Taiaiake Alfred.
WARRIOR SCHOLARSHIP: Seeing the University as a Ground of Contention.
As an indigenous student attending a university that is
constructed under the guise of a westernized institutional education,
oftentimes I feel the only route toward advancement to earn a degree and obtain
employment is to embrace the English language. This saddens me, because not only do professors from the
university enforce this ideology, people of my own race, Native Hawaiians, also enforce it. However, after reading
this article and after having a conversation with a supportive professor who
understands the path for which I’ve embarked on, I have found a sense of
belonging again. My ʻumeke
that was once filled with pōhaku now shines again with hope for tomorrow.
The article, WARRIOR
SCHOLARSHIP: Seeing the University as a Ground of Contention is
fearsome. Taiaiake Alfred’s
objective seeks ways in which to “indigenize an academy,” though reclaiming our
indigeneity within westernized universities and to be held accountable as
Natives of these (Is)lands toward achieving solidarity between indigenous
knowledge and westernized education.
Alfred offers three arguments as to why universities are not
a “safe ground” for indigenous students and indigenous professors:
i. “Universities
are founded and functions differently than Indigenous cultures.”
ii. There
is a clash between “traditional ethics” and the role of academic “professional
responsibilities.”
iii. Universities
do not allow “integration of traditional views and values from indigenous
peoples in our community (88).
More than that, Alfred suggests ways in how we may achieve
“indigenizing a university”:
i. “Be
cognizant and respectful of cultures;
ii. Hold
accountability for what we can, where we can, and how we can assure a safe
environment for the perpetuation and survival of our identity within these
institutions;
iii. Work
to defeat the operation of colonialism and reorder academe” (89).
So how is this accomplishable? How may an indigenous person in academia change the ways in
which promote healthy and safe environments for future generations? In what
ways can we (you, the reader and myself) “Indigenize universities?
Before looking at solutions, Alfred suggests we begin by
taking a look at the “root” of the problem, which is to re-understand
“colonialism” critically. On the
one hand, colonialism is defined as “material terms, political injustices,
domination, dispossession of lands, economic oppressions”, including
psychological [and/] or spiritual effects of material loss manifested in
dysfunctional or self-destructive behaviors” (89). On the other, it’s our “way of thinking
about something fundamental to who we are as a society” (90). “Fear” Alfred states, is embedded in our
minds because of our past with settlers, a “relationship founded on hatred and
violence and a culture founded on lies to assuage the guilt or shame ot it all”
(ibid); that we have succumbed to complicity, which
explains why we see life, at times, as so fucked up! We’ve accepted colonial dysphoria; that we have detached
ourselves from the ʻāina, from one another, and from our
pursose here in the living; that “colonialism is a lie that divides”
(89-90).
Despite the facts of the past, our time as indigenous
peoples shall not linger in the nostalgia and unforgiving. It’s time to create “development[s] of
collective and shared understandings of who we are and where we are headed as a
society” (91) as Alfred reminds us.
Furthermore, as spaces within universities, we are able to address
contemporary issues and relate them to the survivance of our identities as
indigenous peoples. Yet, Alfred states,
“the real struggles are prevalent in universities and that colonialism’s newest
turn strikes even deeper…they are after our values and our vision of the future,
and universities are at the front line” (92).
Alfred outlines “two competing visions…of fundamental
citizenship and identity that are largely ignored in scholarship and teaching
by Indigenous people today[:]”
i.
“Imperial” wherein through “legal homogeneity” (“seen
as the prime legal construct that governed the relationship between higher
education and society”[1]),
as well as states’ accession of enforcing “one ethical standard for values,
behavior, and vision;
ii.
“Coexistence, a social balance independence and
interdependence of peoples, and a political relationship0 founded on an ethic
of pluralism in a framework of respect” (ibid).
However, amongst the opposition, Alfred offers two
insightful ethic frames that are commonplace amongst indigenous peoples:
i.
“Respect, honor and value differences
(independence)
ii.
Organize one’s mind and attitudes around idea of
the sharing of space (interdependence)” (93).
This is what Alfred is arguing that indigenous scholars
today are not putting forth, instead working alongside universities that
promote globalization and modernity.
Alfred also asks if we are turning into species of extinction, and if
so, what can we do about it? How
are ways in which to “regenerate our communities and cultures” (93) for the
future? He asserts that
self-government, land claims, economic development, and legal recognition of
our sovereign rights as a nation” (93-94) will do all indigenous peoples
justice. Alfred furthers to state
that our nations are spiritually disconnected; that because we are disconnected
spiritually to our lands it has caused a great darkness amongst our peoples,
and I have to agree with him on this.
And in order for change to begin, we need to look at “fundamental
building blocks” within our own communities.
Three facets Alfred offer as a form of “new resistance” through a “Warrior
Scholarship ethic:”
i.
Honor indigenous traditional and cultural
knowledge
ii.
Defy the unjust notions of juridical unity
iii.
Subvert pretensions of coopted Indigenous
scholars and imperial or civil servants” (95-96).
Alfred’s reminder that beginning with self change, while
looking back at our families and communities for continued support, and resist
pressures of colonial imperialism, I have to say, this article has helped
remind me what my kulena is, for I am Warrior for my community, TRUST!
[1] Robert Cowen
and Andreas M. Kazamias, International Handbook of Comparative
Education, v. 1 (London and
New York, Springer Scince+Business Media, 2009): 557.
To re-appropriate the motto of a colonial educational institution I attended: I mua! Be a warrior and tell the stories that matter for your community in languages that speak to your community. This was one of Gaudry's points as well. So, you have back up--people to cite to help explain and legitimize why you are doing what you are doing!
ReplyDeleteIndigenizing the Academy
ReplyDeleteEarlier this semester I had the opportunity to attend a conference at the National University of Sāmoa (NUS) – in the Independent State of Sāmoa – on a conference regarding Samoan (chiefly) titles, language, and lands and this reminded me of several points brought up in the readings. As I was in the audience, several faculty members, who were graduates of NUS, had given testimonies about being banned from speaking Samoan at the very same school only a couple of decades ago. Neither Samoan language or culture were even given a second thought as being offered at Sāmoa’s highest form of educational institution until relatively recently. The fact that the NUS had hosted such a conference was a sign of major inroads into integrating indigenous language and culture into the curriculum. I was surprised at the testimonies of these teachers because it raised in my mind several issues. How could a Samoan institution ban its own native language from being spoken? I thought they were past the whole colonial situation – after all, Sāmoa did get its political sovereignty, yet why would it try to suppress its own language and culture (in its early years). One of the Samoan Studies faculty members had told me that his department had been looked-down upon by other departments who saw themselves more challenging and rigorous (and better) disciplines than Samoan. Such attitudes, I thought, was reflective of the overall purpose of the academy as an institution – at least it seems to me – that is to sustain the nation-state. As an “indigenous nation-state” I suppose you could call Sāmoa, its focus for the University was not to perpetuate the language and culture, but to produce teachers, government worker, health care professionals, and the like to accommodate a Western-capitalistic work ethic.
This brings me to Alfred’s reading on the nature of the academy as fundamentally opposed to Indigenous ways – it is prime site of colonization (88). Evaluating the University as an institution that is not indigenous and can be a vehicle of colonization – it is a contentious ground – a “battlefield” as Alfred calls it.
I am also reminded of how the Center Pacific Islands Studies (CPIS) program had been started at UH as a vehicle of domination and subjugation by the US government in order to “study” the region it sought to colonize. Just a few years ago CPIS has celebrated its 60th anniversary, 60 years! And then I thought, how was there a Pacific Island studies program for that long before a Hawaiian studies program would be accepted at UH (which did not come about easily)? This highlights again the inherently colonial nation of the academy.
But what is empowering about Alfred’s article is advice for Indigenous academics: “as teachers of an empowering and truthful sense of the past and who we are, and as visionaries of a dignified alternative to the indignity of cultural assimilation and political surrender” (95). In attempting to decolonize the academy – from assimilationalist attitudes and the like – Alfred argues for a form of resistance of a “Warrior Scholarship”: honoring traditional Indigenous knowledge, defying “juridical unity” and “subverting the pretentions of coopted Indigenous scholars and imperial or civil servants” (95-96). His “indigenous insurgency” further calls for solidarity, organization, and empowerment in facing the adversarial colonial forces that riddle the institution. I find these approaches appropriate for the Samoan situation, even though it has progressed significantly over the decades to accept and incorporate indigenous knowledge and language. We are though, still facing pervasive attitudes of superiority and pretension as indigenous people struggle to survive and increasingly accommodate to this capitalist system. We do, however, have a responsibility, as Alfred and others have pointed out to decolonize not only our scholarship and approaches to the University and its relationship to society as a whole and how it contributes to its colonization and decolonization.
Sorry for intruding, this is Niko ... had problems posting a regular post so my apologies for intruding on your post. This is a piece in regards to the Alfred article.
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