Indigenous Concepts Research Articles

Reconciling Indigenous peoples with the judicial process: An examination of the recent genocide and sexual slavery trials in Guatemala and their integration of Mayan culture and customs

This article examines two recent landmark cases in Guatemala. The first one is the 2013 Rios Montt genocide case, which led to one of the first convictions of a former Head of State for genocide in a national court. The second one is the 2016 Sepur Zarco case, which marked the first time former military commanders were convicted in a national court of crimes against the duties of humanity for sexual and domestic slavery. In both cases, almost all the victims were Indigenous. The author was present for parts of both trials as an international observer and interviewed individuals directly involved in the prosecution. Considering that Guatemalan and international law require that legal decisions give due consideration to the customs of the Indigenous peoples concerned, the article assesses to what extent Indigenous culture was taken into account during the trial and how Indigenous concepts and customs were considered in the judgements. In both cases, the tribunal did not modify usual court procedures, except to provide interpreters for the testimony of the unilingual Q’eqchi and Ixil witnesses. Both judgements did, however, take into account several concepts and customs from the Mayan worldview and these were key to the Court’s reasoning leading to the guilty verdicts.

Reconciliation and environmental justice

ABSTRACTThe conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) launched a new chapter in Indigenous-state relationships in Canada. Despite many resulting ‘reconciliation initiatives’, there remains considerable discussion as to what form reconciliation should take and for what end. Reconciliation processes must involve Indigenous peoples from the outset and should be founded on Indigenous intellectual and legal traditions. Indigenous peoples’ conceptions of reconciliation differ markedly from state-sponsored views, particularly the view that reconciliation must be achieved among all beings of Creation, including all living things and entities that broader society does not consider to be alive (e.g. water). Indigenous concepts of reconciliation extend discussions beyond human dimensions to encompass reconciliation with the natural world as a path forward to achieve justice. As such, reconciliation must also include discussion of Indigenous environmental justice, as both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples need to heal their damaged relationships with each other and to the land. The Anishinaabe concept of Mino-bimaatisiwin the ‘good life’, or ‘living well’) offers guidance for ensuring that balanced relationships among all beings of Creation are maintained. Concepts such as these could provide significant guidance as we work towards achieving a more sustainable and just society through reconciliation efforts.

Talanoa: Tongan epistemology and Indigenous research method

Story dialogue known as talanoa is increasingly finding its place as a Pacific research method. The authors situate talanoa as an Indigenous concept of relationally mindful critical oratory. Approaching talanoa from mostly a Tongan lens, it is argued that it can contribute to broader discussions of Indigenous research methods and epistemology. The authors address the talanoa literature that has defined it as an open or informal discussion, and respond to questions that have emerged from challenges in implementing it practically in academic research. Indigenous Oceanic thought is used to interpret talanoa as a mediation between relations of Mana (potency), Tapu ( sacred/restrictions), and Noa (equilibrium), which is a gap in the talanoa literature. Talanoa is grounded as a continuum of Indigenous knowledge production and wisdom present from the past that is adaptable to research settings. Centring Moana (Oceanic) epistemology in talanoa challenges dominant research methods to adapt to Indigenous paradigms, rather than attempting to Indigenize a Western one.

Exu, o andrógino canibal: aproximações entre mitologia e imaginário antropófago brasileiro para pensar alteridade

O presente artigo propõe explorar o mito de Exu e o imaginário antropófago brasileiro em suas concepções indígenas a fim de extrair uma proposta epistemológica para a comunicação que parta de uma metafísica canibal afro-brasileira. Após estudarmos o mito de “Exu come tudo”, e a interpretação indígena do fenômeno da antropofagia, fazemos uma releitura do Manifesto Antropófago modernista e, por aproximação, o atualizamos na mitologia afro-brasileira. Ao abordar essa realidade pelo viés do mito e do imaginário, propomos ultrapassar as barreiras das representações ocidentais em torno da antropofagia e contribuir para uma compreensão desta noção como a de um trajeto digestivo que permite construir-se através do outro. Desta forma, concluímos que o mito de Exu, enquanto andrógino canibal, pode permitir expressar as bases de uma episteme comunicacional própria, brasileira e contemporânea.

Indigenous intellectual traditions and biography in the northeast: A historiographical reflection

AbstractOver the past two decades, a substantial literature has developed probing Robert Warrior's idea that we can trace a written Indigenous intellectual tradition back to the mid‐eighteenth century. Focused on Indigenous peoples who wrote fairly extensively, much of this literature has tended to treat the same individuals: Samson Occom, Joseph Brant, Peter Jones, William Apess, and George Copway (among others). Over the past 5 years, a series of biographies have been published on other individuals who fit within this community of intellectuals. Drawing together these two streams within the historiography, this essay probes the concept of Indigenous intellectual traditions, suggesting that scholars need to look beyond print culture. Doing so will better account for Indigenous concepts of sovereignty and territory, the involvement of women, the role of class, as well as the relationship between these traditions, historiographical practices, and settler colonial systems of power.

“The Huacas of the Spanish”: Expressions of Indigenous Religion in the Mythologies and Aesthetics of Colonial Andean Religious Sculpture

Early scholarship on the colonial arts of the Andes assumed that the Spanish conquest and its accompanying missionary activity resulted in a complete destruction of Inca artistic tradition, and that the indigenous conception of art and representation had little to no effect on works produced during the colonial period. Since then, scholars have recognized a tremendous amount of indigenous influence on the stylistic, iconographic and representational aspects of colonial art forms. My paper examines the influence of two aspects of indigenous culture in particular, identified by the words huaca (sacred thing) and qillca (surface decoration), which were used by the Quechua, an Andean indigenous ethnic group, to describe religious objects in the pre-Hispanic era. They were then in turn appropriated and discouraged by colonial missionaries in an attempt to make their imported Catholicism more understandable to new converts. In examining the multiple, ambiguous meanings of these words in the minds of the Quechua people and colonial missionaries as evidenced in contemporary sermons and miracle tales, I will argue that they influenced the indigenous conception of colonial religious statuary. I will then conduct a visual analysis of ‘The Virgin of Cocharcas’, an 18th century Peruvian ‘statue painting’ (two dimensional depiction of a statue) to demonstrate how concepts of huaca and qillca influenced the aesthetics of colonial statuary.

Intimate Navigations, Refracted Perspectives

Intimate Navigations, Refracted Perspectives

Emotions, indigenous affective ties, and social network theory—The case of South Korea

This study conceptually explores the structural and emotional aspects of informal social networks in South Korea by examining the indigenous concepts of jeong, woori, inmaek, and yongo in relation to the theories of social networks, social capital, and social exchange. We suggest extending extant knowledge of the latter by pursuing the geocentric integration of Eastern and Western schools of thought on crucial elements of social networks, chiefly by focusing on affective characteristics compared to the conventional and dominant focus on cognitive characteristics. Moreover, we highlight the dualistic nature of informal ties by adapting the notions of yin-yang and zhongyong. Based on the results of our analysis, we suggest explicitly integrating interpersonal affection and the role of emotions as the constituting elements of social network development and cohesion.

Déni et ignorance de l’historicité autochtone dans l’histoire de l’art occidentale

Western art history long refused to recognize the historicity of Indigenous art, seeing it instead as a “primitive” mode of human expression. While the dynamism of Indigenous creation since the 1960s has made such an assertion impossible, the institutional recognition given contemporary Indigenous art in the art world is paradoxically accompanied by a lack of critical and theoretical analysis. Today, there is a genuine ignorance concerning Indigenous conceptions of history — their “regime of historicity”— on the part of Western art historians. This is all the more surprising given the recent “temporal turn” taken by the discipline, which emphasizes the question of mixed temporalities without acknowledging it as an essential dimension of Indigenous art. This paper revisits Western art history’s long-standing denial of the historicity of Indigenous art, and then considers its current disregard for the ways Indigenous art allows different forms of temporality to coexist. The underlying thesis of the essay is that today’s disinterest is, in fact, a prolongation of yesterday’s denial.

