Universities need to value Indigenous knowledge, Mi'kmaw youth tells Senate committee

The Mi'kmaw perspective was among those presented on Wednesday, when eight youth leaders addressed the Senate standing committee on Indigenous Peoples in Ottawa.

Muin Ji'j (Bertram Bernard Jr.) from Eskasoni First Nation in Nova Scotia, shared his journey through the education system.

He called on academic institutions to place a higher value on the knowledge shared by Indigenous people. He said universities should take a two-eyed seeing approach, to see both through an Indigenous lens and a western lens. 

He said in his community, all the knowledge held about the world by an elder like Albert Marshall is equivalent to a PhD.

Muin Ji'j, who has a master of business administration degree from Cape Breton University (CBU) and a certificate from the Harvard School of Business, said getting an education is a path to success but he faced harmful stereotypes.

"I encountered many people telling me biased and stereotypical comments like, 'I didn't know Natives were actually smart,'" he told CBC News.

He said there needs to be continued education for the general public about Indigenous people, their history and their cultures.

"Our people have been here for tens of thousands of years and there's so much information and knowledge that people need to learn about our history and they're not being taught," he said.

More Indigenous professors needed

Nicole Augustine, who is L'nu from Elsipogtog First Nation, 56 kilometres north of Moncton, is heading to Wilfrid Laurier University for her PhD in social work. 

She said when writing papers she can't simply cite a community elder or her own experience as a Mi'kmaw woman because it's not peer reviewed. She agrees with Muin Ji'j that some areas of academic research don't value traditional ways of knowing, when many Indigenous people learn from the community around them. 

"That information is not valid in Western systems," said Augustine. 

Augustine would like to see professors recognize their Indigenous students also bring traditional ways of knowing. A solution she sees is bringing in more Indigenous professors. 

"We're having non-Indigenous professors teaching about Indigenous knowledge and spiritualities and our world view and that's difficult to understand as an L'nu person — having a settler person, a white person trying to explain to me what my world view is," said Augustine. 

Heidi Marshall, who is from Membertou First Nation in Nova Scotia and an adjunct professor at CBU teaching Indigenous studies and law, agrees.

Marshall said as a Mi'kmaw woman who learned from her mother and grandmother about the land and the Mi'kmaw way of life, she has hundreds of years of knowledge that's not always recognized by academic institutions. 

"I think that we need to ensure that our people and our knowledge holders are represented properly within the university, within the institution," Marshall said.