Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

#58 - Raising a Wisdom Baby: Indigenous Knowledge That Won't Let You Sleep - Guest: Miranda Rowland

• Shandin Pete, Aaron Brien • Season 3 • Episode 58

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0:00 Language and Cultural Heritage
6:27 Indigenous Music and Academic Research
21:00 Navigating Native Scholars' Experiences
30:12 Critiquing Research and Academic Mentorship
39:50 Native Research and Epiphanies
45:56 Challenges in Indigenous Knowledge Transmission
58:34 Academic Integrity in Indigenous Research
1:08:21 Realizations in Indigenous Research
1:22:45 Unity Among Native Scholars
1:29:55 Sincerity and Truth in Academia

Guest: Miranda Rowland (Apsáalooke)
Hosts: Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné)

How to cite this episode (apa)
Pete, S. H., & Brien, A. (Hosts). (2024, Nov 15). #58 - Raising a Wisdom Baby: Indigenous Knowledge That Won't Let You Sleep [Audio podcast episode]. In Tribal Research Specialist:The Podcast. Tribal Research Specialist, LLC. https://www.buzzsprout.com/953152/16024258

How to cite this podcast (apa)
Pete, S. H., & Brien, A. (Hosts). (2020–present). Tribal Research Specialist:The Podcast [Audio podcast].  Tribal Research Specialist, LLC. https://tribalresearchspecialist.buzzsprout.com

Podcast Website: tribalresearchspecialist.buzzsprout.com
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Aaron Brien:

How do you say um? How do you say um? Oh shoot, they asked me the other day. My nephew asked me. Yeah, he said how do you say that in Salish? What is it? You know what? I don't know what just happened Eagle how do you say eagle? Which kind? Uh, let's just say a golden eagle.

Shandin Pete:

Malkanoops.

Aaron Brien:

Oh, how about a baldy Pakalakai? He just made that up.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah he can get away with a lot of things, like I said. Just make it sound real guttural. He can get away with a lot of things, like I said.

Aaron Brien:

Just make it sound real guttural and poppy. How do you say it? Is there a word for the big drum?

Shandin Pete:

The big drum. No, I mean, it's just a made-up word, you know.

Aaron Brien:

Or you know not, a hand drum yeah.

Shandin Pete:

It's just like a bigger version of a drum. Pumine is the drum, but I think it's like kutunpumine or kutlpumine, just meaning a bigger drum.

Aaron Brien:

Well, you said it was a made-up word.

Shandin Pete:

I thought that was interesting. Well, not made. I mean, I guess, descriptive of it visually rather than aren't?

Aaron Brien:

aren't all words made up? Well, I guess, but are they?

Shandin Pete:

from divine prompting, yeah yeah now, legend would have it that, um, the native americans learned their language from, uh, listening to nature, the babbling of a, of a stream uh, oh, I've heard.

Aaron Brien:

I actually heard this one with the salish people I'm just making this up.

Shandin Pete:

I never heard it, so tell me more.

Aaron Brien:

I heard it. How do you say water in Salish Sawalk? Yeah, I heard that one time.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, really, there's some crazy stuff happening that's sort of straying from the things that I remember, the things that I I grew up knowing like I don't know. It kind of almost seems like people are just kind of filling in the holes with, uh, I don't know if I'd say I I can't confirm or deny that they're made up but, it appears as if some things are given somewhat of liberty to come up with some things that sound, might sound right.

Shandin Pete:

I don't know. I don't know, though, I can't say for sure, but you know, you get that feeling. You get that feeling that something just doesn't seem right.

Aaron Brien:

Uh, yeah actually, yeah, that leads us to uh, that's a good segue to no what I want to talk about, but we're not there yet no, no no, don't say segue choose a different word transition. Why can't I say you can say segue.

Shandin Pete:

I just I don't I say segue or listen, segue piggyback or listen Segway Piggyback, echo, none of those.

Aaron Brien:

Not on this podcast.

Shandin Pete:

Not on this podcast.

Miranda Rowland:

Uh-uh, no I want to piggyback on your thought there. I want to piggyback on your thought.

Aaron Brien:

Is it Bush League? Is it Bush?

Shandin Pete:

League no, no, no.

Aaron Brien:

Hey, Miranda, you got to use the camera so we can see facial expressions.

Shandin Pete:

I'm just I'm just kind of hacking on. Uh, you know you're in a meeting and somebody you know, the usual, oh, it's a good segue to then then change the topic or I'm going to piggyback off of that comment that, um, j mentioned. And then they say something. You know, I'm just picking on people in meetings because I choose not to use those terms. Yeah. Segway.

Aaron Brien:

Piggyback. Echo Segway sounds like a Cree word.

