Relationality as Resistance: Indigenous Pedagogies as Subverting Individualism and Neoliberalism

• In Event: 35.051 - Exploring Pedagogies of Resistance: Auto-Ethnographies on Initiatives to Promote Activism

Abstract

Enacting Indigenous notions of relatedness within mainstream, educational settings is a pedagogy of resistance. The imposition of competitive individualism by the dominant culture so as to further the industrialization and corporatization of educational and societal settings is in opposition to relatedness. The objective of my paper is to document how my pedagogy of relatedness promotes students’ subversion of individualism and neo-liberalism in everyday life within contemporary US. In many cases it leads students to disseminate a philosophy of relatedness within their larger communities, thus facilitating activism within and beyond Indigenous spaces. Theoretically, I am influenced by the thinking of Native/Indigenous peoples (see Smith et al. 2019 for examples of such thought). My work is unique in that I teach relationality and implement a pedagogy of relatedness even among non-indigenous peoples, and despite push back from some quarters, I also witness a positive response from many non-Native students who begin to use relationality as their mode of being and sometimes of changing the world. A piece of writing on such a phenomenon is definitely a contribution to the literature on social justice and resistance pedagogy. Indigenous epistemology incorporates issues associated with location, identity, culture, and the history of people in relation to the lands that they inhabit (Stocek & Mark, 2009). While the day-to-day actions of individuals may not be complex or theoretical, they are enmeshed in the cultural knowledge of a people. Therefore, Indigenous epistemologies are specifically grounded in experience, whether it occurs tribally, nationally, or communally. As such, I define relatedness as the building of relationships that take into account Native perceptions of time, land, language, and peoplehood (human and non-human), as well as the synchronistic influence that these aspects have with regard to historical and contemporary issues for Indigenous Peoples. My pedagogy of relationality has made me conclude that as educators we need to be conscious how our own discourse and teaching practices encourage or discourage relatedness. Addressing these issues not only decolonizes our own teaching practices, but enhances inclusion and equity with respect to education for Native Peoples and other non-dominant students, while providing privileged students an option for an alternative way of being. It is important that we expose our students to multiple modalities of being not just of evidence.

Author

• frances k holmes, Fort Lewis College