Indigenous Epistemologies Research Articles

Correction to: Remaking the Sustainable Development Goals: relational Indigenous epistemologies

Correction to: Remaking the Sustainable Development Goals: relational Indigenous epistemologies

Considering the Basotho indigenous education and school system as resources for peace-building education in Lesotho

Lesotho faces political, economic, social, cultural, religious, institutional and interpersonal violence, a situation that prompted the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to introduce a peace-building education program. This indigenous auto-ethnography inquiry arose as the result of the investigator’s realisation that the UNESCO strategy to establish peace education in Lesotho is an exclusive, narrow approach based on the formal Western education system. While UNESCO’s initiative to instil a culture of peace via education is commendable considering the seriousness of the violence in Lesotho, the article contends that the approach excludes many out-of-school youth from learning about developing a culture of peace. The article also reveals some characteristics associated with the Western educational system that contribute to its inability to incorporate all eligible groups in peace-building education. Guided by the theoretical framework of critical interculturality, this article highlighted the Basotho lebollo education system as having the ability to extend peace-building education beyond the confines of Western schooling and education to include out-of-school adolescents. The compatibility of the lebollo school system with peace-building education was proved by its indigenous epistemology and pedagogy. The article recommends a nonviolent strategy devoid of colonial violence and based on mutual respect that can bring lebollo on board for peace-building education, as has happened in response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic.Transdisciplinarity Contribution: This paper contributes to the broad debate that Western formal education ensnared in colonial power structures, has difficulty meeting the educational needs of the African child, despite its noble intentions. Using Basotho indigenous education system as a framework for calling for recognition of indigenous education, the paper makes the case for peacebuilding education as a potential model for indigenous education.

Connecting children to nature through the integration of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge into Early Childhood Environmental Education

AbstractIn this paper, we draw on the ontology and epistemology of the local Kasena ethnic group in Northern Ghana to explore Early Childhood Environmental Education. The study, taking place in Boania Primary School, drew on the concept of two-eyed seeing, where both western and Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies were taught. In this way, Indigenous Ecological Knowledge was integrated into the Early Childhood Environmental Education programme for the Kindergarten two classroom environmental studies topics. Two Indigenous Elders led the integration of local knowledge into environmental studies topics by visiting the school to teach the children through taking them outdoors for learning activities. After this, in-depth interviews were held with the teacher, Indigenous Elders, and nine children regarding their experiences. The purpose of the study was to explore how Indigenous Ecological Knowledges can help instil in children positive environmental attitudes and values, while also connecting them to nature and offering them a more relational understanding of human to nature relationships. Based on the Indigenous cultural framework of respect, reciprocity, and responsibility towards nature, the findings show that the integration of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge into environmental education has the potential to improve our relationships with the environment.

Remaking the Sustainable Development Goals: relational Indigenous epistemologies

AbstractWhile the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were inclusive in their design, the reliance on official measurement infrastructures has upheld narrow definitions of both the terms of sustainability and development. Indigenous and non-Indigenous “governance beyond the state” approaches call these definitions into question. They highlight that disaggregated official data are unable to fully reflect alternative grounds and aspirations of living sustainably with the environment and non-human world. Relational Indigenous epistemologies and practices contribute to alternative epistemic infrastructures. In this paper, three examples from the Andean-Pacific region provide an alternative lens through which to reconceptualize and remake the SDG landscape. Together this suite of cases highlights the importance of bottom-up articulation processes, knowledge inclusion, and alternative epistemic harmonization for operationalizing the SDGs. In particular, we highlight the urgent need to renegotiate the relationship between Indigenous communities and the global measurement infrastructure in order to pursue and realize global sustainability goals.

Collaborative Ryukyuan Language Documentation and Reclamation

Traditional “endangered” approaches in linguistics tend to impose Western epistemologies of languages on marginalized Indigenous language communities such as the Ryukyus. Instead, by using a collaborative approach, we ask for a change of approach from research on the Ryukyus to research with/for the Ryukyus. This article is a reflective study of collaboration in particular cases. We aim to address the issues of relationality between communities and researchers—how can communities initiate work with like-minded linguists to suit their own needs? Thus, we respond to this question to open a conversation on why insider/outsider collaboration is essential. Using our experiences of carrying out our research in different parts of the Ryukyus reflectively, we aim to provide a practical guide for collaboration that is necessary for both the good of communities and the field of linguistics. Through continuous cooperation and collaboration, we can engage in active decolonization of the field of linguistics and language documentation. We suggest that decolonization cannot be achieved without collaborative and ethical research practices based on Indigenous epistemologies. We conclude the paper with ideas of research approaches based on Ryukyuan Indigenous epistemologies, which require a transformation from individual approaches to community-based-relational approaches.