Shandin Pete:

Segway Segway.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, I think it is Only me, do I?

Shandin Pete:

Check case Segway Sama. Yeah. I think, it is a. Cree word.

Aaron Brien:

That sounded real, sounded legit. Yeah, I think it is a Cree word. That sounded real, sounded legit. Yeah, segwe semano makota Makota. Segwe semano makota.

Song Narrator:

You're making stuff up now hey, I want to, I want to.

Shandin Pete:

I want to show you something. I want you to listen some. I don't know if I showed you this before, but I'm gonna, um, I want you to listen. Uh, let's see. Yeah, I want you to listen to this. This is an old recording, really old. Well, I don't know about old, it's old and comparative. Let's see here you ready? I'm going to have to do a little scrubbing because I don't think I'm in the right spot.

Aaron Brien:

That's an interesting choice of words, I know scrubbing.

Shandin Pete:

yeah, Can you? Hear that. Thanks, Sid.

Song Narrator:

Now Sid's going to get some of our singers together so that you can hear how we do some of the Flathead songs. Okay, hear that. I won't name the songs they will sing, because if you don't recognize them, then the names are better left unsaid. You hear that.

Song Narrator:

Actually, the reason for making these recordings is so that you can give us comments and pointers on how to improve them. Okay, I doubt that we will ever put any of your singers out of business, but we do hope that we can be a credit to them and bring an appreciation of the flathead music to people in this part of the country. So as lou tiller would say okay spin day. So as Lou.

Shandin Pete:

Tiller would say okay, spent day, okay, here it comes, here it comes. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I nailed it.

Aaron Brien:

All right, let's hear it, let's hear it, let's hear it. Uh, well, for one, they're singing on the beat. Okay, yes, so we'll go ahead. We'll go ahead and get that out, let's critique, let's critique singing on the beat huh yeah um are these? Are these non-native folks?

Shandin Pete:

I don't know what do you think. I'm curious your opinion. Now this is probably recorded in the 50s, maybe, or maybe late 40s, I don't know. It's bad, it is bad, it's horrible man did you recognize the song?

Aaron Brien:

it's that round bustle tune or whatever they call that. What is that called? Prairie chicken the chicken dance, prairie chicken dance? Yeah, what did you think? What is that called Prairie Chicken the Chicken Dance Show, the Prairie Chicken Dance? Yeah.

Miranda Rowland:

What did you think, miranda? I know it sounded interesting, I'm just giving a little bit of Chipmunk-ish.

Shandin Pete:

Oh yeah.

Miranda Rowland:

Oh yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Chipmunk. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

Yes, chipmunk war dance songs. Yeah, yes, chick.

Miranda Rowland:

Chipmunk War Dance songs. So this is.

Shandin Pete:

I did enjoy your guys's dance moves, though, you know, only paid Patreon sponsors get to see those dance moves. Now if you're a Patreon sponsor, you can, you can. You can become one for as little as $2 a month, which is a really minor contribution. If you think about your daily expenses, it's about one-eighth of a Starbucks latte.

Aaron Brien:

Right $2 for this amount of knowledge is the bargain by or the amount of knowledge is the bargain buy or the costco of knowledge get this by the bulk man and cheap and cheap.

Shandin Pete:

Hey, there's some other good ones on this, but I'm not going to play it.

Aaron Brien:

That was awesome man.

Shandin Pete:

So yeah, so this come off of these reel-to-reels I got and it's a recording that was sent to Louis Nine Pipe. And somehow it ended up in the hands of Larry Parker and apparently this is a. You know them dance troops like I think they're like Boy Scout, or you know they're like little Indian hobbyists, you know.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, camp Winnemucca, or whatever.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah, camp Rainalot, yeah, Camp Raina. Yes, rain and snow camp camp camp alluvial fan whoa, whoa, human, straight, geomorphic way to go.

Shandin Pete:

Man, I'm proud of you. Alluvial fan, try it. Yeah, yeah, anyway, um, uh, yeah, hobbyist group from uh, cleveland and um, uh, I guess they met I don't know the full story. I tried to. I tried to reach out to one of these folks on the recording years ago to maybe they give me the backstory, but I never reached. I could never get a hold anybody. But yeah, they sing a bunch of songs on there, some old flathead songs, some old. You know, just like you know how hobbies start, they'll sing anything.

Shandin Pete:

You know some stomp dance and all kinds of stuff, but yeah, you know it is what it is yeah but pretty standard, and I I bet you, since that time nothing has really changed, like you could probably find a group like that today yeah, you could.

Aaron Brien:

You could. Unfortunately, too, there's native people who sing like that.

