Grafting Indigenous Ways of Knowing onto Non-Indigenous Ways of Being: The (Underestimated) Challenges of a Decolonial Imagination

Abstract

This article examines issues that arise when Indigenous epistemologies are interpreted through non-Indigenous ontologies in research settings. I use the concept of grafting to refer to the act of transplanting ways of knowing and being from a context where they emerge naturally to a context where they are artificially implanted. I start exploring this context through a poem that outlines the difficulties Indigenous people tend to face when inhabiting academic spaces whose architecture is built on the violent historical foundations of modernity. Next, I briefly outline critiques of recognition and inclusion in political and educational spheres to highlight how liberal discourses have tended to offer only conditional forms of integration that support dominant ways of thinking by presenting them as benevolent and inclusive. I then turn to a discussion of the implications of this analysis for Indigenous research methodologies. I conclude with tentative suggestions for further work in this area.