The Privilege of Not Walking Away: Indigenous Women’s Perspectives of Reconciliation in the Academy

Abstract

The release of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report titled “Honouring the Truth and Reconciling for the Future” has evoked a persistent call within learning institutions to Indigenize education, decolonize systems of power, and reconcile Indigenous–settler relations and knowledge. Within this context, the TRC’s “Calls to Action” are frequently invoked by institutions attempting to achieve just action. While reconciliation remains a complex, political, and settler-driven endeavour, there has been an effort to “fill the gap” with Indigenous presence, knowledge, and students within academic institutions. Given the limited research on the gendered aspect of reconciliation, our paper contributes to this conversation by examining the impact of the “filling effort” on our critical community work and the ways in which we as Indigenous women engage in reconciliation. By this, we mean the ways we live and understand reconciliation by looking inward toward each other as women, to learn from each other, and to lift each other up. Through a relational accountability methodology and mixed methods (Wilson 2008), we draw strength from our relational and resurgence approaches in an effort to capture our commitment, challenges, and transformative vision of reconciliation as Indigenous women in the academy.