Since the first European settlers arrived in the Americas, American Indian and Alaskan Native people have suffered from devastating diseases, violence, and genocide. During the conquest of...

The concept of ‘semiotic fitting’ is what we provide as a model for the description and analysis of the diversity dynamics and nativeness in semiotic systems. One of its sources is the concept of ‘ecological fitting’ which was introduced by Daniel Janzen as the mechanism for the explanation of diversity in tropical ecosystems and which has been shown to work widely over the communities of various types. As different from the neo-Darwinian concept of fitness that describes reproductive success, ‘fitting’ describes (...) functional relations and aboutness. Diversity of a semiotic system is strongly dependent on the mutual fitting of agents of which the semiotic system consists. The focus on semiotic fitting means that, in the analysis of diversity, we pay particular attention to decision making, functional plasticity, recognition windows, the depth of interpretation of the agents, and the categories responsible for the structure of the semiotic system. The concept of semiotic fitting has an early analogue in Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of ‘Einpassung’. The close concepts of ‘semiotic fitness’, introduced by Jesper Hoffmeyer and by Stéphanie Walsh Matthews, ‘semiotic selection’, introduced by Timo Maran and Karel Kleisner, and ‘semiotic niche’, introduced by Hoffmeyer, provide different versions of the same model. If community is constructing itself on the basis of fitting, then nativeness of the community is a product of fitting, not vice versa. Nativeness is a feature that deepens in the course of community succession. The concept of ‘semiotic fitting’ demonstrates the possibility to analyse the role of both indigenous and alien species or other agents in a community on the basis of a single model. (shrink)

Background: The objective of this research was to review reporting of ethical concerns and community involvement in peer-reviewed systematic reviews or meta-analyses concerning American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian (AI/AN/NH) health. Methods: Text words and indexed vocabulary terms were used to query PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and the Native Health Database for systematic reviews or meta-analyses concerning AI/AN/NH health published in peer-reviewed journals, followed by a search through reference lists. Each article was abstracted by two (...) independent reviewers; results were discussed until consensus was reached. Results: We identified 107 papers published from 1986 through 2012 that were primarily about AI/AN/NH health or presented findings separately for AI/AN/NH communities. Two reported seeking indigenous reviewer feedback; none reported seeking input from tribes and communities. Approximately 7% reported on institutional review board (IRB) approval of included studies, 5% reported on tribal approval, and 4% referenced the sovereignty of AI/AN tribes. Approximately 63% used evidence from more than one AI/AN/NH population study, and 28% discussed potential benefits to communities from the synthesis research. Conclusions: Reporting of ethics and community involvement are not prominent. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses making community-level inferences may pose risks to communities. Future systematic reviews and meta-analyses should consider ethical and participatory dimensions of research. (shrink)

Background: Genetics research is controversial in Native American communities, and the disposition and ownership of biological specimens are central issues. Within Native communities, there is considerable variety in tribal members’ views. This article reports the results from an ethnographic study conducted with a Native American community in the southwestern United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship (past and present) between the tribe and biomedical/genetics research. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 53 (...) members of a Native American community. Interviewees were purposively recruited to include an approximately equal number of past research participants and nonparticipants, as well as individuals with and without diabetes. Tribal members were also asked whether they identified as a “traditional person,” an emic category used in the community. Results: Tribal members’ views on specimen disposition were linked with their identification as a traditional or nontraditional person. Individuals identifying as traditional people were more likely to believe that biological specimens should be returned at the end of a study and should not be used after the research participant's death, and that they were the property of the individual who provided them. These perspectives were related to broader concerns about fragmentation of the body-self. Conclusions: Through gaining an understanding of the cultural logic related to specimen disposition, researchers may be able to work more effectively with Native American communities on developing procedures for genetics studies. The process of informed consent and other study procedures can be adapted to be culturally respectful of Native American communities. (shrink)

Background This paper describes the design, implementation, and process outcomes from three public deliberations held in three tribal communities. Although increasingly used around the globe to address collective challenges, our study is among the first to adapt public deliberation for use with exclusively Indigenous populations. In question was how to design deliberations for tribal communities and whether this adapted model would achieve key deliberative goals and be well received.Methods We adapted democratic deliberation, an approach to stakeholder engagement, for use with (...) three tribal communities to respect tribal values and customs. Public deliberation convenes people from diverse backgrounds in reasoned reflection and dialogue in search of collective solutions. The deliberation planning process and design were informed by frameworks of enclave deliberation and community-based participatory research, which share key egalitarian values. The deliberations were collaboratively designed with tribal leadership and extensive partner input and involvement in the deliberations. Each deliberation posed different, locally relevant questions about genomic research, but used the same deliberation structure and measures to gauge the quality and experience of deliberation.Results A total of 52 individuals participated in the deliberations across all three sites. Deliberants were balanced in gender, spanned decades in age, and were diverse in educational attainment and exposure to health research. Overall, the deliberations were positively evaluated. Participant perceptions and external observer datasets depict three deliberations that offered intensive conversation experiences in which participants learned from one another, reported feeling respected and connected to one another, and endorsed this intensive form of engagement.Conclusion The adapted deliberations achieved key deliberative goals and were generally well received. Limitations of the study are described. (shrink)

Before Euro-American settlement, many Native American nations intercropped maize (_Zea mays_), beans (_Phaseolus vulgaris_), and squash (_Cucurbita pepo_) in what is colloquially called the “Three Sisters.” Here we review the historic importance and consequences of rejuvenation of Three Sisters intercropping (3SI), outline a framework to engage Native growers in community science with positive feedbacks to university research, and present preliminary findings from ethnography and a randomized, replicated 3SI experiment. We developed mutually beneficial collaborative research agendas with four (...) Midwestern US Native American nations. Ethnographic data highlighted a culturally based respect for 3SI as living beings, the importance it holds for all cultural facets of these Native nations, and the critical impact the practice has on environmental sustainability. One concern expressed by Native growers during ethnographic research was improving soil health—part of the rationale for establishing the 3SI agronomic experiment. To address this, we collaboratively designed a 3SI experiment. After 1 year, 3SI increased short-term soil respiration by 24%, decreased salt-extractable nitrate by 54%, had no effect on soil microbial biomass (but increased its carbon-to-nitrogen ratio by 32%) compared to the average of monoculture crops. The overarching purpose of this collaborative project is to develop a deeper understanding of 3SI, its cultural importance to Native communities, and how reinvigorating the practice—and intercropping in general—can make agroecosystems more sustainable for people and the environment. (shrink)

In this essay, after a brief decolonial analysis of the concept of “poetry” in Indigenous communities, I will investigate the poetic-philosophical implications of Cherokee culture, more specifically the poetic essence of the Cherokee language, the poetic aspects of Cherokee myth (pre-history) and post-myth (history), and the poetic-philosophical powers of Cherokee ritual. My first section analyzes the poetic essence, structure, special features, and historical context of the Cherokee language, drawing on Ruth Holmes and Betty Sharp Smith’s language textbook, Beginning Cherokee. My (...) second section considers poetic aspects of the pre-history and history of the Cherokee Nation considered as a text, using Robert J. Conley’s The Cherokee Nation: A History. And my third section investigates the poetic nature of the Cherokee rituals’ myth-ontological background and its existential psychological implications, via J. T. Garrett & Michael Tlanusta Garrett’s The Cherokee Full Circle: A Practical Guide to Ceremonies and Traditions. Collectively, these analyses will suggest that, just as the Cherokee and other tribes are the slandered, disenfranchised, suppressed and covered-over Indigenous peoples of the North American continent, so poetry writ large (including Indigenous philosophy) is the slandered, disenfranchised, suppressed and covered-over arche of western philosophy (as I have previously explored via a new interpretation of Nietzsche). In short, I will argue that both poetry and Cherokee culture can be understood as indigenous “absences” which are in truth vital and enduring presences. (shrink)

Social Networking Sites (SNS), particularly Facebook (FB) have become extremely popular among digital natives, especially university-level students. Moreover, they sometimes may see social networks as an extension of their lives (boyd, 2014) which can be called as a new communication platform for interpersonal communication. For the purpose of the study, interpersonal communication skills (ICS) levels explored in four sub-sections both in the social and e-social environments.1 Digital natives’ IPC skills were measured to figure out whether there is any statistically difference (...) between both environments. Interpersonal Communication Skills Inventory (Social Learning, 2002) is used as an instrument for the present study. (shrink)

Social Networking Sites (SNS), particularly Facebook (FB) have become extremely popular among digital natives, especially university-level students. Moreover, they sometimes may see social networks as an extension of their lives (boyd, 2014) which can be called as a new communication platform for interpersonal communication. For the purpose of the study, interpersonal communication skills (ICS) levels explored in four sub-sections both in the social and e-social environments.1 Digital natives’ IPC skills were measured to figure out whether there is any statistically difference (...) between both environments. Interpersonal Communication Skills Inventory (Social Learning, 2002) is used as an instrument for the present study. (shrink)

Native women residing in the Subarctic and Arctic are currently struggling for the right to decide whether they will be hospitalized or have a midwife present for the birth of their children. The argument presented in this review paper outlines the cultural and clinical factors in favour of recognizing and legalizing traditional midwifery in the North and critically examines the statistical and safety concerns raised by those arguing against giving Northern Native women an alternative to evacuation from their (...) home communities. (shrink)

Anticipate that this volume will nourish discussions in Native American, Indigenous, and Women's Studies, as well as in interdisciplinary courses. In respecting all of our relations, we present this journal in the spirit of healing the earth.The second theme is the incredible violence committed against Native women in the name of a continuing manifest destiny. Internalized oppression, violence turned against oneself, is devastating our communities as elders and youth stand by and watch generations of our people get lost (...) in the confusion of cultural dissonance.A third theme is the overlapping of racism, sexism, and capitalism to create an imperial system of domination over the earth's resources. Fourth, there is a need to heal ourselves and our communities. The call to know and learn from our elders the traditional understandings of our relations with all things of the universe, and how sustainable cultures may be able to offer an alternative to capitalism, remains a challenge. We must understand the need and the ways to balance ourselves with all of our relations to stop the subjugation of earth's resources, so that the "age of global imperialism" will hopefully one day be a thing of history, or at least a thing of the past in the Americas. (shrink)

For centuries, outside business organizations have sought to enter into business relationships with indigenous populations, often benefitting both parties. However, the power imbalance that foreign settlers had over indigenous peoples often led to exploitative relationships whereby the indigenous people were marginalized and at times treated inhumanely. While the nature of trade and relationships has changed over time, the special status that native tribes enjoy in U.S.A. continues to attract attention from business enterprises. In the past few years, various organizations (...) have found it advantageous to their business interests to engage in transactions with Native American tribes. Three specific examples are described: Allergan transferred patent rights to a tribe to circumvent a U.S. patent review panel; Tesla opened a store and service center on native land in New Mexico to get around the state’s dealership laws; and Lume Cannabis Co. opened retail stores on native lands in Michigan near communities that had decided to not license recreational cannabis stores. All three examples raise questions over the ethics of buying access to native sovereignty. Students are asked to apply ethical theories to try and identify what distinguishes ethical and unethical transactions. (shrink)

The publication takes the example of one of the native faith religious movements of modern Ukraine. It highlights the peculiarities of its spontaneous emergence, development, self-identification, and guidelines for religious activity. The article also briefly examines the origins of this community, the sources of its doctrine and name, the peculiarities of searching for its own religious identity, the main points of reflection on the sphere of the sacred, understanding the “idea of God”, the representation of religious symbols and (...) art, the organization of ritual and cult practice, and the directions of religious activity. At the same time, the peculiarities of forming such a religious community are considered not in isolation, but in the context of interaction and mutual influence with other native faith confessions of Ukraine. (shrink)

In 2004, the Havasupai Tribe filed a lawsuit against the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona State University researchers upon discovering their DNA samples, initially collected for genetic studies on type 2 diabetes, had been used in several other genetic studies. The lawsuit reached a settlement in April 2010 that included monetary compensation and return of DNA samples to the Havasupai but left no legal precedent for researchers. Through semistructured interviews, institutional review board chairs and human genetics researchers at US (...) research institutions revealed their perspectives on the Havasupai lawsuit. For interviewees, the suit drew attention to indigenous concerns over genetic studies and increased their awareness of indigenous views. However, interviewees perceived no direct impact from the Havasupai case on their work; if they did, it was the perceived need to safeguard themselves by obtaining broad consent or shying away from research with indigenous communities altogether, raising important questions of justice for indigenous and minority participants. If researchers and IRBs do not change their practices in light of this case, these populations will likely continue to be excluded from a majority of research studies and left with less access to resources and potential benefit from genetic research participation. (shrink)

Using Habermas’s latest major work Between Facts and Norms (1996), this paper contrasts his explicit views on jurisprudence in the Occident with implied statements about the native Other. I wish to show that there’s an embedded agonistic (combative) — if not imperial — theme, not only in his theory of communicative competence, but also in his larger project of critical theory.

Going Native: The Value in Reconceptualizing International Internet Service Providers as Domestic Media Outlets Content Type Journal Article Category Special Issue Pages 391-409 DOI 10.1007/s13347-011-0045-4 Authors Sarah Oates, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Building, G12 8RT Scotland, UK Journal Philosophy & Technology Online ISSN 2210-5441 Print ISSN 2210-5433 Journal Volume Volume 24 Journal Issue Volume 24, Number 4.

Our society currently faces many complex and perplexing issues related to biotechnology, including the need to define the outer boundaries of genetic research on human beings and the need to protect individual and group rights to human tissue and the knowledge gained from the study of that tissue. Scientists have increasingly become interested in studying so-called “population isolates” to discover the nature and location of genes that are unique to particular groups. Indigenous peoples are often targeted by scientists because “the (...) relative isolation of the communities ensures minimal gene flow.” Such studies raise a number of issues related to privacy rights, property rights, informed consent, and group rights versus individual rights. These issues recently came to light in a case brought by the Havasupai Tribe and its members over the use of blood samples, handprints, and genealogy information initially taken by researchers at Arizona State University for a diabetes project. These materials were then allegedly used by researchers at ASU and other institutions for a multitude of unauthorized purposes, including research into the frequency of mental health disorders and the origin of human populations. Consequently, the affected members sued for damages under several legal theories. However, underlying all of these claims was the allegation that this unauthorized use of genetic resources and data not only injured the individuals who gave samples, but also caused a collective harm to the Havasupai Tribe and the cultural and spiritual beliefs of its members. (shrink)

The upbringing of infants in native communities is the concern of authorities and researchers for being a vulnerable population segment. The purpose of the study was to analyze child rearing styles of an Amuesha community in the Peruvian jungle. The phenomenological design allowed interviewing amuesha mothers from Oxapampa in Pasco, until reaching saturation. It was found as results that child rearing practices conform to sociocultural patterns, such as identity and communal heritage culture, which are in extinction due to (...) the presence of exotic factors; in addition to a demand to the State for better education and health services. (shrink)

During the past four years, the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management has sponsored and co-sponsored a series of discursive roundtables on the ethical, legal, social, and cultural implications of genetic research on Indian tribes and Indian people. The deliberations of the tribal leaders, legal scholars, researchers, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and others who participated in these roundtables laid out a range of barriers to informed tribal participation in genetic research and proposed a policy, legal, and scientific research agenda to (...) fill gaps in knowledge and to otherwise support indigenous peoples' decision-making on genetic research issues.An understanding of Native American attitudes toward genetic research on their community cannot be fully understood absent an appreciation of the interrelationship among native peoples, genetic research, and the landscape, contaminated as it is by governmental and other factors. The deliberations described herein present invaluable insights into tribal attitudes toward genetic research that have application to ethical, legal and social aspects of forensic DNA databanks, sample collection and retention, and, in particular, issues of secondary non-forensic uses of such DNA. (shrink)

American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations in the United States continue to experience overall health inequity, despite significant improvement in health status for nearly all other racial‐ethnic groups over the past 30 years. Nurses comprise the bulk of healthcare providers in the U.S. and are in an optimal position to improve AI/AN health by transforming both nursing education and practice. This potential is dependent, however, on nurses’ ability to recognize the distinct historical and political conditions through which AI/AN health inequities (...) have been produced and sustained. Nurse providers, educators, and leaders must in turn recognize how the sustained conditions of marginalization and expropriation that underpin current AI/AN health inequities continue to shape contemporary AI/AN health outcomes. This manuscript builds upon the extant literature of AI/AN historical health policy and utilizes decolonial theorizations of nursing and a cultural safety framework to propose a series of immediately actionable steps for nursing intervention into AI/AN health inequity. Ultimately, we suggest that it is crucial for nurses to collaborate with AI/AN individuals and communities across educational and clinical settings to further refine these approaches in alignment with the disciplinary obligation of promoting social justice within healthcare. (shrink)

An account of the specific ill of Native American mascots—that is, the particular racism of using Native Americans as mascots, as distinct from other racist portrayals of Native Americans—requires a fuller account of the function of mascots as such than has previously been offered. By analyzing the history of mascots in the United States, this article argues that mascots function as symbols that draw into an artificial unity 1) a variety of teams existing over a period of (...) time and thereby 2) a community of individuals who are thus able to use that team as their own symbolic locus of unification.This unification of teams and their concomitant communities is accomplished by appeal to a symbol that facilitates a particular fantasy of collective identity. The usage of Native American mascots is racist not only because it involves stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans, but (more specifically) because it treats Native persons simply as a means to symbolic unification—and not, importantly, as members of the community they thus serve. In other words, in these cases mascots work as unifying signifiers precisely by being the purely instrumental facilitator of a group's collective fantasy of itself. (shrink)

This book investigates the phenomenological ways that dance choreographing and dance performance exemplify both Truth and meaning-making within Native American epistemology, from an analytic philosophical perspective. Given that within Native American communities dance is regarded both as an integral cultural conduit and “a doorway to a powerful wisdom,” Shay Welch argues that dance and dancing can both create and communicate knowledge. She explains that dance—as a form of oral, narrative storytelling—has the power to communicate knowledge of beliefs and (...) histories, and that dance is a form of embodied narrative storytelling. Welch provides analytic clarity on how this happens, what conditions are required for it to succeed, and how dance can satisfy the relational and ethical facets of Native epistemology. (shrink)

Oral communication often takes place in noisy environments, which challenge spoken-word recognition. Previous research has suggested that the presence of background noise extends the number of candidate words competing with the target word for recognition and that this extension affects the time course and accuracy of spoken-word recognition. In this study, we further investigated the temporal dynamics of competition processes in the presence of background noise, and how these vary in listeners with different language proficiency (i.e., native and non- (...) class='Hi'>native) using computational modeling. We developed ListenIN (Listen-In-Noise), a neural-network model based on an autoencoder architecture, which learns to map phonological forms onto meanings in two languages and simulates native and non-native spoken-word comprehension. We also examined the model's activation states during online spoken-word recognition. These analyses demonstrated that the presence of background noise increases the number of competitor words, which are engaged in phonological competition and that this happens in similar ways intra and interlinguistically and in native and non-native listening. Taken together, our results support accounts positing a “many-additional-competitors scenario” for the effects of noise on spoken-word recognition. (shrink)

This article elaborates on one of the main characteristics of digital native and embedded advertising: its lack of transparency. Challenges and opportunities for disclosing native advertising practices as well as how educational measures concerning this type of advertising should look are discussed. In addition, a future research agenda is presented.

