00;00;07;10 - 00;00;43;02
Erica Machulak
Hello and welcome back to the Hikma Collective podcast, where we are creating space for more joy in the humanities. And we're doing that by sharing stories of scholars, humanists and like minded scholars who are doing amazing collaborative, organic work with partners around the world. So we're chatting with them about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and how they're doing it in hopes that we can not just bring a little light to your lives, but also provide people looking for new ways to do public scholarship with encouragement and a little strategic advice about how to get that done.
00;00;43;19 - 00;01;08;29
Erica Machulak
So in this episode, we're chatting with Drs. Shannon Leddy and Biz Nijdam at the University of British Columbia. Biz and Shannon have received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) In the form of a Partnership Development Grant for their project Visual Storytelling in the Indigenous North. This is a three year project coming out of a lot of rich work and going in really interesting places.
00;01;09;01 - 00;01;33;14
Erica Machulak
Last time I talked to Shannon and Biz they were just about to go to the Arctic Winter Games. But you'll hear more about that project in a second. I'll say here that doctors Leddy and Nijdam are seeking to develop arts based approaches that can help advance ongoing transnational calls to truth and reconciliation efforts across Canada, Greenland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
00;01;34;07 - 00;01;39;13
Erica Machulak
And they are doing it in really cool and creative ways. So take a listen.
00;01;46;20 - 00;01;51;22
Erica Machulak
Yeah. Can you. Can you introduce yourselves? Shannon, do you wanna go first?
00;01;51;25 - 00;02;13;15
Shannon Leddy
Sure. [...] My name is Dr. Shannon Leddy. I am a member of the Métis Nation through my father, Patrick Kane, who is great, whose grandmother Mabel Monkman was from Saint Louis, Saskatchewan, one of the original Métis settlements outside of the Red River Valley where the family was originally from.
00;02;13;27 - 00;02;30;03
Shannon Leddy
I'm an associate professor of art education at the University of British Columbia, and I am delighted to be joining you from the Unceded and traditional territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking Musqueam people today, which is also shared where I am currently shared by the Tsleil-Waututh and the Squamish nations as well.
00;02;31;05 - 00;02;33;13
Erica Machulak
Nice, thanks Shannon. And how about you Biz.
00;02;33;15 - 00;03;04;02
Biz Nijdam
Hi, I am Dr. Elizabeth Nijdam, I am a settler scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where I teach in the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies. I'm also the director of the UBC Comic Studies and Pop Culture Clusters, which supports communities, First Nations, faculty and local non-profits in creating popular media about the issues that face society today and the subjects that matter to them.
00;03;05;00 - 00;03;09;10
Erica Machulak
Thanks, Biz. Welcome. Welcome to you both. Heidi, do you want to introduce yourself as well?
00;03;10;10 - 00;03;31;28
Heidi Rennert
Yeah sure, Hi. So I'm Heidi Rennert, research development specialist at Hikma . I'm also a PhD candidate at UBC and working on unceded Musqueam Territory. And I've had the pleasure of working with Biz and Shannon for a few years now, I think I can say that, on a couple of projects and so it’s always such a pleasure to work with them.
00;03;32;00 - 00;03;58;08
Erica Machulak
Excellent. Well, welcome everyone. Thank you for thank you for being here. It's I know you have so much going on and it's a delight that we were able to to make the stars align to have this conversation. Normally at this point, Heidi and I would invite you to give us sort of the elevator pitch of your project, which is you've recently won a partnership development grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
00;03;58;08 - 00;04;14;02
Erica Machulak
Congratulations. But instead of going straight for the pitch because your project is so focused on storytelling, I wonder if you'd mind telling us a story to to kind of show what this project looks and feels like in action.
00;04;16;01 - 00;04;24;16
Shannon Leddy
Sure. We'd be happy to do that. I'm happy to, to give it a give it a go start to this to start to see what happens
00;04;24;17 - 00;04;58;21
Shannon Leddy
See how it unfolds. So I was really delighted to be invited into a different SSHRC funded grant through my colleague Andrea Webb at the University of British Columbia in the same faculty and department as I am in. And that grant was also a started as a partnership development grant that eventually was the group was successful in getting a partnership grant as well, which is the direction that we're hoping to take our research.
00;04;58;21 - 00;05;59;06
Shannon Leddy
But that grant, the original one, is about survivor centered visual narratives and essentially through five research clusters focused in Rwanda, Syria, the Holocaust, Bosnia and also in Turtle Island, pairs survivors of genocide with graphic artists and transforms their survival stories into these beautiful visual narratives that can be easily shared in schools and the general public at large. And because I have some relationship and interest in Scandinavian countries, along with Biz, who was my research partner on that original project, we have now been successful in getting this partnership development grant to take that same methodology and use it working with people from Greenland in your Greenlanders and also Sámi, people living in northern Finland.
