Approaching Difference in Research and Beyond: Lessons from Indigenous Epistemologies.

For the past couple weeks I’ve begun preparing full force for my written exams– perching on the couch and reading for eight hours a day has its perks, but it can certainly get old after a while. This week I’ve been reading about indigenous epistemologies, something that until recently I knew little about. Indigenous epistemologies take a very different approach to knowledge, identity, and difference. Rather then try to summarize or reduce the diversity of indigenous epistemologies in this post, I’d like to touch on the work of indigenous scholar and activist Vine Deloria Jr., and discuss some of the productive insights his work offers for approaching difference in research and life.

Vine Deloria Jr. is a prolific Lakota scholar and activist whose work spans the 1960’s until his death in 2005. His work, among other things, explored the link between colonialism and the production of western knowledge, and the deep ideological rifts between indigenous and western approaches to knowledge production and identity. He argued that reclaiming a space for indigenous knowledge both inside and outside of the academy is central to social justice movements and the establishment of indigenous self-determination and sovereignty.

            
In the article “If you think about it you will see it’s true,” Deloria compares Western approaches to knowledge production and the Sioux’s approach to knowledge and identity. For the Sioux, there was no knowledge that was not valuable and all knowledge was directed towards the goal of “finding the proper moral and ethical road upon which human beings should walk” (43). The Sioux understood the universe as moral and alive, and every event and action was understood through its relational effects. According to the Sioux, everything was related and humans were not given a special status within these relations, but were just another important aspect of the whole. Unlike western approaches to knowledge, personal experience, emotions, and anomalies were seen as significant, and were presented as evidence that was reflected on personally and collectively. This evidence was grounded in the dynamics of place and understood through careful observation. Patterns that emerged were often connected through narratives and stories but never came to be understood as universal laws.

           
Deloria’s work offers a number of important insights that are relevant to us as researchers who produce variegated forms of knowledge. He argues that, for indigenous people, knowledge is a moral endeavor that helps people find their “proper moral and ethical” path in life. Thus knowledge is itself rooted in the moral imperative to finds one’s proper place, a place that is recognized as relationally constructed by human and non-human entities and that is always subject to change. Furthermore, the indigenous approach to engaging with all sources of knowledge, particularly the experiential and the unexpected, offers an inclusive and grounded approach that does not marginalize or create a hierarchy where some perspectives and experiences are given more weight than others. The evidence that deviates from an expected trajectory generates greater reflection and becomes a source for the development of new patterns and narratives. Lastly, indigenous approaches to knowledge tend to emphasis process over outcome within knowledge production. Research is judged primarily by the concepts of respect and reciprocity at the core of the process, and the actual relevance of the work to the different communities involved, rather than abstracted claims about future benefits.

            
I find that Deloria’s work and the work of countless other indigenous scholars (of whose work I’m only now starting to engage with) offers important alternatives to approaching research in ways that are inclusive, relevant, and social justice-oriented. Whether or not indigenous epistemologies and approaches offer alternatives that we can adopt within our varied research projects and interests, they nonetheless remind us of the colonial roots that remain a part of western scientific approaches and the value of engaging with relational ways of knowing. Recognizing these alternatives helps us to question the taken-for-granted moments when our research may misinterpret, misrepresent, and obscure important forms of knowledge production at the margins. These roots and routes of research are important for us to explore if we are to create more just and equitable futures through our work.

Deloria Jr. V. 1999. Spirit and Reason: the Vine Deloria, Jr. Reader. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing.