RSVP online to save your seat
About the Indigenous Speaker Series
The Indigenous Speakers Series is an integral part of our Journeying Together plan, which intentionally weaves Indigenization and internationalization together in a collective commitment to becoming a truly Indigenous-serving institution. At NIC, we acknowledge and understand that unraveling the impacts of colonization will span generations. We are wholeheartedly dedicated to our role and shared responsibility in the process of meaningful reconciliation.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Laura Cranmer, of ʼNa̱mǥis and Haida descent, is a Vancouver Island University (VIU) Honorary Research Associate and retired VIU Professor for Indigenous/Xwulmuxw Studies. She is a residential school Survivor who also spent three years in the Nanaimo Indian Hospital as a child. Her talk will cover a range of topics that includes her learning journey, her career as a professor of Indigenous Studies and her observations of the “gulf between purported Truth and Reconciliation commitments and actual practices advanced by the settler consciousness writ large.”
Speaker’s Note
Gilakasdaxw’la naɬnamwayut! Nugwadi Kixƛala. Gayuƛan laxida ‘Yalis. Gayuɬamxa’an laxida Haida laxan abaskutamɛ. Gayuƛan laxida ‘Namgis laxan oskutamɛ. Greetings to those with whom I am one. My name is Laura Ann Cranmer. On my father’s side, David Cranmer, I am ‘Namgis from Alert Bay and on my mother’s side, Pearl Weir, I am Haida from Old Masset.
On reflection, my BA in English, MA in Curriculum Studies, and my PhD in Language and Literacy Education was a halting two steps forward, one step back journey to self-empowerment from the development of my writing voice to a theatrical expression of voice which led me back to where I began, the language of my paternal lineage in which I was first raised—Kwak’wala. In this talk I will share lessons gleaned from the application of study, reflection and ultimately action. How can Indigenous students, whether in high school or post-secondary, apply themselves to their studies in the service of their ancestors and their communities? As my grandmother Gwanti’lakw always said, “we never stop learning” and my life lesson was learning how to get out of disassociation and back into my body. When our U’mista Cultural Center opened, and our cultural treasures repatriated, my aunty Gloria Cranmer Webster (aka Yotu) observed, “It’s as if we’re coming back to ourselves.” Where Yotu referred to the community, I apply her notion of ‘coming back to our selves’ to an individual level—coming back to self. Reconciliation with self has a powerful ripple effect that continues like an ever-lasting wave. Reconcili-Action, for me, is the application of one’s lived experience, one’s training, heart, soul and passion to gently dissolving the residue of settler consciousness in order to feel, to heal, to learn to push beyond self-imposed limits, to realize one's life potential.
RSVP online to save your seat
Check back for details on future Indigenous Speaker Series events.
