Shaping Indigenous Spaces in Higher Education: An International Virtual Exchange on Indigenous Knowledge(Alaska and Aotearoa)

Abstract

While Indigenous faculty in higher education establish and expand "spaces" for stu­dents to engage in discussions around Indigenous knowledge(s) and research, littlesystematic work has been done on expanding these conversations outside of local in­stitutions, in spite of sometimes extensive interaction between Indigenous scholarsin research and governance practices. In this paper, we describe four internationalvirtual exchanges between Alaska and Aotearoa among students enrolled in the Uni­versity of Alaska's courses Documenting Indigenous Knowledge and Communicationin Cross-Cultural Classrooms and Victoria University of Wellington's Science andIndigenous Knowledge course. We describe our design and architecture of the collab­orative digital spaces, highlighting aspects that facilitated the engagement and learn­ing of our students, and challenges. We describe the key impacts of the initiativethrough selected student commentary from students' online forum posts and evalu­ations. Exchanges produced diverse outcomes for students, but three aspects that mo­tivate us to continue the initiative are that virtual exchanges across internationalIndigenous spaces convey a critical sense of place, in local and global senses; (re)orientstudents in terms of Indigenous identities; and cause students to reflect on their cur­rent and future roles in shaping spaces that promote Indigenous safety, participation,and emancipation.