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ABSTRACT
While ‘place-making’ is a productive concept for many scholars, I consider land relations and research through Indigenous (re)making by narrating embodied and experiential ethnographic approaches. Through (re)making, one reimagines ethnography and ethnographic practices with Indigenous land and Indigenous land practices that work to contribute to forms of decolonial healing and Indigenous survivance. In consideration of the wounds among multiple bodies, not only humans, for which large-scale settler-colonial agricultural plantations in Hawai’i and the Sonoran Desert are responsible, this work discusses possibilities for (re)making toward healing with land. Song, poetry, and story are the agents who make such engagements with many more-than-(but including)-human collaborators translatable. As such, it asks how an understanding of ethnography in the contexts of Indigenous science and technology studies that cares about environmental research might shift the ways in which methodologies are formed and ‘data’ is shaped. And it asks how ethnographic practitioners might better affirm the plights, journeys, cycles, relations, and encounters that more-than-human beings experience, remember, hold, and live. This is one contribution among many that attend to the variety of ways in which ethnographic texts are formed and understood in Indigenous research practices that challenge Euro-Western genres and structures of knowledge production, and how/with whom such knowledges and practices are co-created.
RÉSUMÉ
Si bien la ‘creación de lugares’ es un concepto productivo para muchos académicos, considero las relaciones de tierra y la investigación a través del (re) hacer indígena al narrar enfoques etnográficos incorporados y experienciales. A través de la (re) creación, uno re-imagina la etnografía y las prácticas etnográficas con las tierras indígenas y las prácticas de tierras indígenas que trabajan para contribuir a las formas de curación decolonial y la supervivencia indígena. En consideración a las heridas entre múltiples cuerpos, no solo humanos, de las cuales son responsables las plantaciones agrícolas coloniales a gran escala en Hawai y el desierto de Sonora, este artículo analiza las posibilidades de (re)hacer hacia la curación con la tierra. La canción, la poesía y la historia son los agentes que hacen que estas relaciones sean traducibles entre humanos y más-que-humanos. Este trabajo pregunta cómo una comprensión de la etnografía en los contextos de estudios de ciencia y tecnología indígenas que se preocupa por la investigación ambiental, podría cambiar las formas en que se forman las metodologías y se configuran los ‘datos’. Y pregunta cómo aquellos que hacen etnografía podrían afirmar mejor las dificultades, los viajes, los ciclos, las relaciones y los encuentros que los seres humanos experimentan, recuerdan, sostienen y viven. Esta es una contribución entre otras que atienden la variedad de formas en que los textos etnográficos se forman y se entienden en las prácticas de investigación indígena que desafían los géneros y las estructuras euro-occidentales de producción de conocimiento, y cómo/con quién se crean dichos conocimientos y prácticas.
RESUMEN
Tandis que la « création de lieu » est un concept fertile pour beaucoup de chercheurs, j’étudie les relations foncières et la recherche sur la (re)création autochtone en présentant des approches ethnographiques concrétisées et empiriques. À travers la (re-)création, on peut repenser l’ethnographie et les pratiques ethnographiques avec les territoires\et pratiques foncières autochtones qui contribuent aux formes d’apaisement de décolonisation et de survie autochtones. Compte tenu des blessures infligées à de nombreuses espèces et non seulement l’espèce humaine, dont sont responsables les plantations agricoles à grande échelle des pionniers coloniaux à Hawaï et dans le désert du Sonora, cette étude examine les possibilités de (re-)création vers l’apaisement avec les territoires. Le chant, la poésie et les récits sont les agents qui rendent ces engagements transférables pour de nombreux collaborateurs, les humains, mais aussi au-delà d’eux. Elle pose ainsi la question suivante: comment une compréhension de l’ethnographie dans le cadre des études autochtones scientifiques et technologiques qui traitent de la recherche sur l’environnement pourrait changer les façons dont les méthodologies sont établies et les « données » sont formées. Cette étude questionne également de quelle manière les ethnographes pourraient soutenir plus efficacement les situations difficiles, voyages, cycles, échanges et rencontres que les êtres plus qu’humains ressentent, remémorent, possèdent et vivent. Cette étude vient se joindre à de nombreuses contributions qui s’intéressent aux multiples façons dont les pratiques autochtones en matière de recherche façonnent et comprennent les écrits ethnographiques, défiant les genres et structures de production de connaissances euro-occidentaux, ainsi qu’à la manière dont ces connaissances et pratiques sont cocréées.
