Di-bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves): Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways by Jerry Fontaine and Don McCaskill

Abstract

Reviewed by: Di-bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves): Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways by Jerry Fontaine and Don McCaskill Sasha Maria Suarez (bio) Di-bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves): Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways by Jerry Fontaine and Don McCaskill Dundurn Press, 2022 In a world where the place of Indigenous studies has been, to some extent, accepted within colleges and universities, can we confidently say that this acceptance—or incorporation—is occurring in a meaningful and lasting way? What does it even mean to "incorporate" a field that relies in large part on the use of Indigenous pedagogies, methodologies, ontologies, and epistemologies? Is it a matter of fitting such a field into preexisting colonial institutional structures or must there be a more rigorous process of coming to terms with what it truly means to support Indigenous studies? Can you "indigenize the academy"? Jerry Fontaine (Sagkeeng First Nations) and Don McCaskill take up the above questions in Di-bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves): Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways and challenge the possibility of incorporating Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies into reconciliation-based efforts promoted by Western institutions of higher learning in Canada. Di-bayn-di-zi-win is primarily an Anishinabe studies text, one that prioritizes Anishinabe-specific world views and "i-nah-di-zi-win" and "nah-nahn-gah-dah-wayn-ji-gay-win"—Anishinabe ways of knowing and being that are loosely compatible with the concepts of ontology and epistemology (p. 15). Though this monograph does speak broadly to Indigenous studies as a whole and to other Indigenous nations' own [End Page 128] ways of knowing or being, it is best approached understanding that not all concepts, pedagogies, or practices described within are translatable with other Indigenous cultures. This is particularly important to note given the extensive use of Anishinabemowin (Anishinabe language) and Anishinabe ceremonies, stories, and practices. Anishinabe is loosely translatable as "human being" and may fit within contemporary concepts such as Indigenous or "Indian," but Anishinabe also contains specific cultural, legal, and political meanings that are not inherently transferable to all Indigenous peoples in North America or elsewhere. Similarly, the importance of Anishinabemowin, which both Fontaine and McCaskill highlight, requires the reader to consider how the inclusion of language is designed to unsettle expectations of discourse around Indigenization of the academy. However, one should be cautioned against using the language and concepts as broadly applicable in every Indigenous studies case. Although both authors demonstrate the importance of using Indigenous protocols and practices, which include language, Di-bayn-di-zi-win is specific to "Anishinabe-Ojibway" practices and attention should be paid to how language is being used both in relation to translatable (and the untranslatable nature of) Anishinabemowin and the use of phonetic orthography in the dialect of Anishinabemowin that Fontaine speaks (which is used extensively throughout this review, though it is not the orthography I am most familiar with). As is the case with Indigenous studies more broadly, Anishinabe studies is precariously positioned within institutions of higher learning that favor Western systems of knowledge production. Fontaine and McCaskill demonstrate what this precarity has and continues to mean by sharing their own personal experiences with Canadian colleges, universities, governments, and the reconciliation process. Structured within Anishinabe storytelling practices, Di-bayn-di-zi-win provides Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives on the history of Indigenous studies and the questionable nature of incorporating Anishinabe pedagogies, methodologies, and praxis without truly knowing what they mean and how they are utilized within Anishinabe societies. A common thread throughout the book is the importance of using Anishinabe "bish-kayn-di-ji-gay-win" (pedagogy) and "i-zhi-chi-gay-win" (methodology) inside and outside of academic spaces to truly grasp what practicing Anishinabe studies means. In the first half of the book, McCaskill utilizes crucial Anishinabe "protocols, principles, and practices" to demonstrate how they "can be the basis of genuine reconciliation and indigenization of the academy" (p. 19). McCaskill, a non-Native person who has decades of experience teaching Indigenous studies and learning Anishinabe worldviews, uses his experiences [End Page 129] with Anishinabe pedagogy to articulate how the Canadian state has failed to reconcile Anishinabe practices and pedagogies in...