UBC Roundtable on Decolonization
notice of public event on campus, Feb. 1, Green College, 3pm-4:30pm
UBC declares, at the start of every formal governance meeting, that the Vancouver campus is situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. But what does that mean? How is this acknowledgement enacted in the university’s normal business operations? Academics have long called for decolonizing education and Indigenizing university processes and systems. What progress has been made at UBC? What remains to be done? This roundtable brings together scholars, practitioners, and administrators to reflect on the silences, erasures, achievements, and tasks ahead in UBC’s own process of decolonization.
Considering ‘decolonization’ and land acknowledgements is particularly important in face of UBC’s major redevelopment process: Campus Vision 2050. UBC has created a separate engagement process for Musqueam. Engagement, however, is a term without clarity within the realm of aboriginal rights and title negotiations. Aside from including various Musqueam community members’ perspectives (which could be framed as a type of decolonization) more material accommodations have not been publicly announced.
UBC includes a wider Indigenous community than simply Musqueam. Students, staff, and faculty originate from many different Indigenous communities across BC, Canada, and the world. UBC faculty (indigenous and non-Indigenous) have many ongoing research projects and partnerships across the Indigenous world. Having a decolonizing lens needs to simultaneously acknowledge Musquem while respecting the Indigenous members of UBC’s community and areas of research.
Roundtable Details
The panelists gathered embody a diversity of experience in work and research, a diversity of Indigenous and settler origins, and a diversity of control over decision making. Very often institutions demand a unitary voice in governance. It is likely that authentic solutions may only come when we attend to the diversity of experience and expertise and appreciate that divergent perspectives is a strength, not a weakness.
The roundtable is open to the campus community. It will take place February 1, 2023. 3pm - 4:30pm. Green College, Coach House.
Webinar link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/63215339677
Panelists (in speaking order).
Dory Nason, Associate Professor of Teaching, IGRSSJ & CIS; & President UBCFA. Dr. Nason is Anishinaabe and an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.
Sharon Stein. Assistant Professor, Ed Studies. A white settler scholar, Dr. Stein’s research asks how education can prepare settlers to confront the impacts of colonialism, racism, and white supremacy in various fields of study and sectors of society.
Cheyanne Connell, PhD Student, Anthropology. Ja aa haanach’e. I am Dunne-Za Cree of the Brown family of West Moberly First Nations, and am an IAR Fellow (Centre for Japanese Research) and Socio-Cultural and Indigenous Anthropologist.
Gage Averill, Provost. Dr. Averill, a settler ethnomusicologist with research interests in Haitian popular music, joined UBC in 2010 after holding positions as Vice-Principal, Academic, and Dean for the University of Toronto, Mississauga campus, and also Dean of Music at the University of Toronto. Prior to that, he served as Chair of the Department of Music at New York University.
Amy Perreault. Senior Strategist, Indigenous Initiatives, CTLT. Ms Perreault is Red River Métis, with mixed European ancestry. She was born in Thompson Manitoba but spent most of her childhood fishing, picking huckleberries, hiking and being on the land and water ways in the East and West Kootenay’s on the traditional territories and homelands of the Ktunaxa Nation.
Rima Wilkes, Professor, Sociology. Dr. Wilkes is the author (with Aaron Duong, Linc Kesler, and Howard Ramos) of the article "Canadian University Acknowledgment of Indigenous Lands, Treaties, and Peoples" published in the Canadian Review of Sociology.
Danielle Ignace, Assistant Professor, Forestry. Dr. Ignace is an enrolled member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe and a broadly trained ecophysiologist with a passion for science communication.
Moderator: hagwil hayetsk (Charles Menzies), Professor, Anthropology.
hagwil hayetsk is of the house of H:el/T'sibassa, Blackfish Clan and a member of Gitxaała Nation.