A Reflection on White-Seeming Privilege Through the Process of Currere

Abstract

Abstract

This article examines the intersection of white privilege and Indigenous identity existent within the author’s lived reality, a phenomenon the author has previously articulated as white-seeming privilege. The article is framed using Pinar’s autobiographical method, currere. The author engages with each of currere’s four moments first toward a description some recent ways he has experienced his Indigeneity and second toward theorizations of the meanings of those experiences in the context of his lived reality. Specifically, the author discusses the ways in which the Canadian government continues to police and erase his identity through the Qalipu Mi’kmaw membership review, as well as his internal struggles around challenging unethical research in public spaces. In the conclusion, the author articulates the theoretical connection between white-seeming privilege and curriculum theory, and in so doing iterates the value of autobiographical curriculum studies in seeking to disrupt the normativity of dichotomous conceptions of privilege.

Keywords: White Privilege; Currere; Indigenous Identity; Curriculum Theory; Mi’kmaw People