Refusal: "Seeing Self as Holy"

• In Event: "As We Have Always Done": Resurgence, Resistance, and Fostering Educational Lifeways for Collective Liberation

Abstract

Ten Navajo teenagers know that they will go to college. They are the top academic students in their class, connected to family and home, and full of hope to rise above daily struggles. Yet, as they navigate their first year, they face hurdles that are entrenched in historical and current-day policies and racism in a world where many do not understand Indigenous ways of life. Students’ share the influence of the (in)visibility monster which is the constant interplay and interrelatedness of visibility and invisibility formed by racism that invades in their lives not only in college, but in society. Students discuss racist encounters in the classroom, residence hall, and in everyday experiences. These racist incidences are rooted in societal stereotypes and myths depicting Native peoples as nonhuman; spotlighting how being visible as a Native student is fraught with damaging perspectives (Tuck, 2009).

With all the negative views and experiences that students experienced about their identity, they employed an Indigenous weapon of refusal a deep desire to say no (Simpson, 2007) by refusing the expectations of defeat and removal that (in)visibility creates. Students recognized that they did not want to get trapped either constantly battling or being overpowered by these damaging ideologies. They represented Paulo Freire’s (1970) visionary words: “A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as a historical reality susceptible to transformation” (p. 85). Through their deepened consciousness of undesirable experiences, they resisted by “seeing self as holy” as Joy (one student) stated through reclaiming Indigenous ways of knowing such as returning home for sustenance (remembering where they come from), finding place and belonging at college (Native student center), and a remembrance of coming from a people and place of strength.

Using cultural resilience (Heavyrunner & Marshall, 2003) and Tribal Critical Race Theory (Brayboy, 2005), this analysis employed story rug (Tachine, 2018), an Indigenous methodological approach that weaves stories into research. In Indigenous storywork, Archibald (2008) utilized a metaphorical basket to conceptualize and analyze research. In this research, a Navajo rug is applied that analyzes and weaves individual and collective stories into a story rug. For this study, four open-ended, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted during the first-year of college with ten Navajo students.

This work weaves refusal through multiple turns—theoretically, methodologically, and empirically. Refusal is emphasized to render self as powerful and sovereign such that, “to enunciate repeatedly to ourselves and to outsiders that “this is who we are, this who you are, these are my rights” (Simpson, 2007, pg 73). If we are to meet the challenges of education from the people we write about, this research has much to offer us in seeking insightful ways to strengthen deliberate connection in methodologies, scholarship, and practice.

Author

• Amanda R. Tachine, Arizona State University