This is the result of research financed by PROCIENCIA-CONCYTEC, whose objective is to analyze the rural communication forms in the processes of productive innovation and the positioning of the aguaymanto as a native product of the Peruvian Andes, to propose communication strategies in rural sectors of Arequipa, physalis peruviana is a fruit of Andean origin, whose properties and characteristics surpass other similar fruits; the method of analysis is qualitative-quantitative, of the correlational, transectional type, the exploration is carried out in (...) five rural districts of Arequipa, applying 125 surveys and 10 interviews. (shrink)

Since land is older than the borders which humans have drawn and redrawn upon its surface, it may seem that, unlike the artefacts which people make with materials taken from the landscapes around them, land itself is endlessly open for new waves of migrants to embrace as part of their own heritage. Yet humans do mark landscapes, sometimes in lasting ways: not only roads and buildings but agriculture, forestry, dams and diverted rivers, quarrying and mining and more. It is landscape (...) archaeologists who are most able to trace the material evidence of how landscapes were used and by whom; and so when interests in land are contested, archaeological evidence may be cited in order to distinguish the long-established community from the geographical Johnny-come-lately, or to cast doubt on whether this can meaningfully be done. (An example is litigation concerning forests in southern Belize, once logging had made them profitable: the ethnographic and archaeological question of whether peoples inhabiting the area were descended from the ancient Maya, or whether from more recent immigrants, became a point of legal disputation.) This chapter assesses the ethical use of scientific knowledge when settlement, and the traces of settlement which archaeology can uncover, can leave newer immigrants finding that the very ground beneath their feet already looks like someone else’s cultural artefact. (shrink)

The regulation of Native identity has been central to the colonization process in both Canada and the United States. Systems of classification and control enable settler governments to define who is "Indian," and control access to Native land. These regulatory systems have forcibly supplanted traditional Indigenous ways of identifying the self in relation to land and community, functioning discursively to naturalize colonial worldviews. Decolonization, then, must involve deconstructing and reshaping how we understand Indigenous identity.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, in the lands that are now the United States (the forty-eight contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii), there must have been many hundreds of distinct languages. Fewer than two hundred remain, and the future of these is decidedly insecure, even where the remoteness of the location (in the case of Inuit in Northern Alaska) or the large size of the speech community (in the case of Navajo in the Southwest) might seem to protect (...) the community from language loss. Yet even this vastly reduced reservoir of linguistic diversity constitutes one of the great treasures of humanity, an enormous storehouse of expressive power and profound understandings of the universe. The loss of the hundreds of languages that have already passed into history is an intellectual catastrophe in every way comparable in magnitude to the ecological catastrophe we face today as the earth's tropical forests are swept by fire. Each language still spoken is fundamental to the personal, social and - a key term in the discourse of indigenous peoples - spiritual identity of its speakers. They know that without these languages they would be less than they are, and they are engaged in the most urgent struggles to protect their linguistic heritage. The goal of this paper is to review the contexts and practices of this struggle, in the hope that people everywhere will support it. (shrink)

: The regulation of Native identity has been central to the colonization process in both Canada and the United States. Systems of classification and control enable settler governments to define who is "Indian," and control access to Native land. These regulatory systems have forcibly supplanted traditional Indigenous ways of identifying the self in relation to land and community, functioning discursively to naturalize colonial worldviews. Decolonization, then, must involve deconstructing and reshaping how we understand Indigenous identity.

This study examined the opening and closing sequences of requestive e–mails written by 66 native English speaking students and 34 Iranian students sent to a faculty member in an American university. Three hundred requestive e–mails from NES students and NNES students sent to a professor were collected over six semesters and were analyzed for the cultural and social variation that exists in e–mail communication. Students’ choices of opening and closing strategies were examined with respect to different interpersonal styles of (...) politeness. Quantitative and qualitative findings revealed that solidarity and deference towards the professor were expressed differently in the e–mails of NES students and NNES students. (shrink)

The history of research in American Indian/Alaska Native communities has been marked by unethical practices, resulting in mistrust and reluctance to participate in research. Harms are not l...

