Decolonizing and Indigenizing LIS | Tianji Jiang

European colonization resulted in new worldviews and distant civilizations coming into contact, but also brought the enslavement, exploitation, military conquest and economic dominance by Europe to indigenous populations. As colonialists in the new world, the Europeans had little respect for the indigenous population and their society and culture; on the contrary, they often regarded it as barbarous, uncultured and sometimes evil. This annihilation extends to our academic world. Linda Tuhiwai Smith noted that any work by indigenous peoples can only be identified as “legitimate” and “real” knowledge if it fits within a Western framework and has value for the dominant non-indigenous culture.[1]

The rights of indigenous people and intellectual property was often ignored in western research. In addition, the western world collected a lot of artifacts of indigenous culture and brought them home in the name of preservation and research, keeping indigenous people away from their historical property and memory.[2] Once I visited the natural history museum of Los Angeles. I noticed there were four jade vases in the collection, which were brought by a British solider from the Old Summer Palace during the Second Opium War as spoils. As a Chinese person familiar with our history, I know the jade vases should have high research value, but they are only considered as beautiful treasures from the East in the Los Angeles museum. Linda Tuhiwai Smith has put forward much criticism against this lack of respect and equality in the academic world. In her book Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, she noted that “The word itself, 'research', is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world's vocabulary. When mentioned in many indigenous contexts, it stirs up silence, it conjures up bad memories, it raises a smile that is knowing and distrustful.” [3] Although she may sound a little extreme, it reveals how serious the inequality and prejudice to the indigenous are in our academic world. Furthermore, she also called on Indigenous people to recuperate research for indigenous people.

To understand decolonization and indigenization better, let’s first look at colonialism in depth. Colonialism can be divided into different types by the purposes of colonizers: settler colonialism and exploitation colonialism. Exploitation colonialism is the national economic policy of conquering a country to exploit its population as labor and its natural resources as raw material[4], such as the British Raj and French Indochina. Settler colonialism, in contrast, is a form of colonialism which seeks to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers, such as in the United States, Canada and Australia.

During the 20^th century, we witnessed a storm of political decolonization against exploitation colonialism across the world. This trend of decolonization also stretches to the academic world, and inspires decolonization and indigenization movements in settler colonialism areas. Many indigenous people are willing to know their past, the alternative traditions advocated by their ancestors, the specific experiences of their communities, and the world that surrounds them.[5] Inspired by the movement, some indigenous scholars, such as Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Simon J. Ortiz (a Puebloan scholar of the Acoma Pueblo tribe), returned to their communities, recuperate researches for indigenous people and did research in indigenous context. They voice resistance to the previous western researches imposed on them and pose their own questions and agendas. They do research in order to solve the indigenous problems, retrieve the indigenous history, spread the indigenous culture and serve the indigenous people.

Furthermore, the stand against colonization also aroused sympathy and reflection of the western world, especially in those settler colonies. In the past tens of years, the Maoris, the Aboriginal people, the American Indians, the Inuit and many other victims of settler colonialism were recognized as the indigenous people of their areas, and even in some cases received apologies for historic violence and injustices they have suffered. Today, some attention and support from the society of settler colonies are given to indigenous concerns, indigenous practices and indigenous participation as researchers and research subjects. [6] On the other side, decolonization and indigenization in research doesn’t mean all the non-indigenous researchers should be precluded from participating in research that has an indigenous orientation. In fact, non-indigenous scholars are also realizing that indigenous questions can only be solved properly in indigenous context, and the indigenous people and culture should be treated with total equality and full respect in any research. Those non-indigenous researchers shouldn’t be precluded from participating in indigenous researches

In the reading materials for this week, we have learned about several LIS practices following decolonization and indigenization, including The Mashantucket Pequot Thesaurus of American Indian Terminology Project[7], Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Grants to Indian Tribes[8], and the Fourth Museum of the National Museum of the American Indian[9]. In these projects, LIS professionals have achieved successful preservation and organization of the American Indian items with careful study of the indigenous language and knowledge system. Some indigenous people also led these projects to figure out problems relevant to indigenous concepts and knowledge.

As LIS professionals or researchers, when trying to organize indigenous knowledge, we must be willing to partner with native and indigenous communities and listen to the stories that give meaning to the naming, describing, and organization of indigenous items. Respect for indigenous people, indigenous holism, political realities, long-term relationship-building, and patience with timelines are essential. Willingness to study native systems of knowledge in indigenous contexts, to write about them, and to design experimental approaches is integral to shaping the theory that will inform practice. [10] Every indigenous tribe, no matter their population, history or current status, should enjoy the same rights in preserving, organizing and retrieving their documents. Last but not least, the indigenous communities should be encouraged to have their own LIS specialist and even facilities, because the indigenous need for document preservation is best known by the indigenous people themselves.

Finally, let’s go back to the previous topic and rethink what the words “decolonization” and “indigenization” really mean. Every nation or indigenous group should have their own right in choosing their way of living their life, preserving their documents and passing on their culture. For westerners, they should fully respect this right and never interfere with the choices of indigenous people. In the name of decolonization or indigenization, as an outsider of the indigenous culture, what we should do is only to respect, to support and leave the indigenous to make their own choices.

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[1] Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books Ltd, 214-217

[2] Krebs, A. B. (2012). Native America’s twenty-first-century right to know. Archival Science, 12(2), 173-190.

[3] Smith, L. T. (2013). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books Ltd, 1-2

[4] Gilmartin, Mary (April 2009). Key Concepts in Political Geography. UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. p. 116.

[5] Deloria, V. (1978). The Right to Know: A Paper. Office of Library and Information Services, US Department of the Interior.

[6] Smith, L. T. (2013). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books Ltd, 101-122

[7] Littletree, S., & Metoyer, C. A. (2015). Knowledge organization from an indigenous perspective: The Mashantucket Pequot thesaurus of American Indian terminology project. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 53(5-6), 640-657.

[8] Krebs, A. B. (2012). Native America’s twenty-first-century right to know. Archival Science, 12(2), 173-190.

[9] Krebs, A. B. (2012). Native America’s twenty-first-century right to know. Archival Science, 12(2), 173-190.

[10] Duarte, M. E., & Belarde-Lewis, M. (2015). Imagining: creating spaces for indigenous ontologies. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 53(5-6), 677-702.