Living the experience of learning: embodied reflexivity as pedagogical process

As theatre practitioners we are always doing, acting, speaking and moving. Our world is one of lived experience, where we physically embody moments of knowledge creation and transformation. Through these interactions and transactions of learning, we reflect and ‘reflex’ our understanding of experiences. But how might we develop an approach to pedagogy that recognizes the primacy of relationships, enabling a sharing of an embodied and reflexive approach about our pedagogical practices? How might we experience these relationships in a way that enables learning processes to occur for ourselves and those we teach? These are questions we explore in this article, using our experiences and research. We identify how principles based on the Indigenous concept of 4Rs (relevance, responsibility, respect and reciprocity) that underpin embodied reflexivity could open up the possibility for new ways of knowing and understanding. We do this through presenting two research projects, one in Canada on using theatre games to explore well-being with Indigenous youth and one in Scotland on story and re-storying using an approach with educational professionals to develop embodied reflexive practice. Embodied reflexive processes as collective experience become opportunities for complex learning to occur where participants gain potentially transformational insights into practice through their symbiotic interaction with others.

Parent-Adolescent Relationships among Chinese Immigrant Families: An Indigenous Concept of Qin.

This study investigated cultural meanings of positive Chinese parent-child relationships through exploration of an indigenous concept, qin, as experienced by Chinese American adolescents of immigrant parents. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15, first- and second-generation Chinese American high school students of immigrant parents, focusing on adolescents' descriptions of the meaning of qin and parental behaviors that foster this quality. According to the Chinese American adolescents who were interviewed, being qin with parents was characterized as closeness to parents and a general sense of togetherness and harmony; showing parents their love through respect, obedience, academic effort, and appreciation; and open communication with the parents particularly about school. This relationship is primarily fostered by parental devotion and sacrifice, particularly for the child's education, future opportunities, success, and needs. The results highlight the role of child reciprocation of love and devotion for the parents in a qin relationship.

“Smudging, drumming and the like do not a nation make”: Temporal Liminality and Delegitimization of Indigenous Protest in Canada

This article explores the threat that Indigenous protest poses to Canada. However, it examines this potential for threat at an ontological level rather than a material level. In adopting a liminality framework, the article traces the capacity for Indigenous protest to menace and undermine Canada’s national identity. More specifically, it analyzes the ways in which editorial and commentary sections of Canada’s national newspapers represented protest and political activity associated with the Idle No More movement. Its findings demonstrate how these prominent social actors in Canada respond to the destabilizing presence of the Indigenous liminar by working to resolve its ambiguity in ways that protect and entrench dominant narratives of Canadian national identity. Acknowledging the role that liminality plays in structuring news media depictions of Indigenous peoples provides insight into how social actors in Canada interpret and respond to Indigenous protest. It demonstrates how such actors are able to exploit popular conceptions of indigeneity to reinforce the ongoing social dynamics working to produce and reproduce dominant narratives of Canadian identity. Moreover, a liminality framework is also valuable in demonstrating the role the news media play in delegitimizing Indigenous political advocacy and perpetuating fears relating to social disorder and violence in Canada.

