#Linda Tuhiwai Smith

[protoslacker]

Colonialism hasn’t destroyed us entirely, but we’ve got to find our Indigenous knowledges, our Indigenous cultures. That is what ultimately reimagines our humanity, rather than the project of dismantling colonialism. Actually, I did a lecture about this in London in 2019. I was talking to all these English people and I asked, if you dismantle colonialism in the English university, what will be left? What will actually be left of the university? And everyone looked at me surprised, and I said that I’m asking a serious question: If you dismantle colonialism, will you have anything left? Your world is built entirely on it. But if you ask us, if you dismantle colonialism, what will be left or what will replace it, we know exactly! Indigenous people have this culture, have this knowledge, and have ways of doing things. And it is the same around the world: there are other ways of imagining ourselves. And that is really important when we think about the contribution that Indigenous people and indigeneity can bring.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith in conversation with Bhakti Shringarpure in The Los Angeles Review of Books. Decolonizing Education: A Conversation with Linda Tuhiwai Smith

There are lots of videos of Linda Tuhiwai Smith online. She's quite engaging to listen to. This interview captures that quality. She is a rangatira.

[finalgirlfall]

There was a consciousness expressed in some [travel] accounts of the 'need' to record what was seen in the interests of expanding knowledge and of the need to write things down before too many changes occurred to the peoples being observed.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith, "Chapter 4: Research Adventures on Indigenous Lands," in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 3rd ed. (London: Zed Books, 2021), 92.

[wurenjieting]

Research ‘through imperial eyes’ describes an approach which assumes that Western ideas about the most fundamental things are the only ideas possible to hold, certainly the only rational ideas, and the only ideas which can make sense of the world, of reality, of social life and of human beings. It is an approach to Indigenous peoples which still conveys a sense of innate superiority and an overabundance of desire to bring progress into the lives of Indigenous peoples – spiritually, intellectually, socially and economically. It is research which from Indigenous perspectives ‘steals’ knowledge from others and then uses it to benefit the people who ‘stole’ it. Some Indigenous and minority group researchers would call this approach simply racist. It is research which is imbued with an ‘attitude’ and a ‘spirit’ which assumes a certain ownership of the entire world, and which has established systems and forms of governance which embed that attitude in institutional practices. These practices determine what counts as legitimate research and who count as legitimate researchers. Before assuming that such an attitude has long since disappeared, it is often worth reflecting on who would make such a claim, researchers or Indigenous peoples? A recent attempt (fortunately unsuccessful) to patent an Indigenous person in the New Guinea Highlands might suggest that there are many groups of Indigenous peoples who are still without protection when it comes to the activities of research. Although in this particular case the attempt was unsuccessful, what it demonstrated yet again is that there are people out there who in the name of science and progress still consider Indigenous peoples as specimens, not as humans.

—— Linda Tuhiwai Smith, "Research through Imperial Eyes", Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

[identitty-dickruption]

book recommendations masterlist

disability books

Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer

Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice by Michael Oliver

The Right To Maim by J.K Puar

Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited by Tom Shakespeare

Crip Negativity by J. Logan Smilges

Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr

The Disability Studies Reader, 4th edition edited by L.J Davis

The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability by Susan Wendell

other non-fiction

Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighbourhood by Iddo Tavory

State of Subsistence: The Politics of Bread in Contemporary Jordan by Jose Martinez

Abductive Analysis by Tavory and Timmermans

Among Wolves: Ethnography and the Immersive Study of Power by Timothy Pachirat

Decolonising Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith

fiction

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde

Outside Looking In by C.T Boyle

We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman

Higher Education by Kira McPherson

[librarycards]

Hello! Your posts are very enlightening and I'm inspired by how much you read. Might be a weird question and I'm sorry if it is but do you have any good book recommendations for a USAmerican trying to expand their worldview? I.e., histories of other countries/global regions, imperialism, etc.

i have some, but also recommend looking through @metamatar / @fatehbaz / @lafemmemacabre / @killy / @sawasawako / @handweavers (these are the mutuals that stand out to me but just the tip of the iceberg) &other blogs that have a more robust collection of resources –– i have learned a lot from them over the years!

that said, here are some books and authors whose oeuvres/at least multiple books i strongly recommend. different genres, and i'm not delineating between them as i am ideologically opposed to Doing That/creating epistemic hierarchies. obviously, that is particularly true given the nature of this ask. but it should be pretty clear what is considered a standard 'political/historical nonfiction' book and what...isn't!