00;05;59;18 - 00;06;19;03
Shannon Leddy
And one of the things that I think is wonderful about this project is that although we are telling trauma narratives through these graphic stories, it's also a celebration of the artists who are making such stories and a celebration of the survival and the thriving of survivors.
00;06;20;19 - 00;06;33;24
Biz Nijdam
And so as as an individual who grew up in the Lower Mainland on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking Musqueam, the Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh nations.
00;06;34;07 - 00;06;57;27
Biz Nijdam
The stories that I was confronted with when I was a young learner trying to figure out what it what it meant to be share and sharing these territories with Indigenous peoples. We're so focused on the trauma and loss of the individuals and communities of these territories and really situated all of these experiences in a distant past that in fact was not that distant.
00;06;58;19 - 00;07;43;26
Biz Nijdam
And so when Shannon and I got together and started imagining the kinds of stories that that are missing, there were those stories that, while grounded in that same history, were trying to tell narratives of resilience and renewal and revival to reveal how Indigenous communities are rebuilding and thriving despite some of the hardships they’ve faced. So our project really tries to honor a journey that ends in a place that is hopefully not sadness, just sadness and loss, is one where communities are rebuilding and finding new ways to express their traditions in a contemporary, modern context.
00;07;43;28 - 00;08;05;29
Biz Nijdam
And with the Greenlandic Inuit partners that we're working with, potentially even revealing how new traditions are being established in the face of immense loss, immense cultural loss, to recreate and revive new, new ways of being Indigenous in in the 21st century.
00;08;07;06 - 00;08;24;04
Erica Machulak
Nice, that's really, it really feels to me like when I hear about this project you're using creativity and joy to represent people as they're operating now, and the great work that your partners are doing and just focusing on strength. Does that, does that feel right to you?
00;08;24;07 - 00;08;25;03
Shannon Leddy
Absolutely.
00;08;25;04 - 00;08;48;02
Biz Nijdam
Yeah, very much so. Yeah. And part of that work is not just the the storytelling that is taking place. It's also about the storytellers. And a priority for our project is to be commissioning Indigenous cartoonists to be telling these Indigenous stories. And they're not necessarily the Indigenous cartoonists that are native to the land in which they're they're going to be working on.
00;08;49;18 - 00;09;16;17
Biz Nijdam
We're trying to facilitate trans-Indigenous dialogue and community building through opportunities that offer employment to Indigenous cartoonists and give them opportunities to connect about the meaning of land and traditional and subsistence practices that might help them understand their own communities and traditions better or differently.
00;09;16;19 - 00;09;20;28
Shannon Leddy
That’s one of the things that really excites me too is the opportunity to lift people up.
00;09;21;01 - 00;09;45;24
Shannon Leddy
I think that as we researchers, it can seem like everything that we do is about us and our own careers. But I think one of the things that I really enjoy about Biz and the way we work together is that we very much recognize that we have the power to help connect people, to help lift them up, to help highlight their work, to help raise awareness of really important transnational issues.
00;09;45;26 - 00;09;56;01
Shannon Leddy
And I think that's the best way to spend our research dollars is in ensuring that the stories are not about us. They're about the folks that need their voices amplified.
00;09;57;23 - 00;10;03;08
Erica Machulak
And so the project is called Visual Storytelling in the Indigenous North. What is the Indigenous North?
00;10;04;24 - 00;10;19;10
Shannon Leddy
That is a good question. I think our original we were originally working with the idea of the Circumpolar North based on, you know, the research that we've had to do to ground our work in in reality and and in geography.
00;10;19;12 - 00;11;07;18
Shannon Leddy
But I think when we say the Indigenous North, we are specifically talking about those Indigenous populations who have occupied the Circumpolar region for time immemorial. And in the case, not as much in the case of Greenland, there has been Danish colonization, but the presence of Danish people is is not as great as it is for example, in Finland, where Sámi lands are completely overrun by northern European folks. And I think we see similar things happening in Canada where it's largely Inuit and Dene populations in the north. But the struggles with the colonial forces, with colonial ways of life, with the imposition of colonial systems, is the same in Greenland and in Finland on the Sámi lands. And so this is a big part of the work that we're trying to do,
00;11;09;04 - 00;11;28;22
Biz Nijdam
and we conceptualize this geographic space in conversation with one of our key partners, one of the executive committee on this project, Sámi American Professor Tim Frandy, who is also at UBC, Vancouver and the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.
00;11;28;25 - 00;12;07;18
Biz Nijdam
And we wanted opportunities to connect what has previously been conceived as the Circumpolar North, and continues to be, with the Indigenous cartoonists and partnerships that we were trying to establish in the Lower Mainland. We still live within the northern Hemisphere and some of the issues that the urban Indigenous population is facing here is very much connected to maybe displacement from more northern climates, but also thinking in terms of solutions for unsettling settler colonialism on Turtle Island writ large.
00;12;07;18 - 00;12;36;17
Biz Nijdam
We wanted to acknowledge the role of Indigenous peoples that may be from or connected to the Circumpolar North, but don't but don't live in those spaces. So the in the Indigenous North allowed for us to to conceive of this concept of trans-national Indigenous dialogue to create relationships between various places that might not have always been in conversation.
00;12;36;28 - 00;12;53;09
Biz Nijdam
And we think building those conversations and supporting the infrastructure and the capacity to have those conversations is going to help all peoples, not just Indigenous peoples, in in tackling some of the issues that are facing all of us today as we share share these spaces.
00;12;54;15 - 00;13;03;09
Shannon Leddy
Absolutely. And to add to that, in Canada, we have had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report released and accepted, and we have the 97 Calls to Action.
00;13;03;17 - 00;13;45;16
Shannon Leddy
Some of the countries that we're dealing with, such as Greenland and Finland, have also produced similar reports. But the degree to which the governments that, you know, government of Denmark, for example, the government of Finland, have engaged with the findings of those reports or have engaged in public conversations about what it means, what those, you know, attempts at cultural and literal genocide have meant for the people that have been subjugated under colonial rule that we're trying to help raise awareness, not only within Denmark, for example, in Finland, but also to make those connections to the Canadian context, the North American context, because this is a much, much bigger conversation about how do we go forward
00;13;45;16 - 00;13;55;02
Shannon Leddy
together in more equitable ways that are about justice and about preserving culture, preserving preserving ways of life, preserving ways of knowing.
00;13;56;26 - 00;14;15;21
Biz Nijdam
And for us, that all begins with storytelling and that we need to be sharing these stories. We need to we need to be learning from these peoples. We need to be giving them opportunities to speak on behalf of themselves, to amplify their own voices about the issues, the issues that are facing them today.
00;14;16;01 - 00;14;53;08
Biz Nijdam
Because so many of the ways that we are hearing about the challenges of living in in Nordic regions comes not from the individuals that are grappling with those challenges themselves and finding solutions to solutions to those challenges. And we know that climate change is hitting Nordic communities much quicker than it's hitting more southern communities due to the nature of the traditions that they have developed over tens of thousands of years in in preserving food and acquiring food, hunting for food.
00;14;54;10 - 00;15;21;01
Biz Nijdam
When the ice melts, that changes the ways that these communities are have have traditionally survived in these spaces. So we are looking to the north to think about climate change and other ways of being more south, because we feel like we there are so many opportunities to learn from from Indigenous communities up north
00;15;23;07 - 00;15;46;13
Erica Machulak
and so if I can paraphrase one dimension of what you're talking about, and then and then I'll hand it over to Heidi and part of the focus on the Indigenous north is to think about what efforts in truth and conciliation, truth and reconciliation look like across these geopolitical lines and how they are unfolding in different political spaces.
00;15;46;21 - 00;16;05;07
Erica Machulak
When you have Indigenous communities that are, of course, and have their own cultures in their own communities, but at the same time due to the way that climate change is affecting the circumpolar north region, are facing some similar kind of external challenges to their way of life, their agriculture, those kinds of things.
00;16;06;25 - 00;16;15;28
Shannon Leddy
Yes. Yeah. And I think in a just in addition to cultural sovereignty, it is that idea of food sovereignty, of governance sovereignty.
00;16;15;28 - 00;16;24;12
Shannon Leddy
And and I think those are some of the challenges that connect many nations in the circumpolar region, in the Indigenous north. So, yeah,
00;16;25;14 - 00;16;59;14
Biz Nijdam
one of our partnerships that we haven't named yet that that is helping us sort of get at some of these issues is our partnership, our third partnership with the Arctic Winter Games International Committee. And so the Arctic Winter Games is an event that takes place every two years in the circumpolar north and invites Indigenous competitors from the various Indigenous nations around the world to come and compete during these Winter Games.
00;16;59;27 - 00;17;14;06
Biz Nijdam
And a lot of the competitions and a lot of the sports that are being represented, there are ones that come from traditions that are not just connected to subsistence and hunting practices, but also are.
00;17;16;07 - 00;17;23;03
Shannon Leddy
I want to add that it is a sporting event, but probably not the way in which many of us in the South would think of sporting events.
00;17;23;03 - 00;17;46;27
Shannon Leddy
All of the competitions at the Arctic Winter Games are rooted in the kinds of skills and physical prowess that people needed to survive for years and years. Ric Mercer did a wonderful bit on his Ric Mercer report show, which you can find on YouTube about the different competitions that take place at the Winter Games. And of course he does it with such great humor and such great fun.
00;17;46;27 - 00;18;04;07
Shannon Leddy
And I think that's the other thing that we want to highlight is the wonderful spirit, the humor, the connectedness, the conversations, the relationships, the arts that come out of these events. I think it's it's super exciting that we get to go up there. And one aspect of our project is that we are going to make a short documentary.
