Indigenous Concepts Research Articles

Neighbourly Networks:

This paper argues that currently operative approaches to the protection of Indigenous rights and capabilities cannot help but fall short of accommodating relational, co-creative dynamics of Indigenous being in the world due to insufficient engagement with the participationalist, networked understandings of Indigenous paradigms. Discussions during the preparation of the United Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), in a necessary first step, focused on responses to shared histories of subjugation by colonial powers,(1) and on safeguarding Indigenous rights and capabilities in relation to the powers exercised by what have since become encapsulating nation states. While the respect implied in the safeguarding of such rights and capabilities constitutes a crucial first step towards fruitful forms of coexistence, its conception from within a predominantly representationalist, Newtonian, post-Enlightenment Western paradigm necessarily falls short – at least as yet – of allowing space for Indigenous forms of networked, often acausal relationships of inter-species kinship to thrive. As a corollary, it also entails limitations remaining operative with regards to any potential networking between networks: to the extent that an Indigenous network’s own ability to thrive is impeded, so is the ability of its neighbouring networks to fruitfully interact with its contribution to inter-network co-creative activity and thriving. Understandings on their own terms are going to be needed of Indigenous conceptions of agency residing in inter-species relationship, so that space can be opened up for Indigenous societies not only to exercise rights and capabilities at bounded individual or group level, but also to practise participationalist ways of dynamically centering the co-creative agency of relationships.

The games people play: using the game of Taboo to develop indigenous concepts

The games people play: using the game of Taboo to develop indigenous concepts

Social media‐enabled crisis response in Vietnam: A tương thân tương ái perspective

AbstractA growing amount of information systems (IS) research is examining the use of social media to enable effective crisis response. However, existing studies have overlooked the impact of indigenous concepts, which play an important role in crisis response. Our study intends to offer an indigenous perspective to this research stream by examining how social media‐enabled crisis response is enacted in Vietnam. We used COVID‐19 as the focal crisis and collected a rich set of discussion threads from social media. By analysing the data through the grounded theory method, our study identifies the indigenous theoretical concept of tương thân tương ái. We further unveil a process model consisting of six mechanisms through which tương thân tương ái inspires crisis response on social media and three roles assumed by social media during this process. Our study contributes to the literature on social media‐enabled crisis response by providing an indigenous perspective and a context‐specific explanation. It also enriches IS theory in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by investigating how the indigenous concept of tương thân tương ái influences Vietnam's crisis response on social media. Our findings also provide guidelines that can help communities beyond Vietnam to promote the values of tương thân tương ái during crisis response.

Frontline mobilisation as border thinking: redefining just transitions through decolonial praxis and community organising

I analyse the coming together of frontline actors, particularly people of colour in the US, building on the concept of ‘just transitions’ to help solve the climate crisis as ‘border thinking or border epistemology’ within decolonial thought. Frontline communities are characterised by high exposure to climate and environmental risks; fewer safety nets because of their immigration status and insecure jobs; and less political power to respond to risks. My contribution is twofold: first, to allow reflexivity and to acknowledge that I share some sense of the lived experiences with the people I speak with in my research, I have approached our encounter through pakikipagkapwa, a Filipino indigenous concept that evokes concepts of communal support, solidarity and equality. Second, I argue that conceptualising frontline mobilisation as border thinking repositions frontline actors as creators, thinkers and knowers who harness their collective power to shift from an extractive economy, which is profiting off labour and natural resources with centralisation of profits, to a regenerative one that is ecologically and equitably sustainable. Through praxis and community organising, frontline communities reclaim their agency, challenge dominant neoliberal capitalistic relations and redefine just transitions that reflect their practices and vision of the world.