We Story: Decoloniality in Practice and Theory

Western research and education draw heavily on evidence-based approaches underpinned by positivism. Reliance on this scientific approach informs what is to be counted, measured, and tested—what can be “known.” In our experience, evidence generated using this approach does not always bring the most useful outcomes in our diverse, naturalistic settings. In fact, often the proffered solution can distance and dehumanize the very people expected to be beneficiaries. In this article, we, as researchers and educators from different cultural and professional backgrounds in the “post-colonial” South Pacific, pose an alternative to this Western approach. We engage in a story saturated process akin to collaborative auto-ethnography. We first undertake a process of owning our stories, critically reflecting upon ourselves and how we approach evidence. In the context of values-driven, dialogical relationships, we experiment with intersectionality, interdisciplinarity, and experiences of time and space to critically explore our practice and experience of decoloniality and transformation. Then, through sharing our stories, we critically reflect upon creative, culturally relevant practices. These stories include using poetry in social work education and health research, cake art, and social work storytelling. We acknowledge cultural story forms, collaboration, and performance in a higher education setting. These experiences lead to creating new stories. We share examples of change; we “talk up” to and challenge rationalist, evidence-based approaches in our respective professional spaces. We examine relationality and Indigenous epistemology underpinning our use of story. We present the power of story as a process of transformation toward decoloniality of theory and practice.

Ontological Upgrade

This paper uses ‘deep time’, as an alternative ontology to crisis management to argue for the application of a broad decolonial approach in lieu of contemporary green design practices. Methodologically, this paper substantiates it claims by utilising conventional academic ‘knowledge’ production, as represented in literature, references, and case studies, but also supports the expansion of knowledge through a deeper exploration of place, pattern, and time demonstrated by intermingling deep time principles with Indigenous spatial practices. Fearing that urban life will descend into obsolescence and irrelevance if no such knowledge systems are taken up, this paper proposes an alternative trajectory as a preventive measure, which has all been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. By exploring alternative Indigenous design ontologies, specifically in Oceania, alongside deep adaptation and deep time, this paper’s authors intend to provide an important basis for research and teaching that reinvigorates connections to Indigenous epistemologies and knowledge systems. This paper proposes that by taking up notions of deep adaptation and Indigenous epistemologies as critiques of Western notions of time, property, etc. architecture, design and planning might re-situate ideas, ranging from stewardship to maintenance, within time and placebased technologies outside of the discourse of crisis.

Indigenous epistemologies of childhood in contexts of inequality: Three case studies from the “Global South”

Drawing on long-term ethnographies with children, the authors (anthropologists from the “Global South”) problematize the disconnect between homogenising discourses around “childhood”, and the localised, socio-culturally rich experiences of indigenous children. Through an anthropological lens in dialogue with post-colonial theory they explore vernacular conceptualisations and practices around childhood in three indigenous communities –two in Argentina, one in Indonesia. In doing so, they place these childhoods within local, regional and global forces, highlight contexts of inequality, and explore children’s active positionality in such contexts.

Three Open Questions from the Indigenous Epistemology, over Music and Mathematics in the Latin American 21st Century

Three Open Questions from the Indigenous Epistemology, over Music and Mathematics in the Latin American 21st Century

