Indigenous Ways of Knowing for Non-Indigenous Allies

final paper for a class on indigenous ways of knowing
2016

Personal Context

I grew up in the US state of Indiana, on land belonging to the Miami Nation, an Algonquin people who have continued to resist the dispossession of their land, including through forced removal to the state of Oklahoma between 1846 and 1871. Oblivious to this history, I began learning from and supporting indigenous struggles in 2009 as a staff member of the Mexico Solidarity Network, whose office is on Ojibwe land in Chicago and was formed in 1998 to coordinate solidarity with the Zapatistas, a Mayan indigenous movement of Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolobal, Chol, Mam, and Zoque peoples in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

As an adherent to the Zapatistas’ Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (EZLN, 2005), the Mexico Solidarity Network (MSN) seeks to build autonomy from below – through community mobilization and not governmental policy – and to the left – against colonial capitalism. Specifically for MSN, this means community building with undocumented Mexican, Guatemalan, and Ecuadorian immigrant families through its Chicago community centre, the Centro Autónomo, lending material support to the Zapatistas and other groups in Mexico who adhere to the Sixth Declaration, and bringing university student-activists to Mexico to learn about autonomy from the Zapatistas so they may integrate this political practice into their organizations back home (Mexico Solidarity Network, 2009).

Despite having moved to Toronto in 2015 and no longer being a staff member there, the Mexico Solidarity Network continues to be my political home and a group to which I am accountable, and my current studies at York University are dedicated to supporting their political project and its solidarity with the Zapatistas. The EZLN is very clear in telling those who wish to be its allies what its expectations are, asking “And what are you doing?” (EZLN, 2016: 326). Their recent book on the capitalist Hydra contextualizes this question, stating that we must resist this many-headed beast while also building autonomous alternatives, and each group must do this from their own geography and according to their own calendar. This is the work of decolonization, and I hope this paper will allow me to think through the methodology of this work.

I see important parallels between the Zapatista proposition of working from below and to the left, against and beyond the colonial capitalist system, and the prophecy of the Eighth Fire in Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s volume (2008: 14). It speaks of an everlasting fire of peace that will be lit by Oshkimaadiziig, the New People in Nishnaabeg, through indigenous resurgence and a return to relationships with settlers based on the original treaties. As both a settler and an aspiring ally, I wish to engage in the community building necessary for us to build such a relationship of respect between diverse groups. Yet I say this as an “I,” an isolated individual. I, and most settlers on this land, are currently nowhere near being true allies in decolonization, and when the Zapatistas ask, “And what are you doing?,” taking practical steps towards this decolonial ideal should be our response.

Through this paper, I aim to think through the difficulties of being a true ally and to build a methodology on which to base this project. It is a project that will involve the many study abroad students I have taken to Chiapas between 2009 and 2015 to learn from the Zapatistas and who are now attempting to build autonomy back home. This incipient, decolonial alumni network of former Mexico Solidarity Network students, which I am attempting to bring together through my doctoral work, is the “we” I will speak from here.

Introduction

Settlers have every reason to learn about indigenous ways of knowing. As colonizers on this land, we have a moral obligation to be “good houseguests” and learn the ways the stewards of this land know it, respect it, and reciprocally nourish it while it nourishes them. This is not charity or altruism: the same colonialism that systematically denies consent (Simpson, 2014: 15) also harms those of us who materially benefit from this dispossession, as evidenced by the widespread isolation, ennui, and physical, mental, and spiritual illness we see in this consumer society. This isn’t to say that settlers will spontaneously wake up and support indigenous sovereignty: Tuck and Yang (2012: 13-17) show us that all too many self-styled allies merely engage in “adoption fantasies” to feel free from the taint of colonialism. Nonetheless we have much to gain by doing so.

On the other hand, as Tuck and Yang warn, settlers must be extremely careful in how we approach indigenous ways of knowing. Colonialism is deeply engrained in Western culture, psychology, research, and political practice (Deloria, 1973; Smith, 1999: 58-77), and by virtue of our socialization into this system, the benefits we reap from it, and our complicity in it, we are constantly falling short in our aspirations to be allies in decolonization. As the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Furthermore, while there is a growing body of work theorizing and practicing decolonization through indigenous resurgence (Alfred, 2009; Alfred and Corntassel, 2005; Coulthard, 2014; Simpson, 2011), this is not a settler politic. As I will argue, while settlers must understand, respect, and support how indigenous nations are decolonizing, it would be appropriation to guide our own decolonial efforts by seeking to become warriors (Alfred, 2005: 77-100) or dancing the turtle into existence (Simpson, 2011: 141-150). Indigenous myths are for indigenous peoples to live by and gain wisdom from, not for settlers. Instead, we must carefully and intentionally act in ways informed by indigenous epistemologies and methodologies while also seeking to incorporate the best, most critical and liberatory, aspects of Western traditions.

