Protected:Respons(A)bility

''Respons(A)bility: Weaving words of responsibility through story'' //By Mariel Belanger N’syilxcen language edited by Sienna Belanger-Lee// <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8DYxbv-oSe0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> ''The Look'' This is an Auntie (anti) essay’ following my stream of consciousness as I call for faculty to engage better ways of being and doing to protect the future incoming students whose experience is threatened by internalized policies that cause harm while the word //ethics// is made a metaphoric wash rag in a kitchen that uses too much bleach. The fabric is breaking down, which means the methodologies are no longer working. Coming back to ‘higher education’ as a mature student has me feeling like I need to do some housekeeping here. I use a lot of metaphors in my writing and will bring them to life in digital visual formats throughout this interactive story. Follow the many links and ponder thoughtfully when prompted. When an Indigenous auntie gives you side eye watch out. You are certain to not get what you’d like but hear everything you need. In this telling I will address the demoralization that occurs when the Indigenous student is made teacher of pan Indigenous epistemology benefitting privileged white faculty and student fragility. This auntie will include Youtube links and land-based exercises while I unpack three occurrences of how course content is often handled and how I am affected as a bipolar Indigenous student. I discuss my understanding of duty-of-care through the research of Dr. Dorothy Christian as featured in Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Jo-ann Archibald et al as personal responsibility, taking precautions to predict what could be happening for others when applied to the understanding of performance theory as course work. If issues of diversity formulas, cultural appropriation and insensitivity are causing me strife, they are devastating my young peers and I can’t have that. [[Authors Note->Authors Note]]

Authors Note Throughout this telling, I create poetry from text found in the Anthony Mattina Colville Okanagan Dictionary (1991) and then my daughter Sienna edited it for linguistic consideration as she is in her third year n’syilxcen language fluency degree. I choose poetry because when written it resembles how Wendy Wickwire edited Harry Robinson’s oral storytelling in speed and tempo as seen in Write It on Your Heart: The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller (1989). [[Biography->Biography]]

Customary Introduction way̓ xast s ̌ xľxʕ̌alt iskʷist cencen, nsisulaʔxʷ ki kn mut //Hello, good day my name is cencen I am from nsisulaʔxʷ.// My matrilineal side of the family has been in the Columbia Plateau harvesting tule reeds at Hawthorn creek down to the head of Okanagan Lake and around the territory since time immemorial. In true voyageur form, my father came across the country on a whim where he met my mother under and apple tree in the valley of the sun…. from those beautiful beginnings I came. [[Introduction Part 2->Introduction Part 2]]

Mariel is dedicated to contributing to the growth of interdisciplinary arts as a method to engage Indigenous community, language, culture, and act as a bridge to society telling stories of our time. In 2022 Mariel won a CGS SSHRC Doctoral Scholarship, the Teyonkwayenawá:kon – Queens University Graduate Scholarship, MFA SSHRC at UBCO, UBCO Aboriginal Fellowship, and Indian Brotherhood scholarship recipient who in 2018 was awarded Outstanding Indigenous Graduate Student at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry held in Champaigne-Urbana at the University of Illinois. As well Belanger was nominated to the Canadian Association of Theatre Research board as graduate board member for two terms. As artist scholar Belanger’s research is about Identity through the lens of Indigenous ways of knowing and being in the world, customary law, Indigenous feminism and performance theory, exploring how cultural identity is rebuilt through oral history and performance practice. Belanger’s writing can be found in the chapter “stəqpistns iʔ pqlqin / kihew omīkwan Eagle Feather” New Directions for Theorizing in Qualitative Inquiry Norman Denzin, James Salvo. Myers Educational Press, “Experiencing Resonance as a Practice of Ritual Engagement” co authored chapter in RESEARCH AND RECONCILIATION Andrea Breen, Lindsay Dupre, Shawn Wilson, and alt.Theatre cultural diversity and the stage magazine Vol 14.1 through 14.3 as guest curator and writer. Belanger is a founding member of Sqilxw Apna and Kama? Creative Aboriginal Arts Collective in her home community devising land based cultural arts as community education and engagement after spending time outside community. As an arts instructor at the Enowkin Centre Belanger facilitated Community Engagement for Artists and Indigenous Performance Arts for the NAPAT program and Summer Indigenous Arts Intensive at UBC Okanagan. Mariel has travelled to Chile from Temuco to Socorama demonstrating a sqilxw-centric land-based visitor protocol and performing how colonial violence still affects the bodies of Indigenous women through her performance Illegal: Let Us Live (2016) co-authored by the late Dr. Gregory Younging and contributing to local Indigenous land-based causes such as replanting indigenous plants in reclaimed lands to assisting in choreographing an interpretive dance in a Mapuche language school. As an early film maker Belanger directed two films which won at the Cowichan International Film Festival for “Best Documentary” (Mothers Milk, 2008), “Most Promising Film Maker” and “Best Actor” (Wayward Soul, 2007) As a member of the Ullus Collective, Belanger has created media instillations for Women in the Okanagan (2012) featuring Xixutem a story of revival, GeoTag Art featuring A song for Tigerlily and Picto Prophecy Reminders for the People. Recently stepping out on her own Belanger was lead creator in Storyhive Telus project sn̓kłca̓ʔsqáxǎ ʔ tkłmílxʷ- Horse Woman. sqilxw.com/2014/02/15/cv-mariel-belanger/ [[Customary Introduction->Customary Introduction]]

