Grant program: Faculty Inquiry Grants: Decolonizing and Indigenizing Curricula

Meg Holden

Grant recipient: Meg Holden, Urban Studies

Project team: Kamala Todd, research assistant/Adjunct Professor, Urban Studies, Ryan Lai, research assistant

Timeframe: September 2019 to June 2021

Funding: $6000

Final report: View Meg Holden's final report (PDF) >>

Description: This proposed research project aims to conduct engaged research and relationship-building work in preparation of a new course to be offered as part of the Urban Studies curriculum, Indigenous City. The course, once researched and prepared, will be offered for a pilot offering in Fall 2020 as a four credit seminar for both upper level undergraduate and graduate urban studies students.

The research and relationship-building work proposed here will have additional benefits to the Urban Studies Program. The outcomes of this work will provide valuable insight and frames for further discussion of aspects of decolonizing our approach to teaching and research within the Urban Studies Program that can be taken up by all faculty and students across the host of courses and activities we pursue. Lessons may apply, for example, to how we plan and host public events, how we conduct program business and constitute advisory groups, and how we address crucial matters of inquiry such as “expertise,” “methodology” and “critique.”

Keywords: decolonization; urban planning; reconciliation planning; arts and culture planning; Host First Nations; Aboriginal social planning; unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh lands