Ann Marie Beals, Ciann L Wilson, The POR Project Team

Introduction

In this chapter, we explore the Proclaiming Our Roots (POR) project, an arts-based, community-led initiative focused on the lived experiences of Afro-Indigenous Peoples in what is now called Canada. Afro-Indigenous Peoples have both Indigenous ancestry from Turtle Island and African ancestry from the trans-Atlantic African diaspora. Despite their longstanding presence and connections to land and community, Afro-Indigenous stories are often left out of public conversations about Indigeneity and Black identity.

In Proclaiming Our Roots – a community-based participatory action research project – the POR Project Team held workshops from 2017 to 2024 to gather digital oral stories, develop community maps to negate Afro-Indigenous erasure, and hold sharing circles to honour lived experiences and realities, build relationships across generations, and reclaim futures for generations yet to come. These stories, maps, and conversations are shared on the ProclaimingOurRoots.com website to support the collective resistance of Afro-Indigenous, Black, and Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island and all around Mother Earth.

This chapter highlights how community storytelling, through digital media, oral histories, and visual art, can support healing, reclaim erased histories, and make visible Afro-Indigenous Peoples, while promoting transformative social change. We show how POR uses methods and theories from Community Psychology to raise awareness, empower communities, and challenge systems of oppression.

Warm-up Questions

As you begin this chapter, take a moment to reflect on the following questions:

1. What stories have shaped your sense of identity, community, and belonging?
2. How do systems like colonialism, capitalism, or anti-Black racism show up in your life or work?
3. What does healing mean to you, and how might it happen collectively?
4. Have you ever questioned a category or label related to race, culture, or Indigeneity assigned to you or others? Why does it matter?

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

• Define the term Afro-Indigenous and describe how these identities have been shaped by colonialism, racism, erasure, and dual exclusion from Black and Indigenous communities
• Explain how storytelling is used in Proclaiming Our Roots as a tool for healing, empowerment, and reclaiming knowledge
• Identify the main goals, approaches, and methods of the Proclaiming Our Roots project
• Understand how community-led, arts-based research can support cultural identity, wellbeing, and social change
• Connect the Proclaiming Our Roots project to key ideas in Community Psychology, including critical consciousness, empowerment, and systemic transformation

This chapter demonstrates how the Proclaiming Our Roots project brings key ideas in Community Psychology to life through community-led, arts-based research. You will explore how Afro-Indigenous identity, storytelling, and cultural continuity are connected to collective healing, resistance, and systems change. The following sections outline the POR Project Team and then draw on community stories, research methods, and project insights to show how these commitments are put into practice.

Proclaiming Our Roots Team

The Proclaiming Our Roots project was made possible through the care, knowledge, and collaboration of Elders, community members, researchers, artists, and advisory council members. Key contributors to the project include Kayla Webber, Ryan Neepin, Sarah Flicker, and Rachel Persaud, as well as artist facilitators Anique Jordan and Melisse Watson, whose commitment to relational accountability, community-engaged research, and resistance to Afro-Indigenous erasure shaped every stage of this work. Community members played a central role by sharing their stories, insights, and lived experiences. Their voices are at the heart of the POR project. These contributions continue to guide learning and strengthen the project’s commitment to Afro-Indigenous presence, memory, and community connection.

The POR team honours Creator, the Ancestors who walk with us, and the lands that have held this work. The Land, our first teacher, offers guidance, nourishment, care, and the wisdom of interconnectedness. The POR team recognizes that our Earth Mother is under ongoing threat from extraction, exploitation, and environmental harm driven by colonial and capitalist systems. Honouring Mother Earth means actively working to protect her wellbeing, knowing that community survival and the continuation of the story are inseparable from the health of the Land.

Wela’lin, thank you to all those involved in Proclaiming Our Roots – for your teachings, your trust, and the reminder that stories are not only memories of the past, but living knowledge for today and for generations to come.

Proclaiming Our Roots Project

Since 2017, the Proclaiming Our Roots (POR) project has used arts-based research to amplify the stories and histories of Afro-Indigenous Peoples in Northern Turtle Island (Canada). Central to this work are digital oral storytelling workshops and gatherings, which have been held in Tkaronto (Toronto), Kjipuktuk (Halifax), and Wiinibiig (Winnipeg), as well as on the territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and Six Nations of the Grand River.

These workshops and gatherings included two four-day sessions in Tkaronto and Kjipuktuk, a digital story presentation in Wiinibiig, three community launches, and a two-day retreat followed by a community gathering. Each event created space for Afro-Indigenous community members to share their stories, build relationships, and reflect on the impacts of colonization, anti-Blackness, and land disconnection.

Using methods grounded in arts-informed community-based participatory action research (CBPAR), community members engaged in storytelling through video, photography, and community mapping. These approaches supported healing, cultural reconnection, and the creation of a growing digital archive that affirms Afro-Indigenous knowledge, presence, and resistance.

Centering Community

Essential to the POR project are the community members themselves. They actively contribute knowledge, make decisions, and shape the direction of the research. This collaborative approach ensures that community insights directly inform the design of storytelling workshops and the creation of digital platforms where Afro-Indigenous narratives can be reclaimed and shared.

