“Self” in Self-Study: Alongside Stories as Indigenously Understood Inquiry

Abstract

As part of our ethical responsibilities as scholar-practitioners and community members living as uninvited guests on Indigenous territories, we engaged in a collaborative inquiry to explore ways in which Indigenous pedagogies and worldviews extend understandings of self within self-study research. Over several years, we engaged in reflective conversations about our respective tensions, challenges, and successes in the effort to decolonize and Indigenize our pedagogies and research. These conversations moved us over time to a particular orientation as we shared our life stories as educators and women. We began by documenting our experiences and reflections at each meeting and shared in meaning making how our orientations shifted to ways of being in relation. The emerging synergies of our relationality led us to name our experiences “alongside stories,” in which we made meaning of the intersections and nuances between forms of self-study research and Indigenous Ways of Knowing. In sharing the alongside stories, we re-presented our collaborative understandings of inquiry as interweavings. These interweavings allowed us to explore how our knowledge and belief systems could be intertwined and disentwined to reveal resonances and particularities. Our exploration led us to reframe inquiry and self-study as Indigenously understood. 

Keywords: Indigenous, self-study, research, decolonizing, inquiry, alongside stories