Essay Response to Videos on Culture and Community
For: ETEC 521 (Michael Marker), U.B.C.
Part 1: Through the Eyes of the Gitxaata Nation: Seeking Authenticity in Indigenous Research
Part 2: Dr. Lee Brown on Emotional Skills: I feel therefore I am
Through the Eyes of the Gitxaata Nation: Seeking Authenticity in Indigenous Research
As the curriculum leader of a digital film communication program, I have often facilitated the production of documentaries. Watching the ethnographic video about the Gitxaata people brought back memories of similar ethical issues experienced by my students.
On a recent service trip to Ecuador, for instance, some of my film students decided to take cameras and record the experience. Their intent was to create an audio-visual document that would be used as a promotional and fund raising tool by the Ecuadorian orphanage. The challenges they encountered included the language barrier; conflicting value systems; technological disparity and distinctive philosophical perspectives.
Language barrier or linguistic treasure? On such a service trip, where Anglophones traveled to give charitable assistance to Hispanics, linguistic differences could have created a structure of dominance and subordination. In fact, languages can come to represent the relationship between giver and receiver, needy and wealthy.
According to a language needs assessment concerning the Gitxaata nation (2008), out of the 1700 community members who speak Sm’algyax: 20 speakers are fluent, 55 understand or speak to some extent, and 8 are learning the dialect[i]. From an observer’s point of view, these modest numbers can result in a tendency to marginalize the Sm’algyax speakers. On the other hand, the dialect can be perceived as a precious cultural resource to be nurtured and preserved.
The danger, for the UBC researchers who spoke the predominant English language, was to stereotype the Gitxaata as a marginalized group. This type of categorization could have confined their opinion of the population to a lower social standing. It may also have given the academics a justification for denying the indigenous participants a degree of power in the investigations’ procedures. Thankfully, the video shows that the investigators chose to value the Gitxaata’s uniqueness, an attitude that encouraged the creation of a respectful research process.
(To read the complete original paper, click: ETEC 521 Brown & Gitxaata videos final)
Dr. Lee Brown on Emotional Skills: I feel therefore I am
The previous discussion outlined the importance of esteeming indigenous community members in order to get to the heart of their reality. In his scholarly commentary on the importance of harmonizing the heart and mind in native education, Dr. Lee Brown sheds more light on the power of emotions.
His observations are centered, not so much on the way others see Aboriginals, but rather on indigenous people’s own emotional competency. The coordinator of the “Emotional Education Initiative”[iii] at UBC defines affective competence as a combination of skills allowing First Nations to facilitate the transformation of their destructive emotions in constructive experiences.
(To read the complete original paper, click: ETEC 521 Brown & Gitxaata videos final)