2022-2023 Events and Workshops

CIRCLE and the UVic Libraries Anarchist Archive were excited to be co-hosting Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham) of Gidimt’en Clan for a talk on “The Wet’suwet’en Sovereignty Movement and the Role of Allies and Accomplices.”

Friday, Sept. 23 from 1:00 - 3:00pm
First Peoples House, UVIC

Sleydo’ will be discussing the Wet’suwet’en resistance and the efforts made by the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, Gidimt’en Clan members, and our allies – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. You’ll hear about how the movement has grown and shifted from a fight to protect land and water from a fracked gas pipeline, to the larger Indigenous struggle for liberation, challenge to the state and capitalism, and our fight to save the planet for all our relations focusing on how various groups of allies and accomplices have and continue to be critical to this movement. Sleydo’ will also provide an update about the on-the-ground re-occupation and the drilling of the Wedzinkwa river.

CIRCLE is pleased to announce our first SAGE Workshop of the 2022-23 academic year, facilitated by Sleydo' (Molly Wickham).

SAGE Workshops are designed to enhance Indigenous research and graduate student support at UVIC through workshops, events, and other learning opportunities.

Friday, Sept. 23 from 10:00 - 11:00am
Saunders Annex 130
Limited capacity (in-person only); priority given to Indigenous graduate students at UVIC, additional participants welcome if space allows.

This discussion will explore the impacts of gender violence against and within Indigenous land defense struggles. Students will discuss the complexities of accountability and cancel culture in the creation of healthy Indigenous movements and safe communities.

To honour Orange Shirt Day 2022, CIRCLE co-hosted a panel on Indigenous Resurgence & Reconciliation with the Office of Indigenous Academic and Community-Engagement. The panel featured Dr. Sarah Hunt/Tłaliłila’ogwa, assistant professor in Environmental Studies & Canada Research Chair; Dr. Gina Starblanket, associate professor in Indigenous Governance; Dr. Sarah Morales, associate professor in Law; and Andrew Ambers, 4th year student in Political Science and Indigenous Studies.

Getting ready to write and want to organize your reading list beforehand? Already writing, and want to add your citations with just a few clicks? Finally done a project, but overwhelmed because you need to generate a huge bibliography? Zotero can assist in these situations, and more! Develop an organized, efficient, and effective citation practice by learning to use Zotero in this workshop, which was facilitated by Dr. J. Matthew Huculak, Head, Advanced Research Services and Digital Scholarship Librarian.

Thursday, October 6
11:30 am – 1:00 pm PST
Saunders Annex 130, UVIC
In-person only

SAGE Workshops are designed to enhance Indigenous research and graduate student support at UVIC through workshops, events, and other learning opportunities.

The event was hybrid with the in person portion being hosted at CIRCLE (Saunders Annex room 130) and virtually through Zoom.

We learn how to do research in our research methods courses but what happens when we enter community? How do we live into our responsibilities as Indigenous people while also trying to meet the expectations and requirements for the academy? Three Indigenous researchers will share their experiences, challenges, and success. Bring your questions, concerns, worries. Let’s support each other was we grapple with “research” in the real world.

Leanne Poitras Kelly, Metis/Cree cis-gendered woman originally from Saskatchewan’s Qu’appelle Valley, currently living and working on the unceded and occupied territory of the Coast Salish people of Vancouver Island. My work has been as a nurse in First Nations community and public health for over thirty years in various communities in Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

Dr. Jacquie Green is Executive Director of IACE / Associate Professor School of Social Work. Her PhD is an auto-ethnography and detailed account of her own community experience, and teachings from her parents, translated to inform policy development, practice and research frameworks.

Dr. Christine Sy is makwa odoodem (Bear Clan) from obiishkikaang Lac Seul First Nation in northwestern Ontario and Island Lake, a forested and lake-d area north of bawating Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Her research is couched within the realm of gender and Indigenous peoples’ relationships with the more-than-natural world as well as their politicized constructs (e.g. land, water, air, space).

CIRCLE held a book launch for Dr. David Milward’s new book Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice: A Search for Ways Forward (Fernwood Press, 2022). Dr. Milward is a member of the Beardy’s & Okemasis First Nation of Duck Lake, Saskatchewan and an Associate Professor at UVic Law.

When: Thursday, October 20th from 11:30 am – 1:00 pm PST
Where: Ceremonial Hall, First Peoples House

Dr. Milward provided an introduction to the text and we heard from an excellent panel of respondents, after which there will be time for discussion and audience questions. The respondents are:

Sabrina Lamanna, PhD Student, Law & Society
Dr. Gillian Calder, Associate Professor, Law
Dr. John Borrows, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law


Book Description: The horrors of the Indian residential schools are by now well-known historical facts, and they have certainly found purchase in the Canadian consciousness in recent years. The history of violence and the struggles of survivors for redress resulted in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which chronicled the harms inflicted by the residential schools and explored ways to address the resulting social fallouts. One of those fallouts is the crisis of Indigenous over-incarceration. While the residential school system may not be the only harmful process of colonization that fuels Indigenous over-incarceration, it is arguably the most critical factor. It is likely that the residential school system forms an important part of the background of almost every Indigenous person who ends up incarcerated, even those who did not attend the schools. The legacy of harm caused by the schools is a vivid and crucial link between Canadian colonialism and Indigenous over-incarceration. Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice provides an account of the ongoing ties between the enduring trauma caused by the residential schools and Indigenous over-incarceration.

