For those who had time to read my discussion post this week, I responded to Jessica Ball's article by identifying that I had 3 main responses that I wanted to explore. I addressed two in the discussions page, and said I'd leave the third for my blog. Here it is.
Ball (2004) talks about how to bring in Indigenous ways of knowing to our curriculum, but in a way that honours Indigenous cultures and the original context in which this learning would occur. For example, she talks about the inclusion of Elders as a learning resource; she talks about ensuring that schooling is not physically (or theoretically) removed from the Indigenous community. 
Preserving context, and the implied dangers of decontextualization, stood out to me. A few weeks ago I listened to an audiobook called Who is Wellness For: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind by Fariha Roisin (2022). While the first half is a memoir, the second half of her book explores how South-Asian and Indigenous practices have been decontextualized, repackaged, and commercialized to Western audiences. She includes examples like the USA trying to patent turmeric, the secular approach to mindfulness and yoga practices (and the costs of therapy, and the membership fees of boutique yoga studios). It is not just in the schooling system that we see the divorce between cultural practice and culture. Some of the purposes, like in Roisin's (2022) publication, are self-serving and fiscal; others, like Ball's (2004) are admittedly less so.
But what I mean in drawing this comparison is to show that the act of decontextualizing culture is not limited to the topics that Ball (2004) addresses. It is, rather, reflective of a larger social practice that we, as an increasingly globalized population, continues to practice.
References
Ball, J. (2004). As If Indigenous Knowledge and Communities Mattered: Transformative Education in First Nations Communities in Canada. American Indian Quarterly, 28(3/4), 454–479. https://doi.org/10.1353/aiq.2004.0090
Roisin, F. (2022). Who is Wellness For: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind. [Audiobook]. HarperAudio.
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