Introduction Part 2 kʷ isckʔascúnəm. //I came to tell you.// kən captkʷlímV ən. //I am a storyteller.// kʷV əkʷyV ínaʔ cmystin yaʔ nqilxʷcən. //I know the Okanagan language a little.// əl isckʷut llt, tt əl istaʔxʷspxp̌ áxt, lut swit kʷu ̌ tə̓ ckəɬt xaʔtxtís. //From the time I was born, from the time I got my senses, nobody could step in front of me.// [[Introduction Part 3->Introduction Part 3]]

''Misplaced opportunity '' Within the practice of any western field of study, according to any given syllabus, a course will articulate something along the lines //As an overview of the field of __________ from interdisciplinary perspectives bridging ________, anthropology, decolonizing studies, and some other methodology…// without identifying the origins of said studies unless they were isolated by white European males of a certain time. In this case ''decolonizing studies'' evolved from Indigenous studies as Margaret Kovach reminds us “Colonial interruptions of Indigenous culture continues, and there is no way to address tribal epistemologies and Indigenous research frameworks without considering these relations.” (Kovach, 2009: 76) In one syllabus I was given, the words Indigenous studies were erased in favour of word count and replaced with ‘cultural studies’ a general term covering any culture including European, LatinX and African American. In this case three distinct worldviews were erased in favour of the word culture, yet the other white centric disciplines of anthropology, sociology and performance studies were identified. Words matter and how they are arranged to erase people and context of material is important for a methodology course to discuss. Words have their own performance value. It matters whose words gets used and put out there. “It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds; what worlds make stories.” (Haraway, 2016 : 35) Not only do we need more ethnic diversity we also need more neurodivergent diversity. A world with bipolar perspectives, with manic expression. [[Blood of the Other->Blood of the Other]]

Introduction Part 3 ixíʔ sƛ̓ax̌ts uɬ n̓yʕ̓ip t̓i ixíʔ lut t̓ə ck̓ak̓aʔlíʔst. t̓i way̓ n̓yʕ̓ip cqacəlx, t̓i n̓yʕ̓ip sƛ̓ax̌ts. //She started fast and she kept it up, she didn’t slow up. She’s always a-trotting, she’s always going fast. // [[Chapter One->Chapter One]]

Blood of the Other “Culture, underpinned as usual by faith, law and revisionary history, has proven only too capable of doing what main force could not, which was to make the colonizer capable of sleeping at night or reaching across the dinner or communion table without recoiling from the sense of the blood of the “Other” on his hands. In the name of culture, colonialism does its work and dignifies its meaning as duty and improvement and the exhilarating march of progress.” //Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision// L.MFindly. Battiste. P.x [[Page 2->Page 2]]

Page 2 The forward of the book Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision (2000), edited by Marie Battiste and L.M Findlay a settler scholar, articulates the importance of why white professors need to check their privileged academic guardianship of excellence and freedoms when engaging Indigenous Knowledge and people when he writes in the forward: “//These self-styled guardians of academic ‘excellence’ feel obligated to exclude or depreciate the possibility of Aboriginal knowledge, Aboriginal understanding of power, accountability, and leadership. For these guardians, who are found in all disciplines as well as in the ranks of senior administrators and remain key to the ongoing marginalization and or/assimilation of Aboriginal students and scholars, to think otherwise would be to bring thinking itself into question. It would be tantamount to seeing academic rationality as in part a Euro-imperial, historically specific construct and therefore not a neutral, “human” universal.//” (Ibid.: xi) A course creator will decide to appear woke by changing the original whitecentric outline of their course to reflect Indigenous perspectives and label it ‘//''decolonizing theory''//’ but do nothing to honour the Indigenous knowledge associated as theory and ignore its embodied knowing. [[Page 3->Page 3]]

''They ate their feelings'' n̓cuʔcuʔcís iʔ məlqnups. ckʕ̓ʷəyncutəmstməlx. cəm̓ n̓k̓əstmis, cəm̓ n̓q̓əltusəs, way̓ n̓ɬmilsənt. ən siymscút. lut t̓ə cmystim l̓ stim̓ sysyus, pna cmay ixíʔ akɬqʷən̓qʷən̓tán. ixíʔ m̓áyaʔɬts iʔ cawts. n̓k̓ʷəʔl̓səncut. //He mocked the eagles. She laughed at them. That might do him harm, he might get sick, respect his feelings. I will do my best. We don’t know in what things he is smart, maybe you’ll suffer from it. He went on telling his story. She started eating her feeling.// [[Side Note 3->Side Note 3]]

