Decolonizing and Indigenizing Visions of Educational Leadership

The concepts of Tapovana are rooted in the spiritual values given by the people to their natural surroundings in appreciation of miraculous benefits in terms of ecosystem services. Some of the natural landscapes have become notable when the well-known hermits spent their spiritual life, such as in Shivapuri and Khaptad. In the present contexts, Tapovana concepts have contributed for conservation programs in the protected areas and heritage sites. In fact, such sites have also received importance because of shrines that existed there. In Nepal, protected areas and ecotourism are complementary to each other resulting in multiplier effects for win-win situation. At present, the modern form of Tapovana satisfies spiritual and physical needs of visitors. Its applications prevail in conventional education and sustainable development.

This chapter critically explores the colonial model of education in a Buddhist society in postcolonial Bangladesh, as the Buddhist value-based contemplative learning and ethical practices have been constantly challenged due to the fact that the western value-based cultural knowledge is considered for economic development. In such a context, Buddhist learners are unable to learn the social history, cultural heritage, Buddhist/social economy, and spiritual values and practices in the educational institutions. Even teachers are not trained in preparing learners for cultivation of wisdom (Paññā in Pāli) and ecocentric development of the community in the country. On the other hand, Buddhist notion of contemplative learning pedagogy believes in decolonization of the mind and reflective practice for social transformation and development of wisdom through deep meditative mind by nurturing critical dialogue as opposed to capital accumulation and greed-based society. The Buddhist pedagogical approach focuses on mindful concentration (bhavana) and ethical (sila) practice within the learning context and environment, as emancipatory ideology to promote cultural diversity instead of political and social imposition. Such mindfulness would allow both the learners and teachers to create collaborative learning opportunities for life-sustaining practice and wholesome (kusala karma) activity in the community setting. The Buddhist learning pedagogy tends to nurture nonviolence (ahimsa) in order to develop mutual respect among the diverse communities to renewing ground for mind-expanding pursuits in the learning institutions for the wellbeing of all community members in the country.

De/uncolonizing educational visions in the context of insistent and persistent ecological violence is an urgent task, one requiring profound shifts in thinking, being and knowing. Meraki is a Greek word denoting something done or undertaken with all of one's soul. Metanoia is also a Greek word signifying a deep shift in one's way of life resulting from a profound change of heart and worldview. Metis is a figure in Greek mythology known for wisdom and deep thought, but the word has also been used to mean a deeper spiritual awareness or consciousness. This chapter, written by a Greek educator on Turtle Island, explores the imaginaries of ancient Greek ways of knowing with her responsibilities to support decolonizing processes in the place in which she now lives. The author identifies the process of regeneration, of replacing or restoring damaged or missing dimensions of life as a call to which our educational systems must respond. Regeneration is synonymous with rebuilding, restoration, rehabilitation, revival, rebirth, redemption, renewal, recovery, and reconstruction. Her recognition that metanoia (a profound transformative shift) resulting in regeneration done with meraki (soul) and grounded in metis (wisdom and spiritual knowing) forms the basis of her revisioning of schooling and community. In reclaiming hidden structures of Greek wisdom, the author dives below the often incomplete frames of “western” ways of knowing and discourses to redeem deeper ontological frequencies hidden beneath the surface, joining these in constellation with other de/uncolonizing discourses and movements to redeem a “wholeness of being” that must be regenerated for planetary survival. This chapter traces a vision for leadership that reclaims the depth of Spirit and soul that are the basis upon which we can heal the traumas of the legacies of fragmentation, division and violence and remake/regenerate our educational systems.

This article calls for educational leaders to reexamine Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) frameworks through decolonial leadership lens, during and post-COVID-19. “Based on our individual journeys, our collective voice is grounded on a bond that spans the decades …Our voice here is the enactment of our decision to listen to the oral traditions and connection to spirit of our ancestors…as mentors and collaborators in this work…[t]he validity of their voices…is unquestionable” (Sullivan TwoTrees and Pinto, p. 197). In this article, I intentionally center Mother Africa/Earth and incorporate indigenized expressions from narratives, dialogues, and interviews from assorted studies and sources. In the article Rekindling the Sacred: Toward A Decolonizing Pedagogy in Higher Education, Shahjahan et al. (2009) use a “tapestry of dialogical insights into… theorizing of how spirituality may be incorporated into teaching in higher education” (p. 1). So, with respect to K-12 education, anchoring decolonizing educational leadership to Mother Africa and practices and attitudes which support students who are behaviorally racialized and marginalized in our schools is integral. All through the chapter, I interweave my story with the narratives and dialogues of other voices to make the case for decolonization leadership approaches in our schools. Joining my voice are voices taken from a previous study focused on Special Education Workers who foster relationship and work directly with Students Labeled as Behavioral (will be defined later in this chapter) (Mitchell, 2020). In section one I locate myself in relationship to Mother Africa which informs this anthology chapter. Section two focuses on defining colonization and the theoretical framework and themes discussed in the anthology chapter. Section three examines the role educational leaders may play in creating school spaces for socially just relationship building, nimble student and teacher dissent, and opportunities for personal and community transformation. Section four provides a contextual analysis of educational leadership's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, namely how they impacted schools, classrooms, students, and teachers. Lastly, Section five introduces “ROCK”, a forward-looking conceptualization of a decolonizing leadership practice aimed at reclaiming one's indigeneity through nurturing connections to Mother Africa.

Women of Power Revisited: African Women in Leadership through the Ages, Space, Time, and Governance chapter provides an overview of what Africa has witnessed as the world's greatest civilizations through the stories of four of her Queens. The chapter examines women in leadership positions in ancient Africa: namely, Makeda, referred to as Queen of Sheba; Queen mother of Ejusu, Yaa Asantewaa of Ashanti; Queen Nzinga of Angola; and Hatshepsut. Africa has an indomitable spirit that consists of different forms of texts representing the rich diversity that constitute the great civilizations and empires the world has ever had. The chapter challenges the perpetuated notion that Africa is mostly jungle and uninhabited except for Egypt. It is this stereotyped image of Africa that prompted us to write about the four African Queens to illuminate salient features of African Indigenous women in leadership and how it can be applied in contemporary institutions.

The discussion is anchored on spirituality and womanism as our discursive frameworks. We also evoke creation stories which provide the essence of beginning of settlements of humans on our planet earth with particular focus on African Indigenous women's contribution to leadership. In addition, the chapter highlights the colonial oppression, and the current colonial legacies that she is struggling to deal with, including political and economic leadership. The emphasis is to disavow the Eurocentric and colonial fallacy that Africa is without history, without structure, and without kings and queens. This cannot be done without understanding the beginning of African-centered leadership. It is with this understanding that chapter embarked on the journey or path of decolonizing leadership models in our institutions.

This chapter explores the governance structures of Indigenous societies with special focus on the Meru community in Kenya. The chapter reviews the elaborate structure of governance that ensured and entrenched the basic parameters of a fair society. It outlines the impact caused by colonization and the subsequent loss of social fabrics that bound individual members and the entire community. The colonizers looked at the Indigenous as primitive and backward. They therefore classified them as tribes, natives' ethnic nationalities all of which demeaned the Indigenous communities. From such derogatory perspectives, the Indigenous systems including governance, culture, social, legal and judiciary, philosophy, economic systems were replaced with supposedly more advanced systems to assimilate and “modernize” Indigenous peoples. The chapter will demonstrate how these critical aspects and components of governance existed within the Indigenous governance structures of the Ameru community long before the colonial government. The chapter by use of practical illustrations advocates for decolonial perspectives to the realization of fair governance.

