ABSTRACT
In exploring storytelling as a decolonizing strategy within education, it is important to review how narratives inform the construction of identity. Post-colonial studies, however mislabeled from an Indigenous perspective, provide a useful entry point into vital work of decolonizing education through storytelling. While decolonizing efforts in extreme circumstances appear worlds away from an intellectual exercise that seeks educational reform, several influential post-colonial works demonstrate the power of stories in supporting the efforts of the colonized. In exploring how storytelling traditions might play a role in decolonizing education, a focus on literature might seem a natural place to start. While vestiges of the oral tradition remain in most Aboriginal communities, especially amongst the older residents, it is important to acknowledge that these important cultural traditions, including that of storytelling, were severely disrupted as a direct result of colonizing tactics. As one of Canada’s colonized Aboriginal groups, the Metis have been historically cast as characters of “functional importance” in the nation-building project.
