The Ideology of Purity: Betrayal and Resurgence in a Single Reflection

• In Event: Indigenous Leadership: Research, Remedy, and the Right to Self-Determination

Abstract

The proposal will address a central focus of the AERA theme, “Research, Remedy, and Repair: Toward Just Education Renewal.” The proposed paper diagnoses an essential ailment infecting Indigenous and marginalized scholars in the academy, compradorism or what Huey Newton describes as “revolutionary cultism” (1995, p. 70). A developing Indigenous refusal theory called “the Ideology of Purity” is introduced to investigate Indigenous and marginalized scholarly research approaches that produce or reinforce hierarchies of knowledge and epistemological silos. The Ideology of Purity offers remedies that may inoculate or redirect academics to focus on wisdom and knowledge “rooted in communities and the traditions of learning and care from which education research might have otherwise learned (Scott, et al., 2024).”

Author

• Kekailoa Perry, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa