We are excited to announce the release of our newly revised Teacher’s Guide, updated in March 2019. This guide is designed to empower educators with detailed instructions on effectively using the Native Land map in diverse learning environments, from elementary classrooms to adult education settings. It provides practical exercises tailored for different age groups and educational levels, ensuring that teachers can confidently integrate this valuable resource into their curriculum. The Teacher’s Guide also thoughtfully addresses both the advantages and potential limitations of the map as a pedagogical tool, emphasizing the critical importance of exploring colonialism and its ongoing impacts. To further support educators, the guide includes a curated collection of resources for teachers seeking to deepen their understanding of these complex issues.
We value your feedback and are committed to continuous improvement. If you have suggestions or corrections for our Teacher’s Guide, we encourage you to share them with us.
Understanding the Critical Use of Mapping Indigenous Territories: Insights from the Older Teacher’s Guide (2015)
The enthusiasm from educators to incorporate Native-Land.ca into their teaching is truly inspiring. While wider dissemination of the map is encouraged, it’s crucial to approach its use with a critical perspective. As highlighted in our older Teacher’s Guide from 2015, maps are not neutral tools. They can be seen as colonial artifacts, reflecting a specific worldview centered on concepts of ownership, exclusivity, and power dynamics.
Using a map like Native-Land.ca effectively requires careful consideration of potential issues. Without a critical approach, the map could inadvertently reinforce harmful perspectives rather than fostering understanding and respect.
To facilitate meaningful classroom discussions, consider these questions, inspired by the previous Teacher Guide:
- Mapping Challenges: What inherent difficulties arise when attempting to map Indigenous territories?
- Nation-State vs. Indigenous Nations: How does the modern concept of a ‘nation-state’ intersect with the understanding of Indigenous nations and their sovereignty?
- Defining Boundaries and Nations: Who holds the authority to define national boundaries, and conversely, who defines what constitutes a nation?
- Source Reliability and Bias: What sources are utilized in mapping Indigenous territories, and what potential biases might be embedded within these sources?
- Colonial Maps and Dispossession: In what ways have historical colonial maps been used to dispossess Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands?
- Defining Indigeneity: What does Indigeneity mean, and who is recognized as Indigenous?
We encourage educators to gather feedback from their students on these critical questions:
- Usefulness vs. Colonial Reinforcement: Do resources like the Native Land map serve as useful educational tools, or do they risk perpetuating colonial frameworks in how we understand Indigenous peoples?
- Personal Historical Learning: Will students utilize this map to explore and deepen their understanding of their own local history and the Indigenous presence in their area?
- Map Expansion and Evolution: Should maps of Indigenous territories be continuously expanded and updated to reflect evolving understandings and Indigenous perspectives?
Historical Context: A Primer on Colonialism and Indigenous Perspectives
By Shauna Johnson, UBC Contributor
The history of colonization in regions like Canada and the United States has profoundly and negatively impacted Indigenous peoples across numerous facets of life. Traditional historical narratives often celebrate European explorers and colonial milestones, such as the so-called ‘discovery of New Lands.’ However, it is essential to remember that these textbook accounts predominantly represent a single perspective – the narrative favored by European colonizers who positioned themselves as ‘superior.’ (King, 2012).
History, as it is commonly presented, is a collection of stories about the past. These stories are shaped into accepted events and interpretations that explain how ‘we’ arrived at the present. The challenge lies in recognizing that those in positions of power have historically dictated which stories become part of the dominant historical narrative. History can be utilized as a tool to legitimize power and maintain existing power structures. Consequently, the oral histories and knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples have often been marginalized, disregarded, or actively erased through the distortion or outright dismissal of Indigenous accounts (Smith, 2012) (King, 2012).
One root of this historical marginalization can be traced back to the Papal Bulls of Discovery in the 15th century. This doctrine granted European explorers, backed by the Catholic Church, extensive authority to convert, subjugate, ‘remediate,’ and forcibly displace Indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories. Resistance to conversion or displacement was met with authorization to enslave and kill Indigenous people under the guise of saving their souls (Miller et al, 2010). This ideology rested on the belief that those who embraced Christianity were inherently more human or superior to those who did not. This dehumanization implied that Indigenous societies were incapable of establishing their own legitimate legal, economic, or political systems for self-governance. In essence, Indigenous peoples were deemed ‘lesser humans’ with inferior rights, particularly concerning land. This discriminatory belief system provided the foundation for imperial laws that rationalized and legitimized the seizure of Indigenous lands and resources. Indigenous knowledge systems, along with other non-Western forms of knowledge, were systematically dismissed. Western knowledge frameworks were elevated as superior and universally applicable, overshadowing all others (Smith, 2012).
The conceptualization of space was strategically employed as a tool to reshape Indigenous perspectives and exert colonial control. This involved imposing three fundamental spatial entities onto the landscape through cartography: the line, the center, and the periphery. Lines were used to create artificial boundaries, map territories for colonial claim, survey land for private property, and delineate the limits of colonial power. The ‘center’ was invariably defined by the colonial power, with all other locations being oriented in relation to it. Everything situated beyond the defined limits of colonial control was deemed irrelevant or non-existent from the colonial perspective (Smith, 2012).
The practice of mapping has had a profound and enduring impact on Indigenous peoples for centuries. From its inception in a colonial context, mapping redefined Indigenous ways of relating to and navigating their lands. As soon as European cartographers drew lines on maps, traditional Indigenous place names – deeply interwoven with Indigenous history, narratives, and cultural teachings – were replaced with European names. This act of renaming effectively erased Indigenous presence from the land on official records. Traditional homelands were arbitrarily divided and categorized into geographic features, private properties, and imposed imperial nation-states, disrupting and fragmenting Indigenous families and communities. The forced assimilation policies, including residential schools, further contributed to the loss of Indigenous languages and cultural knowledge as children were compelled to adopt Western ways of knowing.
References:
King, Thomas (2012) The Inconvenient Indian: A curious Account of Native People in North America. Toronto: Random House Publishing.
Miller, Robert J., Jacinta Ruru, Larissa Behrendt, and Tracey Lindberg (2010). Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies. Oxford: University of Oxford Press. Ch. 4.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (2012). Decolonizing Indigenous Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.
