Facing Human Wrongs 2.0 course: Climate Complexity and Social Accountability

We are excited to announce three upcoming cycles of Facing Human Wrongs 2.0: Climate Complexity and Social Accountability, in 2023. This is a new version of the course with updated content, building on what we have learned in previous cycles.  This course will be delivered through the University of Victoria and half of the proceeds of the course …

Decolonial Salad

by Zena Cumpston The following recipe for “Decolonial salad” is grounded in my own battles and experiences working as an Aboriginal woman in colonial institutions. Although this recipe is written in a raw and slightly facetious tone that may be hard for some to swallow, it is important to have spaces where we don’t need …

Returning lands

This set of depth education diagnostic exercises was created as a thought experiment for settlers to engage with some of the tensions and complexities that often emerge in discussions about returning land to Indigenous peoples in what is currently known as Canada. The set of exercises is grounded on the current context of Indigenous land …

7 steps back and 7 steps forward (or aside)

Trying to bring people together to address local and global challenges, such as climate destabilization or systemic inequalities in times of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity is an enormous challenge in itself. Part of this challenge is that what has worked before in bringing people together is no longer working for many different reasons: …

David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education Masterclass: A social cartography of stacked weights carried by IBPOC people as they navigate institutional spaces where the normalization and naturalization of colonialism and white supremacy are uninterrupted

by Vanessa Andreotti This masterclass was recorded on December 31, 2022, my last day as David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education. It presents a social cartography of stacked toxic challenges faced by Indigenous, Black and People of Color (IBPOC) navigating what Sarah Ahmed has called “the will to diversity in academia” (Ahmed, 2012; 2022). Drawing …

Hospicing Modernity (book) Zoom Sessions

The book "Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism" was published in September 2021 (you can download a couple of sample chapters here). This book is an educational experiment full of dancing stories, metaphors, allegories, creative maps, and exercises that ask you to sit at the limits of our modern desires …

(The difficulties of) Truth and Reconciliation

The Canadian government has declared September 30 a federal statutory holiday (National Day of Truth and Reconciliation) to recognize the violent legacy of residential schools. Different Indigenous peoples respond differently to this initiative. Some of these differences are generational: while it could be important for residential school survivors to hear the acknowledgement of the harm …

Avaaz Petition: Protect the Amazon and Indigenous rights or face international boycott

OUR INDIGENOUS RELATIONS AND COLLABORATORS IN BRAZIL ARE FACING A HUGE THREAT, AS THE COUNTRY IS VOTING TO TAKE AWAY INDIGENOUS LANDS, TO CANCEL INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND TO REMOVE THE PROTECTIONS OF THE AMAZON FOREST. PLEASE SUPPORT US IF YOU CAN BY SIGNING THE OPEN LETTER BELOW. Open letter to the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court and …

Gift Contract

Written by Vanessa Andreotti, Elwood Jimmy, and Bill Calhoun, February 24, 2021 Decolonial analysis The usual story of change is that there is a problem with the system that needs to be solved. The degree of the problem can vary from the system “not working optimally” to “totally screwed up”. The logical solution proposed is …

Some thoughts on the work of the GTDF collective

In this podcast Vanessa Andreotti offers some thoughts on the analyses and directions that motivate the work of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective. Click here for a related video in Portuguese. Transcribed text (audio): In the Decolonial Futures Collective, our main analysis is that colonialism doesn't start with subjugation of people or occupation of …