Indigenous Epistemology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marva McClean ◽  
Marcus Waters
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Sissons

Van Meijl is right to insist that epistemology must be about active, socially contested ‘ways of knowing’ and that understanding the relationship between such ways and their products is as much an ethnographic problem as it is a philosophical one. Ways of knowing, as social practices, are also, more generally, ways of being or becoming and so are not, in my view, radically distinct from the ontologies they produce and reproduce. Phillipe Descola argues strongly that his four ‘ontologies’ are also schemas of practice, fundamental ways that people know, experience and inhabit the world. I think Van Meijl is mistaken, therefore, when he characterises the ontological turn in anthropology as being about different relations between mind and matter. For me, it is most significantly about the different ways that personhood or subjectivity can be understood and embodied.<br>


Author(s):  
Ramzi N. Nasser ◽  
Kamal Abouchedid

This paper discusses factors that are contributing to the rise of what we refer to as an ethos of “academic apartheid” in Arab institutions of higher education. The paper examines the failure of these institutions to overcome their alienation from indigenous epistemology, to emancipate the education they provide from its colonial past, and to move towards the modern information age. The difficult position of Arab academics striving to rediscover, reintegrate and reorganize an epistemological framework to serve the indigenous world is also discussed. Current institutional approaches have deleterious effects on the performance of Arab academics, including arresting the process of transition to development. The paper concludes that Arab academics have a range of choices in determining how to establish a course of corrective action.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Michael O. Afolayan

This essay critically explores the semantic, phonological and philosophical implications of the sound “kọ” (build) in the Yorùbá proverb  ́ Ọmọ tí a kò kọ́ ni yóò gbé ilé tí a kọ́ tà (the child that is not taught will eventually sell the house that is built). I will read the concept behind the sound as a multi-layered, multi-semantic meta-philosophical building block which not only showcases a serious aspect of indigenous epistemology and serving as a note of caution on Yorùbá education and its sociology of filial responsibilities, but could also be deployed to interrogate the emerging youth culture of the new generation Nigerian Yorùbá in the age of globalization. The essay draws on the semantic and philosophical content of kọ́ to articulate the argument that investments on material possession are counterproductive and antithetic to investment on human capital, the epitome of which is investing on one’s child/ ren. The essay concludes that the spirituality and permanency of the kọ of the ́ child’s mind is diagonally opposed to the superficiality and transience of the kọ́ of the building, a mere structure with limited value.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-122
Author(s):  
Darrel Manitowabi

The legacy of colonialism in Canada manifests through land dispossession, structural violence and assimilative policies. Casinos are an anomaly emerging in Canada, becoming major economic engines, generating capital for housing, education, health, and language and cultural rejuvenation programs. On the other hand, the literature on Indigenous casinos raises crucial questions about compromised sovereignty, addiction, and neocolonial economic and political entrapment. This article theorises Indigenous casinos as a modern expression of the windigo. In Algonquian oral history, the windigo is a mythic giant cannibal. The underlying meaning of the windigo is the consumption of Indigenous peoples leading to illness and death. One can become a windigo and consume others, and one must always be cautious of this possibility. I propose casinos and Indigenous-provincial gambling revenue agreements are modern-day windigook (plural form of windigo).  This framework provides an urgently needed new theorisation of casinos, grounded in Indigenous epistemology and ontology.