Acknowledgments
I thank my friend and colleague Dr. Audra Mitchell for her close readings of this work where she repeatedly offered meaningful feedback which often led to our engaged and generative discussions. I also thank Dr. Noah Theirault for his kind input and encouragement in the publication process. Many thanks to the Creatures Collective for the invitation to contribute and think alongside such generous and critically conscious thinkers and scholars. Thank you to community friend/teacher of Nahuatl/macehualtlahtolli— Cuitlahuac A. Martinez—to whom I am deeply grateful for their generous knowledge shares and ongoing language revitalization efforts on occupied Tongva territory in so-called Los Angeles, California. Finally, I send my heartfelt gratitude to Cahuilla and Serrano Peoples and their ancestors as the entirety of this article was written on and with their Land.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. See Gerald Vizenor (Anishinaabe), Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence (Vizenor, Citation2008).
2. (Whatmore, Citation2006).
3. There are Indigenous scholars who consider our/their work as cultural production. It is for this reason that I borrow from Kānaka Maōli scholar Noelani Goodyear-Ka’ōpua the term ‘practitioner’ to designate those whose cultural production work takes the form of (ethnographic) research (Noelani Goodyear-Ka’ōpua, Citation2016). And I build on ‘practitioner’ to include the processes and products of the practitioner’s work as ‘ethnographic practice’ which is, in this context, also cultural production.
4. To be clear, this article is written as one contribution toward work that seeks to ‘denaturalize power within settler societies and ground knowledge production in decolonization’ (Morgensen, Citation2012, 805). This article does not seek to flatten Indigenous decolonization efforts by providing any sort of model for Indigenous research, rather to engage with expansive Indigenous teachings and practices so as to share a selection of components that make up one scholar’s methodological approaches in their ethnographic practice.
5. Teachings demonstrated by my Father’s mother, my Nana/Haaka, as I understand them.
6. For more insights on sakada (imported laborers) taken to Hawai’i from the Philippines during the early 1900s, please see Building Filipino Hawai’i, by Roderick N. Labrador (Labrador, Citation2015), and ‘Colonial Amnesia: Rethinking Filipino ‘American’ Settler Empowerment in the U.S. Colony of Hawai’i,” by Dean Itsuji Saranillio (Saranillio, Citation2008).
7. Elder teaching as I have come to understand it.
8. Primarily, Pinus quadrifolia, but the collective has also cared for Pinus monophylla, among many other plants and trees (Ramirez & Small 2015).
9. Ongoing and thriving but ancient Aztec/Mexica practices of teaching, academics, theories, methods, practices, and understandings. These teachings stem from Nāhuatlācah, or Nahuatl speakers and their descendants.
10. It is important to remain mindful of those who would have had access to education, in particular those who may have been excluded such as women and the poorest members of society (McDonough, Citation2016, 57). Calmecacs, though largely taught to those of the wealthy, also includes students from families who emphasized intense training and discipline (Crum, Citation1991; Miguel. León-Portilla, Citation1974). Cuicani (composers and singers of songs/poems) could be performed by any person who was dedicated to the work. Still, cuicame is a version of the Nahuatl noble language tecpilahtolli, while the common language is macehualahtolli; however, tecpilahtolli is also used by the broader communities (such as songs) (Miguel. León-Portilla, Citation2014, 51).
11. Also see scholar of Nahuatl cultures, Miguel Léon-Portilla who describes in xochitl, in cuicatl as truth and symbolism in poetry and art (Miguel. León-Portilla, Citation1990).
12. It must be noted that the Nahuatl translations described, while researched by me, have also been discussed in consultation with a community friend/teacher of Nahuatl/macehualtlahtolli – Cuitlahuac A. Martinez – to whom I am deeply grateful for their generous knowledge shares and ongoing language revitalization efforts on occupied Tongva territory in Los Angeles, California.
13. Maestro Miguel León-Portilla’s extensive work is appreciated and respected and I rely primarily on his expertise, in addition to supplementary texts, with regard to translation. Still, I acknowledge the various challenges to select portions of Maestro León-Portilla’s work. See ‘The Pre-Columbian Past as a Project’ by Sanchez-Prado for one description of (select) critiques (2005).
14. (Bierhorst, Citation1985).
15. (Bierhorst, Citation1985).
16. Feeling, not only by touch, but that which is channeled through the body affectively is also a key teaching but is not as simply translated to the English language. Cuī, here in some phrases, is translated as intimating ‘feeling’ but cui (also) translates in English as ‘to take’; one translation bases the understanding of ‘feeling’ on the placement of the term in relation to the phrase(s) as a whole (Farias, Citation2013). Cui can be held with modes expression of feelings such as cuīcahōca (song-weeping), cuīcailhuizōlli (song-marvel), cuiloa (painting) and cuīca (to sing; to sing of birds), for example (Bierhorst, Citation1985).
17. See ‘Introduction – Indigenous Studies: An appeal for methodological promiscuity,’ by Chris Anderson and Jean M. O’Brien, in Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies (Andersen & O’brien, Citation2016).