Interrogating whiteness in International Relations: Critical Examinations of Race and Racialised Power

AbstractThe dynamics of knowledge production in the discipline of international relations (IR) frequently reproduce problematic and outdated idea(l)s about what counts as ‘proper’ scholarship, with positivist research setting the standard for legitimacy. This essay challenges the racialised hierarchies that reproduce unreflective endorsement of these (white, Western) ‘standards’ of knowledge production. Our review begins with an elaboration of epistemic whiteness as the foundation for a critical examination of race and racialised power in the discipline. We provide a timely and necessary review of the dynamics of racialised power in IR to expand the parameters of debates about race, racism, and coloniality. We introduce the concepts of Indigeneity and intersectionality as tools we can use to destabilise whiteness in the discipline. We conclude our discussion by showing how these two concepts can enable potentially transformative re-imaginings of IR, as we hope to foster new and plural ways of thinking world politics otherwise.

Towards epistemological pluralism and methodological openness in language teacher emotion research

In recent years the notion of emotional labor or emotion labor has gained prominence as an analytically robust concept to explore language teacher emotions in both western and non-western educational settings. The first aim of this article is to examine the applicability of a western concept of emotion labor to the study of language teacher emotions in the Global South/s. Through a comparative case study, we examine how Ecuadorian English-language and Kichwa-language teachers managed emotions while undertaking virtual teaching at the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic. While emotion labor was useful for explaining the former's reported experiences, for the latter, it was only through the Indigenous concept of corazonar rooted in Andean philosophy and cosmology that we could capture their drastically differing accounts. From the perspective of Epistemologies of the South, we argue for a locally sensitive way of theorizing language teacher emotions. We also aim to illustrate the significance of casing and recasing (i.e., a recursive process of linking developing ideas and the evidence that researchers gather) in language teacher emotion research through the investigation of our own analytical processes.

Representation, Settler Colonialism and ‘the Aboriginal Child’: a Politics of Subalternity?

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak famously thematised the question ‘can the subaltern speak?’ through the dual meanings of ‘representation,’ as both depiction and political proxy. This paper draws on Spivak’s analysis to question the capacity of the settler-colonial Australian imagination to represent (or recognise) the sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples – and especially of children, as infants (in-fans, literally speechless). The former sense of representation (depiction) bears implications for the second, as Indigenous sovereignty is displaced by settler representations of indigeneity – and particularly of Indigenous ‘childhood’ and ‘children’ as neglected ‘piccaninnies,’ without parentage or inheritance. Such portrayals, in this light, may even be read as continuous with colonial logics of elimination, as strategies to sever the connection to land that undergirds Indigenous conceptions of sovereignty and to thwart Indigenous futures. The article interrogates settler colonial investments in representing Aboriginal childhood in the context of recent public discourse about the constitutional recognition of First Peoples, and a political imperative to re-present the Australian ‘nation’ as post- (rather than currently) colonial. The questions that animate this inquiry include: what, if anything, can a settler-Australian politics of recognition offer First Peoples? Is it possible to represent (or recognise) Blak sovereignty through modifications to the settler constitution? And how does the settler image repertoire of Aboriginal children speak to this possibility? If that fabricated ‘Aboriginal child’ could speak, what would this ultimate ‘subaltern’ say?

Batu Baraguang: Megalithic Stone Chime Music in Luhak 50 Koto, Minangkabau, Indonesia

Batu baraguang is music performed on massive stone gong chimes found ins Luhak 50 Koto, Minangkabau, Indonesia. Very little has been written nor investigated regarding much of the megalithic remains found throughout Sumatra and Nias. The researchers employed a qualitative methodology in this investigation. As the primary data collection instruments, they utilized observation, interviews, document analysis, and data interpretation. The study adopted an ethnographic approach, which placed a strong emphasis on observational techniques. The instrument consists of six stones placed on a bamboo cushion. Rhythmic motifs are played by three people in a cross-legged sitting position. Each player hits two stone slabs that have different pitch levels. The interlocking tones produce cumulative short melodies which are recognized as discrete melodies or pieces. In this article we seek to describe the musical system as evidenced in these stone chimes, and the manner of batu baraguang performance. We deployed both qualitative descriptive methods coupled with quantitative techniques in pitch measurements. The ensemble consists of six talempong stone slabs which we call B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, and B6. The pieces are based on indigenous concepts called palau, tongah and panyudahi. Each of these corresponds to three pairs of stones performed by three players. We contend based on the findings of this research that the ancestors of the Minangkabau people in the Megalithic era already possessed an aesthetic musical identity as exemplified through the medium of this stone chime.