authors:

Lisa Lowe

Jasbir Puar

Laila Lalami

Sara Ahmed

Trinh T. Minh-ha

Jamaica Kincaid

b. binaohan

Larissa Lai

Edwidge Danticat

Harsha Walia

Bhanu Kapil

books:

Atef Abu Saif, The Drone Eats With Me: A Gaza Diary

Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

Pankaj Mishra, Bland Fanatics: Liberals, the West, and the Afterlives of Empire

Leila Khaled, My People Shall Live

Susan Williams, White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa

Minae Mizumura, The Fall of Language in the Age of English

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Not a Nation of Immigrants

Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother

Mimi Sheller, Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes

Marwa Helal, Ante Body

Aviva Chomsky, Central America's Forgotten History (NB: forgotten by usamericans, that is)

Raja Shehadeh, Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape

Moraga, Anzaldúa, and Bambara, eds., This Bridge Called My Back

Poupeh Missaghi, trans(re)lating house one

Marisol de la Cadena, Earth Beings

Kathryn Joyce, The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption

Bonaventure Soh Beje Ndikung, Pidginization as Curatorial Method: Messing with Languages and Praxes of Curating

Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

again, this appears as a long list, but is truly just a taste of what's out there. i hope it helps!

[carbon-cyanide]

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

I spent the day catching up with family, spending time with my dogs, and reading some foundational texts in Indigenous studies. Here is a short list of some wonderful Indigenous scholars & activists to read on this & every day!

• Trask, Haunani-Kay. From a Native Daughter : Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi. Rev. ed., University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1999, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824847029.

• Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass : Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. First edition., Milkweed Editions, 2013.

• Osorio, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani. Remembering Our Intimacies : Moʻolelo, Aloha ʻāina, and Ea. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021.

• Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies : Research and Indigenous Peoples. Second edition, Zed Books, 2012.

• Walter, Maggie, et al., editors. Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Policy. Routledge, 2021, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429273957.

• Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization : Indigeneity, Education & Society, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–40.

• Whyte, Kyle. “Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene.” English Language Notes, vol. 55, no. 1–2, 2017, pp. 153–62, https://doi.org/10.1215/00138282-55.1-2.153.

• TallBear, Kimberly. Native American DNA : Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

[slowtides]

Reading List for 2023

I have settled on my reading list for the year and my reading goal. The books below encompass the books I will choose from (I don't expect to finish all of them). My goal is to read 52 books this year, not including JAFF. I will probably return to this list several times just to discuss how it is going.

Nonfiction

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein (2014)

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde (1982)

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis de Veaux (2006)

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2007)

Blue Nights by Joan Didion (2011)

Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (2021)

A House of My Own: Stories from My Life by Sandra Cisneros (2015)

A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story by Elaine Brown (1992)

Some of Us Did Not Die by June Jordan (2002)

On Call: Political Essays by June Jordan (1998)

The Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sara Ahmed (2004)

Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver (2016)

Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas (2004)

The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eger (2017)

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021)

Ohitika Woman by Mary Brave Bird (1994)

And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos by John Berger (1991)

Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through by T Fleischmann (2019)

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman (1998)

The Care Manifesto by The Care Collective (2020)

Dancing at the Edge of the World by Ursula K. Le Guin (1997)

Fiction

A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion (1977)

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami (2014)

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (2019)

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante (2013)

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (2014)

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante (2015)

The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante (2008)

The Bone People by Keri Hulme (1986)

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2006)

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814)

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1817)

Atonement by Ian McEwan (2003)

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (2021)

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (2021)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien (1955)

Babel by R.F. Kuang (2022)

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz (2020)

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (2018)

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (2013)

Poetry

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong (2022)

Blue Iris: Poems and Essays by Mary Oliver (2006)

Work

The Hidden Inequities of Labor-Based Contract Grading by Ellen Carillo (2021)

Queer Silence: On Disability and Rhetorical Absence by J. Logan Smilges (2022)

Our Body of Work ed. by Melissa Nicolas and Anna Sicari (2022)

Teachers as Cultural Workers by Paulo Freire (2005)

Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed (2017)

The Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sara Ahmed (2004)

The Vulnerable Observer by Ruth Behar (1997)

Getting Lost by Patti Lather (2007)

