Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Non-specialized introductory summaries of selected regional topics in world prehistory. Breadth-Social Sciences.

COURSE DETAILS:

Over the generations, Indigenous identities, lifeways, and worldviews have shaped and been shaped by deep connections to ancestral territories, traditions and homes. These connections are expressed through language, song, ritual, stories, systems of governance and management, and are visible in the archaeological record and modified ecosystems.

Through the lens of Indigenous ways of knowing and being with the land, this course will explore how Indigenous peoples (with emphasis on Coast Salish) specifically and from other parts of the country and world understand and interact with their environments. Our explorations will be embedded in current social-ecological contexts, which on the one hand threaten these age-old knowledges and practices, but on the other, speak to the urgent need to learn from and adapt these knowledges and practices today. Concepts of deep time, kinship, stewardship, restoration and place will be considered. Learning will take place in university classrooms, traditional territories of Coast Salish peoples and invite knowledge keepers and Elders into these spaces and will weave in dialogic and land-based learning practices.

*Note: There will be an outdoor on the land component here at SFU so learners should be prepared to work on the FENV Food Forest as a central component of land based learning.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

1. To think critically about historical and contemporary understandings of Indigenous Peoples’ in North America and the impacts of colonization with an emphasis on British Columbia and Canada.
2. To understand the holistic perspectives of Indigenous Knowledge and its connection to understanding land, water, sky, fish and wildlife through Indigenous ways of knowing with a connection to land based practices.
3. To gain an understanding of introductory topics, concepts, and issues in Indigenous knowledge in a Canadian context: indigenous knowledge, oral tradition, sovereignty, decolonization, selfdetermination, resource stewardship, language and culture, reconciliation, justice, traditional knowledge, Indigenous research methods, cultural relativism and sensitivity.
4. Understand current events and present issues of Indigenous people through explorations in media, op-eds, public policy, writings, social media implementing two-eyed seeing, decolonial and gender-based analysis approach.
5. To experience land-based practices and learning in the local area to integrate concepts by being on the land.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: