Indigenous Research Methodologies and Methods – Storywork and Storying – Connecting Meaning Through Weaving and Beading Metaphors

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Collaborations to (Re)Imagine Critical Studies in Education: Working Towards New Visions for Education Research

Abstract

This paper discusses the experience of Washington State University graduate students in the College of Education’s Cultural Studies in Social Thought and Education (CSSTE) program who participated in the Indigenous Research Methodologies and Methods class led by one of the authors. Although all the authors live in the United States, each come from Indigenous land in Mexico, Philippines, Puerto Rico and the United States (Nez Perce homelands in the Plateau area of the Pacific Northwest). They write about how they used Storywork (an Indigenous Research Methodology) with Talking Circles (an Indigenous Research Method) in which these applications helped each to connect meaning to research. The students also learned how to do Niimíipuu plateau style weaving and beading where they later wrote a piece on weaving and beading as metaphors and analogy in research. They also followed Indigenous protocol of Indigenous research methodologies by practicing respect, reciprocity and relationality, by gifting a woven basket and beaded earrings to the people that they did their Storywork project with. Each graduate also writes about how they re-claimed knowledge that was disrupted by colonization, therefore in their re-claiming, they also experienced decolonization. The written pieces are synopsis of their work that unfolded throughout their learning journey within the talking circles where synchronicity and the contribution to knowledge became a sacred and safe place.

Author

• Angel K Sobotta, Washington State University