Space and Place within Aboriginal Epistemological Traditions: Recent Trends in Historical Scholarship

Abstract

By looking at how space and place can be used to shape Indigenous history based on Aboriginal ways of knowing, we can begin to explore how Indigenous philosophical and religious traditions have shaped their cultural, political, and economic traditions and rationalized their sense of land, property, and rights. New scholarship by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars is pursuing this new and dynamic inquiry. In recent years, a number of cutting-edge studies have evaluated how place and space have impacted colonial historical events, with some scholars employing the epistemological frameworks of Indigenous societies and others focusing on how land disputes have shaped Canadian history more generally. This article is an evaluation of the evolution of the historical scholarship – some from historians, some not – as it relates to Indigenous societies, space and place, and the epistemological frameworks embedded within their cultural traditions.