The "Old Ways" As New Methods" Decolonizing and Native Values in Academia (Critical Essay‪)‬

Academia's increasing number of ethnic studies programs and students of diverse backgrounds necessitates a shift from purely theoretical discussions of race, ethnicity, identity, and authenticity to new pedagogical considerations. Those of us who teach "ethnic" curricula have not only read the theories about identity politics, we now see these conflicts play out in our classrooms. Moreover, identity is no longer a subtext of the class dynamic or class materials; it is the text. A decolonization paradigm can accommodate tensions regarding identity so that identity-as-text can be constructive and beneficial rather than destructive for students. In this paper we discuss student reactions during a class we co-taught titled "American Indian Assimilation and Resistance on the Great Plains"; after spending a week on campus, we traveled with 25 students to sites in Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana. We describe the unexpected resistance we encountered in the class, which became a microcosm of Indian identity concerns. We saw a potentially destructive dynamic surrounding Indian identity playing out among our students with questions of authenticity and authority emerging as our students for the first time dealt with these issues in "real life" academic surroundings rather than in the "neutral" setting of a classroom. We conclude by describing our decision to decolonize our pedagogy and thus the culture of the class.