Precolonial Indigenous Education in the Western Hemisphere and Pacific

Author(s):  
Adrea Lawrence

Before widespread colonization began in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere and Pacific were agriculturalists and land and seaside managers who hunted and fished; they were brilliant scientists; they were artists and musicians; they were politicians; they were historians and geographers; they were adaptive economic players; and, importantly, they were exceptionally diverse. Much of the scholarship examining these achievements has been political and anthropological, not educational. How can this be? By following different forms of evidence down an array of disciplinary paths, scholars can consider epistemological questions orienting how peoples past and present have made sense of their worlds and their learning. And by examining the residual evidence of learning through the processes of place-making at the junctures of geography, oral tradition, and architecture, as well as agronomy and crop creation and various forms of knowledge construction, porous histories of indigenous education take shape.

2021 ◽  
pp. 146960532110198
Author(s):  
María Nieves Zedeño ◽  
Evelyn Pickering ◽  
François Lanoë

We highlight the significance of process, event, and context of human practice in Indigenous Creation traditions to integrate Blackfoot “Napi” origin stories with environmental, geological, and archaeological information pertaining to the peopling of the Northwestern Plains, where the northern Rocky Mountain Front may have played a prominent role. First, we discuss the potential and limitations of origin stories generally, and Napi stories specifically, for complementing the fragmentary records of early human presence in the Blackfoot homeland. Second, we demonstrate the intimate connection among processes, events, place-making practices, and stories. Last, we aim to expand multivocality in the interpretation of the deep past through an archaeological practice that considers Indigenous philosophies and stories to be as valid as non-Indigenous ones.


2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Schimmel

AbstractThe right to an education that is consonant with and draws upon the culture and language of indigenous peoples is a human right which is too often overlooked by governments when they develop and implement programmes whose purported goals are to improve the social, economic and political status of these peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples must fully respect and integrate human rights protections, particularly rights to cultural continuity and integrity. Racist attitudes dominate many government development programmes aimed at indigenous peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples are often designed to forcibly assimilate them and destroy the uniqueness of their language, values, culture and relationship with their native lands. Until indigenous peoples are empowered to develop educational programmes for their own communities that reflect and promote their values and culture, their human rights are likely to remain threatened by governments that use education as a political mechanism for coercing indigenous peoples to adapt to a majority culture that does not recognize their rights, and that seeks to destroy their ability to sustain and pass on to future generations their language and culture.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (35) ◽  
pp. 065-080
Author(s):  
張耀宗 張耀宗

<p>本文主要目的在於從《臺灣蕃人事情》報告,來看日治初期官方原住民教育政策之形成。《臺灣蕃人事情》是民政部事務囑託伊能嘉矩和粟野傳之丞呈給民政長官後藤新平的覆命書,此覆命書係為實施蕃人教育預作準備。本書大部分內容由人類學調查所組成,可作為從人類學的角度看待教育的特殊視角。在蕃人教育措施準備上,覆命書中提及針對各族原住民「開化發達」的程度不同,給予適當之教育措施。對照日本總督府隨後原住民教育政策之發展,覆命書確實有其若合符節之處,也有差異之處。會有差異之處的原因,在於殖產部門所管轄的原住民區域,發展出與文教部門不同的原住民教育措施。</p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p>The main purpose of this article is to analyze the relation between the formation of the official indigenous education policy in the early period of Japanese colony and the report &ldquo;The History and Custom of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples &quot;. &ldquo;The History and Custom of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples &ldquo;was the official report for the Chief of the Civil Affairs, Goto Shinpei, by two officials of Department of Civil Affairs, Ino Kanori and Suo Chuanji. The purpose of survey was the preparations for educating indigenous peoples. Most part of this report was based on field study, which could help to see education from an anthropological perspective. For establishing an education system for indigenous peoples, it divided to the different levels of civilization of each different ethnic group of indigenous peoples, and then gave each an appropriate education. Comparing the subsequent development of the indigenous education system that Taiwan Governor’s Office of Japanese initiated, it found there were some similarity and difference between the official report and the practical policy. The reason for the difference based on the development of indigenous educational policy that was different from the educational unit in the indigenous areas under the jurisdiction of the developmental department.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (13) ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Alfredo Fayad

