Considering Indigenous Research Methodologies: Bicultural Accountability and the Protection of Community Held Knowledge

Abstract

As part of a continuing conversation related to Indigenous methodologies in Western academic contexts, this manuscript includes a summary of the scholarly dialogue by providing background information and situatedness to an exchange that is positioned in the academy and Indigenous community simultaneously. The dialogue thus far includes a keynote presentation and a series of manuscripts that collectively help explain Indigenous research methodologies (IRMs) and delineates important considerations for practitioners and communities who relate to Indigenous research. The authors share where they agree, and where they diverge as well as their rationale for continuing the discourse in an academic forum. The paper concludes with an alternative method for dissemination (a winter count), that reimagines epistemological pluralism and knowledge protection through bicultural accountability. We consider the repatriation of Indigenous knowledge to be paramount in this process.

Indigenous Research Methodologies: X-Marks in the Age of Community Accountability and Protection

“…And what should this look like when it comes to assessing the aspiration, opportunity, and importance of publishing something like the Fred Gone archive? Hopefully, Windchief and Cummins (2021) can agree on the value of this indigenous knowledge, and would not assert that Fred Gone's writings-addressed as they are (in part) to sacred and ceremonial matters-would have been better off disintegrating in the Butte city dump.…”

“…I introduce this instance of knowledge production partly for purposes of self-location but primarily for considering Windchief and Cummins' (2021) call for bicultural accountability and community knowledge protection. Specifically, Fred Gone preserved knowledge obtained from Gros Ventres who experienced pre-reservation life on the northern Plains by creating his extensive archive for posterity during the 1940s.…”

“…Indeed, Bull Lodge's Life is essentially an account of a prereservation Indigenous spiritual journey, one that is replete with sacred knowledge, ceremonial activities, suprahuman powers, and ritual details. It presumably contains precisely the kind of Indigenous knowledge that Windchief and Cummins (2021) believe should be "kept safe through cultural protocols" (p. XX). And yet, what renders Bull Lodge's Life so fascinating is its possible function as a sort of Indigenous Gospel, in which a gifted holy man accomplishes feats and miracles among his own people prior to becoming the final ritual Keeper of the community's sacred Feathered Pipe.…”

“…In other words, references to Gros Ventres-and by extension to other Indigenous groups-as a "community" that would consensually agree on contentious matters and offer unified guidance and permission to protect knowledge in specific instances is largely a fantasy. Surely Windchief and Cummins (2021) recognize that our tribal communitiesespecially on the northern Plains-are teeming with conflict. Presumably, then, they're adopting the term community as a shorthand for an undesignated subset of American Indian people (kin?…”

“…To this, I responded with a detailed recounting of highlights from my presentation, clarified some areas of possible misunderstanding, and reviewed a classic distinction between orality and literacy for purposes of formulating and advancing IRMs in academic knowledge production (Gone, 2019). Most recently, Windchief and Cummins (2021) published another entry in our exchange, offering their summary of our dialogue, providing additional self-location information, identifying areas of agreement and divergence in our prior contributions, affirming bicultural accountability in the IRM endeavor, and promoting epistemological pluralism through a stance of "cultural intuition." I am pleased to contribute this (brief) fourth entry in the series (not including a related publication that appeared outside of this exchange; see Gone, 2017b), in which I consider a challenging example of Indigenous knowledge production, clarify some additional misunderstandings, and complicate persistent oppositions and essentialisms that arise in discussions of IRMs that are neither intellectually defensible nor characteristic of contemporary American Indian life and experience.…”