00;18;04;07 - 00;18;23;05
Shannon Leddy
So that's, you know, we're looking at multimodal ways of translating our research into real world and accessible modes of communication so that this, this the message, the stories can go as broadly as possible, can reach as many ears and hearts and eyes and minds as possible.
00;18;25;15 - 00;18;42;28
Heidi Rennert
Yeah. Can you develop or just speak a little bit more about I mean, I think some of it's so compelling about your project is that it really does conceive of storytelling in so many of these creative multimodal ways. You’re bringing comics, you’re bringing Artic games, you’re bringing you know, documentaries.
00;18;42;28 - 00;19;01;15
Heidi Rennert
Can you talk a little bit more about how the creative process looks in developing this project and how how you're engaging with popular media in that way, both in terms of like your methodology, but also all the various ways that your your thinking through these issues through popular popular media or creative modes.
00;19;03;03 - 00;19;06;08
Shannon Leddy
Yeah, Biz do you want to start on that?
00;19;06;10 - 00;19;39;18
Biz Nijdam
So we frame the work that we're doing in and through comics as a form of arts based research, and there are so many reasons why I think it's absolutely important we're turning to the arts for research methodologies, only one of them being the way in which we can remediate or translate or bring Indigenous storytelling traditions in dialog with media through comics and how powerful it is to translate some of these traditional stories and knowledges into comic art.
00;19;39;18 - 00;20;17;28
Biz Nijdam
Because of the complexity of comics in its use of of text and image simultaneously. And Shannon and I have written about why exactly it is we see comics as such an important medium for for communicating and sharing Indigenous knowledge and I would love to speak more to that later. But in terms of our process, when we pair a cartoonist with a knowledge keeper, we are doing it very intentionally because we see that collaborative process is absolutely essential to the kind of work that's being produced.
00;20;18;01 - 00;20;42;14
Biz Nijdam
We don't see the illustrator or cartoonist simply translating or documenting down that story that they are receiving, but collaborating with the storyteller in in producing new perspectives and new ways of understanding it through the complexity of text and image and the affordances of the comics form. Shannon Do you want to do you want to jump in here?
00;20;42;20 - 00;20;44;12
Shannon Leddy
Yeah, I'm happy to jump in.
00;20;44;12 - 00;21;07;18
Shannon Leddy
So I think one of the things I work I'm a former high school teacher and I now work in teacher education at UBC. And one of the things that I'm very conscious of is that in-service teachers do not read academic journals to find out about what's going on in education, and academic journals are not generally read in high school classes either.
00;21;07;25 - 00;21;40;18
Shannon Leddy
But these stories are really important, and the people that tell the stories are really important. So I think in order to have our research really live in the world, the idea of multi modality is crucial in terms of creating opportunities for access, creating opportunities for for, you know, information, exchange for story exchange, and for highlighting the incredible contributions that artists make in the world in general and that maybe Indigenous artists in particular have to offer the world.
00;21;40;18 - 00;22;11;09
Shannon Leddy
So by creating a, you know, documentary video, by creating graphic novel based stories that are that are much more easily shareable and really get kids and young people and adults excited, I think that is the best way to to move our research forward into the world and truly meaningful ways. No disrespect intended at all to academic journals, and I understand how important they are in our particular line of business within the academy.
00;22;11;17 - 00;22;26;17
Shannon Leddy
But I also think that if we have something important to say or if we're trying to raise people's voices, then it has to go beyond our academic communities and it actually has to be something that is part of an urgency in the modern world.
00;22;28;00 - 00;22;28;23
Biz Nijdam
Thank you, Shannon.
00;22;29;25 - 00;22;43;06
Erica Machulak
You know, talking about how the different arts based methods that you use can make the scholarship more accessible, accessible and the stories more accessible, and tell them in different kinds of ethical frameworks.
00;22;43;06 - 00;23;02;12
Erica Machulak
I think that piece is crucial. It can be, you know, from the outside a little hard to understand. So I wonder if we could anchor it in an example or two. Could you talk about a particular comic that you're working on and or have worked on and just walk us through what that process looks like?
00;23;03;21 - 00;23;09;15
Shannon Leddy
Yeah, I think we can talk about the grant that sort of gave birth to our current project.
00;23;09;29 - 00;23;41;25
Erica Machulak
We are working together, Biz and I, with my elder Dorothy Visser, who is a Cree Métis elder who is also a language teacher and that's how I met her. And we have been very fortunate to pair her with Métis artist Natasha Donovan, and through the course of four or five interviews over the last couple of years, all of which are also documented in a short documentary film, we've really watched this beautiful relationship develop between these two women.
00;23;41;25 - 00;24;15;22
Shannon Leddy
That also includes us and the, you know, I think the, the good spirit that, that knowing that this is an arts-based project brings to the process is a really important part of communicating. I think the joy of sharing these stories of of Dorothy being able to share her story in a meaningful way, that she she knows that there will be many young people who will know what her experience of surviving residential school was like and that her story will live on beyond her own time here.
