Introduction
Hello, my name is Madeline Donald. I live as a visitor on, with, and thanks to the lands/waters of the Okanagan water shed, Syilx territory.
This course was developed from a project I started in November of 2020 to facilitate my coming to know the riparian habitats of the Okanagan and Similkameen watersheds with whom I am interested in doing ethnographic research. This seed project, “Educating Riparian Attention,” takes the shape of a corrugated photojournal and can be found on both a series of Open Science Framework wiki pages and Instagram. The former contains details of the project’s development, as well as the photos and some reflections on the process. The latter displays the series of photos in a more facile manner.
Cultivating Arts of Attentiveness is simultaneously a methodological and pedagogical project. The course aims to focus participants’ attention on the processes and beings that make both our lives and research possible. By teaching the practice of attending carefully and repeatedly to Land, whether that’s mostly concrete, a semi-arid shrub-steppe, a city park, or a little bit of this a little bit of that, participants are reminded that, we are supported, that our interests come from somewhere, and that our curiosity exists within responsibility. This curriculum is a step toward thinking about what it could look like to root research in lively and respectful relations. It strives to live up to the calls of Land protectors and advocates, as well as those calling for infrastructural change both in academia specifically (Manning, 2018) and the wider world of human livelihood (Liboiron, 2021) and is reflective of where I stand politically, philosophically, and geographically at this moment in time (August 2021).
Influence(r)s: on the “(s)” in author(s)
A story never holds a single author (Armstrong, 1998). “[S]tories are rarely autochthonous; they usually begin in many places at once, with many unspoken debts” (Neimanis, 2017, 8). Like stories, like any artifact of communication. I am grateful to all of the thinkers and be-ers who have shared words, thoughts, and space with me to allow this once side-of-the-desk idea to come to fruition.
Politics
Presearch, first and foremost, is the central tenant of this curriculum. As I am a visitor in the place I call home, presearch is necessarily a politic of visiting. I am grateful to the teachings of Elder Pamela Barnes (Syilx) and Lisa Ravensbergen (Anishinaabekwe/ Swampy Cree and English/ Irish), which have helped me shape and name these ‘politics of visiting’ and their concurrent responsibilities as foundational to my (p)research praxis. These are prefigurative (research) politics, “where we work to model the world we want, rather than merely critique the world as it is” (CLEAR, 2018, p.6). They are grounded in building skills and social relationships (with humans and beyond) that are required for relational, responsive, and responsible research (Wilson, 2008; Varela, 1999, p.31; Coulthard, 2014, p.166).
Philosophy
No matter where we are or who we are from, we are sustained by the lands/waters with which we live. Knowledges encoded in Land are the foundation for everything we are and do. Gratitude for the beings and processes who/that allow us as humans to be(come) is of the utmost importance, for in gratitude one can find joy and solace, which can support a conviction to stay with the ecological and political troubles that are the soup in which we swim. These are the roots of my research as well as this pedagogical project. This is how I understand “Land as first teacher” (Zinga & Styres, 2011).
You may have noticed that much of what is being presented here is reminiscent of principles and practices articulated by Indigenous scholars and thinkers. That is because I have been lucky to have my own thinking and scholarship significantly influenced by many Indigenous pedagogies and ontoepistemologies. Here in Syilx territory I have learned by showing up, listening, and lending a hand where and when helpful. Tea is often involved. I have learned of and with more geographically distant Indigenous philosophies through text and oration; Youtube is a certain kind of gift. Also a gift, for which I am deeply grateful, are the texts written by Indigenous scholars and articulating ways of thinking about and doing research that ground the endeavour in Land, responsibility, relations and relationality, and humility.
Attending to Land as first teacher and pedagogy is itself a tentative act of emphasizing Indigenous ways of knowing. Tentative because, while, as Manulani Aluli-Meyer has written in interpretation of Elder Halemakua’s statement that “[w]e are all indigenous” (2004; cited in Aluli-Meyer, 2008, p.19), “at one time we all came from a place familiar to our evolution and storied with our experiences. At one time we all had a rhythmic understanding of time and potent experiences of harmony in space,” I myself am not indigenous to this place. And it is this Land and the peoples who sustain and are sustained by this Land with whom I aspire to do ethnoecological research. That is to say, I am a visitor and I engage with Syilx people and philosophy as a visitor, as I do with Indigenous philosophies from elsewhere that resonate with my experience or fold into my understanding of Land and/as ethics.
Geography
Syilx territory encompasses four primary river valleys, two of which I have been coming into relation with since my arrival here in July of 2019, the Okanagan and Similkameen. Semi-arid grasslands and shrubbrush abute rivers (sometimes presenting/ed as lakes) and associated riparian assemblages. I hold gratitude for having learned richly from and with the peoples of this place, human and otherwise, and look forward to continuing on that journey.
Thank you for taking the time to read these words and engage with the ideas presented here. While presenting on Educating Riparian Attention at the International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry in May 2021, I read the following in summary, which holds resonance here as well.
Computers are made of rocks.
I’m on stolen land.
To/for/because… research.
Good research.
Good with trees and bugs and humans.
Good for trees and bugs and humans:
Riparian ones.
Must drink tea together.
Deep tea. Repeatedly.
Sometimes read tea leaves.
(Okay, infusion from local plant.)
It’s nice to take pictures to recall and record tea time.
Sometimes tea time is the same,
Though always a little different.
Difference and sameness help us see tea time for what it is:
Relational.
An encounter,
Repeated,
Committed,
Respectful,
Important.
Pictures help us see this too,
In their collection,
Corrugation,
Co-ordination.
One day, dinner time.
Not yet.
Come to tea.
Drink. Stay a while.
Madeline Donald 