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Fella Hadj Kaddour (FHK): Hi everyone and welcome to our podcast ‘En fleurs, plus en feu’. My name is Fella Hadj Kaddour and I will be your host for today’s episode. ‘En fleurs, plus en feu’ is a podcast that aims to put forward the work of the project ‘Promotion des Actrices Racisées en recherche partenariale au Québec’, the PARR project. And now, today’s episode.
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FHK: Before starting today’s episode, I want to recognize that we are reuniting today on the land of the Kanien:keha'ka,unceded land of Tiohtià:ke, here on Turtle Island. We would like to express all our solidarity with the Indigenous communities that are fighting for self-determination. We honor the traditional guardians of this territory.
After the workshops days for the PARR cohort, the project team set up two BIPOC days where a group of Black, racialized and Indigenous women and non-binary people, that do or have done collaborative research in Quebec, were able to create together concrete strategies for solidarity resistance, for their survival and their personal fulfillment in their environment. The BIPOC days were structured in three stages. First, the results of the PARR research project on the systemic obstacles and the strategies of resistance of Black, racialized and Indigenous women and non-binary people doing collaborative research in Quebec. This was followed by a panel discussion with Indigenous women on the preservation of knowledge, data and networks within projects led by and for Indigenous communities. This panel was moderated by Jessica Quijano, with the participation of five panelists, Amy Edward, Ella Martindale,Amanda Shawayahamish, et Catherine Richardson.
And so, for today’s episode, we are pleased to welcome some of the participants of the BIPOC days, organized by the PARR project team. First with us, Ella Martindale. Ella is a Quw’ustun Mustimo researcher studying Indigenous methodologies and education based on territory. Ella is interested in the way in which Indigenous peoples get to know and learn on their territory, and in the way they incarnate the movement of territory restitution in their actions. Ella leads research on Xwulqw’selu Sta’lo groundwater, Quw’utsun Tumuhw, and supports participatory action research projects in the Tkaronto circle-lab. They live in Montreal and they are a second year PhD student in education and social justice at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Hi Ella, Thank you for being here.
Ella Martindale (EM): Thank you for having me.
FHK: Also with us, Marilie Ross. Marilie use they/them pronouns and all accords. Marilie is studying for a master’s degree in sociology. More precisely, they look at the challenges of international adoption. Marilie co-founded the Soft Gong collective, regrouping China adoptees, and aiming at the visibilization of that community. Finally, Marilie is a co-managing librarian at the Euguélionne solidarity coop, hi Marilie, thank you for being here.
Marilie Ross (MR): Thank you so much for having me.
FHK: Also with us Salma El Hankhouri. She is a researcher in interdisciplinary studies at the intersection of global Indigenous art studies, and decolonizing approaches in urban and cultural studies. Her doctoral research is based on collaborative research with Indigenous artists based at Tiohtià:ke Moonyang to understand their experiences of cultural resurgence linked to the urban artistic scene. As a Amazighe person from Morocco, her work focuses on the convergence of anti-colonial struggles between racialized and Indigenous communities in Quebec, through the revitalization of Global Indigenous artistic practices. She has lived in Montreal for nine years, and is now finishing her doctoral studies at Concordia University, she is presently supporting a family project of Amazigh ancestral knowledge restitution through creative writing. Hi Selma, thank you for being here.
Salma El Hankhouri (SH): Hi, thank you for having me.
FHK: Also with us, Safia Boufalaas. She is a research professional and a Franco-Algerian doctoral student. She is interested in questions of violence, transgression and gender in criminal groups context, more precisely Latin American Maras. With a decriminalizing posture, she tries to explore, through the documentary, questions of socio-economic context, questions of gender and identity to try to understand why certain people decide to join a gang. Before doing research, she did social and community intervention-animation in France in various structures, notably in an abolitionist association in order to support victims of human trafficking in high schools and in a home for marginalized young girls. As a community coordinator at Concordia, she uses her expertise in social and intervention and as a researcher to take an interest in tensions between practitioners, theoreticians and institutions under the prism of ethics. She has also initiated more ethical research protocols, avoiding the extractivists pitfalls by emphasizing partnerships with local racialized and/or marginalized communities. Hello Safia, thank you very much for joining us.
Safia Boufalaas(SB) : Hi Fella, thank you for having me.
FHK: And finally with us, Ama Maria Anney, Ivorian-Canadian feminist specialized in gender and in social policy. Ama is the director of Action Cancer du Sein du Québec, she has sat on the steering committees of several research partnerships essentially treating issues related to community environmental health, sexual violences to name but a few. She was also solicited as an experience expert for many studies, she has a dozen of years of experience in popular education, in advocacy, in political analysis, and in prevention within the Quebec feminist movement. A requestionning of social pressures dedicated to women at the crossroads of oppression remain her principal interests. Hi Ama, thank you very much for being here.
Ama Maria Anney (AMA): It’s a pleasure to be with you, thank you.
FHK: So to start, my first question, I would like to ask you, what motivated you to participate to the BIPOC days, we could start with you Ella, who has been a panelist and also a participant. What motivated you to take part in these days?
EM: Thank you. Uh…I just moved back to Montreal, and its really important to me to be in community and get to know people that are doing similar work, and so the project PARR was really interesting to me. When my friend invited me, or like let me know that it was happening, I was like : wow, this would be a great opportunity to get to know folks who are doing collaborative research in the city, um…Yeah, just coming back in my work and in my life, like coming back to Montreal, its like very important to ground myself in community and in places with people that are doing similar things. So…Um I think that, that’s been happening, like I’ve learned a lot already, I’m very glad to be here with you today, but like also the workshop after the panel that I participated in was really really cool and I learned a lot and yeah. So like in short, its just about being in community for me, like to start off, to start the relationship like in that way is like really important so I’m glad I had the opportunity, yeah.
AMA : So I was saying that, apart from the fact that I knew that I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there was an intellectual bubbling between us, between sisters, I’ve also done…Took part in collaborative research projects that…Which brought together community and scientific researchers and I said to myself that, well, maybe that coming in those types of spaces, to try to see what other people with similar experiences and similar lived experiences could experiment this kind of adventure, could be interesting, and I also knew that these would be spaces of feminist solidarity. I knew that it was going to be a feminist solidarity space, and that I would also be…It’s so rare that we have spaces of…We let our guard down, we have spaces for connivance where we can…safe spaces, in fact. So I told myself this was going to be…This was going to be what I was going to experience, and I also knew that it was prepared by brilliant people, by the PARR project team, and…That’s what got me into the room full of light, in fact. *laughs*. There you go.
MR: Uh I think it’s a bit like you said, so the desire to form a community, I think it’s something that’s quite striking for racialized people in environments that can also be very isolating, such as academia. And I think it’s also about thinking outside to a narrative that’s explained, so, for me, it’s about answering the question, what is the sound of my own voice, outside of their fear, because if it’s not us that were doing the work, it’s gotta be about us. And about us is the fear that they have of us, so I think it’s really important to put forward how we perceive ourselves, put forward how we can mobilize our knowledge, our expertise, because it’s been there for years, even before these people did, and I think it’s also a way of not forgetting it and knowing how to do it with the tools brought to us by the PARR project.
SH: Yeah for me it’s also, I come from an academic background, a research background, and so… It’s the need of community that motivated me to participate but also part of that effort to do that, was meeting one of the feminist activist who is very active in Quebec, and I met her after a play that I went to see, that is actually also part of my collaboration effort with, with, in art, in the art, in Indigenous art here in Montreal. And I met, it’s Alexandra Pierre, I met her at the end of that play, beautiful play, by beautiful artists, that you know talked about the history of the first Indigenous activist woman in Montreal in the 1700s. Which we never hear about, that they are, we are like, we are learning as people who are non-Indigenous to this territory and we learn about that, and it was a beautiful space of coming together like, meeting Alexandra, she told me about PARR and that’s how I got into participate in the project by Felicia and Saaz, who, led by these two beautiful women and yeah so…I think we, you said it too, safe space is very important when we’re doing research as a, you know, a non-Indigenous racialized person here, wishing also to built those collaborations and solidarities with other communities, racialized communities, Indigenous communities in here…And so, trying to think about how we can you know, work within a very exclusionary institution, whether it’s the community sector, the government, academia, like its everywhere right. So we are really, you know it’s a mega structure, so I think…Yeah, that’s, that’s… I think that’s what, for me it’s community and safe space.
SB: I agree with everything that’s been said. Having a community background and also in research, these are spaces, community spaces are spaces that I really manage to navigate quite easily given that it’s people who really look like me. The research space is something so different that when you’re a racialized person, you have to protect yourself, it’s draining so…Having safe spaces like the ones we’ve had with, thanks to the PARR project, it feels really good. Because research always puts us in a kind of competitive instinct, even as a racialized person, and it’s very difficult because we want to keep contracts, we want contracts, we’re also… We’re also in very precarious positions, so it’s seeing other people, and it’s sad because I see other people who are in the same…In the same position as me and it’s complicated, it’s hard to manage. But to know that I’m not alone, and that we’re in solidarity and that we’re ready to be together, that's good and reassuring.
FHK: Thank you very much for your testimonies and your answers. I also wanted to know, after taking part in BIPOC days, what do you remember about specific realities of the communities to which you belong, but also the realities , let’s say, that are common between Indigenous, Black and racialized people ?
AMA: I think we all have lonely lives, but that are…In some respects, similar and different. I think that all, what I’ve learned, is that we all waltz with a form of invisibilization of our capacities, our knowledge, our trajectory, and also, but at the same time I have an answer for that, I think that it’s because, I think, in the subconscious of a lot of people it’s…Recently, we are seen, we are apprehended like subjects, people who may be subjects, who can really do, lead, produce methodology, center essential issues. Not a long time ago, I think that we have, we were essentially seen as study objects. So I find that we have that in common, we are claiming certain things. We demand to be truly considered, in the research field, in the crossbreeding of institutional research, community organizing, and all that. But I think that there are intersections between our identities, the institutions in which we navigate, in fact, research, colonialism, there are so many intersections, there are so many things that are, that combine together that I feel like saying that, ah yes, we have similar experiences, yes, these days have been really stimulating, yes we have some very good ideas, but we must not forget that all these approaches are made or thought out in spaces that are not neutral. And so, as I said, we have similar experiences, but at the same time we also have…We navigate in similar spaces that are very very oppressive, that are built on recentered, white supremacist ways and habits, so it’s complicated. So I think that what we also have in common is that we see this. What I’m saying, what do you think, I don’t know. *laughs*
EM: Yeah no, thank you. Okay so in terms of collaborative research, what do we have in common…and what do we have that might be different. Okay, I think, like you said like, we are all, like in an academic space we are all coming to understand what we do have in common, which is being, being a subject is what you said. Or like, being studied, and being under like similar conditions, of like…Yeah, colonialism, white supremacy, having to contest that together. So I wanted to say yes like, that’s one of the things we have in common, and something else…about that I guess, is that within that we are all like racialized, against the state, the nation-state, like differently ? Like we all have like different ways of walking through the world, under the state’s oppression, basically. And so , those specificities, apart from the specificities that are like beautiful and wonderful about who we are and about like the places where we come from, are also something that we have to think about when we are working in the academy. So there’s like, a lot of the times, I think well, it’s really important that, because for a long time we have in some ways been lumped together right? Like, it’s like, okay, racialized people or like nonwhite people, that’s who you are, and then whatever you’re all the same right. So I think we’re past, we’ve been past that for a minute, I mean I know I have too, right, but like there’s something of power there, there’s something that’s strong in coming together, in that way like, reclaiming that, like okay, well we are all experiencing similar things so we’re going to contest that oppression. But then, so I often think, it’s really important that we find our specific and our particular identities, within that, right. And then, at the same time, those specificities will be what makes the change if that makes sense? Like, yes we have to come together, and then we have to find the specifics in order to like, actually change the way we do research. So it’s not only just about like how we’re represented, or visible we all each are, individually or collectively within groups, or all of those kinds of things, like what I’m interested in is like moving forward, doing things differently, because we’re also like used to do research in a way that like, we’ve been putting into categories, and now we understand ourselves in those ways. Or like, oh well, I’m Indigenous, so this is like the ways, this is the way in which I move, and also we get to redefine that overtime. Like we get to move through the world in that way, like the way we are, and also with other people. So, if we do come together like intentionally, and move, and like recognize each other, not just recognize, and not , not even compare, but just be together and think with each other, we’re gonna come to a different kind of togetherness. Like we’re gonna come to a different kind of like, not like how we were all lumped into one category before but like a new way of moving forward, which we’re already, we’re already doing by being here together, in my opinion, it’s all just like, in that, but…Yeah anyways, I could go on and on so, I think that, well whatever, just to sum it up so that I can hear more from you like, like yeah like, the differences are really really important and it also matters that we come together, but based on differences. Because of course, we’re not all the same, that’s what they’ve been trying to…You know ? Anyway. I could go on, I could go on, but yeah, I’d love to hear from somebody else.
MR: Thank you for that it was…There’s a lot to absorb that you said. I think it is so beautiful, and I want to come back to the thing you said about like, how there’s categories trying to like contain us. And it's true that I feel like in academia…There’s always this way to either be a bit… In fact, you always have to perform your identity, and we are a bit confined to either perform it, either abstain, and there’s always a bit, it enters in this dichotomy, colonial narrative, to do just as, like, well you’re either that or that. And I feel like, going in this fluidity, is to say like, I want to say a bad word but I’m not going to say it…these categories, and let’s shut it down to be like who we want to be. And I feel like that’s why community, and for me friendship, is so important and like, we don’t have to take that for granted, because it’s, for me like, friendship is… Is gonna always clarify the possibility for me to be like, fluid, as a person, and will never requestion my humanity as a person. I feel like that’s community, and that’s why it’s important, and I feel like you said it, well both of you said it pretty much, to say like, there are systems in place, and I think that’s what brings us together, well, what brings us together the most, what flows from all of us. And that’s to say, right now, I think, I looked at all the people around me, and we’re all tired. I mean, this fatigue stems from that, and I think that’s something that we need to address, but I think we need to address it collectively. So I think, once again, the phrase to say like ‘we can’t be free until we’re all free’, it also applies in that situation, and I think that it’s also to say, how, at the community level as well as the academic level, we can join forces and set up strategies to reorganize ourselves and also how to do it collectively. I think that spaces like PARR give these people the time they don’t necessarily have.
SB: If I can, I think that what we have in common is that we’re scaring them, in the sense that we have a strength and a resistance which, which troubles the academic field. I see it as a person, even, I see it when I’m working on projects with my community, for example, or in fact I correct them, I correct the academics by explaining to them that it’s not because you did a project like this one in another community that you will do it again with my community. All communities are different, we all have cultural biases that are very different, and the problem is also that research is really, it’s copy-paste. It’s taking a project that I’ve done, for example, with a specific community, do it identically with another community, and they don’t understand. And I also want to bounce back on what you said, the fact that we’re tired and drained, and what I’m trying to do with my colleagues is to be in a care system, but not care in a white way like we can see, that, yes you need to see a therapist, you need to talk, bla-bla-bla. Me, in my culture, care is food, for example, we are around food and we talk about anything and everything, for other, other people it’s going to be rituals that are totally different, and that’s also what we have in common, I think that we all have this strength in fact to really disrupt the academic sector, if we arrive in fact to be together, but also succeed, in some ways, to heal and care for ourselves with respect and others dignity.
SH: Yes I like that, I like the…what you said, it’s like returning to our roots. And I’ve lived that, I lived it even in my, throughout my work when I was, essentially collaborating with Indigenous artists here, it’s not my community, I’m doing research with other people, with other cultures that I don’t understand, that I don’t know, so there’s always learning but at that process, I realized that I myself was disconnected from my own Indigenous cultures and traditions and because for many reasons right, and on top of that, I’m in diaspora, I’m not at home here, I’m in a different territory so, and there’s always these questions about territory and sovereignty and Indigenous self-determination, I think it is very important to honour that, as, you know, racialized communities are not Indigenous here…And that comes always back to, you know, honour that and not just in theory, but in practice, and figure out how to practice that, obviously there’s a lot of challenges and barriers to do any work, that’s, that’s when you’re not part of the dominant society and culture, but I think…These, you know, these solidarity meetings that we are doing like now, with the PARR, with the PARR is allowing us to meet and be here together, I think is the starting point to figure that out, like how can we actually practice you know ? And be allies to Indigenous self-determination in our own capacity. Like that is not a question that I‘ve heard a lot, and it’s not something that, like sometimes I’m like I need to discuss, I need actually my community to discuss this, because you know, if we’re doing something we need to do it as a community. And so sometimes its hard because, well, you don’t have the community around you. Sometimes, it’s because you have a lot of work and just overworked and tired, like the stuff that you said. So…So yeah, I think that, that looking into how, where to go forward, it would be a good…Yeah. Honouring the past and seeing what, how we can move on onto the future.
FHK: Thank you very much for your, your answers and your testimonies and your reflections especially regarding that day. I also wanted to follow up on, during the BIPOC days, there was a workshop that was moderated notably by Adama Kaba on the construction of preservation strategies in solidarity between Black, Indigenous and racialized actors of collaborative research. And I wanted to ask you, like a crossover, that is, we can start with you Ella, as an Indigenous person, to what extent it’s important to build solidarity practices with Black and racialized communities, and for the others participants, why it’s important to build solidarities with Indigenous communities, notably in collaborative research.
EM: Yeah, I guess I’ll speak to like the difference, the important difference here that’s been distinguished by the question. And…The, like, what…What is being Indigenous within Canada, for me also, just to like situate myself, like I said I’m Quw’utsun or like we said earlier, somebody said, I’m Quw’utsun Mustimuhw and that’s, that my place is then on the other side of the nation-state, so it’s on Vancouver Island. And so, and I grew up in northern BC too, so I have lots of places that are important to me, and part of Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous ways of being, in the way that I’ve understood it in community, with my family, and also in academic settings, is to be in place. Like to know, to take my knowledge with me, to take my places with me. The practice of Indigenous ways of knowing is, like an Indigenous learning, which is what I study, is like to be able to move from one place to another and get to know the land and get to know the people there. And build connections, and think about how to move forward, like think about how to go forward together. So for me like, practices of solidarity as an Indigenous person, with black folks and racialized folks in place, they’re like, they’re the only, that’s the only thing that I’m here to do. Like, that is what we’re here to do. Like I don’t know, I don’t want to make it sound so like, like lovely, like utopian or something or like no, or just like simple, but like I really do think like, it is…So much opens up for us when we realize that we’re on the land together, that we’re not just here to fight the oppressors, but we’re also here to live together. One of the things I’ve heard like not just here like, but like you know, I’m hearing like a lot of non-white people like, they’re, who are super, I’m hearing from a lot of non-white people that they are really down to like, start thinking about what it means to be on Indigenous territories. And like I’m so excited obviously for that to be happening, and what I would say to folks who are feeling that right now, is that like, so many doors open up when you, when you do just like, realize that you’re on the land. Like I know it sounds *laughs*, I can’t put it in any other way really, like it’s not…I don’t want it to seem, it might be, it might be a challenge, but I don’t want it to seem like a challenge, it’s actually like the gift, that… That we can , that we can open together. Like we can be here together and open that gift, I don’t know. Uhmm so like I’m really excited that that’s being talked about, and that’s why I’m here with you, like that’s why I want to be in these spaces, and…And think about that because I think there’s so much power again in coming together so…So, to go kind of like, I guess I’m talking about like what it is for me, and also just like about the questions, but like , to think about solidarity is to think about being on the land together, I guess is the answer.
SH: I love that, being on the land together. And…Actually, since I moved here, it’s been nine years now, I’ve never lived in a country outside of my own country for that long, ever in my life, so it’s like, it’s a milestone for me and…I’ve always being like wondering like, would…It’s very different to be in a settler colonial context, then being in a ….In a country or whatever place in the world where you know who the people who are the…the stewards of the land, you know, like…There’s like a genealogy, there are traditions there, that are rooted in the territory. And I’ve always felt this kind of gap, or kind of like, disconnect here, because it’s a settler colonial context, and I feel like…For anyone who is here, who is not part of this, has to be you know, engaging, has to engage this issue of settler colonialism, but as you were saying like, we end up often caught up in defence, like in defence mode, where we have to, you know, you know….No , I’m not gonna say fight but like…To oppose and you know, deconstruct and educate and like, and resist, and so…And we are , you know doing it at a different, differently for our own communities, and…But it remains important to kind of, I think get to the basis of things in my experience, like just kind of doing my work in my research with that artist, collaborators that I work with lately and it’s been very nourishing because we’ve not…It was a time when we’re not just talking about…Settler colonialism and extractivism and all the kind of things that our barriers are really disrupting everyone lives now, we are actually thinking about you know, how do we connect our own identities and…What is important for us and got us to think about, just an example off my head, the trees that are, you know nourishes, nourishers have, nourished us throughout centuries and my, now like our grandparents and our families and…We got into a space of sharing where, I talked a lot about the fig tree because that’s a very emblematic tree for our communities but, back home, and like the maple tree here, we were just talking about that for hours and it was just this beautiful moment, and I think that’s what you are saying Ella, it’s really that finding new ways of being together I think, because we don’t have a lot of space and energy to do it, but we should do it, and I think it’s very important to…We’ll have a different power actually, together, I think that’s what it is, yeah.
AMA: I think there are pitfalls to avoid. I think there are pitfalls to avoid, if we were to imagine a solidarity guide *laughs*, there are really pitfalls to avoid. Uh already, there’s the question of knowledge, me as a black person that wants to enter in relation and collaborate with Indigenous people, that I ask myself what are my intentions. What are the reasons for which I want to enter in collaboration, I want to do a research project, I want to establish a bridge, a feminist..well, a relation a relation as much, well, you know, co-constructing, have a feminist space also because Indigenous people, it’s very important because unfortunately, hovers over us, as a Black person, me that arrived here in Quebec a few…Twelve years ago, chosen immigration supposedly and where we don’t… It’s like, you arrive here and you realize that, ah well, there’s an ancestral story, you discover people so, I think that what it does, is that you fall in the danger of indifference, in fact. We arrive somewhere, and then you fall into a form of…You’re there, you want to, you want to fit in society, so it’s very possible that you fall into the dangers of indifference and also because, as a black person, we experience a lot of violence, there’s also exhaustion, all that, so sometimes you’re there in survival mode and that makes your eyes turn away from certain realities. That is a fact. So I’m under the impression that we can discuss ways of collaborating together, to… It’s good, that’s why we’re here, but at the same time, we need to realize and recognize, a form of self-reflection, in fact. How do cultures, Indigenous communities that were introduced, or how did I pick information, what do I know, how can I too have a new posture although I come from a country that has been colonized, i.e. it wasn’t by chance that I decided not to live in my country of origin. The fact that I’m here, that I’ve arrived, that I’ve contributed,that I breathe on this land, that I pay taxes, that I reproduce certain things…So you also have to ask yourself what my posture is, now, here and now. Before entering into a relationship, before entering into an authentic and sincere relationship with Indigenous people, and with respect too. So I think that we have to ask ourselves these questions. We really need to ask ourselves these questions and take the time to answer them, while establishing links.
