Easing Indigenous reconciliation fatigue among Indigenous faculty members in Ontario universities (PI, current)


Co-PIs Keri Cheechoo and Nicole Wemigwans


After the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action, efforts to advance reconciliation proliferated across Canadian institutions. Within Ontario universities, efforts involved the creation of mandatory Indigenous courses, the hiring of Indigenous faculty members across disciplines, the creating new Indigenous learning and research spaces, the advancement of new policies and professional faculty and staff training programs. These endeavours have undeniably placed greater responsibility on Indigenous faculty members to both lead and educate primarily non-Indigenous administrators, faculty and staff, while simultaneously encountering ongoing forms of systemic exclusion, racism, and colonialism. Many Indigenous faculty members have described the emotional, psychological and embodied impacts of this added responsibility as reconciliation fatigue, a prolonged experience, which has resulted in enormous stress, frequent burnout, and high turnover. Notwithstanding clear acknowledgements of the effects of reconciliation work, in-depth research on Indigenous faculty members’ experiences with reconciliation fatigue is lacking, as are proactive culturally relevant opportunities to combat this institutional colonial problem. Rooted within an Indigenous paradigm (Wilson, 2009), this study takes an Indigenous community-driven qualitative methodological approach (Kovach, 2021) to examine the impacts of post-Truth and Reconciliation fatigue on Indigenous Ontario university faculty members. The research addresses two critical questions: a) How do Indigenous faculty members experience and manage reconciliation fatigue while working in Ontario universities? b) How do university cultures, policies, and practices contribute to Indigenous faculty member’s wellness and mitigate against the harms of reconciliation fatigue? 

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