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Canada's population is becoming increasingly diverse and the recent recognition of the need for inclusivity and diversity has led to conversations in undergraduate and graduate medical programs across the country. The intended outcomes of these conversations around representation are actions that better prepare medical graduates to meet the needs related to caring for a diverse Canadian population. It is paramount that learners see this progress toward equity, inclusivity, and diversity reflected in the leadership of their medical training programs. Actions toward this goal may be more impactful from a new understanding of leadership. This chapter focuses on a postcolonial reimagining of leadership that expands qualities that are valued, resulting in a natural diversification and increased inclusion among medical leaders. The authors write from their personal viewpoints and provide suggestions on revisioning leadership and curriculum, throughout. It is hoped that a paradigm shift in the way leaders are identified, recognized, and supported will address current challenges in medical culture and subsequent socialization of learners that influence their professional identities and ideas about who and what makes good leaders.

Purpose – In this chapter, I explore and argue for a theoretical shift in research about Aboriginal physical activity practices in Canada, from a deficit perspective to a strengths perspective that incorporates practices of hope.

Design/methodology/approach – After briefly describing my concerns about analysing Aboriginal physical activity practices from a deficit perspective, I outline, apply and argue for the benefits of a research approach that begins with a strengths perspective and incorporates practices of hope.

Findings – I argue that all individuals have strengths and places where they can exercise power. An adoption of complementary power relations framed within the practices of hope, which include availability and listening with an openness to co-transformation, further clarifies how to adopt a strengths perspective analysis of Aboriginal physical activity practices.

Originality/value – In adopting a strengths perspective, I am committed to actively identifying existing strengths as a starting point, along with resources that can be used to further those strengths. Strengths are then used to address identified barriers to physical activity. The practices of hope outline how non-Aboriginal allies can work alongside Aboriginal individuals to co-transform physical activity in a manner that enhances physical activity practices for all those involved.

This systematic review will attempt to begin the fusion of Aboriginal health and Aboriginal education to show the need for strategic research and policy development that brings these two important fields together for the benefit of improving the lives of Aboriginal people regardless of residency or socioeconomic conditions.

A search of published and gray literature that examined Aboriginal health and Aboriginal education was conducted. Through computerized database (PubMed, PsycInfo, ERIC, Google Scholar, and Google) searches were performed in November 2014 to find abstracts, articles, gray literature, and reports pertaining to Aboriginal health and Aboriginal education in Canada.

Inadequate datasets impede the ability to look at Aboriginal health and education in Canada as there are no national datasets that adequately provide data to do more than cross-sectional analysis. By conducting research in a pan-Aboriginal manner negates that there is traditional worldviews that individuals, families, and communities embrace and embody in their daily lives. It is necessary for the Canadian government and society to work with Aboriginal people to change the fundamental ways in which the macro-level systems work together in order for true social change to occur which will lead to increased self-determination specifically in Aboriginal health and education.

The chapter reveals that Aboriginal health and education are key determinants to the health and well-being of Aboriginal people. Identity, self-determination, and Aboriginal worldviews need to be a part of research studies in order to have “two-eyed seeing” of the intertwined and interconnectedness of health and education.

Paradigms are shifting in research involving Indigenous peoples: research with Indigenous peoples instead of research on them. To do this, we must acknowledge a shared and sacred space of multiple world views. Negotiating this meeting place – the ethical space – demands that researchers, Research Ethics Boards (REBs), and Indigenous peoples collaborate to find mutually agreeable solutions to research ethics tensions. This chapter addresses the principle-to-policy-to-practice gaps in the application of Canada’s research ethics policy (i.e. TCPS2) by demonstrating how one 2018 study navigated ethical engagement by practising Etuaptmumk: Two-eyed seeing (the Mi’kmaq concept of learning to see from and integrate multiple perspectives to find remedies to issues/challenges/questions that benefit everyone). Movements within both Indigenous and academic communities – in Canada and elsewhere – to develop policy on research ethics for research with Indigenous peoples present an opportunity and impetus for researchers to do differently and with the leadership of Indigenous peoples. This chapter shares reflections from one study that offers an example of doing differently and acknowledging self-in-science or examining self-as-science, which is not a common practice. The acceptance of creative research methods, like autoethnography through poetry and spoken word, demonstrates academic culture can change, too, and provides researchers methods and mediums to explore and examine the self without separation from the research. This chapter discusses these as relational and reflexive, a way to challenge conventional positions of ‘researcher’ and ‘participant’, and reimagines research innovation through relationship.