00;24;18;05 - 00;24;52;18
Biz Nijdam
I can also share another project that has helped inform our our work in these arenas that isn't directly connected to the partnership grant that we, Shannon and I started working on together, which kind of brought us together, brought us into these conversations. Independently of that, but now also in dialog with our work, I've been working with the Homalco First Nation for about two years now to to support the Language Revitalization Program program of the Homalco First Nation through comics.
00;24;52;20 - 00;25;19;21
Biz Nijdam
And so two years ago we commissioned three Indigenous cartoonist to translate excerpts of recordings with elders that that these recordings were were created in the 1990s with elders reflecting on their childhood and upbringing and Homalco traditions in the in the traditional territories which are around Campbell River and in particular Butte Inlet off the coast of Campbell River.
00;25;19;23 - 00;25;45;09
Biz Nijdam
And so that work really demonstrated for me how important it was to be focusing on the relationships that were being built between knowledge keeper and cartoonist. And in conversation with with Shannon, we started talking about how essential it is to be visiting the places where the research we're doing matters. And and by research I mean arts based research.
00;25;45;10 - 00;26;21;06
Biz Nijdam
I mean making comics. And so we took this small cohort of Indigenous cartoonists, one being Gord Hill, who is Kwakwaka’wakw, and Allan Einstein, who is Cree and Aleena Pete, who is also Cree with our Project Lead, Tadis Leo who's a journalist, and Homalco himself. And we traveled to Butte Inlet by boat with the chief of the Nation, as well as several elders to listen to the stories as they were being told to each other while we were visiting the traditional territories of the Homalco.
00;26;21;08 - 00;26;46;04
Biz Nijdam
And this the cartoonist came back with a a sense of the weight and importance of the work that they were doing. And not only but we also built this like really wonderful community of practice. And I'm still very close with this project and we're now in a position to expand it. And the comic that came out of it was self-published by the Homalco First Nation.
00;26;46;04 - 00;27;14;27
Biz Nijdam
It incorporated the language to support the language program, which was its original intention, but we didn't know how successful the project would be beyond that. It turns out, though, it's been it's been wildly successful and been they've they've received requests for sales directly to the nation because all profits go towards the nation from school boards and libraries across British Columbia and beyond.
00;27;15;09 - 00;27;47;29
Biz Nijdam
And the Homalco First Nation was able to fund their ancestral traditional canoe trip that they take on an annual basis based exclusively on the profits from this project. So it became meaningful in many ways. And it wasn't just that the youth were able to see their traditions remediated into the comics form. And it wasn't just that this particular comic could be integrated into the language revitalization program or it wasn't just that we were able to hire three emerging Indigenous cartoonists to do the work.
00;27;48;01 - 00;27;57;04
Biz Nijdam
It also was something that became meaningful for the entire nation as they were able to witness the next generation of youth taking that traditional canoe trip.
00;27;59;06 - 00;28;13;11
Erica Machulak
One of the things that I love about this example Biz, thank you for sharing that story, is that you're capturing sort of the ethical approach and the rigor and the impacts of the work, but it also just sounds fun
00;28;13;18 - 00;28;15;19
Biz Nijdam
Oh much gosh, so much fun.
00;28;15;23 - 00;28;24;06
Erica Machulak
But what do you what do you enjoy about the project and what is the role of playfulness in the work that that everyone's doing here?
00;28;25;03 - 00;28;39;00
Biz Nijdam
So that particular project, we had a blast. We actually, me and two of the cartoonists and one of the graduate students that was supporting that work, we took a road trip, we took the ferry together, we ate meals.
00;28;39;03 - 00;29;05;25
Biz Nijdam
We actually created a shared playlist called to Butte and Back, which then one year later to celebrate the launch of the comic book, we all returned listening to the same playlist back to Campbell River to celebrate the launch of the comic book with 60 or so members of the Homalco community. And it was it was absolutely one of the most meaningful things I've ever participated in.
00;29;05;28 - 00;29;33;20
Biz Nijdam
The Project lead was in tears. The knowledge keepers they consulted about the language were stood up and spoke about how meaningful it was to see their language in a piece of popular media. The chief spoke about the impact of the project beyond just the language program. It was it was fun and it was silly. And it was. Yeah.
00;29;34;00 - 00;30;04;08
Biz Nijdam
And now it's this. This work has become the model of how I want to work in community, not not just in Indigenous communities, but when I'm working in community more broadly. We have a new partnership and Shannon is also supporting this other project that we have that is specifically looking at traditional knowledges in B.C. First Nations. And so we're working with the Stó꞉lō nation as well as the Homalco nation now to do to do some of this work.
00;30;04;08 - 00;30;11;27
Biz Nijdam
And I'm excited to be taking a team of cartoonists to do a site visit in the Stó꞉lō traditional territories this November.
