When I was in my 20s and early 30s and people would ask me what it was I did, I had a hard time putting my work into words. I would stumble – I’m a social worker, but certainly not that kind of social worker, I’m a researcher, but not that kind of researcher. I work with communities, but not in that way. I had better luck describing what I was not, than what I was. Nowadays, I have more clarity to find the words for what I carry in my spirit, for what thrives through taking care of the spirit of the work that I do: I work at the intersections of relationship and story. I sort through and make sense of the relationships we have with ourselves, with communities, within institutions, and as Nations. I help to question, uncover, strengthen, and transform relationships (or lack thereof) in these spaces – and one of the ways that I do this is through making visible implicit and explicit stories accepted as truth. As if there could be a singular truth…1
At the beginning of December I had the opportunity to spend time at Kent Monkman’s Being Legendary exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto. It would be the first time I would witness Monkman’s work in person. I first came to know about his work in the 8th Fire Series, Indigenous in the City. His subversive artworks re-telling memorialized Canadian histories. His piece, The Scream (2016), still lingers in my brain, indicative of truth telling necessary to unsettle the polite narrative that is reinforced within the education systems. I had been using the 8th Fire series in my social work classrooms as the series and Monkman’s work were powerful catalysts for dialogue. Since that introduction I have followed Monkman’s storytelling, moved by his ability to make visible the stories we tell and the stories that need to be told. He is one of many Indigenous artists who inspire me to go deeper – using storytelling mediums to disrupt, unsettle, and reframe stories of Indigenous experience in Canada. He reinforces a message that is a beacon in my own work, the stories we tell matter.
There are many types of stories, ways of telling stories, and even more purposes that stories serve in our lives as community members and in society overall. Stories can be used to build community and to gain a deeper understanding of who we are and where we come from. In Indigenous evaluation the use of story can come through in how we gather information about what it is we are evaluating and gathering these stories can take many forms. Each of these types of stories build on and reinforce the other – the stories that we tell ourselves and the stories that we are told by others.
The kinds of stories I am reflecting on in this post, and in relation to the Kent Monkman installation at ROM are the higher level stories that are told about the world that we live in. The stories we hear, repeat, and integrate can reinforce or they can make visible the absurdity of accepted social narratives in our country. The stories that stick in our bones, whether we know it or not. As I entered the Being Legendary exhibit I was ready to witness these stories firsthand. As I stood in the expertly lit space, the immensity of the experience caught my breath. Monkman’s invitation into the gallery – offered in Cree and syllabics, English, and French points to another starting point in the stories of the land now called Canada – stories that were missed in the generally accepted narrative:
This is my story. Some of it is true. Much of it is truer than your truth.
“This âcimowin—this story that carries history and knowledge—begins in the stars and is about the land. We’ve been here for so long. There is too much to tell, and much I cannot say.
Those of you who are our people know that we have many different kinds of stories, for learning, to guide us forward, sacred stories, and of course âcimowina, true accounts like this one (although I do like to add a little something extra to make my stories more interesting). Our stories and language hold the knowledge that our peoples have carried since the beginning of time, before the light, before the first sound, before the land we stand on—the rock, the mountains, valleys and plains, oceans, lakes and rivers. Our stories honour the past and guide us forward.
I am Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. I am fluid with many forms. I am legendary. This is my story. Some of it is true. Much of it is truer than your truth. It is the âcimowin of our peoples. It is also your story, for we are all relatives.”
–Miss Chief Eagle Testickle
The vibrant detail of the Mimikwiisiuk (little people)2 and the thunderbird petroglyph image embedded in the paintings brought me joy. The familiarity sparked hope. To witness the unsettling and re-telling of stories prior to invasion and settlement of what is now Canada through Monkman’s playful and critical lens penetrated my spirit. I couldn’t anticipate the way that each of the paintings sat in the center of my chest as I walked through the gallery. His art counters Indigenous erasure and offers me hope that new (old) stories will continue to elbow into spaces (and hearts and minds) that need unsettling – that are sparks for deeper dialogue and action.
Alas, I wasn’t in Toronto simply to witness Being Legendary, I was in Toronto for work, and it had been a long week of travel and meetings. I have been lucky to gather with a team thinking about systems transformation. A team thinking about how to support new stories to be birthed to support Indigenous youth to achieve mino-bimaadiziwin, the good life, in a way that they define – that they are in charge of, and that is supported by the transformation of systems to meet those visions. And at the end of that time together there was something about that exhibit that drew the threads of the past few months together for me. I had an A-HA moment that felt like a tying up of the threads of conversations over the days we gathered. Stories are the oxygen that allow sparks of transformation to take hold, to build into roaring fires that guide new futures (to riff off of a reflection of a brilliant colleague). Story – disrupting the stories we tell, are told, and are consumed by plays a central role in holding Canada, as a nation state and all of the people who benefit from the structures that maintain Canada – accountable to a different and more equitable future.
Sounds like a lot of power for something as simple as a story.
However, it’s not really simple when we understand the way that stories build a scaffolding – layered one on top of another – until they become the bricks building an almost immutable structure. This understanding helps to make visible the power of singular and collective stories. And why the kinds of stories that we tell matter for these generations and the generations to come. The stories that are passed on through to new generations, building new scaffolding include the kinds of stories shared by Mishiikenhkwe (Autumn Smith) (She/They) an Anishinaabe (Ojibway/Odawa) artist in this interview about their work, about how they came to tell stories through their paintings, about the painting Community Care, and the demonstration of the complexity of stories and what they have to offer us.
Back to my time at the ROM, one of the paintings at the end of the exhibit is of knowledge keeper Wilfred Buck, a Cree knowledge keeper from Northern Manitoba. It was a delightful surprise, a cherry on the sundae that was my time in the exhibit. When I was working on my master thesis I sat in conversation with Wilfred, learning about how I (we) can come to know who we are and where we come from as Swampy Cree people who also have ancestors/relations from other spaces and lands. How we can strengthen connections to identity and belonging. As I sat with Wilfred he shared teachings about the stars and the power of stories to help us understand who we are. In the conversation Wilfred he shares:
“I guess for everybody this is a different path you follow that links to your personal experiences, growing up, what happened to you, how you feel you become disconnected, and what it is you are looking for. When people talk about identity, identity it’s a very broad concept. But for people who want to grow it’s Ne-na, it’s me, that’s where you have to start. Like your grandfather said, you have to remember. So the first thing you do is you have to remember. And from that base it’s built. So the memories of what we have, of what happened to us when we were young, the things, like when I remember right away, I remember my grandparents, and some of the things that they taught me and how they made me feel.
And they’re the ones that brought me back.It starts with remembering your grandparents, remembering who your family are, if you have that opportunity to remember. The place, the physical place is not that important. It’s your space in pimatsiwin, your space in life, and that connection you have to it. So the space can be anywhere, the physical surroundings can be anywhere. Just as long as you have that connection with that spirit. Because Atchak is everything, the spirit is everything. It’s the starting, it’s the ending, it doesn’t matter where. Because it’s everywhere. That’s the connection. And once you get that, because everybody has that, it’s just that a lot of the times we haven’t worked at it, to make it strong. And once you get it strong, then the other spirits will know, and they’ll be put in front of you to help guide you along in what you’re supposed to be doing. Because we all have something to do in our lives.
That’s the job we have, we have to find out what that is, and we have to do It.”(Rowe, 2013, p.105-106)
For me, listening to Wilfred allows me to see myself in relation to the stories of where I come from, who I come from, and what my purpose is. The role of stories in intergenerational connections, bonds, and attachments are discussed in this video with Madeline Dion Stout and her granddaughter Miyawata Dion Stout. Stories have the power to influence health and wellness – they have the ability to transform our futures. These stories contrast those other scaffolded stories that have been allowed to set into concrete. The stories that have forged systems such as education and social work. And so, what can (must) we do?
