LBST 330 – Fall 2018
Module 2 – Research In Context
Response Paper #4 to Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s “Research Through Imperial Eyes” and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun’s “Bad Colonial Day” performance piece/lecture given to staff and students at Capilano University on Friday, November 2nd.
The following is a brief response to “Research Through Imperial Eyes”, a chapter excerpt from Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s book entitled Decolonizing Methodologies, and a performance piece given by highly-acclaimed Coast Salish and Okanagan painter Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun entitled “Bad Colonial Day”. The reading by Tuhiwai Smith focussed on colonialism, imperialism, and Indigneity in the context of western research methodologies and Yuxweluptun spoke to the same themes by providing a personal testimony of his experience of being a self-identified artist, activist, and colonized individual.
In this reading and lecture, respectively, Tuhiwai Smith and Yuxweluptun both advocated the interruption of traditional western research methods and the material and social power structures they create and sustain (which treat indigenous people as differentiated from the norm or “Other” and Indigenous ways of knowing as invalid). Tuhiwai Smith did so by suggesting the incorporation of broader cultural values into research and the active subversion of traditional western practices and Yuxweluptun did so by promising that Indigenous ways of knowing hold the potential to solve the serious environmental issues facing this region (not the least of which are the impending effects of global warming). Yuxweluptun also shared some of his experiences of Coast Salish spirituality and First Nations’ ways of life and how he believes they hold the wisdom needed to heal suffering stemming from the harmful effects of industrialism, capitalism, globalization, and the individualism and severance from nature these systems require.
This response is intended to help me reflect on the ways that any future research I develop will express my gaze and implicit biases about the world and to consider the personal and ethical implications of this given that the product of my research could potentially shift others’ worldviews. Tuhiwai Smith’s reading gives numerous clear example of ways that our physical and conceptual spaces have been colonized and how colonial power can be perpetuated through the normalization of certain cultural conceptions (including notions about space and time, history, language, and theories on research). This response will allow me to briefly engage with the ways that theories of research can lead to the development of certain discourses in society and subsequently form systems of power and domination and will conclude with a contemplation of ways to reconcile rather than re-perpetrate the past and present power injustices inflicted upon Indigenous communities by western research.
What both the reading and lecture illustrated were the material implications of social power (and specifically the role of research as an instrument of power) on Indigenous lives and bodies. Tuhiwai Smith’s article discussed ways that research leads to the formation of discourses and how these discourses lead to the formation of systems of power and domination. The article highlighted ways that Indigenous people’s voices have been excluded, distorted, and taken advantage of in the historical record of the West and Yuxweluptun supported this claim by discussing ways that the exclusion and subjugation of Indigenous ways of knowing in western research had lead to acute social injustice and abuse, rampant and increasing poor health, mass animal extinction, and other horrible consequences.
Considering ways of avoiding the reproduction of systems of power and domination in one’s research is not an easy task. In university, we often discuss how systems of gender and race are produced and reproduced in society and the many mechanisms there are in place to prevent these systems from being dismantled, but it was refreshing to read Tuhiwai Smith’s work because it also demonstrated the ways that “views about human nature, human morality and virtue,…conceptions of space and time” (44), language, history, and other elements of a “cultural system of classification and representation” (44) also support and shape theories about research.
While I am committed to avoiding harm while conducting research, I would also like to think that if my research were circulated that it could help others in some way. I believe the only way to know whether your research is harming or helping others is to ask and I would feel compelled to seek support and guidance from First Nations communities on nearly any topic I can presently consider researching. Whether I study environmentalism, education, citizenship, migration, history, geography, biology, or language, all of these fields pertain to Indigenous people and could be enriched deeply by Indigenous ways of knowing.
My research should not simply seek to incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing because it could then risk appropriating this knowledge; it should give credit to Indigenous people for their knowledge and ideas and should also compensate them adequately for any work they contribute. The research plan itself must also be open to the guidance and direction of Indigenous council. For example, it will be imperative that I remain open to the course of my planned research being altered by the expressed needs and desires of the Indigenous communities I will potentially be working with. Historically, western research has ignored its effects on Indigenous subjects, exploited them for its purposes, ignored its own privilege and biases, and overlooked entire, important dimensions of areas of interest because they don’t fit within acceptable norms and this ignorant and irresponsible legacy in western academia unfortunately continues.
Sadly, Tuhiwai Smith’s article left me with a strong sense of doubt about my ability to conduct the type of research which could disrupt “the cultural archive of the West” (Tuhiwai Smith 44) since any research I’ll be permitted to do will be conceived of, designed within, restricted by, produced out of, and circulated within the framework of one of the biggest colonial power maintainers I can think of (aside from the resource extraction industry, prison industrial complex, and global travel industry); the higher education system. Given that this course, in itself, has been structured around a specific conception of time and space (which necessarily produces a specific type of “history”) and has required we all perform tasks in a prescribed language, I can’t see how I could ultimately achieve the type of research that I think would please Tuhiwai Smith, Yuxweltuptun, and I in its purpose, process, and outcome within the context of an final undergraduate project.
I aspire to participate in Decolonizing efforts, but this reading and lecture frankly forced me to ask (as a descendant of European settlers and “a colonialist”, as Yuxweluptun would put it) : Can it ever really be considered “Decolonizing research” if the colonizer designed, conducted, or benefitted from it? Can “a colonialist” truly ever see their own biases or the extent of their own collusion with the dominant systems of power?
Something that Yuxweluptun said did strike me and that was that he still enjoyed sitting by the fire (which he shared after showing us one of his paintings which took place in a longhouse during a ceremony with representations of masked dancers) and that he believed the best way to heal a sick spirit is to go to the cold rivers up in the mountains nearby, dip yourself in, and wash yourself four times for the four seasons and the four directions. Both of these comments resonated with me deeply and taught me things about human health, human psychology, local geography, social behaviour, and more which made me think that there may still be positive ways of utilizing the powerful and problematic categories of the academic disciplines to transgress norms and honour Indigenous ways of knowing and about the potential in infusing Indigenous ways of knowing into these categories to strengthen, expand, and potentially even collapse the disciplinary divides through the inclusion of their vast knowledge and ancestrally coded worldviews.
Works Cited
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (Mâori). 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 143-164. Zed books.