Concluding Commentary: Revisiting and Clarifying the Safety Zone

Abstract

Concluding Commentary Revisiting and Clarifying the Safety Zone K. TsianinaLomawaima and Teresa L. McCarty Concepts These guide, theoretical scaffold, andterms and moorings are illuminate theanchors arerarely the in explanations any neutral theoretical orvalue-free; ourtheories framework. they produce. They grow Concepts guide,scaffold, and illuminate theexplanations ourtheories produce. Thesetheoretical moorings arerarely neutral orvalue-free; theygrow out of ourintellectual and social histories - whatqualitative researchers Gretchen RossmanandSharon Ralliscallour"experience inpractice" (2003, p. 121). Forus,thatexperience includesourdisciplinary preparation inthe fieldof anthropology. Both of us have developedinto interdisciplinary scholars. We sharea profound commitment tothewell-being ofIndigenous peoplesandsocieties, andwe arekeenly interested ineducational issuesand the practicesand policies of schooling.But our professional lives have followed different trajectories. As a consequence, theconcepts andterminology of"safe"and"dangerous" havesometimes lined upinourwork, andsometimes movedin different directions. Bringing to pressthepapersforthisspecial issueaffords us thewelcomeopportunity toaddressandhopefully resolvea tension - ifnotoutright confusion - sparked bythedisparate wayswehave usedtheterms safeandsafety inourindividual andcollaborative work.We beginthisas a dialogueorconversation - a pattern that hascharacterized our working relationship overtheyears. Our Perspectives K. TsianinaLomawaima(KTL): Mywork documenting Nativeexperiences within colonialinstitutions - federal Indianboarding schools- led me to crossthepermeable border from anthropology to history. Employment and professionaldevelopmentwithin American Indian/Indigenous Studies conditioned me to wonder howtheschoolsfitintolarger patterns of U.S./ Native interaction, andtoquestion why U.S.society hasempowered schools assuch powerful laboratories fortransforming Nativepeople,as narratives of U.S. history endeavored toeraseNativepeoplesfrom publicview.In short, I have focusedon thestructures and rationales of settler colonialrepression and erasureof NativeAmericans: colonialconsolidation of a safety zone of domesticated, controlled, remnant "Indian-ness" thatconveniently distills settlercolonial nostalgiaabout an Indigenouspast while reapingthe contemporaiy benefits oflifelivedonviolently-dispossessed Indigenous lands. Journal of American Indian Education -53,Issue3,2014 63 Teresa L. McCarty(TLM): Ina similar fashion toyour work crossing thepermeable borderof anthropology and history, minehas straddled the border ofanthropology andeducation. Just aboutthetimethat youpublished yournow-classicstudyof ChiloccoIndianSchool, TheyCalled It Prairie Light (Lomawaima, 1994),I wascollaborating with Navajobilingual teachers attheRoughRockCommunity Schoolona project toreclaim Navajowaysof knowing, teaching, andlearning intheschoolcurriculum. Theseweretense and difficult timesfortheschoolas itfought foritslivelihoodagainstthe increasing federalsurveillance and pressures forstandardization. Teachers bristled against top-down curricular mandates yetworried aboutthesecurity oftheir jobs iftheyobjected. In thiscontext we established a study groupto investigate alternatives to Englishstandardized tests.We conductedwhat Hymes (1980) called "ethnographic monitoring" of students'language learning; wereadanddiscussed research onalternative assessment; we wrote and exchangeddialogue journals; and we critiquedtaken-for-granted assumptions aboutNavajolearners andhowtheir learning shouldbe assessed. Following Jerry LipkaattheUniversity ofAlaskaFairbanks andtheYup'ik teacher-leaders with whom heworked (Lipka, Mohatt, & theCiulistet, 1998),we identified ourstudy group as a "zoneofsafety." As wewrote atthetime: Thiswasnota "comfort zone";indeed, there wasgreat personal and shareddiscomfort [andpain]as teachers revisited their education histories andchallenged many pedagogical assumptions internalized in the course oftheir schooling. (Begay etal.,1995, p.133)1 Ourmetaphoric zoneofsafety was a placeoftrust, collaboration, and mutualrespect,wherethe rootcauses of educationinequitiescould be confronted - evenweptaboutandragedat- knowing we wouldcomeout ofthiswiththeknowledge andresolveto implement approaches thatbetter served Navajostudents. Inretrospect, wewerebutting ourheadsagainst what youandI latercalledthesafety zone- a social,psychological, pedagogic, andpoliticalspacedesigned tocontain a "safe"Indian-ness. We justneeded tocreate a safeplacetodo it. KTL: It mightappear ironicthat in our professional academic sisterhood, thenon-Native sibling'smodel,zones of safety, privileges the Indigenous whiletheMuscogeesibling'smodelthatpresagedthejointlyelaborated SZT, analyzesthesettler colonial.I believethereare powerful institutional academic structures, and equally powerfulif less tangible intellectual currents inourrespective arenasthat helpedcutthechannels our individual proclivities guidedustoward. The "places of difference" demarcated by you and theNavajo (and Yup'ik)teachers as zonesofsafety - placeswhere itis safetobe Indigenous on Indigenous terms whileparticipating fully andactively inthelarger field ofU.S. society - arerootedinandemergent from Indigenous sovereignty. Theyshouldnotbeconfused with either ghettos (sitesofsegregated isolation) orjails (sitesofcarcerai containment). Theyarenotrestrictive placesbased 64 Journal of American Indian Education -Volume 53,Issue3,2014 on a philosophyof quarantine, or disciplinary places predicatedon punishment. Theyare expressive of theinherent rights of peoplesto selfgovernment , self-determination, and self-education: the hallmarksof sovereignty. These zones of safety are envisioned as creative, productive wellsprings ofIndigenous health andwell-being, andgenerative ofeffective communication andcollaboration with others. TLM: Inourbook"ToRemainanIndian " (TRI),wetookcaretonote thisdistinction (Lomawaima& McCarty 2006,p. 173,n. 2). Lipka,Mohatt, and theCiulistet (1998) also call thekindof space theRoughRock and Yup'ik teachers created a "zone ofpossibility where[cultural] insiders and outsiders ferret outthemeanings, conflicts, andconfusions surrounding the practical question ofhowtonegotiate [Native]cultural knowledge within a schoolcontext" (1998,p. 26). And,theLomawaima-McCarty notionofthe safetyzone allows forpermeable borders; throughout TRI we emphasize Indigenousagency,transformation, and Nativeself-determined efforts...