Decolonizing Academic Writing

Bonnie StewartUniversity of Prince Edward Island

July 11th & 13th 2011

GOALThe aim of this assignment is to design and create a paper that uses the theories

you have read about to express your understanding of education, leadership, research, and learning in relation to education in Nunavut or

Nunavik at this time and to describe your own emerging theoretical position.

You may draw on quotations from the text in the Theories course, or from any

websites, texts or readings you have encountered in other courses. This draft

paper offers you the opportunity to identify your beliefs and values about

education in Nunavut and/or Nunavik and consider your own role as a

leader in an educational process that takes place in an Inuit-majority

educational context in Canada.

What does YOUR writing need?

Tell us a story.

Any story. About education, leadership, learning. Your story.

WHAT DOES THE STORY TELL?

My father went to live with his older sister Josie in Kimmirut upon the wishes of his mother when everyone around him in their camp,

including his mother, became sick in the late early 1940's. His father had died around 1937 in Pangnirtung. He was then informed not long afterwards that his mother, cousins, relatives, and younger

brothers Pitsiulaaq and Iola had all died of influenza. His sister Josie, who was the eldest, himself, and his younger sisters Annie

and Mary were the only survivors of their siblings who were sent to live with other relatives. It was only in the mid 1990's that my father had returned to their family camp to acknowledge their

passing after almost 50 years. My cousin was kindly able to arrange this trip with another family from Kimmirut. My mother was too frail to accompany him and commented that she wished she was

able to do the same to see the land and camp she had grown up in.(Arnaquq, 2008, p. 5)

VOICE

Every subject has a voice.Writing, as an act, creates subjects.

Writing from the decolonized subject position involves exploring your own voice and how it has been shaped,

constructed, excluded, and experienced, in relation to your culture, your education, and the theories you have studied.

Unikkaaqtuatuinnauliqtuq (It is only a story now)

Memoir can contrast present with past Memoir can decolonize and de-exoticize the voice of a

subject, staking out her humanity Memoir can convey what has been lost, at the personal,

concrete level Memoir can illustrate values and ways of being that are

difficult to describe Memoir can offer uqaujjuusiat (gifts of words, advice)

Stepping Outside the Box Northern forms of structure

& subjectivity Exploration & emergence,

rather than certainty Voice as situated knowledge Memoir & narrative as

evidence Theory as a skeleton or

scaffold, offering narratives a second layer

The Inappropriate/d Other

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheila_steele/131175001

Trinh Minh-ha's term for the cultural rise – since WWII – of people who refuse the taxonomies of the humanist discourse of

voice, and who live and speak and make meaning from positions of cultural, ethnic, racial, national, or sexual Otherness.

Talking your WritingTalk your paper: 2 minutes

Tell a partner what your paper is about. Pay attention to your explanation. Get your partner's notes. LOOK.

Are all of the ideas you describe actually in the paper? Where did you start in explaining your ideas? Does your paper match your description? Can the listener

easily find the ideas you mention in your description?

Share WeaknessWhat do YOU think is the part of your paper that

needs attention and feedback? Read it to your partner.

LISTEN.