Week 4: Indigenous Knowledge

One of the main reasons I went back to school was to find my voice as an Indigenous woman who thinks critically, feels connected to the land, and wants better for my family, my community, and my nation. My first foray into academia was supported by a 4 year minority photojournalism scholarship sponsored by the Buffalo News. I remember the day I had to sit for an interview with Agnes Palazetti, the News' journalist who covered most Indigenous content (although she herself was Italian!) Agnes kept focusing on my minority status as an Indigenous person. At the time I felt so disconnected with the concept of my own Indigeneity that I barely mentioned it in my scholarship application or two in-person interviews during the scholarship competition. Instead, I focused on my marginalized status as a woman. Each question she posed that redirected me to answer some question about my Indigenous identity was deflected. It wasn't until I started my Women's Studies program courses that I realized that I was the poster child for a new term- "Intersectionality."

During my time in Women's Studies my mind and heart opened for the first time to the idea that I had experienced marginalization. Pedagogues like Paulo Friere became my heroes because they shed light on an invisible framework, colonialism, which impacted my and my family's ability to access equitable education from a sentiment of "praxis," which Cavender-Wilson (2004) defines as "reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it" (p. 69.) By seeing the chains that had been silently choking me most of my life, I felt liberated and for the first time in a long time, that there was hope that the world might be able to transform from one where I felt excluded, to one where I felt empowered.

At the age of 18 I had already felt how the sting of the sudden death of close family members transforms into the dull ache of grief, like arthritic wounds throbbing at the memory of rain. I lost both my uncles to post-contact diseases (alcoholism and diabetes,) my grandmother (heart disease and diabetes,) my cousin (alcohol-induced car accident,) just to name a few. At the time I didn't realize that these were "post-contact" issues caused by colonization (Cavender-Wilson, 2004, p. 71.) My initial education, although focused mainly on gender, started to extract from the tragedy of loss my family experienced and hung a large sign around it's neck with the word "colonization" written on it in my family's, and by association, my people's blood.

Cavender-Wilson (2004) draws on Taiaiake Alfred's concept of what it means to be an Indigenous scholar, something that the few Indigenous academics who made up the "community" at the University at Buffalo in the mid 1990's reminded me of at every turn- sustainable survival is only possible by restoring traditional Indigenous governance (p. 71.) Additionally, as Indigenous peoples who by our very nature are adaptable we need to use the tools of our discipline to "address the concrete needs of our communities" (p. 71,) something we can do to help reclaim the knowledge that helped sustain us for millenia pre-contact (p. 73.)

I often feel conflicted about participating in the very institution that has not only formed but also constantly reaffirms the shackles of colonial thought- academia. I wasn't sure how to articulate my discomfort, but as I moved on in my life and became more familiar with Indigenous knowledge I realized I was feeling protective and more and more mistrusting of what institutions would do with the information being produced by Indigenous scholars, and how it might be used against us. Cavender-Wilson (2004) articulates this better than I ever could stating, "engaging in an activity within the academy such as the recovery of Indigenous knowledge also presumes that to some extent Indigenous knowledge can be effectively transferrable to an institution" (p. 73.)

Certainly there is a feeling of subversiveness as an Indigenous person navigating academia. Sitting in anthropology classes where the subject of the day's lecture is translating the worldview of our people in a sort of distant game of telephone. By being present for this and having honed critical thought in the language academics understand, we can advocate from within the institution. We can give voice to the sacredness of our "grave goods," our ancestor's bodies, and our sacred sites (p. 73.) By reclaiming our knowledge and situating ourselves inside the institutions that have trampled, exoticized, and taken it for "the greater good" we can remember who we are and make the space and time to unravel how to continue decolonization (p. 84.)

As my time in academia wound to a close (the first time around) I began to develop less of an affinity for "thinking" and more of an affinity for "being." My life became more entwined with the roots of the earth, which felt so much more nourishing to my spirit than the hamster-wheel of thought ever could. I became enraptured with herbal medicine, wandering the woods of my ancestors identifying plants and sitting in silence, two of my greatest teachers. It wasn't until much later that I connected the dots around my affinity to the land as something that is my birthright.

In Cajete's (2000) Philosophy and Native Science he articulates this connection through the analogy of trees and "treeness," "cosmological and structural symbols for Native science that embodies its life- and nature-centered orientations" (p. 58.) Drawing on Polish philosopher Henryk Skolimowski's eco-philosophical thought, Cajete confirms what I've felt for a long time- that the colonial cosmology is too young and inexperienced to support a sustainable vision for the future, and that what the world needs is a philosophy of "ecological cosmology" to avoid environmental destruction (p. 59.)

Cajete's (2000) "tenets of Native philosophy" feel to me like a roadmap to sustainability. Drawing on the similarities between many Indigenous cultures' worldviews that sustained us for millenia, we have been given the key for walking in our world in a way that doesn't maintain us (humans) as separate. I especially love the idea of ceremony being equated with technology for "accessing knowledge, and symbols used to remember key understandings of the natural world" (p. 65.) This could be a world where we honour everything as a living spirit; where we honour the knowledge of our old one's experiences; and where dreams are the "gateways" (p. 65.) Can you imagine how the world might flourish, how our health and well-being could be maximized, what the possibilities for technological advancement might be if we considered an ecosophical perspective? It's almost unimaginable.

What I'm noticing lately is that the most interesting and innovative technologies emerging in energy, health, and even robotics are using more holistic perspectives that consider balance and reciprocity. Hopefully, we can incorporate more and more of this as Indigenous issues and knowledge come into the forefront through the environmental protection actions that have continued to dominate the consciousness of people, transcending the corporate media blackouts, like the Keystone XL pipeline and most recently, the Standing Rock protections. These actions are using the tenets of Native philosophy at the heart of their work, calling for another way. Maybe that way will incorporate some of the "treeness" that Cajete (2000) speaks of, one that maintains "balance and harmony with all relationships to nature... based on a mutual principle of reciprocity" (p. 73.)

Sources:

Cajete, G. (2000). Philosophy and Native Science. Chapter 2, In Cajete, G. (2000) pages 57-84. Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Clear Light Publishers: Sante Fe, New Mexico.

Cavender Wilson, A. (2004). Reclaiming our humanity: Decolonization and the Recovery of Indigenous Knowledge. Chapter 4, In Abbott Mihesuah, D., & Cavender Wilson, A. (2004) pages 69-87. Indigenizing the academy: Transforming scholarship and empowering communities. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.