00;30;13;19 - 00;30;17;06
Shannon Leddy
That's exciting. I didn't know about that. But I want to I want to touch the
00;30;17;07 - 00;30;18;08
Biz Nijdam
That’s just emerging. Shannon
00;30;18;13 - 00;30;31;09
Shannon Leddy
Okay, good, because I've got some connections for you and then I want to go back to that notion of the importance of playfulness, though, because I do think it is a big aspect of our work and frankly of our personalities.
00;30;32;01 - 00;30;56;25
Shannon Leddy
But, you know, I think it really it really helps to have that spirit of play that that perhaps, you know, comics as a as a form of knowledge mobilization lends us. Because when we're talking about people's histories of trauma, when we're talking about stories of survivors, we can get trapped in that place and we can get trapped in those those dark, dreary, gloomy narratives.
00;30;57;03 - 00;31;35;00
Shannon Leddy
And that really flattens Indigenous identities and it denies them the full scope of humanity that we that we entitle everyone else to. So by bringing playfulness into our work, by making space for that in the way that stories are told and shared, I think we really sort of help to re-inflate Indigenous identities for a broader public so that we're not just these sad stories of trauma and depression, but we are also these, you know, creative, funny, hilarious, playful, brilliant, talented people that exist as contemporaries in the world that were not, as Biz said earlier,
00;31;35;07 - 00;31;49;18
Shannon Leddy
These historicist people that that just don't exist anymore in anything other than, you know, slum areas of cities. That we’re vibrant. And playfulness is a really big part of communicating that vibrance.
00;31;49;20 - 00;32;07;16
Erica Machulak
That's a wonderful point. Shannon I think really gets to that. The heart of the project. You've spoken so eloquently about the importance of playfulness in the project, but you as someone who's taken on the responsibility for this project, you know, it's rigorous and it's exhausting and it takes a lot out of you.
00;32;07;16 - 00;32;15;14
Erica Machulak
So how do you, as a person, maintain the work that you're doing as a scholar? How do you how do you keep yourself joyful through all of this?
00;32;16;14 - 00;32;30;05
Shannon Leddy
Well, frankly, I'm a mess. No, I'm kidding. I think it is. It's a huge challenge. And Biz and I are both blessed with neuro divergences, as so many people are.
00;32;30;05 - 00;32;51;23
Shannon Leddy
So there's a lot of a lot of creative chaos that happens as we collaborate together and as we bring more and more people in and try to keep all of our ducks in a row or even identify whether or not they're ducks. It's a lot. But I think it's the fact that, you know, I can see how much Dorthy enjoys talking with us and sharing her stories.
00;32;52;01 - 00;33;19;06
Shannon Leddy
I can see how much Natasha enjoys connecting with Dorothy and getting the opportunity to exercise her art in a very new way. This for Natasha is a completely new way of working, because normally she would receive a story from a writer and then just create the illustrations. But in this process she's actually done a lot of the interviewing herself and has really helped to collaboratively, collaboratively develop Dorothy's story into a graphic novel.
00;33;19;14 - 00;33;39;13
Shannon Leddy
So it's the it's the rewards at the end. It's knowing that we're bringing joy to others. It's knowing that we're bringing employment to others. It's knowing that this these stories are going to go out into the various high schools that I used to teach in that they're going to be in the university classrooms that I teach in now, that they're going to be in my neighborhood comic book shop.
00;33;39;15 - 00;34;01;23
Shannon Leddy
I think that that's what keeps me going. That's what keeps me excited that this is really it is bigger than publishing in an academic journal because it's going to live in the world in meaningful ways. And I think it's going to bring joy to a lot of people. It's going to help, for example, Indigenous students in schools be seen in the curriculum materials that are available, which has historically been a huge problem.
00;34;02;21 - 00;34;12;18
Shannon Leddy
So I think that that's definitely what keeps me going and what keeps me motivated and where I find the joy in this otherwise really genuinely hectic work.
00;34;15;24 - 00;34;17;18
Erica Machulak
Thanks. It's a great answer. How about you Biz?
00;34;18;27 - 00;34;27;25
Biz Nijdam
I would wholeheartedly agree with Shannon and it's actually the other way around. This is the work that keeps me going through the other stuff.
00;34;27;27 - 00;35;01;28
Biz Nijdam
This is the kind of really meaningful, collaborative co-creative work that supports me in doing all of the other more banal, feeling less impactful work. This is where I see making meaning in the world. This is how we get our research and teaching and knowledge off campus into communities where it will actually matter. This is how I see the university maintaining its relevance and I am thrilled to be able to support that work.
00;35;02;01 - 00;35;23;29
Biz Nijdam
I love relationship building, I love capacity building, I love being able to support the development of educational materials that will make people feel seen and amplify marginalized voices and teach the children of tomorrow to understand the world differently. So this is actually the work that that gets me through the rest of it.
00;35;25;05 - 00;35;32;10
Erica Machulak
Hmm. I love that. And Heidi, do you have any lingering questions?
00;35;32;21 - 00;35;34;19
Erica Machulak
As we start to kind of approach our time.