Race, Rhetoric, and Research Methods by Alexandria Lockett, Iris D. Ruiz , James Chase Sanchez, and Christopher Carter (2021)

Opening Spaces by Patricia Sullivan and James Porter (1997)

Decolonizing Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021)

Counterstory by Aja Y. Martinez (2020)

The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer (2017)

We Make the Road by Walking by Paulo Freire and Myles Horton

Writing with Power by Peter Elbow (1998)

Writing without Teachers by Peter Elbow (1998)

The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop by Felicia Chavez (2021)

[words-and-coffee]

link to the first poll

[thedigital-witnesses]

Examples of decolonial research methodologies - Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s 25 Indigenous projects:

Claiming

“They teach both the non-indigenous audience and the new generations of Indigenous peoples an official account of their collective story” (p. 144)

Testimonies

“Indigenous testimonies are a way of talking about an extremely painful event or series of events” (p. 144)

Storytelling

“These new stories contribute to a collective story in which every Indigenous person has a place” (p. 144)

Celebrating Survival

“Celebrating survival accentuates not so much our demise but the degree to which Indigenous peoples and communities have successfully retained cultural and spiritual values and authenticity” (p. 145)

Remembering

“Both healing and transformation become crucial strategies in any approach which asks a community to remember what they may have decided unconsciously or consciously to forget” (p. 146)

Indigenizing

“The term centres a politics of Indigenous identity and indigenous cultural action” (p. 146)

Intervening

“Intervening takes action research to mean literally the process of being proactive and of becoming involved as an interested working for change” (p. 147)

Revitalizing

“Indigenous languages, their arts and their cultural practices are in various states of crisis” (p. 147)

Connecting

“Connecting is related to issues of identity and place, to spiritual relationships and community well-being” (p. 149)

Reading

“Critical rereading of Western History and the Indigenous presence in the making of that history has taken on a different impetus from what was once a school curriculum designed to assimilate Indigenous children” (p. 149)

Writing

“Biographies and autobiographies including those which are accounts ‘told to a non-Indigenous person’, are sought after by a new reading audience of Indigenous people” (p. 150)

Representing

“Indigenous communities have struggled since colonization to be able to exercise what is viewed as a fundamental right, that is to represent ourselves” (p. 150)

Gendering

“Gendering Indigenous debates…is concerned with issues related to the relations between Indigenous men and women” (p. 151)

Envisioning

“The confidence of knowing that we have survived and can only go forward provides some impetus to a process of envisioning” (p. 152)

Reframing

“Reframing is about taking much greater control over the ways in which Indigenous issues and social problems are discussed and handled” (p. 153)

Restoring

“Indigenous peoples across the world have disproportionately high rates of imprisonment, suicide and alcoholism” (p. 155)

Returning

“This project intersects with that of claiming. It involves the returning of lands, rivers, and mountains to their Indigenous owners” (p. 155).

Democratizing

“Democratizing in Indigenous terms is a process of extending participation outwards through reinstating principles of collectivity and public debates” (p. 156)

Networking

“Networking a process which Indigenous peoples have used effectively to build relationships and disseminate knowledge and information” (p. 157)

Naming

“This means renaming the world using the original Indigenous names” (p. 157)

Protecting

“This project is…concerned with protecting peoples, communities, languages, customs and beliefs, art ideas, natural resources and the things Indigenous peoples produce” (p. 158)

Creating

“The project of creating is about transcending the basic survival mode through using a resource or capability which every Indigenous community has retained throughout colonization – the ability to create and be creative” (p. 158)

Negotiating

“Negotiating is about thinking and acting strategically…the continued faith in the process of negotiating is about retaining a faith in the humanity of Indigenous beliefs, values and customary practices” (p. 160)

Discovering

“This project is about discovering Western science and technology and making science work for Indigenous development” (p. 160)

Sharing

“The final project discussed here is about sharing knowledge between Indigenous peoples, around networks and across the world of Indigenous peoples” (p. 160).

[finalgirlfall]

School knowledge systems, however, were informed by a much more comprehensive system of knowledge which linked universities, scholarly societies and imperial views of culture. Hierarchies of knowledge and theories which had rapidly developed to account for the discoveries of the new world were legitimated at the centre. Schools simply reproduced domesticated versions of that knowledge for uncritical consumption. Although colonial universities saw themselves as being part of an international community and inheritors of a legacy of Western knowledge, they were also part of the historical processes of imperialism. They were established as an essential part of the colonizing process, a bastion of civilization and a sign that a colony and its settlers had 'grown up'. Attempts to 'indigenize' colonial academic institutions and/or individual institutions within them have been fraught with major struggles over what counts as knowledge, as language, as literature, as curriculum and as the role of intellectuals, and over the critical function of the concept of academic freedom.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith, "Chapter 3: Colonizing Knowledges," in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 3rd ed. (London: Zed Books, 2021), 74.

[asg-stuff]

Without a conscious self-reflecting effort about your purpose and its relation to your positionality, it becomes really easy to fall into the hurtful “savior practices” of postcolonial researchers described by Linda Tuhiwai Smith. (via DECOLONIZING MYSELF: A journey to finding my own voice as an educational researcher. | Linkedin)

[wurenjieting]

Western classifications of space include such notions as architectural space, physical space, psychological space, theoretical space and so forth. Foucault’s metaphor of the cultural archive is an architectural image. The archive not only contains artefacts of culture, but is itself an artefact and a construct of culture. For the Indigenous world, Western conceptions of space, of arrangements and display, of the relationship between people and the landscape, of culture as an object of study, have meant that not only has the Indigenous world been represented in particular ways back to the West, but the Indigenous world view, the land and the people, have been radically transformed in the spatial image of the West.

—— Linda Tuhiwai Smith, "Research through Imperial Eyes", Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

[hussyknee]

Hi so because this post is ten years old none of the links work except the Hula Hands article. So I tracked them down and added them to my gdrive of decolonial academia.

The following are available in the Red Power folder:

Daniel M. Cobb (2016) Native Peoples of North America, The Teaching Company

Dina Gilio-Whitaker (2020) As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, Beacon Press

Glen Sean Coulthard (2014) Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, University of Minnesota Press

Jessica Hernandez (2022) Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science, North Atlantic Books

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (2017) As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance, University of Minnesota Press

Leonard Peltier (1999) Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance, St. Martin's Publishing Group

Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Zed Books

Mary Crow Dog (1991) Lakota Woman, Harper Perennial

Nancy J. Turner (2014) Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples, McGill-Queen's University Press

Nick Estes (2019) Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, Verso Books

Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013) Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Milkweed Editions

Robin Wall Kimmerer (2001) Gathering Moss; A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, Milkweed Editions

The Red Nation (2021) The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth, Common Notions

Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Sanna and Jarno Valkonen (eds) (2018) Knowing from the Indigenous North: Sámi Approaches to History, Politics and Belonging, Routledge

Vine Deloria Jr. (1988) Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, University of Oklahoma Press

Vine Deloria Jr. (1973) God Is Red: A Native View Of Religion, Fulcrum Publishing

Vine Deloria Jr. (1997) Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact, Fulcrum Publishing

Winona LaDuke (1999) All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life, South End Press

Sub-folder Red History:

Troy R. Johnson, (2007) Red Power: The Native American Civil Rights Movement (Landmark Events in Native American History), Chelsea House Pub

David Treuer (2019) The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, Little, Brown Book Group

Dee Brown (2017) The Native American Experience (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee; Fetterman Massacre; Creek Mary’s Blood), Open Road Media

Dennis Banks, Richard Erdoes (2005) Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks And The Rise Of The American Indian Movement, University of Oklahoma Press

K. Tsianina Lomawaima (1995) They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School, University of Nebraska Press

Patrick Wolfe (1999) Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology; The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell

Peter Matthiessen (1992) In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: The Story of Leonard Peltier and FBI's War on the American Indian Movement, Penguin Books

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (2014) An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States, Beacon Press

Sarah Alisabeth Fox (2014) Downwind: A Peoples History of the Nuclear West, University of Nebraska Press

Ward Churchill (1997) A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present, City Lights Books

Ward Churchill, Jim Vander Wall (1988) Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, South End Press

Articles and Zines:

Colonization and Decolonization: A Manual for Indigenous Liberation in the 21st Century, Warrior Publications (zine)

Headdress (2010) (zine)

Sherman Alexie (1993) Indian Education (short story)

Native American Struggles: Leonard Peltier and Norma Jean Croy, Social Justice Vol. 20, No. 1-2, Rethinking Race (Spring-Summer 1993), pp 172–175

Conger Beasley Jr. (1998) Looking for Leonard Peltier, North American Review, Vol. 283, pg 64–71

