“Experiencing Resonance as a Practice of Ritual Engagement”
Book Chapter:
“Experiencing Resonance as a Practice of Ritual Engagement” [link] is a plurivocal, dialogical, and performative text co-authored with Manulani Aluli-Meyer, Mariel Belanger, Jill Carter, Cori Derickson, Delphine Armstrong, Claire Fogal, Vicki Kelly, Carolyn Kenny, Joseph Naytowhow, Julia Ulehla, and Winston Wuttunee. This text is featured in Research and Reconciliation: Unsettling Ways of Knowing through Indigenous Relationships, co-edited by Shawn Wilson, Andrea Breen and Lindsay DuPré, Canadian Scholars 2019.
The companion documentary film, edited by Mariel Belanger and published by the UBC Institute for Community Engaged Research, is hosted on the ICER website.
Manulani Aluli-Meyer, Julia Ulehla, Joseph Naytowhow, Cori Derickson, Virginie Magnat, Vicki Kelly, Jill Carter, Mariel Belanger.
Overview of Research and Reconciliation
In this edited collection, leading scholars seek to disrupt Eurocentric research methods by introducing students, professors, administrators, and practitioners to frameworks of Indigenous research methods through a lens of reconciliation. The foundation of this collection is rooted in each contributor’s unique conception of reconciliation, which extends beyond the parameters of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to include a broader, more global approach to reconciliation. More pointedly, contributors discuss how effective research is when it’s demonstrated through acts of reconciliation. Encouraging active, participatory approaches to research, this seminal text includes a range of examples, including a variety of creative forms, such as storytelling, conversations, letters, social media, and visual methodologies that challenge linear ways of thinking and embrace Indigenous ways of knowing and seeing. This collection is a go-to resource for all disciplines with a research-focus, including Indigenous studies, sociology, social work, education, gender studies, and anthropology.
Left, front to back: Shawn Wilson,Virginie Magnat, Greg Younging, Cori Derickson, Delphine Armstrong, Winston Wuttunee, Jill Carter. Right, front to back: Manulani Aluli-Meyer, Joseph Naytowhow, Vicki Kelly, Mariel Belanger, Julia Ulehla, and Winston’s partner Geri.
Abstract:
Braiding our twelve voices together as a way of searching for echoes and resonances while leaving space for dissonances, this collaborative testimony of our experience of resonance as a practice of ritual engagement reflects the challenges of working toward reconciliation, pointing to something other than unanimity, unison or perfect harmony. This practice requires listening very attentively to other voices, which are all unique within the group, so that something can emerge from their relationships, a collective embodied experience, which is also deeply personal.
Standing: Manulani Aluli-Meyer, Greg Younging, Mariel Belanger, Joseph Naytowhow, Cori Derickson, Jill Carter, Delphine Armstrong, Shawn Wilson, Winston Wuttunee, Virginie Magnat, Graham Smith, Vicki Kelly. Sitting: Julia Ulehla and Carolyn Kenny.
Context:
After learning in April 2016 that my Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant application for my project “The Performative Power of Vocality” had been successful, I discussed my plans to involve Indigenous Graduate Research Assistants with my colleagues within the Indigenous Inquiries Circle. Our group meets annually at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI), directed by Norman K. Denzin at the University of Illinois, and includes influential Cree scholars, Margaret Kovach and Shawn Wilson. The Circle recommended that I form an Indigenous Advisory Committee that would provide the research team with advice, guidance, and mentorship throughout the development of the project.
Following this recommendation, I invited seven established Indigenous artist-scholars, Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers, who generously agreed to become part of the Advisory Committee: Syilx Elder Delphine Armstrong, Cree Elder Dr. Winston D. Wuttunee, and nêhiyo itâpsinowin (Knowledge Keeper) Joseph Naytowhow, three distinguished singers, musicians, storytellers, and educators; Indigenous Music Therapy specialist Carolyn Kenny (Antioch University); Arts-based Education scholar and musician Vicki Kelly (Simon Fraser University); scholar-practitioner of Indigenous Epistemologies and Indigenous Education Manulani Aluli-Meyer (University of Hawaii); and Indigenous Performance Studies artist-scholar Jill Carter (University of Toronto). I then applied for and obtained a SSHRC Connection Grant to bring the members of the Advisory Committee and the GRAs together for the arts-based community project “Honoring Cultural Diversity through Collective Vocal Practice.”