In early December, CIRCLE co-hosted an Indigenous Graduate Student Writing Retreat at the Delta Ocean Pointe Resort with support from the Faculty of Human & Social Development and SAGE. Over three days, a group of four faculty mentors, sixteen Indigenous graduate students, one HSD Research Assistant, and one CIRCLE staff member had a highly successful and productive working weekend.

The Writing Retreat created a space for Indigenous graduate students to work on their individual writing projects, such as theses, dissertations, seminar papers or funding proposals. Indigenous faculty will be available on-site to provide mentorship and writing strategies to assist participants to successfully meet their writing goals.

The workshop is led Dr. Hōkūlani K. Aikau and focusses on devising a semester plan to achieve tangible and realistic expectations.

Time: 2:30PM - 4:00PM PST

Location: Saunders Annex 130

The "Commune: Researching, Organizing, and Dreaming New Worlds" SAGE Workshop was facilitated by Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on January 24th from 12:00pm PST on Zoom.

This workshop was cohosted by the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement (CIRCLE), Supporting Aboriginal Graduate Enhancement (SAGE), Social Work, and Indigenous Governance at UVic.

The workshop followed the public "Rehearsals for Living" Landsdowne Lecture on January 23rd from 12:00-1:30pm PST on Zoom.

Rehearsals for Living is a revolutionary collaboration about the world we’re living in now, between two of our most important contemporary thinkers, writers and activists. When the world entered pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, Robyn Maynard, influential author of Policing Black Lives, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, renowned artist, musician, and author of Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, began writing each other letters—a gesture sparked by a desire for kinship and connection in a world shattering under the intersecting crises of pandemic, police killings, and climate catastrophe. These letters soon grew into a powerful exchange about where we go from here. Rehearsals for Living is a captivating and visionary work—part debate, part dialogue, part lively and detailed familial correspondence between two razor-sharp writers. The book is a national bestseller and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction.

The "Commune: Researching, Organizing, and Dreaming New Worlds" SAGE Workshop extended the lessons that Robyn and Leanne have learned in their own researching, organizing, and dreaming to the contexts that BIPOC graduate students are working within and against to co-create new worlds.

The Indigenous Research Workshop is committed to building a network of faculty members and graduate students across disciplines whose research, writing & teaching address Indigenous peoples & topics. The group typically meets every few weeks to engage works-in-progress. The first meeting each semester sets the schedule for that term.

Time: 2:30 - 4:30 PST (first meeting of 2023)

Location: Saunders Annex 130 or Online 

 

Mandee McDonald is Maskîkow (Swampy Cree), originally from Mántéwisipihk (Churchill, MB), and has resided in Sòmba K’è (Yellowknife) for the past twenty years. Mandee is a hide tanner, workshop facilitator, and a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta where her work focuses on Indigenous governance and land-based learning. She is a co-founder and the Hide Camp Director for Dene Nahjo, an Indigenous arts and innovation collective that fosters Indigenous leadership skills and values through community-based programming. She is also one of the founding Steering Committee members of Supporting Well-Being, a training program designed to provide culturally relevant mental health response training for land-based programmers in Northern communities, and a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at Dechinta Initiatives Centre for Research and Learning.

Mandee will present the methodology and some findings of her dissertation research, which draws out the connections between contemporary hide tanning practices like hide camps and the regeneration of Indigenous thought and governance system.

Time and location: TBD

Mandee McDonald is Maskîkow (Swampy Cree), originally from Mántéwisipihk (Churchill, MB), and has resided in Sòmba K’è (Yellowknife) for the past twenty years. Mandee is a hide tanner, workshop facilitator, and a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta where her work focuses on Indigenous governance and land-based learning. She is a co-founder and the Hide Camp Director for Dene Nahjo, an Indigenous arts and innovation collective that fosters Indigenous leadership skills and values through community-based programming. She is also one of the founding Steering Committee members of Supporting Well-Being, a training program designed to provide culturally relevant mental health response training for land-based programmers in Northern communities, and a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at Dechinta Initiatives Centre for Research and Learning.

 

The workshop is led by Mandee using the methodology and some findings of her dissertation research, which draws out the connections between contemporary hide tanning practices like hide camps and the regeneration of Indigenous thought and governance system.

Time: 11:30AM - 1:00PM PST

Location: Saunders Annex 130

The workshop is led by Dr. Jacqueline M. Quinless an instructor of Sociology & Pre-Social Work at Camosun College.

Time: 12:00PM - 1:30PM PST

Location: Online

Book launch of Decolonizing Data: Unsettling Conversations about Social Research Methods, by Jacqueline Quinless. Conversation around the book was held with Shannon Waters, Lisa Goddard, and Crystal Tremblay. The event was moderated by Mathew Fleury. 'Drawing Change' illustrated a live graphic recording of the event. 

 

nēhiyawētān kīkināhk / Speaking Cree in the Home: Speaking Cree in the Home book launch by Dr. Belinda kakiyosēw Daniels and Andrea Custer.

Panel of speakers responding to the book launch included: 

• Nicki Benson, Indigenous Language Revitalization
• Dr. Valerie Irvine, Educational Technology
• Dr. Tatiana Degai, Anthropology

Location:Ceremonial Hall, First Peoples House

Time: 11:30am - 1:00pm

Indigenous Studies Program Landsdowne Lecture: “How Kanaka Women Tried to Save ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi 1939-1945” by Dr. Noenoe Silva, Professor of Hawaiian and Indigenous Politics at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa

Location: Clearihue A224

Time:Dinner buffet: 5 pm
Lecture: 5:30-7:30 

To watch the lecture, see Indigenous Studies Program Landsdowne Lecture.