An Open Letter of Apology
I want to apologize to members of the Native Youth Movement (NYM) and wider community of Indigenous activists and scholars for producing a research paper that was very colonial in content and form. I did a disservice to the NYM, Indigenous community and myself by producing a piece of work that was disrespectful and inherently a piece of falsification despite my good intentions, because of my ignorance at the time. I don’t want to make excuses; I wish I had done this work very differently.
The paper I wrote was a BA thesis on the NYM and related Indigenous activist scholars from my own perception. It was called: A Vision of Decolonization: an Analysis of the Native Youth Movement from Western Canada. I was supervised by two non-indigenous people with academic knowledge of the field of nationalism with extremely limited experience in working directly with Indigenous communities I was holding as research objects. Despite their good intentions and support of Indigenous rights, I messed up. That is very much the problem. I held the NYM as an object instead of allowing members to actively participate in the shaping of my project, and I did not in any meaningful way allow members to participate or critique my work. I failed in any meaningful way to have a participatory project. I was not pushed by my supervisors to use an ethical methodology and was myself too ignorant to look for one. Afterwards I publically presented my work. I apologize for all of this.
My project consisted of using internet and written sources that were publically available through Redwire and Warrior Publications, as well as using books from Indigenous scholars that I located. However, I used these sources in an ignorant, Eurocentric and disrespectful way that highlighted conflict and manufactured disrespect. I had no understanding of the human relationships underlying these writings. I insulted people I meant to build relationships with. This project was an absolute failure and injurious to actual people.
I want to specifically apologize to Taiaiake Alfred and Gord Hill for representing them without their consultation.
I didn’t really realize this until I took an Indigenous research methodologies class at University of Winnipeg and reflected on being called out by two Indigenous activists. It clicked in my head and I felt like an idiot. I also feel like my whole schooling is based on this injury and my presence in an Indigenous MA program based on this horrid previous scholarship. If I had never taken this program, I do not think I would have ever realized my faults in this case. What is worse is that I have waited so long to actually account for this, until the pile of uninformed actions and misbehaviour in my life is reaching a threshold. The positive is I can now begin to make amends.
In the future if I am to do research again and actually include Indigenous communities, I want to be supervised by Indigenous scholars. I will make sure any research on a community involves participation and consent of the community based on decolonizing and Indigenized research methods.
I’m willing to redress what injury I have caused, and I would value being contacted to put that into action. I want to build solidarity and a decent working relationship for the future with NYM members and other Indigenous activists, so that my existence in non-indigenous activists groups will not be a burden to organizing against colonization.
Alex Paterson
