30-organization-strong research partnership into “conservation through reconciliation” (Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership 2019; University of Guelph News Service 2019).

Under the Pathway to Canada Target 1 initiative, the federal government in partnership with provinces and territories assembled an Indigenous Circle of Experts (ICE) to serve as an autonomous advisory body to the initiative. The Pathway to Target 1 initiative emerged from the 2020 biodiversity goals and targets for Canada, with Target 1 being to significantly increase conservation of lands and inland waters through protected areas and other effective area-based measures (Pathway to Canada Target 1 2020). ICE issued a comprehensive report entitled We Rise Together (Indigenous Circle of Experts 2018) on how to confront the dark histories of protected areas and Indigenous Peoples in Canada, as well as how the designation of Indigenous protected and conserved areas (IPCAs) could be developed and improve relationships among Indigenous Peoples, the Canadian government, and conservationists. These moves do not necessarily mean that Canadian conservation has fully turned a corner towards “reconciliation.” What these moves do indicate is the presence of at least an interest to move towards reconciliation in conservation.

Reconciliation is both contested and contestable; it suggests disruption to existing power imbalances. Yet, it has never been pushed so far as to encompass dismantling of the most persistent vestiges of colonialism nor colonialism’s systemic discrimination and exploitation. Reconciliation received some treatment in Canadian jurisprudence prior to the release of the TRC Final Report and Calls to Action (Stanton 2017). The TRC’s Final Report described and structured reconciliation in a nonprescriptive and expansive manner, for example through a directive that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples serve as the framework for reconciliation in Canada (Call to Action 45ii; TRC 2015b).

Since the TRC, a diverse, complex reconciliation narrative has become increasingly evident. Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples have many ideas about what reconciliation means, how it functions, what makes it unique in Canada, and how to operationalize it in relationship building and conservation practice. This has created confusion, leading some to demand guidance that permits users to engage in reconciliation though seemingly foolproof methodologies that protect them from challenge or derision. In other words, there is “contestability” and “ambiguity” (Schaap 2004, p. 11) around reconciliation. Clark et al. (2016, p. 2) have observed that “…despite the huge political and economic capital being expended…there remains a broad inability to…understand reconciliation.”

As critics (e.g., Coulthard 2007) of state-sponsored “reconciliation” have noted, in the absence of critical thought, the term is an empty rhetorical flourish that disguises the ongoing continuities of settler power. For example, Potawatomi scholar Whyte (2018, p. 287) compared settler-colonial states (such as Canada) to parasites that dominate and extract wealth from Indigenous Peoples and territories. State structures of reconciliation, he wrote, are therefore “new forms of the same old system that portrays Indigenous peoples as parasites who clamor for aid and special accommodations from benevolent hosts [the settler state].” In Whyte’s (2018, p. 287) view (and similar to others, such as Coulthard (2014) and Alfred (2009)), “reconciliation processes must always be associated with Indigenous territorial reclamation”.

While not writing about reconciliation per se, Nêhiyaw scholar Tasha Hubbard (2016) observed that “Our systems of knowing and governing ourselves are irrevocably intertwined with our understanding of our relationship to those with whom we share the land” (p. 30). It follows from this if supporting Indigenous knowledges is one goal of reconciliation (as it should be), then reconciliation necessarily entails attention to both human/human and human/Creation relations (see also McGregor 2018).

Conservation as a field can draw upon the TRC’s Traditional Knowledge Keepers Forum’s understanding of reconciliation, as something goes beyond the human dimension and involves humanity’s reconciliation with the natural world. Elder Reg Crowshoe (TRC 2015c, p. 123) explained:

Reconciliation requires talking, but our conversations must be broader than Canada’s conventional approaches. Reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, from an Aboriginal perspective, also requires reconciliation with the natural world. If human beings resolve problems between themselves but continue to destroy the natural world, then reconciliation remains incomplete.

Ideas about reconciliation in conservation practice are just as fragmented as it is generally, with perspectives from the settler state, ENGOs, and Indigenous Peoples themselves (McGregor 2018). Parks Canada (2019, p. 5), for example, recognized that its “…approach to each relationship should be tailored to fit its unique context” and that “…listening to Indigenous partners is critical.” Yet, the agency implicitly places itself firmly at the centre of reconciliation within parks, by characterizing its units as “a system of national heritage places that recognizes and honours the contributions of Indigenous Peoples, their histories and cultures, as well as the integral relationships Indigenous Peoples have with their traditional lands and waters” (Parks Canada 2019, p. iii). The “recognition” of Indigenous Peoples is a fraught concept (Coulthard 2007). We disagree that reconciliation is merely an act of “recognition and honouring.”

