resources- books, media, events & key terms. (...trans/formation ongoing...)

Ashford, M., Prange, G., Maier, T., Rosen, T., Dinner, M., Sheen, M., Caplan, L. (2014, 2015). Masters of sex. Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Blinne, K. C. (2012). Auto(erotic)ethnography. Sexualities 15(8), 953-977.

Bright, S. (1999). Full exposure: Opening up to sexual creativity and erotic expression. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Ensler, E. (2001). The vagina monologues. New York, NY: Villard.

Goldberg, M. (2014). What is a woman? The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism. The New Yorker.

Padawer, R. (2014, October 15). When women become men at Wellesley college. New York Times Magazine.

The out list. (2013 documentary about LGBT lives in the US)

Secret history of wonder woman, documentary

Women Make Movies ()

Kinsey

Block, J. (2009). Open: Love, sex, and life in an open marriage. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.

Ferrer, J. N. (January 01, 2008). Beyond Monogamy and Polyamory: A New Vision of Intimate Relationships for the Twenty-First Century. Revision, 30, 1, 53-58.

Klesse, C. (2014). Polyamory: Intimate practice, identity or sexual orientation. Sexualities 17(1/2) 81-99

Passon, S., Chenfeld, C., Cupo, A., Troche, R., Weigert, R, Razorwire Films. (2013). Concussion. Beverly Hills, CA: Anchor Bay Entertainment.

Selig, J. L. (2015). Borne Forward Ceaselessly Into Love: A Theory of the Hermeneutics of Love Exemplified by Martin Luther King, Jr. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 0022167815587847, first published on June 15, 2015 doi:10.1177/0022167815587847 (abstract)

Westfeldt, J., Juergensen, H., Wurmfeld, E. H., Zions, B., Herman-Wurmfeld, C., Cohen, S., Hoffman, J. (2002). Kissing Jessica Stein. [DVD] Beverly Hills, CA: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The self pleasure project

Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart by John Welwood

The Erotic Mind: Unlocking the Inner Sources of Passion and Fulfillment by Jack Morin

Mama Gena’s School of Womenly Arts: Using the Power of Pleasure to Have Your Way with the World by Regena Thomashauer

Sex for One: The Joy of Self-Loving by Betty Dodson

Mating In Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence by Esther Perel

Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino

Guide to Getting It On by Paul Joannides

SM 101: A Realistic Introduction by Jay Wiseman

Read this from a Non-Violent Communication Website:

http://www.personalgrowthcourses.net/stories/nvc.nonviolent_communication

You are welcome to read the book Non-Violent Communication as well if you like, but the website explains the basics very succinctly.

Brené Brown (author, researcher, storyteller, TED talk sensation)

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough” by Brene Brown

Celeste and Danielle (sex & intimacy coaches, Somatica® practitioners & trainers)

Cockfidence: The Extraordinarly Lover’s Guide to Being the Man You Want to Be and Driving Women Wild by Celeste Hirschman and Danielle Harel

Eve Ensler

Lawrence, R. L. (2012). Bodies of knowledge: Embodied learning in adult education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Spry, T. (2011). Body, paper, stage: Writing and performing autoethnography. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

satu palokangas

Bioneers

David Abram

The Environmental Crisis and the Psyche: A Conversation with David Abram and Patricia Damery

Orion Magazine

Sacred Land Film Project

Standing on Sacred Ground

1971 movie about Media, PA FBI break-in and subsequent discovery of COINTELPRO documents

Ariel Luckey

Decolonization journal

Indian Country Today Media Network

National Native News

Standing on Sacred Ground

film & video

~~~~~

quills

shame

breaking the waves

the sessions

two spirits

Marat/Sade

monster

ice storm

blue is the warmest color

sleeping beauty

up in the air

an education

don jon

her

in the land if women?

anatomy of hell?

dangerous beauty

Kinsey

Some of the best-known pornographic films of the golden porn period include:

Mona the Virgin Nymph (USA, 1970)

Boys in the Sand (USA, 1971)

Deep Throat (USA, 1972)

Behind the Green Door (USA, 1972)

The Devil in Miss Jones (USA, 1973)

Emmanuelle (France, 1974)

Sensations (France, 1975)

The Story of Joanna (USA, 1975)

Alice in Wonderland (USA, 1976)

Through the Looking Glass (USA, 1976)

The Opening of Misty Beethoven (USA, 1976)

Kansas City Trucking Co. (USA, 1976)

El Paso Wrecking Corp. (USA, 1978)

Debbie Does Dallas (USA, 1978)

A Night at the Adonis (USA, 1978)

Jack and Jill (USA, 1979)

Taboo (USA, 1980)

Insatiable (USA, 1980)

Nightdreams (USA, 1981)

Café Flesh (USA, 1982)

The Bigger The Better (USA, 1984)

Big Guns (USA, 1987)

Amanda Fucking Palmer (performer, cultural activist, author)

Ariel Luckey

Brené Brown (author, researcher, storyteller, TED talk sensation)

art(ists)

key terms a – h

(an asterisk * denotes from Ethnoautobiography)

accounting*: W. Jackson’s (1994) description of places that, according to his assessment, might have more ecological depth, history, and detail. While a step in the right direction, these still retain racial and settlement privilege. Consequently, we attach “ethno” to encourage decolonized accountings. Further, since we emphasize narrative and storytelling as a means, and end, to re-inhabit places, it is worth noting that account is a synonym for story. This aspect of the term is emphasized instead of the meanings associated with the balance sheet.

active hope*: According to Macy & Johnstone (2012, p. 3),

Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something we do rather than have. It is a process we can apply to any situation, and it involves three key steps. First, we take a clear view of reality; second, we identify what we hope for in terms of the direction we’d like things to move in or the values we’d like to see expressed; and third, we take steps to move ourselves or our situation in that direction.

amer-european*: From Tinker (2008) — who intentionally leaves these adjectives in lower case form — suggesting that Whites are slightly Americanized Europeans, rather than slightly European Americans, as Euro-American might imply. Amer-european and White are used interchangeably in this book, reflecting both lingering (if ignored) ancestral connections to places in Europe, as well as, most importantly, Eurocentered consciousness (see Ani, 1994; Kremer, 1996).

androcracy, androcentric*: Masculine rule in governmental structures, from Greek andros for ‘man’; interests or points of view reflecting a male gender bias. See patriarchy.

androgynous, androgyny*: Hybrid of stereotypical masculine and feminine characteristics in fashion, gender style, sexuality, etc.; at times used as synonym for intersex, hermaphrodite, etc. See holosexuality.

animism*: Worldviews in which all beings, including animals and plants, are ensouled or inspirited. This may include things usually considered inanimate in Eurocentered worldviews, such as rocks or rivers and other features of the landscape. Often used by outsiders and colonizers to describe Indigenous spiritual practices, while Indigenous peoples commonly do not use this term to describe themselves.

attachment:

Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oświęcim (Polish), or Oshpitsin (Yiddish)*: The most infamous Nazi death, or concentration, camp located in southwestern Poland. From its opening in 1940 until its liberation by Soviet troops in 1945, at least 1.1 million people were murdered, approximately 90% of whom were Jewish. Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945, a day now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Autoethnography*: Qualitative research methods that “combines cultural analysis and interpretation with narrative details” (Chang, 2008, p. 46). Autoethnography hinges on the push and pull between and among analysis and evocation, personal experience and larger social, cultural, political concerns. Our attempts to locate, to tie up, to define autoethnography are as diverse as our perspectives on what autoethnography is and what we want it to do. (Adams & Jones, 2008, p. 374) The subjectivity of author or researcher makes it allied with ethnoautobiography, in fact, it can be seen as autoethnography with specific parameters (the dimensions of ancestry, place, etc.). Like ethnoautobiography, autoethnography also pushes the boundaries of representation and expression. Bochner and Ellis (2002) state “It is high time to challenge the prevailing logocentrism of [a rationally-based] tradition, not only with visual media but also with the entire range of communicative expressions at our disposal” (p. 18).

Bechdel test*: Feminist evaluation of whether literature and film is supportive of women’s voices and lives. It includes three tests: a) that the narrative includes at least two women; b) that they have in-depth conversations; and, c) that they talk about something besides men.

be(com)ing*: The both/and nature of this term offered by Bigwood (1993) embodies what we convey with ethnoautobiography: being simultaneously enfolded into a state of transformation, or becoming.

be(com)ing animal*: We respectfully combine Bigwood’s (1993) process-oriented notion of be(com)ing with Abram’s (2010) ecological encouragement of be(com)ing animal. Since ethnoautobiography is an ongoing deconstruction of Eurocentered identities, especially involving relationships with the natural world, we emphasize a process of be(com)ing, in this case acknowledging humans as animals among animals.

biophilia*: E.O. Wilson’s (1984) term describing “the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes…to the degree that we come to understand other organisms, we will place greater value on them, and on ourselves” (quoted in Kellert & Wilson, 1993, pp. 4-5).

bisexuality*: Conceptualization of sexuality on a continuum ranging fluidly from hetero- to homosexuality, with bisexuality as the natural center. Rather than an either/or polarity of hetero- or homosexuality, bisexuality combines the two into a fluid sexuality. Research supports such a spectrum understanding of sexuality. See holosexuality, homosexuality.

borderlands*: Coined by Anzaldua (1987) in Borderlands/La frontera to describe the Chicana experience in the southwestern United States, this term describes places, identities, individuals, communities, and entire nations of people who are defined by boundaries and borders — and importantly crossing or transgressing them. Anzaldúa (1987, p. 3) articulates the violence caused by the grating of these worlds:

The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta [an open wound] where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country—a border culture. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.

brain*: See neo-mammalian brain; palaeomammalian brain; reptilian brain; right (brain) hemisphere; left (brain) hemisphere.

Coaquannok*: Coaquannok is a Lenni Lenape name for Philadelphia, “the place of the long trees”, where River was born. Ethnoautobiographical inquiry encourages learning the multiple names and meanings of places often hidden or forgotten by settlement.

collective shadow*: See shadow.

Colonial environmentalism, or ecocolonialism*: Refers to the manner in which environmental theory and practice furthers the colonization of people and the land. The term has been used to describe colonial aspects of overseas environmental planning (Cox & Elmqvist, 1993; Dowie, 2009), as well as extending the critique of environmentalism in the United States beyond environmental racism (LaDuke, 1994).

colonial thinking*: A way of thinking about and behaving in the world that reflects a White, or Eurocentered mind. Examples include institutionalized racial supremacy, extensive natural resource use, individualism, lacking sense of place (ecological awareness), rigid gender identities, militarism, among other characteristics.

coming-to-presence*: See presence.

critical humility*: The European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness (ECCW, 2010) offers this distilled essence of what our work seeks in the world:

Critical humility embodies a delicate and demanding balance of speaking out for social justice while at the same time remaining aware that our knowledge is partial and evolving. The two parts of this definition capture the paradox with which we struggle. (p. 147)

critical, Indigenous inquiry*: As suggested by Denzin, Lincoln, and Smith (2008), such inquiry encourages relationship building and decolonization. In other words, it is explicitly anti-colonial. Such inquiry combines critical theories and Indigenous critique, that is, “research by and for Indigenous peoples, using techniques and methods drawn from the traditions and knowledges of those peoples” (Evans et al. as cited in Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008, p. x).

crossblood*: Vizenor’s use of the term refers to the hybrid experience of Native peoples who offer solutions to current crises of the dominant culture through borderland experiences — people defined by, and transgressing, boundaries — an increasingly frequent position that challenges and tricks common categorical assumptions in tribal traditions and elsewhere.

Crossbloods hear the bears that roam in trickster stories, and the cranes that trim the seasons close to the ear. Crossbloods are a postmodern tribal bloodline, an encounter with racialism, colonial duplicities, sentimental monogenism, and generic cultures. … Crossbloods are communal, and their stories are splendid considerations of survivance. (Vizenor, 1976, pp. vii-viii)

cultural ecology*: We suggest that all environmentalism or ecology is cultural, that is, it has cultural implications and ramifications. The inverse is true as well: all cultural work is ecological.

Cultural shadow*: See shadow.

culture jamming:

slides from presentation on feminist culture jamming by Leah Boisen, Inside Me and All Around Me

Cynthia Ann Parker (Naudah)*: See Parker, Cynthia Ann.

decolonizing, or decolonization*: Activities that confront, strip away or otherwise unlearn colonial practices. Most often used in the context of ending overseas colonialism, the term more recently describes Indigenous peoples challenging Eurocentered or White colonization within countries. Ethnoautobiography encourages decolonization for all people, including Whites and others embedded in Eurocentered mind (Tuck & Yang, 2012).

deconstruct, or deconstruction*: Part of post-modernism, deconstruction is the cultural, political and academic process by which dominant ideas, philosophies, etc. are challenged and critiqued rather than accepted as given. Deconstructive endeavors challenge scientism and other and various assumptions of modernity.

dissociation*: Refers to “reported experiences and observed behaviors that seem to exist apart from or appear to have been disconnected from the mainstream, or flow, of one’s conscious awareness, behavioral repertoire, and/or self-identity” (Krippner, 1997, p. 8). Dissociation may be controlled or uncontrolled, it may be positive (potentiating) or negative (depotentiating), conscious or unconscious. See normative dissociation.

dream*: Remembered experiences of integrative states of consciousness that have occurred during sleep. Despite Freud’s groundbreaking The Interpretation of Dreams (originally published in 1900) Eurocentered cultures in general continue to see very limited value in dreams. However, they are an important element in ethnoautobiographical inquiries, as they are in Indigenous cultural practices.

dreamtime*: English word that attempts to translate and describe “Australian” Aboriginal words for the time period and experience of being connected to mythic time, ancestral paths, and original instructions.

dreamwork*: Used to describe the work of the psychological or spiritual interpretation of dreams, reflecting on their content, meaning and implications in the life of the dreamer.

ecocolonialism*: See colonial environmentalism.

ecological Indian*: Eurocentered criteria determining the level of environmental consciousness among Indigenous peoples. This stereotype follows noble savage cultural mythology to allege that Indigenous peoples have no inherent environmental awareness and are responsible for all manner of environmental misdeeds. Both a distraction and a set up, it was first suggested by Redford (1990), honed by Krech (1999), and roundly critiqued by Indigenous peoples (M. K. Nelson, 2006). Instead, we use the term econobility—separating it from Native peoples—because it is used by and for amer-europeans rather than the Indigenous peoples that inspired it (Nadasdy, 2005).

econobility*: Eurocentered measure of environmental consciousness, most often used against Indigenous peoples. While related to the stereotype of the ecologically noble savage, or “ecological Indian” (Krech, 1999), we support Buege’s (1995), Waller’s (1996) and Nadasdy’s (2005) contention that the econoble savage has little to do with Indigenous peoples, but rather with Eurocentered cultural supremacy and ecocolonialism (M. K. Nelson, 2006). See ecological Indian, noble savage.

eco-somatics:

embodied, or embodiment*: Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (2012, p. 157) describes it thus:

The process of embodiment is a being process, not a doing process, not a thinking process. It is an awareness process in which the guide and witness dissolve into cellular consciousness. Visualization and somatization provide steps to full embodiment, helping us return to preconsciousness with a conscious mind. Embodiment is automatic presence, clarity, and knowing, without having to search for it or pay attention.

environmentalism*: Aware that terms like environmentalism or ecology are a catch all, we acknowledge the diversity in tactic, organization, priority and so on. There is a difference between The Nature Conservancy and Sea Shepard Society. Similarly, conservation, preservation, or ecopsychology have different agendas and priorities. But the substance of this book suggests that there is a common cultural genealogy underlying these disparate groups and ideas: White settlement and privilege, among others. While radical ecology, represented by e.g., Earth First! has a sophisticated critique of mainstream environmentalism, they offer little regarding the cultural legacy they inherited from such groups. Furthermore, to dismiss this as anthropocentric shirks responsibility for how they came to be on this land to begin with. Thus, adjectives such as Eurocentered, White, and settler are used interchangeably to critique such environmentalism (Dowie, 2009; Merchant, 1992; Nadasdy, 2005).

eros*: From the Greek god of love, passion and attraction, this word has gained importance as people in well-boundaried, masterful societies have begun to break down barriers around issues of nature, sexuality, artistic expression and so on. (See Griffin, 1995).

essentialist, or essentialism*: The idea that something has a fundamental essence, or nature. Essentialist notions of personal or cultural identity can be found in the common understanding of terms such as “American,” “the German character,” and so on. In cultural, historical, and political contexts, this is in contrast to hybridity, the mixed-blood, crossblood, and multiculturalism. In ethnoautobiography the fundamental assumption is that origins are always multiple and complex.

ethno-*: We reclaim this prefix that rightly defines “ethno” as describing an Indigenous — decolonized — presence (from the Greek word ethnos). In this sense, then, ethno– refers to the full context of a person including, but not limited to, genealogy, ancestry, history, place (ecology), seasons, dreams, spirits, and so on.

ethno-accounting*: Combining the prefix ethno– with W. Jackson’s (1994) suggestion of more detailed “accounting” of the places we live.

ethnoautobiographical riffs*: Adding the prefix “ethno” to Frankenberg and Mani’s (1996) “autobiographical riffs.” While their concepts are consistent with ethnoautobiography, there is an important distinction: ethnoautobiographical riffs require a decolonizing approach. The term “riff” originates out of jazz traditions.

ethnoautobiography*: Oral and/or written descriptions of self with an Indigenous sense of “ethnic,” including place, seasonal cycles (time), history, nature, gender, ancestry, spirit, community, and so on. Ethnoautobiography includes a variety of practices that encourage and support decolonization and the breaking down of the well-boundaried, masterful, individualistic, Eurocentered, modern, and WEIRD selves in (post)modern societies.

eurocentered, or eurocentric mind: see White mind.

evolutionary prejudice*: Used by V. Deloria (1995, p. 61) to address Eurocentered science, and especially anthropological explanations about Indigenous peoples, including migration, language, origin, religion and so on. There is also a preponderance of troubling evolutionary themes (e.g., linear progress) within postmodern cultural critiques, environmentalism and New Age thinking. As Kremer (1998, p. 243) has stated: “At the root of my concerns is the question of cultural ownership of evolutionary thinking which I have raised… and the call for theorists of human evolution to reflect consciously and explicitly on the cultural biases inherent in their thinking.”

fetish:

forgetting, or forgetfulness*: One of the most important aspects of settler identity, forgetting helps to balance the deep seated conflict between the shame of knowing something terrible has happened and the desire not to know: “Settler culture may be constructed on the basis of a necessary forgetfulness” (S. Turner, 1999, p. 37). Such forgetfulness is fundamental to settlement privilege whereby Whites simply pretend that we are not aware of the benefits inherited as a consequence of settlement. Just as White privilege creates a set of benefits that accrue to Whites simply because they are White, settlement privilege offers benefits to anyone who is a settler (Jackson-Paton, 2012; McIntosh, 1990; WPC, n.d.).

gender polarity*: In Eurocentered societies — not well known to students and innumerable others characterized by many sharp dichotomies of either/or — this describes the polar and oppositional construction of gender roles into female and male, disregarding the spectrum of possible gender constructions, as well as, the realities of gender roles enacted. In Indigenous cultures, we often find additional third and fourth genders. Gender polarity as a model also reifies or essentializes gender, though research shows that gender fluidity is the norm.

genealogical imagination*: From Ni Dhomhnaill (1996, citing Seamus Heaney). While there is a “literal” genealogy of personal family history and cultural identities, in ethnoautobiographical inquiry, as in other decolonization practices, there are also required imaginative, creative and flexible processes that connect to Indigenous consciousness, or recovery of Indigenous mind, including original instructions, be(com)ing animal, transmotion, and so on. See genealogy.

genealogy*: We expand on (but do not contradict) the direct family sense of the word. Such an expanded use is in keeping with ethnoautobiography or Indigenous mind that is relational in all directions, with all things. Thus, we refer to our personal genealogies (our family history), as well as to more indirect inheritances that come to us, such as White (racial) and settlement privilege, historical legacies, cultural mythologies, etc. For example, we acknowledge the qualitative research genealogies, and other Eurocentered academic traditions, we emerge from and simultaneously seek to decolonize. Accordingly, this relates to the genealogical notions of postmodern critic Michel Foucault (Prado, 1995). While some of Foucault’s goals are consistent with our work, Foucault also reflects an anti-spiritual perspective further limiting meaningful inquiry and precludes a variety of ways of knowing, especially Indigenous methodologies.

genocide*: Article II of The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide reads as follows (UN General Assembly, 1948/1951): In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. This book at least briefly mentions several formal government processes and events which all constitute genocide as described (we regard the distinction made by some authors between cultural genocide and genocide as specious — cultural genocide is genocide). These genocidal processes include “Indian” boarding schools, outlawing traditional ceremonies, forbidding the speaking of language, restricting access to sacred sites, not to mention massacres. It is our hope that increased scholarship in these arenas will move this from the cultural shadows to acknowledgment and healing (see also Churchill, 2004; Madley, 2009; A. Smith, 2005).

As far as the Indigenous populations of the Americas are concerned, the most detailed and methodologically sophisticated population estimates for the pre-Columbian Americas indicate that North and South America was inhabited by 90 to 112 million people of a vast variety of different cultures with numerous languages. At that time Europe had 60-70 million inhabitants, Russia 10-18 million, and Africa 40-72 million (Stannard, 1992). Eight to twelve million Native Americans lived north of Mexico in pre-Columbian times. The population loss due to colonization and genocide generally was 95% or more. In the U.S., the 1890 U.S. census reported 248,000 Native Americans (2-3% of the pre-Columbian population). The 1990 census reported about 1.9 million Native Americans (16-23% of the pre- Columbian population). There are approximately 300 reservations and federally or state recognized tribes with 44 million acres of land (this is 2.2% of the acreage of the contiguous 48 states). 437,000 Native Americans live on reservations that range in size from the largest of the Diné (or Navajo) people (16 million acres) to small California rancherias of one acre. Threats to individual and cultural survival continue amidst widespread family violence, alcoholism, suicide, diabetes, cultural fragmentation, a lack of recognition by the U.S. society, and destruction of sacred sites. Less than 10% of contemporary natives speak their own languages and most Native Americans do not have either any or sufficient land to continue their traditionally self-sufficient economies on their ancestral lands. It was only under President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s that many native ceremonies became legal, and the process of repatriation of ceremonial items and human remains began in the 1990s. In the Canadian northwest the potlatch ceremony, the core ceremony of the northwest coast cultures, was outlawed between 1884 and 1951.

groundwork*: Clark and Powell (2008) note that their “Indigenous groundwork” and Daniel Wildcat’s “thinking spatially” similarly affirm a people’s relationship to land, not “land” in the abstract or land understood as private property but particular places, distinctive homescapes that generate unique, restorative expressions of different tribal identities and peoplehoods. Thus, homescapes provide places to stand to take a stand. (p. 5) It is for this reason that Indigenism emphasizes the land, as Vine Deloria (2003) did at the close of God is red: “That is when the invaders of the North American continent will finally discover that for this land, God is red” (p. 296). See sovereignty.

Haudenosaunee: The Native peoples amer-europeans call Iroquois. Also called the Six Nations, their membership is composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga and Tuscurora. Among the most noted Indigenist political leadership in North America (see Akwesasne Notes, 1978).

hero(ine)’s journey*: Mythic pattern popularized by Joseph Campbell (The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 1949). It describes a process of self-transformation and healing, beginning with a call to adventure, crossing the threshold, encountering a helper/mentor, entering the abyss of death and rebirth or transformation, and, after additional steps, returning the gifts received to the community. The heroine’s journey has been distinguished from the hero’s journey, with Fierz-David’s discussion of a frieze at Pompeji initiating alternate descriptions of transformative journeys (2001, originally published in 1957). Applying this pattern more narrowly to ethnoautobiography, we might say that after departure an individual faces personal and/or cultural shadow(s), and returns with gifts of insight and healing to form an integrated self identity — in an Indigenous sense — and has capacities to share these gifts.

heteronormative*: Within eurocentered societies the notion, often enforced through real or threatened violence, that heterosexuality is the only acceptable form of sexuality and gender identity. All other experiences are relegated to the shadow, denied and suppressed at all costs. Synonymous with heterosexism, and being hetereosexist; in contrast to holosexuality.

heterosexism*: see heteronormativity.

(hi)stories*: Linking the telling of stories with history and its heavily gendered transmission. The term makes explicit that history is one more version of storytelling rather than an all-knowing narrative of certainty that rightfully is dominant. History consists of a multiplicity of (hi)stories. As a feminist critique of the gendered telling of such stories, this word is sometimes written (his)tories, or (her)stories.

holosexuality*: Vizenor uses the term to refer to the entire sexual and erotic energy of every cell in our bodies, integrating the spectrum of feminine and masculine qualities and resisting reductionism to the binaries of gender. Refers to a sensual/sexual relationship with all beings around us (from human sexuality to orgasms triggered by the sensuality of old-growth redwood trees). This is in contrast to Eurocentered sexuality that is highly polarized between supposed opposites and primarily focused on sexual organs. (See e.g., Vizenor, 1988, p. 34).

homosexuality*: In the polar model of sexual orientation and gender construction, the erotic and/ or sexual attraction to members of the same gender. Used to demonize or “other” gender identities that do not fit in Eurocentered and patriarchal settings by enforcing heterosexuality. See gender polarity, heteronormativity, holosexuality.

hybridity*: Originally a biological term (referring to the offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar), it is now commonly used in multicultural discourse to refer to the effects of mixtures of cultural identities and lineages. Hybridity has been associated with migrant populations or border towns; it is also used in other contexts when there is a flow of different cultures that both give and receive from each other. The concept of hybridity is critical of essentialist notions of identity (‘true identity,’ ‘the German national character,’ etc.).

key terms i – q

(an asterisk * denotes from Ethnoautobiography)

immanent*: In Indigenous societies, everyday existence of spiritual or trans/personal aspects of life are seen as part of everyday consensual social reality; spirits are just as real as a glass of milk. Immanent (akin to non-dualistic) is used in contrast to the Eurocentered way of seeing transcendent and immanent as opposite poles (spiritual or religious aspects of life vs. everyday social realities). Transcendence is also a preeminent aspect of major world religions.

Indian*: see Indigenous, Playing Indian.

indigenist, or indigenism*: Cultural and political philosophies prioritizing Indigenous values and worldviews. Often used in the context of political activities, Indigenism can be used as another term to describe elements of ethnoautobiography, such as place (ecology), ancestry, history, gender, and so on. A frequent cultural example is the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) consideration of the impact of a decision on the 7th generation in the future. The US-based International Indian Treaty Council’s achievement of official United Nations participation in 1977 is a political example of Indigenism. (See Churchill, 1992).

Indigenous, or Indigenous peoples*: There are approximately 250 million Indigenous peoples worldwide — 4% of the global population — living in over 70 countries. In the legal and political context, especially within United Nations organizations and conferences, Indigenous peoples often use the definition provided by the International Labor Organization convention in 1989 that defines them as tribal peoples in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations; peoples in independent countries who are regarded as Indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonization or the establishment of present state boundaries and who irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions. Self-identification as Indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for determining groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply. (International Labor Organization, Convention #169, 1989)

In substance this statement is also contained in the draft of the Inter-American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Venne, 1998) as well as other significant statements on the rights of Indigenous peoples. More recently, after the 2007 passage of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there are more detailed rights, responsibilities and definitions pertaining to Indigenous peoples. (UN, 2008).

For example, the Sámi peoples of the arctic north are or were considered an “ethnic minority” by the majority populations in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Russia as a way of asserting the settler rights of the dominant culture (rather than Indigenous peoples or First Nations). In 1980 a policy was adopted by Sami people stating that a Sámi is defined as any person who—has Sámi as his [sic] first language or whose father, mother or one of whose grandparents has Sámi as their first language, or—considers himself a Sámi and lives entirely according to the rules of Sámi society, and who is recognized by the representative Sámi body as a Sámi, or—has a father or mother who satisfies the above-mentioned conditions for being a Sámi. (Sámi Instituhtta, 1990, p. 11).

Indigenous mind, paradigm, worldview, or consciousness*: A holistic cultural paradigm of living and being in the world which not only attempts to avoid separation but actively maintains an integral relationship with ancestors, nature, spirits, place, astronomy, history, and so on. Never used as a purist ideal in the sense of romantic, Eurocentered projections, but always working to maintain balance within the nurturing conversations (such as criar y dejarse criar) through ritual and storytelling.

Indigenous presence*: Much more than physical presence, this is a being presence within the central place of an Indigenous worldview and cultural practice. Among the Haudenoshaunee this place is called Skanagoah, the great peace; among the old Germanic peoples fri›ur, peace. Such presence seeks to overcome simplistic and romantic identity politics, ethnic identification and racialism that are manifestations of historical wounds, collective amnesia, supremacist thinking and the related suppressed or denied habits or norms (Kremer, 2003). Presence embodies simultaneously knowing Self and Other, and maintaining relationships and connection with the human and more–than–human world. This way of being combines decolonization and be(com)ing animal. It is presence to the cycle of nurturing and being nurtured, criar y dejarse criar.

Indigenous science*: The term acknowledges the scientific nature of Indigenous astronomical observations, Indigenous ecological understandings, etc. Indigenous science goes beyond the bounds of much Western scientific understanding, especially one-dimensional scientism, using careful observation in all the dimensions that define Indigenous presence and acknowledging the intertwining of knowing and being — beingknowing. Indigenous science is a holistic way of understanding, living and being in the world that actively maintains relationships with nature, spirits, place, astronomy, and so on, through detailed and active observation and participation as opposed to the Eurocentered scientific practices of separation and compartmentalization. Oftentimes Indigenous science is expressed in stories or images. (See Cajete, 2000; Colorado, 1996; Deloria, 2003, 2006).

Indigenous self*: Sense of self with flexible, permeable boundaries that allows the intimate interaction of criar y dejarse criar and the intimacy of Indigenous science. Such a sense of self is in contrast to the well-boundaried, masterful self of WEIRD or Eurocentered cultures. In many ways, such a sense of self is more of a concentration, gradually fading into and blending with “the other”, rather than being exclusionary and separate. Most of what is relegated to “other” for the modern masterful self is completely, or partially identified with the Indigenous self. While the Indigenous self is embedded in its context, it is distinct with its own agency.

Indigenous transmotion*: See natural reason; transmotion.

individualistic, or individualism*: Individualism, individualistic self, or well-boundaried masterful self all refer to the notion prevailing in Eurocentered, and especially WEIRD societies, wherein the unit of highest importance in social organization is the individual person.

initiation*: The entry or beginning of a process, often used in psycho-spiritual contexts of self-transformation. Here used most often as initiation into a new level of knowledge or cultural understanding which implies a process of self transformation.

Integral, integrative, or integration*: Used in multiple traditions and disciplines, here referring to the lack of a strict separation of different parts of a culture, a person’s identity, etc. We find this term in traditions like Aurobindo’s (1990) integral Yoga, Wilber’s (2007) integral theory, as well as various Western disciplines, such as social integration, racial integration, integrated circuit, etc. Holistic is a related term. In our usage integral refers to a state of presence and knowing in the world in which the self is connected through a process analogous to criar y dejarse criar, that is, mutual and reciprocal nurturance and conversation. Indigenous peoples often seem to have terms or phrases that point to integration as a central process in their lives.

integrative states of consciousness*: During such states old and younger parts of the brain as well as right and left hemispheres are integrated or in “conversation” with each other. Non-integrative states emphasize the dominance and value of one state over others (usually the left-brain hemisphere, rational processes of the frontal cortex). Integrative states of awareness are connective and relationship–building that allow for a sense of self and identity that includes emotions, altered states, dreams, the body, etc., rather than well-boundaried, exclusionary, or dissociative. Integrative states of consciousness may result in spiritual openings, connections with the more-than-human world, neardeath experiences and so on. They may feel extraordinary, but they may also be experienced as a natural part of the everyday spectrum of humans in touch with a larger sense of self. Indigenous peoples, as the inheritors of ancient knowledge, continue to value and access such awareness both as part of daily life as well as on important ritual occasions.

interbeing*: Used by Thích Nhat Hanh (1991) to describe Buddhist mindfulness practices as something approaching Indigenous relationships among all things.

interdependent*: Many people, things, and beings having mutually beneficial relationships. Refers to processes similar to interbeing, natural reason, integral and relationship. See criar y dejarse criar.

intersex*: A person (as well as non-human beings) born with both male and female characteristics, including chromosomes, gonads, and/or sex organs. When used to describe humans this is considered more sensitive than hermaphrodite.

Left (brain) hemisphere*: Works to achieve precision by breaking things down into parts through narrow and sharply focused attention to detail. The result is clarity and the capacity to manipulate things that can be known and isolated. The knowledge of the left hemisphere uses denotative language and tends to be decontextualized; what it knows is explicit and general in nature. The knowledge system of the left hemisphere is closed and aims for perfection creating a self-consistent view of reality, so that what does not fit gets discarded (see McGilchrist, 2009, 2011).

masterful (well-bounded or boundaried) self*: The predominant sense of self or identity in cultures based on European or Eurocentered ideals (see WEIRD). Here the self has separated itself from the mutuality of the nurturing conversation (criar y dejarse criar) through normative dissociation, or a splitting off, to assume a position of supremacy in relation to other animals, plants, people, etc. This individualistic and ego-centered personality is commonly highly racialized, gendered and compartmentalized. It seeks to know the world in order to master it, rather than to be with it and foster mutually beneficial relationships. See (re)placing.

matriarchy*: Introduced by Bachofen in 1861. Gőttner-Abendroth’s contemporary definition translates the term as “the mothers from the beginning” (as opposed to “domination by the mothers”). She translates patriarchy as “domination by the fathers”, with the arche having the double meaning of “beginning” as well as “domination” (2004, p. 74). Matriarchy emphasizes the importance and centrality of the feminine.

mestiza/o*: The dictionary defines this as a person of Spanish and Indigenous ancestry. Anzaldua (1987), among others, reclaims this term as a source of cultural pride, positive identity, creativity and resilience, rather than the original implication of half-caste or mongrel.

Middle Passage*: The path of ships carrying captured Africans from West Africa into slavery in the Americas is acknowledged as much for the survivors of the horrific crossing as it is for the countless people that perished on the journey. It is regarded as a path of souls departed and honored ancestors who were sacrificed by the millions.

mixed blood*: Similar to mestiza, mixedblood had (and in some settings, still has) negative connotations. Vizenor (1981), among other Indigenous authors, seeks to reclaim this term in light of resilience, creativity, complexity and survivance. Vizenor sees the crossblood as a generative and trickster-ish position for the future of humanity and our survival.

Mőbius strip*: A surface with only one side. Popularized by M.C. Escher’s “Ants on a Mőbius strip,” it is commonly described as an optical illusion. Allen (1998) uses the term to describe a place similar to Anzaldua’s borderland (1987).

Modernity, Modernism, Modernist, Modern*: The historical time period beginning after the Middle Ages in the 1400s marked by the rise of capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, nation states, surveillance, science, technology, colonialism, etc. Used here to describe qualities associated with Eurocentrism and White mind, as well as the institutions that furthered its rise. The Western philosophical movement of Enlightenment is central to the rise of modernity. Some characteristics associated with modernity include individualism, democracy, public space, civil liberties, as well as gender, racial and class inequalities. Indigenism, post-modernism, and critical social theory all critique various aspects of modernism.

more-than-human*: Abram (1996, 2010) uses this term to describe the complex world of all living things, as well as what Eurocentered perception describes as inanimate.

multicultural, multiculturalism*: A concept with different meanings for different people, ranging from the folkloric display of different traditions and ethnicities to a profound critique of Eurocentered thinking. The term signals the embrace of cultural diversity and complexity at various levels within a Eurocentered worldview. Ethnoautobiography is explicitly multicultural through a process of decolonization and the establishment of egalitarian exchanges that heal past socio-cultural traumas.

multivocality*: Similar to hybridity, the acknowledgment that apparently homogeneous societies are actually composed of many voices once we deconstruct the dominant story and encourage other voices to be heard. Similarly, each individual contains a multiplicity of voices. For example, as Sarris (1996) writes,

Who I am as a writer, as a person, is someone continuing the conflict, the coming together, of histories, cultures. My education and training as an academic and writer only add voices, inner disputants, to a world of multiple voices.…What I hope to have done is provide a way for us to start talking interculturally and interpersonally about what is in fact intercultural and interpersonal. (pp. 37-8)

natural reason*: From Vizenor (1994), to clarify a person’s identity and knowing as inclusive of nature, imagination, and many other elements. The sources of natural reason and tribal consciousness are doubt and wonder, not nostalgia or liberal melancholy for the lost wilderness; comic, not tragic, because melancholy is cultural boredom, and the tragic is causal, the closure of natural reason. The shimmers of imagination are reason … (p. 14).

Neo-mammalian brain*: In MacLean’s (1973) descriptions of the triune brain, this is the frontal cortex, our executive center, the seat of rational and reflective thought. The part of the brain that most people think of when they hear the word “brain”. In an evolutionary context a later development, after the palaeo-mammalian and reptilian brains.

New Age*: An ill-defined term with multiple meanings ranging from calendrical (as in the Mayan calendar, the precession of the equinoxes, or the Age of Aquarius) to a movement raising consciousness, esp. including meditative and other altered states. Indigenous peoples commonly note the ungroundedness of White New Age notions and the lack of political awareness. From an ethnoautobiographical perspective such New Age ideas arise from the lack of felt experience of normative dissociation and historical disconnections from ancestral roots. Without such context the embrace of Indigenous (and other) traditions may not lead to the desired goals and lack authenticity. (See Fikes, 1993).

Noble savage*: According to Berkhofer (1978) the noble savage developed as “a convention for enunciating the hopes and desires of European authors or for criticizing the institutions and customs of their own society” (p. 74). Rousseau is the European scholar most often (and erroneously, according to Ellingson, 2001) associated with the notion of the noble savage; its historical origins are generally dated to the European Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment periods (Berkhofer, 1978). It is important to note that Indigenous peoples (though conquered by European colonists) had substantial influence on Europeans (Conn, 2004). There remain questions about whether the noble savage was a real, albeit Eurocentered, description of romantic Natives encountered by Europeans, or if the term was used as a critique of deficiencies within European society (or a combination of both). A major flaw in the noble savage stereotype is the polar opposition of “good” (noble) and “bad” (ignoble) savages. Rather than acknowledging these philosophical conflicts as faulty Eurocentered stereotypes in the first place, great effort and time are spent debunking or proving the existence of the noble savage (Hames, 2007; Krech, 1999; LeBlanc, 2003).

normative dissociation*: The disconnection and splitting off of individuals from the cycle of nurturing and being nurtured (criar y dejarse criar) as social norm. Also describes a cultural process and social norm that changes Indigenous selves into individualistic, well-bounded, modern selves, though the separation is largely unconscious. It leads to the pervasive disregard of emotional, somatic, sexual, dream, nature-connected, other processes that then at least partially become cultural shadow material. See dissociation.

objective, or objectivity: One pole of the Eurocentered Cartesian duality, suggesting that there are external realities that can be described with certainty, or for which laws can be identified. Used more generally to describe conditions external to a person. There have been many thorough critiques of this position from Indigenous and postmodern positions (maybe most radically by Feyerabend’s Against Method [1975]). See subjective.

oral tradition*: The transmission of cultural knowledge through different forms of storytelling in ritual and extra-ritual contexts. The use of non-literate means to transmit cultural practices and knowledge, including star knowledge, relationships with the more-than-human world, ancestral relationships, and so on. Frequently oral traditions are seen as inferior to written traditions (esp. in a court of law where it is often equated with “hearsay” that devalues or dismisses Indigenous oral traditions). The term “prehistory” is associated with oral traditions, while “history” begins with writing. See also evolutionary prejudice.

original instructions*: An English word originating in Indigenous communities referring to instructions, contained in creation and other stories, that give guidance as to living in balance in a specific ecological community. It references the holistic cultural practices as set forth at creation, since the beginning of time, and so on. These practices are especially, though not exclusively, used when relating to ecological wellbeing. (See Horn, 1996; M. K. Nelson, 2008).

paganism*: The animistic, non-Christian and/or shamanic spiritual traditions of Indigenous peoples, including European peoples before Christianity. Often used with evolutionary prejudice implying that pagan traditions are simplistic folk traditions, which may even be dangerous or devilish. See animism.

Palaeo-mammalian brain*: According to MacLean’s (1973) descriptions of the triune brain, this is the part of the brain that can also be characterized as the emotional brain (includes the limbic system). The language of this part of the brain is primarily visual rather than linguistic, playing a central role in dreams, habits, etc. Thus, the arts, dreams, movement, dance, trances, and rituals access this part of the brain making it critical for emotional responses and processing in both waking and dreaming life. This is the area of the brain where habits and our deep sense of self reside.

Parker, Cynthia Ann*: As a young settler Cynthia Ann was taken by the Comanche from her family’s fort on the Texas frontier in the 1830s, eventually becoming fully integrated into Comanche society. She became the wife of Comanche leader Peta Nocona, and gave birth to three children: Quanah, Pecos, and Topsana (Prairie Flower). Many years later Cynthia Ann, who had taken the name Naudah (Someone Found), was kidnapped by the Texas Rangers and returned by force to her prominent north Texas family. After repeated unsuccessful escape attempts and the death of her youngest child, Prairie Flower, she died a prisoner. She and her children Quanah and Topsana are buried at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. (See Gwyne, 2009 and Carlson & Crum, 2010).

Parker, Quanah*: The Comanche chief who led the Comanche during the “transition” from life on the Southern Plains to reservations in then Indian Country (present day Oklahoma). Known for his powerful leadership as a warrior, he later became a diplomat for the Comanche and other nations during the particularly dismal early reservation period. Quanah was a child of Comanche leader Peta Nocona and White woman Cynthia Ann Parker. (See Gwyne, 2009 and Carlson & Crum, 2010).

participatory spirituality*: In this view, most clearly developed by Ferrer (2002), religious, spiritual, or transpersonal events are seen as a co-creation between the experiencer and what is “out there.” “Transpersonal events engage human beings in a participatory, connected, and often passionate knowing that can involve not only the opening of the mind, but also of the body, the heart, and the soul” (p. 121).

patriarchy*: Similar to androcracy, patriarchy is social organization around the worth and importance of men. In contrast to matriarchy.

personal shadow*: See shadow.

pilgrimage*: An intentional journey to a place of spiritual, cultural, historical, etc. significance that is undertaken as a personally and/or culturally transformative act. These can be undertaken alone or with groups of people. (See Browne, 2008; Dewolf, 2008; Krondorfer, 1995).

playing Indian*: Philip Deloria’s (1998) profound analysis of the cultural habit of Whites attempting to become somehow american. A central concept in ethnoautobiography, we especially emphasize the application of P. Deloria’s thinking to environmentalism and other political organizing among Whites. This illuminates how Eurocentered environmentalists, for example, are “playing Indian” as they attempt to “become native to the place,” all the while furthering the settlement of North America.

Po’pay*: The Ohkay Owingeh leader who spearheaded the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, expelling the Spanish from their territory for twelve years in present day New Mexico.

postmodern, or post-modernity: The philosophies of deconstruction and post-structuralism are associated with postmodernity, describing movements especially in architecture, the arts, and criticism. Postmodern intellectuals and artists critique and respond to modernism and its contradictions. Major proponents in the field of philosophy include Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard. Postmodernity is more of an attitude toward modernity, rather than a cohesive school. Spretnak (1997) distinguishes deconstructionist postmodernity from ecological postmodernity, a relative of Indigenous paradigms. Vizenor (1989, p. x) asserts that “the postmodern opened in tribal imagination; oral cultures have never been without a postmodern condition that enlivens stories and ceremonies, or without trickster signatures and discourse on narrative chance — a comic utterance and adventure to be heard or read.”

post-traumatic settler dis-ease (ptsde)*: Settler (White) cultural norms based in genocide, slavery and land theft — and especially the avoidance and dismissal of such shadow material in amer-european (and other Eurocentered) societies — are evidence enough of posttraumatic settler dis-ease. Psychologically, the posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis relates to the varying degree of a person’s denial and functionality as a consequence of exposure to trauma (Duran & Duran, 1995; Glendinning, 1994; Herman, 1992).

Further, it seems appropriate to connect amer-europeans with a disorder since Indigenous peoples have diagnosed the traumatic disconnections and loss of spirit long ago (see Churchill [1995] or Richardson [2008], for example). Indeed, White settlers can be said to have a truly myopic and dis-eased relationship with the world, both human and more-than-human. Many Indigenous peoples have contemporary words for settlers which speak to that condition: Māori: “Pākehā” meaning “foreigner” (Consedine & Consedine, 2005; Mitcalfe, 2008); Hawaiian: “haole,” which some suggest is translated as “without breath” or “soulless”, as well as “foreign” (Rohrer, 2010); Lakota of the northern Plains of north America: “Wasi’chu,” translated as “the one that steals the fat,” (Johansen & Maestas, 1979); Kashaya Pomo of northern California: “‘Miracles’ is the Kashaya Pomo term for white people…. As one Kashaya Pomo elder told me, ‘The invaders are miracles, miraculous. They think they can kill and plunder and get away with it’” (Sarris, 1996. p. 28); and even amer-european Christian theologian Robert Bellah: “nomadic vandals” (V. Deloria, 1999; see also Chambers, 2009; Gabbard, 2006; Glendinning, 1995; Jackson-Paton, 2012, Morrison, 2012; Veracini, 2007, 2010b; see also settler ).

Presence, Indigenous presence, coming- to-presence, radical presence*: Intensifying and growing consciousness of the integral interrelationships of an Indigenous self process. An engagement with the cycle of nurturing and being nurtured (criar y dejarse criar); that is, the awareness of interrelatedness. Opening to a way of being that seeks to overcome simplistic and romantic identity politics that are manifestations of historical wounds, collective denials, supremacist thinking and the related suppression of cultural roots.

privilege*: The historical and institutional legacy that favors certain people automatically because of their race, culture, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ability and so on. Thus, White privilege is offered Whites by no explicit choice of their own. Nor is male privilege offered to men by their own choosing. Rather, most often people must choose to question or reject the privilege that falls to them.

Quanah Parker*: See Parker, Quanah.

key terms r – z

(an asterisk * denotes from Ethnoautobiography)

racial contract*: Mills (1997) suggests the social contract forming the basis of Western democracies is, in fact, a racial contract. Accordingly, the norms of the political and philosophical social contract within Eurocentered societies is firmly embedded in a racial contract between Whites and non-Whites, and maintained by White supremacy.

radical hope: Based on Lear (2006), radical hope is the premise that there is hope for a meaningful life after a catastrophic event. It is “directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is. Radical hope anticipates a good for which those who have the hope as yet lack the appropriate concepts with which to understand it” (p.103).

radical presence*: See presence.

rational, or rationality*: Emphasis on rationality and the use of reason is one of the hallmarks of modernity, specifically Enlightenment philosophy. Kant (1784) emphasized Sapere aude! – Think for yourself! The use of reason is a central characteristic of Western science and technology, though its increasingly limited application has been criticized by Marcuse (1964) and many others on the grounds that it represents one-dimensional rationality, scientism, or technocratic rationality. We use the term ‘reason’ to refer to the positive use of rationality and ‘one-dimensional rationality’ or ‘scientism’ to refer to its restrictive and incomplete use. The use of rationality in Eurocentered societies generally dismisses alternate ways of constructing knowledge and meaning (embodiment, the reasons of the heart, etc.) and continues to emphasize mono-causal and linear models of decision-making. See objective and normative dissociation.

Recovery of Indigenous Mind*: Cultural and scholarly activism of Colorado (1996) and Kremer (1996, 2011) suggesting that all people have Indigenous roots that can be relearned, remembered, and restored through various practices of decolonization. Ethnoautobiography is a version of such practice. Sometimes called recovery of participation.

relationship*: A synonym for relationality (Kovach, 2009) that attempts to describe an Indigenous sense of connection, participation and reciprocity with the world for people in a Eurocentered worldview or mind. (See Abram, 2010).

