Slide One Welcome here today. My name is Tina and I will be convocating this Spring from the First Nations University of Canada and the University of Regina with a Religious Studies Undergraduate Degree. Currently I continue the partnership within graduate studies, having MA co-supervisors from both Indigenous Studies and Religious Studies departments. (CLICK)
Slide Two The International Development Research Centre notes that
Indigenous Knowledge systems “refers to the unique, traditional, local knowledge existing within and developed around the specific conditions of women and men indigenous to a particular geographical area”
Most of us recognize that imperialism has been a heritage that has been experienced around the world.
Various indigenous groups are networking together with international policy makers in order to collectively halt the oppressive nature of the globalization mandate. As Noel Dyck point out, globalization processes still utilizes the practice of “coercive tutelage,” a guardian/ward relationship found within colonization processes that continues within the wake of the economic expansion of Europe, followed now by the economic expansion of the United States.
For this academic discussion, the basic hypotheses include the belief that multiple cultural viewpoints on knowledge can inform and expand the mainstream’s understanding of its responsibility to ideological discourse in order to construct social change.
This can increase understanding and dialogue between cultural groups that produce the dynamics of humanity as a whole, and create an environment consisting of the ethical use of collaborative knowledge in finding solutions to the problems encountered in globalization.
An example of indigenous knowledge can be seen in Linda Akan’s reflection on indigenous structures: “If one were to try to give a metaphorical description of some of the features of First Nations thought, one might say that they go to school in dreams, write in iconic imagery, travel in Trickster’s vehicle, talk in metaphor, and always walk around.”
My research assumption is that it is our responsibility to attempt to understand the positions of various cultural constructions in order to be more adaptive to the larger construction of humankind.
Slide Three
Some of the changes to the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethics support my position.
The Tri-Council Policy Statement regulates academic research through ethical guidelines in the ideal hope that knowledge accumulated in research is used for the benefit of all of humanity and not only certain population segments.
While this set of regulations is not quite equitable to a multi-modal understanding of knowledge and research as of yet, changes have been made to recognize alternate systems of knowledge, indigenous as well as other cultures, but only within certain forms of research processes.
Section 6 is specifically addressed to the need for cross-cultural knowledge and respect of indigenous self-determination within the cross-cultural use of research.
While this statement is utilized within academic research, other ethical models are available to supplement gaps that are still under consideration within this system.
One other document that I use is “The Indian and Northern Affairs Canada” guidelines, which recognizes that First Nations peoples have “distinctive perspectives and understandings, deriving from their cultures and histories and embodied in Aboriginal languages. Research that has Aboriginal experience as its subject matter must reflect these perspectives and understandings.”
Slide Four So what are the implications to cross-cultural social science research?
It must be emphasized that this is a bare-bone summary of a small portion of my research, and that in speaking so succinctly, generalizations may be assumed.
I need to highlight that both indigenous and academic knowledge structures are diverse and utilize various perspectives on knowledge and are not each single, uniformed social bodies, but consist of multiple variations and disciplines.
I do not see these structures in opposition, but that equal representation is necessary in order to produce dialogue that supports ethical frameworks in cross-cultural collaborative research .
Some areas that I look at are:
The acknowledgement that some euro-cultural theories are no longer adequate prototypes set up as the standard norm, usually labeled “scientific.” Rather, these social norms are seen for what they are, cultural constructions that privilege the cultural identities of European descent and the societies that adopt these premises.
Similarly, euro-cultural models of research may not always be adequate to meet international criteria concerning multiple knowledge systems.
To adjust, input from alternative constructions of knowledge is needed to balance our eurocultural assumptions and practices in order to respect the cultural diversity of both academic populations and humanity in general.
Ethical considerations imply the need for more scholar-centered self-awareness, and self-disclosure of the intentions of the researcher and the research process, with benefits shared with all of humanity and not simply eurocultural privilege.
Within my research, I conceptualize a “scholar-centered research process” that allows me to use cross-cultural research as a focus rather than an object, which points to the subject of my research, my location as a mainstream academic studying other culturally-constructed phenomena.
Slide Five
Indigenous scholarship would be an asset to many of the social science disciplines that deal with problematic issues that arise within the Canadian image of multiculturalism, as well as within the globalized issues of international relationships.
Critical analysis must begin by listening and fully acknowledging the problems inherent in certain eurocultural practices that impact our multicultural society. Some of these are:
- The underlying eurocultural assumptions that allow for the continued use of universalized unification theories and evolutionary modeling.
