Decolonizing Water on World Lake Day
Water's many forms provide limitless teachings and knowledge
Boozhoo News River Readers,
We care about who we’re working with and what drives them. We also recognize that technology by itself is not a solution to the pressing issues we face, rather it must be guided by a system of values that promote mutual understanding and equity. We conduct our Pathfinding process with this in mind.
Pathfinding is Animikii’s unique approach to impact assessment, technical requirements gathering, product visioning, project and fundraising planning. It's designed to ensure we build the right project, the right way, for Indigenous Rights Holders.
We’ve collaborated with Indigenous Nations, filmmakers, universities, school districts and community organizations to develop sophisticated tools to amplify Indigenous ways of knowing and being and advance Truth and Reconciliation on Indigenous terms.
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Thanks for being here, and as always - here’s the news,
This week’s stories include:
How Indigenous knowledge systems embrace complexity, paradox and multiple ways of knowing - something that narrow, predetermined frameworks of AI systems are not designed to do.
New exhibition at the Museum of Vancouver (MOV) showcases new way forward with the Tŝilhqot’in Nation after long-awaited return of their cultural belongings.
How Indigenous and Western scientific approaches can be brought together to generate more accurate, culturally grounded, place-based restoration of post-wildfire landscapes.
Decolonizing Water on World Lake Day
The big picture: August 27 is World Lake Day, and we’re sharing a resource for water education stemming from the Treaty #3 Nibi Declaration. It was created with the help of Decolonizing Water, an Indigenous-led partnership committed to enhancing the protection of water and Indigenous water governance.
Why it matters: Decolonizing Water approaches Indigenous community engaged and directed research by rooting relationships in four core values: respect, responsibility, reciprocity and relevance. Through land-based learning, they seek to decolonize research and relationships with the lands and waters. The project team uses the Ownership-Control-Access-Possession (OCAP) protocol. This means that community partners retain control of the information they share, and Decolonizing Water follows their prescribed protocols for access and possession.
Key points:
The Nibi Curriculum was developed to support learners of all ages, and is a resource for both classrooms and independent study.
It has an abundance of structured lesson plans, discussion prompts, and hands-on activities, with the hope that this work from Treaty #3 will help guide water education and relationship building across the Nation and beyond.
Whether you are just beginning to understand your own personal relationship with Nibi, or developing a unit for your school classroom, you will find helpful tools within the curriculum to carve out an effective pathway for learning.
What they’re saying: “All of us can learn something from water. Lessons of unity, perseverance, history, and self-reflection flow from water. Its many forms provide us all with limitless knowledge,” Teaching Nibi Portal
Learn more: Read about the Nibi Declaration of Treaty #3 and download the Nibi Curriculum
Curated Articles:
At MOV, Tŝilhqot’in Nation tells the story of a momentous repatriation: ‘We brought back history’
A new exhibition at the Museum of Vancouver (MOV) showcases a new way forward with the Tŝilhqot’in Nation after the long-awaited return of their cultural belongings. As part of the larger The Work of Repair: Redress & Repatriation display that opened June 20, Tŝilhqot’in collaborated with MOV to display items that represent their culture, art and history. MOV’s senior curator of Indigenous collections Sharon Fortney explained that the gallery Nexwenen Nataghelʔilh was a collaborative effort between the two parties and showcases how museums can work with Indigenous communities in a good way. More than 60 Tŝilhqot’in belongings were returned to the nation from MOV last year — including qatŝ’ay (coiled spruce root baskets) and tŝi-bis (obsidian) stone tools. Nexwenen Nataghelʔilh includes film, photography and stories detailing the repatriation and its impact, as well as newer cultural items created by the nation specifically for the exhibition.
Inclusive transdisciplinarity: embracing diverse ways of being and knowing through inner work
Transdisciplinary research (TDR) aims to co-produce knowledge to address the complex challenges of unsustainability. Despite progress in articulating principles for successful co-production, Indigenous researchers have pointed out ongoing power imbalances. These disparities, partly stemming from unacknowledged ontological-epistemological inequalities, often perpetuate hidden hierarchies between researchers and participants. At the core of these power imbalances is the dominance in academia of certain ways of knowing (e.g., categorical, experimental, noun-based, substantialist) over others (e.g., relational, experiential, verb-based, idealist). Inclusive TDR needs to break this self-reinforcing cycle, but this requires making inner room for multiple perspectives on reality and existence.
As catastrophic wildfires increasingly devastate the interior landscapes of British Columbia, Canada, conventional approaches to post-wildfire recovery often overlook Indigenous values, knowledge systems, and food sovereignty. This study reanalyzes post-wildfire vegetation trajectory data with Indigenous plant classification systems co-developed with St'át'imc communities, revealing that conventional “native/non-native” plant groupings obscure critical vulnerabilities to Indigenous traditional food systems. Guided by the “walking on two legs” framework, it demonstrates how Indigenous and Western scientific approaches can be brought together to generate more accurate, culturally grounded, place-based restoration of post-wildfire landscapes.
Rediscovering Humanity: How Indigenous Wisdom Can Guide Our AI Future
Despite its remarkable capabilities, AI operates within significant constraints that indigenous wisdom systems inherently avoid. Within existing data contexts, machine learning models excel; they thrive on pattern recognition tasks but struggle with the kind of adaptive, contextual intelligence that indigenous communities have evolved over centuries. AI systems process information through narrow, predetermined frameworks, while indigenous knowledge systems embrace complexity, paradox and multiple ways of knowing simultaneously. Where algorithms seek to eliminate uncertainty, traditional knowledge systems often celebrate it as a source of resilience and adaptability.
New book through Laurentian highlights women’s role in academia
A new book co-edited by a Laurentian professor provides a significant step in the journey toward a more equitable academic world. Taima Moeke-Pickering is a Maori woman and director of the School of Indigenous Relations at LU, who has “consistently championed Indigenous research methodologies and international Indigenous issues,” the university said in a release. Women Transforming the Future of Higher Education delves into the multifaceted roles of women as leaders, scholars and administrators within higher education. It navigates the persistent challenges women face — including systemic discrimination, sexism and racism — while celebrating their innovative strategies for creating more equitable, diverse and supportive academic environments.
