Yvonne Vizina

Yvonne Vizina, PhD Title: Assistant Professor
Phone: 204-786-9368
Email: y.vizina@uwinnipeg.ca

Biography:

Dr. Yvonne Vizina is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of Winnipeg, where she teaches Indigenous Education and Sustainability Education. In her research, Yvonne has been exploring traditional Indigenous teachings about human relationships with the Earth, including how those relationships affect our personal and collective well-being. Yvonne has a Ph.D. from the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan, with research examining traditional Indigenous concepts of sustainability and their application in post-secondary education programs across Canada. She has also written about Métis Traditional Environmental Knowledge and Science Education and is a graduate of the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program. Yvonne is a registered member of the Métis Nation, one of the Indigenous groups recognized within the Constitution Act, 1982 of Canada.

yvonnevizina.ca

Teaching Areas:

Indigenous Education
Sustainability Education

Courses:

EDUC4410 Introduction to Indigenous Education
EDUC4603 Teaching for Sustainability
Past Courses:
- EDUC4410 Introduction to Indigenous Education
- EDUC4603 Teaching for Sustainability
- EDUC4603 Teaching for Sustainability: Indigenous Worldviews
- DEV3600 Indigenous Pedagogies

Research Interests:

I am interested in building research that furthers theory and praxis of traditional Indigenous knowledges together with scientific disciplines and advances the ability of post-secondary institutions to take up sustainability issues through the resulting outcomes. The majority of my research has been anchored in Indigenous knowledges, methodologies, and ethical processes. I have lived my life as an Indigenous person working to advance my own understanding and ability to connect traditional and contemporary applications of Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, axiologies, and spiritual belief systems. My experience has been largely in how Indigenous knowledges can be more effectively applied in formal educational settings.

Indigenous Peoples, cultures, and languages have been examined and included in most academic disciplines, such as Education, Law, Health, History, Indigenous Studies, English Literature, and others. Most scientific disciplines still have a bit of catching up to do. Key Indigenous research outcomes have been included in numerous discipline specific publications in addition to the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (RCAP, 1996; TRC, 2015; United Nations, 2007). These are all still extremely relevant to how post-secondary institutions conduct research and include Indigenous knowledges.

In 2015, the same year that the TRC published the 94 Calls to Action, the United Nations launched Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015). Although the worlds separating the development and announcements of these documents were far apart, I am interested in the many common features they have that can be mutually beneficial. Both the TRC and the 2030 SD Goals recognize that the respective business-as-usual approach is destructive to the social, economic, and environmental future of humanity.

Science communities, and others, around the world have issued repeated warnings that without deep transformation, global human survival is in jeopardy (Ripple, Wolf, Newsome, Barnard, & Moomaw, 2020). At the same time, post-secondary education institutions in Canada are working to Indigenize their settings but lack discussion, research, and professional development on sustainability and Indigenization as related concepts and how they might be implemented. Having done foundational exploration on these matters in my doctoral research (Vizina, 2018), I am working to activate a collaborative group of scholars, Indigenous community members, and other individuals who share an interest in working to advance Indigenization and sustainability practices in professional training programs within post-secondary institutions of Canada.

Currently, I am currently compiling a collection of personal stories by the late Elder Calvin Pompana of Sioux Valley Dakota Nation. Calvin spent much of his life as a ceremonial leader and teacher of cultural traditions. In the months before he passed away, he shared many personal stories and teachings from his life with me. It was his wish that these would be used to help others learn about our relationships to Mother Earth and how these teachings relate to human wellness and resilience to global illness. Calvin believed that his stories and songs, based on Dakota spiritual-based teachings, could be important educational resources for use in education settings.