Assistant Professor University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
As Canada grapples with legacies of genocidal projects (e.g., Indian Residential Schools), there is a push to create space for Indigenous scholars in the academy, to "decolonize" and "Indigenize" academic spaces and research practises, including in STEM. Scientific culture and career benchmarks are, however, underpinned by Western settler-colonial systems of value; "success" in these systems is fundamentally assimilative to practises and ethos frequently in conflict with Indigenous peoples' deep cultures. Here, I deconstruct lived aspects of Western scientific culture through a lens of nehiyawak values, and envision how asserting these "good ways" could transform lab cultures and practises.
