NIKLA Journal: IILF Special Issue Call for Papers
**Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, the timeline will be pushed back and we will contact presenters and authors when more information is available. Thank you for your patience.**
The inaugural issue of the National Indigenous Knowledge and Alliance (NIKLA) Journal will feature Knowledge shared at the International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum (IILF) in Tkaronto. Gathering around the Forum theme of gdoo-naaganinaa (Our Dish in Anishinaabemowin) / sewatokwà:tshera (Dish with One Spoon in Kanien:ke’ha), we follow the teachings that seek to engage our responsibilities with all that sustains us in these Great Lakes. In order to realize the NIKLA Journal’s vision of lifting and centring Indigenous voices that have been excluded from GLAM research, we invite interested Indigenous authors who are presenting at IILF to consider preparing their research for publication in this issue. We also welcome theorizing from allies that walk alongside Indigenous Nations and whose work centres the stewardship and obligations to Land held by Indigenous communities.
Marie Battiste and James (Sákéj) Youngblood Henderson (2000) teach us about ‘truthing, ’ which is a practice of knowing the spirit in every relationship to reveal the stakes and importance of our work in relation to our kin and the natural world. The editors of this special issue seek to broaden conceptualizations of Knowledge and to speak back to the practices that hinder and deny Indigenous scholars.
We seek research that challenges, troubles and disrupts GLAM institutional practices that perpetuate ongoing extractive and violent systems against Indigenous people. Thus, we welcome a variety of research outputs to be featured in this journal issue, from traditional peer-reviewed research to songs, poetics/poetry, art, zines and beyond. As the editors of this special issue, we are open to outputs that stretch our understanding of what research looks like and what it does in the world.
Submissions are encouraged to write about but are not limited to:
- 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
This issue will comprise of a section for non-peer reviewed research productions, such as arts and poetics, and a section for peer-reviewed literature. We will endeavour to ensure that the peer reviewers are Nation specific and culturally appropriate.
Peer reviewed submissions will include full length academic articles (5 000 – 7 000 words).
To submit, please indicate your interest in the presenter acceptance form and we will respond to you with further information as it becomes available.
As a special issue, we will be publishing articles as they become available on a rolling basis. As such, we have the option for both non-peer reviewed and peer reviewed timeline. Please review those below.
Anticipated Timeline:
Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, the timeline will be pushed back and we will contact presenters and authors when more information is available. Thank you for your patience.
About the Special Issue Editors:
Cora Coady is a proud member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. She is an assistant librarian in the Student Learning and Academic Success Department at York University, where she leads Indigenous initiatives and is the subject specialist for the Faculty of Education and the Indigenous Studies Program. Before entering librarianship, Cora had a successful career as a Certified Vision Rehabilitation Therapist (CVRT) at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and Vision Loss Rehabilitation Ontario, where she provided in-person and remote instruction to people living with visual impairment. Cora’s goal is to contribute to her community by creating and supporting Indigenous research, building strong relationships between the Indigenous community and the University Library, and promoting the works of Indigenous scholars and students.
Mikayla Redden is an Instruction and Information Services Librarian at New College at the University of Toronto. Mikayla is Anishinaabekwe and Anglo settler. Though she is a member of Curve Lake First Nation, she was raised in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough). Her great-grandparents, Jack Jacobs Jr and Edith Marsden, and their minor children were enfranchised under the Indian Act, meaning they relinquished their Indian identities and assimilated into white settler society. The family was legally enfranchised until Bill C-31 amended the Indian Act in 1985. Mikayla’s grandmother made community in Hiawatha First Nation, a place she would come to spend summers with her children and later, her grandchildren. Mikayla credits her raising on the Michi Saagiig homelands and the voices of Indigenous kin and other oppressed peoples for the perspectives she takes to her career, where questioning, rethinking, and advocating for systems transformation are central.
Desmond Wong is the Outreach Librarian at the University of Toronto Libraries. He is a Chinese settler who lives and works on the Lands of the Mississauga of the Credit River First Nation, the Wendat, Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabe Nations. As a librarian, he is committed to justice on these Lands for Black and Indigenous peoples and fights in solidarity for the recognition of Indigenous Nationhood, Sovereignties and stewardship in the occupying Settler Colonial state. He believes in a librarianship practice of solidarity, rooted in an ethic of care, towards transformation, coalition building and collective liberation.
References
Battiste, M. A., & Henderson, J. Y. (2000). Protecting indigenous knowledge and heritage: A global challenge. Purich Publishing.
IILF 2025 