The state’s approach contrasts with ENGOs’ and Indigenous Peoples’ views on reconciliation in conservation. Consider Nature United, which centres Indigenous sovereignty, “…Nature United believes that the increased authority and capacity of Indigenous Peoples to steward their lands and waters is critical…[and] results in effective and durable sustainable management over time” (Nature United 2020). Similarly, the We Rise Together Report (Indigenous Circle of Experts 2018) emphasizes Indigenous authority; the report centres IPCAs as means to advance reconciliation in a conservation context. We Rise Together describes Indigenous-led IPCAs as elevating Indigenous rights and responsibilities (i.e., relationships to land) and promoting respect for Indigenous knowledge systems, protocols, and ceremony. Reconciliation in conservation is thus about understanding how to manage multiple jurisdictions, including Indigenous jurisdictions, in designations, governance, and planning of existing and future protected areas.

Yet, the uncertainty around reconciliation does not mean faculty who want to prepare their students to engage with Indigenous Peoples must blindly grope around for the means to do so. Rather, we assert the continuing debate around reconciliation reinforces the importance for non-Indigenous people to listen to and act on what Indigenous Peoples are telling them. We emphasize the diversity of Indigenous Peoples in this regard and encourage faculty to engage with those Peoples and territories in which they conduct their work. Moreover, the settler state’s idea of reconciliation and Indigenous Peoples’ views of it may not always be the same; distinguishing between these is key.

As authors, we would prioritize the following in reconciliation: recognizing and reinforcing Indigenous ties to land, culture, and knowledge; directly supporting Indigenous communities’ aspirations; and rebalancing relationships not only among people but between the human and nonhuman worlds. This approach could support real progress versus incrementalism or aspirational rhetoric. When we use “progress” here, we do not mean movement towards an end state or goal, so much as a continuous process of moving forward in a new relationship with one another. Finally, we note that if Canada is to take seriously the limited guidance of the TRC Calls to Action, we need to ensure critical analysis of how a framework like that offered through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples can function in an empowering and uplifting way for Indigenous Peoples in the context of conservation.

We met in June 2020 to consider how to improve undergraduate education in conservation. In Indigenous research, storytelling and conversation are appropriate and useful research methods (Kovach 2010). An important part of such a method is make clear for readers who we, the co-authors, are.

Danika Billie Littlechild (DL) is a member of Neyaskweyahk, also known as Ermineskin Cree Nation, located in Maskwacis, Treaty 6 territory in Alberta. I have ties to Kehewin Cree Nation also located in Treaty 6 territory, through my mother (née Dion). I grew up on reserve in Maskwacis, in a landscape that sharply shifted over the course of my life, from highly biodiverse to largely developed through extractives and agriculture. Politically and legally, I witnessed the legacy and continued centrality of colonialism, white supremacy, and the insidious ongoing efforts of estrangement and displacement of Indigenous Peoples from their lands and waters. I have practiced domestic and international law for a few decades, focusing my efforts to be of service to Indigenous Peoples in the fields of environment, water, stewardship, Indigenous legal orders, governance, and health. More recently I served as the Co-Chair of the Indigenous Circle of Experts under the Pathway to Canada Target 1. I have served as a facilitator or advisor for various Indigenous Nations, existing organizations, and protected areas. As of January 2020, I am an Assistant Professor of Law at Carleton University, and I am leading the Ethical Space research stream for the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership.

Co-author Chance Finegan (CF) is a White American emigrant in Canada. My interest in relationships between parks and Indigenous Peoples stems from being a young adult in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains and observing conflicts between the U.S. National Park Service and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee. Why, for example, was the agency adamantly opposed to the Cherokee proposal to harvest ramps (wild onions) within the national park? Ramps are hardly endangered. One answer (of many), could be the lack of education about Indigenous Peoples in American postsecondary park management programs (Finegan 2020). Regarding the present article, my role was to contribute to the formal writing, but as a non-Indigenous person, these are obviously not my stories, or life experiences. Rather, I am here to listen and reflect.

