Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces the nature and goals of Indigenous Studies as an academic discipline that emphasizes cultures and homelands of First Peoples. Students with credit for FNST 101 may not take this course for further credit. Breadth-Humanities/Social Sciences.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course surveys pre-contact, historic and current events relating to the First Peoples of Turtle Island and the impacts that contact/colonization had/have on First Peoples’ survivance and futurity. Students will consider Indigenous perspectives of family, languages and connections to the land, oral traditions, community identities, resilience, revitalization, along with their own roles and responsibilities in reconciliation. Students will deliberate on the impacts of laws and policy making on First Peoples’ lives and the actions that Indigenous Peoples continue to take to counter these detrimental forces toward ensuring their Nations’ and Territories’ futurities. Indigenous practices that center on the building of respectful relationships will be utilized throughout the semester towards providing an environment that is conducive to taking up, in meaningful ways, the work that needs to be done by all before reconciliation can begin.

*Course syllabus and outline follow the FNST 101 course designed by Drs. annie ross and Marianne Ignace.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Through honouring and engaging with Indigenous protocols and processes students will:

• practice two-eyed seeing in considering the relationships between First Peoples, their Lands and ways and the ongoing effects of colonization;
• come to understand their roles and responsibilities in reconciliation;
• learn and engage with anti-colonial thinking, writing, speaking, acting;
• engage with wholistic approaches to reflect on the Calls to Action.

Key concepts introduced, include:

• Indigenous Sovereignty, Aboriginal Title, Aboriginal Rights
• Early imperial and colonial laws enabling settlement and colonial myths about settlement
• Historical legislation constructing the "Indian" as a racialized subject in colonial law and the various laws associated with administering this subject
• the Reserve system, Indian Agents, and the Department of Indian Affairs
• Residential Schools, the 60s scoop, coercive enfranchisement
• Recent historical and Contemporary Termination Policies (Red Paper, the Apology, the Harper Bills, and current pipeline issues)
• Indigenous aesthetic practices and their relationship to Indigenous sovereignty
• Helper Beings, the fight over resources/kin between settler/native, and the policing of traditional practices, perspectives on land
• Direct Action, the history of Direct Action and resistance to colonialism
• Art practice as community expression of Indigenous sovereignty
• Tactics of erasure and forms of sanitized Indigeneity, how stereotypes are deployed, how we can read them, what they tell us about the political situation and settler opinions
• Land acknowledgements, Settler positionality, Settler/White fragility/privilege, Conducting oneself in a good way
• terminology, legal, tribal, and cultural identities, Status and Non-status, the basic difference between First Nations, Métis, Inuit, appropriate and inappropriate ways of talking about Indigenous peoples
• Land title cases, expressions of sovereignty related to the land
• Treaties! What are they, how were they made, what do they mean

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Devices may be required from time to time to engage in in-class discussions via Padlet or Mentimeter or other interactive tools. In addition, you will need to have a pen or pencil for some class activities. There will be occasions for students to participate in activities on-line, outside of class time.

All required readings are available on Canvas or online through SFU library.

RECOMMENDED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: