Building a Home with Poetry and Stories

• In Event: Building Kinship and Becoming Relatives: Ancestral Alignment Guiding Our Methodologies

Abstract

As an Indigenous scholar, I have learned over the years that stories are more than just stories. They are memories, lessons, guidance from generations before. Through stories we learn who we are, where we come from, and what we could be. We exist because of stories. Poetry, much like storytelling, animate our experiences as living beings, and are opportunities for us to learn from each other and grow together. The act of home-making (Waterman, 2012) was pivotal for the development of my doctoral dissertation, and it was through sharing circles (Tachine et. al., 2016) and poetic inquiry (Butler-Kisber, 2017) that the presence of settler colonialism within academia was challenged and disrupted and the humanity of Indigenous Peoples was (re)centered and celebrated. There is much we can learn from each other when we center and celebrate Indigenous brilliance, beauty, and power, and that is possible through the arts. With poetry and storytelling, a home was built that honored and celebrated my ancestry and that of the Indigenous Peoples involved in my home-making project (doctoral dissertation). I hope you allow yourself to sit and listen during this conversation, not only with your ears, but with your heart (Archibald, 2009) and experience a transformation and a realization of what research could be and should be.

Author

• Charlie Amáyá Scott, University of Denver