In Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, Dr. Shawn Wilson speaks the unspoken.
A member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, Wilson comes from a family of Indigenous researchers and has studied topics ranging from psychology to zoology and did his doctoral work in Indigenous knowledge. From the outset in the introduction, he tells the reader that relationships, context, respect, and responsibility are the most important aspects of his work as an Indigenous researcher, and he writes the rest of the book not with the intent to prove this method, but rather to share it with the reader. The introduction and first four chapters provide the reader with context of the author and the history of Indigenous research, while chapters five and six dive into his tenets of an Indigenous research paradigm, aptly titled Relationality and Relational Accountability. Though the voice changes throughout the text (as a result of he himself changing throughout his research), the central idea of research as relational whispers through each page, no matter his momentary subject.
Wilson makes a conscious choice in his work to get the reader acquainted with him, a move quite unfamiliar to avid readers of nonfiction. He writes half of the book as a letter to his sons Julius, Max, and Falco, both a way for him to feel more comfortable and for the reader to know his intentions and motivations. While potentially a bit awkward at first, his trust in the reader as he shares his motivations cause the reader to give that trust back to him, developing a greater level of respect between him and the reader. This respect, he later goes on to emphasize, is a key part of his vision of an Indigenous research paradigm; in thinking of how research can be done within this paradigm, he maintains that “the methodology needs to be based in a community context (be relational) and has to demonstrate respect, reciprocity and responsibility (be accountable as it is put into action).”
The book is not concerned with detailing every single step you must take to participate in an Indigenous research paradigm—it is not a how-to to follow rigidly. Rather, Wilson interweaves personal anecdotes and historical perspective to present a form of story to the reader. He continually reminds the reader that writing is a bit odd for him, because most Indigenous knowledge is passed on through an oral tradition which lets the storyteller interact with the person receiving the knowledge. In one of the earlier chapters, he tells of how when someone is looking for advice Elders don’t tend to offer it directly, but rather they share a story from their own life and let the listener find their own lesson from the story. It seems Wilson has a similar approach for this book: it is not for him to tell you directly how to incorporate an Indigenous research paradigm in your work, but to share how he has and let you develop your own knowledge about it.
One of the most standout chapters, chapter six, was one in which he roughly transcribed some conversations he had with fellow Indigenous researchers. There was no central goal of this chapter other than to share with the reader how his conversations have informed his work. In sharing the conversation, (and the agreements and disagreements within it), he is not the professor lecturing to us but the storyteller (as he aims to be), helping us come to our own conclusions that can help us best. Further, Wilson lets the reader view the relational accountability between him and his colleagues as they talk about their perspectives on how to work within an Indigenous research paradigm. Each of their work as scholars affects the other people in the room, and other Indigenous scholars they might never have even met; It is with this sense of responsibility and accountability that they make decisions about their research, not just by what is most laudable or in demand.
Readers of Astrobites might wonder, how does this relate to us? Our subjects are not human, we don’t interact with them through our work. In a sense, this can be true—we have no direct effect on our subjects: stars and galaxies out in the cosmos are not affected by our methodology (the way we study them) or our axiology (our values). But our methodology and axiology do affect people and communities on Earth. A clear example for observers like me is Maunakea—though we imagine our observations to be unbiased, our use of sacred land with little consideration for the Indigenous people of Hawaii (and other native lands and peoples) negates these naïve imaginations. Ignoring this is to ignore the accountability we have to these communities, to the land, and to our fellow researchers. We cannot continue to act as if the way we do research is out of our hands, determined only by the funding agencies we rely on—we must take responsibility for our work and how we do it, so that we can begin to take action that we ourselves respect.
Further, the way in which we understand the universe (ontology) and the way in which we know it (epistemology) relies fundamentally on years of history and relationships we don’t tend to consider. My research is guided by the hand of my advisor, guided by the hand of their advisor, and so on and so forth, traced back to the beginnings of the Western understanding of physics. The people I speak to at conferences, the people I meet in my studies, and the people I connect with through my research affect my reality and the ways in which I think about things. Perhaps we all know this, somewhere in our minds—it’s an unspoken structure of science, is it not? Yet Wilson and his colleagues urge us to bring what we cannot speak about to the forefront: “the students form[ing] relationships with other Indigenous scholars… is the main reason for going to any conference as far as I am concerned—it is nice that it is a stated reason for having a conference rather than just something that happens on the side.”
Of course, I would be remiss without letting the reader get to know me as well—my name is Caroline von Raesfeld, and I am from northern California. I have studied astronomy and physics my whole life, from working as a volunteer in observatories in high school to now studying high-redshift galaxies using telescopes on Maunakea. In recent years, my research paradigm has begun to be influenced by approaches from the humanities, thinking about history of thought and philosophy and linguistics as I’ve taken courses in science writing and communication. I was introduced to this book by a close friend in my graduate cohort Nathalie Jones, a Native Hawaiian astronomy graduate student, who was introduced to it by her mother. We read this book in a book club together with other physics and astronomy graduate students at Northwestern. In thinking of the ways we can bring elements of an Indigenous research paradigm into our research, we want to place a higher value on the relationships we have with one another to build trust between our colleagues, ourselves, and our research.
As Wilson’s father Stan says, research “is a ceremony for improving [our] relationship with an idea. It takes place every day and has taken place throughout our history.” It is not limited to the proposals we write, the papers we read, the data we analyze or the talks we give; It is the conversations we have, the way we interact with one another, and the small actions that build our relationships and our understanding of the universe.
Astrobite edited by: Brandon Pries
Featured image credit: Julius Wassenas and John van der Woude
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