Unification theories continue to support imperialistic assumptions and practices in that diverse cultural groups are seen as originating from one system, thus setting European culture as the superior culture and expressed in cultural change models. The inversion of this belief is that of evolutionism where one culture is the pinnacle of historical processes, usually set to be seen as the United States. Both of these processes are imperialistic and justify actions that create benefit for a few, while oppressing the many.
- Another issue is that the Eurocultural history of conquest and the resulting oppositional models continue to inform the values emphasized within the use of hierarchal categorization, and its inability to handle ambiguity and diversity.
Hierarchal categorization supports unification theories such as the mega-narrative of human history as fact and not as the ideological instrument used by one privileged group. Again, this is a very simplified analysis that needs to be expanded upon.
- There is a problem concerning the lack of reciprocal input from different knowledge systems found within alternative academic disciplines and multiple cultural structures into academic frameworks
The separate disciplines do not have any ethical motivation to seek outside of their area of research in order to accommodate critical analysis of research results. The seclusion and separation of distinct areas of knowledge has created many problems within society at large.
- A critique of the underlying process that informs privilege and power within the normative practice of using English as the exclusive language of cross-cultural research
This sets up English and the use of English terminology as the generalized medium in defining and validating reality, rather than understanding that English can be seen as a “translational” language until cross-cultural terminology and definitions can be incorporated into classification structures and imploy reciprocal value to various cultural groups in multicultural settings.
An example of one such term that has become reciprocal between cultures is the word “karma” and its use within English-speaking discussions to define or highlight specific structures of understanding the world based from a derived understanding of the Hindu worldview.
- Another layer of critique is of the imposition of colonial degenerative labels placed onto diverse groups of peoples, their concepts, practices and values without any desire or need to refer to the knowledge of these social groups and their institutions and practices within the contextual reference of their cultural position.
Equal value is rarely given in appreciating the perspectives of other cultures, races, and constructions of knowing how to know and in how they apply their own formulations of knowledge into practical action.
One example of this unequal value is from our own backyard here in Saskatchewan. We state the term “Cree” to represent a group of First Nations people, a label imposed on them rather than their definition as nēhiyaw , meaning the people.
Another example of this is the use of the categorical term “shaman” to refer to all metaphysical knowledge keepers within various indigenous cultures that meet certain criteria as outlined by some academics. “Shaman” is a specific indigenous term from a localized context in Siberia and applied to all indigenous people no matter their cultural role within their society that classifies them along lines of comparison with a prototype that ignores these specifics. This to me is “academic laziness” similar to saying that all theorists must be feminists, or that all theorists must be Marxists.
• This process of imposing generalizations, which result in unified terms and catch-all categories, highlights the lack of accommodation and ability to handle cross-cultural knowledge and expertise on its own grounds as knowledge. This lack of recognizing knowledges is seen not only within the theoretical constructs of our thought, but in the academy’s choice of refusing the structural change necessary that creates equitable collaborative research projects. Multi-modal knowledge also deconstructs the privilege and power dynamics that inform the researcher’s relationships and their positions within academic frameworks
Slide Six On that heavy note I recommend some beginning suggestions
• The use of multi-cultural citation within social science’s literary-based research, at the theoretical level as well as the cultural description level.
• The use of indigenous theory and other alternative models in constructing theoretical and pedagogical approaches to research in order to “de-colonize methodologies” within all disciplines that utilize cross-cultural research methods
• Restructuring teaching and administrative practices to provide “ethical space,” a conceptual construct conceived by Willie Ermine to induce creative and collaborative knowledge constructions
• Collaborative research models that incorporate community knowledge, skills, and persons while sharing the benefits and reducing the costs of this type of process
Slide Seven The Idealized Results would be Ethical Applications of Cross-cultural research Without Hegemony
We have a unique environment here at the University of Regina because of our location within indigenous territories and partnership with FNUC scholars.
Academic dialogue occurs, and can occur more often between traditional knowledge keepers, indigenous scholars, mainstream scholars, and the various communities that inform these scholarship lineages.
My main concern is can we within academia respect the changes required of us to meet the standards of other knowledge structures?
Can we take an interventive approach, not toward the problems of others, but towards ourselves and our hegemonic patterns, rather than impose change on other cultures?
Can the U of R administration, along with the wider community, afford the extra support through resources to make this a reality?
These are the questions that I leave with you, not to answer, but as food for thought.
Thank you for your time and attention and I open the floor to any questions or points of discussion.
