Decolonizing Critical Reflective Analysis (DCRA) – Colonization, Resilience Resurgence

The following requires you to engage in a Decolonizing /Decolonializing Critical Reflective Analysis.

Be sure to work with relevant course readings and materials as you engage in your reflections and analysis.

Corntassel, Chaw-win-is & T’lakwadzi (2009) point out the “danger in allowing colonization to be the

only story of Indigenous lives” (p. 139) as it inherently centers the colonizer’s power. To counter this risk,

they argue that we also must bring to light Indigenous stories of “resilience and resurgence” (p. 139).

• Consider the implications for focusing/not focusing on the story of colonization? For colonization

to be the ONLY story in Indigenous lives?

• Consider resilience and resurgence at the micro and macro levels?

• What are the implications for Indigenous peoples / non-Indigenous peoples to also have the stories

of resilience and resurgence as part of their discourse and the public discourse?

• How is social work been implicated in the stories of colonization and resurgence?

• How can the medicine wheel as a theoretic framework help us understand colonization and its

effects and Indigenous resurgence /resilience? Be mindful of your own reactions (thoughts, feeling,

actions). Link them to your own worldview(s).

• Consider the cultural, political and social influences on yourself, your experiences and your thinking.

• Consider how your experiences and your thinking / understanding/ meaning making may be similar/

different from Indigenous experiences and perspectives.

References:

Corntassel, J, Chaw-win-is, & T’lakwadzi. (2009). Indigenous Storytelling, Truth-telling, and Community

Approaches to Reconciliation. English Studies in Canada, 35(1), 137-159