Andrea Smith (2003) Not an Indian Tradition: The Sexual Colonization of Native Peoples, Hypatia, Vol. 18, No. 2, Indigenous Women in the Americas, pp 70–85

Patrick Wolfe (2006) Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native, Journal of Genocide Research, 8:4, 387–409

Troy R. Johnson (2009) Red Power and the American Indian Movement: Different Times, Different Places, Reviews in American History, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp 420–425

Danielle Endres (2011) American Indian Activism and Audience: Rhetorical Analysis of Leonard Peltier's Response to Denial of Clemency, Communication Reports, 24:1, pg 1–11

There are essential decolonial texts in the Decolonization folder, so look through them as well. I haven't read Guillaume Blanc and Hamza Hamouchene's books on Green Colonialism myself but the subject is a fascinating look at the ties between environmentalism and white supremacy and how Landback is tied to climate justice.

You can find The Schumacher Lectures here and buy The Ice Is Melting by Oren Lyons for USD 0.99.

As always, do try and support the authors if you have the resources to do so.

NATIVES READ TOO

NATIVES READ TOO

Browsing the internet, found some free PDFs to read:

Not an Indian Tradition: The Sexual Colonization of Native Peoples by Andrea Smith (article)«li

All Our Relations Native Struggles: Land and Life by Winona LaDuke

Lakote Woman by Mary Crow Dog

Lovely Hula Hands by Haunani Kay-Trask

Custer Died for Your Sins- An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria, Jr.

God Is Red: A Native View of Religion by Vine Deloria, Jr.

The Case of Leonard Peltier by Arthur J. Miller and Pio Celestino (zine)

Cultural Appropriation or Cultural Appreciation? (zine) 

Headdress (a small zine on native appropriation)

Colonization and Decolonization: A Manual for Indigenous Liberation in the 21st Century (zine)

Indian Education by Sherman Alexie

You have here, writings that detail Indigenous topics covering or in the style of: manifestos, creative writings, political, cultural, “feminist”, environment/ecosystems, and Natural Law. 

Enjoy the readings!

[identitty-dickruption]

ooooh can you elaborate on how the concept of objectivity and truth are rooted in colonialism and imperial structures

I sure can!

okay so first thing to say is that everything I'm about to say has been said better and fancier by Linda Tuhiwai-Smith in her book Decolonising Methodologies. second thing to say is that I am from the school of interpretivism in political science (similar to constructivism in sociology), and we are constantly ridiculed for hating science. third thing to say is that I do not actually hate science

now for the big caveat: I respect science. it can have a lot to offer the world. as a disabled person, I fully understand that I would be dead without science and that science allows me to get cool surgeries etc etc

alright. now for my answer. it comes to you in three parts, because there is a lot of explaining I have to do before I can really get to the root of the matter

'objectivity' is meaningless

the first thing you have to understand is that nothing is free from human interpretation. we understand the world through the language we have for various phenomena that we might view internally or externally from ourselves. the classic example of this is colour, right? colour is 'real', in the sense that there are different light wavelengths that interact with our eyes in certain ways. but it's also 'not real', in that every person on the planet has a different definition of what counts under each colour category. my blue is not your blue. this gets more complex when you consider that some languages have a higher or lower number of colour words than others

if things are that complex when it comes to something like colour, you can bet it gets a lot worse when you're talking about topics that are even more complicated and politically contentious. this is where science comes in

what counts as 'knowledge'?

what is 'scientific'?

what does it mean for something to be 'true'?

there are no objective answers to any of these questions. and I don't think that's a bad thing. the issue here is the insistence that, with enough time and energy, objectivity can be achieved and everything will eventually be able to be Known

enforcing objectivity is oppressive

the illusion of objectivity is a tool to cover up underlying ideologies at the root of scientific institutions. here's the logic we're all taught

if something is objective, that means it is inarguably true

if something is true, that means it is apolitical

if something is apolitical, acting upon that information is neutral and harmless

in these discussions, people often bring up certain parts of scientific study as if they are things of the past. "people used to think race science was the objective truth!" bitch, they still do. "science was once used to justify eugenics" bitch, it still is. when 'objectivity' is treated as the opposite of 'political', powerful institutions are able to justify their pre-existing political commitments through the lens of 'science'. that does not mean that there are no possible truths at the heart of what they are studying. BUT all truth is seen through the lens of human interpretation, and all human interpretation is through the lens of culturally and politically contingent factors

