Indigenizing the Legal Academy from a Decolonizing Perspective
24 Pages Posted: 17 Jul 2015
Date Written: July 15, 2015
Abstract
How can law schools promote the Indigenization of the law school curriculum that is consistent with a decolonization theory and Indigenous sovereignty recognition? Do we risk inadvertently mirroring colonial patterns of power by our very efforts to include Indigenous normative principles in an institution of higher learning that is fundamentally Western in nature? This essay is an exploration of these difficult and related questions. In examining these questions, I am mindful that respectful inclusion of Indigenous legal traditions is potentially not only an effective demonstration of decolonizational reform in itself, but inclusion within the existing legal academy may also result in the law school becoming a liberating place for transystemic post-colonial mediation.
I will begin by first making some comments about the decolonization movement of education more generally. I will then briefly describe the University of Ottawa’s Indigenous peoples law stream plan for 2016. I will then clarify what I mean by “Indigenizing legal education”. I then want to provide a critical discussion of the project of indigenizing legal education where I raise some of the troubling questions outlined above and offer some initial thoughts and observations.
Keywords: indigenizing legal education; legal education; decolonization; Indigenous legal traditions
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