T’áá anni dóó na’nitin náánádleeh (The Truth Becomes a Teaching): Toward a Feminine Praxis of Beauty in Diné Research

• In Event: T’aała’i Diidleeł (We Become One): Toward a Collective and Ceremonial Praxis of Indigenous Decolonizing Scholarship

Abstract

(1) Diné traditional educational models offer a restorative way to assess, evaluate, and make decisions that are ceremonially and genealogically centered. They have pragmatic implications at every phase of education and life that continue to retain relevance to this day, as Diné people seek happiness and a long life. As a result, renewed attention has been given toward how the material practice of Diné scholarship can harvest life sustaining pedagogies and methodologies rooted in reciprocity, kinship, community, and place. This paper is an attempt to describe how a Diné learning modality, tadídíín (corn pollen), reveals an animate, embodied, and critical feminine cultural lens in which to critique the nature of learning and research within higher education settings. (2) This paper will use specific Diné cultural referents, in addition to tadídíín (corn pollen), as well as the dialogical experience of this collective of researchers, to reap a feminine perspective of this study. (3) Methodologically, the author utilizes an interpretive approach predicated on Diné cultural mores, otherwise known as Hózhó náházdlíí (the pursuit of happiness). Hózhó náházdlíí, also referenced as “Beautyway,” “Beautyway Pathway,” “Corn Pollen Pathway,” and Hózhóǫji (Blessingway), is the epistemological touchstone of Diné society. Implicit in this holistic research paradigm is a corresponding language of love, harmony, prosperity, happiness, beauty, blessedness and balance, all of which are intrinsically linked to an intuitive Diné understanding of human wellness and existence. Emerson (2003) further describes this as a circular, heterarchal, spiritual, and culturally oriented framework that steers the researcher toward a research process and outcome that remains in accord with Hózhó (harmony). (4) At the time of this submission, this panelist will draw from her ongoing five year collective engagement with student participants of the graduate American Indian Studies seminar course, “Indigenous Learning and Decolonizing Methodologies,” and describe how this song, dance, and ceremonially infused journey has reshaped her dissertation story, process, and outcome. (5) With the ongoing creation of Diné culture, there is an unending need to continue to create new songs and new prayers, and new ways of perceiving our worldview as projecting unequivocal solutions to challenging conditions belonging to the present time, with particular regard to the realm of education. Mik’maq educator Marie Battiste (2002) illuminates this point as she has noted the “fatal abeyance” of Indigenous knowledge in educational systems, processes, policies and practices. Hence, throughout this study, the author builds upon the latticework of other scholars in conceptualizing and understanding the lived, and often dichotomizing, research experiences of Indigenous students in university environments.(6) Blackfoot scholar, Nimachia Hernandez, counsels us that institutions of higher education often understate the power that distinct cultural values have in complementing the holistic development of Indigenous students; while the vast circulating discourses on the success of Indigenous students fails to document how these foundational philosophies form the undercurrent to not only institutional, but cultural survival. Therefore, this paper is a response to a resounding call for new translations of long standing cultural practices as a Diné decolonizing inroad to indigenizing higher education.

Author

• Charlotte Davidson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign