White and yellow daisies with green leaves growing through cracked concrete pavement.

Kaandossiwin

How We Come to Know

by Kathleen E. Absolon (Minogiizhigokwe)

Indigenous methodologies have been silenced and obscured by the Western scientific means of knowledge production. In a challenge to this colonialist rejection of Indigenous knowledge, Anishinaabe researcher Kathleen Absolon examines the academic work of fourteen Indigenous scholars who utilize Indigenous worldviews in their search for knowing. Through an examination not only of their work but also of their experience in producing that work, Kaandossiwin describes how Indigenous researchers re-theorize and re-create methodologies. Understanding Indigenous methodologies as guided by Indigenous paradigms, worldviews, principles, processes and contexts, Absolon argues that they are wholistic, relational, inter-relational and interdependent with Indigenous philosophies, beliefs and ways of life. In exploring the ways Indigenous researchers use Indigenous methodologies within mainstream academia, Kaandossiwin renders these methods visible and helps to guard other ways of knowing from colonial repression.

This edition has been replaced by Kaandossiwin, 2nd Edition

About the book

Indigenous methodologies have been silenced and obscured by the Western scientific means of knowledge production. In a challenge to this colonialist rejection of Indigenous knowledge, Anishinaabe researcher Kathleen Absolon examines the academic work of fourteen Indigenous scholars who utilize Indigenous worldviews in their search for knowing. Through an examination not only of their work but also of their experience in producing that work, Kaandossiwin describes how Indigenous researchers re-theorize and re-create methodologies. Understanding Indigenous methodologies as guided by Indigenous paradigms, worldviews, principles, processes and contexts, Absolon argues that they are wholistic, relational, inter-relational and interdependent with Indigenous philosophies, beliefs and ways of life. In exploring the ways Indigenous researchers use Indigenous methodologies within mainstream academia, Kaandossiwin renders these methods visible and helps to guard other ways of knowing from colonial repression.

Due to a printing error, the last page of Kaandossiwin was not included in the book. Please download a pdf version of this page. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

Author

Kathleen E. Absolon (Minogiizhigokwe)

Kathleen Absolon (Minogiizhigokwe – Shining Day Woman) is Anishinaabe kwe who is a community helper, knowledge seeker, knowledge carrier, educator, re-searcher and writer. Absolon is a member of Flying Post First Nation Treaty 9 and is also a mother, Kokum and Aunty. She carries truth stories about both a rich cultural history and Canada’s colonial history. Her lifetime of work in generating decolonial stories and Indigenous education has been informed by her land-based philosophy. Absolon is a professor in the Indigenous Field of Study, Masters of Social Work Program in the Faculty of Social Work, Wilfred Laurier University. Over the last 35 years, her academic and cultural work has been in restoring, reclaiming, re-righting Indigenous history, knowledge, and cultural worldviews and making the invisible visible — decolonization. She is the author of Kaandossiwin How We Come to Know: Indigenous re-Search Methodologies, 2nd edition (Fernwood Publishing, 2022).