Native advertising has recently become a prominent buzzword for advertisers and publishers alike. It describes advertising formats which closely adapt their form and style to the editorial environment they appear in, intending to hide the commercial character of these ads. In two experimental studies, we test how advertising disclosures in native ads on news websites affect recipients’ attitudes towards a promoted brand in a short and long-term perspective. In addition, we explore persuasion through certain content features (i. e., (...) message sidedness and use of exemplars) and how they affect disclosure effects. Results show that disclosures increase perceived persuasive intent but do not necessarily decrease brand attitudes. However, disclosure effects do not persist over time and remain unaffected by content features. (shrink)

Recognizing the links between childhood trauma and delinquency, many juvenile delinquency systems now emphasize trauma-informed care. This commentary examines established and emerging research on childhood trauma among American Indian and Alaska Native children and contrasts the development and implementation of “trauma-informed” approaches in state and tribal juvenile systems. It identifies three key innovations present in tribal models and calls for further research to identify best practices that work for Native children and tribal communities.

Can epistemologies anchor processes of social inequality? In this paper, we consider how epistemological dominance in science, engineering, and health fields perpetuates disadvantages for students who enter higher education with alternative epistemologies. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Native American students enrolled at two US research universities who adhere to or revere indigenous epistemologies, we find that epistemological dominance in SE&H degree programs disadvantages students through three processes. First, it delegitimizes Native epistemologies and marginalizes and silences students who value (...) them. Second, in the process of imparting these dominant scientific epistemologies, SE&H courses sometimes require students to participate in pedagogical practices that challenge indigenous ways of knowing. Third, students encounter epistemological imperialism: most students in the sample are working to earn SE&H degrees in order to return to tribal communities to “give back,” yet, because the US laws regulating the practice of SE&H extend onto tribal lands, students must earn credentials in epistemologies that devalue, delegitimate, and threaten indigenous knowledge ways to practice on tribal lands. We examine how students navigate these experiences, discuss the implications of these findings for SE&H education, and describe how epistemological dominance may serve as a mechanism of inequality reproduction more broadly. (shrink)

Faculty members in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines are typically expected to pursue grant funding and publish to support their research or teaching agendas. Providing effective professional development programs on grant preparation and management and on research publications is crucial. This study shares the design and implementation of such a program for Native STEM faculty from two tribal colleges and one public, non-tribal, Ph.D. granting institution during a 3-year period. The overall development and implementation of the program is (...) centered on the six R’s Indigenous framework – Respect, Relationship, Representation, Relevance, Responsibility, and Reciprocity. The role of NAF-STEM and their interactions with the program, as members of the community formed by their participation, impacted the program. Their practices and the program co-emerged over time, each providing structure and meaning for the other. Through such reciprocity, NAF-STEM and the program research team continually refined the program through their mutual engagement. They took on the shared responsibility of the program while they participated in and shaped its practices. The process and results of formative and summative assessment and the impact of COVID-19 on the program are reported. Results of the program offer lessons on the implementation of six R’s framework in professional development at institutions of higher education. (shrink)

