UBC Partnering in Research Conference: Reciprocal Storytelling in Community-Based and Indigenous-Led Research

Oliver Mann: Hello everyone and welcome. Thank you so much for joining us for today’s panel, Reciprocal storytelling and community based and indigenous led research. My name is Oliver Mann. I am a communication strategist at UBC’s Office of Community Engagement, and I’m thrilled to be moderating and contributing to this conversation. I’ve worked in communications at UBC for over a decade, supporting teams at the departmental, faculty and VP levels. 

Most recently, I completed a master of Arts in Professional communication at Royal Roads University, where my thesis focused on how Canadian universities tell stories about indigenous engagement. It advocates for indigenous led storytelling, calls for the decolonization of communication practices, and offers practical recommendations for how institutions and their communicators can share stories in more ethical and reciprocal ways. I’m a settler, and my heritage includes Costa Rican, West African, Spanish, Scottish, and English ancestry. 

Before we begin, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that UBC is partnering in research conference, and this audio recording is taking place at UBC Robson Square, which is situated on the unceded and stolen territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Earlier this morning, we were honoured with a beautiful welcome and land acknowledgment by Elder Roberta Price. 

But for those listening to the podcast recording, it’s important we recognize where this conversation is taking place. So today’s session is about storytelling, specifically reciprocal storytelling. This is an approach that centers community voices, respects diverse knowledge systems, and is grounded in genuine collaboration. Much of today’s conversation will focus on storytelling with indigenous partners, but many of the principles we’ll explore apply to any form of partnered research or community-based work. 

I’m incredibly fortunate to be joined by two outstanding speakers. They’re going to introduce themselves more fully in a moment, but I want to hype them up first. Derek Thompson is the director of Indigenous engagement in the Faculty of Medicine and the host of their Indigenous Speaker series. I had the privilege of attending one of his events last September, Coming Home, a ceremony and intergenerational conversation with survivors of the Indian residential school experience. 

It was one of the most powerful learning experiences I’ve had. If you don’t already follow his speaker series, Please do, it’s exceptional, and his next event on September 23rd will focus on how to best engage with BC First Nation communities in an era of truth and reconciliation. Julie Gordon brings a wealth of insight. When I was assembling this panel, Kevin Ward from UBC’s First Nations House of learning, who is the acting director, but also their communications manager, encouraged me to include settler communicators who are actively learning and navigating this space. Julie came highly recommended by several people at UBC. She’s worked in indigenous focused units, including a couple of years ago as the head of strategic communications at the Indian Residential School History and Dialog Center, and most recently working for UBC’s media relations team telling stories about indigenous engagement. 

She even worked, in my own office before I arrived, and my team still talks about her incredible storytelling. So thank you both for joining us. A quick roadmap for today’s conversation. We’ll start by exploring why we tell stories, looking at both institutional pressures and personal motivations. Then we’ll dive into the risks and barriers involved in this work. 

From there, we’ll move into practical advice, how to frame stories and embed reciprocity through the storytelling process. And finally, we’ll each share a favourite outcome from a time when storytelling felt truly reciprocal. At the end of our conversation, we’ll open it up, to audience Q&A. You’re welcome to submit questions at any time using Whova. Just go to our session on the agenda page and click the Q&A button. 

And at the end, we’ll review the questions and do our best to answer the most popular ones. So with that, let’s get into the conversation. So starting with Derek. Who are you and how does storytelling show up in your work? 

Derek Thompson: Good afternoon, folks, and Oliver, thank you for the introduction and certainly for the invite. It’s an honour to be here with Julie to talk about these important issues. I think the question you asked, first off, I think is probably the most important question for me. Who are you and where are you from? Last July 2024, my dad hosted a do in Duncan and invited a bunch of people, mostly family, extended family, other chiefs. 

So on. And he handed over his chieftainship to me. And along with that chiefly role and title came the name that he carried for many years in a role as our Čaabať   or hereditary chief in our family and community. And that name is Bookwilla. 