Topophrenia and Indigenous Belonging: Spatial Memory in Rajbanshi Poetry

Space and Memory are co-related as memory imbibes historical roots to a space with the process of recreation. Arguing the concept of Spatiality, Geocritc Robert Tally coins the word ‘Topophrenia’ to locate “the subjective engagement with a given place and with the possible projection of alternative spaces” (Chap. 1). Here, Tally argues the idea of subjectivity both with the ontological and imaginary places. These dialectics of space are imbibed in the individual and collective memory of the Koch Rajbanshi people with historical consciousness. With this historical consciousness, Koch Rajbanshi Poets from the undivided Koch Kamata Kingdom write poems imbibing strong memory associated with the spaces- both real and imaginary. Koch Rajbanshi Poetry has a profound legacy of the glorious history and culture of the community in South East Asian nations. Due to Geo-political bifurcations of the nations, the greater Koch Kingdom was merged with the other states and nations. Consequently, liminal political boundaries displaced and scattered people giving different identities and marginalizing their own indigenous epistemology. As Rajbanshi is a major community of the modern states of Assam and Meghalaya, the canon of Rajbanshi literature with its own identity also comes under the purview of North East Literature. The colonial knowledge system in the new geopolitical space subjugates their rich epistemological and ontological presence. This paper attempts to argue that Rajbanshi Poetry shares a collective memory to assert their historical consciousness by reclaiming their right to the lost land and epistemology. While upholding the argument, Robert Tally’s idea of spatiality, Walter Mignolo’s concept of colonial knowledge system and Leanne Simpson’s argument of Land as pedagogy will be problematised.

Look to the ravens: reconceptualizing communities of practice into ecosystems of practice

The academic idea of a community of practice—a group of people who come together to share and learn from one another—has been used to understand learning structures in a wide array of fields. This conceptual framework, however, is rooted in human exceptionalism, considering anything other-than-human to be a resource instead of an active and critical participant. Working to remove this anthropocentric language and better fit with Indigenous epistemologies, I propose to reconceptualize communities of practice to ecosystems of practice: communities of practice that consider other-than-human actors to be key participants in the situated learning process. I ground this definition through a case study of a Gwich’in hunting and fishing ecosystem of practice by showing clear inclusion of other-than-human members and highlighting their importance in educational processes. Actively redefining and reconceptualizing community of practice theory shifts overall cultural perspectives to better embrace other-than-human entities and fosters environmental empathy.

Relationality and Ojibwemowin† in Forest Walks: Learning from Multimodal Interaction about Land and Language

Indigenous language reclamation efforts are pushing academic ideas of what language is, in order to be accountable to Indigenous epistemologies. Simultaneously, as our Indigenous languages grow, we (academics) are pushed to grow beyond the boundaries of disciplines. Categories of “language” and “land” have been segregated by this colonial structure. In this study, as we bring them together, we seek to describe what the ontology in play looks like. We argue that as reclamation efforts successfully grow more young speakers, we are able to push against colonial constructs of learning when we witness learning in the context of movement, land, and intergenerational interactions. In this article, we closely examine episodes from three walks taken from a broader corpus of walks (14), to describe how one Elder walking with groups of two children constructed knowledge and joint meaning-making in the Ojibwe language while walking on Ojibwe lands. We take seriously the idea that there is an Indigenous epistemology at work in these cultural ecologies, one that sees humans as a part of the natural world, at play on the walks. Here we describe specifically what this looks like in the moment-to-moment interactions, and how we read these constellations of cultural practices as an apprenticeship into sustaining relationships with land.

The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System: Dancing With Native American Epistemology

The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System: Dancing With Native American Epistemology

Performing Turtle Island: Indigenous Theatre on the World Stage

Performing Turtle Island: Indigenous Theatre on the World Stage

“Walking in Two Worlds”: Toward an Indigenist Ecological Systems Model for Group Therapy

Walking in two worlds is a common metaphor Indigenous peoples use to describe their experiences navigating the differences between Indigenous and Western epistemological and ontological worldviews across various contexts. Despite wide support for this phenomenon, there have been few attempts to address Indigenous–Western cultural incongruities through structural changes in counseling psychology, although as a profession, it is well equipped to do so. Thus, we propose for counseling psychology to move toward the Indigenist ecological systems model (IESM) as an integrative framework for promoting Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies in science and practice. We provide a brief overview of IESM and a direct application of the model through a case illustration of Walking in Two Worlds, a psychotherapy group for Indigenous peoples. With IESM, we describe creating an Indigenous-informed clinical intervention that leverages Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies, prompting real ecological change. We conclude with implications IESM has for counseling psychology.

Indigenous research methodologies in water management: learning from Australia and New Zealand for application on Kamilaroi country

Indigenous Research Methodologies (IRMs) for considering cultural values of water are a missing component of water and wetlands management in Australia. On this dry, flat and ancient continent Traditional Knowledge has been passed on from generation to generation for millennia. The profound knowledge of surface and groundwater has been critical to ensuring the survival of Indigenous peoples in the driest inhabited continent, through finding, re-finding and protecting water. Indigenous Research Methodologies can provide a basis for the exploration of this knowledge in a way that that is culturally appropriate, and which generates a culturally safe space for Indigenous researchers and communities. The development of IRMs has been and continues to be limited in Australia in the water context, primarily due to the lack of Indigenous water practitioners, with non-Indigenous researchers dominating the sector. The intention of the paper is to shift and decolonise the research paradigm from studying Indigenous peoples through non-Indigenous research methodologies, to partnering in developing methods appropriate to Indigenous knowledge systems. Indigenous Research Methodologies are rooted in Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies and represent a radical departure from more positivist forms of research (Wilson, Can J Native Educ 25:2, 2001). This allows the Indigenous researcher to derive the terms, questions, and priorities of what is being researched, how the community is engaged, and how the research is delivered. This paper provides an overview of Indigenous engagement in water management in Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand), with reference to case studies. These more general models are used as the basis for developing an IRM appropriate to the Kamilaroi people in the Gwydir Wetlands of northern NSW, Australia.

Leading with two eyes: leadership failures and possibilities in the management of a pulp mill’s wicked problem

PurposeThe motivation for this paper comes from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation’s (TRC) Calls to Action, and in particular, the call for more meaningful consultation and respectful, consent-based relationships between businesses and Indigenous communities in Canada. To this end, this study empirically examines leadership in the context of a wicked problem faced by a pulp and paper mill and suggest an Indigenous epistemology as helpful to inform the leadership behaviours employed in this company.Design/methodology/approachFirstly, this study established that the problem faced by the company aligns with the characteristics of wicked problems, hence necessitating a collective leadership approach. This study then compiled a database from publicly available documents and inductively coded this data to identify themes that told us something about the leadership behaviours employed by the company as it attempted to resolve the problem at hand.FindingsThis study provides evidence that the company did not employ collective leadership when attempting to tame its wicked problem. It then shows that the context in which the firm operates lends itself well to the Mi’kmaw concept of Two-Eyed Seeing as a guiding principle that could have informed the company’s leadership and contributed to a long-overdue process of reconciliation. This study proposes several specific actions that plausibly could have helped produce such an outcome.Originality/valueThis paper helps fill a void in applications of the wicked problem construct to businesses. Further, this study suggests that the problem faced by this firm remained difficult to tame precisely because it failed to employ a collective leadership approach. The contribution to the leadership literature comes from introducing Two-Eyed Seeing and showing how it may help produce leadership that is inherently more collective in nature. Beyond its instrumental value, this approach may nurture more consent-based relationships between businesses and Indigenous communities in Canada, as called for by the TRC, hence contributing to reconciliation with a long-suffering neighbouring Indigenous community.

Indigenizing Philosophy on Stolen Lands: A Worry about Settler Philosophical Guardianship

Indigenizing Philosophy on Stolen Lands: A Worry about Settler Philosophical Guardianship

Review: Living in Indigenous Sovereignty, by Elizabeth Carlson-Manathara with Gladys Rowe

Review: <i>Living in Indigenous Sovereignty</i>, by Elizabeth Carlson-Manathara with Gladys Rowe

Decolonisation is a Political Project: Overcoming Impasses between Indigenous Sovereignty and Abolition

AbstractIn this article we seek to intervene in conversations that frame Black abolition and decolonisation as antagonistic political projects. We respond to Garba and Sorentino’s (2020) “Slavery is a metaphor”, which critiques Tuck and Yang (2012; “Decolonization is not a metaphor”) and decolonisation. Our concern is that scholarship in this vein denies Indigenous sovereignty and futurity while unnecessarily characterising decolonisation as antiblack. We contend that ontological, epistemological, and disciplinary traps lead to this problem: reductions, conflations, and taking settler‐enslavers’ word as truth. We suggest that critiques of settler colonial studies shouldn’t be confused with the aims of Indigenous decolonisation, where the former is largely driven by white scholarship and the latter is an Indigenous‐led project rooted in Indigenous epistemologies. We focus on questions of land and sovereignty, gesturing toward framings that are inclusive of Black, Native, and immigrant communities.