Weaponizing traditions: Threads of resistance and oppression

Abstract

Within Indigenous communities, how do emerging Indigenous leaders experience resistance? This article discusses responses to this guiding research question within the multi-directional oppression Indigenous peoples experience in their communities as public administrators. Using an Indigenous Knowledge framework that is deeply based in grounded theory, we hosted listening circles to create a space for emerging Indigenous leaders to talk and hear each other in a Longhouse at The Evergreen State College. The listening circle contributors are mainly emerging leaders and tribal members from Native nations across the Salish Sea. They talked together to unravel the implications outsider and insider colonization has had on the community relations that exist today. This research focused solely on the perpetration of colonization tactics that use cultural traditions as a weapon to oppress rather than enliven. Rather than European colonization, internalized Indigenous colonization was often discussed from Indigenous person to person and distinct groups within Indigenous communities to other groups. Through exploring present day weaponized tradition, we work to heal through an Indigenous meta-narrative of lived experiences thereby removing Indigenous peoples from the classification of “other” or “erased.”