De-westernising competition: ‘Harmony of competition’ in Chinese higher education

ABSTRACT The discourse regarding globalisation and particularly ‘global competition’ has appeared in a range of socio-economic areas and higher education is no exception. Global competition has been the policy context in which a range of national excellence initiatives have been developed. These have often involved competitive processes with significant funding as a core incentive for universities to participate. Several countries have implemented these to build ‘World Class Universities’ (WCU) but often this concept is linked to global rankings and a western model of what world class is. The aim of this study is to critically examine the characteristics of China’s WCU policies, particularly as a competition discourse. It aims to go beyond Western-centric paradigms to capture a more inclusive and diverse understanding of competitive dynamics across various cultural and regional contexts. The article first draws upon critical globalisation studies, then it reviews ‘indigenous’ Chinese policy concepts of ‘world class-ness’ in HE, next it examines the construction of higher education (HE) competition in the Chinese national and institutional contexts, and finally it conducts a thematic review of the main Chinese WCU policies and the strategy and implementation documents of the ‘core’ WCU institutions with respect to the indigenous concepts. Our study’s findings will contribute to a nuanced understanding of competition in HE settings – it examines and challenges the tendency of the competition discourse to reduce distinctions between national contexts.

Animal Matter in Indigenous Place-Thought: A Case from the Moon Pyramid, Teotihuacan

This article interrogates an archaeological application of the Indigenous concept of place-thought, defined by Vanessa Watts as an “understanding of the world via a physical embodiment” through studying corporeal animal forms. This latter encompasses the osteological traces of animal matter (sacrificed animals and prepared body parts) that, because of their material vitalities, provide an opportune site of engagement to retrieve ancient interpersonal relationships. Over 100 corporeal animal forms from Burials 2 and 6 are interpreted as agentive persons who brought into being the Moon Pyramid as an altepetl (water mountain) of Teotihuacan. The altepetl is a seminal place-thought in Mesoamerica intimately tied with sovereignty. The author argues that potentate apex predators (eagles, wolves, jaguars, pumas, and rattlesnakes) became part of Teotihuaccan’s community through their captive management and were buried alive to sustain the altepetl as master guardians. A zooarchaeological and isotopic investigation of corporeal animal forms provided lurid details of human–predator interactions, including differential access to the animals, esoteric knowledge about their personhood, and even deceit of that information. She concludes that providing a contextually and historically contingent, data-driven, and inter-personally centered reconstruction of ancient place-thought, though admittedly partial and from a specific perspective, should be attainable given the enhanced methods in archaeology.

Making Space for Feminist Decolonial Geographies of Peace with the Shuar in the Ecuadorian Amazon: A Case for ‘Cuerpo Territorio’

ABSTRACT This article follows urgent calls from peace and conflict studies and geographies of peace to be decolonised. Our study shows that for the Shuar communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the concept of peace is quite different from that of the Ecuadorian state. This study demonstrates how ‘Western’ centric definitions of the term are rooted in colonial logic and power structures. In this article, we explore what it could mean to decolonise theories and spaces for peace. Through encounters with Indigenous Shuar understandings of peace in a community-based participatory research project, we highlight the plurality of possibilities for the term. Using a decolonial lens we conclude with a call to action for scholars in those disciplines to engage with the Feminist Indigenous Latin American and Caribbean methodology and epistemology ‘cuerpo territorio’ (body-territory) to understand territory from the perspective of Abya Yala, that sees women’s bodies as the ‘first territory’. We argue that ‘cuerpo territorio’ is well suited to do decolonial work and help us step outside a Westernized understanding of peace and make strides towards the pluriverse. While typically this Indigenous concept has been used to better understand violence surrounding extraction sites, we propose that engaging with the methodology will prove useful for theoretical findings in spatial understandings of peace and its praxis.

The Unappreciated Significance and Source of Meaning in Wild Landscapes: An Arctic Case

Wild places are rich with meaning. This runs contrary to accounts of vast undeveloped regions like the Arctic as being devoid of meaning (and thus open for—or even in need of—resource exploitation) and to accounts that dismiss conceptualizations of the Arctic as containing substantial wilderness landscapes as an invalid colonial concept. There is rather an unappreciated commonality between Indigenous conceptions of place and conceptualizations of wilderness: both recognize undeveloped landscapes as substantial founts of meaning that are not the product of their own projections. Their senses of these meanings are not equivalent but overlap in important respects and are shared by many cultures across the globe, thus challenging premises of relativism and of meaning as merely locally produced. Furthermore, meaning is a topic often overlooked or marginalized in the context of climate change adaptation and nature preservation. The Arctic is considered as a specific case study to illustrate these points as it is one of the world's largest undeveloped areas and is particularly affected by climate change. The Arctic is rich with meaning for the Inuit and other residents who depend on it for sustenance. It also contains some of the most extensive and least developed or otherwise impacted and manipulated landscapes on the planet—a relatively small portion of which is protected as parks and wilderness, though substantial in comparison to temperate or tropical regions. Climate change threatens not only the traditional subsistence livelihoods of Arctic residents, but also the emergent meanings that inhere in these landscapes. Simultaneously, the meaning and value of protected Arctic landscapes, particularly those designated as wilderness, is also under duress. Climate change is impacting the Arctic more than many other areas, posing a threat to its meanings as a home and as a wilderness. Acknowledging the centrality of meaning, while rejecting the “received idea” inherited from constructivist thought that meaning is overlaid on a passive landscape open for—or even in need of—human created meanings, can lead to new approaches to nature preservation and to human adaptation in the era of climate change.

Place, empire, environmental education, and the Community of Inquiry

Place-based education is founded on the idea that the student’s local community is one of their primary learning resources. Place-based education’s underlying educational principle is that students need to first have an experiential understanding of the history, culture, and ecology of the environment in which they are situated before tackling broader national and global issues. Such attempts are a step in the right direction in dealing with controversial issues in a democracy by providing resources for synthesising curriculum though theory (curriculum content, including traditional subjects) and practice (practical learning as experiential education). Nevertheless, many place-based accounts discount Indigenous conceptions of place, which are integral to Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, especially in relation to the ontological relationship to Land and Country. Indigenous philosophy has the potential to inform what place-based education means by students developing a ‘sense of place’ when engaging with local communities as their ‘own’ place. In this article we re-imagine the community of inquiry as a place-responsive pedagogy by learning from Indigenous philosophy, and recentring Indigenous notions of place in experiential learning. In addition to exploring the pedagogical potential of a place-responsive account of the community of inquiry, we look to the implications for teacher preparation.

Breaking the Mold: Normative Hybridity as the Key to Contemporary “Non-Western” Political Theorizing

What normative compass can appropriately ground a theory for contemporary “non-Western” societies? This question has become urgent amid the pressure to decolonize political science and academia. The hybridity of numerous contemporary non-Western societies means that political theorists cannot refuse to engage with either Western-originated or premodern Indigenous concepts and ways of thinking that bear on the local public culture. However, these normative strands alone are unsuitable for grounding a contemporary theory. This methodological dilemma can be overcome if theorists adopt normative hybridity as a methodological stance. Normative hybridity suggests that hybridity is not only a feature of the theorist’s context of reference but should also be their modus operandi. Normative hybridity already underpins relevant works in contemporary Confucian political theory. Drawing from these works, I illustrate three methods to apply normative hybridity to theory building. This novel methodological approach uniquely addresses current political theory discussions and influences non-Western policymaking.