Zavičajnost u hrvatskoj dječjoj književnosti

U radu se donosi pregled žanrovski raznolikih tekstova hrvatske dječje književnosti povezanih zavičajnom temom. Pojam se zavičajnosti, obilježen jezično-stilskim značajkama, istaknutom emocionalnošću te željom za osvješćivanjem zavičajnog identiteta (jezik, krajolik, običaji, prošlost) iščitava u dječjoj poeziji, slikovnicama, tipološki raznolikim pričama i pripovijestima. Književnoteorijskom i kulturološkom analizom utvrđena je kao zajednička osobina spoznaja o važnosti zavičajnog i regionalnog identiteta temeljenog na poznavanju i promicanju zavičajnih vrijednosti. Uočene su motivske, jezične, kompozicijske i stilske razlike u odabranim djelima, zasnovane na žanrovskim posebnostima. Autori najčešće u književnim tekstovima koriste autobiografski diskurs djetinjstva smještajući vlastita životna iskustva u zavičajni prostor. Osim pripovjedne realističnosti proizišle iz projekcije vlastitog djetinjstva, primjetno je veliko uplitanje bajkovitosti bliske dječjem čitatelju, ali i potrebi bajkovitog viđenja zavičaja. Zavičajne se teme najčešće ostvaruju prostornom topofilijom: od emotivnih opisa ruralnih i urbanih lokaliteta, preko povijesnih digresija, do pripovijedanja o važnim osobama koje su svojim životom i djelovanjem postali prepoznatljivim dijelovima zavičajnog identiteta i kulturne baštine određenog kraja. U jezičnom smislu, neki su od književnih tekstova realizirani standardnim jezikom, dok drugi koriste dijalekte, regionalne i mjesne govore kao sredstva pripadnosti određenom kraju promičući očuvanje zavičajnih dijalektoloških vrijednosti.

The Indigenous Concept of Vivir Bien in the Bolivian Legal Field: A Decolonial Proposal

This article discusses the concept of Vivir Bien (Living Well) (VB) and its role as a decolonising project in connection with the Political Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (2009) (BC) and subordinated legislation. This subordinated legislation was enacted to implement in a more specific manner the general legal principles contained within the BC. The paper uses these legal texts within the framework of decolonial thinking to prove that the adoption of the concept of VB represents a legal and an epistemological shift that radically contests the dominant Western paradigm of modernity/coloniality. This shift has many facets; however, this article concentrates on two of them in order to characterise its radicalism: (a) the constitutional acknowledgment of the colonial difference, which is understood here as the pervading and living legacy of European colonialism in social organisations and the production of knowledge, and (b) the constitutional and legislative requirement of engaging in an ongoing intercultural dialogue as a vehicle for the achievement of a society based on the concept of VB. This article concludes that the confluence of these two facets marks the epistemological shift and is important in the advancement of the intercultural and decolonising project represented by the concept of VB.

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

Teaching Indigenous Peace Concepts from Visayan Fisherfolks and Farmers through the Course Philosophy of the Human Person

This paper presents ways in teaching indigenous peace concepts from Visayan fisherfolks and farmers through their integration to the teaching of the Philosophy of the Human Person. This study aims to determine fisherfolks and farmers' notions of peace through the qualitative research method of hermeneutic phenomenology. This study finds out that the respondents understand peace through the concept of Kinabuhi sa Kinaiyahan , Gugma sa Isig ka Tawo and Pagsalig ug Pagtuo sa Ginoo. These concepts are fit to be integrated in the four significant lessons of the course. This study concludes that this research has given marginalized people a chance to air their voices. This study also concludes that the integration of indigenous peace concepts has made the teaching of Philosophy more meaningful and relevant.

Reframing the Boundaries of Indigeneity: State‐Based Ontologies and Assertions of Distinction and Compatibility in Thailand

ABSTRACTIn this article, I discuss the concept of Indigeneity as it is being localized in post‐2000s Thailand by a coalition of ethnic minorities. Their claim of Indigeneity is unique in purporting a state‐based ontology that identifies the rise of the modern Thai state with that of their Indigeneity, reflecting the problematic nature in Thailand of claims to first peoples’ status. The Thai state has long perceived of these yet‐to‐be‐recognized Indigenous Peoples as “illegal migrants.” Indigenous Peoples are working to assert not only their cultural distinctiveness but also their compatibility with the nation, especially via public performances of their loyalty to the Thai king. While their performances of Indigeneity are necessarily conforming to Thai nationalist expectations of ethnicity and belonging, Indigenous Peoples are reworking those expectations in a manner allowing them to get their own interpretations of history and systems of value recognized and distributed to larger audiences. [Indigeneity, performance, cunning of the unrecognized, royalist nationalism, Thailand]

Interpreting a cultural value: An examination of the Indigenous concept of non-interference in North America

This article examines the Indigenous cultural value of non-interference in North America, which is portrayed in the literature as a central influence on interpersonal interactions. The findings suggest that while Indigenous peoples prefer subtle forms of interpersonal influence that maintain respectful and nurturing relationships, non-interference is not, as sometimes portrayed, an overriding value that supplants all other considerations. This article highlights the need for cross-cultural perspectives and practices that challenge one-dimensional cultural presumptions.

