“We Stick Out Our Tongues” De-essentializing for Decolonization: A Storywork Study on Indigenous Relationality

• Main Author: Minet, Chantai Michelle
• Other Authors: Fellner, Karlee, Mudry, Tanya, Wada, Kaori, Domene, Jose, Hanson, Aubrey
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Werklund School of Education 2021
• Subjects: Indigenous; Indigenous Storywork; Tlingit; relationality; decolonization; reciprocity; The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada; counselling psychology; film; poetry; Educational Psychology; Psychology; Canada; Lingít; tlingit
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1880/113690; https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39057

For Indigenous people, one of the most powerful acts of decolonization is reclaiming who we are and sharing our stories with the world. Indigenous relationality describes who we are in relation to all of creation. Our relationality is diverse, multifaceted, and inappropriately underrepresented in literature. To date, much of the literature aiming to guide work with Indigenous people is essentializing, reducing Indigenous relationality into pan-Indigenous or uniform formulas that are inaccurate and harmful. This research directly addresses the issue of essentialization through exploring relationality. From an Indigenous (Lingít) research paradigm, I use Indigenous Storywork (ISW) to explore and amplify four Indigenous graduate students’ diverse experiences of their Indigenous relationality. Our filmed research conversations, stories, and poetry took on a life of their own, leading to a collective meaning-making circle and reciprocity poetry as an expression of Indigenous relationality. This study provides insight around the construction and preservation of Indigenous relationality and addresses the essential role of reciprocity within Indigenous relationality. This study is a courageous, decolonizing, reciprocity effort that honours our Indigenous relationality and our respective Indigenous and academic communities. This study responds to the recommendations made in Psychology’s Response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Report, and creates space for reclamation, reconciliatory conversations, and social change.