Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Indigenous Epistemologie'

My project is centered around a community garden in Upland, California called the People and Their Plants garden. This garden represents a five hundred year living history designed to show the changes in the ecological landscape of Southern California caused by colonization. This autoethnographic thesis works towards personal, interpersonal, and community-wide decolonization through building reciprocal relationships with Indigenous Elders. I explore, critique and problematize research and ethnography by examining the politics of knowledge, language, history, and ecology. I interrogate my own learned knowledge systems as well as colonial/capitalist food systems—and recognize how those systems/relations have worked to render Indigenous ways of knowing as invisible. Furthermore, I examine the connection between colonialism, gender, and capitalist food systems. I explain how the People and Their Plants garden is an act of resistance to colonial/capitalist food systems as it creates space for alternative economic practices and decolonial food practices. As part of this project, I co-authored a brochure about the garden with a Tongva Elder.

Indigenous cartography is based on a relational epistemology that works within a system where "place" and "ways of knowing" are intimately tied to Native communities' notions of kinship, oral tradition, and traditional ecological knowledge acquired over the millennia. It brings to life a place where mapping and geography cease to be simply Cartesian coordinates on a Euclidean plane and instead become storied landscapes. Indigenous cartography can be described as "radical" because it represents a departure from traditional Western ways of mapping and affirms an Indigenous political, economic and cultural sovereignty. As an intensely political act, Indigenous cartography can be an important tool used by Indigenous people to assert sovereignty in a bottom-up approach to land claims, in the management of cultural resources, and even to claim human remains for repatriation and reburial. If Indigenous groups wish to successfully utilize geospatial technologies as legal strategies, it will first require the development of the necessary infrastructure and training of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists from within. In much the same way that colonial practices of the past worked to achieve hegemony through the making of political and cultural boundaries, Indigenous cartography can work to dismantle these same colonial boundaries. A theory and methodology of Indigenous cartographic praxis is in use among some First Nations in British Columbia. However no "best practices" yet exist for the Indigenous use-and-mapping discipline. Consequently in the United States, Indigenous mapping is still considered an emerging approach. Therefore, can American Indian political and cultural sovereignty be supported by the implementation of Indigenous geospatial technologies? This dissertation will examine the British Columbian model and distill principles that can be successfully implemented by U. S. Native American communities who wish to develop capacity for this emerging geospatial technology based on the success of the First Nations model.

Nel corso degli ultimi cinquant’anni (1970-2020), le comunità indigene nasa del Dipartimento del Cauca (Colombia) si sono confrontate con processi necropolitici di segregazione territoriale e di violenza sistemica (Mbembe, 2006; Rozental, 2017), alimentati dalla secolare problematica del mancato riconoscimento delle terre ancestrali, dal conflitto armato interno colombiano, dall’attività delle transnazionali estrattiviste che operano nella regione e dalla proliferazione della problematica del narcotraffico (Peñaranda Supelano, 2012; Navia Lame, 2013; Peñaranda Supelano, 2015; CRIC, 2020). Per fronteggiare questi radicati dispositivi di espropiazione, violenza e silenziamento etnico, la popolazione nasa ha progressivamente riconfigurato le strategie di difesa della propria autonomia culturale e politica (Wilches-Chaux, 2005; Valero Gutiérrez, 2016). Nel quadro continentale del consolidamento organizzato delle rivendicazioni indigene, culminato nell’ultimo decennio del XX secolo nella cosiddetta emergencia indígena (Bengoa, 2007; Bengoa, 2009), le comunità nasa hanno plasmato modalità di resistenza multidimensionali, dove la tradizionale difesa pacifica dei confini territoriali è stata accompagnata da impulsi alla tutela dei propri spazi del sapere. Nel corso degli ultimi due decenni si sono strutturate strategie di salvaguardia dell’identità culturale comunitaria fondate sull’idea della custodia del “territorio dell’immaginario” (Almendra, 2017) dai dispositivi di invasione discorsiva e simbolica propri del necropotere (López Barcenas, 2007; Walsh, 2010): un meccanismo di protezione di epistemologie, cosmovisioni, lingua e spiritualità nasa, attuato a partire dalla delineazione di una nuova concezione autonoma della parola, tanto nell’esperienza dell’oralità come nelle sue espressioni scritte (Escobar, 2016). In questo contesto di studio, la tesi investiga un corpus di scritture realizzate da membri delle comunità indigene nasa in epoca contemporanea (1970-2020). La ricerca propone un’interpretazione della nozione-pratica del palabrandar, elaborata nell’ambito delle epistemologie nasa, come strumento ermeneutico centrale per la comprensione delle scritture analizzate e degli attuali immaginari di resistenza della popolazione caucana. La proposta del palabrandar si configura nel testo Entre la Emancipación y la Captura (2017) della scrittrice di etnia nasa-misak Vilma Almendra Quiguanás come una modalità autonoma di riflessione sull’esercizio della parola, concepita in una relazione di interdipendenza ontologica con l’azione di beneficio per la comunità (Almendra, 2017). La ricerca è strutturata in due tappe. Nei primi due capitoli si propone uno sguardo di analisi diacronico del processo di costituzione del prisma epistemologico della nozione-pratica del palabrandar, a partire dallo studio della produzione scritta di due autori nasa: Álvaro Ulcué Chocué (1943-1984) e Vilma Almendra Quiguanás (1979). Gli scritti del sacerdote cattolico di etnia nasa Ulcué Chocué, parzialmente inediti, sono interpretati come antecedente fondamentale della concezione autonoma della parola configurata nel testo Entre la Emancipación y la Captura di Vilma Almendra Quiguanas. Nel corso dell’analisi, si suggerisce una collocazione delle connotazioni epistemiche del palabrandar all’interno di una cartografia gnoseologica dei saperi indigeni dell’Abiayala, intesa qui nella sua integralità di pluriverso di enunciazione ed espressione delle conoscenze ancestrali in una dimensione di futuralità (Escobar, 2016; Rocha Vivas, 2017; Escobar, 2018). Nella seconda parte della tesi si elabora un’analisi orientata a delineare le forme semantiche e simboliche attraverso cui la nozione del palabrandar si traduce in pratica di scrittura. Si propone uno studio delle produzione scritte di alcuni membri della comunità nasa, interpretate nella loro dimensione di testualità oralettegrafiche (Rocha Vivas, 2017), ovvero scritture conformate da codici multidimensionali che possono trovare la loro espressione finale in un libro o in altri spazi di trasmissione del sapere nasa, come le pietre o le pareti (Faust, 2001; Rappaport, 2004; Rappaport, 2008; Perdomo, 2013). In questa prospettiva, il corpus di analisi si compone di alcuni passaggi testuali del volume Entre la Emancipación y la Captura di Vilma Almendra Quiguanás e di una serie di scritture (graffiti) realizzate da membri della comunità nasa nello spazio pubblico del territorio di Toribío, decodificato attraverso la contestualizzazione alle epistemologie nasa degli strumenti teorico-metodologici forniti dagli studi sul Paesaggio linguistico in aree di tensione sociale (Shoamy y Gorter, 2008; Delgado, 2011; Rubdy, 2015; Woldemariam, 2016). La traiettoria esegetica elaborata si struttura metodologicamente a partire dall’inquadramento delle scritture contemporanee del popolo nasa in uno spazio ontologico del sapere autonomo, inserito in un processo di dialogo con alcune proposte delle scienze sociali e umane che riproduce la dimensione interculturale delle attuali dinamiche di negoziazione del sapere nelle comunità nasa (Rappaport, 2003; Bengoa, 2009). Categorie come ‘scrittura’, ‘resistenza’ e ‘territorio’ si interpretano quindi a partire dalle significazioni assunte nell’universo epistemologico nasa (Rappaport, 2004; Wilches-Chaux, 2005; Perdomo, 2013; G. Ulcué, 2015; Sanabria Monroy, 2016; Muñoz Atillo, 2018). Il percorso ermeneutico adottato è sostentato da un lavoro sul campo presso diverse comunità nasa del settore nordorientale del Cauca, realizzato attraverso cinque viaggi nel territorio tra il settembre del 2018 e il settembre del 2020. Oltre alla realizzazione di una ricerca di archivio presso la Biblioteca Parrocchiale di Toribío, il lavoro sul campo è consistito in conversazioni, interviste e intercambi con membri della comunità nasa, partecipazione in assemblee e rituali, nell’intento di dialogare con gli spazi del sapere indigeno caucano in ogni sua dimensione di espressione: l’oralità, la ritualità, l’incontro collettivo e la scrittura (Garzón Lopez, 2013; Rocha Vivas, 2017).
In the last fifty years (1970-2020), indigenous Nasa communities in the Cauca Department (Colombia) have faced necropolitical processes of territorial segregation and systemic violence (Mbembe, 2006; Rozental, 2017), fomented by the century-old problem of the failure to acknowledge their ancestral homelands, by the internal Colombian armed conflict, by the activity of the transnational extractive industries operating in the region, and by the proliferation of narcotraffic (Peñaranda Supelano, 2012; Navia Lame, 2013; Peñaranda Supelano, 2015; CRIC, 2020). To face these entrenched devices of expropriation, violence, and ethnic silencing, Nasa people have progressively reconfigured the strategies in defence of their cultural and political autonomy (Wilches-Chaux, 2005; Valero Gutiérrez, 2016). In the framework of the organised strengthening of indigenous claims in the continent, culminating in the so-called emergencia indígena in the last decade of the 20th century (Bengoa, 2007; Bengoa, 2009), Nasa communities have forged multidimensional modalities of resistance, in which the traditional pacific conservation of territorial boundaries combines with the need to safeguard their own knowledge space. In the last two decades, Nasa communities have developed strategies to safeguard their communal cultural identity. These strategies are based on the idea of the defence of the “territory of the imagination” (Almendra, 2017) from the devices of discursive and symbolic invasion typical of necropower (López Barcenas, 2007; Walsh, 2010): a protective mechanism of Nasa epistemologies, cosmovisions, language, and spirituality, whose starting point is represented by the outline of a new autonomous conception of the word, in both the oral experience and its written expressions (Escobar, 2016). In this context, the present thesis investigates a corpus of writings realized by members of the indigenous Nasa communities in contemporary times (1970-2020). The research proposes an interpretation of the know-how of palabrandar, conceptualised in Nasa epistemologies, as the central hermeneutic tool for an understanding of the selected writings and of the actual images of resistance of the Cauca people. The proposal of palabrandar is defined in the text Entre la Emancipación y la Captura (2017) by the Nasa-Misak writer Vilma Almendra Quiguanás as an autonomous modality of reflection on the word, which is understood in a relationship of ontological interdependence with the action of benefit for the community (Almendra, 2017). The research is structured in two phases. The first two chapters propose a diachronic analysis of the founding process of the epistemological prism of the know-how of palabrandar, starting from an investigation of the written production of two Nasa authors: Álvaro Ulcué Chocué (1943-1984) and Vilma Almendra Quiguanás (1979). The writings, some of them unpublished, of the Catholic priest of Nasa ethnicity Ulcué Chocué are interpreted as a fundamental antecedent to the word’s autonomous conception as defined in the text Entre la Emancipación y la Captura by Vilma Almendra Quiguanas. The analysis seeks to discuss a positioning of the epistemic connotations of palabrandar within a gnosiological cartography of the indigenous knowledge of Abiayala, interpreted in its integrality of pluriverse of enunciation and expression of ancestral knowledge in a futural dimension (Escobar, 2016; Rocha Vivas, 2017; Escobar, 2018). The second part of the thesis aims to outline the semantic and symbolic forms through which the notion of palabrandar translates into written expressions. The writings of some members of the Nasa community are discussed taking into account their dimension of oralitegraphic textualities (Rocha Vivas, 2017), that is textual productions shaped by the confluence of multidimensional codes, which can be expressed through books or other spaces where Nasa knowledge is transmitted, such as stones or walls (Faust, 2001; Rappaport, 2004; Rappaport, 2008; Perdomo, 2013). In this perspective, the analysed corpus consists of some textual passages from the volume Entre la Emancipación y la Captura by Vilma Almendra Quiguanás and of a series of written productions (graffiti) realised by members of the Nasa community in the public space of the Toribío territory. The latter has been decoded by contextualising and applying to Nasa epistemologies the theoretical-methodological tools of linguistic landscape research in areas of social tension (Shoamy y Gorter, 2008; Delgado, 2011; Rubdy, 2015; Woldemariam, 2016). The exegetic trajectory developed in the thesis is structured methodologically by inserting the contemporary Nasa written productions in an ontological space of autonomous knowledge, which dialogues with proposals from the social and human sciences. This dialogical process reproduces the intercultural dimension of the actual dynamics of the negotiation of knowledge in Nasa communities (Rappaport, 2003; Bengoa, 2009). Consequently, categories such as ‘writing’, ‘resistance’, and ‘territory’ are interpreted according to the signification they possess in the epistemological Nasa universe (Rappaport, 2004; Wilches-Chaux, 2005; Perdomo, 2013; G. Ulcué, 2015; Sanabria Monroy, 2016; Muñoz Atillo, 2018). The adopted hermeneutic path is supported by fieldwork in different Nasa communities in the North-East Cauca region, and in particular by five research trips between September 2018 and September 2020. Fieldwork has consisted of archival research at the Parish Library in Toribío, conversations, interviews and interchanges with members of the Nasa community, the participation in meetings and rituals in the attempt to dialogue with the spaces of Cauca indigenous knowledge in every dimension of its expression: orality, rituality, collective gathering, and writing (Garzón Lopez, 2013; Rocha Vivas, 2017).

Este texto acontece a partir do encontro às formas e forças do mundo andino-indígena equatoriano, em um contexto de emergência institucional da Universidade "Amawtay Wasi". Espécie de testemunho de inquietações e de questões que pedem passagem frente ao desejo de abertura às forças diferenciantes indígenas, à diferença como princípio de produção de outras subjetividades, outras escolhas e modos de viver. Ao acompanhar a constituição da Universidade "Amawtay Wasi" nos encontramos com um espaço de enunciação indígena e de afirmação de suas virtualidades e potências corporais, espaço de produção de um conhecimento aberto e atento aos poderes de criação e transformação do mundo (segundo expressões celebrativas, rituais e xamânicas do mundo andino). Este texto acontece, portanto, em múltiplas conexões às singularidades e aos paradoxos de uma "epistemologia" andina e suas interpelações à subjetividade moral da modernidade ocidental (colocando em evidência as imbricações ontológicas de saber e poder que nela se articula). Através dele, buscamos articular pontes de expressão para as tensões geradas, sejam pelos mecanismos estatais de captura e controle coercitivo da diferença indígena, sejam pelos modos de enunciação (por exemplo, em Sumak Kawsay, interculturalidade e plurinacionalidade), como modos de deslocamento (e resistência) indígena aos códigos e axiomas de transformação do Estado-nação equatoriano, sobretudo no seu principal operador semiótico, a idéia de desenvolvimento.
This work reflects the meeting of form and forces in the Ecuadorian Andean-indigenous world in the context of the institutional rise of the “Amawtay Wasi” University. It represents a number of concerns and issues arising from the opening of the indigenous' differentiating forces, to the difference as a production principle and other subjectivities as well as other choices and lifestyles. On accompanying the foundation of the “Amawtay Wasi” University, we observed a space for the indigenous people enunciation and affirmation of their virtualities and corporal potencies,and a space to produce open knowledge which attends to the power of creation and world transformation (according to the celebrative , ritual and shamanic expressions of the Andean world). This study is therefore connected to the singularities and paradoxes of an Andean “epistemology” and its interpelations to the moral subjectivity of the western modernity (highlighting the ontological imbrications of knowledge and power articulated in it). The aim of this work is to articulate links of expression to the tensions generated either by the State mechanisms of capture and coercive control of the indigenous peoples’ difference or by the enunciation modes (for instance in Sumak Kawsay, interculturalism and plurinationality), such as indigenous peoples’ dislocation methods (and resistance) to codes and transformation axioms of the Ecuadorian nation-State, especially in its main semiotic operator, the idea of development.

This dissertation examines the potential congruencies and complementarities of Waldorf education, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP), Culturally Responsive Schooling (CRS), Critical Pedagogy and Native American and Indigenous education. Waldorf education, a German education reform developed in the early 1920s, is a little researched schooling system, and previous research on this reform has examined its impacts within its traditional contexts, namely, private schools. At the same time, significant literature exists which addresses the importance and efficacy of reforms for students of color such as those in CRP, CRS and Critical Pedagogy. There is also a body of work which points to key pedagogical components which support Native American/Indigenous students in school. This dissertation examines the interplay between all three of these complex systems by examining attempts to integrate them in the classroom. By examining Waldorf education initiatives in three distinct contexts, I demonstrate that these reforms can work in concert without diminishing the efficacy of any of them. I explore three distinct contexts of Waldorf education. The first examined the impacts of Waldorf education on students who participated in the reform in a private Waldorf school, who transitioned to more traditional, mainstream classes. I conducted participant-observation of a local Waldorf school and in-depth interviews with 14 alumni to explore the impact of this reform. In the second context, I examined how students responded to the use of Waldorf-inspired methods in a community college course I taught, and I investigated their experiences of the reform. Seven students who participated were interviewed in order to investigate the impact of these reforms on their experience as college students. These interviews were complemented by teacher-research I conducted while teaching this Waldorf-inspired course. Finally, I explored the potential of Waldorf education as a reform for Native American students, examining my own incorporation of this reform with other pedagogical tools, such as CRP, CRS, and other forms of critical pedagogy. Included in this section of research are my reflections on a course I instructed with Waldorf-inspired reforms. I also explored various accounts of Waldorf-education reforms by tribal communities, like the Lakota Waldorf School in South Dakota. Several findings from the research conducted here are encouraging. Students from Waldorf school environments demonstrate critical skills and critique schooling environments, invoking stances familiar to critical pedagogues. Students from a Waldorf-inspired community college course were also critical of the typical schooling experiences they had encountered, and spoke of the enriching feeling in their Waldorf-inspired course. Investigation into the philosophical tenets of Waldorf education and Native American/Indigenous epistemologies shows several examples of overlap and similarity, the most striking being elements of spiritual belief and practice as foundational to Native American/Indigenous well-being, and the ability of Waldorf education to address this. While these fields may appear unrelated, this study explores the praxis of these seemingly disparate bodies of work, by examining their similarities and differences. Ultimately, I argue that these reforms can work in concert to support the academic success of culturally and linguistically diverse students and Native American/Indigenous students in particular. The research in these three contexts demonstrates need for further investigation into Waldorf education and its potential to support students of all backgrounds.

This thesis proposes an Indigenous-centred approach to reading Australian Indigenous literature that extends beyond traditional western literary norms. It uses Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing as a framework for reading five texts written by Australian Indigenous women and non-binary people, generating new understandings of the works and synthesising an expanded model for reading. This thesis makes a critical intervention within the Australian literary sector and especially the academy, arguing for a shift of power from the majority non-Indigenous Australian literary sector to Indigenous writers and their communities.

Grounded in the transformative paradigm (p. 35), this study asked, “In what ways might a group of non-Natives be individually and socially transformed by encountering the Bear River Massacre from within Indigenous Worldviews?” The methodology incorporated Indigenous Worldviews and ceremonial processes (Wilson, 2008) into Queensland University’s Indigenous Australian Studies’ model (Mackinlay & Barney, 2010), interweaving transformative learning processes with Indigenous elements such as a traditional Shoshone sweat lodge, visiting a massacre site, and listening to a Shoshone elder. During ceremonially centered mini retreats data was collected via individual journals, group email and process notes, art-based expressions, videotaping, individual and group written evaluations and surveys, and follow up interviews. Findings established “perspective transformation” (King, 2009) in 80% of participants within the dimensions of better understanding the Bear River Massacre, the Shoshone people, the colonization process, and the loss of their own Indigenous roots. Follow-up interviews revealed that 87.5% of respondents believed that the integration of Indigenous elements into the project impacted their learning experience “a great deal.” 87.5% reported sustained behavioral x change in relation to the topic and 71% stated they wanted to get to know Native people and culture better. In addition, 43% stated they were interested in obtaining a public Presidential apology to Native people. Unconscious shadow transference material (Romanyshyn, 2007) emerged and was discussed from a depth psychology perspective. Limitations to this study include sample size and lack of funding. The theoretical development of ceremonial research potentially expands this method into other areas of inquiry.

A plethora of cross-cultural research studies has been conducted and published on the conflict or collision between western models of education and indigenous knowledge and learning. Following on the visions of these studies, the research reported in this thesis explores how these tensions between differing bodies of knowledge impact youth identity in non-western societies. More specifically, the study examines the case of how western models of education impacts the Palauan traditional educational models and whether or not the privileging of western systems of learning over Palauan systems does in fact have a negative impact on the development of identity, well-being, and empowerment of Palauan youth today. Theoretical approaches in this study derived from the knowledge of Palauan elders and scholars as well as literature works of Freire, who argues for transformative education as a means of empowering people, and Lave and Wenger‟s theory of legitimate peripheral learning. Methodological approaches include narratives and a Palauan dialogic approach using questionnaires, unstructured and semi-structured interviews. Data were collected from June to September 2009 in Palau. Selected participants were the youth of Ulimang village in Ngaraard and a particular group of Palauan elders and scholars that are involved in Palauan education, knowledge, and research. Data were analyzed in two stages: a questionnaire for Ulimang youth and interviews for the Palauan elders. A range of concepts addressed in the analysis, such as cheldecheduch and relationships, strengthened the belief that Palauan knowledge was important in the lives of the Ulimang youth. The need to maintain Palauan knowledge to empower Palauan identities and to support the quality of life for Palauans was articulated by the Palauan elders. The importance of Palauan knowledge and values was stressed from the participants and emphasized how it informs identity development in Palau.

Mainstream institutions have, historically, dismissed Indigenous worldviews, knowledges, and research approaches (Bowman-Farrell, 2015; Harrington & Pavel, 2013). However, in recent years, a literature has emerged articulating Indigenous research methodologies (IRMs), and their distinctiveness from Western, Eurocentric perspectives on inquiry (Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008; Kovach, 2009; Smith, 1999 & 2012; Wilson, 2008). This has coincided with increased need for IRM scholars and practitioners to secure extramural funds to support their activities. But questions remain as to how the U.S. federal grant making enterprise has accommodated Indigenous frameworks. This research explores synergies in the ways that grantees, grant makers, and other related stakeholders understand and navigate the federal funding enterprise in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health (STEM-H) fields; and the impact of how, and to what extent, this space is successfully navigated. To align with Indigenous worldviews, I use triple theoretical lenses of Tribal Critical Race Theory (Brayboy, 2005), Storytelling, and Interstitial Spaces (Cram & Philips, 2011), and an indigenized case study design. Eleven participants from Tribal Colleges and Universities and tribal communities, federal funding agencies, and consulting firms participated in unstructured interviews to tell their views about Indigenous approaches in the federal funding environment. Coupled with document review, the analysis showed that perceptions of risk, evidence, and expertise were sources of tension, although there were also areas of real and lasting success. I suggest that despite policies to diversify STEM-H grant making, Indigenous perspectives have largely been excluded from these discourses. This may have the effect of compromising the integrity of the validity construct as used in the dominant research methodology literature. I offer a model, called Fifth Paradigm Grantsmanship, as one means to usher transformative change in grant making.

This thesis provides a view of Deloria's thoughts on science and metaphysics, presenting his criticism of Western science and of his proposed alternative to what he presents as a historically evidenced epistemic attitude of exclusion. Deloria refers to Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, suggesting that the institution of Western science operates according to a paradigm that is both very different from that of traditional Indigenous knowledge practice and fundamentally exclusionary. A potential of communication between Western science and Indigenous knowledge is possible through paradigm shifts as well as through reference to epistemic anarchy. My presentation of Deloria's description of Indigenous metaphysics includes an account of an agential ontology and place-grounded epistemology with reference to Daniel R. Wildcat, Baruch Spinoza, Scott L. Pratt, and others. Ultimately, Deloria breaks with Feyerabend's epistemological anarchy in light of our contemporary environmental predicament and advocates a more restrained, relational epistemology.

