Indigenous research and land-based learning – Learning to situate oneself in genealogies of places (Marie-Eve Drouin-Gagné, INRS-UQAT)

How can Indigenous research and land-based learning help us understand our relationships to places, histories, and peoples? Drawing on my research on Indigenous education, urban Indigenous experiences, territorial knowledge, and participatory methodologies, this presentation brings together four interconnected strands of inquiry: the decolonization and Indigenization of education; Indigenous knowledge and experiences in urban settings; the transmission of Indigenous territorial knowledge and genealogies of places; and the decolonization of research through participatory approaches.

Across these projects, I have explored how places are shaped by relationships, memories, histories, and Indigenous presence, including through participatory mapping and community-based research in Montréal/Tiohtià:keand Anicinape Aki. More recently, my work has focused on the transmission of Indigenous place names and the stories and relationships attached to them.

I argue that land-based learning is not only an educational approach, but also a way of rethinking research itself. It invites researchers to listen, build relationships, recognize the histories of places, and reflect onhow we are situated within the genealogies of the places where knowledge is created.