Conference is Ceremony: The Centrality of Process in Community-Based Participatory Research in Music Education With Indigenous Partners

Abstract

In this paper, we highlight the centrality of process in Indigenist community-based participatory research in music education to offer new methodological insights, using a recent investigation that employed conference as research method as a case study. From our perspective as university researchers who are non-Indigenous or Indigenous but not to the land now known as Canada, we describe in detail the process of co-creating a conference grounded in local First Nations Protocols as a research method for our most recent study with Indigenous partners, also showing how the process is related to ceremony. This knowledge creation and sharing conference involved more than 200 Knowledge Keepers, School District Indigenous leaders, and music educators in British Columbia endeavouring to effectively embed Indigenous knowledge in K-12 music classes. We highlight ways we found to be relationally accountable, including providing adequate time to arrive at consensus in all decisions; developing and maintaining trust throughout pandemic lockdowns and restrictions; and locating additional sources of funding to facilitate all Protocols, which led Indigenous participants to report feeling that the conference was a culturally safe place and non-Indigenous participants to report that they found it to be a culturally immersive experience. We became more aware that the very process of discussion and decision making that took place at the many committee and subcommittee meetings leading up to the conference was part and parcel of the ceremonial aspect of this research. Indigenous participants deemed the outcomes and effects of the research/conference credible and trustworthy because they emerged from a planning process that was culturally informed and that had been deemed ethical, legitimate, and appropriate by all planning parties through consensus.

Introduction

In this paper, we highlight the centrality of process in Indigenist ¹ music education research to offer new methodological insights, using a recent investigation that employed conference as research method as a case study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). According to Merriam (1998), a case study is “an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a bounded phenomenon such as a program, an institution, a person, a process, or a social unit” (p. viii, italics added). From our perspective as university researchers who are non-Indigenous or Indigenous but not to the land now known as Canada, ² we describe and analyse in detail the process by which we and Indigenous partners conducted our most recent study concerning decolonization ³ in music education using Indigenous research approaches and local First Nations Protocols, ⁴ in hopes that it will be relevant to other non-Indigenous university researchers who conduct or wish to conduct related studies with Indigenous partners. From an academic perspective that is steeped in a Euro-Western qualitative paradigm, these approaches may seem innovative, as advancing methodological knowledge. However, for Indigenous peoples, these ways of seeking knowledge are not new; they have been tried and tested over millennia. Although non-Indigenous researchers have indicated the importance of embracing vulnerability (Schuster, 2022), adopting a permanent state of discomfort (Brophey & Raptis, 2016), listening for ignorance through reflexivity (Kallio, 2021), ensuring transparency (Snow, 2018), having cultural humility (Dolloff, 2020), and possibly experiencing moral distress (Kendall et al., 2011) when engaging in research with Indigenous ⁵ communities or partners, to our knowledge, no music education researcher has described in detail the process of co-creating a research method—specifically a conference grounded in local First Nations Protocols—with Indigenous partners, or how such a process is related to ceremony (Wilson, 2008).

We propose that an emphasis on process when using an Indigenist research paradigm can facilitate cross-cultural ⁶ learning. We acknowledge the ongoing sensitivity and complexity of using such a paradigm, including differences of opinion about who is permitted to operate in this academic space, ⁷ and the degree of relationality inherent in such an approach. Yet Indigenous partners have encouraged us to proceed in this methodological, research, and knowledge dissemination space, since, currently, there are no music education professors in Canada who are Indigenous. They tell us we have a responsibility to do this cross-cultural work, which may, in part, contribute to their sovereignty and self-determination (Bracknell & Barwick, 2020; Smith, 2012; Wilson, 2007). So, we are aware that, as we proceed in this iterative cycle, we will, at times, continue to experience Cwelelep—a word in Ucwalmícwts, the language of the Liiwat First Nation—meaning “dissonance and uncertainty, in anticipation of new learning” (Sanford et al., 2012, p. 25).

The three of us describe how we, alongside research partners, worked together to foster a sense of community, identify common purposes, and forge trust in this study. We note the co-learning we experienced as university researchers in our efforts to be true to local First Nations ways of knowing and being in the way we conducted the study. We discuss honest and sometimes difficult conversations in an online setting, plus what it means to “walk alongside” (Bascuñán et al., 2022, p. 12) and “center teachings on terms set by Indigenous peoples themselves” (p. 11). We hypothesize COVID-19’s influence on these processes. Then, we briefly describe some features of the two-day conference we designed and hosted together that were unique to us as music education researchers and how these features manifested Wilson’s (2008) assertion that “research is ceremony.”8

Background of the Study

Provincial legislation passed in British Columbia (BC) beginning in 2022 holds all Ministries, including the Ministry of Education and Childcare, accountable to enact, by 2027, 89 specific actions that will uphold the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007), thereby moving forward a decolonizing mandate in all government sectors (Province of British Columbia, 2022). Several policies in BC affecting K-12 education—including new curriculum documents introduced between 2015 and 2019, First Peoples’ pedagogical principles, and revised teacher professional standards—align with and promote ongoing decolonizing efforts in schools (BC Ministry, 2021; British Columbia Teacher’s Council, 2019; FNESC, 2008). However, the province’s primary and secondary school music educators, most of whom are non-Indigenous, have reported that they are unprepared and thus unable to embed local Indigenous knowledges, pedagogies, and worldviews in their classes (BC Music Teachers’ Association, 2016). They have expressed their fear of misappropriating Indigenous peoples’ musics and of making other mistakes that might offend local community members, since many Northwest Coast First Nations songs are owned by individuals and families (Prest, Goble, Vazquez-Cordoba, & Jung, 2021). Music teachers have also expressed a wish to be provided with material resources that they can use in their classes to allay these fears (British Columbia Music Educators’ Association, 2016; Prest, Goble, Vazquez-Cordoba, & Tuinstra, 2021).

Recognition of their predicament initially motivated us to undertake a series of studies, and we eventually adopted a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach (Prest, 2023). Our aim was to support music educators so that they might overcome their fears—helping them to recognize that ongoing, conscious inaction stemming from fear might be a way of exercising privilege, since their positions as provincially compensated teachers and—for most teachers—their non-Indigenous racial identity afforded them the luxury of electing not to act. We hoped to offer examples of how teachers might take responsibility for doing this work by learning—and then modeling for them—how to establish relationships with local Indigenous partners to embed local Indigenous knowledges, pedagogies, and worldviews appropriately in K-12 music classes in BC.

The Study

The third federally funded study of the series we conducted was entitled “From policy to practice in decolonizing and Indigenizing music education: Ensuring teacher understanding of Indigenous worldviews.” Eight partner organizations initiated and fully participated in the investigation: The Victoria Native Friendship Centre (VNFC), the BC Ministry of Education (Indigenous Branch), School District 61 (Greater Victoria) Indigenous Department, School District 83 (North Okanagan-Shuswap), the BC Music Educators’ Association, Pacific Opera, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Victoria. Fourteen Indigenous and seven non-Indigenous representatives from these partner groups served as a research Steering Committee, and two Elders from the Songhees and Tseshaht First Nations on Vancouver Island advised the committee periodically over a period of two years (2020–2022). Partners suggested that we host a conference at the provincial level to produce knowledge, embedding Indigenous ways of knowing and being to stimulate culturally safe dialogue.

Methodology

Community-Based Participatory Research

In Canada, all research with Indigenous peoples must be community-engaged, ⁹ and procedures are codified to ensure ethical engagement (Government of Canada, 2018). Community-based participatory research (CBPR), a form of community engagement, is an orientation to conducting research “that equitably involves … community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process” (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008, p. 49). Absolon (2011) confirms that CBPR approaches are recommended when working with Indigenous communities because the end goal of CBPR is systemic change, including policy change and, as in our case, policy enactment. In other words, CBPR “is a social change project of which the research is only one piece” (Stoeker, 2008, p. 111). In the field of music education, few studies have employed CBPR, despite Chávez and Skelchy’s (2019) recommendation of CBPR as one of “ten practical approaches and projects that begin to address what decolonization involves and how it can be done” in higher music education (p. 115). We have found only three music education studies where researchers reported using a CBPR approach (Crawford, 2017; MacAulay et al., 2019; Merati et al., 2019), but none of these studies involved Indigenous community partners.

A CBPR orientation supports ethical engagement with Indigenous communities, but is not necessarily grounded in Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, and axiologies (LaVeaux & Christopher, 2009). Stanton (2014) has demonstrated how researchers using a CBPR approach might shift decolonizing theory to practice in cross-cultural research contexts by applying Kirkness and Barnhardt’s (1991) “four Rs of ‘respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility’ when planning and implementing research projects” (p. 576). Further, Wilson (2007) has recommended that researchers adopt an Indigenist paradigm when working with Indigenous communities. An Indigenist paradigm entails a set of principles that reflects the processes, values, and ways of being and knowing of the Indigenous peoples with whom a university researcher partners, and it supports their self-determination. ¹⁰ This set of principles guided us in our most recent study.

Research Questions

All those who chose to partner in the study mutually recognized the expertise that members of each partner organization or institution brought to the circle, and each partner group decided on the degree to which they could realistically contribute to the project. In the first stages of planning prior to submitting a grant application, community and university partners co-developed five research questions and co-designed the study, including methods by which knowledge would be created and shared. In this paper, we focus on what we learned regarding the final question: How do the processes engaged in Indigenist research (e.g., conference, sharing circles, drumming, Witnessing) support meaningful and culturally appropriate sharing and creation of knowledge on the topic of how to embed local Indigenous knowledge, pedagogies, and worldviews appropriately in K-12 music classes in BC?

Method

Soon after Indigenous partners suggested we host a provincial conference to discuss the research questions, we discovered that an Anishinaabe scholar had used conference as a method in health research with Anishinaabe communities in Ontario when the number of people involved was too great for a sharing circle (McGregor, 2008). Since hosting the conference, we have learned that this method was also used in a recent education study investigating teachers’ inclusion of Indigenous perspectives in elementary and secondary school classes in Ontario (Bascuñán et al., 2022). However, the report of neither study described how partners engaged with each other to create the conference nor the Protocols that researchers had followed, and only one described how knowledge was created during the conference. This paper addresses this gap of knowledge. Indigenous methods of generating and sharing knowledge (e.g., sharing circles, drumming circles) featured prominently within the conference format. Moreover, under the guidance of two Elders from the local Songhees First Nation and the Tseshaht First Nation, along with the advice from the Victoria Native Friendship Centre executive director and cultural coordinator, we embedded specific local Protocols throughout (e.g., Welcome to Territory, Witnessing, smudging, healing, gifting, and feasting). While the conference served as our primary method of research, it simultaneously provided practical support for music educators’ learning about local Indigenous peoples’ knowledge, pedagogies, and worldviews, enabling them to build relationships with Knowledge Keepers from the territories on which their schools are situated.

We recorded all keynote addresses, workshops, and instruction sessions, and some of the planned and unplanned music making when deemed appropriate by the people involved. The knowledge created and shared during these events informed our accounts of the events that transpired. We also provided participants with feedback forms that asked them what their most memorable moments during the conference had been, what they had learned, and what support they might need for moving the conversation forward. Transcriptions of recorded sessions, workshops, and keynotes; recorded music making; and feedback forms comprised our “data.”

All 220 conference participants provided their informed consent verbally and the Human Research Ethics Boards of both the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia approved this study (Harmonized Ethics Review Protocol Number H21-03618). Moreover, the federal funding body from which we received a grant to conduct this research required us to demonstrate the specific ways in which we met the standards of the First Nations Principles of OCAP^® or Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession, which “establish how First Nations’ data and information will be collected, protected, used, or shared” (First Nations Information, 2024, para. 3).

After two years of monthly meetings via Zoom videoconferencing software to plan the event, plus two postponements due to COVID-19 shutdowns and restrictions, our in-person and livestreamed conference finally took place in May 2022. Since the event, we worked alongside a Steering Committee member from the Gitxsan First Nation, and a Nuu-chah-nulth individual—the latter a graduate of the Indigenous Studies program at the University of Victoria who was recommended to us by one of the Indigenous partner organizations—to code, analyse, and interpret some of the knowledge created, shared, and recorded at the various conference sessions. Steering Committee members also worked collectively to determine how to disseminate most effectively the knowledge created and shared at the conference, thereby actively participating in all phases of the research.

The Process of Creating Conference as Research Method

According to Key et al. (2019), two challenges in conducting CBPR are (1) the “length of time required to establish relationships and build trust,” and (2) sustainability, since “resources/funding, morale, and power dynamics often associated with experiences of discrimination and racism present challenges to sustainability” (Key et al., 2019, p. 429). These points align with our experience.

