Educational Foundations

Numerous research studies have explored how institutions such as schools are produced as white spaces. Whiteness is a socio-spatial process that constitutes particular bodies as possessing the normative, ordinary power to enjoy social privilege. Within the Canadian colonial context, whiteness has been produced historically through the violent confiscation of land and resources from Indigenous Peoples. This violence has been silenced through grand narratives of Canadian " tolerance, " and white-settler fantasies of the Canadian landscape as empty and wild. Many environmental education programs continue to rely upon and reproduce these colonial ideas of race and space. Escaping the classroom, Canadian environmental education programs propose to advance personal and educational decolonization through experiential land-based learning. Integrating the discussions in anti-racist, anti-colonial education with the literature on race and nature, this qualitative article draws from student interviews and artefacts to interrogate how whiteness continues to be normalized within environmental education through various dominant narratives of Canadian nation building, such as: the disaffiliation of whiteness from the violence of colonialism, reifying Canadianness as goodness and innocence; the ongoing erasure of Indigenous Peoples and histories from the land; and the reification of wilderness as an essentialized, empty space. These narratives continue to entitle white people to occupy and claim originary status in Canada, signifying wilderness and the environment as a white space. La blancheur du vert : La racialisation de l'´ education relativè a l'environnement Un bon nombre de recherches se sont intéresséesà lamanì ere dont les institutions telles que lesécoles se conçoivent comme des espaces blancs. La notion de blancheur peutêtre envisagée en tant que processus socio-spatial qui dispose certains corpsà détenir le pouvoir normatif et ordinaire et ainsi bénéficier depriviì eges sociaux. Dans le contexte colonial canadien, la blancheur est le résultat historique de l'appropriation brutale des terres et des ressources des peuples autochtones. C'està partir des grands récits sur la « tolérance » canadienne et du fantasme d'un paysage canadien vide et sauvage créé par les colons blancs qu'on a réussì a faire taire ces actes de violence. ` A ce jour, les programmes d'´ education relativè a l'environnement puisent et reproduisent ces types d'idées coloniales sur l'identité raciale et l'espace. Hors des murs de l'´ ecole, des programmes d'´ education relativè a l'environnement conçus au Canada visentà contribuerà l'avancement de la décolonisation personnelle etéducative par une méthode d'enseignement fondée sur l'expérience du terrain. Se situant au croisement des discours sur l'enseignement antiraciste et anticolonial et de la littérature sur l'identité raciale et la nature, cetté etude qualitative cherchè a comprendre, ` a partir d'entretiens menés auprès d'´ etudiants et par l'analyse d'artefacts, dans quelle mesure la blancheur demeure toujours un des principesà l'origine de l'´ education relativè a l'environnement, principes qui repose sur les points forts des plus grands récits de l'´ edification de la nation canadienne: la dissociation entre la blancheur et la violence du colonialisme; la réification de la canadienneté en termes de «bonté et innocence»; la suppression continue des histoires et des peuples autochtones du territoire; et la réification de la «nature sauvage» en tant qu'espace essentialiste et vide.

Resistance to the use of Indigenous themed mascots in North America has taken a variety of forms over the past several decades. This paper describes and analyses how a new vehicle for resistance, social media, can be integral to dismantling and eradicating racist images of Indigenous peoples. Specifically, this paper focusses on one campaign that questioned a high school sports mascot and team named the " Redmen ". By using examples from social media, the authors demonstrate how White settlers came to rely on the mascot imagery as a way to position themselves as superior and to regulate representations of Indigeneity. The authors' analysis posits that the mascot is in itself a form of racialised colonial violence and they discuss how the name and mascot were protected by and through white settler surveillance and control. To intervene in this discourse of superiority and regulation, the paper describes how an anti-racist approach was used to design a social media campaign that built mass critical consciousness and a network of support within the community. The social media campaign coincided with and rallied support from the grassroots Indigenous Movement, Idle No More. The larger joint effort strategically and effectively redirected the public and critical focus to how the " Redmen " name and logo and other racist Indigenous mascots become normalised. Increased knowledge via social media catalysed a shift in public opinion which ultimately leads to retirement of the team name, logo and mascot.

These family stories are national texts that position white settlers as having earned our social and political status in society through intelligence and hard work alone, erasing the colonial policies that enforced differential access to resources, such as land. The story that my family built a life from nothing works to make economic inequality between white settlers and Indigenous people seem natural and normal.