Indigenous Métissage: a decolonizing research sensibility

Abstract

This paper is a report on the theoretical origins of a decolonizing research sensibility called Indigenous Métissage. This research praxis emerged parallel to personal and ongoing inquiries into historic and current relations connecting Aboriginal peoples and Canadians in the place now called Canada. I frame the colonial frontier origins of these relations-and the logics that tend to inform them-as conceptual problems that require rethinking on more ethically relational terms. Although a postcolonial cultural theory called métissage offers helpful insights towards this challenge, I argue that the postcolonial emphasis on hybridity fails to acknowledge Indigenous subjectivity in ethical ways. Instead, I present an indigenized form of métissage focused on rereading and reframing Aboriginal and Canadian relations and informed by Indigenous notions of place. Doing Indigenous Métissage requires hermeneutic imagination directed towards the telling of a story that belies colonial frontier logics and fosters decolonizing.

The Transformation of Academic Knowledges: Understanding the Relationship between Decolonising and Indigenous Research Methodologies

“…In this methodology, the researcher uses artifacts to examine cultural encounters in colonial contexts, recognising Aboriginal and Western cultures as distinct yet interconnected. The role of the researcher is to unravel and then re-braid these relations (Donald 2012). In general, a relational turn in research may appear as a refocusing on the uses of knowledge.…”

Cognitive dissonance in social work - the experiences of social workers who facilitate transracial adoption plans for aboriginal children

“…As stated previously, I chose a research topic that I believe will benefit Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals as well as the larger community of social workers. I chose Metissage as my research framework, in part because at its core it embraces the idea that lives are relational and braided rather than isolated and independent (Donald, 2012). I honoured the subjective experiences of my participants by allowing the interview to take on a "conversational" flow where my participants were invited to share their stories with me.…”

“…It shares the root word "Metis" which loosely translates as "crossbreeding", a derogatory term for racial mixing and procreation viewed as weakening gene pools and "mongrelizing the human race" (Donald, 2012, p. 536). In that context, it has been used to describe cultural mixing and hybridization of identities as a result of colonialism and transculturalism (Donald, 2012).…”

“…Donald (2012) discusses the dichotomy that Metis people find themselves caught within, having ancestry both from the colonizers and the colonized, and experiencing the ensuing "pressure to choose sides, to choose a life inside or outside the walls of the fort" (p. 534). He contends that more complex understandings of human relationality are required "that traverse deeply learned divides of the past and present by demonstrating that perceived civilizational frontiers are actually permeable and that perspectives on history, memory, and experience are connected and interreferential" (p. 534).…”

“…As stated previously, the analogy that is used for Metissage research is that of the Metis sash, with its bold colors that are intermingled through a process of braiding, allowing researchers to strategically choose from different research methods to create a distinctive research approach (Donald, 2012;Kelly;. Lowan-Trudeau (2012) discusses his own journey towards envisioning this concept, describing how he began with the concept of Bricolage, which stems from a traditional French expression for crafts-people who creatively used materials left over from other projects to create new objects.…”