SB: I relate a lot to what you’re saying about the question of knowledge and the whys and wherefore. Also, I would add that the question of the temporality is…Indigenous temporality is different from Black temporality I imagine, that of racialized people. So there’s that too, it’s also to understand that we all have a different temporality and to manage to respect that. And what I also say often, what is important for me in all the projects that I do with the people I’m collaborating with, I don’t work with, I collaborate with, since it’s a co-construction like you said, it’s how… The before the relation, the during the relation, and the after the relation. What to do if the relation ends, how can I put an end to the relation if it needs to happen. Often, that’s what research forgets, in research with the communities, it’s…They come, they do the work and they leave, and…Often, it’s even more trauma for the communities than any other thing, so I think it’s important to highlight that.
MR: I’ll come back to… In fact, there are so many things that were said, and maybe after ask the question again…About what you said, about like, realizing that we are on the land, I feel like, it’s also, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like it’s also saying listening, like…I feel like it’s something that we lose a lot, like even in academia and communitary work, and listening is really something strong, that sometimes we forget to do. And also saying it’s not about comprehension, it's about compassion, even though there’s education to make, but I feel like there’s a lot of resources everywhere, and it’s not even about education anymore, it’s about empathy, of like, caring, for like those realities. Sorry, can you ask the question again?
FHK: It was as a Black, racialized person, to what extent it’s important to build solidarity relationships with Indigenous people, notably in collaborative research.
MR: I think it’s going to, yes yes it’s in fact, everything that’s been said to say, in fact, to say that we can’t do things without thinking about the fact of where am I now? I mean, I can’t, me in fact I was raised here, I was adopted by a white family so even if i’m a racialized person, the fact remains that what I got was social racialization, it remains a Québec white family. So how I can, for myself, I mean, I’m not impervious to the system, I think that no one is, impervious to the system, and to keep that in mind is important also for like, I think, to come back to the notion of safe space, I agree about the fact that it’s important to have spaces all together, but at the same time, to say that I think what we’re trying to have is a safer space. To say that, we aren’t impervious to that system, and I think that an act of love in this is to say, listen, if I messed up with the pronouns, well I’ll try again, I’m sorry, I’ll start again. I think that’s also to say that we’re not in the possibility to all have, to have all the comprehensions of the world, and as a racialized person, I also think that there’s this expectation, that we understand everything, that we have all the…I mean, all the knowledge, to know everything, and since we have this expectation in the academic field, and I think that to come back to the question, I think that for me, there’s that, it’s to understand what is there to say about militant practice, to say, well, let’s say, there’s a militant practice on environment, well what Indigenous people said before I talked about it. For my master, on adoption, well there were residential schools before talking about international adoption, well we’re going to talk about adoption here on the land. So, a bit to come back and to say that here, it’s not true that these populations didn’t say anything. They’ve said things, but ithey’ve been erased, and I think it’s important to bring them back to the fore, and for me, I think that’s what this practice is all about., as you said, always keeping that in mind and say, ok, what was said before, how can I go about seeking these forms of knowledge, which in fact, form a form of epistemicide in fact, which is also part of the dehumanization of these populations, and I think that in partnership research, this is hyper-central in fact as a, as a practice.
EM: I just have one more thing to say, I want to just say thanks for all of the answers, and…I think, I haven’t been feeling super technical today I guess, but to think about, I think I started my last answer with like the importance distinction between Indigenous, and then like Black and racialized peoples and those, that difference, like what is that difference and why do we make that distinction. And so, I just wanted to highlight for listeners like, what we’re talking about here when we’re making these distinctions, and one of the things is the ways, the way that Indigenous people relate to settler colonial states is very specific and has an impact on everybody who lives within the settler colonial state, right. So we know this, just to be clear like, to think about us being here together does mean, doesn’t mean that we’re all just like ‘okay we’re here together’. There’s a lot of work and you’re all speaking to that really beautifully, and so, so…And like, the difference, we all have, I could get into all the distinctions, and we can define it definitely, but we all have like a different relation to the nation-state, and I do think a lot in terms of colonialism and anti-colonialism and decolonization and thinking about…Not instead of, but like I tend to think in those terms alongside racialization and like race, so for me when I’m thinking about us being here together, those differences and the ways in which we are working towards our liberation are specific, and they are in direct relation to the land, and like, which is underneath the imposed nation-state right. Or like, how do you want to think about it, I like to think about it differently but like, sometimes I think about like the oppression as like an imposed nation-state on top of the land right? So how are we like working to think about it differently. So, I just wanted to add that and also just say thanks for your beautiful answers to that question.
FHK: Thank you, thank you very much. In the answers, there were a lot of very interesting things, we… Wait, Ama, you were talking about not falling into indifference, it was also raised by Marilie in the sense that we need to put forward histories that are already present before talking about the history of Black or racialized people that immigrated in Canada. You talked about a safer space, rather than a safe space, can you like…Like give a little definition for the listeners.