Shandin Pete:

Now, I said it I said it you said it well, yeah, I mean there's a history to that, though a long complicated history. But I don't know if we're talking. You wanted to segue, so I'm gonna let you segue, segue, segue so my fake, our fake kree language, yeah, yeah, um, we're sounding like these people on the tape, probably to kree. They're like oh my god, listen to this well uh, I don't okay, so here's.

Aaron Brien:

Here's what. I had an eventful week, right, bubbly. Hey, miranda, we tried those, didn't we? What? What we gotta get? Got to work on Miranda's podcast voice, like you got to project into the microphone.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, sit up a little bit. Get your back off the wall, that'll make you sleepy.

Miranda Rowland:

Oh, shrug your shoulders a bit Shrug your shoulders a little bit oh, there it is, there it is.

Aaron Brien:

What is this? Open the diaphragm, yeah, open the thoracic cavity.

Miranda Rowland:

Well, show me where the Where's the diaphragm Show me where the diaphragms are, your thoracic? Cavity.

Aaron Brien:

Your thoracic cavity.

Shandin Pete:

Push, push, push, like right below the rib, the boss rib yeah, just get it like you're taking that energy ball so so here's what.

Aaron Brien:

So here's what happened here's what happened?

Miranda Rowland:

Let's hear it.

Aaron Brien:

Let's break it down. I'm not going to name any names or anything. So we invited Miranda on the podcast today because she's an active scholar, native researcher and scholar right, as opposed to like me. I'm not doing any research, I'm just talking shit on a podcast all the time.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, okay, well, I mean yeah, I beg to differ, but yeah let's go.

Aaron Brien:

But we're always talking me and miranda are always talking about her, her research are like, so it's kind of like re-igniting this, like the academic part of me, okay. So we talk a lot about her work and like what she's doing and that part. We can talk about that part later. But anyway, she's taking a course and in this particular course, a speaker was invited. She recorded it, so we listened to it and I was triggered, okay, I was triggered by this recording, okay, and what it was? Oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Shandin Pete:

Let's get a little background first, man, what?

Aaron Brien:

Well, we'll let her, we'll let her yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Tell us what you're studying. For anonymity reasons, you don't have to tell us where I don't know. Do we do that? Should you sign?

Aaron Brien:

a waiver you share whatever it is you want to share, but it's up to you, but your research topic at least, at the very least.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, and we'll let you review this and if you don't know anything on this or you can opt out, that's informed consent, right? You?

Miranda Rowland:

guys are freaking me out.

Shandin Pete:

Okay. All right.

Aaron Brien:

Well first of all, we want to be concerned with your safety.

Shandin Pete:

So if you do feel like any sort of we can refer you to tribal health we got a number for you to call if at any moment do you feel triggered or?

Aaron Brien:

no longer.

Shandin Pete:

I need a magnet with that information on it if anytime you feel pregnant or uh pregnant with knowledge, that is pregnant knowledge uh with uh, wisdom with child. I believe it's called a wisdom child if you feel like you're birthing a wisdom child yeah I'm in the second, I'm in the second trimester of my wisdom child.

Aaron Brien:

Okay, you're on.

Shandin Pete:

You're on, Miranda.

Miranda Rowland:

Yeah, whatever you took out of all that go Introduce yourself. I was going to say something.

Shandin Pete:

No, that was it. I just went off into some weird rant.

Miranda Rowland:

You're good, go. Okay. So my name's miranda roland. Now, wait a minute, I'm gonna stop you right there.

Shandin Pete:

What I don't want to act wait, wait, intro. We don't do that here. You don't have the talking the spirit stick the spirit stick is not present.

Aaron Brien:

I actually actually an indigenous research method. It's called the medicine stick.

Shandin Pete:

Oh yeah, oh yeah well, you know it comes in varieties depending on which nation you are representing the.

Aaron Brien:

Some use a stone In which you feel comfortable.

Shandin Pete:

And some use a scone. Okay, okay, all right, all right, okay, I'm owning it down. Okay, go ahead, you just say who you are wherever you want, in the way you are accustomed, in the manner of your tribal people. No, I'm just kidding.

Miranda Rowland:

Okay, go ahead. I was. I I started it and then you said no, academic I know but I feel like that. Um, so I'm from lodge grass. Um grew up there here and there. But if you ask aaron, he says I'm not from lodge grass oh no, no you, it's a joke, she's from lodge grass I'm from lodge grass, but I didn't grow up there yeah

Miranda Rowland:

okay, um, yeah, so I go to msu bozeman, um, I'm in the earth sciences department, um, I am researching the fire history, the fire and vegetation history of Axolotl's Twin Lake. My research goes back 12,000 years, which is pretty cool. So I'm doing a reconstruction of fire events over that amount of time, yeah, and looking at changes in vegetation.

Miranda Rowland:

Okay, yeah, and looking at changes in vegetation. Ok, so with that I started kind of thinking about how natives use fire, right Like with the burning aspect of it, and just kind of started delving into that. So I guess that's kind of how I got. You know, I was used to researching like using scientific method, and you know everything that I had learned in junior high, high school, college, you know. And then I started looking at cultural burning and figured out that I don't know how to do that.

Shandin Pete:

You personally, you know you personally have never started a cultural burn. You've never been to a 49?.

Miranda Rowland:

No, well, I had one time with my mom.

Shandin Pete:

You've never helped start a fire at a 49?, because that's kind of cultural burning, I think. Anyway, okay.

Miranda Rowland:

Does Crow Fair count? I'm kidding.

Shandin Pete:

Do you start a grass fire at crow?

Miranda Rowland:

fireworks, fireworks, fireworks fireworks fireworks, yeah, fireworks, roman candles roman candle? I don't know if that counts, keep going anyway. So the actual research of like doing archive research and talking to people and you know, I guess, kind of gathering data that way information, I realized right away that I was super unfamiliar with it.

Miranda Rowland:

You know even though you know I went a little bit corn, it, you know, even though you know I went a little bit corn, um, yeah and just. But it really reminded me of like when I did talk to people, just like how normal conversations go, when you visit with them about things and you try to pick their brains and kind of.

Shandin Pete:

You know, I guess it was unfamiliar territory yeah to me yeah yeah okay so I got it so yeah, I don't know, so um oh no go ahead. So you're, uh, you're, going, you're trying to achieve a master's or a phd. Did I miss that? A master's? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, master's no, no, yeah, I'm in my master's, I'm in my master's program master's program msu, which, which is, which is an ecology right.

Aaron Brien:

The overall thing would be ecology or what? What would the degree?

Shandin Pete:

say earth science would be first it'll say earth science yeah so I'm in the earth science department, but it okay it's like paleoecology okay so I, so I see, um well, I mean, there's a number of things to talk about right there that you just said, some things that are yeah so, yeah, go ahead.

Aaron Brien:

Well, that's the. So we talk a lot right we? Talk a lot about it, especially like landscapes, the crow relationship to land, like we visited a lot about this stuff, and then also just indigenous research method in general, the whole idea of like how to use tribal knowledge and what that looks like tribal knowledge and and what that looks like, yeah, and because we talk so much she's, I'd like to think that, like, she's starting to understand the way I think.

Aaron Brien:

Right, yeah, miranda yeah, I think so okay, so, so, um, yeah, anyway, that led us, her studies, led her to a certain course, which is what led to this, to these events of today, which is what triggered me and I went on this like scoping mission where we both of us did, where we were calling people and you were one of them, where we were asking this question. But we'll let you finish. I'll let you finish. Let me finish. Yeah, yeah, you were talking.

Shandin Pete:

I interrupted you no, no, no, I'm just trying to get, I'm just trying to get the flow, because I was going to go off on something else, but I forgot there was a trigger. Yeah, there was a trigger well, now I want to know what well, no, you know, I I wanted to talk about archival research, in particular data, and in particular how that gets utilized both in academics and out of academics. But I think that's a different conversation, because the important one is this, but no, I don't know though no, it is, I think it is.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, okay, it might cross over, but let's talk about the trigger okay, because this is them. Well, keep well, miranda, keep set this up for us and and remember you don't have to say people's names or anything, but just kind of set set this whole thing up well, I think this is going to be a familiar narrative that I think a lot of I'm guessing that a lot of native scholars not a native uh graduate students encounter, so I want to hear it well yeah, I guess that was kind of too yeah

Miranda Rowland:

well, okay. So I, that's what I thought too right, because, like, if there's anything that you encounter, like in anything that you do and in this instance it's grad school, right, but um, I, I think about that and, like you know, asking aaron about it, you know, like I talked to my family and I talked to my dad. You know my dad, you dad, you know, got his, did a dissertation, okay, and he studied the Northern Cheyenne tribe. So when I have questions about academic things, you know I like to pick people's brains, you know, yeah. So in this instance, you know, I just we have presenters that come in and talk, you know, about different subjects, and we had a presenter come in and you know she was talking about culture. You know, like traditional practices, just, you know food systems, stuff, like that, right, like how you know. Yeah.

Miranda Rowland:

How natives had used the buffalo before, you know and whatnot, okay, and I, I don't know it. Just it kind of didn't sit that well with me because it didn't feel like there was a lot of depth in it. It felt kind of.

Miranda Rowland:

I felt like it could have been better, you know yeah and it it kind of hit home for me because, like you know, these are native people that we look up to and who are examples for us, you know, as we're moving through grad school. You know, yeah, and I just thought I felt like that was kind of triggering for me, you know, cause, like I come from the reservation, you know, went to school there, you know, and I feel like I'd like to think I'm grounded in it. You know, come home a lot.

