Aboriginal
epistemology (the ways of knowing our reality) honours our inner being as the
place where Spirit lives, our dreams reside and our heart beats. Indigneous peoples have processes in place to
tap into this inner space and to make the unknown-- known.
I begin by locating
my self because positionality, storying and re-storing ourselves comes first.
Decolonization and
Indigenizing is about both knowing and having a critical consciousness about
our cultural history.
Colonizing knowledge
dominates, ignorance prevails, and we internalize how and who the colonizers
want us to be.
Decolonizing is
arduous work and full of contradictions.
Indigenist re-search
promotes Indigenous knowledge and methods.
As we re-search, we re-write and we re-story ourselves.
The animals, the
earth and Creation are the original teachers of the Anishinaabek.
The legacy of
colonizing knowledge has created a disconnection of people from their
traditional teachings, people, family, community, spiritual leaders, medicine
people, land and so on.
You can try to
deconstruct or decolonize a western research methodology, but it is still a
western paradigm and inseparable from the originating paradigm. To indigenize is to position your Indigenous
worldview as the centre.
Indigenous knowledge
is knowledge that is wholistically derived from Spirit, heart, mind and body.
Indigenous forms of
knowledge production accept intuitive knowledge and metaphysical and
unconscious realms as possible channels to knowing.
Indigenous knowledge
comes from ancestral teachings that are spiritual and sacred in origin. It exists in our visions, dreams, ceremonies,
songs, dances and prayers. It is not knowledge
that comes solely from books but is lived, experiential and enacted knowledge.
Indigenous knowledge
occupies itself with the past, present and future. The past guides our present, and in our
present we must consider the generations to come.
Indigenous re-search
is about being human and calls all human beings to wake from the colonial
trance and rejoin the web of life.
Paradigms are the
understandings that ground us in the world, and our knowing, being and doing
are guided by these. There can be many
paradigms, and paradigms can shift.
A worldview is an
intimate belief system that connects Indigenous people to identity, knowledge
and practices. Indigenous peoples'
worldviews are rooted in ancestral and sacred knowledges passed through oral
traditions from one generation to the next.
It is how we see the world.
Indigenous peoples'
worldviews are rooted in traditions, land, language, relations and culture.
Our original
teachers are the plants, animals and sacred ones in Creation. Our philosophies are earth-centred, and we
originally looked to the animals and earth for our teachings.
Our medicine bundle
is our own life.
Self in Indigenous
methodology has no time barriers and will always travel with us as we journey
in and out of searches for knowledge.
Oral history, Winona
[Stevenson] says, is unique from literate traditions because "they are as
much about social interaction as they are about knowledge and
transmission". She says that oral
traditions are living, interactive and participatory by nature.
In Indigenous
contexts location does matter. People
want to know who you are, what you are doing and why.
Our worldview,
including belief in Spirit and ancestors is revealed in our ability to trust
process.
Indigenous
methodologies raise Indigenous voices out of suppression.
Because the
Anishinaabe language is very descriptive, it takes conscious thought and effort
to articulate an Anishinaabe concept in english. For example, the term for a "heat
bug" translates roughly in english as "singing for the berries to
ripen".
Indigenous knowledge
sets are perceived and received with antagonism. Michael Marker states: "The efforts to
make education serve the status quo have often made the place based knowledge
and identity of Indigenous people seem like an antiquated and sometimes
contentious perspective".
You must
contextualize yourself and own the location from which you research.
As First Nations,
our responsibilities are to factor in accountability, not just measurability,
of our relations with all of Creation and to follow our original instructions
as they were orally passed on.
Our awareness of our
place in Creation is our responsibility.
Our ancestors'
legacy is in the lands, languages, traditions and cultures that they
safeguarded. These enabled our ancestors
and us today to survive genocide, assimilation and attempted annihilation.
There isn't so much
dissonance about our process when the methodologies honour who we are as
Indigenous peoples.
Pam Colorado derives
four dynamics that she says we ought to attend to in our methodologies:
feelings, history, prayer and relations.
If we are to conduct research that is ethical, humane, relevant and
valid, our methodologies must be culturally congruent.
Prayers, ceremony
and dreams are concrete manifestations of how Spirit has a presence.
Ceremonies provide a
channel to heal, cleanse, seek knowledge and gain insight.
To become
progressive Indigenous re-searchers we have to become conscious of the history
and impact of colonizing methodologies and oppressive theories. We have to learn our cultural history and
knowledge. We have to undertake a
journey of learning, unlearning and relearning, and this journey is difficult
because we are inundated with the continuing effects of colonialism every
moment of every day.
