Research & Technology pages 6 to

U of M hosts Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference

Inaugural conference to explore Indigenous scientific legacy and two-eyed seeing

RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY

Emma Rempel, staff Cultural traditions and language shape the ways people learn and view the world. For too long, Indigenous perspectives and traditional knowledge have been excluded from scientific discussions. Professors at the University of Manitoba have organized the upcoming Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference to explore the legacy of Indigenous contributions to science.

provided Sydni Head / image /

In recent decades, there has been a reckoning in academic and STEM fields about their exclusionary histories. Indigenous scholars have been at the forefront of the movement toward inclusion in scientific and academic spaces, calling on researchers to embrace Indigenous perspectives and to acknowledge the legacy of Indigenous scientific contributions.

One of the event’s organizers is Myrle Ballard, an assistant professor in the department of chemistry and an Indigenous scholar. She spoke to the Manitoban about what participants can expect.

“This will be a great conference and is the first of its type at the University of Manitoba,” said Ballard.

Named after a creation story shared among many Indigenous peoples, the conference will host interactive workshops and sessions to explore science through an Indigenous perspective. Among the topics for discussion are the value of applying the principle of two-eyed seeing in modern scientific research.

Two-eyed seeing, or Etuaptmumk, encourages scientists, teachers and students to consider questions from two viewpoints: the traditional scientific view and the Indigenous way of knowing. A principle of cross-cultural understanding, Etuaptmumk was developed and popularized by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall. The word Etuaptmumk comes from the Mi’kmaw language and translates to “the gift of multiple perspectives.”

“Two-eyed seeing is very important, because it enables people to see from both the Indigenous lens and the western lens,” said Ballard.

“It gives someone an improved perspective of both methods of inquiry where similarities and gaps can be better understood, and to understand each other better.”

Etuaptmumk is a form of cross-cultural collaboration, where parties of two different perspectives can bring their strengths to the table and share in their discoveries. The concept was originally introduced in academic institutions and STEM programs to encourage the involvement of Indigenous students in science. It is now being more widely applied by researchers, conservation groups and national institutions.

There is a long history of mutual collaboration and learning between Indigenous peoples and western scientists, especially in the Arctic, where local and traditional ecological knowledge is incredibly valuable. One recent example is in bowhead whale population surveillance in the Beaufort Sea. Local Inuit hunters shared their knowledge about the whales’ behaviour, which helped researchers to improve their survey methods and more accurately estimate the population size.

Outside of research settings, studies have found that when institutions incorporate ideas and methods from Indigenous perspectives in their learning, it is not only Indigenous students who benefit. Across the board, all students benefit from more universal and inclusive teaching methods.

Ballard incorporates Indigenous ways of knowing into her own research as well. Her work examines ways to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing into freshwater conservation and management to repair and restore the relationships between Indigenous peoples and their environment.

“My research is on the use of [the Ojibwe language] Anishinaabemowin as a monitoring tool for aquatics systems, and the application of [two-eyed] seeing as an ecosystem framework,” said Ballard.

As to what Ballard is looking forward to most at the conference, she emphasized the personal connections.

“I am looking forward to meeting new people, connecting with colleagues and increasing my knowledge,” she said.

The speakers that have been announced to lead the conference possess expertise in a wide array of fields, including ecology and environmental science, medicine and human sciences, psychology, physics, mathematics, astronomy, agriculture and law.

Five interactive sessions will be held, with two on the topics of land, environment, medicine and health using traditional and Indigenous perspectives. The other three will explore two-eyed seeing, the scientific

“Two-eyed seeing is very important, because it enables people to see from both the Indigenous lens and the western lens”

— Myrle Ballard, assistant professor and conference organizer

knowledge embedded in Indigenous languages and novel STEM approaches that include Indigenous ways of knowing.

The conference will run June 14 to 16 and is open to anyone who would like to attend. There is limited capacity at several events, so tickets will be available on a first come, first serve basis. Students are invited to submit their abstracts and justification for travel funding by May 7. A closing ceremony and dinner will be held at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

“I hope the participants learn, network and increase their understanding of Indigenous Science,” said Ballard.

