This successful candidate will be an Indigenous MA Student, or Indigenous student currently in a second-degree professional program. Preference will be given to Indigenous students from the Northwest Territories (Dene, Metis and Inuvialuit).

Dechinta land-based university is located at Blachford Lake Lodge, 220km east of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, on the Chief Drygeese traditional territory of the Yellowknives Dene. The program blends land based cultural activities and knowledge with university courses accredited by university partners. Courses are co-taught by Indigenous knowledge holders and university professors. The purpose of the program is to provide students with a university level learning experience grounded in Indigenous cosmologies and cultural practice.

The MA Student will be expected to assist the principal investigator with developing the institutional model for Dechinta through:

• Conducting on-site evaluative research of Dechinta course delivery and institutional practices;
• Working with Elders to develop your land based knowledge and skills on-site at Dechinta;
• Researching and developing land-based university curricula; and,
• Assisting with administrative duties related to the research project.

Expectations associated with this position will be identified through a work plan and be consistent with SSHRC guidelines for research student funding. Remuneration for this position is $12,000.00 per year.

CLOSING DATE: March 15, 2012

Please direct inquiries to:

Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox, PhD
Principal Investigator, Dechinta Partnership Development Grant
Email: stephaniefox@theedge.ca

Send resumes with a cover letter and names of three references to:

Nina Firth-Larsson
Program Manager, Dechinta
Email: nina.f.larsson@gmail.com

Project Overview

Effective, culturally relevant educational programming in Northern Canada has proven elusive at all levels of the educational system. At the post-secondary level, Northern colleges provide essential vocational training, but they rely on partnerships with southern universities to provide some access to degree programs to northern students unable to leave the North. Canada remains the only circumpolar country without a Northern-based university. Yet the need for a well-educated northern population is great, and growing. Faced with unique challenges ranging from climate change and Arctic sovereignty to Indigenous social, economic and political development, the future of North will depend on the capacity of residents to think critically and act wisely in the stewardship of Northern lands and resources.

Dechinta Bush University is based on the vision and commitment of a group of Northern based scholars and southern university supporters seeking to establish a Northern university that draws on Northern strengths: Indigenous cultures, connection to the land, and the necessity for innovating to address unique northern circumstances. This project will see up to 225 graduate students receiving instruction through land-based hands on learning from up to 90 academic instructors and land-based experts in bush-camp settings, supported by several well-established southern universities and Northern Aboriginal, cultural and research organizations.

The program speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of both students and Northern communities: its aim is to produce a cohort of Northern Indigenous students positioned to respond to their community needs through the unique training they will receive at Dechinta.

Conceptualized on a tutoring/apprenticeship pedagogical approach grounded in critical Indigenous educational methodologies, Dechinta offers an environment where Indigenous cultural skills and knowledge provide the basis for developing twenty university-accredited courses. The plethora of issues facing the North today – from climate change to self government – require that decision and policy makers working in communities are increasingly required to function effectively across a range of knowledge sectors.

Small Indigenous communities are beginning to achieve wide-ranging powers to govern under land claims and self government agreements, at the same time that they are struggling to overcome effects of colonization and face global challenges. Tomorrow’s leaders and policy-makers face a complexity of information assimilation and decision making unparalleled in history.

At the same time communities are increasingly relying on their cultural confidence in their Indigenous knowledge as a source of strength and guidance in making decisions. And as these communities achieve a level of self-government, they are anxious to see their children acquire the education and skills necessary to replace a transient non-Indigenous population which currently predominates among the decision making elite. Dechinta represents an opportunity to share in building a unique land-based learning experience that will stand as a model approach to Indigenous and Northern education throughout the circumpolar world.

After two and half years of dedicated service to the growth of Dechinta, Kyla has taken the amazing opportunity of Team Leader Community Development at BHP Billiton. Dechinta has been honoured to work with Kyla, whose innovation and determination has been essential to Dechinta.

Mahsi Cho Kyla!

