Multimodal Language Rights and Indigenous Totemic Identity: Cross-Cultural Participatory Research

Abstract

ABSTRACT Indigenous language rights and identity practices are marginalised in education, bringing a need for mainstream educators to understand and respect Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and sharing knowledge. Engaging elementary students (ages 4.5 to 12 years), the cross-cultural participatory research was conducted for three years to understand Indigenous language practices that were multimodal, including digital storytelling, singing, e-book making, dance and video making. The Indigenous school community gave central place to totemic traditions in their multimodal language use. To understand Indigenous views of lifeworlds through a non-linear view of time, Bakhtin’s chronotope is used to illuminate time-space in the students’ multimodal texts. The findings are significant because failure to engage with and understand Indigenous knowledge contributes to the production and maintenance of inequity. The research counters hegemonic effects and silencing of Indigenous communities, demonstrating how Indigenous culture and multimodal literacies can be taught hand-in-hand in the 21st century.