lecture 2 - positionality
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Lecture 2 — Positionality
Acknowledging Land
●
Our relationship with space and the physical land we are on.
●
McGill’s land was never formally ceded and was officially ceded through a
treaty
agreement — why it is referred to as
stolen land
.
●
There was never a moment in which a treaty was signed to ceded the land to what was
then, the crown, which is why it is referred to as unceded land.
Why do we acknowledge land?
●
To recognize that indigenous peoples have ownership over their lands and to reconcile
with them.
●
A way to remember roots, the ground upon which presence, relationships and actions
are built.
●
The notion that land acknowledgements can be a double-edged sword, where it can
often be a way for colonial institutions and practitioners to wash their hands of any
active decolonizing work.
What responsibilities do we have towards this land?
●
To advocate for indigenous peoples and give them a platform to amplify their concerns.
Acknowledging Land — Beyond Territorial Acknowledgements, Chelsea Vowel, Métis
●
Chelsea's Vowel's words on acknowledging land emphasizes the importance of using
your own words and reflecting upon your relationship with the land you are standing on.
Another effort to land acknowledgements would be to research the land you are
standing on rather than generalizing your words to one specific group of indigenous
peoples.
Today's Lecture
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What is positionality?
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Why does it matter?
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Theories and methodologies
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Indigenous inquiry
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Positionality and religious studies
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Positionality statements
Positionality
What is positionality?
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Our position in relation to our multiple and intersecting social identities
○
Race, gender, class, ability, ethnicity, socio-political and geographical context.
■
These varying identities can lead to unequal positions and unequal access
to various axes of privilege.
●
These social identities shape our perspectives, our experiences, the place from which we
form our knowledge, and the degrees of power we hold in relationship with others.
○
Positionality is the location from which—social, political, geographical—and the
lens through which we engage with the world.
Positionality “concerns ontological assumptions (an individual’s beliefs about the nature of
social reality and what is knowable about the world), epistemological assumptions (an
individual’s beliefs about the nature of knowledge) and as
assumptions about human nature
and agency (individual’s assumptions about the way we interact with our environment and
relate to it)
— Holmes, A. 2020
●
Breaks down how positionality concerns sort of different dimensions of our experiences
and outlooks on the world.
●
positionality marks what we think we know,
what
we think is knowable, and what we think
knowledge itself is—who holds it, where it can
come from, what it looks like, what we can do
with it and how we experience and engage with
the world.
Sylvia Duckworth's "Wheel of Power/Privilege"
●
Positionality is also implicated in how much power and privilege we hold in relation to
others.
○
Others we interact with physically in our lives but also others we might read and
research about in university.
○
Positiobality affects what we see and don’t see in our reading material and
lecture material.
●
It is laden with assumptions and centralizes what power and privilege might look like as
if we could all take various spokes on this wheel and have concluded across the world
where we sit in terms of power and privilege.
The Good Place Example on positionality:
●
Michael—a demon—has a particular interpretation of a story which he believes is
reasonable, rational, true and common sense.
○
The issue isn’t necessarily with his interpretation, but it’s the fact that he fails to
acknowledge that he has a partial look at the world.
Why is positionality important?
●
Influences our experiences, knowledge, values, and biases.
●
Informs how much power or privilege we have or lack about others.
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Shapes our approach to material and our analysis.
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Our perspective on what we learn is partial.
●
Helps us to approach the experiences of others in a more sort of well-rounded
understanding.
Positionality and Knowledge
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Marginal perspectives and experiences are often overlooked, which are extremely
valuable for understanding.
○
Matters a lot, particularly in the university setting, because historically, the
overwhelming majority of scholars and students in the university had fairly
similar positionality ties in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and ability,
although that dynamic fluctuates and has been changing.
■
The knowledge accumulated in universities and that we tend to think of
as complete is also partial.
●
Acknowledging positionality can therefore improve the validity of our knowledge.
○
Acknowledging various overlooked experiences can improve the validity of our
knowledge.
●
Self-reflection demonstrates a deep understanding of context and biases.
●
Acknowledging positionality can therefore improve the authority and credibility of our
knowledge.
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Methodologies and Theories
Feminist Standpoint Theories
●
What is a standpoint?
○
A shared identity or consciousness earned through social and political struggle.
○
Feminist standpoint would be a shared identity or consciousness of people who
have struggled against particularly gendered forms of injustice, and who are
therefore able to see the reality of this injustice and more of the reality of the
world as a result of this injustice.
●
The Feminist standpoint branches on three main claims:
○
All knowledges are socially situated.
■
Everything a person knows comes from a particular social context and is
shaped by a social location.
○
"Epistemic privilege" of marginalized groups: more aware, more able to ask
questions, produce fuller, less distorted forms of knowledge.
■
Superior ability to ask particular questions, be aware of things in the
world, and produce slightly, less distorted forms of knowledge—
particularly knowledge about power, power relations and privilege.
○
Beginning with the lived experiences of marginalized groups offers a more
complete and true account of the world; insights into social relations that are
unavailable to the dominant groups.
○
Starting discussions with marginalized groups offers more complete knowledge
from their experiences compared to more dominant groups.
The Outsider Within
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Patricia Hill Collins, “Learning from the Outsider Within,” 1986 ¨
○
In this essay, she is arguing that people who have an outsider status within
privileged circles, which in her argument is black women within white elite
circles, have a particular and unique insight.
●
Black women working domestic roles for white families have unique insight into white
family life — she points out that these kinds of women see these white elites in ways
that they couldn’t see themselves.
○
A double viewpoint.
■
A parallel with colonized groups in colonizing settings. Colonized groups
are often forced to understand and experience the colonizer’s world as
well as their world, but the colonizer never needs to experience the world
of the colonized.
●
Same privileged epistemic position of Black women working in academia: “outsider
status,” question the assumptions of the white academy
○
Argues that having some sort of outsider status within the university, allows
black women within the university to question the assumptions of the white
academy and provide therefore this epistemically privileged position.
●
E.g. the interlocking oppressions and exploitations facing Black women workers radically
changes theories about labor/economy
○
Similar experience to the colonized living within the colonizers world, while it is
not vice-versa.
●
Having an outside status within the academy allows the black community to provide
their thoughts on the white academy.
●
Main takeaway is that there is a privileged epistemic position, so a superior ability to see
two separate experiences from people who are outsiders within.
Subaltern Standpoint Theory
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What is the subaltern?
○
A person who is a part of a social group that is considered to be outside of (and,
generally "below") the dominant social, geographical, or political structure.
●
What is the subaltern standpoint?
○
A peripheral or excluded social position relative to the global social hierarchy.
●
Dominant knowledge represent one perspective: repressed or marginalized standpoints
are important and relevant because they offer a different perspective.
Indigenous Inquiry
Kovach, "Situating the Self"
●
Situating the self:
clarifying our own perspectives and acknowledging our own
positionality.
○
Cultural purpose,
■
cultural identification, specificity, respect, community.
○
Epistemic purpose
■
Knowledge is anchored within experiences; knowledge is personal
reflection; multiple truths.
○
Ethical purpose
■
Awareness of power dynamics, of "extractive tendency" of research;
maintain integrity.
●
"To embrace indigenous methodologies is to accept subjective knowledge" (111)
○
So if we’re accepting subjective knowledge, we’re not saying knowledge isnt
valuable, and we’re not saying that nothing is true. We’re reflecting on the fact
that history, membership, community, and context are significant and important
in how we interpret the world.
●
Self-location is a crucial reminder of history, membership and community
Three main questions found in the reading:
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Self-location: what is your story?
●
Motivation: what is your purpose?
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Responsibilities: what are your intentions and commitments?
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What does it mean to be in respect relationship with indigenous knowledge and land?
Positionality and Religious Studies
Questions to ask yourself on your positionality and religious studies:
●
Does your religion a source of privilege for you, or are you marginalized because of it?
●
How does your relationship with religion generally shape your approach to religious
studies?
●
How does your relationship with a religious tradition shape your understanding and
knowledge of that tradition? (emic/etic; insider/outsider)
●
If you identify as a member of a religious tradition, can you speak on behalf of
everybody?
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What perspectives would you be missing? Ø Which religious perspectives do you
privilege as authoritative?
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Which religious perspectives do you privilege as authoritative? Which sources of
knowledge are the most valid?
Indigenous methodologies and religious studies
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What can scholars of religion learn from indigenous water protectors?
○
Her various answers demonstrate the significance of positionality for how we
might do religious studies better.
●
Religious studies is concerned with the ground upon which stories are told.
○
Social, political, historical and material.
●
Ground
also refers to:
○
Our own standpoints/positionalities.
○
The land on which we live.
●
Positionality and "land-based thinking" could be central to the theories and methods of
religious studies.
●
"Scholars of religion can think better by… orienting themselves to the layered pasts of
the land and waters on which they live." (94)
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Indigenous Water Protectors
●
Various religious commitments have been dramatically politicized.
●
Water should be a spiritual and human right, not a political one.
"Spiritually sanctioned" colonial claims to land (Doctrine of Discovery (92)
●
One form of spiritual sanctioning, many might have heard on the news from the past
year, is the renewed calls from many indigenous activists in Canada for the Catholic
Church to rescind the doctrine of discovery.
○
A set of ideas developed through papal decrees centuries ago that provided both
theological and legal backing to European seizing of lands and claims to
sovereignty over so-called “vacant” indigenous lands.
■
Lands were often considered vacant if they were vacant of Christians,
even though indigenous people had resided there.
○
These calls to rescind the doctrine of discovery have become more urgent in the
wake of the horrifying discoveries excavated across sites of old residential
schools across the country.
"Water is Sacred" — How can this help us displace the historical relationship between
religions and colonialism?
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How can we understand "sacred" as a word that connect us to place?
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How can we understand "spirit" as a concept grounded in the land?
○
We begin to see how land is really at the root of everything that we study and
everything that we think.
●
What is the future of the study of religion without water?
Positionality Statements
Questions to ask:
●
What is your story?
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What is your purpose as a student?
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What are your intentions and commitments?
●
What does it mean to be in respectful relationship with indigenous knowledges?
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What is your relationship with the land on which you are living and studying?
Readings:
-
Kovach, Margaret. “Situating Self, Culture, and Purpose in Indigenous Inquiry.”
Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations and Contexts.
Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2022. pp. 109-120.
-
Klassen, Pamela. “Back to the land and waters: futures for the study of religions.”
Religion
50, no. 1 (2020): 90- 96