Embodiment in an Indigenous Lit Classroom: Why I'm Over Discussion but Can't Get Enough of Research-Creation

Embodiment in an Indigenous Lit ClassroomWhy I'm Over Discussion but Can't Get Enough of Research-Creation Keavy Martin (bio) This article reflects on a course, ENGL 309: Indigenous Literatures (Literary Movements), taught at the University of Alberta in Treaty 6/Métis Nation (Region 4) in 2018. My focus here is on the particular challenges brought about by the diverse identities and needs of the students—and by the core problem that the learning process of some at times renders the classroom uninhabitable for others. Over the years, this has led me to question whether dialogue and discussion, those core features of a liberal education, benefit everyone equally. Instead, I turn increasingly to creative research methods (also known in Canada as research-creation1) as ways for students to respond to texts and to work through the issues that they raise. introductory position Like other white instructors of Indigenous literature courses, my relationship to this work is a fraught one. Although all of us no doubt come to this teaching with strong ideals—out of a sense of political commitment, out of admiration for the brilliance of Indigenous authors and thinkers, and/or because of the ways in which reading Indigenous literatures has changed and enriched our lives—the fact is that our very presence at the front of the classroom is not unrelated to white supremacy. No matter how I might try to comport myself as a good treaty relative, to treat students with respect, and to follow the guidance of key scholars and writers with regards to the teaching of Indigenous texts, this risk remains. When I first began teaching, my husband Richard Van Camp shared with me a lesson he had learned from the late Maurice Kenny: that "when you stand up in front of a group of people, you become a [End Page 16] symbol for something that you can't control." White supremacy and settler-colonialism, after all, are not structures that we can individually opt out of, as much as we might try to trouble them. I now begin each new course by trying to de-naturalize my own position of authority, saying to my students something like, 'Having a white professor in an Indigenous literatures course is not ideal. This is something that is gradually shifting. But since this is the current situation, we will use the opportunity to engage with diverse Indigenous perspectives through text—and we will approach them with the utmost respect.' Ultimately, my hope would be to teach in a department where Indigenous literature courses are fully staffed by Indigenous experts, but also where the rest of the instructors ensure that all of our courses engage with our local contexts and with the wider reality of Indigenous resurgence, thereby helping to fulfill our university's pledge at the 2014 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Alberta National Event "that all of our graduates understand the negative impacts of colonization and the importance of building more respectful relationships." course creation This 2018 iteration of the course was prompted by, and structured around, the problems that have consistently arisen in previous versions, the central one being the challenge of making the class work for a widely diverse group of students. Put more plainly: I wondered how to ensure that the learning processes of the majority white settler students would not inadvertently become the focus of the class. The work of grappling with representations of settler-colonial violence and Indigenous refusal, after all, can produce a whole spectrum of responses for white students; though important, these responses need to be managed and supported carefully if they are not going to detract from the learning of racialized students, for whom the classroom often risks becoming an exhausting space. By way of example, Billy-Ray Belcourt and Maura Roberts write in their 2016 GUTS article "Making Friends for the End of the World" about an experience they endured in one of my courses, where in the first week or so, after I had placed them into small discussion groups, Belcourt was challenged by a white male student who wanted to question whether colonialism was really so bad. "Indigenous peoples," [End Page 17...

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