Tag Archives: research

Module 2: Post 5 – Goodness in academia

This article is entitled “They Won’t Do It the Way I Can”: Haudenosaunee relationality and goodness in Native American postsecondary student support.

What a title!

It caught my attention because 1) I’m focussing – as much as possible – on Haudenosaunee people for my final research paper and 2) Goodness is a value and I’m looking at how values inform Indigenous teaching and learning.

The paper turned out to be interesting in two main ways:

1. It relates 5 Indigenous professionals experiences with providing support to Indigenous students in post-secondary institutions….

Waterman writes, “In an earlier qualitative study with 47 Haudenosaunee college graduates about their educational experiences, I asked the participants to identify any personnel who were instrumental to their degree completion. Five Indigenous participants were identified in that study (names are pseudonyms) and agreed to be interviewed.” She then shares information from these interviews; most interviewees discuss going above and beyond to support students and being undervalued by their universities. One line provides a good nutshell summary: “Behavior that might, on the surface, appear as social programming or as lacking in formal academic advising, through an Indigenous values lens is nation building” (Waterman, 2021).

2. Woven throughout the paper are bits of wisdom about how to conduct Indigenous academic research, and the tension between academia and Indigenous knowledge…

“The significance of this article lies in exposing the foundational role of IKS [INdigenous knowledge systems], goodness, and relationality in the work of these Haudenosaunee administrators. Settler colonial domination strives to make IKS invisible[…]” Waterman (2021) notes that she must balance her role as a researcher with her responsibility to her community: “I am responsible to both the academic community and my community. In other words, I make sure to conduct my academic work in such a way that I remain welcome at home.”

 

Reference

Waterman, S. J. (2021, October 7). “They Won’t Do It the Way I Can”: Haudenosaunee relationality and goodness in Native American postsecondary student support. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000352

Critical Reflections of Indigenous Research Methodologies (IRMs)

Module 1 – post 4

In our course discussion posts and research blogs, I have felt some discomfort because there are some significant differences in how we try to “objectively” talk about Indigenous ways of knowing, education, and technology in academia, versus how I’ve been discussing these topics with fellow Indigenous family, friends, and peers. When reading the research papers and academic articles, even when it is an Indigenous author, I feel like they are talking outwards, away from the Indigenous community, and to an audience that doesn’t know our ways, or the way we must exist in a western world.

I found an amazing article by Joseph P. Gone that describes some of my discomforts when discussing “Indigenous Research Methodologies“, and I’m sure I will think about their paper throughout the rest of this course.

This particular quote (which I split into two paragraphs for easier reading) stood out to me:

“I worry that the way we practice IRMs insulates inquiry in the name of Indigeneity from skeptical interrogation. The hallmark of academic knowledge production is that it gets critiqued by your peers, people who know your field, who are experts in your specialization… And until you can answer them, or rebut what they have to say, you’re not going to go forward in being able to publish what you say, for example, or what you think. And so, one concern I have is by saying that “this is IRMs,” what we’re really saying is “and you White people don’t know this. This is ours. And so, you White people aren’t allowed to critique it because you wouldn’t know anyway. It’s for us to decide and critique and say what’s right.” And what that can translate into is actually no one critiques it because we have a stake in celebrating these things.

And I’d say in traditional communication styles, especially around knowledge translation and transmission, you don’t critique people. That’s the heart of rudeness, right? You’re not going to sit there and tell an elder, “Well, I think . . .,” if you’re getting the usual monologue, right? That’s not how it works. So, the danger here is that we’re withdrawing all the things that we most care about and are invested in from the usual processes of critique. And that deprives us of the opportunity to refine what we’re doing in ways that can be really important. And, of course, beyond that it completely excludes us from academia. Almost everyone in academia says, “If you’re not willing to play this game, fine, go do your own thing. See ya.” And you become [that which] happens to many Native American Studies programs is you’re really, really marginal in the academy.” (p. 50-51)

Gone, J. P. (2019). Considering Indigenous research methodologies: Critical reflections by an Indigenous knower. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(1), 45-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780041878754