This chapter explores the development of the Professional Cook – Indigenous content program in the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada. Chef Andrew George, Wet'suwet'en professionally trained cook, shares his knowledge and experiences in participating in the planning, program development, and delivery of the culinary training program. The Indigenization of the Professional Cook program was made possible through leadership and collaboration between government; training institutions; Indigenous elders, traditional knowledge keepers and communities; industry and businesses. The chapter interweaves reports from the schools, training institutions, and government; highlights from the programs; Indigenous foodways and recipes; and highlights on how such culinary education and training programs can help provide ways toward food sovereignty.

Latin America offers a unique opportunity to reimagine educational leadership through its complex and intersectional frameworks where rematriation movements and liberatory pedagogies are the driving forces for “postponing the end of the world,” as proposed by Ailton Krenak (2020). While currently Latin American democracies are less than ideal as environmental and Indigenous initiatives have been directly attacked by ultraconservative politics, there are consistent foundations that deepen in each context by leading the way to a hopeful future. These foundations are the loud voices in the Latin American continent and they are multilingually expressed in Quechua, Guarani, Aymara, and more, as is also immersed in critical literacies; in processes of conscientização; experienced in the arts and the theater of the Oppressed; and loudly coming from the slums and the lungs of women like Mercedes Sosa, and many more. These are the absolute breakthroughs of hope we will continue to listen, follow, work with, and feel. Such breakthroughs are the pedagogies and the educational leadership of hope across Latin America, a region which has pushed to center on Indigenous mobilization and guidance.

Indigenous governance systems in Africa provide a nuanced approach to the various philosophies that underpin governance structures through a spiritual perspective. In this chapter we debunk colonial narratives of Africa's dependence on colonial constructs of governance. We begin by highlighting the decentralized and centralized Indigenous governance frameworks practiced by different African communities. Communities with decentralized systems such as the Acholi, Luo, Keiyo, amongst others, were well organized at the local level, with the Council of Elders, Chief Priests, and Moral Elders and Chiefs carrying out various functions that ensured the community remained stable and prosperous. In centralized communities, the king had authority over their boundaries. The key aspects that stood out and ensured stability within the centralized systems included community representation, participation in governance, and checks and balances that provided proper societal growth as exemplified by the Bunyoro-Kitara and the Ashanti kingdoms. Even though the governance systems were quite different, the governance mechanisms had similar pillars, features, and principles anchored by humanism, communism, and the spiritual nature of governance amongst the African peoples. We concur that the Indigenous governance system allowed citizens, empires, and kingdoms to flourish. We conclude that African people can further develop the capacity to manage their ideas, resources, and opportunities for sustainable development, through Indigenous governance mechanisms and knowledge systems. We argue that African societies need to legally integrate the Indigenous governance systems in the current prevalent western governance model, create canters for researching Indigenous knowledge at the institutions of higher learning, and that civil society should play a role in ensuring accountability in governance systems.

In India and Pakistan, issues of ethnicity, faith, language, Indigenous knowledge, and rights have had severe ramifications for the two countries' constitutional, educational, and political development. The idea to safeguard the interests of Indigenous and ethnic minorities has always been contentious in these countries. Furthermore, ethnic and Indigenous orientations have been camouflaged by these two states' facades of nationalism. Although the ideology of nationalism is defined as a feeling of belonging among the individuals of a nation and is based on religion, language, ethnic origins, and practices, the governments of both countries have made several attempts to change the concept of nationalism, using communalism as a tool to segregate people based on identity and question their loyalties. Postmodern and post-Marxist theorists have emphasized the need for plurality, identity, and heterogeneity in the political and educational discourse. It resulted in globalization, leading to the homogenization of cultural identities at both national and subnational levels.

The notion that a clash exists between the stability of the state and recognition of multiple cultural identities has had a drastic influence on the educational and political discourse within these two countries, as already the Subcontinent has been disintegrated into different nation-states.