The Significance of Time and Trust in the Research Process

To prepare for the conference, the research steering committee essentially transitioned into a Conference Steering Committee (CSC) to plan the event. CSC members envisioned and organized the two-day hybrid conference in a way that centred Indigenous ways of knowing and being. The journey required many hours of consultations and discussions between the different partners involved in the project. The CSC included Indigenous leaders and artists, plus Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, music educators, and university researchers. Most committee members had participated in at least one of our two previous studies in some capacity (Prest, Goble, Vazquez-Cordoba, & Jung, 2021; Prest, Goble, Vazquez-Cordoba, & Tuinstra, 2021). When we originally applied for a grant to support our current study, we had imagined our monthly CSC meetings would be held in person, but upon receiving the funding at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we moved forward by meeting online. The challenges of the pandemic affected the members of the CSC in different ways (e.g., increased workload due to adjusting to online teaching, greater family responsibilities due to school and daycare closures); nevertheless, the CSC was able to meet monthly over two years, also scheduling many subcommittee meetings to address specific aspects of the conference.

Existing relationships helped to mitigate the challenges associated with meeting only via Zoom, which shaped the ways in which we could communicate and advance our relationships with one another. The CSC arrived at decisions through consensus building and acquired shared understandings. Chrona (2022) explains the importance of taking time to build consensus:

Coming to decisions by consensus (rather than just by voting) reflects the valuing of all members of a community. It requires time for everyone to have a say and be heard. It also requires skilled negotiation, a process that also demands patience and time, and encourages people to listen to, understand, and consider various perspectives. And while building consensus takes longer than a “majority wins” process, decisions that result from this have the potential to build stronger communities. (p. 165)

Adequate provision of time is key to developing and upholding “the principles of relationality and relational accountability” in research with Indigenous partners (Wilson, 2008, p. 6), yet institutional and granting agencies have not always considered the time required to nurture such relationships in their expectations of researcher output (Castleden et al., 2012), nor have researchers always planned accordingly (Snow, 2018). From our Western-oriented academic standpoint, we initially thought that the purpose of each two-hour monthly meeting would be to inform the CSC about progress made on the different tasks that had been identified at the previous meeting, then to receive advice on the steps we anticipated taking in the following month. However, in practice, CSC members often questioned the assumptions we university researchers had made and respectfully shared with us how they conceived the event differently. Several local Indigenous partners who were adept at working in cross-cultural settings explained the necessity of introducing components that were new to those of us who are non-Indigenous or not Indigenous to local territory in ways that we could understand. Thus, we rarely covered all the points that we wished to cover at each CSC meeting. Shared understandings and/or consensus are not necessarily attained within a pre-planned timeframe or a set number of meetings.

Finding common bases on which all partners could agree to make decisions led to honest, but sometimes difficult conversations, which took place in a virtual environment that was not conducive to the social bonding that in-person meetings often afford. For example, CSC members had differing views on whether the conference should be considered and publicly designated as Indigenous-led or Indigenous co-led. There was also dialogue among some Indigenous partners as to whether this distinction was significant for achieving our aspirations. We ultimately arrived at the conclusion that the project was Indigenous co-led and moved on to other conversations that continued to shape and define our relationships with one another.

On at least two occasions, one Indigenous member of the Steering Committee called a meeting for only Indigenous members, also informing the principal investigator and the project manager that the meetings would take place. These meetings provided Indigenous members with a space to discuss their various perspectives privately. Penak (2019) offers that “Reconciliation requires that we non-Indigenous people move forward with humility, recognizing that there need to be Indigenous spaces that are protected for Indigenous people, spaces that are not for us” (p. 154). Indigenous members shared concerns and comments arising in only one of the meetings with the rest of the committee. Following that meeting, Indigenous members met with the entire Steering Committee and asked the principal investigator to slow down the organizing process to enable Indigenous committee members to establish that their cultural concerns were being addressed in good faith and to allow more comprehensive discussion before arriving at decisions. They reminded everyone that Indigenous cultures and youth were at the centre of this endeavour, not music teachers and curriculum.

Fortunately, the trust that many of us had developed over a period of years in multiple webs of relationships prior to beginning this project enabled all of us to move pass difficult moments. As Minkler and Wallerstein (2008) have noted, “a committed research relationship based on an underlying context of trust makes a difference; even if there is an incident where trust is challenged, the underlying relationship enables both parties to keep working together and to renegotiate shared power and trust” (p. 35).

