Braiding

A practice located in a space in-between and at the edges of *threads (community, flexibility, layered time, right-brained) and *bricks (individuality, linear, left-brained), aiming to calibrate each sensibility towards a generative orientation and inter-weave their strands to create something integrated. Braiding is not a form of synthesis in which two approaches are combined in order to create a new, third possibility to replace them both. Braiding is premised on respecting the continued internal integrity of both the brick and thread orientations, even as both sides might be transformed in the process of braiding. Braiding opens up different possibilities for engagement, without guarantees about what might emerge from those engagements. Braiding is not an endpoint, but rather an ongoing and emergent process.

*Thread and Brick sense and sensibilities

Thread sense and sensibilities stand for a set of ways of being that emphasize inter-wovenness, shape-shifting flexibility and layered time;

• where the world is experienced through sensorial events involving movement, rhythm, sound and metaphor;
• where every “thing” (including humans, non-humans and the land) is a living entity;
• where every entity is valued for its intrinsic (insufficient and indispensable) inherent worth within an integrative and dynamic whole; and
• where their self-worth is grounded on their connection with something beyond the individual self, but also found within it.

Brick sense and sensibilities stand for a set of ways of being that emphasize individuality, fixed form and linear time;

• where the world is experienced through concepts that describe the form of things and places them systematically in ordered hierarchical structures;
• where the value of something is measured against its capacity, achievement or potentiality to “move things forward”;
• where self-worth is dependent on external validation.

Colonialism / Settler Colonialism

Colonialism occurs when an external power asserts authority over a group of people — their lives, lands, and “resources.” Settler colonialism in particular is premised on the systemic and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous Peoples and the occupation (“settlement”) of Indigenous lands by non-Indigenous people. Canada and the US are both considered to be settler colonial states. Settler colonialism encompasses the forceful establishment and ongoing political control of colonial systems of government that were and are intended to replace and eliminate Indigenous Peoples. Settler colonialism was established and continues to be maintained in ways that specifically advantage white settlers over and above others. Colonialism overlaps with other forms of oppression, including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, exploitation, and ecological extraction.

Cultural Safety

Cultural safety is an outcome based on respectful engagement that recognizes and strives to address power imbalances inherent in a society. Cultural safety can be defined only by the Indigenous person being affected. To be culturally safe requires the continuous practice of cultural humility, which is a process of self reflection to understand personal and systemic biases to facilitate respectful processes and relationships based on mutual trust. Cultural humility involves humbly acknowledging oneself as a learner when it comes to understanding another’s experience.

Decolonization

Decolonization is the intelligent, calculated, and active resistance to the forces of colonialism that perpetuate the subjugation and/or exploitation of our minds, bodies, and lands, and it is the ultimate purpose of overturning the colonial structure and realizing Indigenous liberation. Decolonization is a process that addresses the multiple facets of disconnect between the health outcomes of a nation’s population and that of the Indigenous people within that nation, and the root of perpetual inequity itself. It is a process of Indigenous Peoples’ reclamation of political, cultural, economic and social self-determination, including the re-development of positive individual, familial, community and nation level identities. These efforts require the active involvement of Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous peoples, requiring the dismantling of colonialism as the dominant model upon which a nation’s society operates.

Domination Culture