By Laura Blanchette
Prof. Andr茅s C. 尝贸辫别锄
For Prof. Andr茅s C. 尝贸辫别锄 (he/they), incorporating basket weaving into pedagogy is a tool for decolonizing the classroom and challenging colonial academic ways of knowing.鈥�听
Prof. 尝贸辫别锄 is an associate professor in the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies at 杏吧原创. Last term, he guided a cohort of graduate students through the skillsharing process of making doublewoven rivercane baskets, a practice that originated with the Cherokee people in what is now called North Carolina and the American southeast.鈥�听
Incorporating skillshare in the classroom contributes to a paradigm shift towards decolonized academic spaces by introducing students to Indigenous ways of knowing.听
Prof. 尝贸辫别锄鈥檚 graduate course, Gendering Canada: Queer of Color Critiques (CDNS 5202), used doublewoven basketry to explore the mutual dependencies between queer and Indigenous studies. The weaving process begins at the听basket鈥檚 base and continues up from the inside before flipping directions and weaving a second wall that encompasses the first. The听result is a sturdy basket with two walls.
According to , a Cherokee scholar at Oregon State University, the doublewoven basket acts as a metaphor for the need for queer and Indigenous studies to exist together.听听
Doublewoven baskets created by Prof. 尝贸辫别锄’s graduate class in fall 2023.
鈥淚 had students make baskets, so that we could actually physically touch it and see it as a way of thinking about our scholarship, or what that might look like, even though not all of the students were Indigenous in the class. It鈥檚 a call and critique to both [Indigenous studies and queer studies],鈥� said Prof. 尝贸辫别锄, 鈥�because without us working together, without us thinking of each other as one full basket, things don鈥檛 work, and we wind up erasing people.鈥�听听
Incorporating skillshare into the classroom has also informed other elements of his pedagogy. In larger classes, some students will learn faster than others and begin teaching one another. Prof. 尝贸辫别锄 describes this as creating a communal classroom space, where he is no longer the expert, the sole teacher, but rather the students have an opportunity to participate in teaching. Prof. 尝贸辫别锄 brings the idea of the communal classroom into his classes even when he is not incorporating skillshare.
Outside the classroom, he practices his Maya ancestor鈥檚 traditional .
Prof. Andr茅s C. 尝贸辫别锄’s backstrap weaving.
For skilled weavers, Prof. 尝贸辫别锄 says they can see a finished scarf and know the creation story from when it was woven.听
鈥淭his is a creation story,鈥� said Prof. 尝贸辫别锄. 鈥淲e have been doing this for millennia, we have ways of creating knowledge, we have ways of passing histories and stories.鈥�听
Prof. 尝贸辫别锄 learned Cherokee doublewoven basketry from Prof. Driskill and helped facilitate workshops in classrooms and for conferences that incorporated skillshare. Prof. Driskill explores as a pedagogical practice that highlights Indigenous rhetoric to continue traditions, teach the next generation of Indigenous Peoples, and strengthen alliances with non-Indigenous people by building a strong sense of mutual understanding.听