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Oxford’s first Indigenous scholar was honoured

A pioneering Māori scholar believed to be the first Indigenous woman to study at the University of Oxford, England, has been awarded a posthumous degree certificate almost a century after she died. Mākereti Papakura (pictured) passed away in 1930, just weeks before she was due to present her thesis. With the agreement of her family, the university published her work in a book titled The Old-Time Māori. It became the first ethnographic study published by a Māori author, offering a unique insight into Indigenous culture. Now the university has awarded Papakura a posthumous degree, which was presented to more than 100 of her descendants in Oxford on Sunday. “Mākereti Papakura has been a legend in our family for over a hundred years,” said June Northcroft Grant. “Our family have been quietly and patiently telling her story over many decades. We … are humbled by the recognition and conferment of this great honour from Oxford University.”

Image: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

via positive.news

#Mākereti Papakura #image of the deceased #oxford #indigenous scholars #indigenous peoples #Māori #maori people #indigenous #good news #science #indigenous history #indigenous culture #indigenous issues #indigenous people #indigenous women #oxford university #academia #england

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

I spent the day catching up with family, spending time with my dogs, and reading some foundational texts in Indigenous studies. Here is a short list of some wonderful Indigenous scholars & activists to read on this & every day!

• Trask, Haunani-Kay. From a Native Daughter : Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi. Rev. ed., University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1999, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824847029.

• Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass : Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. First edition., Milkweed Editions, 2013.

• Osorio, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani. Remembering Our Intimacies : Moʻolelo, Aloha ʻāina, and Ea. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021.

• Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies : Research and Indigenous Peoples. Second edition, Zed Books, 2012.

• Walter, Maggie, et al., editors. Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Policy. Routledge, 2021, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429273957.

• Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization : Indigeneity, Education & Society, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–40.

• Whyte, Kyle. “Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene.” English Language Notes, vol. 55, no. 1–2, 2017, pp. 153–62, https://doi.org/10.1215/00138282-55.1-2.153.

• TallBear, Kimberly. Native American DNA : Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

#Indigenous Peoples Day #Indigenous scholars #Indigenous #studyblr #grad school life #phdjourney #bookblr

“At the risk of bruising friendships, I also ask that we think fully about theories of change that rely on raising awareness or raising visibility. This theory of change assumes that people are unaware of an injustice or issue or illness or social calamity, and that in making them more aware, we ready them to take appropriate action. It is a theory of pre-change. It assumes that people will generally do the right thing with the right information. It anticipates that the reason for inaction thus far is missing information, or lack of depth of understanding of the significance or need.

Raising awareness is a cousin theory of change to documenting change—both often rely on circulating narratives and tropes of the mutilated body, the broken spirit, the flooded neighborhood. Images of destruction compete for dollars on Facebook, to wrench the most sympathy for donations, for charity, for compassion, for hashtag solidarity, for newsworthiness, for value, for mattering. There is no relationship between the evocativeness of the photograph and the amount of the donation that goes to those in need. There is no relationship between the story of loss and the supplies that come.

So much of what we do to compel change relies on raising awareness. But what if we—as communities, as collectives—were to disbelieve awareness as change? What if we, as Indigenous peoples, as people of colour, as disenfranchised peoples, believed that our own awareness, our own knowing, is enough to make change? What if we did not wait for others to also know but are inspired by our own knowing? What if we hold true that we are the ones who need to know, and not others? What if we believe that we are the ones who can make change, and that others are not more powerful than us to effect change? These are radical questions that throb at the heart of what gets taken for granted as the work of social justice, of organizing, of public scholarship. [...]

In this neoliberal, settler colonial moment, it can be so difficult to imagine other theories of change. It requires a sort of mental yoga to even remember other theories of change. In our book, Youth Resistance Research and Theories of Change, Wayne Yang and I created a list of other popular theories of change and I can never remember what was on the list. I have to look at the list to remember, because raising awareness and documenting damage figure so prominently in my imagination.”

—Eve Tuck, “Biting the University that Feeds Us,” in Dissident Knowledge in Higher Education

#eve tuck #native scholars #indigenous scholars #quotes #es tag #to think further!!!!!!#damage-centered research #activism

“I use the term ‘sharing knowledge’ deliberately, rather than the term ‘sharing information’ because to me the responsibility of researchers and academics is not simply to share surface information (pamphlet knowledge) but to share the theories and analyses which inform the way knowledge and information are constructed and represented. By taking this approach seriously it is possible to introduce communities and people who may have had little formal schooling to a wider world, a world which includes people who think like them, who share in their struggles and dreams and who voice their concerns in similar sorts of ways. To assume in advance that people will not be interested in, or will not understand, the deeper issues is arrogant. The challenge is always to demystify, to decolonize.”

-- Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

#linda tuhiwai smith #decolonizing research #indigenous scholars #quotes #es tag

“As Fanon and later writers such as Nandy have claimed, imperialism and colonialism brought complete disorder to colonized peoples, disconnecting them from their histories, their landscapes, their languages, their social relations and their own ways of thinking, feeling, and interacting with the world. It was a process of systematic fragmentation which can still be seen in the disciplinary carve-up of the indigenous world: bones, mummies, and skulls to the museums, art work to private collectors, languages to linguistics, ‘customs’ to anthropologists, beliefs and behaviors to psychologists. To discover how fragmented this process was one needs only to stand in a museum, a library, a bookshop, and ask where indigenous peoples are located. Fragmentation is not a phenomenon of postmodernism as many might claim. For indigenous peoples fragmentation has been the consequence of imperialism.”

-- Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

#linda tuhiwai smith #indigenous scholars #decolonizing research #es tag #imperialism #colonialism #settler-colonialism #disciplinarity #fragmentation

“In contemporary indigenous contexts there are some major research issues which continue to be debated quite vigorously. These can be summarized best by the critical questions that communities and indigenous activists often ask, in a variety of ways: Whose research is it? Who owns it? Whose interests does it serve? Who will benefit from it? Who has designed its questions and framed its scope? Who will carry it out? Who will write it up? How will its results be disseminated? While there are many researchers who can handle such questions with integrity, there are many more who cannot, or who approach these questions with some cynicism, as if they were a test merely of political correctness. What may surprise many people is that what may appear as the ‘right,’ most desirable answer can still be judged incorrect. These questions are simply part of a larger set of judgements on criteria that a researcher cannot prepare for, such as: Is her spirit clear? Does he have a good heart? What other baggage are they carrying? Are they useful to us? Can they fix up our generator? Can they actually do anything?”

-- Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

#linda tuhiwai smith #decolonizing research #es tag #research #indigenous scholars

Native Organization of Indigenous Scholars presents: The 16th Annual Symposium of Native and Indigenous Scholarship at the University of Washington, Seattle! This year's theme is 'Stories of Resistance from Indigenous People.' If you have a medium you will like to present please submit an abstract to [email protected]. Location: wǝɫǝbʔaltxw Intellectual House Date: May 17, 2017 Time: 04:30 - 08:30 PM Event is FREE and opened to the public. Dinner will be provided! PRE-REGISTRATION is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-16th-annual-symposium-of-native-and-indigenous-scholarship-at-the-university-of-washington-tickets-32991138383. If you are having technical difficulties with registration please contact us at [email protected]

https://www.facebook.com/events/163745437477542/

#events #indigenous scholars #wǝɫǝbʔaltxw

Also, still cannot believe that I had the amazing opportunity to meet Sherman Alexie this past spring. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my undergraduate career, and I feel so grateful. I’m feeling very nostalgic.

#sherman alexie #indigenous scholars