As a result, community members not only build new skills in, for instance, multimedia storytelling, but also access mentorship and take part in shaping public conversations about Afro-Indigenous identity. This co-creation of knowledge furthers intergenerational connections and ensures that the project’s outcomes, such as digital oral stories and educational materials, remain meaningful and accessible to Afro-Indigenous, Black, and Indigenous communities.

Proclaiming Our Roots is grounded in global Indigenous ways of knowing and being, particularly through oral and artistic traditions (Knudson, 2015; Manuelito, 2015). The project uses arts-based methods such as digital oral storytelling, community mapping, sharing circles, and semi-structured interviews to support critical consciousness-raising (Freire, 1970). These approaches encourage Afro-Indigenous placemaking by weaving personal and collective stories into the cultural and geographical fabric of community life. In doing so, Proclaiming Our Roots disrupts colonial narratives and contributes to a more accurate and inclusive representation of Afro-Indigenous experiences (Etowa et al., 2007).

This work is ongoing. As researchers and community members gather to share truths, memories, and insights, they reshape the historical and geographical narratives that have excluded Afro-Indigenous voices. POR continues to archive local knowledge for future generations, while building deeper understandings of how colonialism has shaped and continues to impact Afro-Indigenous identity.

The stories and teachings emerging from Proclaiming Our Roots are now accessible to community members, educators, and advocates. They serve as living knowledge in guiding conversations about identity, survivance, and justice. By preserving and amplifying these voices, POR strengthens the foundations for more equitable, inclusive, and relational futures.

A compilation of Digital Oral Stories from the POR Archive (2025).
To view these digital oral stories, please visit ProclaimingOurRoots.com.

The Process of Proclaiming Our Roots

Storytelling and Digital Archiving

The storytelling process in the Proclaiming Our Roots project was designed to center the voices and lived realities of Afro-Indigenous community members. During the workshops, community members reclaimed personal and ancestral stories that had become obscured or erased by settler colonial systems. These narratives challenged dominant narratives, i.e., dominant discourses that often erase or simplify Afro-Indigenous identities and dismiss Afro-Indigenous lives. Sharing stories supported healing by allowing community members to confront marginalization, affirm survival, and build connections rooted in strength and cultural memory.

Storytelling helps carry cultural identity forward, and this can be a powerful and protective factor against the forces of systemic erasure and disconnection. As Black feminist scholar Tiffany Lethabo King (2019) notes, cultural identity holds belonging, lineage, and intergenerational knowledge. In POR, storytelling is not just a research method – it is a relational and political act – a social movement that honours Afro-Indigenous histories, proclaims presence, and sustains community continuity.

Alongside digital oral storytelling, the workshops included sharing circles. These circles created space for listening, reflection, and reciprocal learning, guided by Indigenous ways of being in relationship. They helped nurture trust and accountability within the group, allowing community members to speak openly, connect across experiences, and support one another throughout the process.

To extend the stories shared in the workshops, we also held semi-structured interviews with community members who chose to participate. Not everyone who created a digital oral story took part in an interview. Those who did were invited to reflect more fully on their identities, relationships with land and community, and the systemic barriers they face. The interviews were open-ended but grounded in key themes. We asked questions like: How do you identify culturally and spiritually? What challenges or supports have you experienced when trying to access social services? What does healing mean to you? What does being Afro-Indigenous mean in your life today? This flexible approach allowed community members to shape the conversation, while still engaging shared experiences of anti-Blackness, Indigenous erasure, cultural disconnection, systemic racism, and survivance.

The digital oral stories continue to live in a growing digital archive shaped by the people and places it represents. This archive makes space for education, advocacy, and cultural continuity, and holds the voices, truths, and creative expressions of Afro-Indigenous community members. It contributes to conversations in community, academic, and policy spaces by bringing forward experiences that have long been left out or erased. The website includes not only digital stories but also a community map, where community member locations and home territories are linked to their stories. This mapping allows for a visual and narrative connection to land and place, challenging static colonial borders and showing how identity and geography are interwoven.

More than a collection, the Proclaiming Our Roots archive is a tool for knowledge mobilization. It supports educators, service providers, researchers, and community members in understanding the impacts of colonialism, anti-Blackness, and Indigenous erasure. At the same time, it offers Afro-Indigenous community members a way to see their stories made visible in their own way. The archive helps sustain conversations about justice, land, wellbeing, and survivance, while creating room for ongoing reflection, resistance, healing, and community-led engagement. The digital oral stories and the interactive map can be accessed at ProclaimingOurRoots.com.

These shared stories show that storytelling in Proclaiming Our Roots is not just about documentation; it is a process of healing, empowerment, and reclaiming knowledge. Through narrating, witnessing, and archiving, community members resist erasure, affirm identity, and rebuild intergenerational and cultural relationships. Storytelling becomes a practice of presence and connection, supporting personal and collective strength while asserting Afro-Indigenous knowledge in ways that challenge colonial systems of oppression.

How Proclaiming Our Roots Connects to Community Psychology

To understand why the Proclaiming Our Roots project belongs in a Community Psychology textbook, it’s important to see how POR goals and methods reflect the key ideas of the field. Community Psychology is about justice, collective wellbeing, and community-led change, especially for communities harmed by systems like colonialism, racism, and capitalism. POR reflects these commitments.

