Inclusion Infusions: Finding Your Voice
Posted on Friday, February 19th, 2021
During the Taking a Stand a week of events to Disrupt Black and Indigenous Racism, Algonquin College recorded a live Inclusion Infusions podcast with Waubgeshig Rice, the bestselling author of ‘Moon of the Crusted Snow’. This conversation was just too good to keep to myself! Please join Julie McCann the coordinator of the journalism program for a conversation with Waub on lived experiences and the role of culture in authentically finding your voice. Listen here
As a bit of a backgrounder for this podcast, I thought it would be interesting to learn a bit more about oral based knowledge systems which are traditional in many Indigenous cultures. In the podcast episode, Waub speaks to the weaving of oral tradition with his writing practice through his ability to tell a story before he ever sets pen to paper. Here is an excerpt from University of British Columbia on First Nations as Oral Societies:
Stories are frequently told as evening family entertainment to pass along local or family knowledge. Stories are also told more formally, in ceremonies such as potlatches, to validate a person’s or family’s authority, responsibilities, or prestige (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996). Some stories are told only during certain seasons, at a particular time of day, or in specific places. In the same vein, some stories are meant to be heard only by specific people (Miller, 2010). Such stories often teach important lessons about a given society’s culture, the land, and the ways in which members are expected to interact with each other and their environment. The passing on of these stories from generation to generation keeps the social order intact. As such, oral histories must be told carefully and accurately, often by a designated person who is recognized as holding this knowledge. This person is responsible for keeping the knowledge and eventually passing it on in order to preserve the historical record. Oral tradition is, therefore, a collective enterprise. A narrator does not generally hold singular authority over a story. The nuances evident in distinct versions of a specific history represent a broader understanding of the events and the various ways people have internalized them. Often, oral histories must be validated by the group. This stems from the principle that no one person can lay claim to an entire oral history. Narrators will also “document” the histories they tell by citing the source of their knowledge, such as a great grandparent or an elder. This is sometimes referred to as “oral footnoting”(Wickwire, 1994). Such collective responsibility and input maintains the accuracy of the historical record. (read more here: https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/oral_traditions/)
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