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After years pursuing higher education, Olivia Couchie and Savannah Simon both found they were often the only Indigenous person in the room. That discovery inspired them to advocate for Indigenous representation in academic and archival work.
“It’s important to remember when you are the only Indigenous person in a place, it’s okay to take up space and be proud to share your perspectives, experiences and ideas because they deserve to be heard,” said Simon.
Now, Simon and Couchie are inaugural recipients of the Black and Indigenous Student Fellowship, an initiative jointly offered by the master of library and information science (MLIS) program and Western Libraries.
The fellowship supports and recruits MLIS applicants who identify as Indigenous or Black and demonstrate academic achievement, community involvement and a desire to build a career in the libraries and information field. Funding covers academic fees and a two-term, paid co-op placement with Western Libraries.
Simon and Couchie are each working to further their information science education through their placements, while ensuring stories are told through Indigenous perspectives.
Writing her own history
From early childhood, Simon described herself as “perpetually curious.” She was eager to learn more about herself and her culture as a Mi’kmaq woman from Natoaganeg First Nation.
Savannah Simon
That curiosity inspired her to study history and eventually, information science. As a fourth-year history student at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, she took on a research assistant position. Simon helped develop a relational database that led to a gathering of descendants of those who attended Sussex Vale Indian Day School, allowing the community to connect to history and facilitate community healing.
“The project helped me understand the importance of preserving information and history, because that’s what builds the narratives that are extracted from the historical record,” said Simon.
As an historian, Simon sees how often, Indigenous histories are taught based on colonial views, using European settler texts and testimonies rather than Indigenous accounts, and perpetuating false ideas of Indigenous Peoples. She knew that to inspire real change in who writes historical narratives, she wanted to continue down an academic path – she didn’t yet know where. After a push from her research supervisor, Simon decided to continue uncovering Indigenous histories to help reconstruct knowledge, leading her to Western’s MLIS program.
Now, as an archivist-in-training, Simon is working with Western Libraries’ archives and special collections (ARCC) unit on archival appraisal and arrangement. Through the creation of a finding aid in the library database, she is improving accessibility and discoverability to archival materials stored on campus.
Simon is most looking forward to an upcoming ARCC project where she will identify Indigenous individuals and survivors of Canadian residential schools that are documented in Western Libraries. Once identified, archivists will contact family members of victims to reunite those affected, a process Simon described as deeply meaningful.
“Sometimes I do feel the weight of history on my back. But it’s so important for Indigenous Peoples to continue to write our own history and to be the stewards of it so we can take sovereignty over the historical narrative. We want to ensure that past and current issues are being written by the people experiencing them, instead of the institutions imposing those issues.” – Savannah Simon, Western MLIS candidate and Indigenous Student Fellow
Simon doesn’t plan to stop there. Once she has completed her MLIS degree, she will return to Fredericton, NB., as a Wabanaki art curator at the Under One Sky Friendship Centre. Her long-term goal is to establish an Indigenous-led library where the Natoaganeg community can access genealogy, culture, history and education resources.
“I want people to feel like they can step into a space where they are accurately represented,” said Simon.
Redefining representation
Growing up, Couchie frequented bookstores hoping to find a novel or story she could relate to. As a member of Nipissing First Nation, Couchie often felt left out of the books she read.
Olivia Couchie
“Years ago, there just weren’t books on display that featured Indigenous people, you really had to hunt for them,” Couchie said.
Couchie attended Western for her undergraduate in criminology and sociology, and a master’s degree in gender, sexuality and women’s studies.
During her master’s, Couchie conducted an integrated research project on the representation of Indigenous Peoples – specifically women, girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals – in Indigenous-authored young adult graphic novels. She found when Indigenous people tell their own stories, representation looks different than what has been historically projected.
Three themes emerged throughout Couchie’s research: kinship and relationality, resistance to structural harm – such as colonialism, policing and child welfare systems – and cultural continuity and resurgence.
“Showing that Indigenous cultures are continuing, living, evolving and not static is really important for representation since there is so much media that depicts an old, offensive version of what an Indigenous person looks like,” she said.
Couchie’s interdisciplinary work has informed her plans to bring non-traditional media to libraries. She hopes to centre Indigenous knowledge in her library work to ensure information is diverse, accessible and nation specific.
Through the fellowship, Couchie is completing a co-op placement with the teaching and learning department at The Allyn & Betty Taylor Library, where she is bringing an Indigenous perspective to academic libraries.
“Peer-reviewed articles aren’t the only materials that should be used to understand Indigenous – and more broadly, Canadian – stories and histories, because that’s not the only way knowledge can be translated. Alternative ways of knowing and being are valuable and have a place in academia.” – Olivia Couchie, Western MLIS candidate and Indigenous Student Fellow
Decolonizing library curriculum
(L to R) Savannah Simon and Olivia Couchie, recipients of Western MLIS Black and Indigenous Student Fellowship. (Lauren daSilva/Western News)
Less than one per cent of Canadians in library careers identify as Indigenous. For both Couchie and Simon, the Black and Indigenous Student Fellowship is an essential stepping-stone to their future.
“The fellowship speaks to Western’s broader commitment to indigenization and decolonization, by taking extra steps to support diversity in libraries and the information profession,” said Simon. “If it wasn’t for this fellowship, I probably wouldn’t be here at Western doing all of this amazing work.”
Western Libraries’ teaching and learning team recently developed a resource for knowledge justice in libraries and beyond, reflecting Western’s commitment to decolonizing its curriculum. Both fellows’ work highlights the growing shift toward diverse library projects on campus.
“There’s no real substitute for having people represent themselves. Including Indigenous people, characters or knowledge adds an unmatched complexity and authenticity to libraries,” said Couchie.
Learn more about how Western is navigating new realities.
