Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Indigenous Ways of Knowing, a Faculty's Journey to Redesign Native American Art Online Course

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

As an epistemologist I take seriously the challenge posed by the concept of Indigenous ways of knowing. Or anyone's way of knowing. There are parts of it I can easily grasp an understand - the need, for example, to spend time on the land. This has always been an important part of my own learning (though I don't think the HR department sees it that way). But other parts - what I from my western perspective might call 'stories and myths' - leave me more perplexed. I do want there to be some fact of the matter, as much as I recognize that what counts as a fact may vary from one perspective to another. How can we be a part of the same community, if we are not able to agree on how we decide what is true and what is not? The need for us all to live together makes this an imperative, even if it is difficult. I'm not willing to impose my view, as strongly as I may hold it - but I'm also left unsure of where we find that common ground that equates, ultimately, to peace between us. But maybe, what's needed is for us to sit down and make art together. That seems like a start.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 29, 2024 1:03 p.m.

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