Research and Reconciliation

Unsettling Ways of Knowing Through Indigenous Relationships

Bibliographic Data

ID2818513
AuthorsKelley Totten (Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador), Kelley Dianne Totten (Memorial University of Newfoundland, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume138
Issue548
Pages240-241
Publication date2025-04-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of American Folklore (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8715 • E-ISSN: 1535-1882
PublisherUniversity of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5406/15351882.138.548.19
OpenAlexW4411148458
LanguageEN
Citations received6

“What is research, who is it for, and who gets to do it?” These are the challenges posed in the introduction to this excellent volume, edited by Shawn Wilson (Opaskwayak Cree), Andrea V. Breen (White settler), and Lindsay DuPré (Métis), which considers research methods and approaches in the context of Canada's 2016 Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its calls to action. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's mandate has created policies and public dialogue around Indigenous peoples’ diverse stories, histories, and cultures, as well as the many generational traumas, injustices, and cultural and physical thefts inflicted on Indigenous peoples by settlers. However, it has left many questioning its efficacy and ability to reconcile the horrors and injustices of colonization. This book addresses these troubling pasts and contradictions; the editors offer robust perspectives that envision expanded notions of research in the context of Indigenous and decolonial methods.The editors and contributors exhibit a range of disciplinary perspectives, and the book contains a variety of formats—essays, personal reflections, stories, poetry, satirical news, social media narratives, and transcribed conversations—divided into three sections that address key aspects they have identified in the processes of reconciliation: belonging and being; anger and trauma; and moving (doing their work) in a good way.Although the language and terminology may differ, much of the initiatives and methodological discussions should sound familiar to folklorists for their focus on community-centered research, participant-led research agendas, and cross-cultural communication. Grounded theoretical approaches emerge from the case studies and conversations, challenging authoritative notions of knowledge. Along with strengthening our own disciplinary approaches to folklore and ethnographic research, many of the contributions provide paths forward in multidisciplinary work and collaborations outside cultural institutions.For example, a conversation between Gwen Healey Akearok and Moriah Sallafie about their work at the Quajigiartiit Health Research Centre introduces a five-part research method that Akearok developed with Andrew Tagak, the Centre's founding partner. This research practice, called Piliriqatigiinniq, or work toward a common cause or good, grew out of their questioning of the goals of Western health research and its beneficiaries. Akearok emphasizes the importance of storytelling as method—one of the key tenets of the research model. The other principles include ethics, based on a foundation of kindness and empathy, and two Inuit philosophies that consider respectful ways of working and lifelong processual learning as an approach to analysis. Their concerns and methods are relevant to folklorists’ research, not just in its inclusion of storytelling, but in how it clearly extends research beyond the scope of mere data collection to understand the work situated in a constellation of questions about our relationships to communities, each other, and ourselves. After introducing the research method, the authors expand academic ideas of what research products are and may be, accurately demonstrating public programming as a product of research.The editors intentionally maintain unique stylistic, language, and grammatical choices from the contributors as a methodological and theoretical choice. Their intentional resistance to uniformity underscores their contention that all knowledges are diverse and that the goals of their research is a kind of “shared, emergent truth” that recognizes inherent values and cultural claims to authority (p. 15). Their inclusion of different writing styles and forms considers the role of knowledge transmission: “We learn most when we are open to new ways of seeing” (p. xii).In the undergraduate and graduate research methods courses I have taught, students have responded personally, thoughtfully, and candidly about their discomfort, sadness, and fear, as well as the humor and relief they found in some of the writing. Some had serious questions about the traumas of residential schools and violent displacements of Indigenous peoples. Some found validation from authors whose experiences reflect something of their own. Students’ first reflections often included comments suggesting the book to be “non-academic,” opening up our conversations so that we could all rethink together the questions that the book poses in how we count, document, and value knowledge, specifically in the context of academic knowledge production.The book's personal essays and reflections offer differing—and sometimes conflicting—viewpoints to present a spectrum of Indigenous and settler perspectives, with contributions predominantly but not exclusively situated amongst Indigenous peoples and lands that were colonized as Canadian territory. “Settler Apologies,” a spoken-word poem by tunchai redvers, is one of the most powerful contributions to the book as it beautifully, uncomfortably, and emotionally allows us to interrogate our own differing roles and experiences in these colonial institutions. Kim Stewart's “Cowboy and Indian ‘Epigrams’: An Art- and Social Media-Based Narrative” includes a series of her artwork through Instagram posts, a form that was highly effective for my students, while emphasizing the rhetorical power of visual communication. Stories, conversations, and interviews appear in numerous chapters, including the creative and ingenious one written by Anna-Leah King, Dustin Brass, and Patrick Lewis, who weave traditional stories of Reynard and Nanabosho with examining bureaucratic processes at the University of Regina and its attempts at Indigenization.The book does not offer answers, but rather considerations, and proposes research as a method of attending. In underscoring Indigenous research as relationships, it reminds folklorists (and others) that all research is relationships. Healthy relationships are steeped in respect, deep listening, striving toward understanding, equitable power dynamics, and, to the extent possible, healing.What relationships are we cultivating and building through our research? Whose stories are we paying attention to and how might we unsettle certain authorities of knowledge? This is not a new concept to folklore research, but this book gives that foundation much needed contributions from a variety of individuals speaking and reflecting on research, knowledge production, and institutional authorities centered on the perspectives of Indigenous experiences and relationships. This is a book not just to assign in your classes, but to use and think through in your own work. It is for researchers—in the academy, public institutions, and our communities—to find themselves and others in the pages, and to learn and consider—and reconsider—how we might unsettle our own methods and approaches. It is to learn, from Indigenous knowledges, the broad, multiple, and infinite ways that humans make, share, and value knowledge in the world—essential tools for folklorists at any stage of their career

Biology · Epistemology · Indigenous · Sociology · Anthropology · Ecology · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Philosophy · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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