Miranda Rowland:

Um and it just, it just makes me wonder, like about like other natives and academics and like how they deal with those types of things. Or have they run into those types of things? Yeah, where you see a spectrum of people where you know they're, either you know they have a lot of like, I feel like a lot of knowledge, or they're active in their communities. They participate in cultural events, versus not at all and not really being in touch with them and I feel like it's important.

Miranda Rowland:

I feel like it's important to like be with your communities. You know, I feel like it grounds you and kind of gives you like a. It's part of your sense of self. I feel like right you know, I don't know, so I'm trying to start it. I don't know.

Aaron Brien:

Aaron is like if you have thoughts about that or well, no, no, um, okay, I do, I do, but okay well, let me, let me just back up.

Shandin Pete:

Let me just back up for one second, okay, okay, so we can get this, so we can follow along. So there's a course and there was a speaker in the course that talking about, in summary, indian things, indian things in it oh yeah it made you uncomfortable yeah or it didn't, something didn't seem right. Something didn't seem right yeah and this person, yeah, is apparently also a native person yeah okay, all right, okay, go ahead and so.

Shandin Pete:

And what they were saying apparently lacked some depth yeah yeah, yeah, okay, I got a lot to say about that.

Miranda Rowland:

Yeah, go ahead oh yeah, go ahead no, no, you go ahead then we'll let aaron go ahead because he's getting ready.

Shandin Pete:

He's loading up his mic. He's getting ready. No, yeah, no, you go it's a canadian standoff. Oh no, no you go.

Miranda Rowland:

Yeah, yeah, and I mean like a lot of the things I feel like that I've kind of encountered, like in my research, you know dealing with, like you know talking about Western knowledge versus traditional knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge, like I feel like I've run into those terms quite a bit in my just in these past two years, you know, oh yeah, and so I mean it's interesting to hear like other people talk about it, you know, and I feel like I'm pretty like I'm pretty receptive to like people's points of views you know, because I'm always trying to add, like my knowledge base, you know especially from other native scholars.

Miranda Rowland:

Yeah, like my knowledge base, you know, especially from other Native scholars.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, okay. So let's hear it, aaron, because you were just about to break something down for me, because I have some questions and I have some answers and I have some experiences that I want to add to this, but let's hear it before I go off.

Aaron Brien:

Well, I want to rewind a little bit to earlier in the year. Okay, let's rewind. Um miranda had some guests coming to um crow to spend the day in the archives with her. Okay so, but prior to visit, I was very opinionated Like I was. I was pretty opinionated, right.

Shandin Pete:

Meaning you didn't agree or you had a concern.

Aaron Brien:

Probably both. I think both Didn't think they ought to be there and was concerned why they were there. Yeah, and it wasn't. It wasn't because they were, they were, their intentions were bad. Okay, I see this happen a lot with, like native scholars, where they're they're bombarded by their non-native mentors, by their non-native mentors, so it's typically not other scholars, it's not other like their cohort, it's it's actually like the professors and the yeah, the lead researchers and things.

Aaron Brien:

they kind of bombard native students and and I think I even used the term hijack. They hijacked their research and for whatever reason this happens, I don't know why, and so I had was encouraging her to like be really aware of that, but because of our, because of my approach isn't always gentle, right, okay, and I and I'm, and I'm working on it, okay.

Song Narrator:

So you're a bit crass, that's what you're saying we. You're a bit crass, we got into it. That's what you're saying.

Aaron Brien:

We got we got into an argument. We got into an argument like, like straight up and down, like six o'clock. We got into an argument oh, in the morning or the evening because that's makes a huge difference. It was like all day I think no, I'm just kidding um, I think, um I, I know, I mean know.

Shandin Pete:

Did the dishes get done.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, the dishes. Oh, that's a good argument, those goddamn dishes. That's a good argument when the dishes get done.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, okay, yeah.

Aaron Brien:

Okay, keep going. I mean I, so I know now, I know now that my approach Wasn't great, but I was like Really like staunch and like the way I was thinking about it, yeah, and and I great, but I was like really like staunch and like the way I was thinking about it, yeah, and you know so, so, oh, having had that disagreement, okay, yeah, I'm just laying the groundwork for, for this, so so, so, keep in mind, we talk about this stuff all the time. We talk about culture, we talk about research, we talk about academics. Yeah, um, she, she listens to the podcast. So it's also like that. Sometimes we just talk about the podcast, whatever, so it's, it's always a topic, yeah, it's fun, I have a lot of fun with it. So so, keep in mind, I'm always like critiquing, yeah, this certain people's approach to studying Native people. I'm a bigger critic of our own people. Okay.