The conference was postponed twice (in February 2021 and February 2022) due to COVID-19 concerns, which allowed us more time for meaningful dialogue. As a result, the event we created was truer to research partners’ visions, and it took place in person in May 2022. In retrospect, it is clear to us that the conference’s delivery and content as originally planned for February 2021 would have been significantly different from the conference that eventually took place in May 2022. The extra 15 months of dialogue enabled Indigenous members of the CSC to emphasize the importance of embedding additional culturally appropriate components into the conference, which resulted in repeated re-shaping of the schedule and the budget. Although finding more funding sources to finance those additional components was stressful for the university researchers, we were grateful for the CSC’s guidance, and we eventually realized that the embedding of them was transformative. The conference planning provided those of us who are non-Indigenous researchers with an opportunity to reconsider our own conceptions of a conference. We moved away from notions of “efficiency,” focusing instead on process and staying relationally accountable to Indigenous partners, trusting that an outcome satisfactory to all concerned would organically emerge from working together.

The additional time for dialogue resulted not only in an event that participants reported as meaningful, but also in changes within individual CSC members, who had learned much about themselves, their degree of commitment, and the sheer scope of considerations that must be thought through when centering Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Working together through the challenges associated with the different stages of the pandemic and pandemic restrictions taught us as a collective that the very process of planning the conference was arguably the most important learning experience. Nineteen of the original 21 committee members remained with the committee throughout the two years of planning, and they were present in different capacities during the planning and delivery of the conference.

CSC members’ commitment to the work was evident throughout our extended engagement with one another. For example, one CSC member of Cree and European heritage, who is employed at the Ministry of Education and Child Care, facilitated the first author’s communications with the entire collective of Indigenous leads from all 60 BC School Districts via three Zoom meetings. This network enabled conference organizers to connect directly with the School District personnel who facilitated all participants’ attendance. The Indigenous leads’ collective response suggested that communicating with them via this channel had further legitimized the conference for them. In turn, they enabled Knowledge Keepers’ and music educators’ participation. We requested that three-member teams from each school district (i.e., one Indigenous lead, one Knowledge Keeper local to that area, and one music educator) attend the conference in person, and that others attend virtually. Some Indigenous leads explained to us that, due to high interest, they had to implement a lottery system to decide which of the many music educators who had expressed interest would physically attend. They also explained that some Knowledge Keepers had made the decision to participate in the conference virtually because of health issues. The CSC’s years of consultation contributed to fostering Indigenous partners’ comfort in reaching out to local Indigenous community members in their given locations to invite Knowledge Keepers’ involvement.

Description of Conference as Research Method

The conference, conceived as a knowledge-sharing and knowledge-creation event, took place Monday and Tuesday, May 9 and 10, 2022, at the Student Union Building on the University of Victoria campus in Victoria, BC. Presenters and participants at the event contributed perspectives from 50 First Nations and Métis Nations. Invited keynote speakers Carey Newman (Kwakwak’awakw/WaWalaby/Stó:lō First Nations), UVic Impact Chair in Indigenous Art Practices, and Steven Point (Stó:lō First Nation), Chancellor of the University of British Columbia, voiced their thoughts on reconciliation, decolonization, and Indigenization in and through music education. Chancellor Point taught everyone his song, “British Columbia.”

Other musical performers included the trio SGaanaGwa (one member is from the Haida First Nation), cellist Cris Derksen (Anishinaabe North Tallcree First Nation), the lək̓ʷəŋən Dancers (Songhees First Nation, 2013). Thirteen Indigenous educators and musicians presented eight workshops (four taking place concurrently in each of two sessions) on topics including drumming, singing, dance, story and song, teachings, community building, “dreaming songs into reality,” and relationships between Western classical and Indigenous music making. We also provided a guided session for participants to think through specific questions collectively, and a local imagining session for small teams to consider what steps they could take next in their own locations.

