On May 27, 2013 the UBC Learning Circle is partnering with the Ktunaxa Nation Council, College of the Rockies and the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) at UBC to bring you a series of video conference and computer webinar sessions that provide the opportunity for participants to gather, learn, and discuss social epigenetics and knowledge relationships through sharing emerging research and Ktunaxa and Indigenous perspectives.
Presenters include Joe Pierre Jr., Michele A. Sam, Gwen Phillips, Dr. Tom Boyce, and Dr. Michael S. Kobor.
May 23, 2013: Dr Michael Yellow Bird is unable to join us at this time. We wish him safe travels, much love and blessings and look forward to working with him in the near future. We have revised the agenda to focus specifically upon Ktunaxa Knowledge and present an application of the ideas Dr Yellow Bird was to present. We hope that you will still join us and other invited guests.
Date: Monday, May 27, 2013
Time: Various (see schedule below)
Where: Participate by video conference OR online via computer webinar (‘Adobe Connect’)
Not sure which method to choose? Click here to read about the difference between video conference and computer webinar.
According to researchers at the Human Early Learning Partnership, research is emerging that now shows how diverse social and environmental factors can affect and can impact how our genetic building blocks (DNA) are expressed, long after we experience them. The differences in gene expression contribute to individual differences in health, development and behavior. Social epigenetics explores the processes by which early life experiences influence chemical reactions that in turn alter the ways our genes function or are expressed within social groups and populations. These differences in expression influence lifelong health and wellbeing.
This science reflects what Indigenous peoples have long valued in terms of intergenerational relations and knowledge sharing, and may be important consideration in nation rebuilding, restoring peoplehood, good governance and cultural continuity as nations continue to work on self-governance.
These sessions will bring to the forefront questions about how to bring western science and methodologies into use for Indigenous Peoples health and wellbeing, while supporting deeper understanding of Indigenous Peoples knowledges passed down from previous generations. Overall, the intent is to support Indigenous Peoples to consider what knowledges are needed in their efforts for health and wellbeing without giving up their own grounded approaches to knowledge and its relationships in research.
Schedule (Pacific Standard Time)
9:00 – 11:30 a.m. Ktunaxa Self-Development and Self-Determination: Traditional Knowledge, Colonial Experiences and Ktunaxa Knowledge Relationships
Joe Pierre Jr.: Ktunaxa Creation Story
Michele A Sam: Ktunaxa Cosmology as the Foundation for Transformative Research
12:30 – 1:00 p.m. Ktunaxa Self-Development: Traditional Knowledge and Colonial Experiences
Gwen Phillips: Social Governance: Ktunaxa Knowledge Relationships
1:15 – 3:30 p.m. Introductions to Guest Panel: Overview of Presentations
Dr. Tom Boyce, Interim Director for HELP-Human Early Learning Partnership, UBC, “What Genes Remember”
Dr. Michael S. Kobor, Associate Professor, and a Scientist at UBC, “How do Early Life Experiences Get Under the Skin?”
Michele A Sam, Researcher, HELP, “Contextualizing Social Epigenetics”
OPEN MIC Rounds: Questions, Comments, Concerns, Challenges, Take home messages
About the Presenters
Joe Pierre Jr. is a citizen of the Ktunaxa Nation from the community of ?a’qam. He works in Aboriginal Education for School District 5 Southeast Kootenay. Currently he is serving in his second term as Councilor for ?a’qam and is a member of the Board of the College of the Rockies and the First Nations Education Steering Committee. He is husband to wife Jennifer and dad to son Jude.
Michele A. Sam, MSW-Researcher HELP, Interdisciplinary Studies PhD student and Ktunaxa. Michele is a scholar and a researcher whose work over the past 20 years has been in direct relationship to the self-development of the Ktunaxa people and more broadly supporting the development and implementation of Indigenous peoples’ research agendas. Her role in the workshop is to support the translation of concepts into local knowledge and experiences, supporting local understanding of information presented as well as supporting institutional appreciation of local experience and intentions. She will be organizing content areas and supplementing content areas with local knowledges and visuals, stories, and remembrances. Her role is also administrative, as she is responsible for logistics and planning of the workshop itself.
Gwen Phillips, Director, Governance Transition, Ktunaxa Nation Council, Ktunaxa. Gwen acts upon multiple responsibilities within the Ktunaxa Nation to design, plan, and prepare for self-governance including capacity building and enhancing local progress towards implementation of the Ktunaxa Nation Vision statement. A number of social governance initiatives have been undertaken which seek to support collective and individual well being as matters of self-governance, this being one of them. Gwen’s role within these workshops is to ensure local voice is heard and understood within the nation-level vision in order to guide and determine direction and value of knowledges. She will be asked at the end of each session to contextualize content shared within the Ktunaxa Nation Council governance and vision statement in addition to approaching ‘witnesses’ to speak to the content as well.
Dr. Tom Boyce is the Sunny Hill Health Centre/BC Leadership Chair in Child Development in the Human Early Learning Partnership and the Centre for Community Child Health Research at the University of British Columbia. He is also Co-Director of CIFAR’s Experience-Based Brain and Biological Development Program and a member of Harvard University’s National Scientific Council on the Developing Child.
Dr. Michael S. Kobor is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at UBC, and a Scientist at the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, a gene research centre under UBC’s Faculty of Medicine and located at the Child and Family Research Institute (CFRI).
PowerPoint Presentations
1. Title Slides: Gather, Learn, and Discuss
2. Michele A. Sam – Ktunaxa Cosmology as the Foundation for Transformative Research
3. Gwen Phillips – Social Governance: Ktunaxa Knowledge Relationships
4. Dr. Tom Boyce – Biography
5. Dr. Tom Boyce – What Genes Remember
6. Dr. Michael S. Kobor – How do Early Life Experiences Get Under the Skin?
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