In the colonially constructed context called “Canada”, educational institutions have been called to redress for contributing to the erasure, assimilation and genocide of Indigenous Peoples, especially Indigenous women and gender diverse persons (National Inquiry, 2019). While business schools have been engaging in reconciliation, we discuss that the actions taken have been described as cosmetic and tokenization through the mere inclusion of Indigenous Peoples into colonial systems and structures (Ahenakew, 2017; Bastien et al., 2023; Gaudry & Lorenz, 2018). Audre Lorde (1979) explained that we cannot dismantle the colonial system with the tools that built it and we cannot bring about genuine change when we use racist patriarchal tools to examine it. The rhetorical acts that are emerging in academia as a response to the Calls for Justice in the “Canadian” context are akin to a neo-colonial agenda that intends to reestablish settler futurity (Tuck & Yang, 2012). How do we move forward in reconciliation that is not mere rhetoric? Whereas each Indigenous nation, community, and organization has its own colonial history (Bastien & Coraiola, 2023), organizing the return to sacred relationships (Newcomb, 1995) and rematriating Indigenous feminist knowledge (Gray, 2022) calls for partnerships with nations and communities in ways that respects the sovereignty of nations, the peoples of those nations and the jurisdictions of traditional lands. This PDW aims to bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars to examine the discursive contours surrounding terms such as decolonization, Indigenization, reconciliation and rematriation as they relate to Indigenous and Indigenous feminist scholarship.