This is an exciting volunteer opportunity, helping to shape the development and evolution of an unique land-based postsecondary program. One, two, or three year terms are available. A letter outlining your relevant experience and expertise, and how you see yourself contributing to the Dechinta vision should be submitted by September 30, 2011.

For more information and a complete list of roles and responsibilities, please contact Kyla Kakfwi Scott, Program Manager, dechintaadmin@gmail.com | 867.445.1897

Building Economic and Social Prosperity: Connecting a Northern university Vision Through Dechinta Bush University

A $183,000 SSHRC Partnership Development Grant over three years led by Dr. Stephanie Irlbacher Fox, (University of Toronto, Institute for Circumpolar Health Research, Dechinta Faculty) and Marianne Douglas (Canadian Circumpolar Institute) and various northern and southern collaborative partners.

Dechinta Bush University: Transforming Collaboration and Northern Education

A SSHRC Partnership Grant led by investigators Dr. Glen Coulthard (University of British Columbia, Yellowknife Dene First Nation) and Erin Freeland Ballantyne (Oxford University, Dechinta) with partners including the Indigenous Governance Programme of the University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, Deton’Cho Corporation, McGill University, Institute for Circumpolar Health Research, The Royal Conservatory of Music, Native Communications Society, Department of Education, Culture, and Employment (GNWT), and Northern and National First Nation researchers have been granted $20,000 towards the preparation of a final submission. The project would result in 2.4M in support of northern innovation opportunities from 2012-2016. These collaborative projects explore consensus, self-determination, health, resilience, sustainable economic development and community wellness rooted through a land-based cooperative research and innovation program.

Dechinta Bush University: Centre for Research and Learning is committed to providing transformative educational experiences, rigorous academic programming, and a culturally rooted community environment. Those interested in collaborating or for more information, please contact:

Program Manager Kyla Kakfwi-Scott
1-877-388-2874 (toll free)
1-867-445-1867

Program Director, Erin Freeland Ballantyne
1-867.445.9061
www.dechinta.ca
dechinta.tumblr.com

The hope was that the message being advocated by Dechinta would shine during the royal visit and it wouldn’t collapse practices of Indigenous governance and self-determination into a display of ‘arts and crafts’. However, once the event was over and media reports hit the airwaves, it became apparent this wasn’t the case. While this article may not correct the misinterpretation of the event propagated by the media, at least some record will exist of its true intent.

By Dechinta Students
June 7th, 2011

On June 5, 2011, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Blachford Lake Lodge on the traditional and unceded territory of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. The stopover began with demonstrations by the 1st Canadian Rangers Patrol Group, composed mainly of Inuit members. From there, the royals began a tour of Dechinta Bush University Centre for Research and Learning. Dechinta is a post-secondary education initiative providing Indigenous and non-Indigenous students with much-needed opportunities to take university-accredited courses developed in the North, led by Northern experts, and focused on the land as the primary teacher. But more than that, Dechinta provides an educational setting committed to decolonization and Indigenous self-determination. At Dechinta, one doesn’t just learn about decolonization, Dechinta is a practice of decolonization.

The royal tour began with a lesson in several Dene languages. Dechinta then engaged the couple in Dene practices including preparation of caribou meat, smoking fish, use of medicinal plants, moosehide tanning, and beading. These practices were portrayed by the media as arts and crafts. What the coverage didn’t communicate is that Dechinta participants explained to the royal couple how these activities play a key role in learning about, and engaging in, decolonization. As colonialism has displaced Indigenous peoples from their land, these activities help reconstitute students political, social and economic relations to that land.