This problematic leads me to my guiding question: How can and can’t non-indigenous allies build a methodology around indigenous ways of knowing? My answer to this question is guided by the belief that our methodology – the way in which we create meaning – must be guided by decolonization. We must build settler communities dedicated to decolonization, build relationships with indigenous communities, and consult texts asking “What does it mean to decolonize? How should settlers decolonize? And what meaning are we finding to guide this process?” To build this methodology I will follow Kovach (2009: 20-22) in moving from a discussion of decolonial ontology (What exists in our world?) to epistemology (If this is what exists, then how do we come to know it?) and ending with methodology (If this is how we come to know, then how do we ask our questions?). Through it all, we will see that ours must be a methodology committed to collectivity and action, meaning we must question as we walk together.

Ontology

As settlers, our ontology is riddled with tensions. To explore these, I will define “settlers” as “founders of political orders who carry their sovereignty with them” and impose is through domination and dispossession of the indigenous population (Veracini, 2010: 3-4). They are distinct from migrants, who arrive to find this order already constituted. However, underneath this uniform definition there is no “typical” settler. As a social ontology, we come from many societies, some of them still colonized, some of them formally independent and post-colonial, some of them colonizing. There are immigrants of the diaspora who arrived as slaves or refugees of war or economic hardship; there are the settlers whose ancestors financed slave ships, led genocidal military campaigns, and write laws to destroy indigenous land, culture, and people; there are settlers like myself whose immigration was facilitated by citizenship in a Western country. On the level of settler society, there is the distinction between settlers and migrants, and there are rich and poor, bosses and workers, different bodies and abilities, settlers with immigration status and immigrants without it, and a diversity of sexualities. There is great disagreement and frequent violence between us. (1) Neither settlers nor migrants are a true community, nor are many of the sub-sets within these broad categories face-to-face communities with shared dreams and collective action. The rich certainly are. Most of the rest of us are isolated individuals, a collection of “I’s” instead of a “we.” Yet this ontology is also one of process, and many of these isolated individuals yearn for more authentic community.

Secondly, turning to my incipient “we” – the loose network of student-activists who are inspired by the Zapatistas and seeking to build autonomy – we have an urge to decolonize. Our political ontology is one of struggle against many forms of domination, including labour exploitation, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and imperialism, and these are united by a common struggle for autonomy: creating ways to make a living, have a home, be healthy, learn, make decisions, and take action that are not controlled by the colonial state, wealthy benefactors, or any interest that is not part of our community. Autonomy is not sovereignty – “an exclusionary concept rooted in an adversarial and coercive Western notion of power” (Alfred, 2009: 83) – but instead community production of and control over all that makes up wellbeing. This is the political strategy – the action – that our methodology will teach us to transform into decolonization.

What exactly is decolonization, and who are allies? Tuck and Yang write that decolonization “must involve the repatriation of land simultaneous to the recognition of how land and relations to land have always already been differently understood and enacted” (2012: 7). Understood in contradistinction to settlement, decolonization is the reversal of dispossession and domination of indigenous peoples and the upheaval of the political order built on it, in the manner and to the extent indigenous peoples decide. Our political ontology, the “we” of aspiring allies, has a range of commitments to decolonization, understood in many ways. Therefore, building a cohesive and mobilized allyship – a shared vision and practice of decolonization – is one of the foremost objectives of this methodology.

Following the suggestions of the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign (2013), we see that being an ally involves a certain lifestyle and mindset (thanking the Earth, thinking of future generations, living lightly and with gratitude), educating ourselves (dispelling racist stereotypes, appreciating and not co-opting indigenous cultures, listening more than we talk), and taking political action (supporting indigenous sovereignty, honouring the treaties, and reaching out to our indigenous neighbours). Following these recommendations, I will promote a vision of allyship that seeks to decolonize by learning from indigenous epistemologies without appropriating them, to build our own collective capacity for action, and to mobilize this capacity through concrete projects supporting indigenous self-determination. Because we are both settlers (whose culture has violently imposed a political order here) and migrants (who have arrived on stolen land and been made to support that order), I will use the term “allies” throughout this paper instead of saying “settlers and migrants.” I will also use the modifier “aspiring” because, ultimately, we do not decide whether we are indeed “allies.” Rather, the indigenous groups we enter into solidarity with get to make this distinction. Meanwhile, we must take concrete, collective, sustained, and informed action that honours indigenous leadership. This is the “alliance” of allyship. Since the “we” I speak from is not yet unified enough to do this, our allyship is still an aspiration and not a fact.

Third, on a psychological and economic level, ours is an ontology of alienation, of disconnection between the work we are paid for and our passion, of disconnection from each other, and of disconnection from our common humanity. While Marxists end their discussion of alienation here (Ollman, 2003: 95), alienation also describes our spiritual and ecological ontology. Our Western culture treats the land as a resource for the extraction of private profit, leading to the dispossession of its caretakers, ecological destruction, and spiritual emptiness. Capitalism and colonialism demand we forsake happiness for advancement, treat our neighbours as competitors, and strip bare the land that gives us life. It offers us shiny products to fill the void, yet our alienation continues. We have spirit, but it is a spirit in crisis. We are in dire need of becoming a “we.”