MR: Uh I think… I don’t know, maybe you, in your…Well in fact, just maybe, a little context, to say that, maybe in your circle of acquaintances, have you had people who are racialized, who are gender non-conforming and that hurt you, and I think that this hurt, it comes from a form of betrayal in quotation marks, to say that ‘ah but still, we have the same identities, we share similar realities’, but it’s to say that considering precisely the fact that like, we’re not impervious to oppression systems, we too can be vehicles for the reproduction of these oppressions, that’s a possibility, because we live imprecisely in, I mean, in the academy there are racialized people who are very much into scholarships competitions, it means that they contribute to this system, and to say that we want to move towards a safer space, it also means we want to work towards that. It’s saying that it’s continuous, it’s fluid, and then we want to put in place devices precisely for people with reduced mobility, people who need sign language, to say ok well we’re trying to put in place more things to consider the different realities of people, but also to say that there may be a lack of that. And to assume the fact that there’s a lack to that, and to say that even if we have all those identities, it’s possible to fail to meet realities, and to assume it and say, listen, like, it’s okay, because I don’t think that we can have all the realities in our minds, but to say, we’ll do better, I think it’s something we need to keep in mind.
FHK : Yes, it means things don’t stand still.
MR: Yeah exactly.
FHK: You were also talking about epistemicides. In the first episode, we talked about epistemic injustices, but we didn’t talk about epistemicide. Do you, or, if anyone, or if you want…
MR: In fact, I don’t know the theory very well either, I had a class with Jade Almeida that was saying, that was talking about the epistemicide of Indigenous knowledge, to say that its part of the genocide process in Canada of Indigenous populations. So, erasing existing knowledge in fact, and, when I was talking about environmental causes, it’s to say, ah well, there was nothing about it before in fact, or not to say that there was nothing before but to tell ourselves, ah it’s new. It’s something new, we’re revolutionizing pipeline issues, we’re revolutionizing issues but in fact, no, there were hundred and hundred years of that, yeah that’s it, of activism, of people that talked about it, and then it was lost, not only through the way that now we consider knowledge legitimate, so, that is written, but also the way that it was oral traditions that were passed, knowledge that is not necessarily written that is recorded, and even if knowledges are recorded, well now they’ve been erased, to say that there was nothing there before, when it’s not the case.
EM: If I could say something to this like, maybe that, might be interesting as a side note, I think, so I used to study anthropology and I don’t that anymore, I really don’t like anthropology…And so to me, this is giving like cultural genocide, or something like that, or like that kind of term, and I think it’s important to understand that, and everything you said, I really appreciate, to understand it’s not just like…It’s years and years of suppression and like people having to change their ways and being displaced, and in so many different ways, it’s not quantifiable and it’s not even describable all the ways in which Indigenous folks just to be specific have had to like change their lives in order to fit, even if they are surviving, like to fit in the colonial society. So like, that’s true. And I want to say, like…There’s so much…Like I am of the opinion, or like I know this to be true, there, we are still super like…Whatever, we haven’t actually lost anything, things have just changed, and that’s the way I like to look at it. Like I don’t like to go…To heavily… I don’t like to lean too heavily on language that like underlines how much we have lost and like, that we’re losing our language and that we’re losing our culture, if not only just to…If we need to make that point, if some people don’t believe that and we need to make that point, that’s fine. But in my own community, and with folks like you, like I like to highlight the fact that we are still alive, we have many futures, our languages are going to keep, to keep being spoken, and just like really try to affirm, without , without glossing over the history and like glossing or like erasing what has happened. But like, to account for that and to move forward with like, the notion that yes, we are still here, and our knowledge, even if it’s not traditional, or if it’s not…It is still so…Like it is traditional. Like I don’t know, it is…It has all the knowledge of the past, it’s just that it maybe, maybe it’s changed shape or in a different form. So…Anyway, just to comment a little bit on that, yeah.
FHK: And also, because freezing Indigenous people in the past, well it means that they either existed or they no longer exist, that today they no longer exist, that there aren’t new things that…Thank you very much for your answers, each more interesting than the last. To continue with the day, the famous BIPOC day… What practices of solidarity you said to yourself, leaving that day, I will keep it with me, and I will re-use it in my workplace or research environment. What practice or idea or strategy, you said to yourself, that, I will keep it in my…in my head, and re-use it and integrate it in my research environment or my workplace.
SB: It’s a strategy that I was already doing and that I’m doing even more, it’s to listen, to leave space for people who are the most concerned, and to amplify their voice just by listening to them. I think that the most important for me is, for example, if, and I already had projects with Indigenous communities that went very badly with some researchers because they didn’t leave any space in fact, they were taking all the space, even as a racialized person, we need to understand that also need to leave space. And that’s also how we show solidarity, it’s also to say, I’ll put my ego aside, I will put aside everything that I have, all my luggage, to leave this space to that person because that’s their moment. I will have my moment another time, but now I need to understand that, it’s them. So I think there’s that, humility.
AMA: For this question, I’ll take a good look, I have a grocery list. *laughs* No but in fact, to support the mobilization of knowledge, of knowledge generated by the racialized communities, communities themselves, it’s really all about the retroactions of the racialized researchers themselves. Well…Excuse me for talking about money. But anyway. To claim support, subventions for organizations and concerned groups who wish to hold their own mobilization sessions, their own research projects or their own spaces. I think that’s important sometimes, although being a racialized woman, Black, sometimes we are in organizations, institutions that really have privileges. Who really have… Who can, they have interlocutors in fondations or governmental and all, but it’s not the case of other groups, other research communities. So maybe it would also be to really draw on their experience,on what these communities are claiming, and then sometimes to act as stepping stones, to drive their needs higher, that’s one thing. And there’s another thing that brings me back to this question of institutional racism, is, I think also, that collectively, we need to continue to recognize, to have a truly uninhibited recognition of racism in the institutions and in the methodologies and in the research processes. We really have to, if we really want solidarity, that we… In other words, I think that everyone can see that, but when we…I don’t even know how to say it, when we profoundly recognize it, when we live it, really, that’s what we’re into. And then, we address it. But without, without, without frills, without masks, really that we really address it. I know that everyone, we all have our strategies to navigate, that’s true. And the years spent in oppressive systems, finally, made us understand that no matter what strategies we come up with, well, we’re always going to get hit. So at some point, I think that with wisdom and the time passing, the negative experiences we go through, we really have to find ways to address things as they are. Together, claiming things together, it’s a bit… That’s it.