In my PHD proposal I summarize the report What Matters in Indigenous Education: Implementing a Vision Committed to Holism, Diversity and Engagement, “//Within its present and history Canadian education performs as a tool of conformity erasing Indigenous peoples in Canada structurally tearing at its societal roots already mired in marginalization, subjugation, declared useless, null and void. Even the improved state of ways of knowing as education for Indigenous peoples has only occurred as a result of the resiliency of Indigenous communities and social justice movements advocating for inclusion and change//” (Toulouse, 2016: 01) and paraphrased “//Western educational models built on principles of logic, objectivity, and authority disregard Indigenous people’s approaches to teaching and learning//” (Blanchet-Cohen, Geoffroy, Hoyos, 2018:19) to articulate the core problem across disciplines as being ''silence, acceptance, assimilation,'' and ''erasure''. As an Indigenous student I am saddled with unpacking the western cannon and then repackaging it in a way that matters to my cannon. Too often these educational practices marginalize mixed experiences as being bias and not scholarly because it is not sourced from research. I relate to Lila Abu-Lughod in exploring the feeling of being a host to intersectionality in my lived reality unsettling colonial boundaries and who said, “//introduced themes of ethnographies, the BIPOC researcher self is split, caught at the intersection of systems of difference//.” (Abu-Lughod, 1991: 467) Abu-Lughod presents three critical issues: “Positionality, audience and the power inherent in the distinctions of self and other.” (ibid.: 468) [[Page 4->Page 4]]

''Tips from the Thunderdome'' Sometimes I try to jam pack meaning into a single presentation that I forget to unpack why I bring things up, like this one time I used //We Don’t Need Another Hero// by Tina Turner as a reference to not using Indigenous ways of knowing as a method to keep your job. Tips from the Thunderdome was a way I related the imagery in the music video to what the first anthropologists reported as to having seen and how the politics of saviourism came into play as ethnography. The segue was easy for me to co-opt for the purposes of presenting course material and pointing out exact implications of acceptance over decolonizing academia. I have been labeling myself anti-academic as of late because I’m tired of reading all the same kind of old material recolonizing new minds to push through the same shape doors of our now collective oppression, because climate change is real and Mad Max was written by an author informed by the science of the 1970’s that was being shut down to benefit corporate culture. [[All the children said->All the children said]]

''All the children said'' //All the children said We don’t need another hero // youtu.be/Gcm-tOGiva0 (//Tina Turner//, We Don’t Need Another Hero, 1985) ''Anti-racism workload avoidance '' As a memoir to the future, //''Mad Max''// (1979) highlights the fortune telling and future anthropologies being thought through in settler apocalyptic screenwriting that was originally made at the end of an economic recession to depict the future after centuries of enhanced capitalism and western cannon. You might have noticed Tina Turner had blond hair and the only one that wasn’t bald or with white paint on him was the outsider hero Mad Max....a man of the land tokenized by another white dude actor. One white dude saving the ends of humanity. Some crusty white male trying to maintain the power to decide what is best for all. This is played out in acting classes and performance ethnography classes all the time and how we should allow a majority white student body to embody for the progress of education teaching practice. Coopting embodiments illustrated in real time on the grounds at any Eurocentric university. [[Side Note->Side Note]]

To be honest I think the new //''Mad Max:Fury Road''// (2015) with Charlize Theron is a better representation of how the settler dystopian futurists coopt Indigenous histories as their own. Imagine this was 1600 and a French man in a crown decided to breed French into the Indigenous population... I imagine it to be much like this Youtube “Wives” featurette on the Warner Brothers channel youtu.be/slTH9lFJjKU [[Side Note 2->Side Note 2]]

Back to Mad Max, a story about a white male who plays out the tried-and-true hero’s journey and saves the capitalist worldview. The hero’s journey is not everyone’s path though. It is the path of progress in a man-made reality. For some of us, it doesn’t make sense because the hero’s journey just keeps producing the same results and that’s the definition of insanity is it not? We don’t need anthropological or ethnographical heroes. Some of us need 4 or 5 acts to achieve our goals because we are squeezing through the cracks in the ceiling of capitalism to create our paths back to cultural knowing and being. And while we need help from everyone to escape Climate change without flooding the world, we need people to be interested in making true connections on the ground they live on. Most importantly, we need our own Indigenous representations. Especially Black Indigenous, Immigrant Indigenous and North American Indigenous people need them, western settler gatekeepers, to give us the keys to the lecture hall, the classroom and the theatre so we can come in on our own time, talk at our own pace and embody practices in the round as our ancestors did. We need our own spaces to speak and feel safe unpacking our own worldviews without a looking glass judging us for an article to pimp our knowledge and repackage as Method. Who is studying the decolonizing, anti-black racism avoidance in faculty and their lack of change? Who is studying the silo affect and cross referencing it with prison isolation practise? Why do they always try to farm grad students out when we should be turning our attention in to our own inner workings and see where the troubles lie. Society needs its checks and balances and that includes Universities. [[Page 6->Page 6]]

i.imgur.com/K3GDvX5.jpg Copy and paste into new browser window with to see meme of “''American Progress''” painting by John Gast in 1872 that reads “//White professor heading to teach an Indigenous studies class// submitted by memer An Old Big Tree (with underscore between words) To be honest when I think about my university experience as the marker in a lithograph of history, I pick it up and move to any point in the timeline of Canada and witness through its education operating system when the government (faculty) starts feeling like they lose control of the "Native Indian" (student) situation, they initiate the Indian Agents (Outside Facilitator). They (administration) activate someone to come in and mediate in the best interest of the Crown/University/colonizing body. This is the scene I see when picturing the situation at universities across North America. This is the reason so many Indigenous people don’t want to go to post-secondary, it’s the same operating system. It is depressing to be honest, uninvested faculty shouldn’t try to conduct in class experiments with their Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ and POC students when the ratio of students is not equal. For example, the classroom experience in any given university theatre course is a ratio of students like 1/16 Indigenous, 1/16 Black, 1/16 Immigrant, 1/16 LGBTQ and 12/16 White. It reflects like some kind of chemistry experiment gone wrong. We’ll feed the kids, but we’ll make them serve us first. Like what they did at residential school. youtu.be/7GmX5stT9rU What systemic racism in Canada looks like by CBC News, July 9, 2020. [[Page 5->Page 5]]

“There is an interesting paradox here-in Western drama, the performer’s technique should be so good that he conveys through the maximum of artifice the greatest amount of naturalness to his stage character. Both poor mastery of technique and overrepresentation of the emotions themselves ("hamming") detract from the illusion of balance between contrivedness and spontaneity that makes for convincing dramatic presentation. Since stage gestures bear no relation to everyday gestures, having by nature to communicate over distances far greater than those normally used in gestural communication, the illusion of naturalness is possible only with carefully controlled artifice. In the cannibal dance too there must be this balance-the cannibal dancer must convey through the balanced use of gesture and action the feeling that he is going to destroy the people in the room. He must make them fear for themselves-is this not the purpose of all drama-by striking a balance between natural human motion and alien motion.” (Turner, 1982: 44) This quote from Victor Turner was recommended reading for a class I was in that left me with many unanswered questions about the intention of such articles still being used in 2021 when they are racist in nature. The general feeling for most of the readings we were given in this class was that there was no room for the sacred unless it protects the academic freedom of privilege and proximity, even though they were intended to do the opposite. In that class we had to create a digital performance. The performance we conducted was the embodiment of what it is like in the western academic setting. Let’s just copy them but call it research, teach it as their own discoveries in methodology and publish it as original content. In my part of the assigned performance, I physicalized a story through gesture of how things get manipulated for an audience. I created a scenario depicting actions meant to be felt in another place called Eat the Rich, a contemporary ceremony to reground myself in purpose, to project an image of power onto a white wall and physicalize gestures of my own war dance. To use what I had available to mimic actions I’ve seen my ancestors do as embodiments of cultural expression. I let my body move freely, thinking about the gestures I had read about, and my ten-year-old eyes saw my elders Mary Louise Powers, Mary Paul and Mary Abel perform to the beat of their voice and drum. Eat the Rich is my war dance, actions that strengthen my blood, generating heat, sending waves of energy out to my intended. My reminder to my fingertips that my body is made from the material of my maternal grandmothers connected to the Columbia Plateau, connected to the big bang, connected to the universe since time immemorial. To move with the intention of feeling the blood course through me, like photons exploding with light, generating ‘k̓ɬpax̌’– //a spark of thought// waking up my muscle memory with the knowledge carried in DNA. [[Eat the Rich->Eat the Rich]]

Eat the Rich – Zoom Performance. 2020 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PLNMrMfl-XU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> William MacGregor isolated quotes from the Victor Turner article that was recommended reading for this class we were in. My other group member Hillary Kaplan had many unanswered questions with the readings and I embodied the dance of how things get manipulated for an audience. Our co-authored performed happening is an authentic autoethnographic re-enactment of our collective experience based on course readings. [[They ate their feelings->They ate their feelings]]

My performance was muscle memory expressing itself in gesture as felt response to projecting my shadow on recovered images with slide projector technology. Found technology on a street in Toronto indicating this box of slides had images of the northern Columbia Plateau in them, abandoned by the white photographer in transition, rescued by me. At that time in 2002 as indicated on the recovered slide container, in another reality,I was a young undiagnosed manic expressive aka different but not ‘bipolar’. I was returning home from Ontario after having completed my college diploma, delivering a stillborn twin and a healthy premie twin 47 days apart. Just a few short years before in 1999 I was on the Fraser River with the Native Youth Movement tracking the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as they cut the fishing nets of the local Cheam band members. We were protecting the rights of the People of the River. Some of these gestures I recreated were things I’d seen on the water that night, paddle fights and shoulder shoves. Back then the music you would hear in camp would be like //Riders on the Storm// duet with Snoop Dog and the Doors, //One Thing// by Linkin Park and //No More Tears// by Ozzy Ozborne. In the camp behind the drumline that was the music we got revved up with. From that memory, I recall in childhood training my granny Mary Abel would say things like “head down, elbows up and dance hard” Sometimes we have to wake the spirits to know what to do next. [[Page 7->Page 7]]

''Bleached bones'' n̓paʕʔíw̓s iʔ sc̓imsəlx. sc̓lam. lut skpax̌əmsəlx iʔ t swr̓isəlp̓ sc̓ik̓ʷəmsəlx. uɬ kywywusəlx, uɬ kʷaʔ l̓ aʔ n̓k̓im̓, uɬ aɬíʔ put scʔx̌iɬ t c̓ik̓ʷəsxnəl̓x. kən ksc̓íntaʔx. lut aksmaʔcənmíst. cʔkin ɬaʔ ck̓əɬc̓əkstixʷ l̓ scƛ̓ləlmix iʔ kstəm̓tim̓? yayʕát way̓ km̓əntisəlx, way̓ kʷ k̓əɬc̓sap. kən cacʕaypəm. //Their bones are bleached. She stands them up. They didn’t have to strike matches to make things light. And they have good eyes, in the dark just as well as in the light. What could I say Don’t bother people with your talk. How much do you charge for dead people’s clothes? They have already taken everything, you missed out. I cried.// [[Page 12->Page 12]]

Feeling these are hard times, I needed to dance. Elbows up, pound the foundation to the earth. Wake the spirits telling them we need their power with the pounding of our feet, head down, elbows up, from the ground up. I posted the original on Instagram, where I referred to it as a performance ethnography" called InterTribal on reclaimed images of “Shuswap Lake 2002”, northern part of the Interior Plateau of so-called BC. Found discarded after a move in Toronto…/ It represents a time in my life when I was in this part of the territory living my Sqilxw life being influence by music like this…./ The lyrics speak how I am wanting to articulate myself and because I can’t physically be there, my shadow wants to dance with the sun on the plateau and so I use that as motivation to do this hard work, head down, elbows up makes people pay attention when they are around you. It speaks to projecting our Shadow Self onto the land to dance with the ancestors. To project protection over our loved ones ahead of us, doing hard work providing for the future. My dancing in front of a projection of homelands was about my intentions, about putting pieces together internally through blood memory. Projecting our intentions towards a place where the people are hunting, raiding, traveling etc to help provide strong and successful energies where they were imagined to be. Dealing in coloniality has one pushing, pulling blending and existing in shadow. Through that class performance I activated still life with my shadow through a slide projector that hadn’t been signed out of the university media library in 10 years. Imprinting shadow self onto the image embodying the emotions juxtaposed the perfect vacation beach day slide show abandoned for new technology. “Colonialism is a system of political economic and cultural domination in which one nation or people establishes sovereignty over another. Coloniality is what endures, long after the formal systems of colonial rule have disappeared” (Alonso Bejarano et al., 2019: 22). We know systemic racism is perpetuated through its colonial systems embedded in western cannon “and yet there is a strange reluctance on the part of the most professional anthropologist to consider seriously the power structure within which their discipline has taken shape.” (Asad, 1973: 15) [[Page 8->Page 8]]

''Repeating the Mistakes '' As those who have come before me, I too am a “part of the much-needed reform in education that calls for a shift away from the deficit model of education to one that is self-determining by Indigenous educators and includes strategies for culturally relevant teaching and learning processes”(Christian, 2017 : 17) And so, like déjà vu histories repeat in any given Eurocentric graduate theory course with a similar syllabus taught by a professor of settler or European background, the typical Indigenous student class experience begins with said professor with good intentions who sees opportunity to open discussion up because they have a BIPOC or two in their class. It never ends well for the BIPOC. Mostly because the prof doesn’t know what to expect nor do they have capacity to deal with adverse reactions to systemic racism and said professor is paid by the system leaving most choosing not to upset their livelihood. These typical classes get into these racist convoluted texts of academic engagement forcing BIPOC students to beg or lash out for their basic humanity to be respected within departments. I’ve witnessed students working hard to create space for others to feel safe through their own research, going so far as proposing documented agreements based on mutual respect. These well thought out contracts get belittled by affected faculty and swept away as //someone else’s responsibility// by the rest outside the scope of the immediate problem. This caused ripples of problems. In one instance a BIPOC student production including its director stood by these words as their opening paragraph to the now public agreement: “In recognition of the ongoing and historic oppression and discrimination of racialized and marginalized bodies, minds and souls (in particular those who find themselves disproportionately affected by racism and oppression) we centre their experiences and concerns in this process. In recognition of the deep and unspoken white supremacy and Eurocentricity of the theatre industrial complex, which theatre at York participates in, this agreement centres the BIPOC community. Through this agreement we are radical in our specificity, in the hopes that by speaking from our individual experiences we may work towards a stronger collective.”(Geller, 2020) [[Side Note 4->Side Note 4]]

''Case in point'' I had heard from a colleague that their university made exception to allow him into the Masters program without a previous degree. I think this is a wonderful practice. I wondered and asked why there weren’t more Indigenous students in the cohort and I was told there weren’t any Indigenous theatre professionals to bring into the first year MA/MFA/PHD cohort. There were none to be found. This statement is false of course and the shortfall is multi-level. First off there are many Indigenous Performance Professionals who could have been given a MA/MFA scholarship on lived experience so why was a white male privileged one? Don’t get me wrong the practice is good and I adore my colleague, but the method of delivery is wrong. Why privilege more white males? Because systemic racism is protected in the institutions first by the white male administrator and second the white female faculty and staff. Systemic racism in the current educational and economic industry reflects white settler identity as the core institutional governance. This is seen continuously at the Federal government level and as MP Romeo Saganash a Cree lawmaker said in parliament to those in power they don’t “give a fuck” about Indigenous people (house of Commons 2018) nor does faculty when it comes to building BIPOC community in the disciplines when a racist white faculty member gets put on leave rather than being outright fired. Because investing in Black and Indigenous communities is an add on, not a mandate and there’s too many white people to make happy. [[Page 9->Page 9]]

