A Turn to Where We Already Were? Settler Inquiry, Indigenous Philosophy, and the Ontological Turn

• In Event: What Methods Do: New Materialisms and the Consequences of Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

Objectives
This paper has three core objectives. First, it will engage Indigenous philosophical perspectives of ontology, knowing, and being. Then, it will outline several discussions on what comprises the ontological turn, and its significance for social inquiry, methods, and educational research. Finally, it will draw comparisons between Indigenous philosophical perspectives on ontology, and the underlying ontological theories of pragmatist approaches, as they speak to qualitative educational research.

Theoretical frameworks
This paper combines Deluzian (2004) and Delorian (1999) constructions of power and resources to articulate theories of ontology and social change that might animate alternate, emerging purposes of social inquiry. These theoretical constructions offer analyses and descriptions of power that depart from the colonial interpretations of power and change that are most commonly found in educational research (Tuck & Yang, forthcoming). These two diverse theoretical frameworks prompt an alternative understanding of ethics, scope, and purposes of social inquiry and educational research.

Modes of inquiry and materials
This paper will engage the writings of three different non-mutually-exclusive groups: Indigenous philosophers, social inquiry methodologists, and pragmatist philosophers. By bringing these writings side by side, the paper seeks to point to important differences in the very conceptualizations of ontology, but also the missed opportunities and barriers to meaningful dialog. The presentation will share portions of the writings with the audience in order to trace the pathways of variously constructed ontological turns.

Arguments
This paper will argue that Indigenous philosophy has long engaged the “new” approach referred to as the ontological turn. Though this is often true of trends in research and knowledge production—that they “discover” something that Indigenous peoples have known for a long time—the goal of this paper is not to stop at that observation. Instead, the paper will focus on the sites of possibility and productive tensions between Indigenous theorizings of ontology, knowing/being, cosmomology-axiology, and pragmatist renderings of the ontological turn.

Significance
Because social science and social inquiry disciplines have historically emerged from problematic colonial origins, it is important for reflexive educational researchers to assess the role of academic research and publication in maintaining settler colonialism and other forms of racialized oppression. Seeking points of collaboration and incommensurability between Indigenous philosophical traditions and new trends in qualitative and post-qualitative research is a meaningful practice of ethical reflection and engagement.

Author

• Eve Tuck, SUNY - College at New Paltz