00;35;34;27 - 00;36;01;01
Heidi Rennert
Yeah, maybe one of my final questions. I mean, you both are such exemplars of how to do this kind of collaborative, joyful work, how to build meaningful partnerships. I'm wondering what kind of advice you would give either to junior scholars like myself or maybe humanists who are interested in doing more public facing work and are interested in doing these kinds of collaborative partnerships.
00;36;01;03 - 00;36;12;27
Heidi Rennert
but just don't really know where to start or yeah, would like to do that work and are wondering how to how to build sort of those connections.
00;36;13;23 - 00;36;16;11
Biz Nijdam
Well, my first suggestion would be to hire the Hikma team
00;36;18;10 - 00;36;21;06
Erica Machulak
woot
00;36;21;08 - 00;36;37;14
Biz Nijdam
having really good support is essential. Having a really good collaborative relationship is so important. So for me that means that I have great graduate students supporting all of the research that I do, and I'm so lucky for that.
00;36;37;29 - 00;36;53;07
Biz Nijdam
And then I have a great collaborator in Shannon who I just enjoy as a human and then get to do really wonderful work with. So that would be my advice. But Shannon, I'm sure you have something a little bit more.
00;36;53;09 - 00;37;02;11
Shannon Leddy
Yeah my mine is run. run away, run fast, run hard, run far. No, I’m kidding. I think. I think, you know, I think that is the key.
00;37;02;11 - 00;37;26;01
Shannon Leddy
I think you have to find really good people to work with. I think you have to be willing to be human, to be fragile, to be powerful, to pick up where someone else has dropped off, to drop off when you know someone else can pick up. And and that you really need, you know, to to sort of rethink your life for a moment before you can carry on in a good way.
00;37;26;10 - 00;37;58;28
Shannon Leddy
But I think having yeah good support networks, working with compassion, working with honor, working with humility, working with love, I think those are the ways forward and I think as soon as you begin to think in those ways, doors start to open and that's how you know you're going in the right direction. If if you're, you know, if you're approaching academia in that sort of traditional way of of the crab in the bucket, I think, you know, that's what you end up being is a crab in a bucket.
00;37;58;28 - 00;38;10;07
Shannon Leddy
But I think if you're looking to put love out into the world to find the ways in which your particular academic talents are a gift to the world, then that's going to lead you in good directions without a doubt.
00;38;10;07 - 00;38;15;12
Shannon Leddy
How was that? Better than run away?
00;38;15;18 - 00;38;24;19
Biz Nijdam
That was fantastic. We should end on that. My way of understanding that and I was thinking about this as you were speaking, Shannon, and we should definitely end on Shannon's note.
00;38;24;19 - 00;38;56;00
Biz Nijdam
But if you wanted to bring this back in that you have to release that territorial impulse that academics hold so dear to their hearts that there are certain areas of knowledge that belong to certain academics and really, truly understand how much the partnerships that are created will enhance and own knowledge differently and let go of that sense of of of of territorial ness.
00;38;56;01 - 00;39;16;28
Biz Nijdam
Because I do find that working in some partnerships, there's this sense that like, okay, stay in your lane, This is a boundary, this is my work. And, and especially as a settler scholar working in Indigenous communities, there are so many moments where I have to take a step back and be like, Hey, this isn't where I speak first.
00;39;17;10 - 00;39;47;09
Biz Nijdam
This isn't where I share my opinion. This is where I try to lift somebody else's voice. And so that's not a natural impulse for settler scholars or academics. And when it’s a settler scholar, academic. Well, there you go. And that's not true, actually, for a lot of the people that I work with at UBC, because I think that we try very earnestly at an individual level to to do the good work of truth and reconciliation.
00;39;47;11 - 00;39;53;21
Biz Nijdam
But yeah, stepping away from those territorial notions of, academia is the only way to build true partnerships.
00;39;54;06 - 00;39;59;24
Shannon Leddy
See, that's why you're so lovely to work with Biz. That was beautiful.
00;39;59;27 - 00;40;04;13
Biz Nijdam
You’re lovely too
00;40;04;15 - 00;40;31;10
Erica Machulak
Those are, I think that's really wonderful advice to share with people who are trying to find a way into this. And in fact, the whole way that you approach this conversation is sort of willing to to be human and build on each other and be real, I think is is kind of one of the best examples that we could offer of of what it takes to do scholarship and collaboration really well in good ways.
00;40;31;13 - 00;40;36;16
Erica Machulak
We have a few minutes left. I wonder, are there any questions we haven't asked that you want to answer?
00;40;38;02 - 00;40;55;27
Shannon Leddy
You know, we didn't we haven't mentioned our our whole research team on this new project. I know Biz has mentioned Tim Frandy, but we also have Asta Mønsted, she is an Inuit Greenlanders who is working with us from her new home base in Copenhagen.