''Demoralization of the Other'' The method of engagement for this one course I was in included two POC students and an Indigenous woman, me being the Indigenous woman. A dynamic is created between opposing viewpoints when BIPOC are placed in a minority situation for the sake of some interesting conversations amongst white middle class students. Even if there are two of us in the class, we get harmed being the knowledge holder of lived experiences. Often BIPOC students and faculty are used because the good intention of the professor means to educate the privileged at the expense of the BIPOC minority who spend a term educating others while learning virtually nothing for themselves. And then getting graded on it. This often leads to animosity and hurt feelings that cause faculty to plead ignorance about brewing situations. This is a failure in the duty of care that is expected of paid-for education. It is also a living embodiment of how coloniality rules the university and how residual effects of colonization are repackaged as innovative education. I’m still a token, doesn’t matter if they gave me blankets, put my face on a coin, honoured with a special day, or given a scholarship. These are tokens of my oppression. I can’t even talk to anyone about it really because the truth is offensive to those content with living in this capitalistic reality. Indigenous kids from the city aren’t signing up to go to theatre, they aren’t coming from small rural communities and reserves either. Why would they? There’s nothing about them in contemporary theatre. And when they do come to study their own performativity, BIPOC theatre students are forced to take CORE ethics training meant for out of touch privileged white students. “Aboriginal youth are the fastest growing demographic. The First Nations population grew 3.5 times faster than the non-Aboriginal population in 2006 (AFN 2012,pg1) yet the university can’t find enough Indigenous students past one per year per cohort (if we are lucky). If they were taking anti-racism workload seriously instead of avoiding it, classrooms would look like a majority of Indigenous students and a minority of white, simply because in the actual industry, there are enough white actors. There is so much white representation I don’t understand how the institution can train me for ethical research while abusing me in the class and the field at the same time. I don’t want to associate with Anthropology or Ethnography because it is still the same thing, white people ethics for western filtered observation. Students are still being trained to see people as others, BIPOC are still being othered and then told as others we need to be careful of talking the system down while holding faculty up in class. [[Side Note 5->Side Note 5]]

Before I go deeper into my feelings I want to take you out of this context into that of my head. These are the memories fighting western cannon, telling me what they say is wrong and to keep writing stream of consciousness and embodied practice because that is the ancestors speaking through me. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y-LY-utSh6Y" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> ''Sqilxw – The End Remix'' //Early experimental film featuring my youngest daughter who attended the first full immersion language school in our community and the voice and songs of my late grandmother Mary Abel// [[Page 11->Page 11]]

''Hush policies and walking on eggshells'' I don’t have to be careful, not for the reasons I am consistently being told within this institution. Educational institutions, creative arts industries and its professionals have stepped all over me already, they are the ones who need to be careful. I have nothing to lose. I have made considerable efforts to be recognized in the creative arts industries for nearing 30 years. The fabric of white supremacy and privilege is breaking down, meaning the tools are not working without exposing deficiencies anymore. I’ve been around to witness this. The tools are muddy with identity politics and consumerism. I use a lot of metaphors in my writing because it brings a specific image to mind that articulates what is a clear whitewash and quick scrub to try and clean up the practice when white and //Country Born// (whites who have one fur trader ancestor) professors throw decolonizing and Indigenous research into a white centric discipline to legitimize themselves within it. Case in point the revelations of numerous pretendians at Universities, in the Canadian Film and Literature industry darling’s. You tell me their names, cause there’s so many I can’t trust anyone who tells me they are Metis without showing me a direct Indigenous connection. Being half white doesn’t make someone Metis. Hanging on to an ancestor from 10 generations ago is a slippery slope that people need to loosen their grip on. [[Bleached Bones->Bleached Bones]]

''Ways of being'' nak̓ʷáʔ t ank̓əɬcutn̓, t̓əxʷ ixíʔ kʷ scksənxaʔcənmscút. //You haven’t had your training; you are always putting yourself higher than the other.// [[Page 15->Page 15]]

I am going to create a moment of reflection here. Give some page space as an indicator of time between the pages for you to think about the images conjured here. Think about all the wrong that we know continues at the expense of Indigenous, Black and Immigrant students. Take a minute to situate yourself. Are you a part of the problem or are you a part of the solution? [[Page 13->Page 13]]

In the contemporary understanding of belonging, duty of care and Indigenous ways of being and knowing, first respect must be given to Indigenous ways of knowing and to accept they are not tools for the taking like interview or survey for performance nor to be used to claim to belong, be part of or have expertise in, “like the theoretical minefield, I was aware of; I am equally mindful as I gingerly tread the fields and valleys of the cultural protocols of the Secwewpemc and Syilx, as well as the intertribal diverse Indigenous Nations with whom I am working. I feel the weight of responsibility to conduct myself in such a way that will make my family, community and ancestors proud.” (Christian, 2017: 71) Indigenous culture is a continuous connection to a specific place that is occupied by specific peoples with specific ways of being and knowing. It is generalized but not universal. Understanding the difference and teaching for understanding is ethical respectful engagement. Performing it as lived experience through colonial industrial practice whether in the film, theatre, academic or art industry is another thing. It is a lived experience, a way of life, a maintained effort in keeping connected, an understanding of grassroots identity and embodies the ethos of undermining the integrity of colonization by decolonizing their capitalistic lives spent on the land giving back to the ancestors with no cash attached. It’s not embodied from a reading or a DNA sample. Christian also states “//it is important to note that these ‘ways of being and knowing’ do not occur in linear, well-organized boxes but rather they occur organically in what some may call a chaotic fashion. In lived reality, they overlap in various ways and happen at different levels of engagement//.” (Ibid.: 78) To understand as an outsider of Indigenous Epistemology means to take a lot of time getting familiar with the spiraling effect of Indigenous worlding. Some artists will tell you it is a minimum of ten years’ worth of time before someone trusts you enough to let you in and carry their story. Never should someone with less than one year think they have spent enough time in community to teach Indigenous methodology. It’s wrong on every level. [[Page 14->Page 14]]

