2019 Continuums of Service Conference

This hands-on interactive session will invite folks to participate in their own collage projects with presenters. After an introduction to theories of settler colonialism, indigenous feminisms, and indigenous collage frameworks by presenters, participants will be encouraged to work and think through a project of their own. We encourage colleagues to consider the pervasive influence of settler colonialism and to consider that, in-spite of our most well-intentioned efforts, settler logics continue to limit our imaginations of the possible. Specifically, we draw on indigenous scholar Leanne Charlie’s collage methodology. “Indigenous collage invites us to work with the fragmented realities of Indigenous identities, families, communities, cultures, and lands that have been created—sometimes violently, always intentionally—by historical and contemporary colonialism. It offers a space for indigenous historical realities, present realities, and desired futures to intersect in innovative and unexpected ways.” Our theory of change honors ontology and action over Western privileged epistemology. We acknowledge that we cannot only think our way out of coloniality—we must be the doers. We invite our participants to bring with them a current or recent problem of practice, a research question, recent rumination, or a challenge that you hope to think through and address.