In planning the workshops, Indigenous members of the CSC had also emphasized the need to hold space for the Knowledge Keepers attending the conference to drum, sing, and connect. The CSC agreed to provide a parallel space (occurring at the same time as the workshops) for Knowledge Keepers to gather. The CSC also agreed to invite a group of middle and secondary school students from the local school district who had been actively involved in drumming and singing in their music classes to join the group of Knowledge Keepers. The Ceremonial Hall of the First Peoples House at UVic served as the drumming and singing space for that specific gathering. In keeping with principles of accountability in Indigenous/Indigenist research (First Nations Information, 2024; Wilson, 2008), and in acknowledgement that some knowledge is sacred and should not be shared (FNESC, 2008), ¹¹ we did not record and will not report on experiences in this space.

In-person participants included 39 teachers, 24 Knowledge Keepers, and 42 Indigenous leads representing 40 of BC’s 60 school districts plus a representative from Yukon Territory, and 53 others attended virtually via Zoom video teleconference. Apart from people working in or with school districts, in-person attendees included two music educators working at independent schools, four UVic Elders, 10 informal witnesses (music education professors, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students from across Canada), 30 middle and high school students, and eight special invitees. To facilitate the in-person and virtual presentation of the conference, we hired two Indigenous teacher candidates (Métis Nation of B.C. and Songhees First Nation), one postsecondary student of Nêhiyaw and French heritage, two Songhees First Nation community members, four drum carriers from various First Nations on Vancouver Island, a Stó:lō First Nation AV specialist, and a professional video production company that narrowcast the event via Zoom teleconference. Eight teacher candidate volunteers provided additional support. The CSC advised we hire a local Indigenous artist to design the conference’s logo, which we used for communication and promotion purposes. The artist, a Songhees First Nation Elder who also participated as one of the advisors for this project, licensed his artwork for the conference, stipulating that it must not be used for profit. Likewise, the CSC advised that we hire a W̱SÁNEĆ/Sḵx̱wu7mesh First Nations videographer and her work partner to create two short videos chronicling the event for knowledge dissemination purposes, and we did so.

Conference is Ceremony

We focus next on ceremonial aspects of local Indigenous gatherings that Indigenous CSC members deemed critical to include, and that those of us who are non-Indigenous had not previously considered. Indigenous CSC members advised that we hire additional Elders and community members from local First Nations on whose traditional territories UVic stands to be actively involved during the conference in carrying out cultural Protocols, such as welcoming all participants to Lək̓ʷəŋən Territory, blessing the food, serving as floor manager, and providing healing (i.e., giving support to participants who experienced difficulties during the event, including revisiting trauma from their childhood experiences in Residential Schools). These aspects led Indigenous participants to report feeling that the conference was a culturally safe place and non-Indigenous participants to report that they found it to be a culturally immersive experience.

Each day began with a Welcome to Territory by a member of the Songhees First Nation. VNFC partners ensured that three Indigenous healers/counselors from a local organization were present. Several conference participants benefited from their services. Spontaneous drumming, singing, storytelling, and flute playing occurred during mealtimes and between sessions in the main conference room. Vendors sold cedar woven baskets, talking sticks, jewelry, and other art associated with cultural practice. Gratitude was expressed formally prior to each meal, and gift giving—a practice central in traditional ceremonies, feasts, and gatherings—featured prominently (Absolon, 2011).

In the Northwest Coast Longhouse tradition, a floor manager ensures that ceremonial events flow smoothly, people are taken care of, and necessary things are said. Through the UVic cultural liaison, we hired an experienced floor manager from the Songhees First Nation for the two-day event. In a meeting prior to the conference, she explained that we should have blankets, pouches, quarters, and small banknotes ready to support people should any mishaps occur. Two accidents required that individuals be blanketed and given support for their mental, emotional, and physical well-being. In one case, a dancer inadvertently dropped part of his regalia; in the second, a person fell and turned their ankle. Two Witnesses, who were given quarters (coins) as a symbolic gesture of payment for their service, were charged with the responsibility of observing and remembering how people had rallied to make circumstances better for those involved. Members of the Songhees First Nation (2013) explicate the role of Witnesses in greater detail:

As a tradition, witnessing has protocols which suggest a deep respect for the act of witnessing itself. Remuneration is paid and trust is given that the witness will be present, pay attention and, most importantly, share the experience with others through stories and storytelling. To witness an event is not simply to be a passive spectator, but to take part in an event with active presence. (p. 10)

The Elder who ensured that local Protocols were enacted after the first accident, offered a unique metaphor to explain the role of Witnesses and the purpose of blanketing to all conference participants:

… These two witnesses, they are the library of this work ... In the future, [if] anybody in our families that cares about the situation, and they [the Witnesses] happen to be there, they're the ones that are going to pass on what actually happened. They are the record of this work that’s going on. That's part of our cultural traditions, our cultural teachings. And this is what we bring out to share with each and every one of you. So, at this time, we're gonna wrap a blanket on our little brother that had lost part of his regalia. And [in] our cultural teachings, when we lose something, that’s part of us that we lose, part of our spirit ... We don’t want our brother to leave here with hard, hurt emotions and feelings. What we're doing with the blanket is wrapping that blanket and picking that spirit back up again, keeping that person whole again.

A CSC member reported that our following of the local Protocol of Witnessing when these mishaps occurred had further legitimized the conference for some participants.

Wilson (2008) has affirmed that “research by and for Indigenous peoples is a ceremony that brings relationships together” (p. 8), and it “allows us a raised level of consciousness and insights into our world” (p. 11). Moreover, he stated, “in our culture, an integral part of any ceremony is setting the stage properly … The specific rituals that make up the ceremony are designed to get the participants into a state of mind that will allow the extraordinary to take place” (p. 69). Absolon (2011) has also asserted that “Ceremonies provide a channel to heal, cleanse, seek knowledge, and gain insight to make decisions throughout the search process” (p. 123). Hayward et al. (2021) concur:

Research is increasingly being honored as a ceremony, a process that should be approached with sacredness and reverence. This includes not only the sacredness of knowledge that emerges from research and the relationships formed throughout the process, but the consideration of spirituality in research methods as well. (pp. 412–413)

One of the key people who ensured that the conference flowed smoothly echoed these perspectives. We hired a member of the Ehattesaht First Nation to co-MC the event only a few weeks prior to the conference. He had participated in many potlatches; potlatch is the generic name for various types of feasts and gatherings organized by members of First Nations in the Northwest to strengthen social bonds and demonstrate goodwill (Bracken, 1997). Consensus and mutual respect feature prominently at these feasts, which serve to “forge continuity and social reproduction from one generation to the next” (Roth, 2008, p. 6). The MC expressed to all participants that he had initially struggled to make sense of his role. He stated:

But it was when I started thinking of this [conference] as potlatch—that this is potlatch—that I was able to understand how to sort this. And of course, we had our opening from a respected Elder. And then we had our singers and dancers who opened this up in the way that we're supposed to do things. And similar to a potlatch, it takes families of people to make something like this happen.

The MC’s publicly shared realization aligns with Indigenous scholars’ notion that research—in this case, conference—is ceremony. Wilson (2008) asserts that “Indigenous research is a ceremony … A ceremony … is not just the period at the end of the sentence. It is the required process and preparation that happens long before the event” (pp. 60–61). We are now much more aware that the very process of discussion and decision making that took place at the many committee and subcommittee meetings leading up to the conference was part and parcel of the ceremonial aspect of this research. We understand more fully the essential role that generosity plays in this engagement (Hughes et al., 2023). Our ongoing commitment to this research continues to be partially motivated by our desire to support music educators in enacting curriculum and educational policies. But we now consciously prioritize the goals and aspirations of Indigenous partners in their efforts to share what they deem to be appropriate in music education settings in ways that support Indigenous students and communities, along with educating non-Indigenous students and educators. We are grateful to Indigenous partners for their attention to and insistence on the ceremonial nature of the actual event, which heightened our understanding and participants’ seriousness of intent, giving us reason to hope that the knowledge created and shared will provide a catalyst for action in the BC localities represented going forward.

Initial Effects of the Conference

In the twelve months following the conference, partners and delegates shared with us actions taken as a direct result of their participation in the event.

• The BC Music Educators’ Association (BCMEA), one of our research partners, encouraged the organizers of the annual BCMEA conference in October 2022 to be proactive in ensuring that Indigenous knowledge in music classes was the topic of multiple workshops; 260 of the 670 delegates attended at least one of the six sessions provided on this subject.

• For the first time, the BCMEA executive members organized online Professional Development in February 2023, which included a 90-min session for music educators to continue their learning on this topic. The BCMEA executive member who serves as Indigenous advisor for the organization and is a member of the Qualicum First Nation facilitated the event, along with one of the authors. Approximately 25 music educators participated.

