Decolonization in Education: A Racialized Settler's Positionality Statement in Doctoral Research
As a first-generation immigrant to Canada from South Korea, my lived experiences include learning English as a Second Language (ESL), assimilating to Euro-Western cultural and societal norms in Anglo-Canada, and receiving academic and professional training as a teacher in the Canadian variation of English.
My research interests in decolonization and reconciliation stem from my efforts to meaningfully Indigenize my classroom, which consists mostly of racialized students. As a racialized settler myself, I initially struggled to decolonize my own mindset in order to embrace Indigenization as a step toward reconciliation. I observed similar struggles in my racialized students, which made me feel as though it was the blind leading the blind. Interviewing peers who were also racialized teachers revealed to me that similar struggles were widespread.
Given that racialized settlers often choose assimilation to survive and thrive in Canada’s Euro-Western colonial society, many find it difficult to recognize the varying degrees of settler privilege they have gained at the expense of Indigenous lands and peoples. Additionally, because racialized settlers have had to work harder to gain a lesser amount of settler privilege compared to their white counterparts, undoing internalized colonialism to decolonize for Indigenization feels like an even greater challenge.
Having spent the majority of my life in Edmonton, I am an example of a racialized settler who has successfully assimilated to Anglo-Canadian ways of being in pursuit of status and privilege as a scholar-practitioner. I recognize that I can self-fund my studies in the Doctor of Education program by using the income I earn as a teacher, working within the colonial institution of public schooling, which indoctrinates youth into speaking English and/or French and normalizes Euro-Western ways of thinking and being.
My doctoral studies also take place within the Western colonial educational ecosystem of universities and post-secondary institutions, which are inaccessible to many who have not successfully assimilated to the rigorous colonial criteria set by old white men—criteria that value Eurocentric knowledge systems and ways of learning. Despite these limitations in my lived experience, I believe in reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the importance of decolonizing the lands, our society, and our interconnectedness with all beings.
It is my aim to further the knowledge required for decolonization, particularly regarding racialized settlers in Canada, and to create more spaces for the wisdom of ancestral Indigenous knowledge systems to become valued on equal terms with reciprocity and mutual respect alongside settler knowledges, toward a pluralistic and decolonized future.