NASSS 2019 - Decolonizing Minds Indigenizing Hearts

Following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action in 2015, Canada universities, and colleges have felt pressured to indigenize their institutions. As Smith, Tuck and Yang (2018) posit, indigenous and decolonizing perspectives in education (or across disciplines for that matter) have long persisted alongside colonial models of education, yet too often they have been subsumed within the fields of multiculturalism, critical race theory, and progressive education. Indeed, what “indigenization” looks like can vary significantly; with the promise of Indigenous reconciliation and inclusion often left to the imagination of leaders in institutions or organizations who see an opportunity to further extend their reach, influence and/or branding into Indigenous communities from above. Counter to the idea of inclusion, acts of decolonizing often remain elusive with little or no accountability forthcoming concerning the continual loss and struggle to protect our lands, life and/or ways of living.  Adam Gaudry (2018) argues, however, that to achieve ajustNorth American academy employing treaty-based decolonial indigenization and resurgence-based decolonial indigenization – as strategies for policy-making and praxis are deeply necessary in how we move forward together; in this new era of reconciliation and inclusion. The aim of this presentation, therefore, will be to show how decolonizing our way to reconciliation and inclusion in sports sociology for the benefit of all, not only requires Indigenous peoples to be at the forefront of leading this work, it also requires institutions and organizations to prioritise as well as operationalize the appropriate resources, time and funding of decolonizing sports sociology outside of the race-culture-identity-difference binaries, settler fantasies and ambiguities, neoliberal loaded ideologies, and internalised colonialism built on domestic settler idealism. Finally, exploring Indigenizing sports sociology more as a “verb not a noun” is as much about doing the work together, as it is about acknowledging that Indigenous people’s world views, and ways of knowing are just as relevant as they were before the arrival of colonization. This and more will be shared in the presentation.