Der Cree Wissenschaftler Cash Ahenakew beschreibt in dem Gedicht “Academic Indian Job Description: Have To Know” seine Schwierigkeiten (und die anderer), sich mit seiner indigenen Subjektivität und entsprechenden Werten dem akademischen Kontext und dessen Erwartungen anzupassen.

Academic Indian Job Description: Have To Know [Auszug]

have to know
western knowledge and education
plus the critique of
western knowledge and education

have to know
indigenous ‘culture’ and education
plus the critique and the critique of the critique of
indigenous ‘culture’ and education

have to know
how to embody expected authenticity
and how to embody expected critique
of expected authenticity

have to know
when and where to use indigenous literature and style
and when and where to use the Western canon and style
to build legitimacy and credibility for indigenous thought and experience

have to know
when to vilify, to romanticize, to essentialize
when to apologize, to complexify, to compromise
when and who to be accountable to and why

have to know
how to reject modernity, how to be a modern Indian
how to ignore contradictions
how to deny incommensurabilities

have to know
when and how to perform at the same time
competence, confidence, boldness, heroic rebelliousness
and humility, compliance and gratitude for the opportunity

have to know
how to respond to (or hide from)
‘allies’ seeking self-affirmation and redemption
through helping you and your community

have to know
how to be an intellectual, an activist, a therapist, and an entrepreneur
how to improve retention, attrition, and social mobility
and how to stop exploitation and ecological disaster

have to know
how to educate ‘your people’, liberal allies, immigrants, rednecks, colleagues
how to relate to gang members, business sponsors, elders, politicians
how to speak with the crows, the trees, the sea, and the media

have to know
languages lost and found of family, communities, earth, spirit
languages imposed of nation, property, individualism, competition
and institutional academic language of secular liberal humanism

have to know
how to indigenize and decolonize
disciplines, protocols, ethics, and methodologies
to make critical research feel good for non-indigenous people

have to know
how to package all of this in a foreign English language
to convince top ranked journals and performance analysts
that you, too, against all odds, have market value

have to know
how to live with the guilt of having credentials, a secure job
and the awareness of compliance with a rigged system
built on the broken back and wounded soul of your family members

Apply online now.

(Quelle: Cash Ahenakew 2016: Grafting Indigenous Ways of Knowing Onto Non-Indigenous Ways of Being. The (Underestimated) Challenges of a Decolonial Imagination. In: International Review of Qualitative Research Bd 9 Nr. 3, 323-340, hier: S. 325-326.)

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