This is the big leap and impetus for how I show up in my work in general, and in the work of Indigenous evaluation specifically. I believe that if we can shift how we are in relation with stories that are other than what has been normalized, socialized, and consumed, that we can transform how we relate to one another. And this transformation, in Canada – as Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, is long overdue. Being in spaces where we can hear and build relations with new (old) stories will help to transform how we understand the relationships and accountabilities we must hold with all of our relations. Because we need to imagine new futures – and this isn’t possible with the stories that are normalized as truth… To breathe life into futures that transform the gritty realities of colonial violence and stark inequities that allow our lives to be swept aside.
Stories of who we are and where we come from help us to see the responsibilities we hold. The stories we tell, the ones we are invited into, and even more starkly the stories we refuse to engage with are powerful acts of resistance. So, what happens when someone else defines our stories? What happens when eyes that observe the story see a vision of a world painted in colours unfamiliar and incongruent to what is being experienced? What if those eyes don’t have a context (through worldview, language, relations) for what they are seeing in front of them? It can start to feel like a bad game of telephone. You know, the game where one child starts off saying a phrase and it is passed from one ear to another sometimes innocently transforming and sometimes a kid in the group decides to throw a wrench in the production offering something inappropriate into the circle. What emerges on the other end is a completely turned around statement. Giggles and laughter ensues and the game starts again.
In evaluation or research with Indigenous peoples and communities this is not such an innocent turnaround. It’s not so innocuous of an ending. When the findings are tallied, reports are written, and presentations are made – if these stories are told in a way that erases complexities and nuances of experience and context, whether intentionally or not, it is harmful. Carrying on as things have always been done adds another brick to the scaffolding that we are trying to tear down. So, in Indigenous evaluation, and other knowledge production activities, what are the stories that need to be told and who needs to be telling them?
When I decided to jump into Indigenous Insights: An Evaluation Podcast it had been after over a year of back and forth about the kinds of contributions I wanted to offer into the circle3. I wanted to contribute to the unsettling of a field that needed to be challenged – and to be held accountable. And I knew stories were a way to do this.
I didn’t quite anticipate the warm and excited welcome I would receive in this adventure so far. Those so willing to share their experiences into the circle and those who were willing to listen deeply to what was being shared. I’ve received emails and messages from dozens of listeners and so many more conversations are scheduled. In the first two months there have been over 530 listens and each day the number keeps increasing. It’s exciting to know that these stories are reaching the ears and hearts of others who also think it’s important to reflect on Indigenous evaluation work, just like I do.
Our stories, Indigenous stories hold power. I’d like to offer a final invitation as I close off. You and I, we are not the ones responsible for getting ourselves into this (colonial) mess that we find ourselves in, surrounded by immutable structures of indifference4. But, we are the ones who need to dig ourselves out. Different stories, ones led by Indigenous voices, will lead us into these new spaces. Once we hear these stories, we cannot say that we didn’t know. The alternative, to do nothing, is a conscious choice and one I hope less and less people will consider viable. Because, the stories we tell matter. The stories that are shared in this podcast matter.
Kinanaskimotin (I am grateful) to share this space with each of you. Until the next story, be well.
Gladys
1Check out the viral TedX video featuring Novelist Chimamanda Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story if you haven’t seen it already, and maybe again if you already viewed it before… you know that we collect meaning in a different way each time we listen to a story – from where we are and who we are in these moments of time.
2Check out this CBC article on stories of Little People from Cree and Mi’kmaq artists with Rosanna Deerchild on UnReserved.https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/mysterious-tales-of-little-people-intrigue-new-generations-of-cree-mi-kmaq-1.6370300
3I will speak of the circle, as noted here, in another future blog post – and the power of the circle as a process for relational accountability.
4See the book Structures of Indifference An Indigenous Life and Death in a Canadian City by Mary Jane Logan McCallum & Adele Perry https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/structures-of-indifference