remembrance*: Describes several elements — all facilitating transformation and healing — that include remembering self, other, and self-with-other. Acts of remembrance for those of Eurocentered inheritance include the underworld material of conquest needed to be incorporated into the self (Kremer & Rothberg, 1999) and what has been called “rituals of inquiry” (Jackson-Paton, 2008). This includes acts of remembering how our ancestors (among other settlers) narrated their experience of place in North America. Recovering participation is also such an act of remembrance, as is a genealogical imagination. As descendants of settlers, remembrance of the other includes acceptance of narratives of survivance. Remembrance makes space for richer — and transformative— stories of self and other (Hooker & Czajkowski, 2012; Regan, 2010). This takes the form of multivocal histories of peoples and places, as well as more specific actions for justice, such as truth commissions, land restoration, and reparations, and what has been called “Taking Down the Fort” referring to Fort Snelling in Minneapolis (Waziyatawin, 2008, p. 9). Finally, self-with-other is the manner in which these rememberings are brought forward to offer new relationships with people and places (Carter, 1996). This would include acts of reconciliation, dialogue, and healing rituals at places of atrocity (Dowlin & Dowlin, 2002). It also includes explicit acts of decolonizing or re-Indigenizing the academy (Mihesuah & Wilson, 2004). Acts of remembrance will take the form of narrating a sense of place (and identity) where self-withother is foregrounded and recovered. The quality of remembrance just described cannot be separated from (re)placing and restor(y)ing.

(re)placing: To replace something implies returning it to a previous position, or to make a substitution. Invoking (re)placement, and decolonization in general, emphasizes the necessity to be put back into place. This would return White amer-european settlers to a previous consciousness that more fully embodies relationality and participation. This is not a regressive move, rather it is liberation from simplistic notions of progress. Most specifically, however, being (re)placed means taking account of all that is included in a particular place, and inviting, encouraging, and paying attention to as much of the information and participation as possible. This would include the multiple and varied narratives (such as ethno-accountings) of specific places, the interactions of people with each other and the places they inhabit, and fostering new inclusive stories of place, that endorses justice, reconciliation, and renewal.

reptilian brain*: The oldest part of our brain that performs basic functions which continue when we sleep or even faint: breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, etc. It regulates our basic survival functions. While we can never be conscious of our reptilian brain we can impact its function through practices like meditation, yoga, and trances.

restor(y), or restor(y)ing*: Inspired by Cronon’s (1992) “A Place for Stories,” and Nabhan’s (1991, 2012) “re-story”, we play on the double meaning that links environmental restoration (reintroducing native species, preserving threatened ecosystems, and so on) with revived and (re)new(ing) cultural storytelling, most especially among settlers. As with ecological restoration and ethnoautobiography, restor(y)ing is long-term, complex, and dynamic.

retraditionalization*: The process where people who have survived colonization return to and remember Indigenous traditions and lifeways. This is used as another term for recovery of Indigenous mind, whereby Eurocentered people decolonize and reconnect with Indigenous European traditions. Retraditionalization cannot be separated from (re)placing and restor(y)ing.

riffs: See ethnoautobiographical riffs.

right (brain) hemisphere*: Provides sustained, open, broad alertness or vigilance for what might be, and is concerned with patterns and making connections, and helps identify what is different from what we expect. It perceives things in context, understands metaphor, body language, implicit meanings, and facial expressions. The right hemisphere is concerned with individuals (not categories) and the embodied world, the living as opposed the mechanical, looking at embodied beings as part of the lived world. It also deals with things that can never be fully grasped, such as spirituality. For a broad understanding of situations we rely more on knowledge of the right hemisphere, but it cannot construct arguments; it is the holder of the big picture, and the integrator of information (based on McGilchrist, 2009; 2011).

rituals of reconciliation*: Embodied communal healing, and transformative practices (Jackson-Paton, 2008) that pay respect to Krondofer’s (1995) ‘Remembrance and Reconciliation,’ Rosaldo’s (1993) “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage,” Behar’s (1996), Brown’s (2010) “vulnerability,” and Vine Deloria’s (2002) “conciliatory ceremonies.”

rootprints*: Used more broadly to acknowledge the imprint left by our ancestors. The title of a (1997) book by Hélène Cixous and Mireille Calle-Gruber. Rootprints, memory and life writing, trace the development of Cixous as intellectual and writer. It includes the chapter “Albums and Legend” tracing her genealogy.

Sand Creek*: In southeastern Colorado, this was the site of a November 29, 1864 massacre by the Colorado militia, led by Colonel Chivington. Nearly 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho were killed and mutilated, about 2/3 of whom were women and children. A National Historic Site managed by the National Park Service, with Cheyenne and Arapaho participation, opened at the place of massacre in 2007. (See Ortiz, 2000 and Kelman, 2013).

sensuality:

settlement privilege*: This is the colonial companion to racial or White privilege. Settlement privilege is the reality of inherited benefits from conquest and settlement to the inheritors of settlement. In other words, the simple act of living on land acquired, in most cases, under very dubious circumstances is where settlement privilege begins. However, it does not end there. Wealth, resource consumption, as well as wilderness backpacking, and much more, all derive from settlement, and thus are examples of settlement privilege. See White privilege.

settler*: Used as a synonym for White, or amer-european, there are several mutually reinforcing aspects to defining a settler:

• persons who have migrated migrated from their country of origin (most often, but not exclusively, Europe) and have themselves taken and/or occupied land and/or otherwise removed Indigenous inhabitants through various means, or are descended from these people;

•someone who can join a dominant cultural group in relation to the resident Indigenous peoples, thus enjoying resultant privileges. This is especially important if people are more recent immigrants, as opposed to descended from historical settlement;

• a person who has (whether knowingly or not) gained access to all manner of institutionalized privileges (concrete, as well as theoretical), including but not limited to land, monetary wealth, historical favor, education, legal rights; and,

• someone who was raised according to Eurocentric (cultural, educational, scientific, philosophical) norms. (See Jackson-Paton, 2012; Regan, 2010; Veracini, 2008, 2010).

sex positive:

sex worker:

shadow*: Popularized from Jungian psychology, the shadow is understood as containing emotions, characteristics, behaviors, events, and so on that are repressed, denied, or forgotten making them have unforeseen power or control in usually negative ways. A simple example would be personal characteristics, thoughts or feelings a person might find unacceptable and therefore denies. Another example of personal shadow might be experiencing sexual assault and later in life making poor relationship choices. While some aspects of the shadow may be closer to awareness, others may take prolonged introspective work. Collective, or cultural, shadow refers to events on a country – or society – wide scale that are not part of the dominant discourse, including, for example, Native American genocide, enslavement of African people, the Jewish holocaust, or the patriarchal denigration of women. Carriers and inheritors of the denied (‘shadow’) history are usually highly aware of the material excluded from mainstream discourse. Different societies carry different collective shadow material. If not adequately attended to, each of these processes or events continue to affect society and its members in significant and largely unconscious ways (see Kremer & Rothberg, 1999). Truth and reconciliation commissions are one attempt to transform and heal collective shadow. Collective shadow is sometimes called historical trauma (Hooker & Czajkowski, 2012).

shamanism*: Indigenous spiritual practices for the benefit of the community. The term originated from Siberian traditions, but is now used generically for many Indigenous ceremonial practices. Shamans are intermediaries between the everyday world and the spiritual world. They generally use integrative states of consciousness to obtain information for healing or to intervene on behalf of the person in need of healing. Shamanic traditions are grounded in specific cultures and ecologies, with ancestors playing an important part in this worldview. Popularized in Eurocentered societies, it is now a common Eurocentered term to describe many Indigenous spiritual practices and lifeways. Shamanic ritual approaches are part of the recovery of Indigenous mind and ethnoautobiography. New Age approaches to shamanism generally neglect the cultural specificity and ecological groundedness of the traditions they are working in; they also disregard the necessary shadow work and the decolonizing imperatives in order to ground shamanic practices.

soma, or somatic*: From the Greek “soma,” relating to the body. Somatics is a general field of body-related studies that includes dance, somatic therapies, and varied modalities, such as Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering, Rolfing and so on. (See Johnson, 1997).

spiritual inquiry*: John Heron (1998) describes such inquiry as being simply the active, innovative and examined life, which seeks both to transform and understand more deeply the human condition…. The bottom line of all this is that, for the examined life, revelation is here and now; and spiritual authority is within. Such authority is relative to its context and unfolding, never final, and always open to spiritual revision. (pp. 17-18)

spirituality*: Refers to the “lived transformations of self and community toward fuller congruence with or expression of what is understood, within a given cultural context, to be ‘sacred’” (Rothberg, 1994, p. 2). A broad description of the relationship between people and their gods or spirits, as distinct from religion.

storytelling*: See oral tradition.

subject, or subjective*: One extreme of the Eurocentered Cartesian duality opposing objective and subjective; generally associated with the assumption that there are internal realities that cannot be described with certainty, but are open to endless interpretation. Generally devalued or dismissed as a form of information. Often used to describe conditions internal to a person. See objective.

