Start with Self: Considerations of Being in Relationship

Abstract

This dissertation of practice is a thorough and reflexive examination of self and identity as I seek to explore relationship, as a white woman administrator at a community college, with Indigenous peoples without causing further harm with the goal of supporting Indigenous identity, self-determination, and restoration of land. Using the method of critical autoethnography interrogated through the lens of feminist epistemology, I explore questions of losing/discovering home, losing/discovering (my) mother, and grief in order to engage my whole self in my relations with my colleagues, my family and friends, and my community in the pursuit of liberatory action.