Mind you, my dad has for the last 30 years said we’ll do it this year. So, in my 56th year, it finally happened. But, an interesting thing happened throughout the day. So the potlatch, the do, the transfer of the seat happened throughout the day. We fed people. We gave our nieces and nephews ancestral names, sort of the goings on of a do typical of that nature when you’re handing over a chieftainship, the whole point is to express who you are and what your authority is. 

But a really interesting thing happened right at the end of the day when the do was essentially done, and it was completed and I was packing up things and in getting ready to leave myself, and, my grandpa Joe David came up behind me and he gave me this beautifully carved silver bracelet. It’s got two Thunderbirds and it’s got a whale in the center. But he gave this to me and he said, I really love your grandson. And he said, I got this bracelet reinforced in the back and he said, it’ll never break. 

Just like your chieftainship, it’ll never break. And I want you to have this. But he told me my late uncle, my dad’s brother, Art Thompson, carved it and he gave it to my uncle, Ron Hamilton. And my uncle Ron Hamilton had it for years. And my uncle Ron Hamilton then gave it to my Grandpa Joe David and 

My Grandpa Joe gave it to me. So, it was a beautiful thing and it was done out of the way. It was done privately between him and I, and it was over probably in less than five minutes, the exchange. He’s skittish that way. He’s just to the point, okay, bye. But what amazes me is, you know, in a chiefly role, you can be generous without being pompous. 

You can be generous without attracting attention. You can be generous without any of the acknowledgment or the recognition of giving something so beautiful and valuable. What’s remarkable is all of those men are world renowned artists. And I know Douglas Reynolds from the Douglas Reynolds Art Gallery. So I brought it to him. And he almost fell on the floor when he saw it. 

And he would value that at about $30,000 in a private collection. So its monetary value to me is astounding. And the fact that that act of generosity was done unconditionally says a lot about not only who I am, but who my Grandpa Joe is. So the curtain that you see hanging up is attached directly to these two Thunderbirds. 

So on each side you see two Thunderbirds above flames, you have two wolves flanked at the bottom. I was telling Oliver that, he asked me if I wanted to talk about it, and I said, Oliver, I could probably talk about that for a couple of semesters, so I’m not going to talk about it at length here, but it’s rich symbolism. 

Nuuchahnulth people, the people I come from, we make things because they need to be made in terms of function. What I find incredible about Nuuchahnulth people is that in addition to making things because they need to be made, we make beautiful things that express who we are and where we’re from. Incomparable to any other First Nation or Indigenous people in North America, even the world. 

So its rich symbolism speaks to my authority. It speaks to my sovereignty, and it speaks to the exact geography and resources that I own in my role as hereditary chief. So my name is Bookwilla, and I come from the Ditidaht First Nation, and we’re one of 14 Nuuchahnulth  nations along the West Coast of Vancouver Island. 

Oliver Mann: Thank you, Derek. And, Julie, same question. Who are you and how does storytelling show up in your work?

Julie Gordon: Thank you, Oliver, and thanks—t’s an honour to be included on this panel. I’m sitting here thinking, how am I ever going to introduce myself after Derek? I’ll be much more brief. I’m of settler heritage, English and Irish. I grew up in downtown Toronto and moved to the West Coast, Coast Salish territories, in 1993 for the first time. 

And, honestly, I’ve moved here always wanting to be a storyteller, always wanting to be a communicator. I was at the time working in environmental communications, but I really had a very profound lack of understanding of Canada’s history, or pre-history, with indigenous people here. So at some point along the line, I sort of have fallen into this work. 

I realized once I lived out West just how much I didn’t know. And I started to think, this is something I’d like to explore as a storyteller and just as a human. And so in and around about 2003, I think, I was invited to write a treaty booklet for a group of First Nations on Vancouver Island. 

And that sort of took my storytelling career in a different direction. And so since then, the last 20 plus years, I’ve done communication and storytelling work on behalf of and with First Nations communities, people and organizations. And I’m still learning an awful lot. But I love to tell story, and I feel like it’s an important way that we engage with one another and learn how to be better people. And I hope I answered that question. 

Oliver Mann: Thank you. Julie. So this panel is about reciprocal storytelling. But as we all know, storytelling in institutional settings often comes with competing demands. So I want to begin by having a transparent conversation. Why do you tell stories and what are you being asked to achieve on behalf of your institution? And also what personally drives you to do this work? 

So starting with Derek, you’re not in a formal communications role, but your Indigenous Speaker series is storytelling. And so why has that approach been effective for your goals in Indigenous engagement? 

Derek Thompson: Good question. I’m just going to pass this around so people can take a look at it. I often think we need to handle these things. We often just see these things behind the museum glass. Right. And we’re never able to. But nobody I know who will steal. So don’t steal it. 

Yeah, that’s a good question. So when I started, I first started in 2021 with the UBC Faculty Medicine as the Indigenous Advisor in the Office of Respectful Environments, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. And for the first few months, I was still living in Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island and Roslyn, the Executive Director of the REDI office then, set up a meeting for our first in person ready team meeting that September. And she asked me to put together a PowerPoint presentation of what I thought were important things to think about, about all things indigenous within the context of the REDI mandate. So I did, and we got there and my presentation was likely about three hours. And the foundation of my PowerPoint was to propose the idea that the conversation hadn’t even begun between those who are from here and those who arrived here to stay. 

So if that hasn’t happened yet to any great degree, how then do you begin the process of reconciliation, which is, by definition, to reestablish a once thriving, healthy, functional relationship? So in many ways, what we’re doing is conciliation, right? We’re beginning at the starting line of a process that we’re really just starting to figure out. So my take on that was how then do we begin these conversations? 

And I knew going in that I needed to begin with leadership. So I established key relations with Roslyn Goldner, all of the folks, the vice deans and the deans, executive team, Dean Kelleher himself, and really started working at establishing and sustaining those key relationships within the Faculty of Medicine. The decision makers. The people with the authority and the mandate to affect change. 

And in the midst of that, was the very first annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, September 30th, 2021. And just prior to that, in June, on the 25th of June, the Faculty of Medicine made its formal apology for its part in the ongoing oppression and assimilation of Indigenous peoples in this province and across the country. Just that spring is when the Kamloops Indian Band announced the 215 potential gravesites at the former site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. 

So there was a lot going on. We were a few months into the new Covid 19 vaccine, just coming out of the shadow of Covid 19. A lot of stuff was happening. And in the midst of that, as if there wasn’t enough stuff going on, the Prime Minister skipped out on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. 

And, despite an invite from Chief Casimir of the Kamloops Indian Band to come to a ceremony to acknowledge the first annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. So I guess by virtue of my role, many people were asking me, hey, Derek, what do you think about the Prime Minister skipping out of the national day for Truth and Reconciliation? 

And I thought, well, who cares what I think? I want to know what Chief Casimir thinks, and I want to know what Chief Wayne Christian thinks, who was also at that ceremony in addition to being a foundational, profound leader amongst B.C. First Nations. Chief Wayne Christian is also a medicine man among his people. So I phoned Chief Christian up and I said, hey, what do you think about the Prime Minister skipping out? 

So I organized a conversation. That was Roslyn’s idea to ask Chief Christian and Chief Casimir about, you know, the broader context of truth and reconciliation. And, Chief Casimir, confirmed to attend, but right at that time, in November of that year, there was lots of flooding in her community and in that region. 

So she wasn’t able to make it. But Chief Christian showed up and man, did he show up. And we had a really meaningful, profound conversation for about 90 minutes about the importance of showing up in an era of truth and reconciliation. So instead of showing up to apologize for not showing up, to apologize for the wrongs of the past, how important is it for leadership to be present and to participate, and to be active members in the processes that we call truth and reconciliation? 

So the recordings there. You can find it on the REDI website. It’s an amazing conversation. But we only intended that conversation to be a one off. I had no intention of expanding the conversation until afterwards, when we learned that there were close to 400 people that showed up and stayed the whole 90 minutes. So Roslyn and I sat down and talked it out and figured, oh, maybe we’re on to something here. 

So I began with Roslyn’s idea and just expanded the conversation. I sat down with a friend of mine named Sebastian Silva who owns Round Table Consulting, who lives on Salt Spring Island. I did a lot of work with him when I was working with Cowichan Tribes on strategic planning and that kind of stuff. 

