Epistemic hegemonies, Indigenous methodologies and the dialectic turn

Abstract

This conceptual paper reflexively explores an emerging turn towards a dialectic engagement in the development of Indigenous methodologies, using insights from Bourdieu and Foucault in a deconstruction of discourses regarding hierarchies of positionalities, which are associated with the construction of epistemic authority. The paper draws on examples from the authors' completed study with Indigenous communities in Costa Rica and Malaysia in exploring localized understandings of key concepts that may form a potentially fruitful terrain for further dialectic engagement.The challenges of this process are considered within the context of superior-inferior hierarchies of knowledge and being, as implicated in the colonial 'Other' versus the 'Indigenous' identity. The paper considers how the benefits of an interrogation of these discourses of the oppositional binary, create the conditions for the dialectical production of shared and expanded knowledge.

"Balancing the books"

“…The changes requested by the communities meant a possible gap in understanding between various stakeholders (Sylvester et al, 2020). This was evidenced in the different epistemic, theorized, and subjective understandings brought to the study, where Indigenous authoritative ways of knowledge had priority over others (Ashencaen Crabtree et al, 2022).…”

“…Just as feminists have theorized gender as performative (Butler, 1990), so too may be the political project of Indigenism (Aiku et al, 2015). This is then where a more porous etemic position (Heaslip et al, 2018) may offer a fruitful syncretism of traditions which serve to resist any pendulum swing towards dominance over certain hierarchies of conceptual and epistemic hegemonies (Ashencaen Crabtree et al, 2022), to create a new and unexpected corpus of knowledge diverse and inclusive application.…”

“…Writing from Australia, Swijghuisen Reigersberg (2011) discusses how the research terrain has become a contested politicized terrain of competing demands between Indigenous Communities and western-oriented scholarship. Consequently, scholars may find themselves working within the dynamic tension of the perceived binary oppositions of two apparent colliding knowledge systems involving a dichotomization of the established euro-western academia and (An)Other (Ashencaen Crabtree et al, 2022). This tension demands resolution, which may involve a constructive re-braiding (Higgins & Kim, 2019) of knowledge traditions into new or complementary epistemic morphologies (Chilisa, 2012;Dew, 2019).…”

Ancestral Practices for Water and Land Management: Experiences in a Latin American Indigenous Reserve

“…We established and systematized dialectical codes [51] related to water and land management to identify coincidences and relationships in the ideas expressed by the study community [52]. This systematization made it possible to study the relationships between the established variables to develop cognitive maps [53], which we contrasted with results reported by reference studies related to ancestral knowledge and traditional of natural resource management practices.…”