Implicating myself in Métis scholar Natalie Clark's question “who are you and why do you care?” (2016, p. 48), this chapter traces the theorization of love in the Human Services, with a focus on the field of Child and Youth Care. I explore love as an ethical, political, and necessary force in times of ongoing colonial and state violence against Indigenous and racialized peoples (Ferguson & Toye, 2017). I go on to highlight my graduate research as a Child and Youth Care Masters student and educator, grappling with my own settler identity as a diasporic, queer, ciswoman of color, and questioning my complicity as a settler body on stolen Indigenous lands. The chapter includes vital knowledge from my research with Sisters Rising, an Indigenous-led, community-based, participatory study that uses arts-and-land-based ways of knowing to honor and uphold stories, art, and knowledge from Indigenous and racialized young peoples and communities. By tracing the reflections on decolonial love shared through Sisters Rising, I consider ways that racialized settler practitioners might engage a decolonial love ethic in praxis. Calling upon critical feminist, Indigenous, and postcolonial scholarship and brilliance, this chapter invites other settler practitioners, specifically those who identify as racialized or people of color to reckon with the intricacies of our collective complicity in notions of settler purity and apolitical practice (Shotwell, 2016). Throughout the chapter, I highlight conceptual approaches for loving politicized praxis rooted in movements toward social justice, Indigenous sovereignty-building, and decolonization.

The colonially imposed, exploitive, narrow meanings of gendered nurturing have limited how we as Indigenous Ubuntu discourse and dialogue about our contextually diverse, dynamic, and sometimes contradictory meanings about our experiences of being other-mothered and other-fathered (Mucina, 2018; Wane, 2000). In an effort to theorize these Ubuntu experiences of educational leadership beyond my own limited masculine understandings, I center an African intersectional feminist perspective. This theorizing perspective helps me to understand more fulsomely the political leadership women continue to offer in our Ubuntu nations, communities, and families. In this chapter, I want to share three stories about being mothered by my sister-cousin, being community-mothered across ethic identities, and how I am currently being fathered by my father's sister. I want to contend as fraught as it may be that the oratures (stories) I share convey and communicate our understanding of nurturing beyond procreation, which is an important aspect of Ubuntu educational leadership. For example, the orature (story) that I will share about female-fathering offers evidence, which challenges the binary of fathering as a set gendered activity. I also view the telling of these Indigenous Ubuntu stories as an act of creating what Shiv Visvanathan (2016) identified as making space for “cognitive justice.” For me, this means moving our Ubuntu knowledges from the colonially created margins to the shared center of diverse multiple knowledges.

Indigenous and racialized people have suffered multifaceted dispossession as a result of ongoing and historical violence by the Canadian state. Most greatly affected are Indigenous gender-queer and nonbinary people, who have been erased by law and policy and are targets of violence; Indigenous women, who are targeted by gender discrimination and violence; and Indigenous children, who continue to be removed from their communities. Nonwhite or racialized migrants to Canada are victims of the same colonial project, which relies on the slavery of Black and Brown bodies and Orientalist constructions that portray the West as “superior” in relation to the “barbaric” East. This dispossession, oppression, and violence are met by a constellation of local and global approaches to resist, heal, and create Fearless futures for Indigenous and racialized people.

Through collaborative storytelling, this chapter centers a radical project focused on resistance to gender violence, reconnection to land and body, Indigenous and settler solidarity, storytelling and witnessing, and healing through art. These efforts, including multiple community workshops and mural projects with Indigenous and racialized women, as well as queer and two-spirit people and youth, have recentered Indigenous healing and medicine, promoted intergenerational teachings, fostered intercommunity relationship building and solidarities through stories and witnessing, reconnected disconnected Indigenous peoples (both local and settler) to their bodies, lands, and communities, and unsettled colonial mentalities on gender and Indigeneity publicly and privately. This project was a collaboration between The Fearless Collective, based in South Asia, the Innovative Young Indigenous Leaders Symposium, based in British Columbia, Canada, and research from the School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, British Columbia.