Aaron Brien:

I think I'm actually really aware of Native researchers that are doing what I think is bad work, okay. And so she tells me she's going to have this guest native researchers that are doing what I think is bad work, okay. And so she tells me that she's going to have this guest, so, and you can jump in anytime.

Miranda Rowland:

Miranda, I'm here for the ride. No, I'm kidding. I'm getting the other side right now.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, so she says I recorded her. After this lecture is over, I recorded her, so we'll have to listen to it Wait.

Miranda Rowland:

disclaimer. I record all my presentations so that I can go back and listen to them. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

Okay. Anyway. Yeah, okay, okay.

Miranda Rowland:

All right, okay, yeah, okay, anyway, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, all right okay, um.

Aaron Brien:

So anyway, we got this little trip planned we got this little trip, so we're going, we're going on this trip, okay, got it, okay, so we listened to it. So we're like listening to it and I get, man, I get like. I think I remember there was the eight minute mark and I was like I stopped it and I had things to say, so then we could continue to watch it. Keep in mind it took it's a 50 55 minute lecture that took us a day and a half or a whole day to listen to, like, because I kept stopping it and then and then it was nice, because then miranda starts saying stuff. She's like, yeah, like, so, she's like, so I could kind of see this like, like, almost like there's a certain level of, like, academic confidence that's coming out, like trusting her opinion, so she's saying it. So we're driving, which we're like we're, we're doing a podcast without recording, right, okay, yeah, so, so, so this, this is, this is all.

Aaron Brien:

After the day before we, we were part of these events in bozeman that basically fell apart. These events had fallen apart for another reason, so, but it was again, it was like fringed native people, native people on the fringes, native people who are practitioners, non-native researchers and academics trying to interact with those circles. Right, okay, so her, so this happened on friday. This happened on friday, so these are like three different so my brain's already like I'm getting lost you.

Shandin Pete:

That's easy to do but okay, let me let me just back you up there. Let me, let me tell you what I hear, then you can start back from where you're at all right, so you're debriefing about a, about a guest speaker in a class right.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, the class was on like monday, okay, and you were also and you're also returning from an On this past Friday yeah, that had a certain type of indigenous or native people that were saying certain things. No.

Shandin Pete:

No, I mean, that's where I got lost.

Aaron Brien:

There was no talking at this event. There was supposed to be this unveiling of this mural, this uh mural, basically a mural that was dedicated to the tribes and a plant that signifies their people, right, but it fell apart, oh okay the person that was running.

Aaron Brien:

The event calls me, says it got shut down. They don't want to do it. They're saying we're not working with tribes directly, when in fact she was working directly with the official representative of tribes. She was working with preservation officers, right, yeah, and so that's how I got in. So anyway, out of support, miranda and I still went to their coffee. They had a coffee hour on friday, okay, which was supposed to be this big unveiling event anyway, yeah, so they still kind of did like a soft unveiling, but we went okay which, which anyway.

Aaron Brien:

So that plays a little bit into my attitude.

Shandin Pete:

That's what I was okay, okay, okay, okay, I'm connecting it.

Aaron Brien:

So then, friday okay, yeah, so friday. So friday night, saturday, we're gonna go on this little road trip and that's when she plays the recording. Okay, so keep in mind I still have this like befuddled frustration from the day before.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, right yeah, you're riding with a bit of a grudge yeah, I would say, yeah, I would say yeah no, not much.

Aaron Brien:

It's not like I was sitting around grinding my teeth A small grumble.

Aaron Brien:

Well, my major frustration is I went there wanting to get mad at white people and I didn't, so I was like I ended up being nice.

Shandin Pete:

The rage didn't have an outlet.

Aaron Brien:

Yep. So then I had to find it somewhere else, so she plays this recording, okay, and then I'm immediately triggered. Okay, but that's all fine and well. This is how you play into this, and this is how Miranda plays into this.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, so this is going to bring it all together. I'm ready.

Aaron Brien:

Here we go. This will bring it all together. This will bring it all together. So we had the Friday event thing, her lecture, all this stuff. We listened to the recording. Yeah, meanwhile, you had sent me a paper you recently finished, correct, and you're publishing. Or it's being published right now or it is published. It is published, correct, it is published, so just for fun. Miranda said I can't remember who said it, if it was me or her, but we decided to do a little preview on your paper. Yeah, because you wanted to critique it. In all honesty, I wanted to find something to talk shit to Shandina about. Yeah, yeah yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Of course, and you should.