survivance*: Rare variant of ‘survival’, now revived and refined by Vizenor (2008): “Native survivance is an active sense of presence over absence, deracination, and oblivion; survivance is the continuation of stories, not a mere reaction, however pertinent…. Survivance, then, is the action, condition, quality, and sentiments of the verb survive” (p. 1, 19). There is perhaps no greater anti-colonial act than disrupting the settler or conqueror with varied responses that do not include disappearance. These challenges to amer-european settler society take many forms: literature, music, art, as well as other types of narrative and performance (Cook-Lynn, 1996; King, 2005); acts of (re)claimed self-determination in politics, culture and society (Grande, 2004; Million, 2013); and, maintaining relationships with all the peoples and places of their worldview (Cajete, 2000; Colorado,1996; V. Deloria, 2003).

synecdochic self*: Krupat (1992) defines it as the individual’s sense of self in relation to collective social units or groups. Narratives of the self grounded in community and its stories, and vice versa.

totemism*: Anthropological term referring to a kinship with a being in the more-than-human world. Describes the honoring and respecting of non-human beings and/or spirits among Indigenous peoples. Frequently used with evolutionary prejudice referencing “primitive” or animistic societies. See also paganism, fetish.

transcendent*: Separate realm beyond everyday, consensual social reality. The realms of gods, God, goddesses or spirits in Eurocentered thinking; the realm that religion or spirituality discusses in the Eurocentered paradigm. Often associated with privileged access, such as by a priest or pope. In contrast to the immanent worldviews of Indigenous peoples and societies where everyday reality includes the active presence and participation of spirits, dreams, myths and so on.

transformative learning*: A form of learning and education that fosters the transformation of meanings and meaning perspectives through critical (self) reflection, the arts, somatic and dream work, among other means. It encourages self and societal healing and transformation with the goal of emancipation or the remembrance of native sovereignty.

transgress*: To go against, or step across boundaries, as encouraged by critical theory, and other critiques of society. (See hooks, 1994).

transmotion*: From Vizenor (1998), transmotion is the natural relationship in stories that connects humans to place and to the spiritual and political meaning of other animals and beings, what Eurocentered people distance themselves from as transpersonal or “other.” “Monotheism is dominance over nature” Vizenor (pp. 182-3) writes, “transmotion is natural reason, and native creation with other creatures. The connotations of transmotion are creation stories, totemic visions, reincarnations, and sovenance [remembrance]; transmotion, that sense of native motion and an active presence, is sui generis sovereignty” (p. 15). See natural reason.

transpersonal*: A Eurocentered term for experiences greater than, or going beyond, an individual person. These could include spiritual traditions, psychology, ecology, altered states of consciousness, shamanism, and so on. In an Indigenous worldview these are not separate or beyond a person’s or society’s everyday experience, rather they are an aspect of an integrated whole, such as evoked by Vizenor’s terms natural reason and transmotion.

trickster*: In mythologies, tricksters move between the above and below, heaven and earth; they are on the road and reign in the in-between; they are the spirits of the threshold, the liminal. The stories of their exploits are used to teach about appropriate behavior and attitudes. They step into action where the portals between the worlds (e.g., above and below, conscious and unconscious) are closed and they may become thieves on these occasions (as when Raven steals water and daylight). They roam in the place of ambiguity, ambivalence, doubleness, duplicity, contradiction, and paradox. Thus they live at boundaries, move them, cross them, erase them, and even create them. Tricksters are consummate survivors, always slippery and able to wiggle free, always willing to abandon a position or invert a situation; levity and speed win out over suffering and seriousness. Tricksters are creators and destroyers, givers and negators, neither good nor evil (yet responsible for both), without values, yet all values come into being through their actions. Raven and Coyote, Loki and Cúchullain are examples of such teachers, creators, messengers, and guides. (See Kremer, 2012.)

truth and reconciliation commissions*: Complex and varied processes by which people and societies attempt to heal (from) atrocities and historical wrongs. Most notable are attempts in post-Apartheid South Africa (Krog, 1998; Tutu, 1999; Reid, at al, 2000), and Residential (Boarding) Schools in Canada (Regan, 2010; Chambers, 2009). See Berger & Berger (2001) and Krondorfer (1995) for such work among descendants of the Jewish Holocaust. For more general approaches to transforming historical trauma see Hooker & Czajkowski (2012). See also rituals of reconciliation.

two-spirits*: A term used in some Indigenous communities describing the presence of both stereotypically masculine/male and feminine/female behaviors, attitudes, and characteristics in a person within a continuum of three, four or more genders (Nibley, 2010; Williams, 1986). See also holosexuality and androgyny.

underworld*: The realm of the dead or spirits in religious, mythical and psychological worldviews. From a Jungian psychological perspective, a real or imagined journey through an underworld often leads to (re)integrating aspects of the self, potentially healing for the self and the world. See also shadow.

vulnerability: Informing much of the psychological scholarship of Brown (2010, 2012), who notes that vulnerability is a hallmark of wholeheartedness, compassion and connection. Behar (1996) similarly challenged anthropology and human science, in general, to break hearts in order to heal them.

WEIRD*: An acronym from Henrich, Heine & Norenzayan (2010) standing for Western, Educated, Individualistic, Rich, and Democratic societies.

well-bounded, or boundaried self*: See masterful self.

western science*: The Eurocentered view of science is presently de facto dominant as far as the determination of truths about reality is concerned and how it asserts supremacy over alternate scientific views. However, scholars like Harding (1997) have argued against this supremacist view documenting that the Western sciences are local sciences comparable to other local sciences and do not deserve special status. Western science reflects the assumptions and worldviews that are part of the construction of the masterful, well-bounded sense of individualistic cultures. It has been criticized for its mechanistic, dualistic, and reductionistic approach and for numerous other reasons, especially the historical enmeshment of Eurocentered sciences with colonialism and White supremacy. The assertion of Western science’s privileged status has been severely undermined by various critiques, including from the perspective of Indigenous science and postmodernity (see Colorado, 1994). See objectivity and postmodernity.

white*: A description of people of European ancestry that refers to certain traits or qualities beyond merely skin color, including White mind, whiteness, White privilege and so on. While there is truth in much of that description, we also acknowledge that this is an overgeneralization of people that often overlooks or dismisses possibilities of more diverse personal and cultural experiences and potential for healing transformation. The term “White” obscures the diversity, as well as the Indigenous roots, underlying this abstract category. See amer-european. (Dyer, 1997; Morrison, 1992)

white, or Eurocentered mind*: Often used by Indigenous peoples, among others, to describe a state of consciousness among many different kinds of people due to the consequences of colonialism. A White mind might include attempts to embrace homogeneity, separation, disconnection, linearity, scientism, individualism, hierarchy, monotheism, control and commodification of living things, hyper-masculinity, disconnections from ancestry, and so on. Another term for White mind is normative dissociation, that is the splitting off or separation from nature, place, cycles, ancestors, etc. This view is a Western, modern cultural norm and the opposite of an Indigenous way of being in the world. Ethnoautobiographical practices provide possible avenues for the decolonization of such a worldview. (See Ani, 1994; Colorado, 1996).

White privilege*: Refers to visible and invisible benefits — access to housing, education, land, wealth, media representation, and so on — that White people have through societal and historical realities; these are frequently un-chosen and unknown to Whites. Many of these privileges become assumptions about what constitutes White people and the universality of White people’s experience in contrast to people of color. For example, due to social and historical inheritance Whites have access to good jobs, education, etc. Yet, this is often unseen and can lead people to oppose equal opportunity programs on the grounds of reverse racism or arbitrary unfairness. White privilege is often connected to male privilege. (See McIntosh, 1990; Rothenberg, 2011; WPC, n.d.)

whiteness*: A broad term used to refer to the combined causes and effects of settlement and racial privilege, including many personal and cultural manifestations. Inquiries about whiteness critique the cultural and historical experiences of White people, with particular attention to its social construction as a purveyor of privilege and status justifying oppression of non-Whites. As with White, or White mind, this descriptor is not seen as a permanent state, but rather describes qualities to transform, heal, and decolonize. (See especially Dyer, 1997; Frankenberg, 1993; Harvey, 2007; Ignatiev, 1995; Morrison, 1992; Roediger, 2002; Thandeka, 2001).

wilderness, or wild*: A seemingly straightforward description of places in nature that are devoid of human presence, as codified in the U.S. Wilderness Act of 1964. The Act states that wilderness “is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” This definition denies historical and contemporary Indigenous presence in these places. We, along with many others, take a much more complex view of “nature” or wilderness that acknowledges settlement, racial, gender and class privilege, Indigenous presence, frontier mythology, and so on. (See Cronon, 1995; M. P. Nelson & Callicott, 2008).

witchery*: From Silko’s (2006) Ceremony, witchery refers to how White people were initially created through the development of the destructive story of progress and a separation between people and the Earth (normative dissociation). Witchery is akin to post-traumatic settler disorder (Jackson–Paton, 2012), it is both the creation of a Eurocentered settler culture and an ongoing cursed presence for the land and people. Roediger (2002) explains Silko’s witchery thus: “whites are but a symptom of ‘witchery’ and not the source of evils” (p. 20).

worldview*: See Indigenous mind, paradigm, consciousness.

events

Sunday, August 18, 2019, 3 to 6 pm

river jackson-paton

resources- books, media, events & key terms. (...trans/formation ongoing...)

Embodying our selves: using creativity to remember our bodies