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É notório que os conflitos por terras reclamadas por indígenas ainda persistem, mesmo depois do reconhecimento conferido pela Constituição Federal de 1988 e da paradigmática decisão sobre a demarcação da Terra Indígena (TI) Raposa Serra do Sol. A vasta normatização sobre o tema, tanto no âmbito global como local, não foi suficiente para que o Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) prolatasse decisão que reconhecesse a ancestralidade do direito à ocupação, e com isso colaborasse na pacificação do assunto. Portanto, a pergunta que se pretende responder contempla tal cenário contraditório: se houve efetivo reconhecimento formal, por que, apesar disso, os índios ainda reivindicam as terras que simbolizam sua cultura e sua razão de existir? A partir dessa indagação é que se lança um olhar perspectivado pelas teorias de Axel Honneth e de Nancy Fraser na busca de ideias que possam representar a superação do quadro de falta de efetividade dos direitos dos povos indígenas. De início, Honneth defendeu uma teoria monista de reconhecimento cujo fundamento reside na autorrealização, pois entende que as experiências de sofrimento e de exclusão formam o combustível capaz de desencadear lutas que repercutem nos movimentos sociais, e assim haveria a emancipação do indivíduo a ponto de resolver também os problemas de distribuição. Noutra direção, em debate com Honneth, Fraser alega que o reconhecimento por si só é incapaz de resolver todas as injustiças e que é preciso conjugar medidas aptas a promover a distribuição. A partir desses estudos, os doutrinadores concebem outras propostas que objetivam superar a invisibilidade, transpor a subordinação de status, entender a reificação como produto do esquecimento do reconhecimento antecedente e a importância dos contrapúblicos em relação às arenas oficiais de debate. Norteando-se por esse referencial teórico, empreendeu-se uma revisão da evolução do reconhecimento formal dos direitos dos indígenas e uma crítica ao modo como referidas normas foram recebidas na decisão da demarcação da TI Raposa Serra do Sol e outras decisões que igualmente não contribuíram para a pacificação dos conflitos. Ao final, tencionou-se mostrar que as teorias de Honneth e de Fraser - isoladamente ou aliadas - podem contribuir para a efetivação dos direitos territoriais já reconhecidos aos indígenas.
It is well-known the conflicts for land claimed by indigenous peoples still persist, even after the recognition of the lands granted by the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the paradigmatic decision about the demarcation of Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Land. The vast regulation concerning the theme, both at global and local level, was not enough for the Federal Supreme Court to pronounce a decision recognizing the ancestry of the right to occupation and, thereby, to collaborate to pacify the issue. The question to be answered has this contradictory scenario: if there was an effective formal recognition, why, despite this, do the Indians still claim the lands that symbolize their culture and their reason to exist? From this question, a look is cast, under the theories of Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser, in the search for ideas that can represent the overcoming of the frame of effectiveness of indigenous peoples’ rights. At the beginning, Honneth defended a monistic recognition theory, based on self-realization, once he understands the experiences of suffering and exclusion are able to form the fuel that will commence struggles which have repercussion on social movements and, with this, would happen an individual emancipation able to solve distribution problems. In another direction, debating with Honneth, Fraser says recognition, by itself, is unable to solve all injustices and so it is necessary to combine measures capable of promoting distribution. From these studies, the authors conceive other proposals aimed at overcoming invisibility, subordination status, understanding reification as a product of forgetfulness of antecedent recognition, and the importance of counterpublics in relation to official debate arenas. Always guided by this theoretical reference, it was done a review of the evolution of formal indigenous rights recognition and a critique of the way these norms were received in the demarcation trial of Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Land and other decisions likewise did not contribute to pacify conflicts. At the end, it was attempted to demonstrate that Honneth and Fraser’s theories, isolated or allied, can contribute for the realization of territorial rights already recognized to indigenous.

Narrowly conceived, this is an historical ethnographic study of the indigenous people who participated in the Kwato Mission. More broadly, it is an examination of how people responded to the arrival of the culture of whiteness and the fundamental changes to practice and consciousness that took place through the processes of missionisation and colonisation. Changes were simultaneously subjective and objective, mental and material. In what ways did the Massim peoples engage with the new introductions? How did our own history shape those engagements with whiteness? And in what ways did they respond to attempts to coerce and dominate? At an even broader level, what can the Kwato Massim people’s experience tell us about contemporary dialectics of culture and power, ideology and consciousness, such as through the process of ‘developmentisation’. Attention to power leads me to also engage with the question of knowledge production and to ask how is it possible to know the Massim without fluency in Massim ways of knowing and languages. My conceptual lens is decolonial feminist theory and critical race theory. From Luce Irigaray and Iris Marion Young I borrow the concept of wonder as a theoretical construct to shift the gaze on how Massim peoples have often been represented by whiteness. Since a balanced comprehension of the world we live in must necessarily include different perspectives, social justice must allow for epistemic difference. There is, thus, both an epistemic and ethical impulse to name whiteness and to disrupt its hegemony. Guided by this decolonial imperative I delve into the deep past of the Massim peoples demonstrating the biological indistinguishability of Homo sapiens and examining the wonder-full Austronesian migrations across millennia which more deeply inform contemporary Massim languages and culture than do missionisation and colonisation, or indeed, whiteness. The empirical part of my decolonial methodology draws primarily on oral history supplemented by archival work. I examine the disruptions presented by external forces of colonisation and missionisation and demonstrate how the Massim peoples responded to these. I delineate the Kwato-specific history into the genealogical periods of the tanuwaga, the isibaguna and the isimulita past and the isimulita present. I conclude that Kwato, the mission, could not have existed without the support of the Massim peoples and that this shaped Kwato personhood indelibly. I propose, too, that the matrilineal descent system of the southern Massim produces a distinct form of gender relations and particular structures of governance that are grounded in relational autonomy. The space of Kwato was created from this matrilineal sociality fused with missionisation. My thesis is neither an exhaustive history nor a comprehensive anthropology of the Massim in the Kwato Mission. It is certainly not the definitive work, if ever there could be such a thing. There remains great scope for other Massim people to write Kwato history from perspectives different from mine, which has been shaped by belonging to two genealogies that were influential in the politics of the Mission.

The Bible Through African Eyes, is a comparative study of the epistemologies in primary research data from Zambia and select intra-biblical appropriations and re-appropriations of the Exodus event with a view to delineate continuities between them and to use these as a basis for African biblical hermeneutical methods. It is based on the hypothesis that the two epistemologies are similar. The thesis belongs to philosophical hermeneutics, cultural anthropology and biblical studies. The thesis addresses the imperative and identifies a basis for Africans to undertake biblical hermeneutics from African socio-cultural realities and epistemological constitution. It presumes that Modern Christian Missions to Africa were framed and propagated through a Western worldview and socio-cultural realities. It associates the historical critical method with the epistemological interests of modernity. The thesis regards the post colony as epistemological space for the once-colonised to participate in biblical scholarship from their own epistemological constitutions and social-cultural realities. Finally, it argues that epistemological continuities between the Zambian and the biblical material provide a base on which Africans can articulate biblical hermeneutic theory that is rooted in their socio-cultural realities and epistemology and is empathetic to the socio-cultural realities and epistemology in the biblical texts. The thesis will offer critical evaluation of the hermeneutics and homiletics of selected preachers in Eastern Province, Zambia, and the hermeneutics in select intra-biblical appropriations and re-appropriations of the Exodus event under the three scholarly disciplines mentioned above with a view to establish the epistemologies in them. It will compare these epistemologies to establish continuities. These continuities form the basis for articulating African biblical hermeneutical methods and establish the value of the epistemology in the Zambian data for biblical scholarship as an alternative to the ongoing hegemony of Western epistemology in biblical scholarship in Africa.

This project engages with the Kogi, an Amerindian indigenous people from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in northern Colombia. Kogi leaders have been engaging in a consistent ecological-political activism to protect the Sierra Nevada from environmentally harmful developments. More specifically, they have attempted to raise awareness and understanding among the wider public about why and how these activities are destructive according to their knowledge and relation to the world. The foreign nature of these underlying ontological understandings, statements, and practices, has created difficulties in conveying them to mainstream, scientific society. Furthermore, the pre-determined cosmological foundations of Kogi society, continuously asserted by them, present a problem to anthropology in terms of suitable analytical categories. My work aims to clarify and understand Kogi environmental activism in their own terms, aided by anthropological concepts and “Western” forms of expression. I elucidate and explain how Kogi ecology and public politics are embedded in an old, integrated, and complex way of being, knowing, and perceiving on the Sierra Nevada. I argue that theoretically this task involves taking a realist approach that recognises the Kogi’s cause as intended truth claims of practical environmental relevance. By avoiding constructivist and interpretivist approaches, as well as the recent “ontological pluralism” in anthropology, I seek to do justice to the Kogi’s own essentialist and universalist ontological principles, which also implies following their epistemological rationale. For this purpose, I immersed myself for two years in Kogi life on the Sierra, and focused on structured learning sessions with three Mamas, Kogi spiritual leaders and knowledge specialists. I reflect on how this interaction was possible because my project was compatible with the Mamas’ own desire to clarify and contextualise the Kogi ecological cause. After presenting this experience, I analyse the material as a multifaceted, interrelated, and elaborate system to reflect the organic, structured composition of Kogi and Sierra, also consciously conveyed as such by the Mamas. I hereby intend to show how the Kogi reproduce, live, and sustain this system through daily practices and institutions, and according to cosmological principles that guide a knowledgeable, ecological relationality with things, called ‘the Law of Origin’. To describe this system, I develop a correspondingly holistic and necessary integration of the anthropological concepts of cosmology, ontology, epistemology, and ecology. Based on this, I argue that Kogi eco-politics are equally embedded in this system, and constitute a contemporary attempt to maintain their regulatory relations with the Sierra Nevada and complement their everyday care-taking practices and rituals. In Kogi terms, this continuity and coherence is a moral imperative and environmental necessity. Thus framing and clarifying Kogi eco-politics may enrich insights into the nature of indigenous ecological knowledge, and may help address environmental problems.

The aim of this project is to investigate the transmission of knowledge, and cultural values on the margins of the colonial agenda. The oral traditional accounts, and lived experience of Kéhté-yatis Charles F. Queskekapow, in the community of Kinoséwi Sípíhk [Fish River], are examined through the lens of a postcolonial Indigenous research paradigm. As a synthesis of an Indigenous perspective, and Euro-Western research methodologies, consisting of an open-ended interview approach, and the local Indigenous knowledge, the goals and objectives of this project are: 1) to determine the role of the Kéhté-yatis(ak) [Elders], 2) establish the local interpretation of Kéhté-yatis onakatamakéwina 3) to determine the impacts of colonialism had on the transmission of traditional knowledge, and culture 4) to analyze the impacts of colonization on the broader concept of community. This research locates the detrimental impacts of colonialism, the loss of identity in the historical context, and endeavors to contribute to affirmation of our cultural practices, and values in the present.

Using Indigenous epistemology blended with qualitative methodology, I spoke with forty-five Indigenous people about navigating the problematic processes for multiple American Indian identities within different contexts. I examined Indigenous identity as the product of out-group processes (being invisible in spite of the prevalence of overt racism), institutional constraints (being in the unique position where legal identification validates Indian race), and intra-ethnic othering (internalizing overt and institutionalized racism which results in authenticity policing). I find that overt racism becomes invisible when racist social discourse becomes legitimized. Discourse structures society within the interactions between institutions, individuals, and groups. Racist social discourse becomes legitimized through its normalization created within social institutions--like education, media, legislation, and family. Institutions shape social norms to make it seem right to enact racial violence against, and between, Indigenous Peoples, using stereotypes, racist labels, and laws that define "Indian" race by blood quanta. Ultimately, Indigenous Peoples can reproduce or contest the legitimized racism of Western social norms. Therefore, this work explores the dialectical and reciprocal relationship between notions of structure and agency as represented in negotiations of Indigenous identity.

abstract: ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the role of tribal sovereignty and self-determination in research for Diné participants and elders from 1956-1986. The qualitative historical research study explored the following questions: How has past research been conducted on the Navajo Nation? What is the role of sovereignty and self-determination in research and research methodology for Diné peoples? And, how might Diné philosophy inform a research methodology that aligns with cultural protocols and practices? Six elders who participated in research from 1956-1986 participated in in-depth interviews about their experiences. Using Sa’ąh Naaghái Bik’eh Hozhǫ̨̨́ǫ́n and related Diné philosophy models, findings of this study inform an Indigenous elder knowledge protection model (i.e. Nihookáá’ Diné Nidoolkah Bindii’ą’) to support existing Diné tribal IRB protocols and policies and provides additional insight for tribal cultural protection organizations. Lastly, the researcher presents a Diné intersectional methodology for future research.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Social Justice and Human Rights 2020

abstract: The relationship between settler-colonial governments and Indigenous nations has been a contentious one, filled with disingenuity and fueled by the abuse of power dynamics. Specifically, colonial governments have repeatedly used power in mapping, cultural Othering, resource control, and research methodologies to assimilate, acculturate, or otherwise dominate every aspect of Indigenous lives. A relatively recent pushback from Indigenous peoples led to the slow reclamation of sovereignty, including in the United States. Revamped federal Indian programs allegedly promote tribal self-determination, yet they paradoxically serve a vast quantity of cultures through singular blanket programs that are blind to the cultural component of Indigenous identity - the centerfold of colonial aggression for centuries. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Public and Indian Housing is no exception, using a Western framework to provide generic services that neither serve cultural needs nor are tailored to the specific environment traditional homes were historically and epistemologically suited for. This research analyzes the successes of new programs as well as the failures of the federal government to conduct responsible research and promote the authentic self-determination of tribes in terms of housing and urban development. It also considers the successes and failures of tribes to effectively engage in program reformation negotiation, community planning, and accountability measures to ensure their communities are served with enough culturally-appropriate, sustainable housing without mistrusting their own housing entities. Solutions for revising this service gap are proposed, adhering to a framework that centers diverse cultural values, community input, and functional design to increase each tribe’s implementation of self-determination in HUD housing programs.
Dissertation/Thesis
Masters Thesis American Indian Studies 2020

abstract: In order to examine the concept of Pueblo Indian epistemology and its relevance to western science, one must first come to some understanding about Pueblo Indian worldviews and related philosophies. This requires an analysis of the fundamental principles, perspectives, and practices that frame Pueblo values. Describing a Pueblo Indian worldview and compartmentalizing its philosophies according to western definitions of axiology, ontology, epistemology, and pedagogy is problematic because Pueblo ideas and values are very fluid and in dynamic relationship with one another. This dissertation will frame a Pueblo Indian epistemology by providing examples of how it is used to guide knowledge production and understandings. Using the Community-Based Education program (CBE), at the Santa Fe Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I will demonstrate how this unique epistemology guides the CBE philosophy by creating meaningful hands-on learning opportunities for students. What sets this program apart from typical formal schooling classes in schools in the United States is that the local Pueblo communities define the curriculum for students. Their participation in curriculum design in the CBE process enables students to participate in seeking solutions to critical issues that threaten their Pueblos in the areas of environment and agriculture. This program also supports the larger agenda of promoting educational sovereignty at the Santa Fe Indian School by giving the Pueblo tribes more control over what and how their students learn about issues within their communities. Through the community-based agriculture and environmental science programs, students study current issues and trends within local Pueblo Indian communities. In two linked classes: Agriscience and Native American Agricultural Issues, students work with community farms and individual farmers to provide viable services such as soil testing, seed germination tests, and gathering research for upcoming agriculture projects. The policies of the governing body of Santa Fe Indian School mandate the use of CBE methods throughout all core classes. There are steps that need to be taken to ensure that the CBE model is applied and supported throughout the school.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Justice Studies 2015

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
A limited yet growing number of contributions in urban geography have sought to address cities in Indigenous/settler colonial contexts as both Indigenous place/space and as sites and processes tied to ongoing Indigenous dispossession. In Australia, there is an important and growing literature engaging cities as spaces of both historical and ongoing Indigenous presence and as Country. Yet, more work needs to be done to complicate and challenge existing urban theory, practice and struggles in relation to Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies and struggles. Thinking from the protests against the G20 in Meanjin/Brisbane in 2014, this thesis adds to engagements with the city as Indigenous place/space, particularly in the context of urban struggle and the more-than-human, engaging city as Country. It asks what the simultaneous presence of ongoing colonisation and Indigenous presence mean for non-Indigenous activists and movements in urban settings and how we understand who each of us are, where we are and how we might do politics and urban theorising differently in relation to Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies and struggles. I undertake this thinking and engaging from my position as a non-Indigenous person learning my place, relationships and responsibilities situated as both a social movement participant and researcher on stolen lands and Indigenous place/space/Country.

This thesis explores the Indigenous pedagogy modeled in the university course Thunderbird/Whale Protection and Welcoming Pole: Learning and Teaching in an Indigenous World. This case study uses primary data from in depth, retrospective interviews with Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants, as well as document data, to explore the pedagogy and impacts of this course. The research links Indigenous epistemological perspectives with the cultural practices of learning and teaching used. The development of a learning community was part of how Indigenous pedagogy was established through shared goals and principles, respectful relationships and community responsibility. Experiential learning took an Indigenous focus through observation and active engagement in carving and group projects, and through reflective practices and ceremony. The perceived impacts and influences of this course included building cross cultural bridges through the breaking down of cultural barriers, and the development of personal and professional awareness. The course also illuminated the cultural implications of education and demonstrated to Indigenous communities that the university was opening its doors to Indigenous pedagogical practices and culture.

