Abstract:

Bringing forward the erased cultural, self governance of the Tule Mat Lodge Village, Mariel engages Sqilxw historical practices of tule harvest and mat lodge construction. It is thought that co-constructing ancestral ways of being and knowing through Tule mat lodge will provide an opportunity to give back to the land, introducing the industriousness required in constructing an actual tule mat lodge and the ingenuity of Syilx people cultivating a sense of cultural pride. As an Indigenous engagement/ visitor protocol-based operations governance model to assist in remediating the colonial agenda through an integrated health, life skills and training strategy constructed in a syilxcentric framework, the tukʷtniɬxʷ – tule mat house pedagogy aims to bring out the distinct character of the northern Okanagan storied land, and the associated issues (emotional, psychological, social, personal, economic, political), which affect the broader community’s capacity-building and collective action focusing on the roles in Summer Lodge community governance. Long Bio available at: https://sqilxw.com/mariel-belanger/

This film is 15-minute long, it was edited by Syilx graduate student Mariel Belanger and is designed to serve as the companion piece to the chapter that Mariel’s Indigenous research collaborators, graduate research assistants and Mariel co-authored for the book Research as Reconciliation co-edited by Shawn Wilson, Andrea Breen and Lindsay DuPré for Canadian Scholars Press (accepted, forthcoming 2019).