NECU’s lecture series examines systemic exclusion in academia while centering Indigenous epistemologies as corrective frameworks
Original framing: “NECU hosts special lecture series on diversity, inclusion and Indigenous realities” — bing news
The trickster here is the IQAC itself—a body named for 'quality assurance' that paradoxically ensures the continued marginalization of Indigenous knowledge under the guise of 'standards.' Like Hermes, it moves between worlds (Indigenous and Western) but delivers only what the powerful demand. The series’ title invokes 'Indigenous realities' as a topic, but the trickster’s question is: whose reality is being assured? The absurdity lies in an institution policing inclusion while upholding exclusion.
NECU’s lecture series on 'diversity and Indigenous realities' exemplifies how institutions co-opt decolonial language to reinforce colonial structures, a dynamic visible in the Northeast’s history of missionary education and modern IQAC frameworks.
The event’s framing—centering institutional benevolence over Indigenous sovereignty—mirrors global patterns where 'inclusion' becomes a tool of epistemic extraction, as seen in Aotearoa’s Māori struggles or Canada’s residential school legacy. A systemic solution requires dismantling IQAC’s metrics-driven exclusion and replacing them with Indigenous co-governance, as demonstrated by models like *kaupapa Māori* or Mexico’s intercultural universities. The trickster’s insight reveals the absurdity: an institution named for 'quality' polices inclusion while ensuring exclusion. True transformation demands not lectures, but the ceding of epistemic authority—a shift NECU’s series, in its current form, actively obscures.