Epistemology

Lest this ontology seem too dire, we should remind ourselves that indigenous peoples have confronted far greater violence for five hundred years, they have survived, and they are resurgent. This is precisely why all of us resisting colonialism must follow indigenous leadership. As all who write about resurgence note, this survivance (Vizenor, 1993) is due to the deep wellspring of ancestral knowledge that has been passed down for millennia. Today, as Nishnaabeg peoples enter the age of the Seventh Fire (Simpson, 2011: 66-67), part of this resurgence is a proliferation of literature on indigenous ways of knowing. I will first summarize this work, beginning with writers such as Deloria, Cajete, and King who draw out broad tendencies across many peoples of Turtle Island, and then I’ll turn Anishnaabeg ways of knowing. As an outsider with the great privilege of learning what I can from the ancestral knowledge these authors present, I will do my best to communicate what I have learned from it, as limited and confused as my understanding may be. Then, I will turn my attention back to the possibilities and problems for aspiring settler allies and discuss 1) which aspects of this epistemology we can engage now, 2) which ones we can build towards, and 3) which aspects do not pertain to us. As we build towards being better partners in decolonization, these ways of knowing are the tools we have, the tools we need, and the tools that are not ours to use.

Vine Deloria, a man so respected by all who have done this work, begins his discussion of indigenous ways of knowing with a metaphysics based on power and place coming together to form personality (2001: 21-28). Power is spiritual energy, the life of all of creation; place is the relationship of things to each other and the experiences encouraged by such a set of living, place-based relationships; and personality is a universe that must be approached personally to gain a wisdom that cannot be projected universally. Thousands of years before Einstein made it into a formula for the West, Deloria tells us that indigenous people understood relativity: the personal, place-based, and spiritual nature of knowledge.

Gregory Cajete complements Deloria’s “Indian metaphysics” with his discussion of “spiritual ecology” in Look to the Mountain (1994). Spiritual ecology is a pathway to knowing that a person walks throughout all stages in their life, culminating in transformational understanding: becoming a complete person and reaching “the place Indians talk about” (pp.41-42). Cajete structures this pathway to knowing using two triads, one including myth, vision, and art, and the other including environment, affect, and community (pp.33-41). Through it all, Cajete urges his indigenous audience to “look to the [sacred] mountain,” allowing land and spirit to guide them as they take their daily steps down the path of life.

All authors also acknowledge sacred stories as central to indigenous ways of knowing. Similar to Deloria’s metaphysics, Thomas King highlights fundamental epistemological principles by comparing the stories of Turtle Island and the Garden of Eden (2003: 1-30). Whereas the Christian creation story is one of an omnipotent god, perfection and defilement, punishment and guilt, and animals as the subjects of the humans who name them and enemies to be dominated, the story of Turtle Island is quite different. There is questioning, trial and error, collaboration between humans and the animals who bring wisdom, exuberance, and humor. Furthermore, the storyteller creates the story with and for her or his audience (King, 2003: 92) and those who learn this story are urged to embody and recreate it in their own lives (Simpson, 2011: 31-48). Epistemologically, the story speaks of process and action-based learning through doing, learning with and through nature, learning with community, and limits to learning, beyond which is mystery. (2) Most importantly, these stories are not simple parables or pedagogical devices, but “original instructions”: a truth born of the sacred which demands responsibility from those who have let it into their hearts. (3) A story-based epistemology is one of spirit and accountability to sacred knowledge. This is why King ends each chapter by telling us “It’s yours. Do with it what you will…. But don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if you had only heard this story” (2003: 29). Directing King’s reminder to aspiring allies who have had the great privilege of hearing these stories, I would in turn ask them, “So how should we be living our lives?”

Before turning back to allies, I’d like to focus more on ways of knowing written by members of the Anishnaabeg nations whose lands we are on. Keeping with the subject of stories, editors Doerfler, Sinclair, and Stark begin their volume on Anishnaabeg Studies saying stories – all within the narrative spectrum from aadizookaanag (sacred stories) to dibaajimowinan (histories and news) – are bagijiganan, offerings of value, respect, and affirmation (2013: xv-xvii). As such, stories reflect the “Seven R’s”: roots (origins and foundations), relationships (strands between creation), revelations (doorways opened by the manidoog), resiliency (survivance and continuance), resistance (innovation in the face of domination), reclamation (active contributions to creation), and reflection (visions that can live in the world) (pp.xxii-xxvii). Leanne Simpson adds many more concepts to this body of thought in Dancing on our turtle’s back (2011), laying theoretical foundations for resurgence. These include mino bimaadiziwin – the flourishment of the good life (p.13, 17, 31, 67, 142) – debwewin or “heart truth” (chapters 3 and 7), and the leadership principles embodied by mothers and elders (chapter 7). Their wide-ranging epistemological importance of stories, levels of understanding, and the role of leadership in learning is clear, but my description is also exceedingly superficial: we can say the Anishnaabeg words, but grasping their meaning, let alone letting that meaning guide our hearts, is something else altogether. While allies can appreciate that Anishnaabeg stories are both ways of knowing and an act of creation in themselves, they are not our stories. We cannot dance the turtle into existence (p.150).