The following core concepts in Community Psychology are illustrated through the Proclaiming Our Roots project:

• Critical Consciousness Raising: a core principle in amplifying the voices and experiences of Afro-Indigenous, Black, and Indigenous Peoples navigating erasure, racism, and colonialism. Through storytelling, dialogue, and collective reflection, POR increases awareness of intersecting histories and systemic injustices. This process supports identity, while also mobilizing action toward justice and reclamation (Freire, 1970).
• Empowerment and Prevention: by addressing the systemic erasure of Afro-Indigenous identity, POR helps prevent further harm while supporting community members to reclaim their stories. Storytelling becomes a powerful tool for raising consciousness and building strength at both individual and collective levels.
• Arts-Based and Community-Led Methods: are central to how POR supports healing, self-determination, and cultural continuity. Through digital oral stories, community mapping, and visual art, POR uses creative approaches that are meaningful and accessible to community members.
• Challenging Colonial Frameworks: by centring Afro-Indigenous, Indigenous, and Black knowledge systems and lived realities. POR disrupts dominant narratives about identity and belonging, while affirming community knowledge and resistance.
• Community Organizing and Relationship Building: through workshops, gatherings, and digital storytelling, POR strengthens intergenerational connections and supports community care, advocacy, and healing. This aligns well with the Community Psychology focus on relational accountability and collective well-being.
• Policy and Systems Change: POR contributes to broader efforts for equity, reconciliation, and justice by engaging with educators, service providers, and policymakers. POR’s findings call attention to structural harm and push for systemic change that reflects Afro-Indigenous leadership and experience.

Together, these elements show how Community Psychology can be practiced through creative, relational, and justice-oriented methods, especially when guided by communities themselves.

Naming Shared Priorities:
Insights from Afro-Indigenous Community Members

The following section highlights key themes that emerged through thematic analyses of digital oral stories, sharing circles, and semi-structured interviews from the Proclaiming Our Roots project. These themes reflect the lived experiences and priorities of Afro-Indigenous community members who participated in workshops and gatherings across different territories on Northern Turtle Island. Transcripts, recordings, and community reflections were reviewed to identify recurring concerns that spoke to shared realities.

This section focuses on five themes that were most consistently named:

(1) Identity,

(2) Recognition and Validation,

(3) Access to Culturally Relevant Resources,

(4) Healing Spaces, and

(5) Advocacy and Meaningful Representation.

It is important to note that these themes are not presented as abstract topics but as interconnected experiences shaped by colonialism, anti-Black racism, and systemic exclusion. Each theme offers insight into the everyday conditions Afro-Indigenous community members navigate, and the kinds of change they are actively working to bring about.

These priorities reflect the lasting impacts of colonialism, including the erasure of Afro-Indigenous histories, disconnection from land and culture, and exclusion from institutional decision-making. Community members emphasized that visibility alone is not enough – what is needed is voice, dignity, and the power to shape their own futures. Their stories point to a broader movement to reclaim Afro-Indigenous presence, rebuild intergenerational connections, and protect cultural knowledge. This work is already underway through Proclaiming Our Roots, carried forward in land-based practices, community-led research, and storytelling rooted in relationship.

The following section details the five themes and interconnected experiences:

1. Identity: Afro-Indigenous Communities

Afro-Indigenous Peoples are people with both Indigenous ancestry from Turtle Island and African ancestry from the global African diaspora. These communities may identify in many ways, including (but not limited to) Indigenous-Black, Afro-Indigenous, or Urban Black Native. Although these identities overlap, they are shaped by different histories, locations or geographies, and cultural contexts. What they share are experiences of being made invisible both within broader Canadian society and within Black and Indigenous communities (Beals & Wilson, 2020).

In what is now called Canada, Afro-Indigenous Peoples have long been connected to the land and involved in resistance to colonialism and slavery. Despite this history of over 400 years, their voices are often excluded from mainstream discussions about who is considered Indigenous. These discussions are frequently shaped by narrow ideas about physical appearance, i.e., phenotype, blood quantum, or one-drop rules – social constructs and laws rooted in colonial systems of classification and control (Mills-Proctor, 2010). Such framings often acknowledge mixed Indigenous and European heritage, yet rarely recognize Afro-Indigenous identities. This selective recognition reproduces colonial hierarchies of classification, where certain mixtures are legitimized while others are erased, thereby upholding systems that privilege proximity to whiteness (Lawrence, 2004).

This kind of exclusion has considerable consequences. Afro-Indigenous Peoples often face barriers when trying to access social services, cultural spaces, or recognition in public policy. They may not be seen as fully belonging in either Black or Indigenous communities. As a result, many face systemic inequities and a loss of connection to family, land, and identity.

These erasures are not accidental. They are the result of settler colonial laws, policies, and practices that have divided communities and reinforced racial hierarchies (Fanon, 1963). Over time, these systems have marginalized Afro-Indigenous people and made their experiences less visible in both social justice work on Turtle Island and academic research.

In response to this ongoing invisibilization, the Proclaiming Our Roots team formed to center Afro-Indigenous voices and create space for their stories, relationships, and resistances.

2. Recognition and Validation

Community members, throughout eight years (to date) of workshops and community sessions, highlighted the need for acknowledgment of their dual heritage within both Indigenous and Black communities. The historical and ongoing exclusion of Afro-Indigenous identities from dominant narratives has created a sense of invisibility, leaving people to navigate fractured identities and social rejection both inside and outside their communities. Within Indigenous spaces, community members may face anti-Blackness, where phenotypical traits or blood quantum rules are used to question their “authenticity” as Indigenous. As noted by a POR community member in their digital story,

[Indian Act 1876] Bill C-31 allow my siblings and me to inherit my mother’s six-one statute. However, my kids have six-two status because their father is Black, and their kids will have no status if their partners are not Indigenous. Breeding out the Native blood, but Indigenous identity isn’t about blood. It’s about the culture that you can’t dilute no matter the colour of your skin. (Proclaiming Our Roots Digital Oral Stories)

Conversely, in Black spaces, anti-Indigeneity can lead to the dismissal or devaluing of Indigenous heritage. This dual erasure leaves Afro-Indigenous people feeling sometimes excluded from cultural, social, and political spaces, where they should otherwise find belonging. Recognition and validation are thus not just symbolic; they are essential for restoring a sense of identity, dignity, and well-being.

Colonial systems have long imposed rigid categorizations of identity based on race and phenotype, reinforcing binary structures that erased mixed Black and Indigenous blood. Afro-Indigeneity was either rendered invisible or misrepresented, with government documents, census records, and archives created to uphold colonial systems of racial control rather than accurately reflecting the lived realities of Afro-Indigenous communities. This systemic omission not only erased Afro-Indigenous contributions and histories but also fractured families and severed many from their cultural inheritance and kinship ties.

Nonetheless, through the Proclaiming Our Roots project, community members were able to reclaim these lost connections by sharing their stories and uncovering histories obscured by colonial systems. Storytelling became and is an act of resistance against erasure, as community members voiced their experiences and challenged the silences imposed by colonial narratives. For many, this process was transformative, enabling them to process intergenerational trauma and build meaningful relationships with others who shared similar identities and struggles. By reclaiming their narratives, community members also began to piece together the connections that colonial systems had worked to sever, adopting a transformed sense of belonging and healing. As noted by POR community members,

You come from a long line of warriors and chiefs; no matter what Canada tries to tell you, you are the child of many Ancestors that fought for you to be here and to live in freedom. My hope is that you call on them and gather strength from them, for they will protect you as they have protected me on my journey. This is my history, but more importantly, this is your history. I would stand up using something like my father would say, “Get back up and give your best left hook!” I kept that quote, and I still give my best left hook. I got my strength from my family, my extended family, and friends. I pass that same strength to my children and my grandchildren. I finally have a sense of belonging, and I finally realized through my journey that I am stronger than I think, but even more importantly, I am a strong, Black and Indigenous woman. This is a lifelong journey of learning, and I am looking forward to each step I will be taking (Proclaiming Our Roots Digital Oral Stories).

Recognition must also extend to policy and institutional frameworks, which often fail to reflect the realities of Afro-Indigenous Peoples. Community members expressed frustration with being overlooked in Truth and Reconciliation efforts, and the continued definition of Indigeneity in ways that exclude Afro-Indigenous histories and realities. Validation, then, requires expanding institutional and societal understandings of Indigeneity to include the layered and complex experiences of those whose roots stretch across both Indigenous Turtle Island and Indigenous Motherland Africa.

3. Culturally Relevant Resources

Proclaiming Our Roots community members emphasized the importance of accessing resources and services that reflect and respond to the intersectional challenges of living with dual identities. Many existing programs and services are designed with either Indigenous or Black communities in mind, which means they often fail to meet the overlapping and specific needs of Afro-Indigenous people. This gap leaves community members without culturally safe spaces where they can seek support – whether for mental health, education, community engagement, or ceremony.

For example, community members spoke of the need for mental health services that recognize the compounded trauma of colonialism, anti-Black racism, and cultural erasure. Such services must go beyond standard approaches by integrating an understanding of intergenerational trauma, land-based healing, and collective care, while also addressing the ongoing psychological impact of systemic anti-Black racism.

Educational resources are another key area, as community members highlighted the lack of representation in curricula and public discourse about the contributions and histories of Afro-Indigenous Peoples. Without these resources, Afro-Indigenous people are left to navigate systems that do not reflect their identities or lived realities.

Culturally relevant resources also include policymaking and advocacy tools. POR community members stressed the need for spaces where they can co-create solutions to the issues they face, ensuring that their unique perspectives are not only heard but integrated into action.

4. Healing Spaces

The co-creation of knowledge through the Proclaiming Our Roots project highlights the real need for healing spaces where Afro-Indigenous people can engage in community building, storytelling, and collective healing. These spaces are essential to countering the systemic erasure and dehumanization they face in their daily lives. Storytelling emerged as a transformative tool for reconnecting with identity, affirming cultural belonging, and building relationships across shared experiences. By sharing their community stories, many reclaimed long-silenced parts of themselves and discovered connections with previously unknown relatives.

Through POR, community members shared stories that uncovered histories deliberately obscured by colonial systems. These narratives challenged imposed silences and revealed the layered impacts of erasure, disconnection, and dual Black and Indigenous exclusion. For many, the process of creating and sharing their digital oral stories opened space to process intergenerational trauma, rebuild fractured relationships, and connect with others navigating similar struggles. One community member reflected that they had never felt fully recognized in either Black or Indigenous spaces until participating in a POR storytelling workshop. Tracing their lineage across both Turtle Island and the Motherland, they reconnected with distant relatives and embraced their Afro-Indigenous identity for the first time. This process not only affirmed their belonging but reshaped how they introduced themselves in public and ceremonial contexts.

As noted, the reason why Afro-Indigenous people may not know their relatives is due to historical colonial practices of documenting – or deliberately not documenting – Afro-Indigenous identities, which have played a significant role in Afro-Indigenous separation and marginalization. The colonial system intentionally erased or misrepresented Afro-Indigenous identities by prioritizing rigid categorizations based on race and phenotype. This was reinforced through policies and practices that categorized children of Black and Indigenous parents and caregivers as “Black,” “Mulatto,” or “Other,” often denying acknowledgment of Indigenous heritage (Beals & Wilson, 2020). Yet in some cases, these categorizations inadvertently offered a form of protection. By “hiding” in Black communities, some children were less likely to be forcibly taken to Indian Residential Schools. This strategy of survival, however, came at great cost. Children were sometimes separated from their Indigenous heritage, stripped of cultural connections, and further marginalized within both Black and Indigenous communities (Beals & Wilson, 2020).

As one Proclaiming Our Roots community member reflected on their healing journey and reclamation of identity:

It wasn’t until I embraced my Native self that I truly understood who I was as an Indigenous-Black woman. It was then that I started healing, and I picked up a brush and started painting, and for the first time, I realized what artists mean when they say you work better through pain. Artwork for me has been my therapy. I never thought so many would understand my voice through visual art – I was wrong. At 42 years old I started a whole new career but I’m thriving in it (Proclaiming Our Roots Digital Oral Stories).

Healing spaces must also account for the ongoing impacts of colonial binary gender systems, which continue to harm Afro-Indigenous, Black, and Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit, and transgender community members. As shared by many in the POR project, reclaiming identity also means resisting gendered violence and restoring Indigenous understandings of gender and relationships.

The imposition of the hierarchical gender binary system is a direct legacy of European imperialism, which sought to dismantle Indigenous ways of knowing and being by enforcing rigid, patriarchal structures that served the colonial agenda. Before colonization, many Indigenous Nations in Northern Turtle Island recognized and honoured gender fluidity, understanding gender as a diverse and relational concept rather than a fixed ‘man-woman’ binary. However, through Christian missionary efforts, Indian Residential Schools, and colonial legal systems, a dominant gender framework was imposed that erased these understandings, enforcing cis-heteronormativity and policing Indigenous bodies to fit within Eurocentric categories of man and woman – with Afro-Indigenous women and girls and Two-Spirits and other gender expressions rendered subjugated, invisible, deviant, and expendable (Fisk, 1991; Lezard et al., 2021). This colonial violence continues to shape contemporary gendered violence for Afro-Indigenous, Black, and Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit, and transgender people, making it very necessary for healing spaces and ceremony to actively resist these binaries and restore Indigenous governance, creating room for Two-Spirit people and all those whose identities defy imposed colonial binary norms.

In creating these spaces, we work to provide an opportunity for intergenerational transmission of knowledge, ensuring that Afro-Indigenous histories, traditions, and strengths are preserved and celebrated. Community members emphasized that healing is not just an individual process but a collective one, rooted in community solidarity and mutual support. Additionally, healing spaces are essential for promoting empowerment. By creating environments where Afro-Indigenous people can see their experiences reflected and valued, these spaces help counteract the psychological effects of systemic marginalization and support holistic wellbeing.

5. Advocacy and Representation

Community members identified the need for greater inclusion in broader conversations about reconciliation, equity, and systemic change. Too often, Afro-Indigenous voices are absent from these discussions, even though they are directly impacted by the policies and practices being debated. For example, national reconciliation efforts in Canada often overlook the unique challenges faced by Afro-Indigenous communities, framing Indigeneity in ways that exclude their experiences and contributions (Beals &Wilson, 2020).

Advocacy efforts must address this gap by amplifying Afro-Indigenous voices and ensuring their perspectives are included in policymaking, education, and media narratives. Representation in leadership positions and decision-making bodies is not simply symbolic; it is essential for structural change. POR community members emphasized that representation must include real power to be able to influence the systems that affect their lives.

This means creating intentional pathways for Afro-Indigenous individuals to access, shape, and lead in spaces where decisions about reconciliation, education, health, and governance are made. Representation is not just about inclusion, but about ensuring that Afro-Indigenous communities have the power to shape the narratives and policies that affect their lives. This requires deliberate, sustained efforts to dismantle systemic barriers and support Afro-Indigenous leadership, knowledge, and self-determination across sectors.

Potential of Community-Based Research

The Proclaiming Our Roots project has had a significant and ongoing impact on Afro-Indigenous communities in Northern Turtle Island, addressing the systemic erasure of Afro-Indigenous voices and histories. By centering the lived experiences of POR community members through storytelling and arts-based methods, the project has nurtured meaningful connections, supported healing, and contributed to critical conversations about identity, justice, and social change. It also engages in the reversal of the colonial gaze as survivance – that is, the active process of resisting and reinterpreting imposed colonial narratives by reclaiming Afro-Indigenous histories, knowledges, and identities.

Survivance goes beyond survival. It is about presence, resistance, and the refusal to disappear. Survivance counters dominant narratives of victimhood by affirming Indigenous agency, identity, and continuity. It is enacted through stories, art, and everyday acts of resilience. In Proclaiming Our Roots, community members practice survivance by telling their truths, reclaiming erased histories, and living in ways that honour their Ancestors from many lands. Survivance is resistance and a commitment to dignity, self-determination, and relational accountability (Vizenor, 1999).

