Anishinaabe worldview shared during research symposium

More than a dozen Indigenous researchers gave presentations that integrated Anishinaabe thought into current academic research models at during the Anishinaabe Inendamowin Research Symposium at Algoma University Friday.

“It’s good to listen to different speakers on their thoughts of Anishinaabe inendamowin,” said Anishinaabe language instructor Barbara Nolan. “Rose [Dr. Rose Cameron] talked about her sacred bundle, and when we talk about our sacred bundle, it’s not just a physical thing, it’s what we take within ourselves, within our mind.”

Quinn Meawasige, Community Economic and Social Development student at Algoma University, was one of the presenters during the symposium. He says that his research is in the preliminary stages, and he’s looking for feedback from Indigenous researchers and “knowledge keepers” in order to help drive his own research forward.

Meawasige stresses that his presentation isn’t something he’s doing “for marks,” and that he’s genuinely interested in how talking about Anishinaabe thought and academia in the same breath often comes with some contradictions.

“I don’t want to compromise our knowledge or our systems for them to be validated by the institutions and systems of our colonizers,” said Meawasige. “I want to make sure that our knowledge remains intact, and the integrity of our knowledge remains whole.”

But for Nolan, a symposium like this one is, perhaps, an opportunity to share the Anishinaabe worldview with mainstream learning institutions. “I think we are making them work together, because we’re making the educational institutions understand, yes we have our own thought ways, we have our own ways of thinking about different things, about seeing different things in our own viewpoint."