The royal visit then moved into a governance circle around a fire, where students and instructors talked about the importance and impacts of Dechinta’s land-based pedagogy as a means of social transformation. Glen Coulthard, a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and a professor of First Nations Studies and Political Science at the University of British Columbia, welcomed the royal couple to the unceded territory of his community. The royal visit coincided with the course “’Our Land, Our Life’: Dene Self-Determination in Theory and in Practice.” Coulthard explained that the major aims of the course were to explore Dene political history, develop a concrete understanding of the historical and contemporary character of settler-colonial rule in Canada, and confront the violent and destructive effects Indigenous peoples experience as a result of colonial racism and land dispossession. The course investigates the strategies through which the colonial state seeks to secure economic and legal certainty to Indigenous lands to exploit both people and natural resources. As dispossessing Indigenous peoples of their land is integral to the settler-colonial project, developing an understanding of what constitutes decolonization cannot occur without on-the-land learning. Coulthard’s course is part of Dechinta’s core curriculum, complimented by courses in sustainable community development, health and wellness, communications and research methods

Coulthard was followed by program alumnus Mason Mantla, a member of the Tłįchǫ Nation who described his Dechinta experience as providing his life with direction, imbuing him with a positive identity and bridging the gap between university education and land-based learning. To conclude the opening remarks, Swampy Cree student Mandee McDonald spoke to the current set of vastly unequal political, economic, and social relations that govern the world. She described the difficult process of coming to terms with the individual and collective effects of neo-colonial rule. McDonald said Dechinta provides a safe space to develop a critical understanding of the reality facing Indigenous communities and to explore and practice an alternate vision of the future.

The opening remarks were followed by gifts for the royal couple. The Prince was given a cartridge bag and the Duchess a caribou hide clutch with porcupine beaded fringe. These gifts were made by students at Dechinta. Dene political activist and spiritual leader Francois Paulette then gave a star blanket and a documentary film on the environmentally destructive effects of the Alberta Tar Sands, which are upstream from Denendeh watersheds. Finally, the Dechinta program gave a hand-woven ash backpack containing a selection of readings from the program. This was followed by a group discussion where most students had a chance to speak further about issues of settler-colonialism, Indigenous self-determination and the necessity of land-based higher education in the North.

After the governance circle the royal couple joined Paulette aboard a canoe to paddle to a nearby island for a dinner of locally harvested foods. In reading about this experience in the media, Dechinta students were surprised to find Paulette labeled simply as a “guide” and “village elder.” Considering Paulette’s political significance in the North, this characterization was seen by students as a racist affront. Among other achievements, Paulette’s name is attached to the watershed case Paulette et al., v. The Queen (1976), in which the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories ruled that historical evidence suggested the Dene and Métis signatories of Treaties 8 and 11 did not consent to “cede, release and surrender” their Aboriginal title through the signing of treaty.

The dynamic of inviting prominent members of the British monarchy to a place committed to decolonization was not lost on anyone at Dechinta. According to program leaders Kyla Kakfwi Scott and Erin Freeland Ballantyne, the royal couple was invited in part to reach an international audience to promote Dechinta as a program that provides students with a critical understanding of Northern needs and aspirations. They felt hosting the royals on Dene territory was an exercise in self-determination that might provide a critical opportunity to establish dialogue between the direct descendents of both Dene and the British Crown signatories to Treaties 8 and 11. This meeting was a chance to establish dialogue between these two parties about the importance of respecting the nation- to -nation relationship between the Dene and the Crown in Right of Canada. To leave the relationship as it stands would be to legitimize Canada’s illegitimate assertion of sovereignty over Indigenous peoples and territories – a view Dechinta challenges through rigorous research and scholarship.

According to Dechinta students, the visit was a chance to get out the message that Canada has yet to seriously address the colonial violence Indigenous communities continue to experience on a daily basis. It is a violence lived by Indigenous communities as a result of not only land dispossession but also through an imposition of Euro-American values and lifeways. Education was an important vehicle of the colonial project. Dechinta believes land-based education can also provide a site for self-determination.

The hope was that the message being advocated by Dechinta would shine during the royal visit and it wouldn’t collapse practices of Indigenous governance and self-determination into a display of ‘arts and crafts’. However, once the event was over and media reports hit the airwaves, it became apparent this wasn’t the case. While this article may not correct the misinterpretation of the event propagated by the media, at least some record will exist of its true intent.