There is no place of nature; there is only the nature of place: animate landscapes as methodology for inquiry in the Coast Salish territory

Abstract

Indigenist scholars have been attending to the research process in ways that highlight the move toward inquiry, the beginnings of the research journey. The energies that animate imagination and inquiry need to be respected and accounted for. If we recognize that place and the consciousness of landscape contain the primordial elements for the Indigenous mind, then it follows that respectful Indigenous research methods should engage with the landscape as the beginning point for inquiry. Centering place and place-ness as containing the ontological meaning of Indigenous methodology is also a way to excavate the specific effects of colonization on Indigenous landscapes and communities. Much Indigenous thought radiates from an invocation of a sentient topography, a land that is aware of human presence. This writing considers what a methodology of place, specifically in the Coast Salish territory, might consist of.