Aaron Brien:

If I'm writing garbage, you should tell me it ended up, okay, I ended up observing something that I thought was pretty remarkable, okay, and I've never gotten to see, and I don't know if I'll ever see so Miranda's reading the paper Read your abstract, which, by the way, was great. And so we're going through this, yeah, and and again we press pause and we talk like we say, oh, see what he's saying, right there, all right. And then she makes comments. Right, she says things like this is this, is what it should be like. I want to read more stuff like this. So then we keep going.

Aaron Brien:

Then it's like that's exactly right, you know, like we're just in agreement, yeah, yeah, and then um and then it you ever have those moments where, like it just changes, things change, the mood changes, everything changes. But I'll let her tell that part, because I'll let her decide how much she wants to say, or whatever. But um, this led me to this question of these moments, like who has these moments? Yeah what do you remember when you had these moments? But anyway, go ahead, miranda, I'll let you take over okay.

Miranda Rowland:

So we were reading the paper right and I'm going through and I'm like, okay, here's the abstract, you know, here's the intro. We're going through and I seen the the figure right, you had the figure in there.

Miranda Rowland:

Um, and so we're reading paper and then I get through the abstract and I'm like this is like, and excuse my french, but I'm like this is badass, you know and like and that's, you know, aaron was agreeing. And then we're reading through it and you're like, dissecting as you're going, and I can see the parallel between your paper and I can see see it in, like in my own tribe right and you know, I'm Crow and Northern Cheyenne and I can see what you're describing.

Miranda Rowland:

You know you're talking about relationships between humans and plants, or natives and plants, and and I think in there you even say what did he say in there, aaron, remember we were reading it and he was like you're, you're um about the romanticism? No, about them being separate about the plant.

Miranda Rowland:

Oh, yeah humans being separate, does that thing about and like you say it in there, you're very explicit about it and like you know, as you're going through, and I you say it in there, you're very explicit about it and, like you know, as you're going through and I'm reading it, and it's like interesting it's, you know, it's engaging, you know, and it's and I can see the way you describe those in that paper, like the relationships and whatnot, and how you're talking is like I can see that same structure within our tribe. You know, yeah, and I'm like this feels real. This feels like real research and the quality of it is there, like it's, you know, it's legit. And then I was telling aaron and I was like this is what it should be like, like this is what I should be reading more of, like where do I get more of this?

Miranda Rowland:

You know, because I've run into sources where they're like you know I don't know how to describe if it's superficial or like romanticizes being Native American or being enrolled in a tribe and playing into those generalizations or those stereotypes you know, and it took, you know, going through research these past couple of years and then talking to Aaron about everything, trying to understand it like indigenous research methods. He talks about it so much and I'm like try to absorb it like what he's talking about yeah and then I had this presentation where I felt like it just could have been better.

Miranda Rowland:

I feel like it's romanticized being being native and then, I read your paper and I was talking to aaron about it and it just like clicked where. I was like holy cow, just the quality of the research and the difference in the research was just. I was, I don't know it was just there.

Miranda Rowland:

So it was a little bit like an epiphany for me and I just thought, like that's something that I need to do with my research is I need to be more assertive, you know, and have like more confidence in myself to do it. Yeah, if that makes sense, yeah, it does.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah, it certainly does. And, um, I think this is a I don't know if it seems like a common issue that I've seen repeated over and over, probably since I was in school, and Aaron probably has the same experience but the sort of the body of native scholarship is sort of lacking and it follows the thing that you said there's a lack of depth. You, you said there's a lack of depth. You know there's a lack of depth.

Shandin Pete:

I don't know how many things I've read about indigenous, about native american, whatever, and but it does, it doesn't. It doesn't lay out in practical terms what those things mean, like you can. There's, there's three popular words like native epistemology, native ontology and native axiology. You hear people use those words all the time, both native and non-native, but they don't say, they don't follow the path to what, how that's operationalized and how it works. So it becomes this really broad general thing and it's usually, uh, has a little hashtag like all things are related, natives are holistic, everything's connected, um, everything's got a spirit.

Shandin Pete:

But there's there's this huge, huge black hole of well, what does that mean? And I think, when, when we say those things like if I told aaron about, oh yeah, this thing's got spirit and him, and I will know what that means. When we say that in english, we started, we have an agreeance already because we have very similar, uh, life experience and understanding of things. But when we say that to non-Indian people, they don't know what we mean and we don't have necessarily the time, or maybe we don't even have the English construct, to illustrate what that means. Um, as we understand it together, it's, it's a term that that they call um like hermeneutical injustice, where you're not dumb, you just don't have the tools to say to another person of another world view the kind of things that you understand, understand, just don't have them.

Shandin Pete:

So you yeah, you, I and aaron, we we come from maybe one or two or three generations that have engaged in this type of educational structure. That's it, man, like my grandparents were. My grandparents didn't speak english. They didn't go to school then, none of that. So when we say spirit, the spirit of the rock, I mean, how can we say it anymore outside of an indigenous understanding, a native understanding that would make people understand?