00;40;55;29 - 00;40;59;07
Shannon Leddy
And then we also have Fredrik. You're going to have to help me
00;40;59;19 - 00;41;28;21
Biz Nijdam
Frederik Byrn Køhlert, who is a settler scholar at a Danish scholar who works in Edinburgh at the University of Napier, and he is joining the team as a comic scholar and a Danish national to support the Greenlandic cluster. And then we have Tim Frandy, who is leading the Sámi cluster as an Indigenous person in building our relationships there, who is my colleague in the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies.
00;41;28;24 - 00;41;52;17
Shannon Leddy
We do also have, I think we've got a partnership with the University of Aarhus and one of our partners is also at the University of Copenhagen. So really, and there are a couple of other universities in Finland. So we really are doing our very best to make this an international project and to to work hard at trying to find the right kinds of partners who are going to work in the same good spirit with us.
00;41;52;19 - 00;42;15;23
Shannon Leddy
And I'm I am super excited about going to the Arctic Winter Games and being able to connect with youth, being able to connect with community members and really starting to be able to map out where we're going with this and what it's going to look like. But we can't do that without those community members because it's not not our project, it's Our project.
00;42;15;26 - 00;42;17;08
Shannon Leddy
If you if you take my meaning
00;42;18;13 - 00;42;19;22
Biz Nijdam
with like a capital O.
00;42;19;25 - 00;42;22;11
Shannon Leddy
Yes, yes, perhaps that.
00;42;22;13 - 00;42;43;00
Biz Nijdam
And, and with that all in mind, we try to envision a hierarchy or power structure that is that that tries to level the power dynamics at play. And so we have our executive committee where Shannon, myself, Asta, Fredrik and Tim at regular intervals for our planning.
00;42;43;09 - 00;43;27;12
Biz Nijdam
And then we've invited all of our community and institutional partners to join our advisory committee, which we meet with once per term and invite to participate in some of our programing, our events, some of our site visits even, and provide us with the advice that we need in order to continue to move forward in a good way. So we're really grateful to to be able to be doing this work as part of a partnership development grant because those partnerships are so key to how we see this project succeeding and this opportunity to develop those partnerships with our eyes set on a partnership grant later that will hopefully do this work of celebrating Indigenous sovereignty, survivants
00;43;27;12 - 00;43;50;08
Biz Nijdam
renewal and cultural revivance. It's we hope to do that on a more global level. So focusing both on the Indigenous South as well as the Indigenous North and using the way we've we've developed our methodology for this project to inform how we continue to collaborate with Indigenous communities around the world.
00;43;52;06 - 00;43;55;08
Shannon Leddy
Plus, working in the Global South involves less winter gear.
00;43;55;08 - 00;43;56;18
Shannon Leddy
So that's yeah, that's
00;43;56;21 - 00;44;01;08
Biz Nijdam
I think we need to use part of our partnership development grant to buy parkas.
00;44;01;21 - 00;44;04;08
Shannon Leddy
I got my eye on some Manitobah Mukluks.
00;44;04;11 - 00;44;09;06
Biz Nijdam
I wonder how SSHRC feels about that as like a research, an eligible research expense.
00;44;09;13 - 00;44;16;27
Shannon Leddy
I'm going to find out because seriously, like that, you know, we do need extra gear that we wouldn't normally have living in Vancouver.
00;44;16;27 - 00;44;19;11
Shannon Leddy
So yeah, I’ll see if I can make that fly.
00;44;19;17 - 00;44;22;17
Biz Nijdam
I'll put one of our wonderful graduate students on that question.
00;44;23;05 - 00;44;28;06
Erica Machulak
Yeah, my my expert Hikma advice on that is to ask the financial administrators at your institution.
00;44;28;06 - 00;44;29;24
Shannon Leddy
Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh.
00;44;30;24 - 00;44;34;25
Biz Nijdam
I might actually write that email today.
00;44;34;27 - 00;44;36;27
Biz Nijdam
I'll cc you Shannon
00;44;37;00 - 00;44;37;16
Shannon Leddy
Thank you.
00;44;39;18 - 00;45;00;22
Erica Machulak
Well, thank you both. This was wonderful. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you. I know, I know we're at time so we want to let you go. We could keep talking forever. But yeah. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your work in such a real and compelling way.
00;45;00;25 - 00;45;04;12
Erica Machulak
We hope you have enjoyed this episode of the Hikma Collective podcast.
00;45;04;15 - 00;45;28;20
Erica Machulak
I'm your host, Erica Machulak, author, medievalist and founder of Hikma. This episode was managed and produced by Ai Mizuta, Heidi Rennert and Sophia van Hees. Matthew Tomkinson composed the original music you hear now in his capacity as Hikma’s 2022 Artist in Residence. You can find shownotes links and transcripts on our website hikma.studio/podcast.
00;45;28;22 - 00;45;41;12
Erica Machulak
Hikma is situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. We are so grateful to be here and to share this space with you. Wherever you're listening, make sure you know whose land you're on.
