About

This Indigenous Educational Research Centre (IERC) is designed to foster Indigenous resurgence and strengthen an Indigenous presence in research practices, but more specifically within Indigenous educational research contexts. The Centre will better equip the university to respond to and help shape how institutions can go beyond token Indigenization and reconciliatory efforts.

With the national spotlight on the ‘reconciliation’ project and with education seen as a critical site for reconciliatory efforts and Indigenous resurgence, the Center was developed as a vital means to work toward resurgence and as an important response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Calls to Action. Leanne Simpson (2011) writes that “if it is truly time to talk ‘reconciliation’, then how we reconcile is critically important” (p. 24). Simpson (2011) [1] writes that the “process of resurgence” (p. 20) must be Indigenous-driven and –led. Further, that Indigenous resurgence is about “creating a space of storied presencing, alternative imaginings, transformation, [and] reclamation” (p. 96). In this way Indigenous resurgence is an emergent construct that can be taken up in relation to place-specific Indigenous educational research contexts.

There are three Indigenous ethics informing the vision for this Centre: (1) The ethics of Relationality; (2) The ethics of Land; and (3) The ethics of Indigenous resurgence. The vision of the Centre is to establish a research focus within OISE that connects Indigenous faculty and graduate students along with other scholars whose educational research interests align with the vision of the Centre in collaborative, respectful and culturally appropriate ways in order to examine and explore the issues of pressing concern to Indigenous peoples and their communities. Further, to connect programming and research in ways that reflect Indigenous place-specific knowledges. Visioning around the ethos informing this Centre is key to Indigenous resurgence however, Simpson (2011) tells us that Indigenous resurgence cannot rely on vision in isolation from intentionalities. She writes that “vision must be coupled with intent: intent for transformation, intent for re-creation and intent for resurgence” (p. 147).

The Centre provides a safe and supportive research environment linking Indigenous communities and the university. It serves to promote and support culturally aligned methodologies and theoretical approaches to Indigenous educational research. It also seeks to establish and promote place specific ethics and protocols that guide the work in Indigenous and non-Indigenous research collaborations and the ways researchers work with Indigenous communities.

[1] Simpson, L. (2011). Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishmaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a new Emergence. Winnipeg, MB: Arbeiter Ring Press.