Indigenous engineering - building a better future: Getting Started

As a profession, engineers are committed to:

• The ideas of transparency and accountability;
• Relationships based on trust, and;
• Including diverse peoples and perspectives to enrich their work.(1)

Because of this, engineers and engineering students should treat reconciliation as a professional responsibility to seek transparency and accountability, truth, and to integrate Indigenous perspectives and ways of knowing to their approaches in their respective fields of engineering.(2)

What is Decolonization, Indigenization, and Reconciliation?

Decolonization: to deconstruct colonial ideologies of the superiority and privilege of Western thought and approaches.(3)

Indigenization: the process of incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing and learning, technology, guiding principles, and knowledge systems into schools, businesses, governments, and institutions.(4)

Reconciliation: establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada.(4)

As efforts to decolonize the profession and education of engineers breakdown colonial ideologies, space can be made for including Indigenous concepts of science, math and other knowledge systems in classrooms, design work, and research, which can lead to reconciliation.(4)

References:

1. Engineers Canada: https://engineerscanada.ca/about/about-engineers-canada Accessed 5 October 2023.

2. Seniuk Cicek J, Herrman R, Forrest R, Monkman K. Decolonizing and Indigenizing Engineering: The Design & Implementation of a New Course. Proc 2022 Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA22) Conf.

3. Antoine A, Mason R, et al. (2018) Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers Victoria, BC: BC Campus.

4. Wolf P, Gonzalez A, Rattray C, Saha D, Shaw J, Martinussen N, and Harris B. (2022) Decolonizing the Engineering Curriculum. University of British Columbia, Open UBC.

The resources collected here have a wide range of audiences:

Students: For students who are either Indigenous or settler in origin. The sections most useful to you may include: Inclusive Collaborations, Finding and Citing Indigenous Scholars, and Want to Know More. 

Researchers: For researchers who are either Indigenous or settler in origin. The sections most useful to you may include Inclusive Collaborations, Respectful Research, and Finding and Citing Indigenous Authors.

What this resource is not:

The final authority on Indigenous people and their relationship/involvement in the profession of engineering. This guide should be used in conjunction with other resources.

Ryan Ball (he/him) is a non-Indigenous settler, working as a Science & Engineering Librarian at the University of Waterloo’s Library.  Ryan recognizes the power information has and the ongoing harms of colonialism including the appropriation, misrepresentation, and dismissal of traditional knowledges and ways of knowing, and how libraries have historically contributed to perpetuating these harms. Ryan is committed to listening, and ongoing learning to help grow the Library into a shared and collaborative community space that is respectful and welcoming for everyone.

Rachel Figueiredo (she/her) is a white settler, working as the Entrepreneurship & Management Sciences Librarian at the University of Waterloo. Rachel acknowledges the privileged access to information that this job provides her, and is dedicated to demystifying information systems for students, staff, and faculty across campus. As part of this work, Rachel recognizes that libraries have historically privileged certain kind of information and excluded other information information and authors, and Rachel is committed to diversifying the Library's collections for the future. 

Kate Mercer (she/her) is a non-Indigenous settler, working as and Engineering and Research Services Librarian at the University of Waterloo. Growing up as the daughter of settlers and refugees, she recognizes the privilege of her background, experiences, and education. Kate works to better understand how information itself is a power, and how the historic harms of colonization and the systemic work to exclude, misrepresent, and dismiss Indigenous ways of knowing, traditional knowledges and lived experiences. and Kate is deeply committed to listening, learning, and working to move the library into a space where everyone is welcome, all knowledges are appreciated, and information is inclusive and safe.

Siu Hong Yu is a non-Indigenous settler, and works as a Science & Engineering Librarian at the University of Waterloo. He is a Chinese immigrant. He recognizes his privileges from his background and education, and acknowledges his previous ignorance about Canada's dark history towards its Indigenous peoples. Siu is committed to work as an ally towards reconciliation through mutual respect, active inquiry and learning, and reciprocal relationship buildings. He is particularly interested in expanding his Western science worldviews to incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing for a better climate future.