Call for Proposals: International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum (IILF) 2025 Toronto

October 13, 2024

The International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum Planning Committee has announced its Call for Proposals for the 2025 forum in Toronto from June 17 to 20, 2025. The forum theme is Our Dish/Dish with One Spoon, an important teaching and treaty between the Anishinaabek Nation and Haudenosaunee Confederacy to care for the Lands on which Toronto is located.

Call for Proposals: 2025 International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum

Forum Theme: Gdoo-naaganinaa (Our Dish)/Sewatokwà:tshera (Dish with One Spoon)

Submissions due January 15, 2025 – Submission Form

We invite Indigenous people working in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM)  from around the world to submit proposals to the 2025 International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum in Toronto (June 17-20, 2025). The forum theme will be Our Dish/Dish with One Spoon, which is an important teaching and treaty between the Anishinaabek Nation and Haudenosaunee Confederacy to care for the Lands on which Toronto is located. For those considering submission to our call, please note that all proposals must have an Indigenous lead presenter. We are seeking contributions rooted in Indigenous pedagogies and practices that seek to disrupt the conference/forum presentation format. As such, we invite various formats of presentation, which may include storytelling, dance, song, creative or interpretive texts, images, videos, audio or other formats.

What is Our Dish/Dish with One Spoon?

Gdoo-naaganinaa (Our Dish in Anishinaabemowin) also known as sewatokwà:tshera (Dish with One Spoon in Kanien:ke’ha) is a treaty and teaching for those engaging in all that sustains us on these Lands and Waters, on the Great Lakes. Dean Jacobs and Victor Lytwyn (2020), historians and scholars from Bkejwanong First Nation (Walpole Island First Nation), remind us that the creation of the Dish with One Spoon was both a peace treaty and an assertion of friendship and Sovereignty between the Anishinaabeg and the Haudenosaunee Nations. Our Dish is an affirmation of the long-standing responsibilities of these Nations to share governance and care for the Lands and Waters on which the International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum will take place. This teaching calls on us to consider how we approach the Lands and Waters that constitute the Dish, which are the Great Lakes, and the Spoon in mutuality and relationality. To formalize this treaty, the Haudenosaunee Nation created a wampum belt, which is a “visual memory keeper that mark[s] significant events and codif[ies] agreements (Hill, 2020)”. The image represented at the top of this page is of the Dish with One Spoon wampum. Ryan DeCaire (2020), Kanien:ke’ha professor from Wáhta First Nation, shares the following about the teaching:

“In the centre of the wampum is a bowl. There’s a small spot in the middle of it that represents a beaver tail, which refers to the beaver as sustenance for our people. The wampum talks about how we all have a title to everything on earth in order to sustain ourselves. You don’t cause any bloodshed in taking what you need. You always leave something there in that bowl for future generations.”

Leanne Simpson (2008), a Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg scholar, tells us that Our Dish was based on two important Anishinaabeg philosophies, Bimaadiziwin and Mnjikanming. Bimaadziwin is a call to live a good life, while Mnjikanming is a practice of the Mississauga Nation in which those from the Fish Clan meet with our more-than-human kin, in this case the Fish Nation (Simpson, 2008). Both Nations’ teachings challenge us to think about our own contributions to what we now know as Toronto, which we extend to you, as relatives and visitors coming to IILF.

Possible and Proposed Topics

In the spirit of Bimaadziwin and Mnjikanming, we invite presentations and posters that support Indigenous resurgence, governance and living a good life through the following, non-exhaustive list of potential topics:

• Uplifting future generations including programming and services that support Indigenous children, youth and families
• Library services focused on special populations, providing Indigenous resources and forging relationships with, for example, incarcerated persons and newcomers (newly immigrated people)
• Accessible library practices and disability justice
• Cultivating abundance in Librarianship, through mentorship, relationality and mutuality
• Rematriation of cultural materials and conversations on ongoing stewardship
• Relations with human and more-than-human kin (plant and animal life)
• Sustainable library practices, including environmental and Land-based programming
• Indigenous libraries’ role in supporting Land back and Land and Water Defenders
• Indigenous Language revitalization and activation in libraries

As a forum for Indigenous library workers, it is mandatory that all proposals include a lead presenter who is Indigenous. We especially invite proposals from on-reserve library staff and will prioritize their participation, up to and including possible financial support to attend.

Proposals Will Include:

• Title of the proposed presentation or poster presentation
• An abstract of the proposed presentation or poster presentation (max. 500 words in English)
• Name of the Lead Presenter and co-presenters
• Position or Title of the Lead Presenter
• The Indigenous Affiliation or Tribal Affiliation of the Lead Presenter

Formats

Please review two possible formats of presentations that we will review for the IILF 2025 program. If you wish to propose an alternative format, please contact the organizers at iilftoronto2025@gmail.com.

Presentation (60 minutes)

• Presentation sessions will focus on the active sharing of a project, new idea or new way of thinking that you have worked on in service to your users
• The goal of these presentations will be to share something that other participants can learn from, think about or try in their libraries after your session
• Presenters are also welcome to structure their presentations in a way that comes from their own worldviews or traditions; we wish for IILF Toronto to be a space that uplifts Indigenous modes of Knowledge creation, exchange and dissemination
• The audience should also have time to ask questions and have conversations with you afterwards
• We invite various formats of presentation, including embodied presentations, which may include storytelling, dance, song, creative or interpretive texts, images, videos, audio or other formats

Poster Presentation (Q+A)

• Poster presentations will demonstrate a project, concept or activity in a visual format
• The posters will be displayed throughout the Forum and there will be a specific time when the poster presenters will be around to answer questions from interested participants
• Poster presenters may choose to print your own poster or have your poster printed by us
• The maximum size of the posters will be 91 x 121 cm (36 x 48 cm)

Please submit your proposals for consideration using this submission form by Wednesday, January 15, 2025.

“We need your voices. We need your songs. We need your stories. For what must be remembered must be said. Our words must reveal the flesh of our culture. Our words must reveal our world views. This is our legacy. This is our duty.

In my grandfather’s words, we must pray to the Creator that our words might be as a medicine to all those who hear them.” – Dr. Cecil King, Odawa, from his book, The Boy from Buzwah: A Life in Indian Education

We look forward to receiving and reviewing your proposals. Thank you for generously supporting IILF 2025 in Toronto!

(Via International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum 2025 Planning Committee)