Impact of the POR Project

Community Empowerment and Identity Affirmation

A foremost impact of the POR project has been the affirmation of Afro-Indigenous identities. Community members expressed feeling seen, heard, and validated – often for the first time – as their dual heritage is recognized and honoured. This affirmation counters the effects of colonial erasure and systemic exclusion, allowing community members to reclaim their narratives and reconnect with both their Turtle Island and African roots. Through digital oral stories, they shared a renewed sense of pride and belonging, strengthening their capacity for advocacy, self-determination, and community care.

Healing and Collective Well-being

Storytelling and sharing circles created safe spaces for community members to process intergenerational trauma and confront historical harm. In Proclaiming Our Roots, each workshop and gathering opened and closed with sharing circles held in person and sometimes virtually, depending on location and access and pandemics. These circles followed Indigenous principles of relational accountability: everyone sat in a circle, took turns speaking, and listened without interruption. No one was required to share. Instead, space was held with care and consent. Community members set their own boundaries and shared in ways that felt right to them. These practices were not added to the project – they were a key foundational piece.

For many, this was a path to healing that restored cultural memory, affirmed identity, and broken silence. Stories helped name harm, release pain, and reconnect with lineage and land. As Resmaa Menakem (2017) writes, trauma lives in the body, not just the mind. In POR, storytelling engaged the mind, body, spirit, and community. Speaking truth in the presence of others helped process trauma and reconnect with self and Ancestors. Proclaiming Our Roots emphasized relationships across generations, which supported knowledge sharing and community care grounded in Indigenous ways of being and knowing. These healing spaces affirmed intergenerational dialogue as central to cultural continuity and critical consciousness.

The visual below summarizes five interrelated ways storytelling supports healing in Proclaiming Our Roots:

These community-rooted practices remind us that healing is not a solitary journey, but a collective process grounded in story, presence, and relationship.

Relational Research in Practice: Insights from the Continuing Journey

Up to this point, this chapter has highlighted key themes shared by Afro-Indigenous community members through storytelling: identity, healing, and the effects of systemic exclusion. These stories are powerful not only for what they reveal, but for how they were shared. The following section shifts focus to the research process itself – the choices, tensions, and insights that shaped how Proclaiming Our Roots unfolded as a community-led, arts-based project.

For students of Community Psychology, this section demonstrates how ethical frameworks, relational accountability, and community priorities are applied in practice. These reflections also help explain how the POR Project Team worked to honour the stories and relationships at the center of the work, including by prioritizing community knowledge-sharing before academic writing and upholding community members’ ownership of their stories.

Navigating Complex and Layered Identities

Supporting identity development requires spaces where individuals can safely explore the multiple and sometimes conflicting parts of who they are. Afro-Indigenous identity is never singular. It is shaped by overlapping experiences of displacement, survivance, and cultural continuity and is further complicated by intersecting identities such as being Two-Spirit, queer, nonbinary, or of mixed descent that extends beyond being solely Black and Indigenous. These complexities are often erased by colonial systems that impose rigid definitions of race, culture, and gender.

Community members spoke about being questioned or excluded in both Black and Indigenous spaces, while also expressing pride in carrying the strength and knowledge of both lineages. Proclaiming Our Roots created space to name and explore these tensions collectively. Through storytelling and community dialogue, community members reflected on how colonial systems continue to divide and disconnect, while also affirming shared experiences and cultural reconnection.

The Importance of Ethical Storytelling

Ethical storytelling extends beyond following formal research protocols. Within Proclaiming Our Roots, it was grounded in relational accountability, requiring care, responsibility, and ongoing consent. Community members emphasized the importance of protecting their stories from being taken, misused, or reshaped to serve academic or institutional goals. These sacred stories were not treated as research data, but as teachings and lived experiences, shared with trust and intention.

From the beginning, community members retained ownership of their digital oral stories. They decided whether stories would be public, private, or password-protected and these preferences were respected on the project’s digital platform. The POR Project Team remained committed to honouring these decisions in all academic and public contexts, ensuring that stories were only shared with permission and used in ways that reflected the storytellers’ intentions.

Knowledge mobilization began not with publications, but by sharing the work back with POR community members through exhibitions, workshops, and digital access shaped by their priorities. These commitments to autonomy and respect continue to guide how the project operates today.

Sustainability Challenges

Ensuring the long-term sustainability of Proclaiming Our Roots goes beyond maintaining momentum – it means actively working against systems that continue to deprioritize community-led, arts-based, and culturally-grounded work. Despite its demonstrated impact, Proclaiming Our Roots remains situated within institutional structures that continue to resist the redistribution of power and resources, even in the face of innovative, community-led approaches like POR.

Sustainability here is not only about funding, but also about ensuring that Afro-Indigenous, Indigenous, and Black communities can maintain control over their stories, spaces, and knowledge production. While the project has created curriculum, digital archives, and knowledge-sharing events, sustaining this work requires dedicated infrastructure and long-term commitment from educational institutions, funders, and policy bodies.

More than anything, sustainability must reflect the relational nature of this work. That includes continued care for the people involved, space for evolving community needs, and processes that honour story ownership, privacy, and cultural protocols. This also means building capacity for members of communities to lead, adapt, and guide the work as it grows…on their own terms.