That said, through my academic experience I have had enough time to realize Theatre has not made any serious efforts to make changes in their white centric discipline. Time to reflect on what my purpose is to being here in a good way since I feel like I’m being stabbed in the back trying to stay and being robbed of knowledge only I’m here on my own free will so I give them the knife to be taken for whatever I’ve got in exchange for some letters. I used to say "fair enough" they are protecting themselves, it’s just a job but it is //not fair// and it is //not enough// because my livelihood is threatened every time I open my mouth depending on who is leading the class, who is on the production team, or who is in charge of casting. No Sally you are not enough today, not if you just keep to what you’ve always done. EcoArt and land based anything is Indigenous ways coopted for “new” and “innovative” white folks. I am at risk of being talked about as being a disrupter, or not engaging with the program and labeled not a team player. Do I want to proceed with courses from this discipline when it is clear the discipline is not capable of protecting its BIPOC students because they are too busy protecting their own positionality? In his book// Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples// Dr. Gregory Younging writes: “A view commonly held by many Indigenous Peoples – as well as many mainstream historians and academics – is that contemporary literature conveys an improved portrayal of Indigenous Peoples, but that some of it also persists in conveying subtle inappropriate stereotypes and faulty academic paradigms.” (Younging, 2018: 11) Younging goes on to describe Contemporary Indigenous Literatures as being plural, like how European Literatures are plural because like Germany, France and England, North American Indigenous Peoples are not pan-Indigenous. The same ideology can be applied to Indigenous Anthropologies, which I interpret Dr. Younging relating to as being an aspect of “Indigenous Voice” rather than a separate entity of identification practices. Younging states “The body of natural scientific knowledge encompassed in the Indigenous Voice also contains valuable paradigms, teachings, and information that can benefit all of the worlds’ family of nations. As sectors of the scientific and academic establishment have come to realize, Traditional Knowledge is integral to human survival.” (Ibid.: 13) to which Dr. Dorothy Christian unpacks with “another aspect of storytelling that Archibald speaks of is that Indigenous pedagogy engages all parts of our humanness, that is, the heart, the body, the mind and the spirit.” (Ibid.: 67) [[Ways of Being->Ways of Being]]

We need these Indigenous plural Anthropologies, Ethnographies, Theatres, and other methodologies to be reflected in the representation of faculty and their teaching methodologies. Not new titles added to old outlines from white scholars, but whole world representations and organization of how the words relate in meaning of importance because it matters! Representation matters, lived culture as outline, created to interrupt or disrupt a pattern of colonial and neo colonial thinking matters. Representation in faculty matters as clearly demonstrated when conversations of racism within departments are being minimized and reduced to anti-racism workload avoidance. As Immigrant, Black and Indigenous especially, we need to see representation of ourselves as ourselves in all forms of performance, including self-governing performance methodologies, and the ethics to understand that it isn't our job to decolonize, we are already being made to labour just being here. I honestly feel like I need a list of racist professionals and professors from every university to know who to avoid in my studies. Which does not make me feel safe knowing specific ones exist when they actively choose not to ensure safer spaces - away from racist remarks, sexist content, violence and trauma porn whatever to the point that a whole group of people feel unsafe. That will have lasting ripple effects. To be honest I'm hoping for a foundational shift for the better. “Harm reduction” is better but not the solution. We need to stop the harm at the source and that often starts with positionality and locating self in relation to the problem and hiring decolonized Indigenous professors grounded in deep Indigenous ways of being to help heal those Black, Indigenous and Immigrant students navigating settler driven courses. [[Page 16->Page 16]]

''Closing'' <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-_-eQNGYIew" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe> ''A Song for stəx̌cín, Tiger lily'' //In the late 70's, early 80's my granny and other OKIB elders told stories and sang songs to Anthropologist Wendy Wickwire in front of a little cassette tape recorder. As I go through the digitized copies, it occurs to me, I don't remember these stories even though I can hear my young voice sometimes in the background. Through these cds my granny continues to teach my family and I the story of her life growing up in the time of change. Mary Abel was born 1914 in Okanagan and died there in 1992.// kən ƛ̓lap iʔ t iscəcaptíkʷɬ. //That's where I stopped telling my story.// [[References->References]]

Without raining arrows down on Theatre, Ethnography, or the academy to destroy, I have hope because of one anthropologist who has been in my life since I was a child. This is Wendy Wickwire, who throughout my post-secondary pursuits, has made her research and herself available to me in relocating my grandmother Mary Abel’s recorded knowledge. Wendy is not teaching me anything but assists me on a pathway in the archives that she navigated to have my own discoveries. Without this collaborative action of giving back, the knowledge is not given the opportunity to express itself as intended by the source, help give it back. Maintaining this connection is as important for me to engage, as it is for Wendy to reciprocate for as long as she benefits from the originating research. So I leave you with this last video featuring a recording made by Wickwire of my granny Mary Abel and encourage you to go out on to the land, find a flower and sing your troubles to it. Talk to them, they are good people. They will help you find a way back to the truth. [[Closing->Closing]]

