Indigenous Expectations Research Articles

Walking Apart and Walking Together: Indigenous Public Reception of the Papal Visit

This article examines the public perception of Pope Francis’ visit to Canada and the dissonance that often ensued between the visit and Indigenous expectations and aspirations for the visits as expressed through media. It also looks at gratuitous ways in which shared meaning was forged during the visit and how shared meaning opened up possibilities for shared solidarity between the Pope and Indigenous peoples of Canada.

The interpreter as researcher: ethical heritage interpretation in Indigenous contexts

ABSTRACTThis paper integrates Indigenous research and heritage interpretation scholarship by addressing how interpretation should be underpinned by research congruent with Indigenous expectations for research ethics and methods. Program research and delivery is a profound exercise of power, for interpreters mold public opinion. In a settler-colonial or Indigenous context, critically analyzing sources for one’s interpretative programs and media is particularly imperative, as Western researchers have historically been on colonialism’s front lines. The interpretation of Indigenous themes is fraught with difficulties, but existing interpretation literature myopically focuses on program delivery and evaluation methods. More attention must be paid by interpreters to the problems of relying on Western, positivist research in Indigenous contexts. This paper considers Indigenous research methods and ethics, provides an overview of the connection between Western knowledge and colonialism, and demonstrates the problems this poses for interpreters working with Indigenous content. I offer concrete suggestions for staff to improve their engagement with Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, I argue, interpreters must become more critical of themselves and their sources to successfully address Indigeneity.

Spirit Beings, Mental Illness, and Murder: Fur Traders and the Windigo in Canada's Boreal Forest, 1774 to 1935

This article builds on the extensive literature regarding the Algonquian belief in the windigo, a cannibal spirit, by examining how traders of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) viewed this phenomenon from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. As native people brought windigos to posts for care or sought help from HBC employees to protect their families, traders responded to this disorder based on their company's economic interests and their adherence to Enlightenment thought as well as on indigenous expectations of reciprocity. The fur trade and the windigo disorder were linked historically, so that the passing of the one marked the fading of the other, as the economic and cultural ties that shaped relationships between Algonquians and outsiders underwent a profound change in the early twentieth century. An imperial context ultimately determined how most Canadian institutions responded to the windigo, as colonial authorities created narratives around this disorder designed to increase their control over Cree and Ojibwa communities.

Bringing together local and metropolitan approaches in Pacific research

PurposeProtocols that should apply for research in Pacific settings are a current topic of debate. A significant theme is that such research is cross‐cultural and entails integrating local and metropolitan research approaches. This paper aims to take up this theme.Design/methodology/approachA current Pacific Health Research Framework devised for use in Aotearoa New Zealand is appraised, using results of two case projects, which took place in about 1980 – a population census and oral history project – in what is now the Republic of Palau in the Western Caroline Islands. In each study, Palauan and social scientific research methods and protocols were adapted in order to ensure that indigenous expectations and world‐views were represented.FindingsThe methods and protocols used in the two Palau studies reflect elements in the framework that is appraised. Apparent, even at the time, was that the locally designed census raised issues of whether metropolitan occupation categories appropriately account for economic production in ways reflecting Palauan understandings. This contrasted with inferences available from a parallel analysis using International Labour Organisation (ILO) census categories of a metropolitan nature. The oral history project raised similar issues. The framework is useful for researchers working in Pacific settings.Originality/valueThe paper notes that the ILO categories are still in use nearly 30 years later. This poses such questions as: how can international and local researchers better record and analyse the monetary and non‐monetary productivity of Pacific nations, given the size of their so‐called “subsistence” economies? It is also noted that the current system of national accounts protocols recognises the informal economy as a subsector within the household sector economy; and suggests that, as so many of the world's peoples depend on this informal economy, the worldwide challenge is to define the sector and subsector and to design tools for data collection and analysis that capture these activities and support comparative studies. Furthermore, that such a challenge requires genuine cross‐cultural research in which local and metropolitan approaches are integrated.

The Discourse of Souls in Tana Toraja (Indonesia): Indigenous Notions and Christian Conceptions

In Insular Southeast Asia, indigenous religions are oriented more towards practice than philosophy. Geertz's (1973:177) observations concerning in Bali generally hold true for other autochthonous religions of the Indonesian archipelago: Beyond a minimal level there is almost no interest in doctrine... The stress is on orthopraxy, not orthodoxy. Accordingly, discussions of indigenous notions of the soul in insular Southeast Asia rarely center on philosophical doctrine. Rather, local practitioners tend to emphasize ritual obligations to souls at various points in time, enumerating the requisite rites to aid souls in their afterlife journeys (cf. Fox 1973; Weinstock 1987). This essay is broadly concerned with the relationship between such amorphous practice-centered indigenous conceptions of soul and subsequently-introduced Christian metaphysical propositions. Recently, Indonesianists studying processes of relgious transformation have prompted us to recognize the dynamic interplay between world religions, national politics, and indigenous religions (cf. Atkinson 1983; Kipp and Rodgers 1987). Atkinson (1983), for instance, has elegantly demonstrated how the construction of the Central Sulawesi Wana is rooted in a dialogue with both world religions and nationalist Indonesian civil religion. In a similar vein, Hoskins (1987) illustrates how the redefinition of Sumbanese spirit worship as a religion resulted from exposure to the doctrine of the Christian church and the Indonesian government. On Sumba, what was once a system of ritual practices and regulations became transformed into a system of beliefs. Taking such notions of religions in dialogue as a starting point, this essay examines indigenous and Christian conceptions of the soul among the Sa'dan Toraja of upland Sulawesi. While Hoskins and Atkinson give more attention to the influence of world religions and national politics on local belief systems, my major focus in this paper is on the other side of the dialogue. That is, I am particularly concerned with the ways in which Christian Torajans incorporate and reformulate indigenous conceptions of the soul. Ranger (1987:183) has stressed the ironic aspect of African Christianity, noting that the dialectic between local religions and Christianity evolves in ways that confound both missionary and indigenous expectations. In this essay I examine how, for Christian Torajans, indigenous and Christian notions of soul not only coexist, but intermingle and at times compete. This essay begins with a discussion of the indigenous Torajan conception of the soul. One should note, however, that several factors have encouraged a more formal elaboration of their notions of soul. These factors include Torajan exposure to doctrine-centered world religions, the Indonesian government's 1969 recognition of Torajan Aluk to dolo as an official religion, and the queries of anthropologists and tourists visiting the Toraja highlands. After examining indigenous notions of the soul, I contrast these with the Dutch Reformed Church's vision of the soul. The final section addresses lay Christian Torajans' approach to the concept, and suggests that there is a discernable pattern to those indigenous ideas about the soul that persist. ETHNOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND The Sa'dan Toraja people are primarily wet-rice farmers inhabiting mountaninous Tana Toraja Regency in the province of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Most Torajans speak both Tae' Toraja, an Austronesian language closely related to other South Sulawesi languages (Mills 1975), and the national lingua franca of Bahasa Indonesia. In a multi-ethnic nation of 185 million people, the Toraja are a minority group numbering approximately 350,000. Torajan society is hierarchically organized on the basis of age, descent, occupation, and wealth. Traditionally there were three basic ranks: the aristocracy (to parengnge'); commoners (to buda, to sama); and serfs or slaves (kaunan). …