Research

The transfer of strength, wholeness, and knowledge to the next generation is critical not only

for human well-being but for planetary continuance. Nurturing kinship relations with all

life-forms is the ‘imperative’ of our times!

Re-building our intergenerational connections: The International Resilience Network
(IRN) and collaborators are working together with Indigenous nations and non-Indigenous
communities to revitalise intergenerational and interspecies connections. To this end we are
Seeding Intergenerational Resilience hubs throughout Turtle Island (Canada), Aotearoa (New
Zealand), Alba (Scotland) and Australia. In alignment with IRN’s Indigenous Social Impact
Strategy, over the next year, these hubs will arrange workshops aimed at developing
promising practices of intergenerational resilience through:

  • Elders and youth sharing intergenerational wisdoms
  • Re-centering Indigenous realities and knowledge
  • Nurturing land-based, arts-based and storytelling methodologies
  • Participating in the Global Intergenerational Resilience Exchange

Each intergenerational resilience project will focus on a local sustainability issues. Areas of
focus will include issues such as food sovereignty or security, water, or the relationship
between mental wellbeing and land issues; with methods utilized decided locally. For
example one of the IRN hubs, Tsawout First Nation is focusing on the revitalization of their
traditional ReefNet Fishing methods.
In each community this research project will consist of two steps:

  1. Better understanding current practices of intergenerational resilience
  2. Developing promising practices of intergenerational resilience

Social Impact Assessment:
Alongside these activities we will be establishing social impact evaluation measures. To
assist this our research asks three questions:

  • What does intergenerational resilience mean to you and what are the signs of it in
    your community?
  • What are the things that help it develop, and what gets in the way? (i.e. barriers and
    enablers).
  • In what ways would you like to see practices of intergenerational resilience happening
    more in your community and what kinds of community, institutional and policy
    supports need to be put in place? 

 

Knowledge Mobilization

Publications

Articles on IRN’s solidarity building work and development of de-colonial pedagogies

  • MacKinnon, I. (2019) The Invention of the Crofting Community: Scottish History's Elision of Indigenous Identity, Ideology and Agency in Accounts of Land Struggle in the Modern Gàidhealtachd. The Scottish Historical Review, Volume 98 Issue 1, Page 71-102, ISSN 0036-9241 Available Online here.
  • Williams, L., Fletcher, A., Hanson, C., Neapole, J., and Pollack, M. (2018). Women and Climate Change Impacts and Action in Canada: Feminist, Indigenous, and Intersectional Perspectives. Found here.
  • Williams, L., Bunda, T., Claxton, N. MacKinnon, I.  (2017). A Global De-colonial Praxis of Sustainability – Undoing Epistemic Violences between Indigenous Peoples and those no longer Indigenous to Place. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, Special Issue on South-South Dialogues: Global Approaches to De-colonial Pedagogies, https://doi.org/10.1017/jie.2017.25 Published
    online: 03 October 2017
  • Williams, L. and Claxton, N. (2017). Re-cultivating Intergenerational Resilience: Possibilities for Scaling DEEP through Disruptive Pedagogies of Decolonization and Reconciliation. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education: Special Issue on Activism and Environmental Education, 22, 60-81. https://cjee.lakeheadu.ca/article/view/1534/870
  • MacKinnon, I., Williams, L. and Waller, A. (2017). The reindigenization of humanity to Mother Earth: a learning platform for cultivating social-ecological resilience to challenge the Anthropocene. Forthcoming, Journal of Sustainability Education, forthing on http://www.susted.com 

Summit Videos

Links to forthcoming publications about IRN’s work coming soon!