• In one school district, the fine arts coordinator and Indigenous Education Department began creating secondary school music resources in the form of teachings, lesson plans, videos, and songs, expanding the already comprehensive resources available to elementary teachers who have received sufficient instruction. Discussions are also underway to create instructional resources for Early Learning years. The Indigenous Education department of that district has added a new temporary Indigenous Art and Music Resource Teacher position.

• At least two school districts began designing an Indigenous-focused music composition or music ensemble course (i.e., a course that focuses on Indigenous knowledge) as a way to meet the new provincially mandated Indigenous Graduation requirement (one course that focuses on Indigenous knowledge).

• In a related effort, the president of the BCMEA, a group affiliated with the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), formally made a recommendation to the BCTF Executive Committee “that the federation request that the Ministry of Education and Child Care create a provincially discrete and/or combined Fine Arts 11/12 course to meet the Indigenous Graduation requirements.” This course would be developed in conjunction with the First Nations Education Steering Committee.

• Music educators in two other school districts organized fall 2022 professional development events for music educators in their districts to support teachers in taking responsibility for decolonizing and Indigenizing their teaching practices.

• One rural music educator has reached out to the local Indigenous community near his school, partnering with them to provide music opportunities for students who attend the federally funded school on the reserve. As a result, the teacher has developed relationships with community members and been granted permission to transcribe a recorded collection of local Indigenous songs.

• In addition to these efforts, 14 music education professors, postdoctoral fellows, and independent researchers across Canada, who attended the conference either in person or virtually as informal Witnesses to the event, jointly submitted a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Connections grant application so that they, along with Indigenous research partners, could meet together in May 2023 to discuss their respective current and projected collaborative research efforts to decolonize and Indigenize music education at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels in partnership with local Indigenous communities. We received the funding in January 2023 and 43 people participated in the event. Our joint goal at the meeting was to discuss the preparation of a SSHRC Partnership Grant application for much greater funding; if we are successful, it will provide financial support for the research in all 14 locations across Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Conclusion

This examination of one case study in which an Indigenist approach in music education research and corresponding methods supported meaningful and culturally appropriate sharing and creation of knowledge is intended to serve to illustrate the centrality of process in an Indigenist approach to research and learning, thus contributing to methodological knowledge. We found that the sharing circles, drumming and singing, Witnessing, healing, and other cultural practices embedded in the conference supported meaningful and culturally appropriate sharing and creation of knowledge on wise practices in decolonizing and Indigenizing music education. These processes did so because they upheld Indigenous ways of being and knowing and inspired seriousness of purpose and communication among participants. Moreover, participants deemed outcomes and effects credible and trustworthy because they emerged from a planning process that was culturally informed and that had been deemed ethical, legitimate, and appropriate by all planning parties through consensus.

Styres (2017) likens cross-cultural work to a catamaran in which “two distinct but egalitarian knowledge systems co-[exist] and [work] together … to ensure stability and efficiency [where] both hulls (knowledge systems) would be distinct but equal and the wide beam would bridge the two” (p. 137). As we move forward on this ongoing and iterative research journey, we are reminded that learning and meaning making involve mind, body, heart, and spirit, and that music making in community has a role to play in Indigenist research because all these aspects of our being are engaged when singing and drumming. Thus, music making, or “sonic partnerships” as the UVic president expressed at the conference’s Opening Ceremonies, can be a bridge between knowledge systems and a way to navigate the complexity of this work. We have also learned from Indigenous partners that the ceremonial aspects of Indigenist research, including singing and drumming, are fundamental to decolonizing music education research in British Columbia because ceremony highlights process as central to ethical behaviour from which fitting outcomes can naturally evolve. Moreover, because these ceremonial Protocols, cultural practices, and related ways of meaning making are connected to Land and specific places on it, ¹² it will require that school districts, music educators, and Knowledge Keepers pursue answers to the questions that were raised at the conference in their local communities. Our study confirmed there is no easy answer to decolonizing music education in British Columbia, and that educators must move beyond a “just tell me how to do this” approach, to actively engaging with the Indigenous people on whose Land they reside to find a local pathway. As one of our CSC members verbalized, “These aren’t the answers you’re looking for; these are the questions you’re looking for. Now you take the questions back to your community and ask them there.”