Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem (editor) - Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology

DECOLONIZING RESEARCH

NDIGENOUS STORYWORK AS METHODOLOGY

Edited by Jo-ann Archibald Qum Qum Xiiem,
Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan and Jason De Santolo

Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology was first published in 2019 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK.

www.zedbooks.net

Editorial Copyright Jo-ann Archibald Qum Qum Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan and Jason De Santolo 2019
Copyright in this Collection Zed Books Ltd 2019

The right of Jo-ann Archibald Qum Qum Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan and Jason De Santolo to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Typeset in Plantin and Kievit by Swales and Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
Index by Rohan Bolton
Cover design by Steve Leard
Cover photo Penny Tweedie/Panos Pictures/Felix Features

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78699-461-5 hb
ISBN 978-1-78699-460-8 pb
ISBN 978-1-78699-462-2 pdf
ISBN 978-1-78699-463-9 epub
ISBN 978-1-78699-464-6 mobi

To Indigenous storytellers of the past, present, and future who have kept and will keep Indigenous stories at the core of the heart, mind, body, and spirit so that Indigenous storywork may flourish.

CONTENTS

Jo-ann Archibald Qum Qum Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan and Jason De Santolo

Jo-ann Archibald Qum Qum Xiiem

Sara Florence Davidson

Dorothy Christian

Georgina Martin and Elder Jean William

Jo-ann Archibald Qum Qum Xiiem, Cynthia Nicol, and Joanne Yovanovich

Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan

Hayley Marama Cavino

Joeliee Seed-Pihama

Carwyn Jones

Leonie Pihama, Donna Campbell, and Hineitimoana Greensill

Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan

Jason De Santolo

Larissa Behrendt

Evelyn Araluen Corr

Nerida Blair

Victor Steffensen

Jason De Santolo

Jo-ann Archibald Qum Qum Xiiem is a scholar and educational practitioner from the St:l and Statimc First Nations in British Columbia, Canada. She is Professor Emeritus in the Educational Studies Department at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Faculty of Education. She was previously the Associate Dean of Indigenous Education, and the Director of NITEP (UBCs Indigenous Teacher Education Program). She is the author of Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit (2008). In 2018, she was appointed officer of the Order of Canada for her substantial work in Indigenous education.

Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan is a scholar and researcher of Waikato-Tainui, Ngti Mahuta Mori descent, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is Professor of Mori Research, Te Wnanga o Wairaka, Unitec. Prior to this she was the Deputy Director of the Te Kotahi Research Institute at the University of Waikato. She previously served as the head of the University of Aucklands School of Mori Education (Te Puna Wnanga). Her previous works include Mahi te Mahi: Inservice to Homeless Whnau (Lee-Morgan et al., 2018), co-edited book Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, Research and Practice (Hutchings and Lee-Morgan, 2016) and Jade Taniwha: Mori-Chinese Identity and Schooling in Aotearoa (Lee, 2007).

Jason De Santolo is a researcher and creative producer of Garrwa and Barunggam descent from Australia. He is currently Associate Professor Interdisciplinary Indigenous Design at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), School of Design. He was previously Senior Researcher and Head of New Media at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at UTS.

A heartfelt thanks to all of the contributing authors, as well as your Elders, families and communities who have been so supportive of this work and collaborative endeavour.

We would like to acknowledge Ng Pae o te Mramatanga, New Zealands Mori Centre of Research Excellence and the University of Waikato for funding the prkau and Indigenous storywork research project that has enabled this wonderful collaboration, and this book to be published.

Many thanks to the super team at Te Kotahi Research Institute for their research and administrative support, including organizing our many symposia so that our communities have direct access to our international Indigenous visiting scholars as well as our own Mori academics and researchers and leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Thanks also to Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research University of Technology Sydney for supporting the project collaboration and hosting the storytelling gathering in Sydney, Australia.

Special thanks to Dr Maureen Muller who has assisted in the compilation of chapters from across three countries, and completion of the final manuscript.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith

This book brings together some of the innovative research of Indigenous scholars across three countries Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand who use Indigenous Storywork as a decolonizing methodology. The right, the space, the voice to tell our own stories from our own perspectives has been an important aspect of decolonizing knowledge. This volume presents a powerful collection of Indigenous storyworkers who have thought, not just about the power of stories, but, about the power of working with stories, as a means to draw insights and possibilities to Indigenous experiences and knowledge.

We often hear that telling stories and working with stories is a universal experience across all peoples, cultures, and societies. Unfortunately, we mostly hear that version from a dominant perspective that has assumed the right to tell the stories of the colonized and the oppressed that they have re-interpreted, re-presented, and re-told through their own lens. The storywork in this volume addresses many of the subsequent issues that have emerged from the suppression of stories as a way to colonize Peoples. Much more significantly, however, the chapters begin to lay out the contemporary applications of storywork for working in collaboration with Indigenous communities and Indigenous knowledge to gain new insights and show new directions for knowledge making.

Storywork, a term coined by Professor Jo-ann Archibald, tells us that this is not a book of short stories but a book that works with story making and is as much about the principles of making stories to the art of telling stories and to the cultural understandings for making sense of stories. Many Indigenous stories speak from and to a deep understanding and philosophy about humans and their relations, other entities with whom humans have relationships and responsibilities. Many stories speak from and to places of trauma and injustice. Other stories are more disruptive and show alternative understandings that can guide humans to be better humans. Some of the chapters show how new technologies and contemporary cultural practices can become powerful media for storywork that engages with Indigenous youth. The richness of Indigenous stories is only beginning to be developed as a purposeful and scholarly way to create and share knowledge more broadly.

The chapters in this book cover diverse disciplines from mathematics education to literary studies, film aesthetics to legal practices. The introductory chapter is an excellent introduction to the concept of storywork and decolonizing methodologies and the synthesis of different approaches to storywork across Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand. The editors have brought together a significant volume of writings that will have wide appeal to those who work with Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous communities as well as to teachers and students of Indigenous knowledge.