Who am I?

 

I will refer frequently to a new book throughout this journey, Decolonizing Educational Relationships, by fatima Pirbhai-Illich, Fran Martin, and Shauneen Pete. They offer a plethora of practical exercises for readers to engage in or use in their teaching practice, and I'll work my way through many of them here.   

One of the first I'll try is called Locating Yourself, and involves a deep consideration of these questions: "Who are you?  How would you describe yourself, your identity?  Where were you born?  How would you describe your nationality?  Is it the same as where you were born?  What aspects of your family histories have contributed to your identity?  What are your family's relationships with colonialism?" (p. 18). This activity reminds me of one I encountered several years ago, called Belly Button Teachings, a Cree process for introducing yourself in an Indigenous way, that asks you to articulate who and what you are connected to.  I'll blend both activities here, and hope I'm not doing a disservice to either one.  

I'm Robin.  I am most connected to what white sociologists would refer to as my "nuclear family," - my spouse and my kids (pictured here).  My husband Danny is a musician and an educator who grew up in northern communities across Saskatchewan. My oldest child, Amara, is almost 20 and studies biology at university.  She's also a pretty fantastic visual artist and is one of the most resilient people I know.  My youngest child is Toban, who is almost 17.  He's in grade 11 and is a stellar (professional level) drummer.  You may guess from the photo that we're collectively goofy and have a very loud household when we're all together.  My connection to my family informs how I describe my primary roles in life -- as a partner and a parent.      

There are two places I feel most connected to.  The first is the place of my childhood, which is the farm I grew up on in Southern Saskatchewan, pictured here with a train peeking around the caraganas.  I spent most of my childhood outside.  I remember laying in the grass, hiding in the bowers created by the trees, and wandering through the fields at all times of year.  I used to play a game where I would close my eyes and attempt to identify everything I could hear; I felt like I could hear the heartbeat of the land.  I talked to the wind and the animals I encountered. I watched my parents grow things and I learned to do the same.  I learned about the nature of the soil and the hardness of the water and how to manage during times of drought.  No matter how far away I am, this is the place I will always identify as home. 

The other place I feel most connected to is where I currently reside, on Vancouver Island.  I feel a particular pull to the forest, in spots where I can hear water running.  I will often take off my shoes and wade in streams, or sit down and immerse myself in ferns and moss.  As I write this I realize that the places I feel most connected to are intertwined with the people I am most connected to.  I associate the farm with the nuclear family of my childhood, and the the Island with the nuclear family of my adulthood.  Strange that this never occurred to me before.  

I was born in Uranium City, Saskatchewan - a mining town that boomed 50 years ago but has now become a ghostly place consisting of mostly abandoned homes.  I describe myself as a settler and would reluctantly describe my nationality as Canadian.  However, this is a recent development and was not always the case; there was a time when I was pretty patriotic (think of a backpacker in Europe with a gigantic maple leaf on her bag).  "Canadian" feels uneasy to me now that I have done some learning about the colonial project that led to the establishment of this nation, but I don't know what to replace it with.  Perhaps I don't truly belong to a nationality - which is a simultaneously discomfiting and interesting thought.           

The question I have left until last is that about my family's relationship to colonialism.  Of course it feels hard to think about this, because my ancestors were colonizers (and maybe I have been too, if I'm honest).  We have all benefitted from the colonial project and continue to do so.  My maternal and paternal grandparents were all farmers who either purchased or inherited land that First Nations had been displaced from.  As a result, both sides of my family have historically thrived on stolen land.  The land that I had such a close connection to growing up was stolen land.  It was Indigenous land.  

It is clear to me after doing this exercise that a big piece of the work I have yet to do is to reconciling my connection with land to my family's history as colonizers.