Indigenous Epistemologies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47854/y1tf6r41Keywords:
ontology and epistemology, reciprocity as paradigm, society/nature divide, subjects/objects/agents, animacy and language, stories, decolonial methodologyAbstract
This discussion of Indigenous epistemologies summarizes some major themes -- epistemology and ontology, reciprocity as paradigm, society/nature dualism, animacy and language, knowing through stories, and decolonial politics -- that have currency in anthropology and across disciplines and fields. In particular, these themes underlie anthropological understandings of animistic worlds and knowledge systems, inspired fundamentally by the relational perspectives of Indigenous knowledge holders and scholars through the generations. The latter have emphasized the importance of reciprocity and respect between humans and the more-than-human living world in framing 'laws' in both scientific and normative terms, and as foundations for decolonial praxis. Inter-epistemic dialogue opens pathways for destabilizing modernist objectification, exploitation and hierarchy and realizing the mutualities of living entities writ large.
References
Asch, Michael, John Borrows et James Tully (dir.), 2018, Resurgence and Reconciliation: Indigenous-Settler Relations and Earth Teachings, Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
Bateson, Gregory, 1979, Mind and Nature, New York, E.P. Dutton.
Bird-David, Nurit, 1999, « “Animism” revisited: Personhood, environment, and relational epistemology », Current Anthropology 40 (S1) : S67-S91, https://doi.org/10.1086/200061
Blaser, Mario, 2013, « Ontological conflicts and the stories of peoples in spite of Europe: Toward a conversation on political ontology », Current Anthropology, 54 (5) : 547-568, https://doi.org/10.1086/672270
Borrows, John, 2018, « Earth-bound: Indigenous resurgence and environmental reconciliation », in Michael Asch, John Borrows et James Tully (dir.), Resurgence and Reconciliation: Indigenous-Settler Relations and Earth Teachings, Toronto, University of Toronto Press : 49-81.
——, 2016, « Heroes, tricksters, monsters, and caretakers: Indigenous law and legal education », McGill Law Journal 61 (4) : 795-846, http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1038489ar
Deloria, Vine Jr., 1999, Spirit and Reason: The Vine Deloria Jr. Reader, Golden (CO), Fulcrum Publishing.
Descola, Philippe, 1986, La nature domestique. Symbolisme et praxis dans l’écologie des Achuar, Paris, Maison des Sciences de l’homme [trad. 1994, In the Society of Nature: A Native Ecology in Amazonia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press].
——, 2005, Par-delà nature et culture, Paris, Gallimard.
Dussart, Françoise et Sylvie Poirier, 2017, Entangled Territorialities: Negotiating Indigenous Lands in Australia and Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
——, 2022, Contemporary Indigenous Cosmologies and Pragmatics, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press.
Feit, Harvey, 1988, « Waswanipi Cree management of land and wildlife: Cree cultural ecology revisited », in Bruce Cox (dir.), Native Peoples, Native Lands, Ottawa, Carleton University Press : 75-91.
Garibaldi, Ann et Nancy Turner, 2004, « Cultural keystone species: Implications for ecological conservation and restoration », Ecology and Society 9 (3) : art. 1, http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss3/art1/
Geertz, Clifford, 1973, The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, Basic Books.
Hallowell, Irving, 1964, « Ojibwa ontology, behavior, and world view », in Stanley Diamond (dir.), Primitive Views of the World, New York, Columbia University Press : 49-81.
Ingold, Tim, 2007, Lines: A Brief History, Londres, Routledge.
——, 2010, « Bringing things to life: Creative entanglements in a world of materials », Economic and Social Research Council (R.-U.), National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) Working Paper Series.
——, 2013, « Being alive to a world without objects », in Graham Harvey (dir.), The Handbook of Contemporary Animism, Londres et New York, Routledge : 213-225.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall, 2013, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Minneapolis, Milkweed Editions.
Kohn, Eduardo, 2013, How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human, Berkeley, University of California Press.
Latour, Bruno, 1993, We Have Never Been Modern, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press.
——, 2014, « Agency at the time of the Anthropocene », New Literary History 45 (1) : 1-18, https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2014.0003
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 1962, « La science du concret », in La pensée sauvage, Paris, Plon : 1-33.
Sahlins, Marshall, 1995, How “Natives” Think: About Captain Cook, for Example, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Savard, Rémi, 1971, Carcajou et le sens du monde. Récits montagnais-naskapi, Québec, Bibliothèque nationale.
——, 1977, Le Rire précolombien dans le Québec d’aujourd’hui, Montréal, Éditions de l’Hexagone.
Scott, Colin, 1996, « Science for the West, myth for the rest? The case of James Bay Cree knowledge construction », in Laura Nader (dir.), Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge, Londres, Routledge : 69-86.
——, 2013, « Ontology and ethics in Cree hunting: Animism, totemism and practical knowledge », in Graham Harvey (dir.), The Handbook of Contemporary Animism, Londres et New York, Routledge : 159-166.
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake, 2011, Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence, Winnipeg, ARP Books.
——, 2017, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai, 2021 [1999], Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Londres, Zed Books.
Starblanket, Gina et Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, 2018, « Towards a relational paradigm – four points for consideration: Knowledge, gender, land, and modernity », in Michael Asch, John Borrows et James Tully (dir.), Resurgence and Reconciliation: Indigenous-Settler Relations and Earth Teachings, Toronto, University of Toronto Press : 175-207.
Turner, Nancy et Pamela Spalding, 2018, « Learning from the Earth, learning from each other: Ethnoecology, responsibility, and reciprocity », in Michael Asch, John Borrows et James Tully (dir.), Resurgence and Reconciliation: Indigenous-Settler Relations and Earth Teachings, Toronto, University of Toronto Press : 265-291.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo B., 1998, « Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism », Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (3) : 469-88, https://doi.org/10.2307/3034157
Vizenor, Gerald, 1999, Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.
Wagner, Roy, 1977, « Scientific and indigenous Papuan conceptualizations of the innate: A semiotic critique of the ecological perspective », in T.P. Bayliss-Smith et R.G. Feacham (dir.), Subsistence and Survival: Rural Ecology in the Pacific, New York, Academic Press : 385-410.
——, 1981, The Invention of Culture, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Whorf, Benjamin Lee, 1956, Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, Cambridge et New York, Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Wiley & Sons.
Wilson, Shawn, 2008, Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, Halifax, Fernwood Publishing.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Anthropen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Unless otherwise stated, content comprised on this website, including text, photographs, illustrations, trademarks, logos, audio or video clips, is protected by copyright law. All rights, titles and interests in the content belong exclusively to Anthropen. With the exception of works licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0 any copying, reproduction, distribution, total or partial modification is strictly prohibited without the written permission of Anthropen and may expose the offender to legal sanctions.