Humility as the Researcher’s Stance When Studying With Indigenous People: An Auto-Ethnography

• In Event: Roundtable Session 99
  In Roundtable Session: Which River Metaphor Is Yours: Culturally Responsive and Socially Responsible Methodologies

Abstract

My mistake is to try to essentialize the river. In the act of trying to hold it, capture it, and name its elements, I soon realize that it has many forms. The river is at times still and other times raging. It is quiet and loud, wet and dry, calming and threatening, and frozen and fluid. It seems without effort to “go with the flow,” running down the path of least resistance but also has seemingly intentionality as it drives its way to a lake or ocean. It is accepting and collaborative as it collects and welcomes new tributaries but also determined as it cuts new paths and penetrates the landscape. It works in service to humanity as it transports our goods while at the same time resisting domestication when it grows full and floods the adjacent land. It has transformative power as some of it evaporates into the sky and ultimately returns as rain and snow on the mountaintops, reinvigorating he cycle of nature and life. And after this long stream of words, I humbly bow to the greatness of the river and know there is much more to learn from it. I sit on its banks awaiting my lessons.
Humility is a “self-less commitment to the service of man…” (Silvade, 1979, p.10). In Zen Buddhism, the highest level of enlightenment is the ultimate state of selflessness (Eppert & Wang, 2008). In this paper (a) I share my discoveries about humility and authoethnography, rarely explored areas of qualitative research; and (b) I illuminate how the diversity of human experiences shape and influence one’s research. This research occurs over a two month period in New Zealand when I, with other Maori researchers, interviewed high school teachers in a national school reform project targeting Maori achievement. Using post colonial theory and decolonizing research frames, I reveal in narrative, the challenges and the opportunities of bringing humility to the act of research through “participatory consciousness” (Bishop, 2005, 116; Heshusius, 1994, p. 15) when studying with Indigenous people.

Author

• Suzanne SooHoo, Chapman University