Aanii. Deborah McGregor ndizhnizkaaz (my name). Wiigwaakingaa n’doonjibaa (where I am from). I am Anishinabe from Whitefish River First Nation and currently I am Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice at York University. I have been teaching for three decades in areas relating to Indigenous knowledge systems, Indigenous environmental governance and resource management, sustainability, water and climate justice and Indigenous research methodologies. I have also worked as a senior policy advisor for Environment Canada and Climate Change for a decade and continue to work directly with Indigenous communities and organizations. I served as Director for Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto. My decades of experience in the field most of my life informs my perspectives and insights on the topic of reconciliation and conservation in undergraduate education.

We are presenting the crux of our June 2020 meeting here as a transcribed conversation amongst the co-authors. Before our meeting, we circulated several initial questions for discussion amongst ourselves. This provides some structure for our conversation. After we met, Finegan transcribed the meeting and roughly broke it apart into “key points,” which generally mirrored the natural breaks in our conversation and the different discussion questions. Within some portions, Finegan has added framing comments. These are indicated as CF*.

We have deliberately chosen to present this article as a conversation because stories are an important, useful method in Indigenous research. As Smith (2012) wrote, stories contribute to a broad, collective store of knowledge. Beyond this, we are mindful of Koukkanen’s (2011, p. 7) observation that, “the current academy has embraced discourses and practices that sanction ignorance toward other ways of perceiving the world and constructing knowledge.” Koukkanen’s writing resonates with us; to discuss “Indigenizing” the academy, as essentializing as that phrase can be, but not within an explicitly Indigenous framework would seem to shy away from the very work in which we call the academy to engage. With this in mind, we turn now to our conversation.

Indigenous Peoples’ territories contain 80% of the world’s remaining forest biodiversity (Indigenous Peoples’ Major Group 2019). Vertebrate biodiversity on Indigenous territories is at least equal to that in protected areas, and in some cases may even outperform parks (Corrigan et al. 2018; Schuster et al. 2019). There is, clearly, much for conservation as a field to learn from Indigenous Peoples. Ignoring or minimizing Indigenous perspectives is bad for biodiversity conservation.

Thus, the increasing interest amongst conservation practitioners in building new, reconciliatory relationships with Indigenous Peoples is to be commended. Similarly, efforts to improve postsecondary education about Indigenous dimensions of conservation should be praised. Yet, we believe faculty need to be aware that preparing aspiring conservation professionals to engage with Indigenous Peoples goes far beyond developing new content or instituting a new course requirement (albeit important). Rather, these efforts must be coupled with transformational change that builds an anti-racist, anti-oppressive campus culture in which students are expected to learn (and faculty expected to teach) how to build strong, affirming relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

As the experiences of Danika and Deborah make clear, the academy remains a White and colonial space. The stories shared here echo the work of others like Ahmed (2014) and Todd (2016), who underscored that even the most basic scholarly act—writing a citation—is political, and can either reinforce the academy’s whiteness or work against it. “…the academy itself prevent[s] the re-imagining of disciplines,” wrote Todd (2016, p. 18). The academy is home to “invisible colleges” that “circumscribe who and what are legible” in research, noted Hitomi and Loring (2018, p. 841). These in-group, self-reinforcing networks “inflate citations of college members relative to non-college members, and in so doing influence research patterns” (2018, p. 841). Deborah and Danika’s stories reiterate the salience of these comments.

We are not naïve about the scale of the task confronting our profession; as Hofstra et al. (2020, p. 9284) noted, “underrepresented groups’…contributions are devalued and discounted.” Put another way, Walters et al. (2019, p. 621) wrote, Indigenous “…faculty are seen as issues/objects to be managed or assimilated into the normative, White culture.” Indigenous faculty and knowledge face the intersecting challenges of racialization and settler-colonialism. Truly welcoming them as peers will require the difficult work of undermining both the academy’s resistance to racialized scholars and the manifestations of White, settler power within universities.

Yet, our conversation has suggested some immediate actions for faculty. First, the academy needs more Indigenous faculty members, and universities must be attentive to the over-burdening of Indigenous faculty. “Repeatedly fielding requests to address racism is emotionally and physically exhausting,” wrote Tseng et al. (2020). Similarly, requests to vet content, to serve on ethics panels, and (or) to speak to colleagues’ classes, while individually useful and well-intentioned, are cumulatively a significant amount of additional labour. Chelsea Gabel (2019, pp. 88, 94–95) observed that:

As universities and institutions work toward Indigenization…much of this work falls on Indigenous faculty, staff, and students…I have watched many of my Indigenous colleagues across the country endure similar challenges: becoming academic directors of programs and research centres prior to completing their PhDs and taking on roles and responsibilities that would otherwise be filled by more senior scholars. We do all of this while trying to maintain active programs of research and fulfill our teaching duties.

The over-work of Indigenous faculty must end. We want to reiterate, however, Deborah’s earlier caution that hiring more racialized employees (of any rank) without attending to campus culture would be misguided. This is not a novel observation (Tseng et al. 2020). Cluster hires of more than one Indigenous faculty member may address these concerns. Reconciliation can only “work” if Indigenous People benefit from it; the burden of doing the work should not fall solely on Indigenous Peoples.

Regarding pedagogy, first, faculty need to center Indigenous Peoples as experts about themselves. This means assigning texts, podcasts, and (or) documentaries written or produced by Indigenous creators. It may also mean land-based, Elder-led learning, a pedagogical approach that we have not discussed in detail here, but critical nonetheless. Indigenous perspectives and knowledge should not be filtered through non-Indigenous “experts” except where absolutely necessary; “decolonizing” a course inherently requires the centering of Indigenous knowledge and knowledge keepers. To borrow a phrase from Marker (2019, p. 511), “…institutions must do more than perfunctorily tolerate Indigenous intellectual expression.” Instead, universities should enable and celebrate Indigenous knowledge and knowledge keepers. Simply put, students should be taught by, rather than about, Indigenous Peoples. This may require that faculty relinquish their role as the central authority figure in the classroom. In a word, this requires humility. For example, the Wisaktowinowak garden and manomin project at Guelph University “starts with relationships and it involves labour—both of which are critical to Indigenous pedagogy” (Tait Neufelt et al. 2019, p. 26). Land can also be the teacher. The Wisaktowinowak project represents a pedagogy “that teaches relationship-based ways of knowing about the natural world and food systems” (p. 28).

Second, students must be taught more than discreet facts. Universities should equip students to both build relationships with Indigenous Peoples, and to “know stuff about” them. Facts are secondary to an understanding of reconciliation, of settler-colonialism, of what it means to affirm rather than question or denigrate Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and futurity. Students need to understand how they implicated on ongoing settler colonialism. A useful first step is for students to consider who they are and to describe their worldviews. Developing students’ information literacy—that is, the ability to discern trustworthy, anti-racist, ethical information about Indigenous Peoples from the unreliable and anti-Indigenous—is also key. While basic background knowledge is clearly useful, hammering home dates of treaties or descriptions of the Indian Act should not be done to the exclusion of honing students’ self-reflection and critical thinking skills. These types of critical analysis skills build the capacity of the students to engage in learning on their own, long after completion of a course or program.

As we reflect on our conversation, the words of Eve Tuck (Smith et al. 2018, p. 15) come to mind:

I recently…saw a social media post by a white settler colleague asking for recommendations of “more practical” readings by Indigenous scholars, which would provide more detail about what decolonization looks like “in reality.”…the tacit (and sometimes arrogantly explicit) request for more (details, explanation, assurance) is actually a form of dismissal…It is a deferral of responsibility through asking, “Isn’t there something less theoretical…something more practical? Something less radical? Can’t you describe something that seems more likely or possible?” These insistences upon Indigenous writings contradict themselves while also putting all the onus of responsibility on Indigenous People to make the future more coherent and palatable to white settler readers.

This resonates with us. We are not offering a tidy package of “this is what students need to know about Indigenous Peoples and conservation.” Rather, we are asserting that it is only through transformational change in the academy—an effort that goes beyond discreet, fact-based learning outcomes or course objectives, but instead is focused on overturning the systematic, ongoing marginalizing of Indigenous scholars, knowledge, and voices—that conservation practitioners can be prepared to engage in a just relationship with Indigenous Peoples.

Thank you to the two anonymous reviewers for their time and thoughtful comments. CF’s involvement was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Centre Urban Environments and the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto Mississauga. Publication of this article was made possible by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Connection Grant and the Canada Research Chair Program.