Indigenous anarchism: a story of resistance, reconcilliation and becoming through the decolonization of ways of knowing

ABSTRACT The purpose of this thesis is to examine some aspects of what is needed to work reconciliation (healing) into western academic institutions via the art of resistance and the decolonization of methodologies in social science. The decolonization of methodologies will entail freedom to engage in a rigorous effort to engage with Indigenous ontologies and epistemology, and Indigenous selfhood and the spirit, as well as recovering and extending particular Indigenous knowledge systems. The decolonization of methodologies will foster not only better research but also the autonomy of Indigenous graduate students and their agency to embrace their cultural, landed and ancestral selves. Decolonization of methodologies could be a sign of the seriousness of commitment by Canadian universities to reconciliation. Indigenous students need to be able to feel at home on the territory where universities are located – their territories. Decolonization of methodologies will reconcile the precolonial past and the still-colonized present colonization by helping to remove the hegemonic claims of the European Enlightenment to govern all knowledge production. I hope to have demonstrated how I see Michelle Hogue, Kori Czuy, Casey Eagle Speaker, Robin Wall Kimmerer and others as having fostered, in their different ways, new approaches to Indigenous theory and/or research. I take a decolonizing approach to western epistemology, ontology and methods to highlight the way that Indigenous ontology and epistemology can add value to the future of research and scholarship.

Authors

• Fox-Grey, Elizabeth K.
• University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science

• decolonization of methodologies
• ways of knowing
• western academic institutions
• art of resistance
• Indigenous theory
• Indigenous research

Identifier

hdl:10133/6990

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/6990