On Being Indigenous As A Process
On Being Indigenous As A Process
On Being Indigenous As A Process
Key Words
Cultural change · Cultural identity · Indigenous people
Chandler’s proposal is to focus on the processes rather than the contents of cul-
ture: ‘ “software” trumps “hardware.” ’ Focus on how people do things, rather than on
what things they do: ‘those distinctive ways of knowing and being, and those ideals
and standards of excellence, that have traditionally accompanied being members of
just such an Indigenous community’.
This proposal resonates with many other proposals in social sciences that argue
for examining people’s cultural practices [e.g., Goodnow & Kessel, 1995; Lave, 1988;
Rogoff, 2003]. The recent book, Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town
[Rogoff, 2011], argues that cultural changes and continuities can be understood by
historical cultural analyses of people’s activities across generations. The ideas are il-
lustrated with research in a Guatemalan Mayan community where childbirth and
childrearing practices in some ways continue to echo the practices of 500 years ago
and, at the same time, reflect local inventions and the influence of Western schooling,
Western medicine, and Western missions.
Chandler’s process approach, like that of Rogoff [2011], brings attention to the
historical dimension of cultural identity: Cultural communities continually remake
themselves as they re-instantiate the ways of prior generations, take on ways of other
communities, invent new approaches to handle new conditions, and adapt to forced
changes.
This historical-cultural approach is also consistent with other work that has fol-
lowed on Vygotsky’s approach. For example, Sylvia Scribner [1985] built on Vy-
gotsky’s distinctions between microgenetic, ontogenetic, sociohistorical develop-
ment, and phylogenetic development, pointing out that culture is not in opposition
to individual development or to biological aspects of development. Rather, these four
views of development are simply different grains of analysis of any particular phe-
nomenon. Scribner offers some ways to describe the continual regeneration of culture
by its constituent participants within an intergenerational historical context.
Taking a process approach requires a paradigm shift to get beyond either/or
thinking (e.g., nature vs. nurture, culture vs. biology, individual vs. community, and
other binary oppositions or polarities). This paradigm shift has been seen in other
scholarly approaches. For example, Dewey [1938] called for getting beyond either/or
thinking and instead focus on what he called experience. Pepper [1967] distinguished
the contextual worldview from mechanist, formalist, and organicist worldviews.
Chandler discusses related ideas of Rorty, Bruner, and Kuhn.
Interestingly, to make the paradigm shift to thinking of culture in terms of pro-
cess requires the same kind of understanding that is involved in apprehending some
of the central distinguishing cultural ways of thinking of Indigenous people of Can-
ada and elsewhere. Unfortunately, ‘staunch defenders of culturally mainstream views
are not particularly inclined to make way for competing alternatives but, instead,
work assiduously to rule them all out of court’ [Chandler, this issue; see also Kuhn,
1962]. This, we contend, is true in both the realms of normal science and of under-
standing Indigenous ways of thinking.
For example, a feature common in mainstream theoretical traditions is the view
that cultural change and persistence are nothing more than adaptation to linearly im-
proving technology and institutions; some new paradigms in social sciences – as well
as Indigenous ways of thinking about process – tend to militate against this view.
In Chandler’s terminology, the cultural contents (the specific gods’ names) disap-
pear but the cultural processes (the work the gods do) endure along with some chang-
es. The process is not a linear one of acculturation or ‘progress,’ but rather a cycle.
In fields as diverse as developmental psychology, history, and archaeology, ro-
bust, theoretically progressive research programs focus on cultural processes rather
than their ostensive products or contents [Lakatos & Musgrave, 1970; Lomawaima,
1994; Perdue, 1998; Rogoff, 2011; Wilcox, 2009]. These approaches challenge the lin-
ear, atomistic models that tend to pervade the broader research traditions in which
they are situated. Each seeks to construe cultural processes as dynamic, evolving over
time, and mutually constitutive of the currently evolving human beings who both
participate in and are constrained by them [Rogoff, 2003, 2011; Smith, 1999].
In the words of Marta Navichoc Cotuc, a Tz’utujil Maya from San Pedro la La-
guna, Guatemala:
Many people want to conserve Mayan ways, but they don’t put it into practice, they just talk.
[For example,] if we don’t stick with the [traditional midwives], this practice and knowledge
will be lost. The world is constructed of the acts of each one of us. [quoted in Rogoff, 2011,
p. 286; brackets in the original]
Once we accept the importance of cultural processes (rather than static con-
tents), an important challenge becomes deepening our understanding of the implica-
tions of an Indigenous ‘integrated package of mutually interdependent thought pro-
cesses’ [Chandler, this issue] – especially holistic-relational thinking – for theory and
research on human development. How can scholars better understand this way of
thought and use it in research and practice?
This is no small challenge because many research tools are built on the study of
contents and static characteristics. (For example, the ANOVA table assumes separate
factors; research design often tries to ‘control’ for all but a few aspects of whole phe-
nomena; standardized testing tries to isolate individuals from others and from cul-
tural practices.) Such tools are useful, but if they are regarded as the gold standard of
how to understand human development, ‘staunch defenders of culturally mainstream
views’ [Chandler, this issue] can dominate in ways that prevent the use (or publica-
tion) of other methods that are more consistent with understanding whole, relation-
al phenomena.
We would nominate descriptive analyses of patterns as a key method, employing
both numerical analyses across cases and ethnographic analysis of cases [see also An-
gelillo, Rogoff, & Chavajay, 2007]. Indigenous scholars nominate a set of methodolo-
gies that they argue are compatible with Indigenous worldviews, where ontologies of
holism and relationalism are afforded central relevance in phenomena of interest and
methodology [Smith, 1999; Wilcox, 2009]. The current dominant paradigm and its
perspectives on culture and learning could benefit greatly from a perspective of In-
digenous holism and relationalism.
We would love for Chandler and others who are engaged with holistic, relation-
al ways of thinking – especially Indigenous scholars and others who understand this
approach in depth – to help articulate the implications of a process approach for re-
search and for understanding human development. In particular, how can holistic,
relational ways of thinking be understood by people for whom these cultural tradi-
tions are foreign as well as by future generations of Indigenous people?
A combination of insiders and outsiders may be helpful for making use of the
fruitful model provided by Indigenous ways of thinking and learning. Although many
Indigenous people likely use this way of thinking on a minute-by-minute basis, their
understanding may be so commonsense that it is difficult even for Indigenous schol-
ars to articulate. Most people take for granted their own lifeways. The contrast avail-
able to the endeavor from outsiders who try to understand Indigenous ways of think-
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