Building Intercultural Mentorship, Wellbeing, and Wholistic Practice in Graduate Education

Abstract

Reflecting on a 10-month playbuilding research study about global and national displacement, four scholars from Southern Ontario discuss their experiences and accomplishments during the project, using the Medicine Wheel as their conceptual framework. The study included local and international graduate students, professors, and community members of diverse backgrounds, including First Nations, Métis, and Maya (Indigenous) Peoples, Canadian-born non-Indigenous peoples, immigrants, and refugees living on Turtle Island. The study co-creators had opportunities to develop a play and a film, hear each other’s stories of displacement and resilience, build a stronger sense of community, and gain a deeper understanding of arts-based approaches in education. In this chapter, the four authors reflected on the project and their collaborative writing to explore how these two engagements enhanced intercultural mentorships, healing, and wellbeing. These reflections demonstrate that the arts, Indigenous pedagogical tools, and collaborative intercultural authorship have the potential to build cultural bridges, resilience, and coexistence. They also demonstrate the power of playbuilding in challenging social, cultural, and educational divides and helping intercultural faculty, students, and local communities learn, heal, live, and thrive together.