Ce leis thu: to whom do you belong? Remembering what gives us life

Abstract

All our ancestors, at one time, lived in a world where every crack in the Land was filled with stories - evidence of the intact, Indigenous web of relationship of which they were a part. They built cultures, languages, and ways of life that would help their descendants to live well in their place and to remember to maintain their relationships. We have all experienced the fragmentation of those cultures to varying degrees through settler-colonial and imperialist processes, at different points in time. In many cases this fragmentation is ongoing. This dissertation, which is a supplement to two additional Land-based community projects, explores ways to heal from this fragmentation and how to put ourselves back together again by honoring our responsibilities to "what gives us life" - the Land, our ancestors, and our communities. I share stories that exemplify an approach to belonging through responsibility that includes adapting to and learning to be a part of the place that feeds us, while also carrying our ancestors and their stories with us if we are no longer living on our ancestral homelands. Emphasis is placed on engagement with ancestral Land-based practices, stories, languages, and foodways, seeking to illuminate a radically Indigenized approach to higher education and a model for this education outside of the academy. I conclude that our strength is in our coming together - not as a homogenizing melting pot, but as diverse rememberers of our original instructions working to re-enrich our lives with stories, responsibilities, and relationships, while collectively healing from generations of trauma, displacement, and forgetting.