Decolonizing Development Through Indigenous Artist-Led Inquiry

In this article four university art educators explore theories of self-determination and describe decolonizing, approaches to research that are built on mutual trust. As researchers we recognize that (re)presenting the stories of others-especially across international and transcultural boundaries-is both problematic and an ethical challenge. We acknowledge the risks that participants assume when sharing their stories, and follow the culturally sensitive strategy of having collaborating indigenous artists lead the research. In Decolonizing Methodologies (1999), Linda Tuhiwai-Smith,advocates specific approaches for ethnographic research that can be ethically employed by non-indigenous researchers. The mentoring model (tiaki) is one in which the authoritative indigenous person guides the research. The adoption model (whangai) posits that researchers are incorporated into the daily life of the indigenous people, which eventually enables them to "sustain a life-long relationship which extends far beyond the realms of research (p. 177). Over the past eighteen months, as a group, we have exchanged our thoughts as arts educators researching with indigenous populations- delivering position papers and performances at conferences in the Americas, Asia and Europe. Working across transnational settings, we have deepened our inquiries into ethically sound research practices-at times being humbled by the passionate commitments, visionary efforts and powerful testimonies of arts educators working to address critical social, cultural, economic and ecological challenges. We address pedagogical practices, curricula, cultural policies, administration, and research methods and are interested in recent programmatic and theoretical transformations unfolding in museums, universities, community-based settings, and electronic media that cross international borders. These changes require "un-thinking" commitments to Western European formalist values, disciplinary territorialism, and the unquestioned conservation of existing cultural institutions.The patchwork of stories stitched together in this paper challenges readers to create approaches to learning in and through the arts that serve the self-identified needs of communities and individuals. Co-authors include Christine Ballengee-Morris, an Eastern Band Cherokee who reexamines her work with Guarani leaders in South America and Appalachian populations in the late 20th Century and discusses issues of self-determination. Kryssi Staikidis recounts work with her Guatemalan Maya Tz'utuhil painting mentor (whose anonymity will be preserved), and shares video interviews she produced with him-discussing ethical challenges in making one's collaborating artist's stories known. These structured texts call attention to the ways researchers (un)intentionally create their stories. Debbie Smith-Shank forefronts her misgivings and discomforts about releasing research that is constructed from less than in-depth engagement with communities other than her own. She foregrounds the importance of storytelling and shares insights gleaned from conversations with Aboriginal women about art and life issues. Jim Sanders addresses his dis-ease at working with three middle and working-class white women graduate students researching Fair Trade with artists in Peru and Bolivia, and developing a fair-trade curriculum for an undergraduate writing course addressing multicultural issues. Sanders also explores his revisions of Museum Education and Management courses for an on-line Masters graduate specialization for Native American Indian students under the direction of Pat Stuhr and Christine Ballengee-Morris.Seeing art education research as a process through which we might more deeply explore forms of social and cultural production, enterprise, engagement and interaction, we ask how arts education can serve the critical social, political, ethical, and moral challenges facing troubled and constantly evolving (inter)cultural contexts. …