“This will be an inaugural conference with more to come.”

Solve sexual violence in military by defunding it

Canada’s military is premised upon violence, control internally and externally

COMMENT

Lucas Edmond, staff New revelations concerning sexual assault and misconduct in the Canadian military continue to trickle into the public domain. Nearly every week since February 2021, Canadian news has been struck with new information about the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) deplorable conduct regarding sexual violence. This time, Canada’s former highest-ranking military commander general Jonathan Vance pleaded guilty for obstruction of justice in a sexual misconduct case.

staff / Marina Djurdjevic graphic /

Vance reportedly fathered a child with Maj. Kellie Brennan — a former subordinate ranking officer — and had clearly exploited his position to advance his sexual relationship with her. Brennan testified that Vance made his position of power in the CAF clear throughout the relationship, claiming he made statements about being “untouchable” and saying that he “owned” the military.

News of Vance’s sexual misconduct case broke in February 2021, a few months before he retired. The high-coverage case led to a tsunami of survivors coming forward to tell their stories of sexual violence. Since then, 11 senior military officials have been involved in trials regarding a variety of harrowing sexual assault cases. But this concerningly large number of officers in extreme positions of power doesn’t come close to scratching the surface of the crisis at hand. Roughly 20,000 members of the Canadian military have applied for a $900-million class action settlement to cover the sexual violence and subsequent mishandling of their grievances, and more are bound to come forward.

These concerning revelations are not new. The problem of sexual exploitation and violence in the military has been a well-known subject since Maclean’s covered the issue in an influential article in 1998. Maclean’s interviewed 13 women who served in the Canadian military and noted that “The cases also reveal a culture — particularly in the navy and combat units — of unbridled promiscuity, where harassment is common, heavy drinking is a way of life, and women […] are often [considered] little more than game for sexual predators.”

Many pundits continue to argue that to solve sexual violence in the military, a “fundamental culture change” is necessary. Even after then-Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps conducted an external review into sexual violence in the CAF in 2015, nothing in the culture has shifted. As Global News reporter Amanda Connolly suggested, “Sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces remains as ‘rampant’ and ‘destructive’ in 2021 as it was back in 2015 when a landmark federal report first documented the extent of the problem.”

According to most pundits, solving sexual violence in the military must begin with dismantling the masculinity that defines the CAF’s culture. A part of challenging this culture over time has been to solve the disproportionate number of men relative to women in the military. Over the years, the total proportion of women in the military has grown steadily, yet the crisis seems just as bad as it was in 2015.

The problem with this approach is that it fails to recognize masculinity as a character trait that is constructed over time and is not, as some may assume, a natural fact of sexuality. Senior researcher and lecturer of gender studies at the University of Basel Elizabeth Mesok argues, “by collapsing military sexual violence within a broader campaign for military women’s equality, rape is conceptualized as a violent action against women, rather than an act of gendered and militarized violence endemic to a hyperaggressive military culture.”

In other words, it will be fundamentally impossible to solve a culture issue in an institutional environment that pays people to commit and morally justify heinous acts of violence abroad. The violence people are trained to conduct in conflict zones permeates internally, creating victims within the CAF’s own ranks. Education about the culture of sexual violence will not be enough when military institutions train people and give them a license to exert general violence upon other humans.

If Canada wants to solve its military’s sexual violence issue, it must defund the CAF

This is not to say that placing mechanisms within the CAF that are victim-friendly will not ameliorate its hostile sexual environment, but that the military will always be a site of sexual violence if it is not defunded and dismantled. Having such radically high rates of sexual violence is indicative of a systemic issue of abuse, trauma, power and hierarchy. Studies have shown that jobs with more ready access to control through hierarchy and power have higher rates of domestic abuse — like the police. There is a social connection between jobs that attract people with a pathological desire for control and systemic issues of violence.

Talking about a “culture shift” within the military reflects a similar logic to giving officers body cameras to prevent police violence — it may look like a solution, but the underlying issues remain unresolved. If Canada wants to solve its military’s sexual violence issue, it must defund the CAF.