New Human Rights Concept for Old African Problems: An Analysis of the Challenges of Introducing and Implementing Indigenous Rights in Africa

AbstractThe adoption by some peoples in Africa of the indigenous rights concept has brought about new challenges regarding the application of the concept to these peoples. The indigenous rights concept was shaped by the colonial experiences of indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australasia. The international understanding of the concept pre-supposes the existence of a set of group rights belonging to peoples who are descendants of the earlier inhabitants of the territory on which a state is located, in contrast to other citizens of that state who are considered colonial settlers. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has attempted to overcome this challenge by evolving a description of indigenousness for Africa. This article argues that, although the conceptual challenges that flow from the foreign origin of the concept have not been fully overcome, the African Commission's description has successfully located Africa within the global indigenous rights framework.

Student English teachers: participatory learning and developing identities-in-practice

PurposeThis paper looks at how participation in a community of learners can be a resource for learning and identity making (Wenger, 1998). The paper is an interpretation of the selected pedagogical scripts (learning journals) of three student teachers in an English Pedagogics module over a 13-week period in one university context in the south of Ireland. The paper highlights how participation is both a personal experience and a social process, and how the mind is a distributed force in meaning making and a socially mediated phenomenon. The paper draws attention to how sociocultural theory and the concept of participation can extend and support our understanding of learning.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is deductive and interpreted through an existing literature frame. In contrast to “indigenous concepts” inducted from the data the author draws on Patton’s (2002) notion of “sensitizing concepts” which have their origins in social research theory and the research literature: “Sensitizing concepts give the analyst ‘[…] a general sense of reference’ and provide ‘direction along where to look’ (Blumer,1996: 148). Using sensitizing concepts involves examining how the concept is manifested and given meaning in a particular setting or among a particular group of people” (p. 456). Connecting the theoretical sensitizing concepts of “participatory learning” and “identities-in-practice” to the data set of learning journals, three emblematic themes emerge: “Using cultural artefacts to generate teacher identities”, “Participation as learning” and “Challenges of participatory learning”.FindingsThe narrated excerpts from student English teachers’ learning journals, read in the light of sociocultural theory, highlight the process of rendering an identity in participation. Student teachers have worked towards conceptual reach, emotional awareness, experiential understanding and understanding scaffolded learning practices.Research limitations/implicationsThe reading of student teachers’ written work in this paper is both particular and partial and aims to illuminate understandings of the practices and processes of participatory learning rather than make generalizable and validity claims. The student cohort is small and is not representative of larger classes.Practical implicationsWenger (1998) writes that it is the experience of meaning that counts in our human endeavours and in this study the author focuses on student teachers’ meaning making as they develop a professional identity through participation. Dam and Blom (2006) stress that the acquisition metaphor for knowledge is not adequate in preparing student teachers and he makes the case for a balanced coexistence with the participation metaphor. In this paper, the author focuses on the practice of participation for learning.Social implicationsHall et al. (2014) explain that sociocultural theory has significant explanatory power for understanding and supporting learning. They claim that, particularly in Western societies, learning is often seen as individual, decontextualized and focused on discrete bodies of knowledge. They welcome the sociocultural perspective which does not divorce the individual from their context and highlight how participating with others has a powerful impact cognitively and emotionally.Originality/valueThere has been a dearth of empirical studies focusing on the process of participation in rendering an identity. In this paper, the author has theorised and explicated the process of participation and participatory learning. Participation in the practices of teaching, enriched with reflection and inquiry (Cremin, 2009), has the potential to change the pointing rituals (Sumara, 1996) of teaching and deepen the learning. Furthermore, through such activity, desired behavioural gestalts can be embodied, and the perennial theory practice divide in initial teacher education has the potential for more integration.