I am a Basket Maker: A Collection of Stories Weaving Dietetics, Education, and Mi’kmaw Pedagogy

Abstract

This thesis explores how land-based education can lead to the reconnection with cultural foods for Mi’kmaw learners and communities. Land-based learning as a tool to rekindle the Mi’kmaw relationship with local foods has been explored through literature, local oral knowledge, and personal lived experiences. Mi’kmaw ways of knowing and being such as Netukulimk, Etuaptmumk, and Mi’kmaw educational pedagogy guided this research and have been woven throughout the chapters. While it was not my original research plan, I found myself weaving together stories from my life as an educator, dietetic student, L’nu woman, mother, and emerging basket maker through the central metaphoric (and at times literal) theme of basket making. Dietetics, education, land-based learning, history, and my own experiences within these topics have been woven together to present opportunities for learning for educators, academics, dietitians, families, and communities. Lessons from this study that could be applied within communities and schools include recognizing the circular, life-long nature of learning; the value of storytelling in research; honouring our unique skills, strengths, and pathways to knowledge; forced and natural evolution of foodways; and how school policy can influence access to cultural foods within the classroom.