Healthy food, unhealthy food: Indigenous perspectives on the nutrition transition

ABSTRACT Amazonian Indigenous Peoples are undergoing drastic changes in their ways of life including the quality and availability of food and its impact on their health and well-being. Indigenous populations have their own perspectives and interpretations of dietary changes unfolding in their communities. Based on in-depth interviews, observations and validation workshops we explored the way Awajún describe and problematise the concept of healthy and unhealthy food in the context of the nutrition transition. We learn that the characteristics of ‘good food' are informed by their capacity to give strength, protect health and enable them to be hardworking people. On the contrary, food that comes from the city weakens the body and may result in health problems. For the Awajún, chicken with hormones, fish preserved in cans, and powdered milk negatively affect their health. We argue that the dichotomy ‘healthy' and ‘unhealthy’ used to classify food provides information not only about Indigenous conceptualisations of health and die, but is also a critique of broader structural processes affecting their well-being. The terms, explanations and idioms used by the Awajún to talk about food, provide an insight into Indigenous perspectives and knowledge key to informing global health interventions in culturally appropriate ways.

Understanding Suicide from an Indigenous Cultural Lens: Insights from Elders in Canada.

In this study, Indigenous Elders in Canada were interviewed to explore their conceptualizations of death and dying, particularly in relation to suicide. Through reflexive thematic analysis, three key themes were developed: Indigenous conceptions of death and dying, Christian influences on views of suicide, and indirect suicide. The theme of Indigenous conceptualizations of death and dying included the subthemes of spirituality and life after death, highlighting the importance of spiritual beliefs in Indigenous culture and knowledge systems. The impact of Christian influences on views of suicide was also explored, with participants discussing the complex nature of the relationship between Christianity and Indigenous peoples. Finally, the theme of indirect suicide was analyzed, referring to deaths resulting from behaviors that do not necessarily fit within the conventional definition of suicide. Overall, this study highlights the importance of honoring Indigenous cultural knowledge in research related to suicide prevention in Indigenous communities.

Indigenous approaches to health assessment: a scoping review protocol

BackgroundHealth assessment tools developed using mainstream or Western concepts have been widely used in clinical practice worldwide. However, even culturally adapted or culturally based tools may not be relevant in other social contexts if they are grounded in Western beliefs and perspectives. The application of mainstream assessment tools, when used in Indigenous populations, can lead to the inappropriate application of normative data and inaccurate or biased diagnosis of conditions as Indigenous concepts of health differ from Western biomedical concepts of health. Thus, considering the need for culturally meaningful, sensitive, safe, and unbiased health assessment approaches and instruments over recent years, tools have been developed or adapted by and with Indigenous populations in Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. However, there is no existing systematic or scoping review to identify the methods and approaches used in adapting or developing health assessment tools for use with the Indigenous population in Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.MethodsIn response to these gaps, we are working with a First Nations Community Advisory Group in Northern Ontario, Canada, to undertake a scoping review following the 2020 JBI methodology for scoping reviews. A systematic search will be conducted in PubMed, APA PsychINFO, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Bibliography of Native North Americans, Australian Indigenous Health info data set, and Indigenous Health Portal. Two reviewers will independently screen all abstracts and full-text articles for inclusion using criteria co-developed with an advisory group. We will chart the extracted information and summarize and synthesize the data. The summarized findings will be presented to a Community Advisory Group, including First Nations community partners, an Elder, and community members, and their feedback will be incorporated into the discussion section of the scoping review.DiscussionThis scoping review involves iterative consultation with the Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, First Nations Community Advisory Group, and community partners throughout the research process. This review aims to summarize the evidence on standard ethical approaches and practices used in Indigenous research while adapting or developing health assessment tools. It will inform the larger study focused on developing an Indigenous Functional Assessment tool. Further, it will seek whether the Indigenous ways of knowing and equitable participation of Indigenous people and communities are incorporated in the Indigenous research process.Systematic review registrationOpen Science Framework https://osf.io/yznwk.

