Gerald Taiaiake Alfred

Contrary to conventional wisdom and common practice in Canadian universities today, “Indigenous academics” are not faculty members who happen to have real or imagined Native ancestry (the two forms are equal under the law, by the way) . Being an Indigenous academic, for those of us who are, is a more serious matter that goes beyond glorifying one’s bloodline or tokenizing one’s status as an “aboriginal Canadian”. Indigeneity is a struggle, not a label. And for those of us who work in academia, accepting one’s indigeneity means a constant fight to remain connected to our communities, to live our culture and to defend our homelands, all the while fulfilling our professional duties inside what is, essentially, a central institution of colonial dominion. It’s a complicated and contentious existence, if it is done properly.

There are many post-colonials among us who believe that universities must change their structures, rules and cultures to accommodate the new presence of original people in the heart of whiteness, so to speak. I do not share this view; and not because I disagree with universities being the heart of whiteness! but mainly because I have come to realize the decolonizing potential of the creative tension of the Indigenous – University dynamic on both persons and collectives. I believe, after 14 years as an academic, that if we are to serve any useful role in helping our people survive and in decolonizing this country, we have to embrace, learn from, and teach about the discordant situation we find ourselves in because it simply reflects the broader reality faced by our people in their confrontations with the established order.
Pacifying our existence as Indigenous academics while the actual state of relations between our peoples remains aggressively colonial would cut us off from the reality of our people, rendering us useless, or worse, fashioning us into tools of White Power. In fact, many of us who claim to be “Indigenous Academics” do walk in beauty on the peaceful path to irrelevance. But this is putting your situation as a university professor before your identity as a Native, in effect it means becoming an “Academic Indigene” and that just does not sound right to me.
Our experiences in universities reflect the tensions and dynamics of our relationships as Indigenous peoples interacting with people and institutions in society as a whole: an existence of constant and pervasive struggle to resist assimilation to values and culture of the larger society. In this, contrary to what is sometimes naively assumed by us and propagated by universities themselves, universities are not safe ground. In fact, they are not even so special or different in any meaningful way from other institutions; they are microcosms of the larger societal struggle. But they are the places where we as academics work – they are our sites of colonialism.
“The university is contentious ground…” This may seem like an obvious point, given the petty controversies and personal conflicts that are facts of life in any academic institution. Indigenous people in universities have for the most part proven unprepared mentally, emotionally and physically to carry on the struggles of their nations inside academia. Most Indigenous people working in universities are alienated or escapees from their nations and have for the most part retreated to the university and insulated themselves from any accountability to the conflicts and challenges being faced by their people in the communities. I believe, in our academic politics we are not making a courageous stand for the integrity of our nationhood or pride in our Indigenous cultures, we are rushing headlong into the mainstream or bourgeois cultural camp. It has become clear that in withdrawing from relevancy and immersing ourselves in the battle for personal gain, or involving ourselves only in disciplinary and academic fights, we are playing assimilation’s end-game. The important struggles are not in the low-stakes squabbling over professional recognition, manoeuvring for prestige and status, or scramble for departmental resources for our programs.
Given that academe today is such a crucial part of the system of injustices against our nations Indigenous academics have a responsibility to oppose not only any specific acts of aggression and denial of freedom against themselves and their interests that may occur, but the role and function university dwelling colonial power itself. Our people are on the verge of losing an entire way of life, as well as their memory of the histories that not only sustain us as unique cultures but which are also the foundation of the political and economic rights and freedoms that we still do have. All of this is being lost at an astounding rate.
This is where I have always found the most important role for Indigenous academics: as teachers of an empowering and truthful sense of the past and who we are as peoples, and as visionaries of a dignified alternative to the indignity of cultural assimilation and political surrender. In my own work, I have done my best to emulate the greats in this respect, such as the legal and political thinkers Vine Deloria, Jr., and Leroy Little Bear, the anthropologist Beatrice Medicine, and the historian Howard Adams. Their work as scholars and teachers is exemplary in the way they have sought to honour knowledge from traditional cultures, fight for independence in the face of conquest, and denounce and confront false claims of colonial authority and imperial legitimacy.
I have always seen the university as a ground of contention. In this, like many friends and colleagues who are Indigenous academics and who love their people and the land, I am committed to integrating traditional knowledge and bringing an authentic community voice to my work, and I do the best I can to abide a traditional ethic in the conduct of my relations in fulfilling my professional responsibilities. I welcome as necessary the conflicts that emerge with established rules and patterns of authority and conventions of practices. They are signs of movement away from our…
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Taiaiake Alfred
University of Victoria