I am asked time and time again what I do. Well, I read, I learn, and I heal. Mostly I read, but it’s more than that. I’m building me for my community; In our present society, this is not inherently valued.
To put it poetically, what I do is unlock the secret locked behind the knot of literature, and I tell my people what’s inside. While reading Becker’s Writing For Social Science, it occurred to me that it seems that there is a fear of writing for most graduate students. Becker knew why. Students were afraid of writing the “One Right Way” and made sure to get it right the first time. The only time I was ever worried about that, I went to my professor and told her what I was worried about.
She told me: “Whatever you do will be good enough.”
Those words ring in my head all the time. Not in her voice necessarily. I speak them to myself; I speak them to others. It’s not to say that if I do nothing it will be good enough, or that if the work isn’t up to snuff it won’t be good enough: It comes down to the idea that up to this point whatever I’ve done has been good enough, so who’s to say that won’t be able to continue doing that?
Well me, but I don’t have that same fear of filling the page with words. I can fill page upon page. I have no problem turning thoughts into writing. I’ve done it most of my life, typing my thoughts for others to read while we play video games together. Anyone who’s known me long enough knows of my ‘Rants,’ my verbal, mental vomit. I was silent most of my childhood, so I understand the confusion.
I was pushed up through the broken education system until I was pushed into Academia. I was there because I was told to be there. In GTL1, I learned that I excelled at performative learning (they didn’t call it that, but that’s what it is). In truth, it’s a defense mechanism. Although I lack the proper credentials to correctly identify the term, I learned through trial and error. Entirely unaware of what was getting better. I passed tests and wrote papers.
Becker speaks of this way of learning: The quest for the “One Right Way,” that they needed to write a paper and get it right the first time. I didn’t think I was having that problem when the book was given to me, although I suspect that’s the problem presumed in that book. When push came to shove, I could always fill a page. I just need to know I am doing it Right. This sounds the same, but it comes from an ethical place: I am worried I am doing my research right. It comes with the topic, Indigenous History.
For the longest time, I was uncomfortable and felt alone in the world. I didn’t know where to start to find who I was looking for: Indigenous Intellectuals who talked about Indigenous History. As I was graduating, I was directed towards a few, such as James Riding In and Blair Stonechild. For graduate studies, I was directed towards the University of Alberta. Serendipitously, I knew of James L. Dempsey, who teaches there. Further to my benefit, Sarah Nickel, Sarah Carter, Kim Tallbear, Chris Andersen, and other outstanding leaders of their fields: All leaders in work by and with Indigenous peoples.
Through an Indigenous methodologies course, I was introduced both to her writing and in-person to Margaret Kovach. She speaks of Indigenous work being accessible, so long as it starts with Indigenous methodology. So long as it begins with Indigenous Epistemologies.
I was also told, time and time again, that history is a field that is uncomfortable with theory and struggles to teach it. To expose it in our work. Indigenous methodology is no exception to the lack of comfort with theory in historical studies.
In my recent slue of reading, one book of which was A Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson (I got my copy from Raven Reads Books, and Indigenous subscription box). It resonated deeply with me as I witnessed a family come to terms with the impact of intergenerational trauma. It was a beautiful story of reconciliation of a mixed family that unfolded through the book.
I don’t know my family’s story. Not very well, My grandmother was a residential school survivor, but she didn’t want me to learn about it. Told me in no uncertain terms that she never wanted me (and I presume my generation) to learn about them. She never wanted our generation burdened with that trauma. My uncle says she has done a lot to protect her kids and grandkids, I think she wanted the trauma to die with her.
We called her Grandma Cookie because she always baked us all cookies. She wanted us to have sweet things, good things to remember about our childhood. I still bake cookies today. Although there is more to why I bake cookies than just my grandma. Still, I have little to hold onto from my ancestors. I was not a victim of physical violence, my family protected me from that much. There was violence done to my family which broke the link between myself and the culture of my ancestors.
The limit of my Anishinaabe is pidgy, which my grandmother had taught me during the one and only trip to Ontario since I’ve retained memory. Pidgy was not any Indigenous theory or methodology, but rather simply a noun to translate Robin’s Donuts to Pidgy Donut. It became a family idiom in which any time we saw Robin’s Donuts my cousins and I would all say in unison “Pidgy Donuts!” and that family idiom was the exhaustion of my Anishinaabe cultural awareness.
Moving through the academic institution, I was introduced to Indigenous methodologies that demanded many things from the researcher. But it really is as simple as Margaret Kovach says, so long as you start from Indigenous Epistemologies.
Her book on Indigenous Methodologies says that advising another young student in a similar situation as me with little cultural knowledge: Start where you are (Indigenous Methodologies, 10). Now, for many that might mean, start where you are physical, the land you are on. Start with the people you are with. Following Anishnaabe epistemologies from Leanne Simpson, I think it’s more than that. It starts with the self, moves to family, and then to the community. Before your community, the land is part of your family, so many wouldn’t be wrong to presume that, but it’s essential to start with the self. Start where you are.
Start looking inwards, look at the self and situate the self in the research. From there, the research will come together.
I had another middle school teacher who taught me something similar: “Start with what you know.”
Now, in a roundabout way, through myself, my family, and the academic community from which I came, I want to arrive back to Becker: a stand-in for the academic community, I suppose, I endeavor to enter. Becker suggests that writing should be easy. There is little need for the silly rituals and hullaballoo that people go through to try and “write the perfect draft.” He offered another solution: Well have you tried just writing as you thought? Have you tried just writing down your ideas? And because perhaps, he likes to hear his own name a little bit “Well Geez Howie,” why didn’t you just say so.
I hear: “I want to write 500 words a day” from some writers. That’s about a page and a half. I’ll be done in 3 months (and 10 days if we presume the month is, on average, 30 days)! I wrote 5000 words on Monday, writing two chapters of a fantasy novel and writing blog posts not too much unlike this one.
Today, I did something similar.
Tomorrow, I plan to write two more chapters of a fantasy novel and finish more blog posts.
Why?
Because: Geez Howie. But our education system isn’t built to support what Howard Becker was really talking about: “Write, and edit the bits you want to keep.” For some, depending on the stage of learning or your level of focus (which is sometimes my problem), your mileage might vary. Still, if you’re thinking and writing what you think, I sure hope you can output more than 500 words a day, even if you’re researching as you’re writing. Following a structure of close reading analysis, such as Claim-Evidence-Analysis,[1] every thought you think might be evidence you find which can turn into 50-100 words if adequately analyzed.
It just comes down to putting the pieces together and forming a thesis, right?
Well, yesterday, I spent most of the day gathering what I knew and putting it into the only format I learned how to do it: A Indigenous methodological informed research project.
[1] Which I learned in first-year English from Dr. Grinnell who also recommends: They Say, I Say to all students. These are tools to construct arguments that engage with literature and can be utilized to talk about evidence or other things depending on the structure.
