“We still have relatives on the planet and places on the planet that can teach us about how to be competent human beings.”
–Daniel Wildcat
Learning to Listen is a “phd” “dissertation” journey being undertaken at UVic that explores place-based relationships and how settlers who form relationships with the land under Indigenous guidance can better support Indigenous Resurgence, Sovereignty, and Wellbeing in ways that are important to Indigenous peoples, while mitigating climate change locally.
To do this, the project is gathering a Project Community of settlers living on unceded W̱SÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən territories who are called to spending time in Indigenous-led spaces, specifically around Indigenous-led ecosystem restoration. Since 2021, Learning to Listen’s project keeper, Kikila Perrin, has been volunteering at the W̱SÍ,ḴEM Ivy Project, hosted by Sarah Jim (W̱SÁNEĆ).
Members of the Project Community will spend time participating at Indigenous-led ecosystem restoration events, and then reflect on that time, what was experienced, what work we did. We will also implement protocols, and other appropriate Ways of Doing (as shared and recommended by our Indigenous hosts) into our daily lives in a number of ways. This is to see if who we become in those spaces supports our own unlearning, challenging our settler ideas of what we do (right/wrong), the importance of the land (resource/relation), and our understanding of how we can support Indigenous Resurgence on Indigenous territory.
Much of this work, and the ideas that were the seeds that sprouted the various threads of this project have been informed by Indigenous authors, scholars, and practitioners. Some of these include: Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi Nation, Braiding Sweetgrass 2013), Jay T. Johnson (Lenni Lenape/Tsaligi, writing with Soren C. Larsen, Being Together In Place, 2017), Epeli Hau’ofa (Tongan/Fijian, We are the Ocean 2008), Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene, Red Skin, White Masks 2014), Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe White Earth, Recovering the Sacred 2005), Lewis Williams (Ngāi Te Rangi) and Nick XEMŦOLTW̱ Claxton (Tsawout, “Recultivating Intergenerational Resilience: Possibilities for “Scaling DEEP” through Disruptive Pedagogies of Decolonization and Reconciliation” 2017), Leroy Littlebear (Blackfoot, “Jagged Worldviews Colliding” 2000), Jeff Corntassel, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, to name just a few. Please read their works if you have the time, and if you are a settler on Indigenous territories.
Below you will find some updates to how the project was initially visioned and imagined, and a series of updates that come from different stages of the project. If you ever have any questions or comments, please contact me, the project keeper Kikila Perrin. My information can be found on the Contact page. Contact information for my supervisors, and the Human Research Ethics Board are there too if you would rather contact them.
Gathering: Updated Project Path (Winter 2023)
Currently, Learning to Listen is in its gathering phase (huy ch q’a to my friend Danielle Alphonse for sharing that term with me). This is an exciting time for the project community, and for the work we’re doing. It means a few things, and says a few things about the way this project is being carried, it’s importance, and offers some guidance on how we will be moving forward.
Since updating the project path in 2022 (see below), early-2023 was spent on the land, supporting projects and strengthening relationships with the W̱SÍ,ḴEM Ivy Project and Sarah Jim, and the Lekwungen Community Toolshed and Cheryl Bryce. The importance of these relationships and the role they play in my life are hard to express in this format, and my hosts have my deep gratitude for allowing me to spend time on their lands with them, and to learn from them through doing.
This period (Winter-early Summer 2023) not only taught me the importance of holding relationships in a good way, but also the importance of relationships grown and nurtured on the land. It has also exposed me to the importance of Coast Salish means of teaching, or sharing information, and how community can be cultivated in very specific ways (these are going to be academic, but Beckwith, Halber, and Turner talk about how this works as concentric experiential learning in this chapter and Elliott explores how settlers can start to learn to be taught in a Coast Salish manner in this article <- this link opens a PDF). These relationships guide me, my thinking around this project, and offer pathways for settlers to “turn away” from the state/colonial culture (like Ganohalidoh writes in this article <- this link downloads a PDF) and offer a model of learning that offers insight into different ways of being where we live.
It also brought me into relationship with a number of really great people. The conversations held on the land, and what we share in the many opening and closing circles Sarah facilitates when gathering us for this work, have led a number of us cultivate relationships with each other, consistently, and in intimate and embodies ways. These interactions, these friendships are where most of who would become the Project Community started to take shape.
Summer through Fall (2023) saw the Project Community start to work together. Even though most of us knew each other from our time spent on the land, under Indigenous guidance, this period saw individuals learn more about this project, what their role could be in it, and start to have conversations about what working together as co-researchers might look like. While we continued to spend time supporting our hosts’ projects, we also held our First Project Circle in August.
This circle marked the opening of the Learning to Listen’s “Gathering” period, where members of the Project Community began gathering information, reflections, experiences, and moments. Some of these experiences we shared with each other at the Second Project Circle in November, where we worked on a community map, and set some of our intentions for the late-Fall and Winter period – that period where restoration events make way for cultural events and the ceremonial season in W̱SÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən law and practice, and when people come together in community, around the “fire”, and share what knowledge and learning we can.
Have a safe winter everyone, and a Happy Solstice! The Project Community will be spending less time on the land for the next month and a bit, and will be turning to the knowledges we have been exposed to while reflecting on our experiences, and inviting more “daily practices” into our lives.