''References'' AFN. (2012) Chiefs Assembly on Education facts sheet. Regional Health Survey, Quick Facts for Leadership, 2008 Page 1 https://www.afn.ca/uploads/files/events/fact_sheet-ccoe-3.pdf ABU-LUGHOD, Lila (1991), “Writing Against Culture”, in Richard Fox (ed.), Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, Santa Fe, School of American Research Press, p. 137-154. ALONSO BEJARANO, Carolina et al. (2019), Decolonizing Ethnography: Undocumented Immigrants and New Directions in Social Science, Durham, Duke University Press. ARCHIBALD, Jo-Anne (2008), Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body and Spirit, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press. ASAD, Talal (1973), Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter, London: Ithaca Press. BATTISTE, Marie and L. M. FINDLAY (2000), Reclaiming Indigenous Voices and Vision, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press. BELANGER Mariel, KELLY Vicki, MAGNAT Virginie, NAYTOWHOW Joseph (2020) stəqpistns iʔ pqlqin, kihew omīkwan - Eagle Feather”. New Directions in Theorizing Qualitative Research: Indigenous Research, edited by Norman K. Denzin and James Salvo, Myers Education Press, pp. 195-202. BELANGER, Mariel.(2018) The Earth Re: Claimed Her: A continuing study of Blood Memory,Embodied Story Practice and Personal Governance. UBC BELANGER Mariel. (2017 – Series: A Return to Place Part 1– “Embodied Story Practice” (page 26-30) and “Peter Morin: Expert Time Travel Conductor” (page 31-32) alt.Theatre cultural diversity and the stage, Vol 14.1 BELANGER Mariel.(2018) Series: A Return to Place Part 2 “Tule mat lodge” alt.Theatre cultural diversity and the stage Vol 14.2(page 22-23) BELANGER Mariel. (2018) Series: A Return to Place Part 3 “Tribute to James Luna” (page 27) “We Came Singing”(page 28-32) alt.Theatre cultural diversity and the stage magazine Vol 14.3 BLANCHET-COHEN, Nathasha, GEOFFROY Pascale and HOYOS, Luz Marina (2018), “Seeking Culturally Safe. Developmental Evaluation: Supporting the Shift in Services for Indigenous Children”, Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, vol. 14, no 31: 19-31 BOAS, Franz and George HUNT (1902), Kwakiutl Texts, Leiden, E. J. Brill, digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/23 CHRISTIAN, Dorothy (2017), Gathering Knowledge: Indigenous Methodologies of Land/Place-Based Visual Storytelling/Filmmaking and Visual Sovereignty. Vancouver, 2017. GELLER, Philip (2020), UBU Student Production Agreement, York University. HARAWAY, Donna (2016), “Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene”, in Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Durham, Duke University Press. KOVACH, Margaret (2009), Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations and Contexts, Toronto, University of Toronto Press. CONQUERGOOD, Dwight (2013), “Performing as a Moral Act: Ethical Dimensions of the Ethnography of Performance”, in Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis, E. Patrick Johnson (ed.), Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, p. 65-78. ISEKE-BARNES, J. M. (2008), “Pedagogies for Decolonizing”, Canadian Journal of Native Education, vol. 31, no 1, p. 123-148. MAGNAT,Virginie, ANULI-MEYER Manulani, BELANGER Mariel, CARTER Jill, DERICKSON Corinne, DERICKSON Delphine, FOGAL Clair. (2019) Experiencing Resonance as a Practice of Ritual Engagement. Peer reviewed chapter, Research and Reconciliation: Unsettling Ways of Knowing through Indigenous Relationships Canadian Scholars, pp 157-78, MATTINA, Anthony (1987), Colville-Okanagan Dictionary, University of Montana Occasional Papers in Linguistics, no.5. POWERS, William K. (1983), “Review of Feasting with Cannibals: An Essay on Kwakiutl Cosmology by Stanley Walens”, American Anthropologist, vol. 85, no 1, p. 203-204. ROBINSON, Harry (1989), Write It on Your Heart: The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller, Wendy Wickwire (ed.),Vancouver, Talonbooks. TOULOUSE, Pamela. (2016). What Matters in Indigenous Education: Implementing a Vision Committed to Holism, Diversity and Engagement. In Measuring What Matters, People for Education. Toronto: March, 2016. 1-19 TURNER, Victor and Edith (1982), “Performing Ethnography”, The Drama Review, vol. 26, no 2, p. 33-50. YOUNGING, Gregory (2018), Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples, Edmonton, Brush Education Inc.

I believe Indigenous folks should be able to approach their research in the way they deem necessary in the place it is most necessary, especially upcoming MFA directors needing to hone their Indigenous directing skills on actors, any actors if they have a protocol plan in place. Indigenous PHD’s should be able to take courses online with option to attend, especially if their research is centered in community. I strongly believe Indigenous folks should be prioritized when providing access to post-secondary graduate studies to combat such blatant racism and anti-racism workload avoidance when Indigenous research is refused because of a lack of Indigenous participation due to the negligence of the university outreach. It is agreed that making post-secondary education more accessible benefits everyone. [[Page 10->Page 10]]