My Indigenous Teachers

As a popular educator, participatory researcher, and documentary photographer, I have often focused on other peoples’ stories. As I near 80, I’m finally writing some of my own.

Among the memoir vignettes I’ve written in the past five years, nine photo essays reflect on my personal experiences with Indigenous Peoples in research and educational projects in Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, and Canada since the 1970s.

Revisiting these early encounters reminded me that today’s conversations are not new, but part of an ongoing process of unlearning and relearning. I’m mining experiences of my younger self for what I could learn that‘s relevant to the current moment.

It’s like a spiral, looking back in light of the present, and toward the future.

As a white woman of European heritage whose ancestors were complicit in the colonization of the Americas and as a treaty person today, I am challenged not only to decolonize my thinking but also to redress ongoing colonization.

These past experiences, often with bumpy moments, have shaped my commitment to act in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples. What can we learn from them about the process of building Indigenous-settler relationships?

There are currently nine photo essays in this collection:

  1. My Mayan Teachers: Weaving (Through) Time (Guatemala, 1974, 13 pages)
  2. Cipriano’s Challenge (Peru, 976, 6 pages)
  3. Colonization, Evangelization, and Militant Research in the Peruvian Amazon (Peru, 1976, 6 pages)
  4. My Amazon Teachers: Photographs, Politics and Plants (1976, Peru, 17 pages)
  5. Arctic Lessons: Decoding Bombs, Bottles, and Clocks (what is now Nunavut, 1978, 12 pages)
  6. Spiraling Through 500 Years – Naming the Moment Workshops (Toronto, 1991-92, 11 pages)
  7. Spiraling Through 500 Years –Art-full Learning (Toronto, 1992, 12 pages)
  8. The Long Road to Listiguj (Listiguj Community Centre, Gaspé Pennsula, 2010, 3 pages)
  9. Sticky Moments and Poignant Silences: The Earth to Tables Legacies Project, (2015-2024, 14 pages

I’m seeking feedback about the content, form and audience of these stories.  I ask that the stories remain confidential for now.

Please note that the only hyperlinks in the essays that are live are underlined in blue. Other phrases in blue but not underlined indicate future hyperlinks I hope to create.

Some questions to consider in reading:

  • Do these vignettes spark your own interest and learning? In what sense?
  • What insights do they offer that are important for allies working in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples?
  • What do you want to know more about?
  • How do you feel about the online format – the photographs, the hyperlinks, etc?
  • Who’s the audience for these stories? How might they be used?

Please send your feedback to me at db3347@gmail.com. If you’d rather offer your feedback orally, we could set up a phone or zoom chat.