What ways of knowing are accessible to settlers and migrants? Let’s start with what we can access here and now, beginning with the original treaties. As Simpson writes (2011: 20-25), the original treaties between Europeans and First Nations apply to all settlers and migrants, and not just the governments who made these agreements. In this part of Turtle Island, the original treaty is the Guswenta or Two Row Wampum, which was agreed to by the Dutch and Haudenosaunee in 1613 and extends to relationships with all subsequent European nations to arrive. It is the grandfather of all treaties, and the Iroquois have never violated it over the past 403 years. On a background of white whelk shells representing purity and the river of life, the wampum features two rows of purple quahog shells, representing the separate vessels that the Haudenosaunee and Europeans travel in. The parallel rows signify autonomy, non-interference, and respect between the two nations, extending into the future for all time (as long as the grass is green, water flows down, and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west). (4) This is the peaceful relationship that allies must work to return to, and it is also a foundational philosophical document that must guide our epistemology.

This epistemology is also a guide for political action. As such, true reconciliation is far different than the current spectacle of re-victimization of indigenous elders (Alfred and Corntassel, 2005: 606) and is instead a practice of aanji maajitaawin – “the art of starting over” in Nishnaabeg (Simpson, 2011: 20) – wherein the aggressor accepts responsibility and engages in a reconciliation whose terms are set by the colonized. As Simpson says, pushing the colonial state towards aanji maajitaawin and following through with it is the responsibility of settlers, and epistemologically speaking, we must build the meaning of “decolonization” through this practice. Returning to the Zapatistas, they discuss aanji maajitaawin in terms of autonomy: resisting vicious corporations and their servants in government while also building spaces, resources, and capacities outside of colonial capitalism in solidarity with indigenous communities (EZLN, 2016: 83-86).

A second way of knowing settlers must engage in is knowing through community. Writing about “we-consciousness” in Mayan Tojolobal communities, Carlos Lenkersdorf explains the importance of collectivity in education and problem solving (2002: 59-69). He tells an anecdote of his Tojolobal students hearing about exams in the government school and requesting one of their own. Reluctantly, he asked the students to separate their desks, passed out individual test sheets, and gave his students a time limit for completion. Once he said “go,” the students immediately rejoined their desks and began discussing the questions. Afterwards, Lenkersdorf told them what the “correct” answers were, but the students critiqued the entire enterprise of the examination since a member of their learning collective, Lenkersdorf, already knew the answers to the problems. If this were a true problem, they explained, none of us would know the solution and we would have to find it together.

Colonization is indeed a “problem” whose solution allies do not know. Indigenous ways of knowing offer us guidance, but the solutions cannot only exist in our minds, nor can we actualize them as isolated individuals. Rather, we must form communities of reflection and action, involving face-to-face discussions about our experiences of the internalized and external violence of colonialism, and these discussions must allow us to make plans for starting over and to carry them out over generations. None of this is possible without community. It demands a “we,” a will-to-consensus (Lenkersdorf, 2002: 71-76) in which each person brings their heart-truths, opens themselves to the pain of letting go of internalized colonialism, and recognizes that only through the process of decolonizing will we find the answers. This is the epistemology of “questioning while we walk” as the Zapatistas say (EZLN, 2003: Part II). It is a way of knowing that requires a community in action, as opposed to purely theoretical, inactive individuals. To learn we must build community.

This is not to say theory has no place. If theories are stories (Doerfler et al, 2013: xx), we settlers must look to them for inspiration without appropriating them. As a third way of knowing, we must make theories into paths we walk and actualize. Audra Simpson and Andrea Smith remind us that certain critical Western theories, including ethnic studies, feminist and queer studies, postcolonialism, and marxism can aid in decolonization if we unearth their deep colonial structures and use their best tools to build power and coalitions (2014: 22).

Dialectical thinking is also promising (Ollman, 2003). It rejects a static and isolated view of people and objects in favour of one that sees people as everchanging social relations and objects as embedded in circuits of ecology, production, and distribution. This means a mask would at once be the forest it came from, the object it is now, the museum it may end up in, and part of all the people who made it, donned it, inherited it, and stole it. Yet its total lack of attention to spirit shows dialectics to be a philosophy of the Enlightenment, for the mask also has spirit and agency: it asks for love and gives it. (5) This goes to show we must complement theory with other epistemological tools, including art and inner knowing. Above all, we must embrace mystery as a way of knowing: accepting that pre-formulated theory will never supply ready-made solutions. “We cannot just think, write or imagine our way to a decolonized future,” writes Simpson (2014: 16). Questioning while we walk, we must learn by trying, failing, trying again, and failing better (Cornel West, as quoted by Dudash, 2014).

These three ways of knowing – through a return to the treaties, building community, and using theory while accepting mystery – are Anishnaabeg, Mayan, and Western-inspired epistemologies we allies can begin engaging here and now. However, there are other epistemologies that will take more time and effort for us to begin mobilizing.

The first is story. Not “theory as story,” which is firmly rooted in academia, but stories as the transmission and actualization of embodied wisdom, flowing from a wellspring of experience, both rooting and mobilizing a community. These are the types of stories that cannot be expressed solely through the written word. For them to exist, there must be an intergenerational, face-to-face community with a shared history, a common struggle presently, and a shared vision of the future. Stories are what bind community together, give it meaning, and mobilize it to collective action. There are such stories in many diasporic migrant communities, but many more people belong to no community at all, especially those of us with more economic, racial, and gender privilege. Apart from our own isolated experiences, we come to know through news media, academia, television, memes, and movies but are disconnected from each other, especially from older folks who have fought the same struggles in the past with both success and instructive failure. For stories to become an epistemology for decolonization, we must first build community.