SB: Well I can add something to what Ama said, about money. I see a lot, a lot of things, unfortunately, in research, where it’s looking for funding to hide, to just tick boxes in fact, to get money. And that is… I think that also that’s what we’re trying to do, and I have a lot of colleagues that are doing that it’s giving back to the community in a financial way. It’s, for me, when I go to a community, I want to work with a community, that’s what I’m asking myself…What’s in it for the community. Because a scientific article, I’m sorry, who cares. It’s not vulgarized, it’s not accessible, so what are we giving back to them. For me, everyone’s knowledge counts. And so, it’s also a job…How to say…It’s a job of…We deconstruct the institution, and I saw it in projects where I had a lot of trouble, because me, for example, I want to pay cash, and the people, they don’t want to pay cash, you must… And that’s the institution in fact that always puts up lots and lots of barriers, and we need to continue to break those barriers, quite simply.
MR: No but to get back to the money…*laughs*. No but I mean, if we get back to, precisely, the PARR research, the results that were shown, the money, I mean, it was one of the answers to what’s most glaring. And I think it’s also to say that there are material realities, we have realities to which we must respond, and precisely to give back economically to people, it’s super important. And I think that, being, just being in fact with people was that I can’t do what I do in a disembodied way. So to stay anchored to the idea that what I’m doing, it’s not only written, it’s not only to an academic level, and I think that it’s a thing very… I don’t know if it’s white, I don’t know if it’s colonial, but it might be all that. People will talk about feminism, will talk about all those words, intersectionality, you have to get those words out of them, in fact. Like, they can’t use it anymore, it’s too much, it’s very disembodied, in a way where, precisely, these people won’t, I mean, like at the same time, I don’t know, getting out into the streets and all, but I want to say, we can’t talk about feminism without talking about present things, I’m speaking for Palestine, but I want to say, we can’t talk about feminism and intersectionality in such a disembodied way. You need to take into consideration how you have to do a privilege check, obviously, but also keep in consideration the way we’re talking, that we convey the message that we want to convey, and also what you said Ella, remember during your panel, I thought it was super interesting,, and I don’t know how applicable it is in my research, but you were saying that you weren’t necessarily talking about people directly, but rather about what came into contact in them. And I think it’s really interesting, and you said that when you talked about what’s in relation with people, you weren’t going to talk about every that was, about people’s wounds, what hurt people, and like how we sometimes, not what hurt people, but how sometimes we just like revisit how the traumas of people, so I find it really interesting, but maybe you want to check what I said because maybe I just like ??
EM: Well yeah so, this could be an answer to the question. One of the things I talked about in my panel, which some of you heard, was…instead of, and this might be obvious, like parts of this might be totally, anyway, totally obvious to you, but i’ll share it with listeners. So is that like instead of studying people, not only just being like : okay i’m studying Indigenous people in Montreal, or i’m studying Indigenous people who go to McGill, like whatever, you know how we do that in social science research you know, we’re trying to find our subjects or we’re trying to like figure who we talking about, and there is something great about that, in that we want to be specific and we’re like looking to, yeah, the people who have that lived experience right. So what, there’s something about that also, that I don’t like, and it’s that, it has like…It mirrors some of the practices that social scientists would do in order to categorize us, so categorize raci-, like, basically,to study Indigenous peoples in the past and in an anthropological setting you would like go to their place and then you’d be like : i’m running an ethnography about X peoples, right ? And I think that a lot of our communities experience this, not only Indigenous peoples. And that’s the way that…Like a lot of…Like that’s one of the ways that racialization was solidified and made…legible to settlers and like other people, like non-racialized folks, white folks. And so, instead of…and like, we can do good research now, in lots of different ways, but one of the ways that I like to do it is just to get away from the subject as people. And instead, what I do, I try to study place…yeah. So what I do is I study place. So like what I would do is, go to a community, and say I would like to study with you the river that you, that you are at. Like, that you all go to together. I don’t know, like, and next time i’ll be like : What are you doing here, and like what is the river like for you, and like how you experience the river. The river is just like an example, it could be a school, it could be so many things, right. So, and then, the people get to define that place, and then that place get to define the people that are there. So you don’t have to like, try to create a box before you start your research, that is like, ok like, i’m studying…I’m just gonna keep using Indigenous peoples at university, just to…whatever. Because what if like, instead you’re studying the first peoples house at McGill, or for example, where I’ve gone many times there, like there might be people who don’t fit in the category that you’re actually looking for, but that brought in the conversation, that it…it starts to get more material, like it starts to make your research more community oriented if you’re actually working on the ground with the people who are there. And so i’m not, i’m not as interested, and maybe this is just me, in trying to define people or trying to get the lived experience of a certain kind of person. Instead i’m trying to figure out how we are living together, what we are doing in place, what our actions are, what our practices are, what our community looks like, what’s important to us, like all of those things, like what you’re saying. Like looking more into the future, and like trying not to…That does get us away from… The frame of our research is really important, right. It gets us away from some of the stereotypes we might reinforce, so the histories that we might retell over and over again, that like our community doesn’t need to hear, because….There’s a lot of my work about like accounting for the past, accounting for trauma, but really trying to move forward. So that does not mean not hearing it and blocking it out, and there’s practices there that i’m working on, like thinking with grief, thinking with…Thinking with that lived experience of trauma and grief, but trying to move from it so that our research isn’t defined by that aspect, so that we are not defined. So that like my community and me, we are not defined by that trauma, right. And it’s…I don’t know, it’s a balance, so anyways, so that was…That is one of the things that I like to think about with folks, and that I would do, and like talking with you about it, yeah, coming out the PARR project day like definitely got me thinking about it more.
SH: I actually find it very interesting, because in my experience, when I was doing, when I was finding collaborators and people to talk to about their artistic experiences here, this question…Because it’s very much that. You go into…you doing research, it’s always categories that you talk about, and there’s so…There are limits in the whole work from the get-go. Like you’re not even starting and it’s already limited. And the challenge for people, students, researchers and community members who wish to do research is really…That’s, from my experience, what I got in my own experience as a student, was that… It’s…Deconstructing them from the beginning and not thinking about through what the situation is expecting you to do, or with…Like not thinking about how is going…How is my community gonna receive my work - no, that’s not the point. The point is, the people you’re gonna work with, and as you’re saying like the place, it was a relationship. And at first I was thinking about people you know, artist, based in Montreal. Montreal is a settler space. There is…the life doesn’t stop at Montreal’s borders right, like it continues everywhere. And that’s the thing like, the…So I tried to just change my perspective because it didn’t work, like it was just too constricting. Then I thought but no, what about the relationship. It takes time, and there’s another thing, like the academia does not care about the time it takes for you to build ethical, meaningful relations. They don’t care about that, they just want to validate something as soon as possible, anyways that’s another thing, we’re going to focus on solutions, but thinking of relations, and throughout the years, it’s been two years, and i’ve seen like oh wow, there’s so many things that come out of this work, you know of these relation building, possibilities, and I think, kind of…you know, I like this framing of solutions in terms of how to collaborate with Indigenous communities and…At least in my case, it’s through relationship building, thinking of the process and that’s that relationship tell me about…you know, that experience, because it’s my experience. I’m not going to talk about someone else’s practice, it’s about how my experiences, engaging with that person, as an artist. And so, I realized, I learned so much, and it’s not…It’s not even ethnography, like whatever you want to call it, it’s not ethnography, it’s not anthropology, it’s none of those things, it’s really…Going…Being and listening, being, and listening, and being there. You don’t even have to ask questions. It’s really…Learning, by being with. And I heard about it a lot in theory, but when you practice it’s a different thing right, because it opens so many things, so yeah, like I think… I’ll finish with that for my part.
SB: I would like to bounce back on two things that were said that are super important for me. Ella, you were talking about trauma. There must…And I’m so, I really really agree with you, is that research creates trauma, by, we know that we’re going in communities just to talk about trauma, and we try eh, I often think to change that narrative by saying, why don’t we go in the community to see what they’re also doing. Because there are a lot of solidarity spaces in communities, in multiple communities, but we prefer to stay into negative things, trauma and also subaltern positions, we’ll always be below the people who dominante. So for me, it was a very important point that you said. And Marilie also, specific terms like decolonial feminism, I really wish we’d stop using them. But that’s what it is, it’s disembodied, it no longer has any flavor. In the sense that there’s no more definition in fact, everyone uses it. I saw a feminist project that talks about sexual assaults that women experience at the university. The feminist group, it’s only white women, and they came to ask me, people from the community, and I said, no, no. I said, you want people from the community, you…You look for them yourselves, or you hired some of them. I said, my community is not here in fact to just cry. My community has dignity. And that’s what it’s all about, I think, not being afraid of…It’s hard, I know it’s hard, I know we will stay in those types of spaces where we’re being seen in a radical way, but I think that sometimes you have to dare to say no., and just say,it’s my way of saying stop, and that’s how you need to respect me and if I tell you that I don’t want to, don’t remind me five hundred times about the same thing!
EM: Okay yeah, a couple…Awesome. Thanks for highlighting those things. A couple things that I would take away from the thinking that I did at the workshop…*rires* Just to come back to money, eum…What I, what I like, and i’m glad that we are all talking about it, because it’s something that…It, it…The pursuit of academic funding, it does define our work to some extent and so, coming to terms with that is annoying, and so…Noticing that, sometimes we are to describe our work in a way that will get us funding, and then, but if that is the case, and like maybe it’s not totally true to our work, like, we’re trying to…Like I often find myself like using words that I know that like, settler, like liberal settlers will like understand about like the ways in which about i’m thinking about Indigenous ways of being or whatever right. Which is not the way that I actually think about my work and what it looks like on the ground, and so yeah, I just want to highlight again, underline, whatever, that it’s important to give back to the community, and that is one of the reasons, like if i’m gonna in academia, I hope that i’m able to pay people. I actually haven’t got that kind of money yet in terms of the research that i’m doing but like, at the point that I do, that’s like a really important thing. Because we do sit in, like I think folks have said it, like, positions of privilege to a certain extent, and like our relationship to academy gives us…Yeah might give us money, might give us privilege, might give us some access to things, and so that’s always, like, and also like give us access to skills and like tools, and things that I find…And it’s very important that I’m sharing that back, with like anybody, with everybody. Yeah, but especially folks that I’m working with, even if they are not already in those spaces.
1:04:41
FHK: I’m going to ask you though, do any of you want to add anything about your experience in the BIPOC days, any thoughts, anything you’d like to end the episode with ?
SB: Thank you very much, to the PARR project. Truly, we meet beautiful people, people that we couldn’t have met otherwise, so thank you very much.
MR: Thank you for the food, it was really good. I think that it’s important, for real, to feed, in fact I think that we can’t work without feeding the mind, it’s important.
FHK: Thanks to all of you for being here, present, for that podcast. It was truly an honor to discuss with you all, you’ve really come with a lot of generosity and sharing, so thank you very much. And thanks to everyone for following our podcast, and we also thank our collaborators, without whom this podcast would not have been possible. At every stage of our activities, you’ve done a remarkable job of supporting and bringing your experiences and expertise to a significant number of Black, Indigenous and racialized women and non-binary people, and as for us, we’ll see you in a future episode of the podcast ‘En fleurs, plus en feu’, see you very soon.
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THE END.