This interdisciplinary study devised a Blues Methodology to investigate how a historically marginalized Black community conceives, practices and theorizes about citizenship in community-based pedagogical spaces (Douglas & Peck, 2013). Guiding questions were 1) How does a historically marginalized Black community conceive and practice citizenship? 2) How does the community’s conception and citizenship praxis compare to the dominant society’s conception? And 3) How can both conceptions inform citizenship education and citizenship research? To conduct this qualitative cultural study, I extended Clyde Woods’ Blues Epistemology and Sylvia Wynter’s theoretical construct of alterity into a methodology capable of illuminating the community’s culturally indigenous knowledge (ways of knowing) using cultural tools meaningful to them. Blues Methodology is a community-based inquiry approach employing a reflective researcher strategy that positions researcher in dialogue with community members to uncover culturally indigenous ways of knowing as well as hegemonic perspectives and community agency. The historically marginalized Black community of focus is located in “The South” where inhumane violence was routinely practiced against Africans and African Americans during and after enslavement. Terrorism was particularly brutal due to the intense labor required by the agrarian economy. Marginalization is a lasting legacy of enslavement, Jim Crow and structurally other forms of embedded racism. Twelve long term multigenerational community residents ranging in age from 17 to 80 years old, participated in this study. Two types of data were collected: oral and written. Oral data were collected from conversations and interviews with participants, written introspective data were collected from journaling. Researcher reflections also consisted of conversations with fictional characters who were constructed to protect my relationship with community participants and present childhood experiences that informed the research. Findings reveal that community conceptions of citizenship foster belonging and identity. Citizens theorized about their social economic historical political selves in the context of the local landscape. In contrast, the dominant society’s citizenship conception is an inclusion/exclusion dialectic that generically defines citizens selectively while excluding swaths of the U.S. population from curricula thus devaluing certain students and communities and relegating their knowledge to the margins at the expense of human freedom.

This dissertation focuses on the intellectual and political trajectory of the Taller de Historia Oral Andina (THOA), an autonomous indigenous working group in which I participate, alongside other Aymaras and Quechuas from Bolivia. Grounding itself on the recuperation of ancestral knowledges of the ayllu and its reconstitution, this group has been seeking to decolonize knowledge and therefore society at large.

I have used an oral history methodology, revaluing the word and knowledge of the forefathers and foremothers. They are the inheritors and experts of the movement of caciques and representatives of communities and ayllus, who in the early twentieth century focused on defending their territorial rights on the basis of old colonial titles against the attacks of the landowning oligarchy. Using this methodology, I have questioned such principles of Western research as subject-object, Cartesian rationalism, the instrumental character of research, social discrimination, and epistemic racism in academia.

Guided by the Aymara axiom of qhip nayr uñtasis sarnaqapxañani, looking back to walk forth, as a pluriversal way of thinking that points the contemporaries to their immediate past and deep communal memory, out of whose relation critical sense emerges, it was possible to articulate the process of "Reconstitution and Strenghtening of the Ayllu," whose objective is the reconstitution of political and social organizing forms of thought, as well as the "renewal of Bolivia."

The concept of complementary duality is a salient aspect of Aymara and Quechua ontology, since together with triadic and tetralectic models, these are principles structuring ayllu knowledge, social organization, and politics. These principles are very different from the paradigms of dialectical materialism or the politics of "left" and "right." Despite colonial practices and colonialism, these principles still govern ayllu or communities, as paradigms learnt in the experience of work and needs, through the long observation of the cosmological movement and integration with animal and plant kingdoms, with mountains and vital or energetic fluids making up beings in the environment, all of which are considered as brethren and protecting parents.

Aymara and Quechua thought are wholistic and integral. Among their most important axes are parity and complementarity. These constitute a kind of vital codes, which in a way similar to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) are found in almost all beings, in their most diverse modality, and therefore are the guarantors for the transmission of values and survival.

The THOA belongs to the range of lettered indiginous thinkers, such as Felipe Waman Puma de Ayala and Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti, as well as of the work Dioses y hombres de Huarochirí, the couple Katari-Amaru, or Eduardo Leandro Nina Qhispi - creator of the principle of brotherhood, who proposed the "renovation of Bolivia" -, among others who through our actions reivindicate the wisdom of the ayllus, which expresses a different way of doing politics. Bolivia's current President, Evo Morales, would be the starting point of that model, whose goal is the suma jaqaña or "good living".

Dissertation

Text in English, with abstracts in English, isiZulu and Sesotho
There is an urgent need to develop sustainable solutions to the epochal environmental problems that the world at large and Africa in particular are currently facing. The current environmental philosophy does not seem to be able to resolve satisfactorily all the environmental crises of our world, as they have been largely influenced by Western oriented perspectives on one hand that are laden with dualistic and anthropocentric view of the world, and are ethics based on the other hand, and as such focuses less on human beings’ relationship with Nature. To the extent that attempts were made by scholars to advance an African orientation in environmental philosophy, these attempts have been bedridden with over-reliance on ethics. Relying mainly on ethics as the philosophical framework for addressing environmental issues, it neglects the epistemological dimensions of the African intellectual thoughts. To this end, minimal results has been achieved in the quest for panacea to environmental crisis, especially in Africa. This study, thus, advances an African outlook in environmental philosophy that would be both participatory and interdisciplinary in the quest for more meaningful and pragmatic problem-solving frameworks in environmentalism. The research seeks to further improve in the development of an African oriented Environmental Philosophy by committing to the exploration of an African epistemic outlook for environmentalism. This exploration is hinged on the epistemic stance abstracted from indigenous knowledge systems of African people in general and the Yoruba and Igbo people of the Western part of Nigeria, in West Africa, in particular. Accordingly, the research queries the tendency of the current discourse of environmental philosophy to over rely on ethics. The study further argues for a shift in the conceptual framework, approaches and methods employable in confronting the environmental challenges besetting the world today. It opines that we construct African environmental philosophy from the idea of “African Epistemic Order” (AEO). It argues that an environmental philosophy that is African in orientation, must have a conceptual understanding of the ontological and relational holism pervading the African epistemic order. Such an understanding will enhance the reordering and healing of the damaged human’s relationship with the natural environment (Nature). This study, therefore, provides building blocks for an environmental philosophy that is both African in making, global in practice and affirming respect to Nature.
Kukhona isidingo esiphuthumayo sokuthola izixazululo eziqhubekela phambili ngesikhathi sezinkinga zendalo umhlaba wonkana, kanye ne-Afrika imbala ezibhekene nazo okwamanje. Okwamanje amafilosofi endalo abonakala engakwazi ukuxazulula izinkinga zendalo zomhlaba wethu ngokwanele. Lokhu kungoba kunomthelela omkhulu wemibono yamazwe aseNtshonalanga (enomthelela omkhulu wombono we-dualistic and anthropocentric ngomhlaba) kanti ngakolunye uhlangothi, kanti futhi ngenxa yokuthi aphansi kwenqubo yama-ethics ngakolunye uhlangothi. Kanti ke ngenxa yalokhu, kugxilwa kakhulu ebudlelwaneni phakathi kwabantu kanye nemvelo (okusho indalo yangokwemvelo). Ngisho noma imizamo yenziwe zifundiswa ukuqhubela phambili umbono wefilosofi yendalo, le mizamo ikhathazwe kakhulu ukuncika kwezama-ethics. Lolu cwaningo luqhubela phambili umbono ngesilosofi yesi-Afrika ngokwendalo, ezokwenza ukuthi kube nokubili, ukubamba iqhaza kanye nokuxhumana kwemikhakha ehlukene ekuthungatheni kwayo uhlaka lokuxazulula izinkinga olubambekayo ngokwendalo. Ucwaningo lufuna ukuthuthukisa iFilosofi yesi Afrika ngokwendalo ngokuzimisela ukuthungatha umthombo nombono wolwazi ngokwendalo. Lokhu kuthungatha kuncike kwisimo sezomthombo wolwazi otholakala kwizinqubo zesintu zabantu base-Afrika ngokunabile, kanti ikakhulukazi ngabantu bamaYoruba kanye nama-Igbo kwingxenye eseNtshonalanga neNigeria, eNtshonalanga Afrika ikakhulukazi. Lolu cwaningo, ngakho-ke luyisakhelo sefilosofi yendalo, engesi-Afrika ikakhulukazi, kodwa ebheka kumazwe omhlaba ngokwenza, kanye nokuqinisekisa mayelana Nemvelo.
Ho na le tlhoko e potlakileng ya ho ntlafatsa ditharollo tse tsitsitseng tsa mathata a nako a tikoloho ao lefatshe ka bophara, haholo-holo Afrika, a tobaneng le ona hajwale. Difilosofi tsa hajwale tsa tikoloho ha ho bonahale di ka kgona ho rarolla mathata ohle a tikoloho a lefatshe la rona ka mokgwa o kgotsofatsang. Lebaka ke hore di anngwe haholo ke dikgopolo tsa Bophirima (di le boima jwalo, ka lehlakore le le leng le nang le pono e habedi le le nkang botho bo le bohlokwa ho boteng ba lefatshe) ka lehlakoreng le leng hobane di thehilwe hodima melao ya boitshwaro. Kahoo, ha di shebane haholo le kamano dipakeng tsa batho le tlhaho (ke hore, tikoloho ya tlhaho). Le ha boiteko bo entswe ke ditsebi ho ntshetsa pele tlwaelo ya Maafrika ho filosofi ya tikoloho, boiteko bona le bona bo na le boitshetleho bo fetelletseng ho boitshwaro. Phuputso ena e ntshetsa pele pono ya Seafrika filosofing ya tikoloho eo e ka bang ya tshebedisano le ya ho kopana ha dithuto tse fapaneng molemong wa ho batla meralo e nang le moelelo le ho rarolla mathata bothateng ba tikoloho. Patlisiso ena e batla ho ntlafatsa ntshetsopele ya Filosofi ya Tikoloho e sekametseng Afrika ka ho itlama ho fuputsa pono ya tsebo ya Afrika bakeng sa tikoloho. Patlisiso ena e ipapisitse le boemo ba tsebo bo nkilweng ditsamaisong tsa tsebo ya matswallwa tsa batho ba Maafrika ka kakaretso le batho ba Yoruba le ba Igbo ba karolo e ka Bophirima ya Nigeria, Afrika Bophirima ka ho kgetheha. Phuputso ena, ka hona, e fana ka motheo bakeng sa filosofi ya tikoloho eo e leng ya Seafrika ka botlalo, e akaretsang tshebetsong, mme e tiisang bonnete ba Tlhaho.
Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology
D. Phil. (Philosophy)