The Akan Indigenous Concepts of Religion and Nyame (the Supreme Deity) and the Promotion of Inter-religious Relations in Ghana

This paper in revealing that the adoption of foreign religions has not eradicated the lingering influence of indigenous spiritual and religious values, explores the coexistence of Christianity, Islam, and indigenous Akan religious values among the Akan people. The study, employing a mixed-methodological approach, including interviews with three respondents and ten focus group discussions in Ghana’s Central Region, delved into the Akan conception of religion as a prevailing system. It highlighted the Supreme Deity’s role as the Great Ancestor, emphasizing how these concepts foster apathy towards religious differences and cultivate a trans-religious attitude among the Akan people. The findings suggest that Akan’s general indifference to religious disparities not only contributes to a tolerant society but also potentially serves as a model for interreligious harmony. This resilience is evident in the face of efforts by some Christians and Muslims to discourage trans-religious practices among the Akan. This showcases the enduring nature of Akan inclusivity in matters of religion. Keywords: Akan, Indigenous Religions, Christianity, Islam, Interreligious Encounters, Dialogue

Indigenous Knowledge and Ontological Difference? Ontological Pluralism, Secular Public Reason, and Knowledge between Indigenous Amazonia and the West

AbstractReal knowledge emerges from “impossible” worldviews. Or, put differently, it is possible to accept knowledge that is produced by people whose ontological presuppositions–their baseline assumptions about the nature of reality–one entirely rejects. How can this fact be accommodated, not by advancing a wishful post-dualism, dangerous post-secularism, or implausible ontological relativism, but by working within the tradition of secular political philosophy so that indigenous knowledge, too, can be a basis for public policy and collective action in secular societies? Via a reframing Amazonian multinaturalist perspectivism–which has so inspired post-dualist civilizational critiques–as a social theory of health and illness that informs contemporary Western epidemiology’s struggles to theorize the distribution of health and illness in mass society, this article advances a general approach to recognizing knowledge that has been developed on the other side of boundaries of ontological difference. It argues that the accuracy or efficacy of any particular indigenous knowledge-practice implies the generative potential as theory of the ontological presuppositions that facilitated the knowledge-practice’s evolution. Combining the ontological turn’s interest in the innovativeness of indigenous concepts with a proposal for superseding its incommensurable worlds and abandonment of the aspiration to more-than-local knowledge, the article shows that indigenous ideas and their underlying ontologies are more than generic alternatives to inspire Western civilizational renewal, and opens a path to their legitimization as actionable knowledge in the terms of secular public reason.

Centring localised indigenous concepts of wellbeing in urban nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation: case-studies from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands

Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer significant potential for climate change adaptation and resilience. NbS strengthen biodiversity and ecosystems, and premise approaches that centre human wellbeing. But understandings and models of wellbeing differ and continue to evolve. This paper reviews wellbeing models and thinking from Aotearoa New Zealand, with focus on Te Ao Māori (the Māori world and worldview) as well as other Indigenous models of wellbeing from wider Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Oceania. We highlight how holistic understandings of human-ecology-climate connections are fundamental for the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Oceania and that they should underpin NbS approaches in the region. We profile case study experience from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands emerging out of the Nature-based Urban design for Wellbeing and Adaptation in Oceania (NUWAO) research project, that aims to develop nature-based urban design solutions, rooted in Indigenous knowledges that support climate change adaptation and wellbeing. We show that there is great potential for nature-based urban adaptation agendas to be more effective if linked closely to Indigenous ecological knowledge and understandings of wellbeing.