En este artículo se propone valorar las formas, prácticas y propuestas que las comunidades indígenas han elaborado en función de sus proyectos de educación propia, como resultado de presiones y luchas ante el modelo de educación oficial. La historia de implementación de la educación en las comunidades indígenas ha sido la negación de sus idiomas y formas culturales a partir del modelo de educación evangelizadora, republicana y estandarizada. Los cambios en ese camino muestran el paso de la etnoeducación a la educación propia indígena, que se reconoce en Colombia gracias a la Constitución de 1991 y a las luchas de las comunidades por transformar el modelo institucionalizado de educación, al proponer una educación que reconozca los principios culturales, los idiomas, las lógicas otrasde los pueblos indígenas. Los aportes de los pueblos Nasa y Misak en el departamento del Cauca demuestran la riqueza de cómo se viene investigando, indagando y tratando de fortalecer una propuesta educativa desde las comunidades. THE PATH OF EDUCATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE DEPARTMENT OF CAUCA, COLOMBIA:from ethnoeducation to own education ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to discuss the practices and proposals of education projects that indigenous communities have elaborated, against the official education model. The history of implementation of education in indigenous communities has been the negation of their languages and cultural forms based on the evangelizing, republican and standardized education model. The changes in this path show the passage from ethnoeducation to indigenous education itself, recognized in the 1991 Constitution. The contributions of the Nasa and Misak peoples in the department of Cauca demonstrate the way that they are trying to strengthen an educational proposal from the communities.Key-words: Ethnoeducation. Own education. Accompaniment. Recognition of differences. Knowledge relationships.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Juan Guillermo Mansilla ◽  
José Rubens Lima Jardilino

This article on the education of indigenous peoples in Latin America is a synthesis of an approximation of studies on the history of Education of indigenous peoples (schooling), taking Brazil and Chile as a case study. It represents an effort of reflection of two researchers of the History of Latin American Education Society (SHELA), who have been studying Indigenous Education or Indigenous School Education in Chile and Brazil, from the theoretical perspective of “coloniality and decoloniality” of indigenous peoples in Latin America. The research is based on a comprehensive-interpretative paradigm, whose method is linked to the type of qualitative historiographic descriptive research considering primary and secondary written sources, complemented with visual data (photographs). The documentary analysis was made from material based on primary written sources, secondary and unobtrusive personal documents. The study included three distinct phases in the process of producing results: 1) a critical review of the data of our previous research, in addition to the bibliographic review of research results regarding the presence of the school in other indigenous cultures of the Americas; 2) capturing and processing of new data; and 3) validation and return of results with the research participants. Content analysis was carried out in order to reveal nuclei of central abstract knowledge, endowed with meaning and significance from the perspective of the producers of the discourse, as well as knowledge expressed concretely in the texts, including their latent contents.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie B. Robertson

Traditional knowledge (TK) has been the keystone to survival in the Arctic for thousands of years. Caribou are integral to the society, health and culture of the Inuit, the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic. There is a lack of research regarding caribou on King William Island (KWI), Nunavut. Through a project in Gjoa Haven, located on KWI, Inuit Elders and hunters used maps to help represent their knowledge of caribou in the region. These 32 maps were processed in a GIS to explore the spatial dimensions of TK, and different forms of knowledge representation. Using vector data the features drawn were separated into lines and polygons to show hotspots of caribou knowledge. Using a fuzzy raster methodology, all caribou data was summed to create a collective knowledge surface of the caribou features. These maps refine the data from the vector maps and create a continuous surface that aims to better reflect the collective nature of TK. This research explores the challenges of representing TK using western technologies, and application of fuzzy methodologies for improving the representation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-225
Author(s):  
Penelope Kelsey

