What themes will the film surface?
There are four overarching themes that the film addresses: Elder Knowledges and Language Reclamation & Revitalization, Settler Colonialism and Schooling, Disciplining and Incarceration, Indigenous Sovereignty and Country (Land) Relations, and self determination. In the following sections viewers are provided with a more detailed introduction to each theme.

Elder Knowledges and Language Reclamation

The United Nations declared 2019 as the international year of Indigenous languages and extended this proclamation as the decade of Indigenous languages to span from 2022-2032 (UNESCO, 2019). UNESCO’s goal is to bring awareness about the importance of Indigenous languages and the linguistic rights of Indigenous peoples. It is critical to recognize that these language revitalization efforts are more than just protecting a language, but Indigenous languages are interdependent with Indigenous peoples sovereignty, Land relations, ways of knowing and being in the world, and cosmologies. Said another way, language is a small (but crucial) part of a whole way of naming, knowing, relating, living, being, and thriving in the world. Hermes, Bang, and Marin (2012) ask, “Would it be better to invent new Ojibwe words to describe educational, standardized concepts like "triangle" or to challenge the standards to accept the Ojibwe morphemes of shape?" (pp. 388). Thinking with the above quote in relation to language revitalization projects, it is evident that the goal is not to have students learn to speak a standard version of Ojibwe, but through language to connect to their specific geographical landscape, Land, home, and community (Hermes et al., 2012). Marrisa Muñoz (2018) states that “for first peoples, a relationship with the Land serves as a foundation for all knowledge” and that “within each Indigenous language is a specific, nuanced understanding of how life is related within their specific ecology” (pp. 67). Language is always in tune with the cycles of nature, one that does not follow a western logic of control despite the dominance that western languages and structures have to dictate what comes to be known as the standard. Therefore, language reclamation is not meant to center western understandings of language that focus on proficiency of semantics, phonemes, syntax, and grammar. This type of standardized language will never be able to assume the legacies of Indigenous knowledge systems and relations to the Land. Instead, a language reclamation (McCarty & Nicholas, 2014) approach to language and culture is about the knowledge that is carried through the songs, stories, prayers, sciences, oral and artistic traditions, and values learned through “doing and being” (pp. 111). These language reclamation projects should be Indigenous led and guided by Indigenous elders because of their wisdom and knowledge.

In the film In My Blood It Runs, Nana Carol, Dujuan’s maternal grandmother, demonstrates the ways she and other Arrernte elders engage in language reclamation efforts. She is aware that in his western education Dujuan is not going to be taught his language. Nana Carol believes it is critical for Dujuan to practice Arrernte and be proud of his Aboriginal upbringing and ancestry. Elders play an important and pivotal role in language reclamation efforts and disrupt narrow understandings about learning only occurring in schools with certified teachers. For example, she embraces Dujuan’s healing gifts, and reminds him that he has the ability to (re)member and pass on his knowledge and help his community. She also encourages Dujuan and other young ones to practice Arrernte through the tradition of storytelling and learning with the Land. Throughout the film Nana Carol talks about the importance of teaching the Arrernte language because it is tied to Aboriginal culture, traditions, and their ways of knowing and being in the world.

Settler Colonialism and Schooling

Scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith notes that it is important to remember that colonialism is not only about the collection of “new discoveries” that were stolen and taken from Indigenous peoples to be kept in museums, libraries, and universities. Colonialism is also about the “re-arrangement, re-presentation, and re-distribution” (Smith, 2013; p. 62) of knowledge, the multiple ways it manifests, and how Indigenous peoples have been and continue to be affected. Settler colonialism is the invasion of a territory that is already occupied and an act that uses violence, institutions, and force to justify that occupation. Therefore, settler colonialism is a structure, not an event (Wolfe, 2006). For example, history textbooks used in schools are full of dominant narratives that are written from the colonizers perspective and center settler actions as innocent, brave, and justifiable, and in the past. These accounts of history written by settlers, become the “official” curriculum in schools and contribute to Indigenous erasure and violent ideas of settler superiority. Settler colonialism in school systems also manifests itself in violent ways through “curriculum built specifically around the aim of cultural annihilation” which embodies a form of “curricular genocide” (Au, Brown, Calderon, 2016; p. 43). Curricular genocide attacks Native children’s identities in physical and symbolic ways through attempts to assimilate them and teach them that their culture is inferior to white culture (Au, Brown, Calderon, 2016). Despite a long history of colonization with regards to schooling and educational institutions and opportunities (see histories of Native Boarding Schools), Indigenous children and youth have and continue to resist and enact their agency.

The film In My Blood It Runs, sheds light to what Lomawaima and McCarty (2006) state that Indigenous peoples have always “carefully designed educational systems” (p. 27) to transmit their complex bodies of knowledge. Dujuan is portrayed as a “bad student” in his western school classroom, while in his Arrernte community he is recognized for his healing gifts, speaking three languages, and continuing the legacies of ways of knowing and being of his ancestors. In the film, Dujuan’s wisdom, gifts, and ancestral knowledge are obvious strengths that are overlooked, denied, or misunderstood by his white teachers. There are various moments in the film when Dujuan explicitly mentions that Australia is Aboriginal Country (Land) and that in school they teach him white peoples version of history. Dujuan demonstrates a level of deep consciousness and wisdom in the ways he critiques the school system and how it attempts to assimilate him. However, his criticism of the curriculum he is taught is understood from the teacher and administrator perspective as “bad behaviors” and thus, puts Dujuan at risk of being taken from his family and put in foster care.

Disciplining Policies & Incarceration

Discipline in schools has been well documented and continues to be a discourse within schooling systems. Racialized students in particular, are dehumanized and criminalized almost immediately when they enter the school and are trafficked into systems of incarceration that include juvenile detention centers, jails, and even prisons (Love, 2014). Bettina Love (2016) gives an example of Black youth being subjected to this state-sanctioned violence, when a six-year old Black girl was handcuffed and then taken to the police station because the young girl was having a tantrum at school. Not only is this act sanctioned by schools, they are so normalized within education systems that handcuffing a young Black girl is no longer seen as violent and racist, but a part of disciplining procedures. With the history of Native American Boarding schools, the use of fear, intimidation, and violence was a common practice within these institutions (Grande, 2015). In particular, schools were seen as a way to eliminate Indigenous peoples since Native American boarding schools prohibited Native youth from speaking their language, practicing their cultural beliefs, and from wearing their traditional clothing and regalia. Even to this day, in the United States and around the world students continue to be banned from wearing their First Nations and traditional clothing. As Sandy Grande (2015) explains, “Indian education was never simply about the desire to ‘civilize’ or even deculturalize a people, but rather, from its very inception, it was a project designed to colonize Indian minds as a means of gaining access to Indian labor, land, and resources” (p.23). Even though the above examples are from the United States, Aboriginal Australia is also impacted by western education and we see parallels on how schools as colonial institutions have deep colonial and racist histories, masked as “procedures of disciplining”, that continue to affect students today. In the film, we see different approaches to “misbehavior” and discipline - one from the educational system that threatens to send Dujuan to foster care and another from his community.

The experiences of how discipline is taken up from the perspective of the colonizer (i.e. teachers and schools) juxtaposed to an Indigenous context (Dujuan’s community) offer important insights into different ways of knowing and being in the world. For example, misbehavior in the classroom is judged from Dujuan, as a student, resisting what he is told is the “good” way to behave or questioning the ways that the lessons do not include his ancestral knowledge and experiences. It is apparent that within the classroom colonial practices are still present. We see connections in the discipline tactics are structures that are informed by intimidation and demands for youth to assimilate to parameters of “good” or “bad” as determined by state-sanctioned agencies that have histories of removing Indigenous children from their families and ancestral homelands. Juxtaposed with this, is the way that Dujuan’s family understands what his “misbehavior” communicates to them and their ways of responding. When he runs away from the camp, for instance, his community understands this as a call that Dujuan needs support, and that they are accountable for the healing that he needs in that time. Ultimately, the differences between settler knowledge of discipline and punishment and the example of Indigenous knowledge practices that speak to community care and healing, are illuminated in the context of behavior and schooling. In the settler context, Aboriginal youth are threatened by an education system that does not learn from their wisdom, or consider their insights on how to remake and educational environment that centers Indigenous knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world.

Indigenous Sovereignty and Country (Land) Relations

Just because Indigenous and Aboriginal people have been forcibly removed from their territories, does not mean that the Country (Land) is no longer Aboriginal or Indigenous. Therefore, all Country (Land) that people reside on in Australia, U.S., Canda, Brazil, Chile, etc. have always and will always be sovereign Indigenous territories. Although under state control, many Aborignial and Indigenous people are still in legal fights to recuperate their ancestral territories. Therefore, people who are not ancestrally from Aboriginal Australia or Indigneous Lands are guests and are settlers. Often there is a narrative of how settlers need to be conscious and make a home with their environment and to take care of their surroundings. However, this narrative is clouded by the fact that Aboriginal and Indigenous People have always had a relationship with that environment and that it is the settler who must contend with their presence on already occupied Indigenous land. In other words, there cannot be “shared futures” with settlers if there is not a deep interrogation of the social and political project of settler colonialism and the social and historical contexts of places (Bang et al., 2014; Nxumalo, 2019). In order to truly be in solidarity and in relation with Aboriginal and Indigenous people, educators need to be explicit in addressing settler violences; be clear about the diverse aims of decolonization; and be very intentional in understanding the dynamic ways of knowing and being that are specific to understandings of land by Indigenous peoples (Tuck, McKenzie, McCoy, 2014, p.14). This responsibility is often left to the educator, since teacher training programs continue to operate from settler perspectives and normalize the erasure of Indigenous perspectives on sovereignty.

In My Blood It Runs is a powerful example of how Aboriginal People are fighting for their right to be seen as sovereign nations. Aboriginal People continue to have a strong relationship with their ancestral territories and we gain insight into this relationship by the way Dujuan and his family talk about going to the Country. Dujuan explains that it is important to go to the Country and stay connected because of the medicine and teachings that are good for him and the Aboriginal people. Therefore the fight for sovereignty in Aboriginal Australia, as well as other places in the world, is a fight to preserve and sustain their relationships with Country. The Country is representative of Aboriginal people’s connection to their identity, spirituality, family, language, and culture regardless if they live in the Country or in an urban place. Due to the displacement, dispossession, and forced removal from ancestral Lands, Aboriginal people continue to assert their sovereignty through their connection to the Country. The real question for those who are settlers is, are you willing to give back the Land and Country that is not ancestrally yours? Are you ready to fight alongside Aboriginal and Indigenous people, regardless if that means relinquishing your settler privileges? Who are you in relation to the already occupied Aboriginal Country and Land?