Author(s):  
Denise Aparecida Corrêa ◽  
Fernanda Zane Arthuso

ResumoEste artigo tem por objetivo trazer reflexões acerca da educação intercultural a partir dos processos educativos da Escola Estadual Indígena da Aldeia Ekeruá. A pesquisa pautada na abordagem qualitativa do tipo etnográfica se configurou na análise dos registros de diários de campo e dos depoimentos de dois interlocutores da Escola Estadual Aldeia Ekeruá. Consideramos que no contexto da Aldeia Ekeruá a Escola é lócus de preservação identitária Terena: de sua língua materna, de suas histórias, de suas danças, de seus jogos, de seus rituais e é também um espaço importante de apropriação da perspectiva ocidental de conhecimento e de obtenção de instrumentos para a leitura desta outra epistemologia. Assim, na imbricada e tensa rede de relações que tecem cotidianamente com a sociedade e o conhecimento ocidental, a escola é o lugar no qual tais conhecimentos são ressignificados a partir da epistemologia indígena Terena, é, portanto, tempo-espaço de interconhecimento, de educação intercultural.Palavras-chave: Educação Intercultural. Escola Indígena. Terena.Intercultural indigenous education: reflections in the Terena village Ekeruá school contextAbstractThis article aims to bring reflections about intercultural education from the educational processes of the State School Indigenous Ekeruá Village. The research based on the qualitative approach of the ethnographic type was configured in the analysis of the records of field diaries and the testimonies of two interlocutors of the Ekeruá Village State School. We consider that in the context of the Ekeruá Village, the School is a locus of identity preservation Terena: of its mother tongue, its stories, its dances, its games, its rituals and is also an important space of appropriation of the western perspective knowledge and instruments for reading this world. Thus, in the imbricated and tense network of relationships that weave everyday with society and western knowledge, school is the place in which such another epistemology is re-signified from the Terena indigenous epistemology, is therefore time-space of inter-knowledge, education intercultural. Keywords: Intercultural Education. Indigenous School. Terena.Educación intercultural indígena: reflexiones desde el contexto escolar Terena EkeruáResumenEste artículo tiene por objetivo traer reflexiones acerca de la educación intercultural a partir de los procesos educativos de la Escuela Estadual Indígena de la Aldea Ekeruá. La investigación pautada en el abordaje cualitativo del tipo etnográfico se configuró en el análisis de los registros de diarios de campo y de entrevistas de dos interlocutores de la Escuela Estadual Aldea Ekeruá. Consideramos que en el contexto de la Aldea Ekeruá la Escuela es locus de preservación de la identidad Terena: de su lengua materna, de sus historias, de sus danzas, de sus juegos, de sus rituales y es también un espacio importante de apropiación de la perspectiva occidental de obtención de instrumentos para la lectura de esta otra epistemología. Así, en la imbricada y tensa red de relaciones que tejen cotidianamente con la sociedad y el conocimiento occidental, la escuela es el lugar en el cual tales conocimientos son resignificados a partir de los conocimientos indígenas Terena, es, por lo tanto, tiempo-espacio de inter-conocimiento, de educación intercultural.Palabras clave: Educación Intercultural. Escuela Indígena. Terena.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany Dionne Prete

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study that examines how Indigenous epistemology affects secondary Indigenous students’ retention rates within public schools. The purpose of this study was to focus on Indigenous epistemology that is present in Indigenous culture and language courses to determine whether Indigenous students who engage in this curriculum have higher success rates than those of Indigenous students who do not participate in this particular curriculum. As a Blackfoot scholar, I used a Blackfoot theoretical framework grounded in an Indigenous research methodology. Eight Blood Tribe members were interviewed: four participants (three graduates and one non-graduate) who attended a high school with Indigenous epistemology courses (offered Blackfoot language classes and Aboriginal Studies) and four participants (three graduates and one non-graduate) who attended a high school that did not offer Indigenous epistemology courses (did not offer Blackfoot language classes and Aboriginal Studies). The findings show that not only does the epistemology in the school play a role in Indigenous students’ success in public education, but the epistemology also accompanies and influences the participants throughout their adult lives by shaping their identities and affecting how they function as adults.


2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Page-Reeves ◽  
Theresa Cruz ◽  
Sally Davis

This study examines how a community coalition strategy for childhood obesity prevention was implemented through Healthy Kids Tribal Community (HKTC) in an American Indian community in the rural southwest. HKTC conceptualized health promotion using indigenous epistemology connecting past, present, and future. HKTC has been able to engage people in the community using a novel approach that integrates message framing and prevention strategies with local cultural meanings, language, and symbols. These innovations affected the implementation and outcomes of the initiative. The experience of implementing a childhood obesity coalition in a tribal context provides unique insights for understanding how community members can effectively adapt and "culturally situate" imported strategies to be meaningful for implementation in a small, relatively cohesive community. However, lack of funding and participation challenges remain obstacles to greater integration and coordination of HKTC within the tribal community.


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