Abstract
In this chapter, we turn to Nxumalo’s (International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(5): 640–654, 2016) ‘refiguring presences’ to attend to and trouble absent presences (e.g. curriculum of Land as settler property and economic resource) and present absences (e.g. Indigenous resurgence) that shape response-able possibilities of engaging Indigenous and place-based education. From this orientation, we consider: (a) the Western modernist nature/culture binary and (b) Indigenous forms of storying place to generate new analytic questions, types of findings, and possibilities for representing knowledge claims. Next, we provide glances at our place(d) stories of (re)learning to listen to and be taught by human, natural, and spirit worlds in relation with/in a month-long graduate-level summer institute in Lamas, Peru. Lastly, we discuss how Indigenous relational ontologies—with deep roots in living places and spiritual practices—enhanced our understanding of their role in reimagining pedagogy, practice, and research in higher education. We conclude with a call to labour the shared and divergent spaces between Indigenous and new materialist approaches to challenge (neo-)colonial logics and relationships, as well as enhance commensurate commitments and projects.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ahenakew, C. (2016). Grafting Indigenous ways of knowing onto non-Indigenous ways of being. International Review of Qualitative Research,9(3), 323–340.
Ahenakew, C. (2017). Mapping and complicating conversations about Indigenous education. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education,11(2), 80–91.
Apffel-Marglin, F. (2011). Subversive spiritualities: How rituals enact the world. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Archibald, J. (2008). Indigenous storywork: Educating the heart, mind, body, and spirit. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Bang, M., & Marin, A. (2015). Nature–culture constructs in science learning: Human/non-human agency and intentionality. Journal of Research in Science Teaching,52(4), 530–544.
Barnhardt, R., & Kawagley, A. O. (2008). Chapter 16: Indigenous knowledge systems and education. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 107(1), 223–241.
Battiste, M. (2005). You can’t be the global doctor if you’re the colonial disease. In P. Tripp & L. Muzzin (Eds.), Teaching as activism: Equity meets environmentalism (pp. 121–133). Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Battiste, M., Bell, L., Findlay, I. M., Findlay, L., & Henderson, J. S. Y. (2005). Thinking place: Animating the Indigenous humanities in education. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education,34, 7–19.
Cajete, G. (1994). Look to the mountain: An ecology of Indigenous education. Skyland, NC: Kivaki Press.
Cajete, G. (2000). Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. Sante Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers.
Canadian Paediatric Society. (2017). Tobacco use and misuse among Indigenous children and youth in Canada. Retrieved from https://www.cps.ca/en/documents/position/tobacco-aboriginal-people.
Higgins, M., & Kim, E. J. (2018). De/colonizing methodologies in science education: Rebraiding research theory-practice-ethics with Indigenous theories and theorists. Cultural Studies of Science Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-018-9862-4.
Higgins, M., & Madden, B. (2017). (Not So) Monumental agents: De/Colonizing places of learning. Canadian Social Studies,49(1), 34–38.
Jackson, A. Y., & Mazzei, L. (2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research: Viewing data across multiple perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.
King, T. (2003). The truth about stories: A native narrative. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi Press.
Kuokkanen, R. (2007). Reshaping the university: Responsibility, Indigenous epistemes, and the logic of the gift. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Kuokkanen, R. (2010). The responsibility of the academy: A call for doing homework. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 26(3), 61–74.
Madden, B. (2015). Pedagogical pathways for Indigenous education with/in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education,51, 1–15.
Marin, A., & Bang, M. (2015). Designing pedagogies for Indigenous science education: Finding our way to storywork. Journal of American Indian Education,54(2), 29–51.
Nxumalo, F. (2016). Towards ‘refiguring presences’ as an anti-colonial orientation to research in early childhood studies. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,29(5), 640–654.
Nxumalo, F., & Cedillo, S. (2017). Decolonizing place in early childhood studies: Thinking with Indigenous onto-epistemologies and Black feminist geographies. Global Studies of Childhood,7(2), 99–112.
Rhee, J., & Subreenduth, S. (2006). De/colonizing education: Examining transnational localities. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,19(5), 545–548.
Sachamama Center for Biocultural Regeneration. (2018). Sachamama Center for Biocultural Regeneration: Protecting soil, regenerating culture in the Peruvian Amazon. Retrieved from http://sachamamacenter.org/.
Simpson, L. B. (2014). Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 1–25.
Todd, Z. (2016). An Indigenous feminist’s take on the ontological turn: ‘Ontology’ is just another word for colonialism. Journal of Historical Sociology,29(1), 4–22.
Watts, V. (2013). Indigenous place-thought and agency amongst humans and non humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!). Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 2(1), 20–34.
Wildcat, M., McDonald, M., Irlbacher-Fox, S., & Coulthard, G. (2014). Learning from the land: Indigenous land based pedagogy and decolonization. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 1–15.
Wolfe, A. (2016). All the way back and all the way forward: Unpacking and understanding the legacy of the Indian residential school system (Unpublished capping project). Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Higgins, M., Madden, B. (2019). Refiguring Presences in Kichwa-Lamista Territories: Natural-Cultural (Re)Storying with Indigenous Place. In: Taylor, C.A., Bayley, A. (eds) Posthumanism and Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14672-6_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14672-6_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-14671-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14672-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)