No matter how dominant a worldview is, there are always other ways of interpreting the world. (Littlebear, 2000, p. 79)

No matter how dominant a worldview is, there are always other ways of interpreting the world. (Littlebear, 2000, p. 79)

These words resonated with me when I first started my career in higher education in Canada 15 years after being a school teacher for much of my young adult life in México. Back then, in Mexico, I took for granted the way in which I lived my values. While there were instances and contexts where those values were challenged, it was not until I moved to Canada that I started redefining and reshaping my worldview, negotiating what was negotiable within me, and fighting to maintain my position in what was not negotiable. I am still learning to navigate the world of postsecondary education where I have learned that, as Siksika Elder Leroy Littlebear (2000) observes, “No one has a pure worldview that is 100 percent Indigenous or Eurocentric; rather, everyone has an integrated mind, a fluxing and ambidextrous consciousness” (p. 85). How then, do I show all of who I am when my position toward Indigenous history, culture, language, and values is informed by my own upbringing and experience and consequently might be perceived as “biased”?

This auto-ethnographic chapter addresses this question by presenting a case study where I reflect on Littlebear's (2000) observations on the fluidity of worldviews and the development of an “ambidextrous consciousness,” and how those principles have allowed me the space to be my authentic self despite the different ontological and axiological orientations I have encountered my work in higher education.

In this chapter the author examines intergenerational transmissions of kindness through four generations of women in her family. Employing an autoethnographic approach (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011), the author shares her journey of understanding the importance of studying kindness in academia by acting as the connective tissue between the stories and how the author finds the meaning of kindness through her own experiences and interpretations. Using a research methodology called sensebreaking (Pratt, 2000), the author reveals how kindness acts as a catalyst to help recover from challenges by nurturing self-worth. Sensebreaking undoes meaning-making by disrupting the sensemaking process when contradictory evidence causes individuals to question their interpretation (Mirbabaie & Marx, 2020). The author demonstrates how these women struggle with the deep-rooted need for independence and dignity when facing a challenge and define random acts of kindness from others. Across the four generations, a theme of generativity is revealed, showing a need to nurture and guide younger people and contribute to the next generation.

The purpose of our chapter is to contribute to the current literature on sport and the environment by introducing an ethic of sustainability embedded in the historical and ongoing place-based physical cultures of Fisher River Cree Nation (Ochékwi Sipi).

Using an Indigenous-centered, community-based research design, we conducted four sharing circles with a total of 13 Elders from Fisher River Cree Nation. Sharing circles are a culturally safe discussion format for Elders to share their experiences and perspectives, which is significant in that Elders serve as critical links in the intergenerational communication of Cree place-based knowledge.

The key finding of this research is presented, centering around the more-than-human ethic that emerges from the place-specific stories of movement and physical culture shared by the Elders.

Based on the stories of the Elders we show how intimate and deeply embodied knowledges are formed over the course of generations of living with, learning from, and moving across Land. The knowledge gathered from this research presents an alternative to the dominant Western worldview and may serve as a critical link in struggles for environmental and social sustainability.

This chapter provides an overview of the volume, beginning with anecdotes from the editors. These anecdotes demonstrate the range of issues facing Indigenous scholars and researchers who choose to work with Indigenous participants and/or communities. Reference is made to Indigenous research sovereignty, honouring the immense work undertaken by previous Indigenous scholars, enabling many today to work effectively with their own people as well as other Indigenous groups. This is considered a courageous act, given the vulnerability this opens Indigenous peoples up to in terms of the change that is engendered and the criticism from external non-Indigenous researchers that has often arisen. The organisation of the volume into three parts is discussed, and this chapter ends with synopses of the following 16 chapters.