Department:
School of Kinesiology
Project lead:
Dr. Moss Norman
Project members:
Kristin (Krissy) Mowatt
Reflection:
What led you to your project/inspired your work? What values and principles guided the development of your project?
This project was inspired by my existing research project that works closely with Fisher River Cree Nation in Manitoba. Using an Indigenous centred paradigm, this project works closely with Elders in the community, including a land-based educator. The values and principles guiding the research with Fisher River were pivotal to the development of this curriculum enhancement proposal. With this enhancement project, the over-arching objective was to centre Indigenous voices and knowledges about health, wellness, and physical activity, all of which are core themes in kinesiology. Based on these values and principles, we have created (and are creating) a number of digital curricular resources that feature Indigenous peoples sharing their perspectives on health, wellness and physical activity. These digital resources will be used in Kinesiology courses. Crucially, we have tried to include diverse, culturally-specific perspectives in the project, including Cree, Mohawk and Musqueam (hopefully). It is hopeful that these diverse perspectives will not only introduce students to Indigenous approaches to health, wellness and movement, but also disrupt pan-Indigenous assumptions by featuring culturally-specific knowledges.
What have you learned so far?
Most of our learning curve has been in relation to the technological limitations of working with geographically distant communities. This has presented a number of challenges related to quality of recording and scheduling meeting times. The other pleasant thing we have learned is that (so far), most Indigenous partners we have reached out to are quite excited to share their knowledge and experience. This also presents a very serious responsibility as we want to be sure to reflect the perspectives of those participating in a culturally relevant and respectful manner. To this end, we are working closely with those who have participated so far in designing the final digital resources.
Where do you plan to go? What impact/influence have you or do you see your project making?
The curricula across the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia, as well as kinesiology curricula across the country, have been identified as privileging Euro-Western perspectives on health, wellness and physical activity, mostly rooted in a biomedical paradigm. We see these resources as meaningfully contributing to the existing curricula by disrupting the hegemony of the Euro-Western focused and biomedicalized approach to health, wellness and physical activity. Bringing a diversity of knowledges into the Kinesiology curriculum not only serves to pry open the worldviews of some students in the program, it also creates a space of cultural relevance for other students.