The concept of “going native in reverse” reflects the fact that nowadays more and more people involved in new religious movements and esoteric groups participate in academic activities related to the study of religion in general and particularly in the study of their movements. On the one hand, these people bring insider’s perspective in the academia. On the other hand, they bring academic knowledge and critical mind in esoteric community and change it. This situation seems to be a (...) positive tendency in the development of modern spirituality both for insiders and for the society in general, because contemporary knowledge and critical mind can make religious and esoteric currents more subtle and adequate for the modern world. But what is the future of this tendency in regard to an insider/outsider problem? Maybe they can change the academia by bringing new unexpected perspectives in the study of religion and esotericism. However, conservative academic elites can finally reject researchers who try to bring the insider perspective in the academia and even expel them from academic circles. In this case they will turn into a marginal group inside the academia, and for their skeptical colleagues they will remain to be those eccentrics who want “to wear the esoteric and the scholarly hat simultaneously”, as W. J. Hanegraaff put it. On the other hand, such researchers may try to form a new discipline, so to speak an “esoteric divinity” that will fight for the place both in the academia and in the esoteric community in the next decades. However, the esoteric community itself may reject this tendency, because many of its participants today seem to have an inimical attitude toward to rationalism and the academia. (shrink)

Political integration in the European Union creates the need for a common means of communication among the various linguistic communities in Europe. One way of meeting this need is unilingualism: the use of a single language as a "lingua franca". While this option has been thought to be efficient, this does not mean that we should necessarily choose it. This paper argues that a unilinual Europe will inevitably be unfair despite recent attempts to show otherwise, since non-native speakers of (...) the lingua franca will pick up the costs of learning it while native speakers can free-ride on their efforts. This unfairness provides a reason for preferring alternative means of facilitating communication. In particular, multilingualism - communication through translators and interpreters - may be preferable. (shrink)

This paper highlights the need to apply an equity lens when assessing the impact of preemption and related legal doctrines on community health. Community autonomy to set and pursue public health priorities is an essential part of achieving health equity. Unfortunately, the priorities of organized industry interest groups often conflict with health equity goals. These groups have a history of successfully using law to limit community autonomy to pursue public health measures, most notably through preemption and related (...) legal doctrines. We examine this phenomenon using two examples. First, we look at dental association efforts to block the spread of dental therapists in Indian Country. Native dental therapists have been improving the oral health of native people in Alaska for over a decade; yet the national and state dental associations have sought with mixed success to leverage state and federal laws to hinder other tribal governments from utilizing these providers. We compare these efforts with a restaurant association-led movement to limit what municipal governments can do to address food-based health inequities, focusing on a “model” ALEC bill that started in Ohio. Finally, we discuss how municipalities and Tribes are fighting back and continuing to pursue health equity for their communities. (shrink)

In the late 1740s a young man who had just returned from Oxford to his native Scotland gave a series of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres in Edinburgh. This man was no other than Adam Smith, who would soon become famous for his writings about moral philosophy and, most of all, economic issues. Smith the moral philosopher and Smith the economist quickly overshadowed Smith the theoretician of rhetoric. Even in today’s scholarly perception the curious fact that the founder (...) of economics made his first public appearance as a lecturer on rhetoric is not given the attention it deserves. This means that an important resource for understanding Smith’s self-conception as an author and the society he envisaged is .. (shrink)

Authentic community engagement in Indigenous communities insists on the exercise of tribal sovereignty over research. American Indian and Alaska Native tribes are sovereign Nations with uni...

Knowledge about maize varieties is the key to rural households' survival in native Mexico. Native peoples relate to nature in particular ways and they play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity. This paper discusses the relationship between native women's accumulated knowledge on maize varieties and the laboratory analysis of the species that they manage. Fieldwork was conducted in an Otomí community, San Pablo Arriba, located in the state of Mexico.

In this, the first of two articles outlining a theory of communicative competence, the author shows how the requirements of such a theory are to be found in an analysis not of the linguistic competence of a native speaker, but of systematic distortion of communication of the kind postulated by psychoanalytic theory. The psychoanalyst's hermeneutic understanding of initially incomprehensible acts and utterances depends on the explanatory power of this understanding, and therefore rests on theoretical assumptions. After a preliminary delineation (...) of the range of incomprehensible acts and utterances dealt with in psychoanalysis, the author presents an account of psychoanalysis as linguistic analysis. He then explicates the key theoretical assumptions underlying the analytical procedure, in particular those relating to the notion of ?scenic understanding?, and concludes by indicating the place of explanatory understanding in a theory of communicative competence. (shrink)