Continuance: Diné Teachings of K’é

• In Event: Accepting Responsibility and Navigating Research Tensions: A Relational Praxis

Abstract

Ten Navajo teenagers know that they will go to college. These students see college as an opening to better circumstances for themselves, their family, and Native community. As they confront college enrollment and 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. Using cultural resilience (Heavyrunner & Marshall, 2003) and Tribal Critical Race Theory (Brayboy, 2005), this research employed story rug (Tachine, 2018), an Indigenous methodological approach to understand how Navajo students persist in college despite the struggles that surround them. Findings revealed how Navajo students activated the Indigenous weapon of continuance, the ability to push forward, when armed with k’é and ancestral pedagogies (story sharing) passed down by family. K’é is the Navajo term for kinship relationships and relationality (the idea that we are related to each other), which is a foundational philosophy of Navajo culture and a belief system centered upon a matrilineal society (Parsons Yazzie & Speas, 2007). Grandmothers and mothers guided students to see and believe that they had a purpose and future by telling historical stories of hardships and miracles. Through story sharing, vulnerability and trust opened up, which helped to transform doubt into purpose. These compelling kinship relationships of k’é affirmed that the students had the freedom to learn and live enacting continuance, Navajo ways of knowing, and a purpose sensibility.

Author

• Amanda R. Tachine, Arizona State University