Watching to see until it becomes clear to you: metaphorical mapping – a method for emergence

Abstract

Searching for a methodology that would allow the author to ‘see’ across worldviews and articulate them both was the academic challenge of investigating learning ideology across Canadian and Aboriginal worldviews with Aboriginal Nuu‐chah‐nulth Elders. A mode of inquiry was required permitting the author to hold a Euro‐heritage and an Aboriginal heritage in a bi‐cultural balance as experienced by a participant in both. She employed a life‐history technique situating herself in the cross‐cultural context of her experience in both heritages. Using her personal terms of address in both cultures as metaphors to establish a common bi‐cultural ground against which her trajectory could remain visible, the author describes the development of her ability to follow the direction of the elders to ‘watch until it becomes clear.’ The method employs what Lakoff and Johnson have termed metaphorical mapping to take a snapshot of the activity that the author has previously described as phenomenological orienteering.

Notes

1. Nuu‐chah‐nulth are a Canadian Aboriginal tribal group occupying the length of the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Historically called ‘Nootka,’ the tribe comprises 14 First Nations, each with a distinct dialect of this Wakashan linguistic group. The group is administered by the Nuu‐chah‐nulth Tribal Council. The recent population numbers approximately 9000.

2. In this paper Aboriginal and First Nations are used interchangeably. Canadian people of Aboriginal origin include First Nations (with and without status, with and without treaty), Inuit, and Métis people.

3. The cyborg (Haraway, 1991) is an acknowledgement that technology is an extension of my body (the cellular phone and the car), naturally ‘unnatural means’ by which to remain affiliated with my family members.

4. An Aboriginal community with a membership of approximately 2000 with about 800 people living in the main village of Maaqtusiis on Flores Island in Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia, Canada. Ahousaht is an amalgamated band under the Indian Act, administered by a band council with the participation of three hereditary chiefs.

5. ‘First Nations’ is used in this instance to describe the make‐up of a community that is amalgamated at several levels. Ahousaht First Nation is made up of several First Nations or independent lineage groups in a confederacy originating after a legendary war and also from amalgamations prompted by the federal government of Canada for administrative convenience.

6. Esso is a brand of gas. Gas stations with this name were dotted along the highway and consequently provided continuities along the way by prompting a chorus each time one appeared.

7. Nanaimo is where the author lived when commuting to work weekly to the village of Ahousaht. The commute took three hours by car and then another hour by speedboat over open coastal waters at all times of the year and under a range of weather conditions.

8. Catface is a sacred site in Ahousaht territory, but it is also marks the site of a dangerous rocky point which had taken many ships in rough seas.

9. Airmiles are points collected through consumer purchases that can be redeemed for, in this case, airplane fares.

10. The Canadian federal government has been defining and determining Indian status and band membership of aboriginal peoples since 1850. Over time this legislation became known as The Indian Act. From 1850 on Indian status was defined as one being aboriginal by birth or blood, by being a member of a particular band or body of Indians, or one who marries an Indian or is adopted by Indians.

11. Bella Bella is a Heiltsuk village on the central coast of British Columbia, Canada, which is also called Waglisla. My younger son was born there in 1970 when my partner taught at the school.