Updated Project Path (2022)
Since beginning this project in community in 2021, it has been my (Kikila’s) goal to connect with and strengthen relationships in the Land Back or Decolonization community based in METULIE (aka Victoria, BC), and to work with those relations to better understand how settlers of European descent can better support Indigenous resurgence on these territories, unceded lək̓ʷəŋən, W̱SÁNEĆ, T’sou-ke, Pahceedaht, and Sc’ianew, as well as the broader Coast Salish, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Kwakwaka’wakw territories.
Because of connections through my day job (at Habitat Acquisition Trust, HAT), it was possible for me to begin building relationships with members of the W̱SÁNEĆ community who lead ecological restoration and cultural resurgence work on their territories, and who invite settlers to participate.
Since then, the focus of this project has transitioned away from its original focus on so-called “activism” as a space where meaningful cultural exchange can happen. Feedback from Grandma Losah (Rose Henry, Tla’amin Nation), an Elder and Knowledge Keeper who has long advocated for Land Back and Decolonization in METULIE, as well as support for people marginalized through poverty, and my personal experiences at the Ada’itsx or Fairy Creek Blockade, the nature of Indigenous-settler interactions in spaces created at “events” like Fairy Creek are not always equitable for Indigenous land defenders. If those spaces are not equitable, then it makes it difficult to challenge inherent and deep-seated white supremacy.
One of my guides, Jeff Corntassel (Tsaligi), invited me to participate in ecological restoration as Indigenous resurgence on the Songhees (lək̓ʷəŋən) Reserve at a time when I was sitting with some of my experiences at Fairy Creek. This was about the same time late last summer where my work at HAT put me in a position to assist in ecological restoration on the Tseycum reserve with Sarah Jim. Through experiences working with Sarah Jim (W̱SÁNEĆ) on her ancestral land, in Indigenous-led ecosystem restoration, my understanding of the spectrum of “land defence” has changed to include less openly intense experiences that place Indigenous land defender in relationships with settler supporters.
Luckily, work and school and her willingness have gifted me the chance to share a variety of spaces with ŚW̱,XELOSELWET Tiffany Joseph (W̱SÁNEĆ) and learn from her outreach to settlers in the METULIE community. Tiffany’s work has helped me to start to see that ecological restoration, language revitalization, and cultural, political, and spiritual resurgence are all woven together, and depend on access to and a relationship with the land. She has also shown me that how settlers show up is equally important to showing up, and that we carry the responsibility to do the work we need to do, and not rely on Indigenous peoples to make settlers safe for Indigenous people to work with.
Working with Lewis Williams (Ngāti Rangi) and Danielle Alphonse (Cowichan Tribes) of the Alliance for Intergenerational Resilience (AIR) to support their organizing of two Intergenerational Wisdom Councils that included Indigenous Elders and Youth from Aotearoa and all across Turtle Island (the first video is available here, and the second will be posted when I can find it) through 2021 and spring of 2022 also helped guide this project and its current perspective. Participating as a Witness gave me the opportunity to hear directly from Indigenous youth and Elders who are doing a great many place-based, localized, and what settler academics and activists might call “small scale” projects that are having huge positive impacts in their communities, and in how they see themselves participating in resurgence. Their wisdom and guidance have helped inform my understanding of the language of the land, learning to listen, and the importance of witnessing as a process of relationships.
These experiences, and in reflecting on the teachings shared with me while spending time supporting Indigenous-leadership, have both led to a different perspective on where this project is leading.
Currently, beyond supporting Indigenous-led restoration work directly, this project is looking at a number of different paths to supporting Indigenous resurgence in a way meaningful to Indigenous peoples. Working with two settler academics who also have experience supporting Land Defence in various ways (Keith Cherry and Jen Argan), this project is learning through our experiences as front-line activists, and in working for a Nation directly.
The project team has also grown to include a settler storyteller and expressive arts therapist (Nadine Wildheart), who has worked with Indigenous nations directly, and has a decade of experience in front-line activism, Elder support, and as a student of Woody Morrison, Jr. (Haida). Nadine’s involvement comes directly from calls our Indigenous leaders and guides have made for settlers to learn about our own lineages, to challenge our colonization through storywork and bloodwork.
The community-based aspects of this project have not changed, and a few settler activists, forest protectors, and concerned relatives from the Fairy Creek Blockade are helping to identify their own experiences as participants and witnesses within Indigenous leadership.
As Fall arrives on these territories, the plan for this season and into the winter is to connect with Indigenous guides and land defenders, and to continue our work on the land (removing invasive species and supporting native species), behind the scenes (supporting legal defence of front line land defenders at Fairy Creek), with capacity as volunteers and paid staff supporting Nations and their self-determination, and to simply be present and listen to the Indigenous guides who are willing to work with us.
The Plan pre-Winter 2021
The Project Plan is basically to Gather the Project Community (the co-researchers taking part) from the Indigenous Land Defence and settler environmentalist communities, guided by a project Elder. We will then work together to cultivate spaces of cultural exchange through a variety of methods (ceremony, protocol, ethical spaces, two-eyed seeing, see the sections under Learnings & Teachings and Pathways for more on the methods) in order to evaluate the impact of these various methods on reaching through the colonial worldviews of settler participants. We will compare these experiences with the experience of community & others at Indigenous-led land defence and while being on the land in intentional ways. This will all lead to the process of self-reflection on the time spent in these settings before gathering the project community to reflect on them together. A circular process, we then continue to move through the circle, constantly negotiating our relationships with each other, these methods, and the places we spend time with.