So we met a few times to sort of map out what would the conversation look like. And Sebastian reminded me, you gotta remember, Derek, you like to talk as well. So if you watch the series, I’ll always sort of provide a bit of context before I actually lead into a question. 

So it gives the opportunity of a balanced conversation. So the basic idea around it is an opportunity for non-Indigenous folks, because I get asked a lot, how do we approach these sometimes complex conversations? So, it’s an opportunity really to reflect., well, this is how, right. It’s the importance of being honest, vulnerable, brave and, really bringing yourself into sort of the processes between these types of issues within the context of health and the Faculty of Medicine. 

And then for Indigenous folks, it’s an opportunity to see and hear themselves inside a conversation and really reflect on what it means to be Indigenous in these spaces that we call TRC. And it was Chief Christian, when I talked to him before we began the conversation, he said, I want to sing a song, a prayer song first to invite our ancestors into the space. So he did. And so if you watch the series from one speaker to the next, I borrowed off that idea. And before we begin a conversation, I invite our ancestors into the space. And for Nuuchahnulth  folks, the basic reason why we do that is to seat our ancestors. They’re there to bear witness to the work we do. 

They’re there to dignify us, to dignify our conversation in the way we interact with each other. So it’s not an aesthetic exercise. It’s literally to invite our ancestors into that space and make it meaningful in that way. So we’re now going on to four years of the speaker series. And we see we’ve seen all the numbers only increase, we average about 300 people per speaker. Last September, the one you referenced, there were 600 that sustained throughout the day online and in-person. 

And, for this September, we already have well over 400 registered, and we haven’t even gotten agenda together yet. So I think there’s a keen interest from folks to really get at these conversations as well as how do we build a relationship, how do we bring our people into these conversations. Right. And so, yeah, I’ll stop there.  

Oliver Mann: So Julie, talking about the motivations behind stories, I’m really curious to ask you, how did your storytelling objectives shift when you’re working in an office like the Office of Indigenous Strategic Initiatives at UBC, compared to when you worked in UBC’s Media Relations team? 

Julie Gordon: Yeah. Thank you, Oliver. That’s a great question. And I love that you started with kind of the objective of storytelling—the why? So I’m going to come back to that in just a second, but I’ll just give a tiny bit more context maybe first to say that in my 30 year career, I’ve been autonomous, almost all of it. 

I’ve been self-employed, freelance, except for my little diversion when I worked with UBC for about just under five years. So it really was quite different for me, working from within an institutionalized environment, particularly one with colonial roots, to working prior to that, I sort of said to myself, I was going to work with and on behalf of Indigenous communities and organizations, in fact, I turned work down for the province because it felt a little bit wrong to me. 

That particular job that I was offered had an agenda. And I think to answer your question, kind of comes down to intention and motivation. So working as a communicator or storyteller for the Indigenous Research Support Initiative, for example, same with the Community Engagement office, I think that the baseline intention and motivation for co-creating stories is about relationship building. 

Yes, we’re communicators. And yes, we’re also trying, of course, to let people know what those units do. But I think at the bottom, underneath all of that is this desire to honestly build relationships with those community partners and with the staff, students and faculty that are working with them. In my short contract stint with Media Relations and Central Communications, I think they’re just by definition coming from a different place, modus operandi or raison d’etre, I guess, if you will, which is about amplifying the brand and reputation of the university. 

So the premise is just different right from the get go. If you’re working to build a relationship, it’s really about the people. It’s about the process and honouring and respecting the collaborators, even to the point where the story that you originally thought you were going to tell doesn’t get told. Whether it shifts and becomes a totally different story or has to get shelved because it’s not serving somebody. 

Yeah, I guess that defines the real difference. It’s a relational process. Whereas, working with media relations and central comms, my experience was it was a much more transactional process, and it’s hard to get away from that. I mean, they have their mandate as a unit, as does every central communications office in any institutionalized setting. 

But, it really becomes a lot harder to take that relational approach, whether it’s how much time you’re given, how many resources you’re given or the expected outcomes. Everything shifts, really. 

Oliver Mann: Thank you, Julie. Before jumping onto the next question, I want to talk a little bit about the research that I did as well. As I mentioned in my intro, my thesis research was about how universities communicate about their partnerships with First Nations and Indigenous partners. And I got to interview leaders of indigenous engagement like Derek and then communicators like Julie from institutions across Canada that were telling these stories. 

And I wanted to share a little bit about the personal motivations behind these stories, particularly as I said, and all the communicators I interviewed were settlers. I think telling these types of stories is a way for us to contribute to truth and reconciliation, in a way, I think, especially when I think about the calls to actions its specifically on journalists to advance truth. 

I think that’s an opportunity as a communicator, as well. I think there are amazing learning opportunities as well. Like any time I have the opportunity to listen to someone else’s story, it challenges me, I think, a lot, and I get to unlearn and learn. And then I heard from a lot of communicators, too, that this type of storytelling demands more creativity, which I really like. 

There’s more opportunities to go beyond just an 800 word Q&A, where you can do podcasts, you can do videos, you can do more events like Derek’s doing, and so, yeah, I just wanted to talk a little bit about that personal element of why an individual beyond the institution might want to tell these stories. 

So I want to talk now about the risks of telling these types of stories, especially when it involves communities who have experienced harm, erasure or misrepresentation. What risks or consequences concern you most when it comes to storytelling about partnership? Can I start with you, Julie? 

Julie Gordon: Yeah. I mean, I guess when I read that question, the first thing that came to my mind was the potential for doing harm to somebody is actually a fairly high risk that comes along with some of the storytelling that I was asked to do or was involved in. In particular working with the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. 

So I was offered a job to come in and lead their communications in 2021, just immediately after the T’kemlups discovery happened and leadership at the Residential School Center realized, we’re going to get slammed with a lot of requests for communications. We’re going to have the media after us, Internal Communications wanting to have statements and stories, and we’re not really prepared for it. 

We need help. So that was a really challenging time because what did in fact happen was we had everything from mainstream media to journalism students to internal communicators coming and asking questions that were often really, really awkward. The most frequent question I feel like I got was, we’d like to speak to a Survivor. 

Can you put us in touch with this Survivor? And we want to hear their personal story. And so, of course, I wasn’t really in a storytelling mode at that point. I was in kind of a, the word that came to my mind was gatekeeping, but I felt like as a team we were in a protective mode, because some of those people were really coming forward with very aggressive, very inappropriate and really maybe hurtful questions. 

And of course, some of those stories got told. And then there was and still is a whole wave of media that are looking to poke the sort of denialist storytelling narratives. So, I guess the biggest risk I have felt is the possibility that harm will be done. And at that point, I think I was into my chunk of my career telling stories on behalf of Indigenous people for about 15 years. 

But I still made a major faux pas, which was, or, almost did, because my team, thankfully, was there to talk me out of it. But, trying to tell the story of the residential school system to a widespread audience that now wanted to know more,the Residential School Center has in its collection of archives a lot of archival imagery from schools, of students, and of the schools themselves, and of the nuns and priests that were at the schools. And a picture, as every storyteller knows, tells us a thousand words. So, my inclination was to choose images that were impactful. And it took me a little while, to be honest, for my colleagues to say to me, it’s not okay to use these images of people, of children, because those kids who’ve now grown up, they may no longer be around, and a family member might see those images when they’re published, or someone might see an image of themselves or a similar setting. 

And it might be really triggering. So, yeah, I guess I just tell that story because I think even the best intentioned of us can step into that mistake quite easily and possibly cause harm to someone. So it does take a lot of thinking when you’re telling other peoples’ stories. And a lot of caution. 

Oliver Mann: Derek, what concerns you? 

Derek Thompson: If you consider amongst Nuuchahnulth  people, the people I come from, our hereditary chiefs in all of our Nuuchahnulth  communities, the most important thing a chief can do, the highest thing a chief can do above anything else, of all the things a chief can do, the most important thing a chief does is to acknowledge young girls at the exact moment they become young women. 

This is a very public display of honour and respect of the girls and women in our community. In our potlatch, there’s a ceremony of a swing that’s constructed. And the young girl at the moment of her first period is placed on that swing. And there are young girls behind her, younger girls behind her, her cousins, her sisters, pushing her towards grandmothers and aunties, and her mother in front of her. 

So, she’s simultaneously experiencing the giddiness of still being a little girl and at at the same time, the measure of what it means and what it takes to become a woman, right? That’s an incredible thing that of all of the things our chiefs do, that’s the most important thing. And that links back to another ceremony amongst Nuuchahnulth  called, Aa-aa-stim-qwah , when our babies are born, when they’re first born and they’re brought into the world, we hold them up publicly as precious. 

They’re precious to us, and they’re often assigned a name, they’re told about their lineage, who they are and where they come from. And for the rest of their life, the trajectory of their life, they’re taught about all of those important things, about how to be in the world, how to be useful in the world, how to be good to people in the world, how to be generous to people in the world. 

How to carry yourself in the world. So, in my time with Cowichan Tribes, just outside the  Ts’ewulhtun health center, there’s a beautiful totem pole standing there that was erected when the health center was first built. And it was carved by my late uncle Art, the same uncle that carved the bracelet that is going around. 

And right at the foundation of that totem pole is a frog. And on top of the frog is a human figure. And the human figure is embracing a sockeye salmon. On the top of the head of the human figure is a beautiful Xway-xway  mask. And the Xway-xway  mask, and the Xway-xway this dance, and the songs that go with the Xway-xway  are the highest, most important ceremony among the Cowichan Tribes people. Specifically, and generally among Coast Salish peoples. It’s their most highest thing they do. So, when I was there as the Director of Health, in about 2016, 2017, we learned that Cowichan Tribes had the highest rate of preterm births than any other First Nation in Canada, not just the province, in Canada. So we thought, well, that’s interesting.  

We need to figure out why. So we found some money with the Vancouver Foundation to ask that very question, why? And because we didn’t have the research capacity within the community, we leaned on the First Nations Health Authority and Island Health to help us develop our SOPs and all of the sort of technical, formal processes that you go through to determine that your instruments are not going to be harmful to to the community. 

But before I did that, I insisted on calling those partners in, and for the better part of a year and a half, we instructed them on that totem pole, and we started developing programs where we brought moms together, new moms together, their mothers, grandmothers, aunties, nieces, cousins, and we started drawing on the strength of their ceremonies to uphold their children as precious, to introduce their babies to the community. 

So we started building these ceremonies into the community health framework. Particularly with help from the elders program. And we started building on this momentum within that research project to really get at, not only the scientific evidence, the qualitative evidence of why this is happening and what we need to do to fix it. But it’s it seemed to the elders in the community, the mothers in the community, that language, identity, sense of belonging and purpose were also equally relevant to that question. 

Why is this happening? So we needed to make an equal measure of momentum towards figuring that aspect out, as well. And what culminated in about a year and a half of relationship building, the community came together, and the elders decided to call those researchers in, and we had a daylong ceremony where we blanketed them. 

The community blanketed them, thanked them, gave them beautiful woven headbands, and that was the community’s way of saying, we’ve now sanctioned your research. We’ve approved your research. Now you can go ahead and do the work. So I really think there’s risk in not getting at that aspect of the work, the balance of the work, and really getting to understand what are the consequences of loss of language? 

What are the consequences of loss of identity? What are the consequences of the ongoing continuing effects of the Indian residential school in this community? And what can we do to start instituting what are highly just as important, getting at the measure of what it means to be a newborn, a mom bringing your first child into the world. 

And what do new moms need? And what do moms need who’ve lost their children as a result of pre-term birth? Because if you do the health economics, do the math, 173 children pre-term birth, if they don’t get the care they need, it’s a greater cost to any health system over time. It makes more economical sense to figure out the balance of the relationship between those who are from here and those who arrived here, particularly in health systems like Island Health. 

So, you know, I think we’re at the starting line of figuring out the tensions between OCAP, ownership, control, access and possession, and the tTri-Council Policy Statement statement on Aboriginal research. These two processes are seemingly irreconcilable because they refuse to compromise or negotiate that space around methodologies and those kinds of things. How you do research in our communities. 

So, it’s time. And often researchers are assigned to a timeline. They have things they need to submit on time, and so on and so forth. I was clear with those folks as the director saying, well, if you can’t be here, we’ll find somebody else, or we’ll give the money back. Because if you don’t want to be here and invest the time, smell you later. Because I just think people have it in them that there’s this sort of really, rigid, westernized approach to doing research, which is fine. 

It’s not a criticism. But there’s also this equal balance of this aspect of truth and reconciliation where you risk not learning something about yourself in the midst of doing important work. 

Oliver Mann: So I’ve been doing a bad job at timekeeping. We have seven minutes left, so I think I’m going to jump to a question about framing to end this conversation. So what advice do you have for how we can frame stories in ways that support reciprocity? Julie, can you start? 

Julie Gordon: When I worked with the Indigenous Research Support Initiative, the very first thing that I walked into was a gathering where, the unit was bringing in particular community partners, Indigenous community partners, to create a set of principles of engagement which now exist. 

I don’t know if everyone knows about them on the IRSI website and UBC websites, but, as I listened through that process, I realized that there the same principles of engagement that I think storytellers can and should be using. So, for framing our stories, I think one of the principles of engagement, I don’t remember all of them super well, but one of them was something like flexibility and fluidity. 

And I think as a storyteller, I try to go in and find out what story wants to be told, or what story the community partner wants to tell. I think allowing that to bring itself to the fore is really important. I think framing by elevating the community partner voices, not my voice. I think I’ve had to do a lot of work with my own ego, but just sort of taking a step back and letting the people who the stories are really about, letting as much as possible of the story be told through their voices. 

Yeah. Think of it as a process as well. One of the projects that I worked on with Media Relations was to tell the story of the Longhouse’s 25th anniversary, is that right, Kevin? 30th. I’m sorry. So that was interesting insofar as, again, that was a process and the very first draft of that story that we started with had one sort of core theme, and at the end it shifted a little bit more to a different theme. 

Of the people involved in their experience in the way it was a home away from home for students, and it was a process of working with Kevin and some of the former students who really called the Longhouse home. So, yeah, I think just amplifying those voices is probably the top thing I would think of for framing. 

Oliver Mann: Thanks, Julie. I’ll share. And then I really want to end with you, Derek, if you’re okay with that. So I think one of the best pieces of advice that I ever received about storytelling is, you can tell you can tell just a beautiful story about a community or a First Nations group that are doing the work and solving their own problems, 

and the researchers just kind of happened to be there. There’s this big risk that institutions have where they try to tell stories where the researchers are the saviours, and that could lead to a lot of harm. I think a really simple framing technique that I like to employ in my stories is to have the community partners define their own problems in the story and then lead the conversation about the solutions, and then the researchers can really contribute to that. 

Yeah, so that’s a short one from me. And then, Derek, if you’d like to conclude. 

Derek Thompson: I’m glad you asked all the easy questions. 

I often hear, in the work that I do, in almost every circumstance where I’m doing work on behalf of the Faculty of Medicine, I inevitably hear 1 or 2 or even a handful of people say, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know about Indian residential schools, I didn’t know about the Indian Act, I didn’t know Indians were in segregated Indian reserves. 

To which I exclaim, well, you know now, right? So that to me, I’m often curious and concerned. I firmly believe that we are never so steeped in history as when we pretend not to be. 

I often think that being naive, naivete, ignorant, is a tool for colonial or new settlers. And it’s a mistake for people like myself to accept naivete. So I often think, well, what is ignorance indicative of? Right? What is sustained ignorance indicative of? Well, if you sustain that long enough, they become policy, they become principles. They even become racist, which is what I think the commissioner has pointed out in 2015. That almost every system, arguably every system in Canada that is working for or with or towards First Nations people, Indigenous peoples, is based on racism and discrimination. 

And Murray Sinclair was so eloquently pointing out the facts, and if you don’t believe me, here are the facts. Here’s the evidence. Right? So it’s all there for us to understand. So at some point in the conversation, I’ll hopefully stop hearing people say, I didn’t know that. Well, how come I know it? I’m Indigenous and I know that, right? 

So I think there’s a real need to reciprocate what is, in many ways, your culture. 

Your culture. It’s Canada’s culture. Canada and it’s Canadians. It’s your culture, right? We’d be foolish to think that this country doesn’t have a culture. It does. And it’s made up from the many Canadians that represent this country. We were excluded from that defining. The intent was to get rid of us. That’s already been proven through the United Nations. 

These are called acts of genocide. If you don’t believe me, read the United Nations Convention on Genocide. It’s all there in black and white. So the intention was to get rid of us, to kill us off. And you killed off a lot of our people. This country killed a lot of our people through many policies, mechanisms, and other things. 

So I think there’s a real urgency that I hear regularly about the need for Canada and its Canadians to come to terms with its own history. Because for 59 minutes, I get to talk about your history, and for a minute I get to talk about mine. So the conversation hasn’t even begun. And I think reciprocity, the acts of reconciliation are interesting words, but it takes every one of us to really get at the defining of what that means to re-right, and to rewrite our history. There was a beautiful human being 

I met right after that conversation with Wayne Christian. Her name was Joanne Mah. She worked as an associate professor at UGME. Five minutes after that conversation with Wayne Christian, I got an email from Joanne Mah demanding to meet with me. So we met and we had probably talked for three hours at the first meeting. And from that point on, we met every month. 

I met her husband, her children. We’d go out for Chinese food and go for coffee. I developed a beautiful friendship with Joanne Mah. Sadly, she passed away in January. 

But she was a strong champion of the speaker series, and she firmly believed in the value of our individual and collective story. Her parents came from China, and I always say in this work, if you don’t believe me as an Indigenous person, ask Chinese people about their experience in this country. Ask Japanese people about their experience in this country. 

Ask Jewish people about your experience in this country. Right? So this country was hell bent on creating a white dominant race in this country. I really think we need to figure out that that tension about reciprocity and that it’s not enough to just say, well, I didn’t know that. Well, you know, now, so 50, 100, 150 years from now, what will those chapters of history, Canada’s history, say? 

Because this time we’re holding the pen. We get to write it. And if you remain largely ignorant and indifferent, that’s what we’re gonna write. Right? So I think the, the, the ability to reciprocate those things becomes critically important. It’s too flimsy, it’s a weasel way out to say, well, that’s not me. You got three professors denouncing the land acknowledgment, all the power to you, because there are more people who believe it’s important. 

So we need you to speak up. Non-Indigenous people. Don’t lean on me to say, hey, Derek, what do you think about the three professors? Who gives a shit what I think. What do you think? It should matter to you. I really think there needs to be that really deliberate effort on non-Indigenous folks to really reciprocate the work being done to to really make Canada a very rich and unique place to to call our home. 

It’s our home. 

Oliver Mann: Alright. Thank you so much, Derek and Julie. And thanks to everybody for attending our talk. 

We do have five minutes. If you want to do a Q&A, I can look on the app to see if there’s anything there. 

One question. 

How can settler storytellers ensure there is Indigenous ownership of their stories? That’s a great question. Do either of you want to answer? 

Julie Gordon: I think prioritizing the voice of the Indigenous people who are in the stories is critical. I’ve put some stories together that really are just Q&As even though as a writer, I really like writing, I want to be able to get creative and write. But at times I think, well, this person is going to articulate every message much better than I can. 

So, a Q&A or even an audio, podcast, or a video, a clear acknowledgment of who’s participated in the story. I think I found myself sometimes in the place too where I’ve been the researcher, interviewer, and writer, and then I worked with an editor or a publisher who’s kind of going to have the final take on the story. 

And I found myself in a place where I need to advocate, in fact, I’m going through that right now. I’m going through edits of a story where I’m plunking back in quotes that the editor’s taken out, where an Indigenous person who I interviewed in the story has said something, and the editor decided, oh, I can say this more briefly and concisely without a quote. 

And I’ve just said, no, we’re not doing that because these are the words that the person gave me, and they’re nuanced and they’re meaningful. And I’d rather have them say this specifically than, you know, have you rewrite it. So I think we do have to kind of be advocates if we want to be allies in storytelling. 

Oliver Mann: You can tell that I’m so bad at timekeeping because I thought we had five minutes, but we’re actually five minutes over. So, yeah, if anybody has any more questions, we’re happy to stick around and just kind of answer them off the record. 

All right. Thank you, everyone.