Nature–Culture Relations in the Launch of Learning Environments: What Does Analysis Look Like From an Indigenous Standpoint?

• In Event: 33.060 - Dynamics of Nature–Culture Relations in Learning in Informal Environments

Abstract

Objective
Indigenous Methodologies has solidified as a field highlighting “theories of performance, pedagogy, and interpretive practice” while emphasizing “theories of power, truth, ethics, and social justice” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008). Indigenous scholars are leading the way in terms of privileging Indigenous knowledges, voices, and experiences while disrupting Western epistemologies and methodologies (Smith, 2005). The space has been carefully prepared for us to imagine how to engage in the specific steps to research in a way that is building from and developing Indigenous knowledge systems. Our aim in writing this paper is to utilize the process of Cedar rope cording in order to conceptualize the process of analysis from an Indigenous standpoint.

Theoretical Framework
Our conceptual map for imagining the process of analysis is situated in acknowledging our Indigenous standpoints using Indigenous Standpoint Theory (Nakata, 2008). Indigenous children are often tasked with participating in social worlds that are imbued with meaning and grounded in knowledges that are not their own. Utilizing Indigenous standpoint theory is significant in these spaces as it is in these everyday moments that we “shape how we can speak of ourselves and of each other, how we understand one another and the ongoing relations between us, and how we describe and represent our ‘lived realities’ (Nakata, 2008). It is through everyday micro-practice and teaching moments that we aim to challenge and transform our structures of institutional practice (Mignolo, 2007; Nakata, 2008).

Methods
Research protocols are often based in Eurocentric assumptions about what counts as knowledge and about the right way to go about gathering or creating knowledge. When approaching Indigenous research, or more specifically the analysis process, there is importance in selecting, interpreting, and depicting the data utilizing Indigenous methodologies. We will use the process of making Cedar Rope Cord as metaphor for how one can understand analysis from an Indigenous standpoint.

Data
Data include audio and video recordings, field notes, and transcripts collected through two implementations of a culturally based summer camp focused on art and science. Participant populations include youth participants between the ages of 6-16 and elder (or knowledge keeper) participants. Elder participants provided instruction on how to make Cedar rope cord. Instructional practices included traditional oral storytelling and hands-on learning with a specific emphasis on traditional values of respect, reciprocity, and gratitude.

Results
The study’s analysis provides examples of how indigenous youth and elders conceptualize the metaphor (of Cedar rope cording) in relation to Indigenous cultural values. This has provided us with ways to think about how our plant relations, cultural stories, and local cultural values can aid in conceptualizing analysis from an Indigenous standpoint.

Scholarly Significance
Indigenous scholarship as a field has provided a foundation for how to approach Indigenous research at large. Using metaphor, oral stories, and multiple voices this paper provides a way of thinking about the process of analysis specifically. This paper contributes to the Indigenous Methodologies literature by providing a making activity from the Coast Salish peoples as a metaphor for how to conceptualize research analysis.

Author

• Emma Elliott, University of Washington - Seattle