Navigating the Problem of Inclusion as Enclosure in Native Culture-Based Education: Theorizing Shadow Curriculum

This conceptual essay explores how Gerald Vizenor’s (Anishinaabe) literary discussions of “shadow survivance” provide opportunities to work against the containment of Indigenous knowledge in mainstream and culture-based curricular practices. More specifically, the essay considers how constructivism is deployed as an opening to the inclusion of Indigenous epistemologies, yet also contains Indigenous epistemologies within a materialist and more specifically, Marxist and Hegelian philosophy. The author suggests that an implicit “shadow curriculum” has been articulated within the literature of Native culture-based curriculum which works against these forms of containment, but has rarely turned to Native American literary figures to elaborate the philosophical and theoretical differences they represent.