Abstract This essay brings Zayin Cabot’s concept of “ecologies of participation” into conversation with contemporary Mohawk- and Seneca-language films and language revitalization movements. For Indigenous peoples, these participatory events are often interactive storying of worlds, whether told in film, social media, or oral tradition. As a particularly salient example, the essay considers Mohawk director Karahkwenhawi Zoe Hopkins’s adaptation of Star Wars: A New Hope in Star Wars Tsyorì:wat IV—Yonhská:neks (2013) in a comparative analysis with both the Navajo-language Star Wars: Episode IV and the Seneca-language films Kohgeh and Tših to highlight critical choices Karahkwenhawi makes in translation, both linguistic and visual, vis-à-vis settler colonial consumer culture. The essay concludes that her adaptation foregrounds supposed “advances” of Western technocratic capitalism; highlights the constructed, fallible, and ephemeral nature of these technologies; and potentiates other technologies and ecologies based in Mohawk ontologies.


Author(s):  
Terry Wotherspoon ◽  
Emily Milne

The national Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has challenged governments and school boards across Canada to acknowledge and address the damaging legacies of residential schooling while ensuring that all students gain an adequate understanding of relations between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous peoples. This article explores the dynamics and prospects for effective change associated with reforms in elementary and secondary education systems since the release of the Commission’s Calls to Action, focusing on the policy frameworks employed by provincial and territorial governments to guide these actions. The analysis examines critically the overt and hidden messages conveyed through discourses within policy documents and statements. The key questions we address include: What do current education policy frameworks and actions regarding Indigenous Peoples reveal about government approaches to education and settler–Indigenous relationships in Canada? To what extent is effective reconciliation possible, and how can it be accomplished in the context of institutional structures and discourses within a White settler colonial society? The findings reveal that substantial movement towards greater acknowledgement of Indigenous knowledge systems and incorporation of Indigenous content continues to be subordinated to or embedded within Western assumptions, norms, and standards. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Kaizo Iwakami Beltrao ◽  
Juliane Sachser Angnes

This dossier presents results of studies that glimpse the experiences of indigenous peoples in the task of satisfying their specific needs in indigenous school education and indigenous education, incorporating from that, their history, beliefs, value system and organizational culture. The socio-historical trajectory for indigenous peoples to achieve their pedagogical autonomy involves the appropriation of educational processes that are linked to both indigenous school education and indigenous education (own learning processes). For indigenous peoples, this path might seem simple, at first, due to the new paradigm of indigenous school education that privileges cultural diversity. However as the indigenous people advance towards the achievement of their own conquest projects, they come across several bureaucratic and difficult issues. In this sense, the guidelines presented here do not reflect all the complexity of the scenarios in which the indigenous populations of Brazil and Latin America find themselves, nor the multiple facets that they can assume. However we hope that the studies socialized here can help and expand the reflections, in addition to serving as an invitation for more and more indigenous populations to have visibility in academic scientific circles.


