Hauntings on Blackfoot land: Theorizing the hinterlands of Native teacher education programming at the University of Lethbridge

Abstract

Shortly after the 1967 establishment of the University of Lethbridge (U of L), a Native teacher education program was developed in collaboration with First Nations communities. This collaboration, the program, and the U of L’s location on Blackfoot territory feature as selling points in contemporary promotional materials designed to recruit Indigenous students. My reading of the U of L archives, however, suggests that the partnerships required to build the NEp were haunted by colonial logics and practices. Following John Law (2002), I juxtapose and theorize the tensions and correspondences between stories told by the promotional texts and counterstories that correspond to my reading of the archives. I suggest that in these two textual sites, the U of L is variously and contradictorily enacted as a place beset by ghosts, invested in keeping with particular colonial projects, and as a place committed to supporting the success of Indigenous students.