Knowledge Production and Public Awareness

The Proclaiming Our Roots digital archive contributes to a growing body of knowledge that centers Afro-Indigenous voices, presence, and histories. It offers a resource for educators, community organizers, and policymakers working to understand the ongoing impacts of colonialism and the realities of Afro-Indigenous experiences. The archive includes digital oral stories, mapping tools, and other materials created by community members themselves as well as the POR Project Team. The archive challenges narrow definitions of Indigeneity and Blackness by affirming identity as knowledge.

The archive is publicly accessible at ProclaimingOurRoots.com.

POR’s findings continue to inform public discourse and policy conversations. The findings bring visibility to intersectional harms and highlight the need for culturally relevant supports shaped by and for Afro-Indigenous communities.

Policy Influence and Advocacy

Proclaiming Our Roots has contributed to policy conversations around reconciliation, equity, and systemic change. The project’s insights align with and expand on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) (2015) and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) (2019), particularly around representation, cultural continuity, and the need for Afro-Indigenous-specific supports. The TRC calls for inclusive narratives that reflect the diversity of Indigenous experiences. MMIWG emphasizes the need for culturally grounded supports and the recognition of intersecting forms of gendered violence. POR responds to both by naming erasure, affirming identity, and creating space for community-led healing and advocacy.

Project findings are shared through community reports, public presentations, academic publications, and the digital archive. Knowledge sharing is not one directional, however; community feedback, dialogue, and continued engagement are central. Community members have offered reflections during and after workshops, gatherings, and launches, shaping how the work is carried forward – and the work is carried forward. Educators, service providers, and policy actors are invited into conversation, not just as recipients of information, but as participants in collective learning and accountability.

The Proclaiming Our Roots project shows how storytelling can drive community empowerment, reclaim history, and support transformative social change. Its impact continues to resonate across Afro-Indigenous communities and within broader Canadian society and globally, laying groundwork for advocacy, education, and collective healing. By amplifying voices long silenced, Proclaiming Our Roots preserves vital histories and inspires future generations to continue the work of resistance, healing, and relational care.

Looking Forward: Knowledge Mobilization and Curriculum Development

This final section outlines how community-led, arts-based research in Proclaiming Our Roots continues beyond storytelling workshops to support cultural identity, wellbeing, and social change. The current phase (2025) focuses on expanding reach through curriculum development, digital archiving, and broader knowledge mobilization. These stories and insights are not unchanging; they are living knowledges that reshape how we understand identity, history, and community care across education, policy, and community spaces.

Expanding Community Knowledge Through Digital Platforms

Proclaiming Our Roots has created an accessible online platform, which it continues to expand, to share digital oral stories with a broader audience. This platform serves as a repository for community knowledge and member achievements, while acting as an interactive learning space for educators, students, and community members. By making these stories readily available, the project supports intergenerational learning, challenges dominant colonial narratives, and promotes ongoing dialogue about Afro-Indigenous, Indigenous, and Black identities and experiences.

Curriculum Development Grounded in Afro-Indigenous Perspectives

The current phase of the POR project focuses on expanding reach through curriculum development, knowledge mobilization, and continued community engagement. The curriculum is grounded in the stories shared by community members and reflects themes of identity, survivance, healing, and relational accountability.

Resources are being designed for use across multiple educational levels, including elementary, secondary, post-secondary, and community-based learning environments. Formats will include downloadable toolkits and web-based modules. Where possible, materials will be offered as Open Educational Resources (OER), hosted on the ProclaimingOurRoots.com website to ensure accessibility and community ownership. This approach supports wide access and reflects POR’s commitment to collective learning and community benefit.

Key interconnected curriculum domains include:

This curriculum is not just a resource. It is a continuation of the stories, relationships, and resistance that shape the ongoing work of Proclaiming Our Roots.

Mobilizing Knowledge and Advocating for Systems Change

The Proclaiming Our Roots project continues to mobilize knowledge across education, policy, and community spaces. Insights generated through storytelling have been shared through community presentations, workshops, and publications that invite conversation, action, and accountability. These efforts are not just about sharing findings… they are about shifting systems.

Researchers and community members actively engage with policymakers to confront systemic inequities identified through Proclaiming Our Roots. Afro-Indigenous voices must be central to discussions on reconciliation, education, health, and cultural preservation. The project advocates for policy changes that reflect Afro-Indigenous realities, support dedicated funding for Afro-Indigenous-led initiatives, and ensure inclusion in Indigenous and Black governance structures.

This work reinforces the importance of community-led solutions in shaping systemic change. Afro-Indigenous perspectives must be present not only in consultation but in leadership and decision-making roles. Representation alone is not enough, though – representation must come with the power to influence systems that impact community wellbeing. By translating lived experiences into tools for action, Proclaiming Our Roots supports a broader and more grounded understanding of reconciliation – one that affirms Afro-Indigenous presence, priorities, and leadership in shaping just futures.

Sustaining Community-Led Work

Sustaining the work of Proclaiming Our Roots takes more than passion and commitment. It requires long-term support and changes to how institutions value community-led, arts-based projects grounded in Afro-Indigenous, Black, and Indigenous ways of knowing. As this project has shown, the work builds strong relationships, keeps culture alive, and creates tools for healing and social change.

Projects like POR often face challenges when trying to secure funding, especially if they do not follow mainstream or western research models and/or frameworks. Supporting sustainability means recognizing that this work isn’t extra, or optional. POR plays an important role in strengthening cultural identity, community wellbeing, and the reclaiming of Afro-Indigenous stories and knowledges. It also creates space for community members to maintain their stories and to shape their futures in their own way, beyond the constraints of colonial systems.

The digital stories, community gatherings, and curriculum materials are not finished products; they are part of an ongoing process. They hold stories of survival, identity, and care. To keep this work going, we must continue supporting the relationships, teachings, and commitments built through the POR project. This includes developing new educational resources, keeping digital stories accessible, and sharing knowledge in ways that support community control and benefit. Long-term sustainability means more than short-term support. It requires ongoing investment in the people and processes that keep this work alive, with a real commitment to justice, healing, and collective wellbeing.

Recommendations for Sustained Community Engagement and Systemic Change

The following discussion provides recommendations for sustained community engagement and systemic change:

Supporting Community-Driven Research

Investing in initiatives that center the voices, knowledges, and lived experiences of communities marginalized by entrenched systems of oppression, such as colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism, cannot be understated. Funding should support research that not only documents these impacts but also challenges systems while uplifting community-led solutions. Funding should be directed toward research approaches that are co-created with communities, ensuring that findings are relevant, accessible, and actionable for those directly impacted.

Adoption of Intersectional Approaches

Adopting intersectional approaches requires policies and programs that respond to the complexity of people’s identities, challenging practices that reduce individuals to a single story. The intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, age, and other social factors shape how individuals experience and navigate systems of oppression. An intersectional lens should always be applied in Community Psychology, as it helps uncover how power operates through these intersecting systems to privilege some while marginalizing others. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for addressing structural inequities, disrupting oppressive power structures, and promoting collective well-being across many communities.

Strengthening Collaborative Networks

A core element is establishing and maintaining partnerships between academic institutions, community organizations, and local leaders to build meaningful, reciprocal relationships that honour Indigenous, Black, and Afro-Indigenous knowledge systems. Collaborative, long-term relationships ensure that the work remains grounded in community realities while improving the reach and sustainability of initiatives. These networks must be built on trust, mutual respect, and a commitment to shared goals rather than extractive practices. Community-engaged research requires ongoing dialogue, transparency, and relational accountability, knowing that the voices and priorities of community members guide the work. Strengthening these collaborative networks not only improves the relevance and impact of initiatives but also contributes to dismantling hierarchical, colonial structures that have historically marginalized Indigenous, Black, and Afro-Indigenous communities. Through sustained partnerships, we co-create pathways toward justice, equity, and collective well-being.

Promoting Education and Awareness

It is essential to promote ongoing resistance to erasure and engage in intentional efforts to create learning spaces grounded in justice and relational care. This means integrating the histories, contributions, and experiences of Afro-Indigenous, Indigenous, and Black Peoples into public education, curriculum development, and reconciliation efforts. Purposefully, these histories are left out of mainstream narratives, reduced to footnotes, or framed through a colonial gaze that erases the depth of community contributions and experiences. To reiterate, these omissions are not incidental; they reflect a broader pattern of systemic erasure that disconnects the past from the present, leaving critical context out of discussions about identity, land, and power. As Mingo, Balthazar, and Olson (2021) argue, this reflects the Premise of Persistence – the assumption that colonial systems will continue unchecked, limiting the imagination of liberatory futures. Through community storytelling, we challenge that premise and assert Afro-Indigenous presence, resistance, and accountability.

What Will You Carry Forward?

History does not exist in isolation – it directly shapes contemporary social, political, and cultural realities. The enduring impacts of colonialism, the slavery holocaust, violent Indigenous displacement, racist systemic exclusion, assimilation, genocides, and destruction of land continue to manifest in present-day inequities, making it imperative to teach these histories with accuracy, care, and relational accountability. When educational systems leave out the histories and experiences of Indigenous, Black, and Afro-Indigenous Peoples, they reinforce harmful stereotypes and keep systems of oppression in place. As students, learning these histories isn’t just about gaining knowledge – it’s about understanding why things are the way they are today, and how we can work toward transformative change. When stories from Indigenous, Black, and Afro-Indigenous Nations are part of the curriculum, we gain tools to think critically about justice, reconciliation, and community wellbeing. In this way, education can be a powerful form of resistance as a way to honour the past and shape a more just future.

This matters now more than ever.

As efforts to censor truth-telling, dismantle equity initiatives, and erase community-led research grow, it becomes even more urgent to protect and share stories that reflect lived experience and intergenerational knowledge. Proclaiming Our Roots offers one example of how community-engaged research, grounded in relationship and accountability, can push back against erasure and affirm the presence, priorities, and power of Afro-Indigenous Peoples.

As students of Community Psychology, you are not just learning about these issues; you are joining a shared path of learning, reflection, and action. What you choose to listen to, question, carry forward, and act upon will shape not only your learning, but the futures we are all responsible for building. Carry the stories shared through Proclaiming Our Roots with care, because the relationality created through this work now calls on you to act with integrity, stay accountable to community, and honour the relationships that co-create and sustain knowledges. Let these stories move through you as you take up your responsibility to advocate for justice, healing, and collective care in the spaces you enter.

One of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places we know we are not alone.
~ bell hooks Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (2014)

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