abstract: This study argues for Indigenous-led community development as a salient field of study whereby both theory and practice would be held to the goals of decolonizing entrenched systems that suppress indigeneity, as well as embodying processes to rediscover, regain, and reimage aspects integral to Indigenous well-being and sustainability. Building on fieldwork with Cherokee youth in Stilwell, OK using community mapping and photovoice methods, it is argued that holistic and culturally relevant frameworks that fully situate such salient factors are needed when examining topics related to sustainability, well-being, and resurgence in Native American communities. Utilizing youth narratives, the study proposes a starting point for a Cherokee-led community development framework.
Dissertation/Thesis
Project Booklet
Doctoral Dissertation Community Resources and Development 2016

The university habitus is not comprised of neutral structures but carries with it a history of privileging certain ways of doing, learning and being. Students who identify as Aboriginal draw from a number of identities at the University that become more or less relevant depending on the context. In this narrative study, seven students who identify as Aboriginal are interviewed about their experiences at the University of Saskatchewan. As a result of these interviews, a perspective of the university takes shape where Aboriginal culture welcomes and comforts students in a supporting role but does not always seem relevant in an academic context. Connections to others and to oneself can impact a student’s engagement in classroom curricula and stereotypes about Aboriginal peoples and grades play an important role in shaping the experiences of students who identify as Aboriginal at university, their definition of success and even their decision to attend university. The “narrative of struggle” can influence students’ choices to frame themselves either in relation to a non-Aboriginal reference group or question why Aboriginal educational success is framed in terms of exceptional individual cases rather than as a group norm. While students’ experiences at the university vary, their purpose for attending university is closely connected to their identities both now and their hopes for creating a better self in the future.

En prenant en compte le contexte des nombreuses dépossessions, de l’arrachement et de l’invisibilisation des langues Autochtones, puis de l’imposition des langues coloniales dont la littérature des pensionnats témoigne avec force détail, cette thèse aménage une réflexion autour de la manière dont les autrices Autochtones contemporaines, qui écrivent en anglais ou en français (Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Marie-Andrée Gill, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine et Cherie Dimaline), négocient avec le langage dans leurs œuvres. Plus spécifiquement, par une lecture au plus près des textes littéraires, cette thèse étudie la façon dont les écritures Autochtones sont des lieux de savoir profondément corporéïsés, situés et relationnels et, en tant que telles, elles donnent à penser les pouvoirs du langage en employant les moyens du littéraire. L’hypothèse formulée est donc que les littératures Autochtones actuelles élaborent des théories critiques du langage dans lesquelles le corps, la langue et le territoire (physique et métaphysique) sont intimement liés; le langage et sa conceptualisation par les écrivaines font ainsi se manifester une toile de relations que supporte la littérature par la création et la mise en présence de cette interconnexion entre le monde sensible et spirituel, entre les êtres humaines et les êtres autres qu’humaines. Bref, en appuyant les réflexions sur les épistémologies Autochtones (Kovach, Wilson, Ermine, Bazile, Sioui, Simpson, Bacon, Vizenor), cette thèse avance que, moins par un retour à des structures linguistiques que par le truchement d’une imagination poétique et narrative, les autrices à l’étude réclament les épistémologies et créent des théories du langage qui sont ramenées sur la scène de la présence littéraire.
Considering the context of multiple dispossessions, the extraction and invisibilization of Indigenous languages, and the subsequent imposition of colonial languages, which residential school literature recounts in great detail, this dissertation reflects on how contemporary Indigenous women writers, who write in English or in French (Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Marie-Andrée Gill, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine and Cherie Dimaline), are attempting to (re)negotiate both Indigenous and colonial languages in their works. More specifically, through a close reading of selected texts, this thesis explores how Indigenous literatures are deeply embodied, situated, and relational places of knowledge and, as such, they convey the possibilities of language through their literary interventions. Thus, I argue that contemporary Indigenous literatures enable the creation of critical theories of language, in which body, language, and land (both physical and metaphysical) are intimately connected; language, and its conceptualization by women writers, enables a web of relations through writing that presents this interconnectedness between the sensible and spiritual worlds, and between human and other-than-human beings. Building on Indigenous epistemologies (Kovach, Wilson, Ermine, Bazile, Sioui, Simpson, Bacon, Vizenor), this thesis argues that through poetic and narrative imagination, which differs from a return to the linguistic structures of Indigenous languages, the creative writers explored in this dissertation are reclaiming epistemologies and creating theories of language by putting them at the forefront of their literary practices.

Ally literature suggests processes and guidelines that non-Indigenous researchers can follow in order to establish respectful relationships (Battiste, 1998; Wilson, 2008; Edward, 2006; Margaret, 2010). It also states the importance of preparedness for engaging and sustaining long term alliances (Lang, 2010; Brophey, 2011); however specific training methods; modalities that support long-term relationships; practices to develop desired qualities; or self-care approaches for Allies have not been addressed in the literature. Through autoethnographic work I sought to explore this gap in literature. This study is situated within decolonizing methodologies looking to contribute to legitimizing traditional ways of knowing; and within Anzaldúas (1987) philosophical view of “Doing Mestizaje” (1987). My work is a personal account of the complicated and conflicted situation of working as an Ally, being both Mestiza and Buddhist in a culture of colonization/decolonization. Unique to this exploration are modalities I chose to help with a deeper understanding, and as possible approaches to address emotional stress and prevent burnout in Ally work: art, meditation, mindfulness practice, prayer, dream work, and narrative/poetry. My findings show that a Mestizo view of Allyhood presents differences with those of White Allies; that implementation of the Buddhist concepts of interdependence and selflessness can support Allies during a painful or stressful process of self-reflection, as well as through out the relationship; and that doing research as ceremony, and ceremony as research contributes to the revitalization of Indigenous traditional ways of knowing and its importance in Decolonizing work.
Graduate

Suicide holds an ambivalent position in contemporary social and cultural contexts. It questions what it means to live and die, yet provides no clear-cut answers about death or dying, life or living. This thesis explores some of the ways suicide has been understood and represented, to demonstrate that knowing suicide is dependent not only on what suicide means, but also on how meanings of suicide become part of knowledge. Knowing suicide is not a matter of responding to it as self-evident, transparent, neutral and obvious, but rather is implicated in social processes and norms central to how knowledge gains intelligibility. Guided by poststructuralist, postmodernist, feminist and postfeminist philosophies, the thesis takes up gender and gendering as its central focus, to interrogate how knowledge about suicide becomes knowledge. Critically examining a wide variety of textual sources, it argues that suicide is principally rendered as a masculine, and even a masculinist, practice. Knowing suicide today is anchored in suicidology - the study of suicide - and maintained by institutional sites of practice including sociology, law, medicine, psy-knowledge and newsprint media, each of which is analysed here. Suicide as masculine and masculinist practice is invoked through multiple, often-contradictory and inextricably linked readings of gender, even while claiming homogeneity. Its gendered foundations can however be made to appear gender-neutral, even when actually gender-saturated. The twin gender movements of neutrality and repleteness are in fact crucial to the knowing of suicide. The thesis establishes that knowing suicide can never occur outside discourse. Even more importantly, how suicide enters discourse cannot be thought outside gender. The body matters to the production of deeply problematic understandings of agency, intent and violence, on which the production of suicide as masculine and masculinist depends. It becomes clear that such dependence rests not only on gender, but also on race and sexuality, as conditions of its knowing. The thesis suggests that further attention be given to the production and maintenance of highly reductive and limiting homogenous truth claims in suicide - truth claims that validate and privilege some interpretations of suicide, at the expense of rendering others less legitimate and serious. If the processes and practices of interpreting suicide become a site of permanent debate, they are more likely to challenge the ways in which masculinist ways of knowing render, and limit, the intelligibility of suicide.

To date, the vast literature on theories of psychology, and psychology as a practice, still remains a reflection of Western experiences and conceptions of reality. This is so despite "psychology" and "psychotherapy" being studied and implemented by Africans, dealing with Africa's existential issues, in Africa. In this context, a distorted impression that positions psychology and psychotherapy as irreplaceable and irrefutable Western discoveries is created. This perception creates a tendency in which psychotherapists adopt and use universalised, foreign and imposed theories to explain and deal with African cultural experiences. In recent years, African scholars' quest to advance "African-brewed" conceptions, definitions and practices of "psychology" and "psychotherapy" is gaining momentum. Psychologists dealing with African clients are increasingly confronted with the difficulty, and in some instances the impossibility, of communicating with, and treating local clients using Western conceptions and theories. Adopting the dominant Western epistemological and scientific paradigms constitutes epistemological oppression and alienation. Instead, African conceptions, definitions and practices of "psychology" and "psychotherapy" based on African cultural experiences, epistemology and ontology are argued for. The thesis defended in this study is that the dominant Western paradigm of scientific knowledge in general and, psychology in particular, is anchored in a defective claim to neutrality, objectivity and universality. To demonstrate this, indigenous ways of knowing and doing in the African experience are counterpoised against the Western understanding and construction of scientific knowledge in the fields of psychology and psychotherapy. The conclusion arising from our demonstration is the imperative to rethink psychology and psychotherapy in order to (i) affirm the validity of indigenous African ways of knowing and doing; (ii) show that the exclusion of the indigenous African ways of knowing and doing from the Western paradigm illustrates the tenuous and questionable character of its epistemological and methodological claims to neutrality, objectivity and universality. Indeed the Western claim to scientific knowledge, as described, speaks to its universality at the expense of the ineradicable as well as irreducible v ontological pluriversality of the human experience. This study's aim is to advance the argument for the sensitivity to pluriversality of be-ing and the imperative for wholistic thinking.
Psychology
D. Phil. (Psychology)

Museums as colonial institutions and agents in nation building have constructed, circulated and reinforced colonialist, patriarchal, heteronormative and cisnormative national narratives. Yet, these institutions can be subverted, resisted and transformed into sites of critical public pedagogy especially when they invite Indigenous artists and curators to intervene critically. They are thus becoming important spaces for Indigenous counter-narratives, self-representation and resistance—and for settler education. My study inquired into Cree artist Kent Monkman’s commissioned touring exhibition Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience which offers a critical response to Canada’s celebration of its sesquicentennial. Narrated by Monkman’s alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, the exhibition tells the story of the past 150 years from an Indigenous perspective. Seeking to work on unsettling my “settler within” (Regan, 2010, p. 13) and contribute to understandings of the education needed for transforming Indigenous-settler relations, I visited and studied the exhibition at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta and the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. My study brings together exhibition analysis, to examine how the exhibition’s elements work together to produce meaning and experience, with autoethnography as a means to distance myself from the stance of expert analyst and allow for settler reflexivity and vulnerability. I developed a three-lens framework (narrative, representational and relational/embodied) for exhibition analysis which itself became unsettled. What I experienced is an exhibition that has at its core a holism that brings together head, heart, body and spirit pulled together by the thread of the exhibition’s powerful storytelling. I therefore contend that Monkman and Miss Chief create a decolonizing, truth-telling space which not only invites a questioning of hegemonic narratives but also operates as a potentially unsettling site of experiential learning. As my self-discovery approach illustrates, exhibitions such as Monkman’s can profoundly disrupt the Euro-Western epistemological space of the museum with more holistic, relational, storied public pedagogies. For me, this led to deeply unsettling experiences and new ways of knowing and learning. As for if, to what extent, or how the exhibition will unsettle other visitors, I can only speak of its pedagogical possibilities. My own learning as a settler and adult educator suggests that when museums invite Indigenous intervention, they create important possibilities for unsettling settler histories, identities, relationships, epistemologies and pedagogies. This can inform public pedagogy and adult education discourses in ways that encourage interrogating, unsettling and reorienting Eurocentric theories, methodologies and practices, even those we characterize as critical and transformative. Using the lens of my own unsettling, and engaging in a close reading of Monkman’s exhibition, I expand my understandings of pedagogy and thus my capacities to contribute to understandings of public pedagogical mechanisms, specifically in relation to unsettling exhibition pedagogies and as part of a growing conversation between critical adult education and museum studies.
Graduate

The study goes beyond knowledge existing in the literature study of the philosophy and theory of knowledge, knowledge management, African knowledge and the management of knowledge by African institutions, including the peace and security architecture of Africa, to reveal a coherent conceptual framework and themes to guide the field research. During the field studies of specific cases in the Great Lakes region of Africa, principles and practices emerged that formed a framework for a constructed Trans-dimensional Knowledge Management Model (TDKM-M) to develop a theoretical model for the management of knowledge for conflict resolution as the first step towards the revival of Africa. The study proposes practical solutions for the management of knowledge that would empower decisionmakers to intervene successfully in conflict situations. Furthermore, the study serves to expand the knowledge base in the field of trans-disciplinary African studies, transcending the boundary between political science and epistemology to navigate the middle ground between disciplines and the space that lies beyond all disciplines and dichotomised thinking towards a new holistic understanding. A systems approach using MIT (multi-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and trans-disciplinarity) and qualitative research methodology on a transnational level was followed. The study consists of a literature study and a field study consisting of a pilot study, semi-structured interviews and participation in communities of practice to access the worldviews of diverse cultures. An observable knowledge dimension, consisting of a normative foundation, empirical knowledge domain and analytical knowledge domain, is identified. Furthermore, a tacit metaphysical knowledge dimension is identified that is informed by the observable dimension. The two dimensions transacts with each other to attain a higher level of trans-dimensional knowledge. The TDKM-M proposes principles and practices of how trans-dimensional knowledge, including indigenous African knowledge and external knowledge, can be managed in a collective middle ground to produce holistic understanding. This higher level of understanding can activate intervention into the causes and consequences of conflict. Innovation of African society could follow, achieving desired outcomes such as peace, justice, human rights, self-empowerment and innovation towards transformative growth, competitiveness and negotiate equilibrium with the global community, and ultimately the revival of Africa.
Political Sciences
D. Litt. et Phil. (Politics)

This dissertation studies the intersection of knowledge, culture, and power in contested coastal and estuarine space in eighteenth-century northeastern North America. It examines the interdependence of vernacular pilot knowledge and directed hydrographic survey, their integration into practices of warfare and governance, and roles in assimilating American space to metropolitan scientific and aesthetic discourses. It argues that the embodied skill and local knowledge of colonial and Aboriginal peoples served vital and underappreciated roles in Great Britain’s extension of overseas activity and interest, of maritime empire. It examines the maritimicity of empire: empire as adaptation to marine environments through which it conducted political influence and commercial endeavour. The materiality of maritime empire—its reliance on patterns of wind and current, on climate and weather, on local relations of sea to land, on proximity of spaces and resources to oceanic circuits—framed and delimited transnational flows of commerce and state power. This was especially so in coastal and riverine littoral spaces of northeastern North America. In this local Atlantic, pilot knowledge—and its systematization in marine cartography through hydrographic survey—adapted processes of empire to the materiality of the maritime, and especially to the littoral, environment. Eighteenth-century British state agents acting in northeastern North America—in Mi’kmaqi/Acadia/Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, and New England—developed new means of adapting this knowledge to the tasks of maritime empire, creating potent tools with which to extend Britain’s imperial power and influence amphibiously in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. If the open Atlantic became a maritime highway in this period, traversed with increasing frequency and ease, inshore waters remained dangerous bypaths, subject to geographical and meteorological hazards that checked overseas commercial exchange and the military and administrative processes that constituted maritime empire. While patterns of oceanic circulation permitted extension of these activities globally in the early modern period, the complex interrelation of marine and terrestrial geography and climate in coastal and estuarine waters long set limits on maritime imperial activity. This dissertation examines the nature of these limits, and the means that eighteenth-century British commercial and imperial actors developed to overcome them.