Second, we can learn through the land. Not through a racist appropriation of indigeneity à la Grey Owl (Francis, 2011), but by supporting organizations like the Naadmaagit Ki Group (6) and First Nations that are “indigenizing” the land. “Support” doesn’t mean charity or summer getaways to Algonquin Park: it means seeking indigenous guidance in how to respectfully approach, greet, and show love for the land and doing this on the community or organization’s terms (which means not overwhelming them with requests either). Connecting with the land in urban areas, where indigenous graves have literally been ground into the mortar of Bay Street (7), is full of difficulties. The city of Toronto is a global centre of colonial capitalism, home to more than half of the world’s mining companies (Global Affairs Canada, 2016). Its inflated real estate market is constantly devouring land, expanding the suburbs, and intensifying the skyline. As residents, we consume industrially-grown food from the pesticide-laden periphery, shipped in via highways, railways, and canals like the Trent-Severn that have dispossessed indigenous land and undermined their food sovereignty (Simpson, 2008: 205-208). Beyond the agricultural zones and transportation corridors are the expanses of land that have been mined, logged, hunted for furs, and dammed for hundreds of years. Indeed, the systematic dispossession of land is a fundamental, continuous aspect of colonial capitalism (Coulthard, 2014: 9-11)

This is all to say that, to indigenize the land, indigenous peoples must confront the full force of capitalist colonial society, and aspiring allies looking to reconnect with it must confront our internalized beliefs that welcome this systemic ecological violence. Ceasing to objectify the land and beginning to learn from it is also an intergenerational, collective process. And if “building community” and “seeking indigenous guidance in how to learn from the land” sound vague, it’s because they are meaningless as a mere statement of principles. They are not prescribed processes, nor can they be described abstractly. Rather, as with Zapatista “questioning while we walk,” the learning is in the doing, and the two cannot be separate.

Finally, this leads us to the ways of knowing that are not available to settlers. Loving the land is a profoundly spiritual act, yet as settlers this is not our land or our spirituality. Simpson cites Geniusz (2009) in explaining the meaning of the Nishnaabeg word for land, aki, and the spirituality of learning from the land:

Aki includes all aspects of creation: land forms, elements, plants, animals, spirits, sounds, thoughts, feelings, energies and all of the emergent systems, ecologies and networks that connect these elements. Knowledge in akinoomaage [taking direction from the earth] flows through the layered spirit world above the earth, the place where spiritual beings reside and the place where our ancestors sit. (2014: 15)

To think allies can engage in akinoomaage is a profound misunderstanding of aki and an act of appropriation that perpetuates colonialism, not decolonization. We can engage our own spiritual traditions while physically opposing the colonial forces that promote cultural assimilation, the dispossession of land, and the erasure of indigenous spirituality. We can learn about and should respect the “spiritual ecology” (Cajete, 1994) of the caretakers of the land we are on. We can even participate in certain ceremonies if we are invited by Elders and follow protocol. But there is an acute difference between respectful participation and appropriation of a spirituality of the land where our ancestors do not lie. This difference means we must realize we will only have a superficial understanding in no way approaching debwewin, or heart-knowledge, of this spirituality. As such we cannot speak for it. We can only follow indigenous guidance in taking the very first steps to love the land but, as is always the case with love, it will not be on our terms.

Finally, the settler relationship to myth helps us move from a discussion of epistemology to methodology, from ways of knowing to practices of knowing. Nearly all who write about indigenous ways of knowing speak to their importance, as the enormous body of myth that forms each peoples’ Creation Story establishes their ontology, epistemology, pedagogy, and guide to mino bimaadiziwin – the good life (Simpson, 2011) – all of which are embedded in the land. When Alfred writes of resurgence, he urges warriors to return to the myths (2005: 131) and Simpson writes of the importance of “wearing your teachings” (Simpson, 2014: 11). Yet it’s telling that colonial education considers indigenous myths to be folklore, if it considers them at all. Especially for practitioners of Christianity, whose religion is uprooted from the land and is geographically expansive in pursuit of universal domination (Deloria, 1973), we are taught to see indigenous myths as objects to be requisitioned, as with artifacts in a museum and, following the Enlightenment tradition, dismissed as superstition. Postmodernists problematize the Enlightenment’s “grand narratives” (a critique indigenous people have made ever since colonization began (Smith, 1999: 29-30)) and decolonial thinkers reject its a-spiritual positivism. Nonetheless, many settlers feel set adrift, no longer believing colonialism’s morally-vacuous tales of superiority yet without a tradition to turn to. Given such cultural dislocation, it’s unsurprising (but no less problematic) that aspiring allies frequently follow New Age neo-colonialism and turn to indigenous myth to find meaning, to escape their “haunting” by colonialism’s victims through “moves to innocence” (Tuck and Yang, 2012: 9-10) that both reduce guilt and lend substance to our lives. Yet it is only a means of avoiding decolonization. As I will explain in the next section, we cannot re-identify our way out of being settlers. Instead we must recognize and nurture the best of our Western traditions, oppose the many colonial aspects, and take practical, strategic steps towards decolonization.

