INDG-2002H: Indigenous Peoples & Resurgence

Instructor: Heather Shpuniarsky, David King

Course Code: INDG 2002

When Taken: Winter 2021

Class Notes: Class Notes (1)

Major Assignment: Unified Policy.docx (1), Reclamation and Recognition_ A Story of Two-Spirit Peoples.docx (1), INDG 2002 Presentation – Week of March 1st – Mollie Schnurr.pptx (1), Reclamation and Recognition_ A Story of Two-Spirit Peoples.docx

This was one of the first fully online classes that I took at Trent (the rest being remote courses because of the pandemic). It was probably my favourite class in second semester of first year. When I had first selected my courses I had forgotten to take my Indigenous course requirement, so I switched my classes around during first semester, dropped the second half of my Canadian studies class, and selected into this one. While most students in my year had taken one of the first year Indigenous studies classes, I, in a bit of a leap of faith, chose to take a second year course, mostly because it had been cross listed with POST, my major, and I thought that might make it more closely aligned with my interests.

This class focused on Indigenous resurgence, and used one of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s books as our textbook. The theory of resurgence is one that really focuses on areas in which Indigenous peoples and groups demonstrate agency, resistance, and hope. This is in comparison to methodologies that may focus on the past of Canadian Indigenous peoples and communities. Learning about resurgence in the first year was a massive benefit to me. I went on to then learn about resurgence in some form in the majority of my politics classes in my next years at Trent. Additionally, prior to this course, the majority of learning that I had done regarding Indigenous peoples had been through memoirs, or history classes. While these were beneficial, and gave me a good baseline amount of knowledge (which was good for this class), this meant that I had not spent much time examining present Indigenous communities, or their diverse dreams for the future. This class filled this gap, and led to an understanding of Indigenous peoples and communities that was focused around agency and hope rather than victimisation.