Author(s):  
Lígia Duque Platero

L’hégémonie et les programmes d’éducation autochtone au Mexique et au Brésil (1940-1970)Lígia Duque Platero Dans cet article, l’auteure présente des renseignements sur les programmes d’éducation autochtone des agences indigénistes du Brésil et du Mexique, entre 1940 et 1970, et elle propose également un survol de l’influence de ces programmes sur les processus de formation d’hégémonie des États au sens large, au sein des peuples amérindiens de ces pays durant la même période. Les écoles de l’Institut national indigéniste (INI), au Mexique, et surtout celles du Service de protection de l’Indien (SPI), au Brésil, ont mis l’accent sur l’enseignement de la langue nationale dans leurs programmes et elles ont exercé une influence sur la création de l’idée d’existence de la nationalité « métisse », visant le « développement » et l’« intégration » des peuples autochtones à la nation. Dans les deux pays, les missions religieuses ont participé à l’éducation autochtone, notamment le Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Au Mexique, la participation des promoteurs culturels bilingues en tant qu’« intermédiaires culturels » entre les institutions indigénistes et les communautés s’est avérée un élément clé pour la formation de l’hégémonie. Au Brésil, les enseignants étaient « non autochtones » et leur influence fut moins importante.Mots clés : éducation autochtone, politique indigéniste, éducation bilingue, intégration indigénisme, hégémonie  Hegemony and Indigenous Education Programs in Mexico and Brazil (1940-1970)Lígia Duque Platero This article describes the education programs of indigenist agencies in Brazil and Mexico between 1940 and 1970. It provides an overview of the influence that these programs have had on the formation of State hegemonies, broadly considered, and their extension to Indigenous peoples during this period. The schools of the National Indigenist Institute (INI) in Mexico, and even more those of the Indian Protection Service (SPI) of Brazil, have put an emphasis on the teaching of the national language in their programs, and have contributed to the creation of the idea of « mestizo » national identity, while centering their mission on the « development » and « integration » of Indigenous peolples within the nation. In both countries, religious missions have played a role in Indigenous education, notably through the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). In Mexico, the participation of bilingual cultural promoters acting as « cultural intermediaries » between indigenist institutions and the communities has played a key role in the formation of State hegemony. In Brazil, teachers were non-indigenous, and their impact was less significative.Keywords: Indigenous Education, Indigenist policy, bilingual education, Indigenism Integration, hegemony  Hegemonía y programas de educación indígena en México y Brasil (1940-1970)Lígia Duque Platero En este artículo la autora presenta informaciones sobre los programas de educación indígena de las agencias de asuntos indígenas de Brasil y de México, entre 1940 y 1970. Para este mismo período, la autora da también una mirada a la influencia de dichos programas sobre la constitución de formas hegemónicas en los Estados, en un sentido amplio, y en el seno de los pueblos indígenas de dichos países. Los programas de las escuelas del Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI), en México, y sobre todo las del Servicio de Protección a los Indios (SPI), en Brasil, pusieron el acento en la enseñanza de la lengua nacional e influyeron en la creación de la idea de la existencia de la nacionalidad “mestiza”, apuntando hacia el “desarrollo” y la “integración” de los pueblos indígenas a la nación. En ambos países las misiones religiosas han participado en la educación indígena, especialmente el Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (ILV). En México, la acción de los promotores culturales bilingües como “mediadores culturales” entre las instituciones de asuntos indígenas y las comunidades fue un elemento clave para la configuración de formas hegemónicas. En Brasil, los profesores eran “no indígenas” y su influencia fue menos importante.Palabras clave : educación indígena, política indigenista, educación bilingüe, integración indigenismo, hegemonía  Hegemonia e os programas de educação indígena no México e no Brasil (1940-1970)Lígia Duque Platero Nestas notas de pesquisa, apresentamos informações sobre os programas de educação indígena das agências indigenistas do Brasil e do México, entre 1940 e 1970, e realizamos uma breve discussão sobre a influência desses programas nos processos de formação de hegemonia dos Estados ampliados entre os povos indígenas desses países, no período citado. Nas escolas do Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI), no México, e principalmente do Serviço de Proteção aos Índios (SPI), no Brasil, as escolas enfatizaram o ensino da língua nacional em seus currículos e influenciaram na criação da ideia da existência da nacionalidade “mestiça”, visando o “desenvolvimento” e a “integração” dos povos indígenas à nação. Em ambos os países, missões religiosas participaram da educação indígena e aqui destacamos a atuação do Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). No México, a participação dos promotores culturais bilíngues como “intermediários culturais” entre as instituições indigenistas e as comunidades resultou na grande importância da educação indígena para a formação da hegemonia. Já no caso do Brasil, os professores e professoras eram “não indígenas” e sua influencia foi mais restrita.Palavras-chave : Educação Indígena; Política indigenista; educação bilíngue; Indigenismo de Integração; Hegemonia 


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