"How do we walk the fine line between honoring and learning from indigenous cultures and systems of knowledge, and appropriating that knowledge through acts of cultural piracy and "luxury spirituality?"
Angela wrote out a response to this question and some of you were interested in being able to re-read her answer, which was:
"I struggle with this question myself. I think the best idea I can throw out there, which may or may not be the best way to think about it, is to take the knowledge that is offered freely and voluntarily and to hold that knowledge tentatively and with an open hand. Since knowledge has been shared with you, it does not mean you "get it" or that you have a right to present it to others. I think you have a responsibility to sit in that knowledge and get to know it, and absorb much before you speak. I also think you hold a humble attitude about whose knowledge it is and when you share about it, you avoid speaking as if you know something that is not yours. You share the product of your own meaning-making and you label and acknowledge that. You hold the subjective nature of your response up."
I asked this same question of a couple of other friends, and their answers were very helpful so I'm posting them here for all of us to consider.
Victor: "Your question is a tricky one and there are no specific answers or perhaps myriad answers to the question, for me the important thing is how the information or knowledge is handled. First one must never lose sight of the origin of the knowledge and information that will always remain someone else’s. For example If non‐Native teachers are to use and tell Indigenous stories, they must begin a cultural‐sensitivity learning process that includes gaining knowledge of story‐telling protocol and the nature of these stories, the challenge for scholars, educators and students of Indigenous Knowledge is to find ways to engage with Indigenous information so that they are understood not in simplistic and stereotypic ways but as deep knowledge understood in complex relations to context. There is nothing simple in seeking ways of approaching in the correct way the delicate balance between Indigenous Knowledge, learning and cultural appropriation but for me as an Indigenous person one of the powerful ways for you as a Non-Indigenous student to be respectful and ethical is when you start questioning yourself, what are you doing with the knowledge that you are gaining and how is your approach to this knowledge. I think only you can really determine whether you truly are respectful or if your interest is a form of appropriation. The answer to your question, I think, lies heavily in your motivations and how you view Native Cultures.
- your approach to Native cultures is distorted by the racists views of the bloody savage or the noble savage?
- Do you acknowledge that there is no such thing as one Native culture–that this continent is one of many nations and peoples with unique cultures?
- Do you recognize modern-day Native people as real, living,breathing people and don't see them as part of a primordial, innocent past?
- Do you pay attention to what is going on in Native American reservations and communities TODAY? Do you know the realities of these reservations and communities? Do you acknowlege the way that colonization in this continent has harmed its people? Is your interest in the mythology of the Native American or the real Native American?
I am always a little wary when I witness people taking an obsessive interest in a culture that is not their own. My wariness stems from a realization of how easy it is to move from appreciation to appropriation
Why do you want to know about Native cultures? That is the question. And it is one we all–regardless of race–have to ask when we explore,study and are drawn to other cultures. So I constantly examine my motivations and so must you and everybody."
Mindy: "I have more questions to ask yourself then direct answers. I think the main things we (and using this we as assuming you missy are also non-indigenous/colonizers, and apologize if through this I am ignoring histories, legacies of your family, community) need to think, and practice to walk this line is accountability, reciprocity, debt. How can we be accountable to people, lives, histories, struggles, resistances- many of whom we will never meet in person, or directly experience? Which means as well we can never fully understand, and yet that does not mean we do not try to understand. To understand that these knowledges are not ours for the taking-as 'our' history of being colonizers has allowed us to do. To not just continue a legacy of taking we need to create reciprocity in the present-and to the past, and understand-while actively intervening- in our historical and current debt for this taking. This is then how a practice in the present is important, and there is not one way to go about this, just as indigenous knowledge is heterogenous...
It is a fine line and daily self analysis, placed within particular social cultural, political history. The more I learn the more i see my own enactment of my privileges, my own continuation of colonial patterns. Thankful for allies, and building relationships outside of my particular history as to resist the world I was born into inherit! (p.s. and will add to my first comment that I 'fail' (while critically thinking failure) daily at what I said is 'necessary' and yet in the failure, with' allies-people reciprocally committed to you unconditionally, who hold you accountable, change occurs- colonial patterns re-emerge/are engendered/shift-while still causing effects which then need to be accountable to-despite 'failure' and continued change with accountablity...and on and on)."
I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think that talking about indigenous cultures/systems is a delicate balancing act. I want to honor cultural beliefs and practices that I believe are far more sustainable, egalitarian and harmonious than most practices in my own culture--but I don't want to participate in reductive and oversimplified glamorizations based on generalizations that distill many different cultures into one. I want to learn and study and respect without being essentializing or condescending or tolerant of the "noble savage" trope." I want to integrate holistic ideas and practices into my life but somehow avoid cultural piracy and the "luxury spirituality" (the "icing on a materialist cake") that Vandana Shiva writes about.
I would love to hear more ideas and suggestions about how to do all of these things at once!
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