In academia, researchers are often encouraged to leave their personal histories behind so they can approach their research questions with as little bias as possible.聽
But for many Indigenous researchers, especially those who are doing work in their home communities, this detached approach can be counterproductive.聽
鈥淚 know there are researchers who like to believe they鈥檙e objective, but ultimately for me, it's story work. You're weaving together a lot of facts but you're telling a story,鈥� says Wah茅hshon Whitebean, a Wolf Clan member of the Kanien鈥檏eh谩:ka Nation at Kahnaw脿:ke.
Whitebean is a PhD candidate in Educational Studies and was a聽, awarded to Indigenous graduate students who are doing research on Indigenous Canada.
She is currently completing her dissertation on聽, which aimed to strip Indigenous children of their language and culture. 鈥淚ndigenous children attended Day Schools in greater numbers than Residential Schools and we still know little about their experiences,鈥� Whitebean explained in her master鈥檚 thesis on the topic.
The core of Whitebean鈥檚 research has been sitting down with former Day School students in her community and listening to their stories, which many are telling for the first time.
Conscious that sharing memories can be re-traumatizing, Whitebean is careful not to steer those conversations. 鈥淭hey take it where they need to, where they want to, and the story that comes out is the one that they choose.鈥�
Whitebean says there tends to be 鈥渁 fascination with Indigenous suffering,鈥� and she doesn鈥檛 want her work to reinforce that narrative. Instead, she emphasizes the resilience of her community and the many ways in which they have fought back.
鈥淚 hope people will see that we're not only resilient in terms of the pain and the trauma we endured, but also in the ways we overcame and the ways we're growing as a people,鈥� says Whitebean.
Though Whitebean started school during the transition to community-led education in Kahnaw脿:ke, she attended two institutions that were still operating as Indian Day Schools on the record.
鈥淭his process was very healing for me, because I had to have a conversation with myself to say, I'm not that little girl in school anymore who was powerless, who was hurt. I'm a researcher now. I'm able to pull all this together and tell a story about who we are as a people and what Day Schools did to us.鈥�
Whitebean says the Rathlyn Fellowship came at the right time, when she was feeling overwhelmed by the pressures of research, work and being a mom. 鈥淕etting the Rathlyn Fellowship reminded me of how much support I鈥檇 gotten up to that point and it was a way of saying: keep going, don't give up.鈥�
Awarded by the Indigenous Studies Program, the Rathlyn Fellowships were established by businessman and philanthropist聽, and his late wife Mary Warren, who have created several fellowships across faculties at 海角社区.
鈥淭he donors of the Rathlyn Fellowship have my heartfelt gratitude," says Whitebean. "This award and many others like it gave me a fair shake in academia.鈥�
Preserving culture through language
Karen Martin, BEd鈥�20, one of the聽, also has a deeply personal connection to her work on language revitalization.
When she was two years old, Martin was displaced from her Mi鈥檊maw community through the Sixties Scoop and raised by French Canadian parents. Disconnected from her roots for most of her childhood, she lived and spoke like a French Canadian.
At the age of eight, she was reintroduced to her community of Gesgapegiag and began reconnecting with her language and culture.
鈥淭he Elders in the community, the teachers that spoke the language, took me under their wing,鈥� says Martin. 鈥淚 became so strongly connected to my community through the language that it really changed the trajectory of who I thought I was and who I was going to become.鈥�
Now Martin is trying to make it easier for others to learn the language by developing a Mi鈥檊maw verb conjugation database as part of a master鈥檚 degree in Education and Society.
鈥淚f you cannot conjugate, you cannot speak Mi鈥檊maw. This is just as important if not more important than a dictionary,鈥� says Martin, explaining that Mi鈥檊maw is a verb-based language.
Building the database involved having each conjugation vetted by a committee of Elders who are first-language Mi鈥檊maw speakers. 鈥淚t was through the sharing of remembrances, scenarios of use, and talking it out that the conjugations were put to the challenge and accepted through consensus,鈥� Martin explains in her database guide.