Methodology

What is to be done? Given the decolonial epistemologies available to aspiring allies and those that are not, how can we make these ways of knowing into practices of knowing? How do we apply our outlook in specific research practices? In sum, what is our methodology? I will begin this final section by summarizing the critiques that indigenous authors have made of colonial research before summarizing the indigenous methodologies formulated by Kovach and Smith. In conversation with this work I will reformulate “methodology” not just as research practices, but ethically-informed ways of learning-by-doing. The resulting methodology for aspiring allies will include 1) a decolonial vision of “the good,” 2) autonomy instead of disingenuous “reconciliation,” 3) self-critical solidarity, and 4) nourishing the best of our wisdom.

The concept of a “methodology” has changed radically over the past hundred years, as Western social science has transitioned from positivism to postmodernism. Positivism makes methodology a simple question by lending a great deal of pre-analytical assumptions to its practices of knowing. Smith discusses many of them when she says its concept of history is linear, based on simple cause and effect, universal, value-neutral, binary, patriarchal, and “natural” or self-fulfilling (1999: 30-31), and Deloria says positivism is sterile, mechanical, and reductionist (2001: 5-6). Thus, positivism says that we can know through testing cause and effect, through observation, and using peer-reviewed techniques. Since neither methodology nor social science are intrinsically connected to morality, questions of power are not considered in the research process or the use of its results.

This has been quite convenient for the colonial enterprise, as indigenous knowledge is frequently exploited by corporations looking to overcome obstacles in profitability and by governments seeking greater control. (8) Explaining why this colonial research has been “absolutely worthless” to indigenous peoples and “absolutely useful” to those who wield it as an instrument, Tuhiwai Smith writes, “It told us things already known, suggested things that would not work, and made careers for people who already had jobs” (1999: 3). This worthless/useful dichotomy is the essence of cognitive imperialism (Battiste, 2000: 197-202): the theft of indigenous knowledge and its repackaging as a commodity devoid of substance, to be used as a tool for further colonization, and which writes indigenous peoples out of history in the process. In Western critical scholarship, thinkers such as Michel Foucault (1980), Frantz Fanon (1952), Donna Haraway (1988), and Stuart Hall (1993) have critiqued the way positivist knowledge is structured towards domination, used to discipline peoples, and often causes them to internalize their oppression. Yet these critiques are also dissident Western voices waking up to colonialism’s devices, whereas indigenous peoples have been the same critiques for five hundred years (Smith, 1999: 29-30).

Nonetheless, there is a growing awareness among Western researchers such as myself that methodologies must interrogate their assumptions. We must justify whether we will venture predictions or assert cause-effect relationships, and more fundamentally, we are expected to state the values that guide our research and how they are manifest in ethical protocols and accountable methods. Here, the values guiding a decolonial methodology for aspiring settler allies are the aspects of the epistemology discussed in the prior section: treaties, community, critical theory/mystery, story, and the land. They are ways of knowing imbued with decolonial values that guide our specific learning-by-doing practices. As we turn to these specific practices, we should once again turn to indigenous methodologies for guidance.

Margaret Kovach (2009) builds her indigenous methodology from Plains Cree tribal knowledge and in conversation with researchers from Plains Cree, Maori, and Anishnabe nations. While she joins Tuck and Fine (2007), Andrea Smith (2014), and Sandy Grande (2004) in acknowledging some common ground between indigenous methodologies and Western critical thought, Kovach emphasizes that “inherently indigenous methodologies” do not flow from Western methodologies as their basis in “tribal epistemologies” makes them distinct (p.13). In conversation with Graham Smith, she says that these methodologies are decolonial; however, they centre indigenous “concientization” instead of centring the colonizer (pp.75-93) and rehashing histories of defeat (Gaudry, 2005: 246). They also treat “ethics as methodology” (pp.141-155) by centring miyo, or “the good” in Plains Cree. Ethical guidelines are expressed as protocols which involve community ownership of cultural knowledge, control over the research framework, access, possession, giving back, and continuously seeking holistic, community consent.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith presents a widely-celebrated methodology based in indigenous social movement and the struggle for self determination (1999). She then proposes a research agenda based on four tides – survival, recovery, development, self-determination – and the four directions – healing, decolonization, transformation, and mobilization (p.116). Like Kovach, Smith also emphasizes ethical protocols beyond individual consent and confidentiality, including respecting people’s dignity, presenting oneself face-to-face, looking and listening before speaking, generosity, caution, and humility (pp.119-120). Finally, Adam Gaudry outlines what he names “insurgent research principles” as a grounding in and validation of indigenous worldviews, output intended for indigenous communities, final judgment by the community, and being action oriented (pp.243-265).

I expect all these authors would be disheartened to see “indigenous methodologies” reduced to the interminable lists presented above. Just as Brant Castellano notes that no set of rules can encompass how to do good in a spiritual world (2004), no inventory of “best practices” will do justice to indigenous research. It makes the honouring of sacred knowledge into a set of lifeless techniques. Furthermore, merely cataloguing the methodologies of Plains Cree, Maori, and Métis scholars is an exercise in pan-indigenism, the same universalizing effort we see in positivism. Instead, as with aspiring allies’ selective engagement with indigenous epistemologies, we should inquire what aspects of these methodologies we can mobilize towards decolonization. Instead of protocols for research with indigenous peoples, the focus here in on protocols for aspiring allies learning within our own groups how to better engage in decolonization. Thus, we reverse our gaze from indigenous peoples back to ourselves, inquiring how we can improve our solidarity. Furthermore, our “research,” “inquiry,” or “learning” is inseparable from the actions we take as allies in decolonization. These are protocols for a knowing that is inseparable from doing.

Our first ethical protocol is to develop an understanding of mino bimaadiziwin for aspiring allies. As stated in the section on ontology, allies have much to gain in terms of social and ecological wellbeing and personal fulfillment from decolonizing, not to mention our moral obligation to our hosts on this land. Just as Smith sees indigenous research coming from and working for indigenous social movement, aspiring allies must mobilize to build our mino bimaadiziwin. Methodologically speaking, the struggle of allies in solidarity with water protectors at Standing Rock and Grassy Narrows, for example, is action-based research on decolonization. So are the Toronto-based struggles of groups like the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network that supports indigenous resistance to Canadian mining and No One Is Illegal that works for migrant justice on stolen land. This is where we can learn the lessons of how to be better allies, by taking practical steps towards building “the good” and treating the problems that arise as our textbook (EZLN, 2016: 176).

The second ethical protocol focuses this learning on autonomy and against false “reconciliation.” If we’re to avoid the self-serving measures of “colonial equivocation” – calling everything colonization and thereby making every resistance into decolonization – and “re-occupation” – forcing the rich to redistribute stolen wealth to poorer settlers, a la Occupy, instead of returning stolen land – (Tuck and Yang, 2012) it’s important to develop a strategic understanding of what exactly “the good” is and how allies can build it. What action should we take and what should we avoid? Glen Coulthard (2014), Taiaiake Alfred (2005; 2009), Eve Tuck (2012), and Leanne Simpson (2014; 2011) all critique the politics of reconciliation for its re-victimization, lack of popular engagement, and refusal to respect the original treaties and their limits. Of all the critiques, Coulthard’s book Red Skin, White Masks is the most extensive treatment of the subject, explaining how reconciliation is part of a broader “politics of recognition” in which the state tries to show it recognizes the existence and suffering of First Nations and accepts the validity of their cultures. Coulthard shows how this conveniently erases the heart of the matter: the ongoing dispossession of indigenous land and life. For aspiring allies, this critique shows us what “the good” is not: it’s not a display of good intentions and solemn rehashing of residential school terrorism that allows settler catharsis without affecting geopolitical power. Neither is it land claims negotiations that end in a more equitable distribution of profits from resource extraction, but still within the framework of private property.

After methodically making this critique of reconciliation and recognition, Coulthard then pivots towards ideas for action in his concluding chapter (2014: 151-180) with “Five Theses on Indigenous Resurgence and Decolonization.” While the theses are directed towards indigenous groups engaging in the sort of resurgence we see in Idle No More, the same suggestions can help aspiring allies as we consider what practical steps to take towards returning stolen land. They are: 1) taking direct action to impede extraction, 2) promoting alternatives to capitalism instead of profit-sharing, 3) fighting from the city against decolonization, 4) respecting and building indigenous women’s leadership, and 5) looking beyond solutions within the colonial legal system. It’s important to note that these strategic recommendations run parallel to those of Zapatista autonomy, as seen in their Sixth Declaration (2005) and textbooks on autonomous government (2013). Namely, when the Zapatistas rose up on January 1st, 1994 they decolonized and reclaimed the land of more than 500 plantations across the state of Chiapas. In the years since, they have developed agricultural, transportation, commercial, and financial cooperatives that are free from private profit. The Sixth Declaration seeks to connect the Zapatista’s rural autonomy with autonomous urban groups throughout the world, and women’s testimonies in their textbooks show the importance of female leadership in their struggle. Finally, none of the land reclaimed by the Zapatistas nor their autonomous education system has been recognized or legalized by the government: they exist totally outside colonial law.

It’s easy to romanticize the Zapatistas, especially given their astounding accomplishments. Yet their initiative to engage non-indigenous organizations through the Sixth Declaration shows aspiring allies that autonomy – building our capacity to work, eat, stay healthy, be housed, learn, and make decisions outside of colonial capitalist structures – can be our struggle too, so long as we mobilize these autonomous resources towards restoring indigenous land and life. By treating this strategic project as an ethical protocol, we are recognizing that action is an ethical priority and that this is the only way to learn decolonization.

Third, this action must be accompanied by reflexive, critical solidarity. The second protocol provided ideas for how to learn decolonization by taking specific actions, but we must always be wary of falling into self-serving pseudo-decolonization. The “back door” allowing an escape back into settler privilege is always there. Keeping the door closed demands critical reflexivity, which begins with listening. More than simple hearing, Lenkersdorf describes Tojolobal listening as a participatory act where one listens to their own heart and also opens herself to be “paired” in a social relationship with the other (2008). Beyond just consulting texts, such listening requires physical interaction, meaning aspiring allies must go beyond merely declaring our solidarity and humbly approach and build relationships with indigenous groups. Listening in this context is often profoundly “unsettling” for settlers (Dion, 2009: 177-190), as it upsets accepted notions and introduces cognitive dissonance by forcing settlers to reconsider our identities and social standing. Yet unsettling is also an opportunity to practice a “critical reflexivity” that questions deeply embedded ideologies (Brown and Strega, 2005: 7-10), removes this internalized colonialism from our hearts and actions, and builds an ethics of truth grounded in love (Denzin and Giardina, 2007: 10). This is a methodology that takes the risk of engagement to learn inner truths about being better allies. Building on this critical foundation, it’s possible to build a solidarity that avoids the superficial empathy and charity that Gaztambide-Fernandez critiques (2012) and is instead committed to praxis and structural change.

Fourth, we must engage and nourish the best of our own wisdom. I say this with a large caveat, understanding that a key tendency of cognitive imperialism is to constantly reassert the settler as referent (Alfred and Corntassel, 2005: 601), discursively displacing indigenous peoples. Given our commitment to critical methodologies for decolonization, I hope we do not lapse into this. Yet, given that allies should not appropriate the indigenous spirituality that forms the beating heart of their stories, we should keep alive our own stories of decolonization. There is a long history of allied groups who have fought to decolonize, sometimes problematically, but also in ways that inspire and teach aspiring allies today. We must learn the stories of these companions: their successes, their failures, their dreams, and their wisdom. We should not be so naïve as to believe ours is the first generation to engage in this process. Nor should we be so ignorant as to fail to learn from our past. Questioning while we walk, we must realize this path and its methodology have a long history. While the great majority of settler society has either actively or passively participated in colonization, and all have directly benefited from it, there are indeed some settlers and many migrants who have done better. With indigenous communities and their ways of knowing as our foremost guide, we should also look to each other for practical experience and wisdom.

Conclusion

My intention with this paper has been to outline a decolonial methodology for aspiring allies which learns from indigenous epistemologies while avoiding appropriation. This task is incomplete in many ways, above all because we can only learn decolonization by forming cohesive groups that do it. I began by acknowledging whose colonized land I am on and who exactly I seek to decolonize with. Through an exploration of our ontology, I describe who exactly this “we”-in-formation is. I also define key terms such as decolonization, settler, and ally. Next, I celebrate that indigenous epistemologies are an amazing source of guidance for us. After discussing some aspects of Anishnaabeg epistemology, I look at what this means for aspiring allies, including how the treaties, building community, and engaging critical Western theories can guide us now; how we must do a great deal of work before epistemologies of story and the land can guide us; and how indigenous spirituality and myth are epistemological guides for their particular nations and not for allies. Finally, I focus in on what this epistemological terrain means for a methodology of decolonization. Beginning with a critique of positivism and discussion of various indigenous methodologies, I then discuss how aspiring allies can learn to decolonize through building mino bimaadiziwin, lessening our own dependence on colonialism through autonomy, engaging in critical solidarity, and learning from the best of our wisdom. Throughout, I have emphasized that we must learn by doing and questioning while we walk. As such, I hope these reflections can be the first paddle-stroke in a lifelong journey down the river, parallel to our indigenous hosts, building a perpetual peace, respect, and friendship.

End notes

1. For this reason, while I will speak from my position as a settler throughout this paper, I recognize most migrants do not share all the privileges and power that settlers possess, and many immigrant alumni of the Mexico Solidarity Network would take issue with being lumped into this category. Nonetheless, both settlers and migrants are currently occupying stolen land, and we all have an obligation to decolonize. So I hope the decolonial methodology I propose is still applicable to this diverse, internally-conflicted grouping.
2. This last point is my interpretation of King’s refrain at the beginning of each chapter (2003), when an audience member asks what is underneath Turtle Island and King smiles and responds, “It’s turtles all the way down.”
3. I learned this through a conversation with Dr. Jennifer Wemigwans on October 24, 2016. Portions of the Mohwak, Mi’kmaq, Ojibwe, Cree, and Blackfoot creation stories, as told by Elders, can be found at http://www.fourdirectionsteachings.com.
4. This description draws from the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign (www.honorthetworow.org), the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (www.akwesasne.ca) and Parmenter (2013).
5. The example of the mask comes from comments made by Dr. Jennifer Wemigwans on November 28, 2016.
6. See naadmaagitki.wordpress.com
7. See “’Toronto’ is an Iroquois Word” at dragonflycanada.ca/toronto-is-an-iroquois-word
8. For example, York graduate Louise Grenier (1998) makes the case for why “development-intervention professionals” (p.viii) should seek out indigenous knowledge to improve their projects. She opens with an anecdote about how indigenous palm oil harvesting techniques allowed an NGO in Belize to succeed after 25 other government projects had failed. Considering the massive dispossession of indigenous land across Central America for palm oil production over the past twenty years, it’s clear how her good intentions culminate.

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