Engaging Indigenous Knowledges

From Sovereign to Relational Knowers

Bibliographic Data

ID2098911
AuthorsMorgan Briggs (0000-0003-2034-1702, The University of Queensland, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume45
Issue2
Pages152-158
Publication date2016-03-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Australian Journal of Indigenous Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1326-0111 • E-ISSN: 2049-7784
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/jie.2016.5
OpenAlexW2413243385
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited18

Increasing engagement with Indigenous knowledges (IKs) in mainstream tertiary educational institutions presents both ethico-political and epistemological challenges. This article engages these challenges by first cautioning against making wholesale distinctions between IKs and Western knowledges (WKs) and then examining the epistemological and politico-cultural entailments of the figure of the mainstream WK knower. Although the WK knower is typically cast as a sovereign being in command of knowledge, the practicalities of processes of knowing reveal the knower as at least partially relational. While the sovereign knower typically returns to his/her self in mainstream WKs, thereby disavowing or subsuming cultural others in ways that compromise serious engagement with IKs, relationality suggests more positive possibilities for becoming susceptible to Indigenous concerns and ways of knowing. This does not spell a relativist agenda. Rather, it shows that knowledge is established through relational processes and that WK knowers might better engage IKs by become less sovereign and more relational knowers

Epistemology · Indigenous · Indigenous Education · Mainstream · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies · Higher Education Practises and Engagement · Innovative Education and Learning Practices · Law · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access