"scientists may have isolated the gay gene" is not a politically neutral statement. it is a statement that expresses the following beliefs:

being gay is deviant from normal human development

the distinction between 'gay' and 'not gay' is 100% natural, as opposed to a specific way some humans have chosen to organise categories of sexual attraction

once a scientific cause is found for homosexuality, it would be possible (and possibly good!) to then eradicate homosexuality in part or in full

genetics is an interesting one, because the entire establishment of it as a field of study is rooted in eugenics. I refer back to race science. I refer back to the on-going fixation with breaking down race into genetically identifiable categories. anyone who has ever done a 23&me genetic test for racial identification purposes has, to some degree, bought into the concept of race science and the concept of race as an objective truth. when we believe that race is a scientific phenomenon rather than a cultural/social one, we also believe the lies of white supremacy

I also urge you to ponder: isn't it such a wonderful coincidence that the centre of all objectively true knowledge production just coincidentally happened to be Europe? weren't the European peoples so so blessed when the lord handed them down the concept of the scientific method? <- not saying the scientific method is bullshit, but I do encourage you to think about what ideologies these narratives reinforce

objective science was a tool of colonialism, and continues to act as such

the various ways we imagine different First Nations people around the world is often in relation to their position in knowledge production. think about the noble savage, who is untouched by the horrors of 'humanity', and yet has access to some secret mystical knowledges. think also about the role of the white missionary, who beneficently brings knowledge and truth to the unaware colonised peoples

'The Academy', as a colonial institution, acted (and continues to act) as the white missionary. they bring colonised peoples the gift of Truth, as if those peoples had never encountered knowledge or knowledge production before. when a Proper Scientist discovers that a particular group of First Nations people had their own scientific methods, it is always reported back to the white world in a surprised + condescending tone. look! it turns out that Australian First Nations art isn't meaningless and it actually tends to be a tool of passing down knowledge in these communities! isn't that so beautiful for them! even as First Nations knowledges are starting to be introduced in university settings, they are introduced from the viewpoint of white knowledge

because we hold up objective science as the One True Goal Of All Knowledge, we are unable to put multiple sciences side-by-side, and see them as equal bases for knowledge production. instead, we continue to try and find white reasons for First Nations truths. because we pretend that it is possible to see Truth without first seeing our own interpretations of truth, we enforce and reinforce colonial knowledges. these issues cannot be encountered properly if we refuse to see science itself as contestable

okay I'm done now

yeah that's kind of the best way I could think of to explain it all. I am so sorry that it ended up so long, and that I meandered in so many different directions. I hope it all makes sense :)

[scentedchildnacho]

INQ13 | Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Eve Tuck - "Decolonizing Methodologies"

[go-bac]

Critical Question :Decolonizing Methodologies

           While reading the article Decolonizing Methodologies paper by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, I was reminded of the mosquito nets incident in African villages. She spoke about instances when foreigners have entered, encountered, or infiltrated indigenous communities, along with the negative impacts that have risen from these encounters. The negative encounters arose because the outsiders did not research the culture before engaging with the community. The colonizers often weren't interested in the indigenous people's history or culture to best help them.  

           I am reminded of an article from the New York Times that enlightened the world about Bill Gates giving malaria mosquito nets to villagers in African countries. The act was a good deed to stop the villagers from being bitten by mosquitos. The problem was that the villagers were accustomed to sleeping without the nets and had become accepting of the mosquito bites. 

           The villagers decided to use the nets for fishing instead of protection from the mosquitos. The nets would not have been a problem except for the fact that the nets had been sprayed with mosquito repellent. Therefore, each time the nets were thrown into the water, the water became contaminated with mosquito pesticides. Not only did this change the ecology of the fishing waters, but it also changed the water the villagers had to consume. 

           Looking back on the issue, Gates and scientists realized they were not helping to stop the problem of malaria deaths; instead, they were contaminating the water sources, the fishing ecology, and the food supply. 

           By not realizing that fishing nets were expensive and that a person with no income would use the nets to make income instead of protecting themselves from mosquitos, they actually harmed the villagers, the water, and the fishing ecosystem.

           After these circumstances were made public, Gates and other foundations stopped providing mosquito nets to these villagers; however, the damage had already been done.

           This story is an example of what happens when outsiders don't survey or assess the community's needs before deciding or providing what they believe is a resolution to the communities’ problem. It is essential to understand the culture of a community before offering what an outsider believes to be the best solution.