Relationality in critical thinking

Blog post by Gabrielle Lindstrom, Mount Royal University, Canada
 
In general terms, diversity and cultural awareness training are approaches that fall under the auspices of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives. While there are different legal and political imperatives surrounding EDI discourses, diversity and cultural awareness education modalities are commonly used by many corporate, government and NGO (non-government organizations) to address gaps in knowledge with regard cultural realities other than mainstream Western perspectives.
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My Identities article, ‘Rethinking critical thinking, diversity and Indigenous awareness from a Blackfoot perspective’, is concerned with the Canadian settler context and is situated within conceptual terrain of EDI educational development. I offer a critique of the cadre of diversity initiatives that emerge out of EDI initiatives with emphasis on the Indigenous/cultural awareness training, unconscious bias training and culturally inclusive workplace approaches. These EDI methods distinct to Indigenous lived-experiences with Western colonialism are used to address information that was not taught in mainstream schools about Indigenous peoples historical and contemporary cultural realities. 

Critical thinking is a learning outcome that develops students’ ability for abstract thought. What makes critical thinking ‘critical’ is learning exercises that require cognitive focus and rationale about concepts, events and social phenomena to develop informed decision making and independent thinking. Critical thinking as a learning outcome is embedded throughout the provincial graded school curriculum in Canada and acts as the foundation upon which other social justice theories are built. It is often the conceptual foundation of these awareness training approaches.

However, an emphasis on the cognitive aspects of intercultural, interpersonal encounters may not be enough to allow members of the predominantly white mainstream hegemony to engage with cultural differences in ways that change their perceptions of, and behaviours toward other ethnicities who are not of white euro-settler cultures.  

In Canada, critical thinking has been identified as a central feature of diversity and cultural awareness initiatives, despite its ambiguous definitions and applications across all provincial educational levels. Diversity and cultural awareness training education are professional development approaches that haves become normalized despite the fact that little empirical evidence exists as to whether or not they are effective in changing racist and discriminatory behaviours and attitudes.

This normalization has led to a widespread stance in professional development discourses that advances the notion that education about cultural realties that fall outside the white euro-settler norm fixes racist and discriminatory attitudes and behaviours and that ‘knowing better means doing better’ – that racism is more about ignorance than anything else. This perspective does very little to challenge normative views that further normalize and affirm Euro-centered/White/Settler culture since the information is always about responding ‘appropriately’ to cultural differences as opposed to creating respectful and authentic relationships.

Indeed, discussions in the Canadian workplace surrounding racism are often positioned within polarizing discourses with general stances being that racism either does not exist or that it can be eliminated, or at the very least minimized, through awareness training approaches.

My article offers numerous examples that question why the notion of critical thinking as it is mobilized in Canadian education systems continues to be a primary entry point for shaping the EDI lens that typifies professional development approaches despite a growing body of literature that suggests otherwise. An in-depth review of literature that challenges an externalized awareness approach will provide the reader with a deeper understanding of some of the diversity and awareness strategies, particularly unconscious bias training, cultural competency, cross-cultural awareness and diversity training that are employed to decrease racism. This critique continues to offer much needed clarity around some of the shortcoming of diversity, unconscious (aka implicit) bias and Indigenous awareness training to demonstrate why other approaches are needed.

A relational approach contextualized within a Blackfoot philosophical stance is then offered as way to educate the reader on the lifeways and practices Indigenous peoples as understood and experienced by Indigenous peoples. Blackfoot philosophy is premised on the pursuit of ongoing transformation made possible via an embodied awareness that individual existence is dependent upon on a web of relational alliances with both seen and unseen energetic forces. Essentially, human existence is dependent on maintaining balance within these relational alliances.

Using my own lived experiences as an Indigenous woman in the article, I provide clarity on the concept of Indigenous relationality and the potential it has an alternate pathway for the embodiment of antiracist education.  Blackfoot ontological responsibilities and constructions of what it means to be a fully relational human being as understood from Blackfoot ways of knowing are used as reference points for the reimagining of an antiracist praxis. Because I draw on my life experiences, this article flows between personal reflexivity and reflection, and academic perspectives.

By writing in the first-person and engaging in researcher self-location, I purposefully push back against the objective, third-person structure of traditional academic articles as way to honor my lived-experience as another source of knowledge which paves a pathway to possibilities. I begin the article by positioning myself within the context of an Indigenous paradigm and the critical perspectives that shape the ideas advanced herein. I then offer a reflective discussion on my experiences delivering a counter-narrative of nation-building from an Indigenous perspective and then provide an overview of academic discourses that problematize critical thinking and diversity awareness approaches.

I conclude by discussing how I’ve come to experience an Indigenous relational paradigm as an alternate vision of professional development that is grounded in Indigenous self-determination and builds on other critical antiracist pedagogies. The foundation of these critical pedagogies, inclusive of Blackfoot philosophy, is built on awareness of self not as an isolated individual in pursuit of individual freedoms but as one who is deeply connected to others in both conscious and unconscious ways.

​If one is conscious to these connections, then one can experience other cultural realities through a lens of relationality which in turn fosters empathy and compassion. Praxis involves self-reflection but also requires action to change our current reality of racial discord. 

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Image credit: Author’s own.

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Read the Identities article:
Lindstrom, Gabrielle. (2024). Rethinking critical thinking, diversity and Indigenous awareness from a Blackfoot perspective. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2024.2335813 

Read further in Identities:
 
Understanding racial equity in research with Indigenous Peoples: including anti-racism and decolonization approaches
 
Indigenous identity, ‘authenticity’ and the structural violence of settler colonialism
 
Canadian multiculturalism and aboriginal people: Negotiating a place in the nation