Advancing Ancestral Knowledge Systems as a Conceptual Framework to Decolonize Research Methodologies in Arizona

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

In the spring of 2014, the four authors participated in a doctoral course entitled Decolonizing Research Methods, A Foundations Course at a university in Arizona. These four cihuāmeh —meaning women in Mexicano/Nahuatl, a native language of Uto-Aztecan origin--engaged in communal learning experiences that continue to this day. Their work expanded into a publication and conference presentation on theorizing from lived experiences ‘ancestral knowledge systems’ (AKS)—a conceptual framework that draws from place-based (Tuck and McKensie, 2015) intergenerational knowledge. In this panel, each author draws from their previous communal work on conceptualizing AKS to implement the framework in their individual empirical scholarship of revitalizing ancestral language, examining ancestral pedagogies, and advancing socio legal scholarship in litigious Arizona.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 2: Education in Mulitcultural Contexts Within and Across Subject Areas

Chair

• Teresa L. McCarty, University of California - Los Angeles

Papers

• Educating Emerging Researchers: Voicing a Multiplicity of Knowledge Systems in the Academy - Lydia Montelongo, Arizona State University

• Born of Discriminatory Intent: The Creation of Arizona H.B. 2281 and the Battle for Cultural Knowledge - Marisol Juarez Diaz, Arizona State University - Tempe

• Language Revitalization en La Casa: Reclaiming Mexicano - Rosalva Mojica Lagunas, Arizona State University - Tempe

• Revitalizing Ancestral Knowledge Systems for Collective Dignity in Arizona: Learning Mexicano/Nahuatl in the Kitchen - Cueponcaxochitl Dianna Moreno Sandoval, Arizona State University

Discussant

• Eve Tuck, University of Toronto