Acknowledging that not everyone can learn directly from Elders, Martin hopes her database will increase access to Mi鈥檊maw language resources and help educators build lessons.
The Rathlyn Fellowship allowed Martin 鈥渢o dedicate the time and care this project deserved,鈥� but it also gave her the resources to organize a celebratory feast for the Elders who contributed to the project.
鈥淚t was nice to be able to do that for them and show them how grateful I was. But not only that, it showed that 海角社区 recognizes the work they are doing. That even though they don't have degrees, they have so much knowledge that is essential to language revitalization,鈥� says Martin.
Indigenous knowledge meets AI
Though conducting research far from his home in Saskatchewan, M茅tis student Dane Malenfant, BA鈥�22, is bringing traditional Plains Indigenous knowledge to his work on artificial intelligence (AI).
Malenfant, who received a Rathlyn Fellowship in 2024 alongside Martin, is working in聽聽and is exploring whether it is possible to train AI to understand the principle of reciprocity.
鈥淩eciprocity is a core aspect of Plains Indigenous culture, but it鈥檚 something you aren't really taught explicitly or in writing. It's something that you're expected to do,鈥� says Malenfant, who was born in North Battleford (Treaty 6) and grew up in Regina (Treaty 4).
The idea for his project was inspired by traditional wooden effigies known as Manitokanac, which were used by Plains Indigenous peoples to store shared resources for long journeys.
鈥淭here's an expectation that you will give things you don't need, and that keeps the area replenished,鈥� Malenfant says. 鈥淭his is what I want AI to learn: that giving away something it doesn鈥檛 need will benefit it in the future.鈥�
鈥淚f you don't explicitly create a structure that incentivizes the sharing concept, then AI will just maximize their individual rewards, even if it means they won鈥檛 be able to complete a task.鈥�
Malenfant believes that building AI systems that are able to cooperate 鈥� both with other AI and humans 鈥� could be important in the future as AI becomes increasingly sophisticated and widespread.
As a master鈥檚 student in Computer Science, Malenfant is in the minority. Less than 2% of people working in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) are Indigenous according to the Conference Board of Canada.
Malenfant has noticed that funding for Indigenous students tends to be restricted to the fields of healthcare, education and the arts, and is grateful that the Rathlyn Fellowship is open to all programs.
He says the fellowship has helped draw attention to his research and the underrepresentation of Indigenous perspectives in STEM 鈥� an issue he has been working to improve through his involvement with the聽IMPRESS program聽at 海角社区 and the聽聽project at Mila 鈥� Quebec AI Institute.
Indigenous knowledge may not fit neatly into the scientific method, says Malenfant, but it can lead to 鈥渘ew solutions or at least new avenues for modern scientific ventures and inquiries.鈥�
Research as medicine
Rethinking expectations around what academic research should look like has been part of 海角社区鈥檚 Truth and Reconciliation efforts.
In the聽52 Calls to Action聽laid out by the Provost鈥檚 Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education, the University was 鈥渆ncouraged to recognize explicitly alternate, unorthodox modes of knowledge translation and sharing.鈥�
Professor Celeste Pedri-Spade, 海角社区鈥檚 Associate Provost (Indigenous Initiatives), explains why this rethinking is essential. 鈥淔or far too long, Indigenous peoples, and their respective ways of knowing and being, have been reduced and misrepresented by non-Indigenous researchers employing theories and methods that do not align with our own intellectual traditions.鈥�
鈥淚t is incredible and inspiring to see these Indigenous Rathlyn fellows approach their research in a manner that is personal and meaningful to them, but also expands our understanding of what research can and should do for our respective communities,鈥� says Pedri-Spade.
Whitebean, for example, views research as 鈥渟tory medicine鈥� that can create space for individuals and communities to heal.
鈥淯ltimately, research involves a lot of introspection and self-reflection,鈥� says Whitebean. 鈥淚 learned a lot about myself and how I was impacted personally. Then it ripples from there right into the community, into the nation, and then even in the generations.鈥�
