The next Starting a Conversation will be hosted by Sandra Fox.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
12:30 to 1:30 pm
Arts 368
Indigenous Identity in Post-Secondary “Situations”
After working at Aboriginal Programs and Services at UBCO, I noticed how many of the Indigenous students I saw shared similar stories relating to their identities, and coming to post-secondary marked a shift in their understanding of themselves. I wanted to see how post-secondary was influencing Indigenous students and their identity, and what was and wasn’t working. But of course, this process has been about more than just research. Researching Indigenous identity meant confronting my own internal colonization and traumas head-on, causing a cascade of shifts in my personal life I never expected. As a result, my research process has been impacted, but it has all become part of my personal decolonizing journey, as well as my journey back to myself. Given my journey and how it has impacted my studies, and given the connections between my stories and those of the students, what can this institution do to better support Indigenous students?
Sandra Fox is xʷməθkʷəy̓əm but has lived most of her life as a guest in the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Syilx peoples. She is a mother to two young children and is currently working on her MA, exploring how Indigenous identity is influenced by experiences during post-secondary.