Shandin Pete:

we just don't, we don't have the things like people, like like non-native people can reference oh, plato and the great philosophers understood this, this, and that they can reference this long history of written material that helps them and other people to understand what the heck they're talking about. So the lack of depth, I think, is because of that. We're just, but it didn't. It does not serve us any purpose, nor has it long enough a time passed to where we've committed those things to some sort of form of communication that other people can understand. That's one thing, number one. So that paper I wrote Can you say that word again.

Shandin Pete:

Which one?

Miranda Rowland:

I feel like this is the learning.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, the hermeneutical Go ahead, go ahead. Let's hear Aaron say it Her, her, her.

Aaron Brien:

Herma.

Shandin Pete:

Hematoma.

Aaron Brien:

Hermodive Hermotype. It's not a tumor.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, is that Arnold? It's not a duma. What was that arnold? It's not a duma. No, it's not a duma. Say the word hermeneutical injustice, I don't know. Yes, hermeneutical.

Shandin Pete:

Hermeneutical yeah, it's part of a larger part of a phenomenon called epistemic injustice. This is not, this is not me, this is just things I read. You know, I'm not, I don't, I'm not expert in these things, I just know of these things, but they seem to describe this phenomenon pretty well. You're, you're learned, learned, I'm learned. I know how to skim just enough articles that I can pick these things up. Okay, go ahead.

Aaron Brien:

I'm curious to know what number two is. You said number one, so what's number two? Oh, okay.

Shandin Pete:

I'll go down the list.

Aaron Brien:

Let's go down the list. Yeah, go down. I want to go down the list.

Shandin Pete:

Here's the things I heard, and so let me back up then, because I want to finish my diatribe on lack of depth. Up then, because I want to finish my my diatribe on lack of depth. So some of the lack of depth also comes from and I don't want to use the word man, I don't want to use it because it's sad, I don't like talking about it. You know, a lot of our parents and grandparents got shipped off to the boarding schools. Right, yeah, that happened. And then, if they survive that and they come back and they lost this connection with their parents and their grandparents, and then they get old, and then they have all these young, eager, native adults and young people asking them for knowledge and wisdom. It's like that Powell Highway, remember. Everybody's always coming here asking for some good old Indian wisdom. Well, I ain't got none, remember that.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, that was a lame deer. Yeah, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Well. So it seems like this thing happens a lot, right, and the human ego is very fragile. I know that because I'm a human, my ego is somewhat fragile, but we mitigate that fragile ego through norms and customs that help us to maintain a certain degree of honesty, so we can say what we know, how much we know, and what we don't know, and how much we don't know, and be okay with it. Well, you can only imagine these older people, you know, look, being looked up by, to all these people being put on a pedestal as being, you know, the wise elders. You know, the popular scholarship does that too. It says these elders, you know, they use the word elder first of all. They have all this wisdom and knowledge. So what are they going to do? You know they're like man, I guess you know. Then they're sort of a their, their ego. I don't know if this is completely true. It's just like a theory their, their, their egos become compromised. So when they get asked about something, sometimes they're going to make things up or they're going to maybe sort of glorify or, um, magnify something to appease the questioning that they're getting. So they don't look like they don't know, because that's a hard pill to swallow for someone to say I don't know, for certain people to say I don't know. That's a tough one.

Shandin Pete:

So often you get things that lack depth but also that don't feel right or don't seem right, but also that don't feel right or don't seem right, like a lot of these things we hear. You know, we're a relative of the plant, we're a relative, and you fill in the blank. We've popular scholarship has sort of adopted that idea that everything indigenous under the sun is a relative to us. We're a relative to the bison, relative to data, relative to whatever. But that really cheapens the true relationship that we have with those things. We can't be related to all these darn things. You know we, we're barely a relative to our own self. In that sense we don't really treat each other very well as humans. So lack of depth leads to lack of inaccuracy as well. So you lose that deep, complex idea that follows along with all these things. I'm still on number one. You want to hear more.

Miranda Rowland:

I want go ahead miranda, yeah, anybody, I mean me, me and him talk all the time yeah, I mean, I think that's, I agree, you know, I think that and we we talked about that like how it's almost, and it's even a conversation that I had with my dad. You know where you talk about people that are like in an academic setting, kind of you know, promoted or put on a pedestal kind of like how you said, and you know, and I feel like ego is part of that.

Miranda Rowland:

you know it kind of feeds into that you know, and I think you can almost get lost in it, you know oh, yeah, oh yeah that's.

Shandin Pete:

It's really um. The word is seductive. I don't want to use the word because it sounds weird oh, it is imagine. Just yeah, imagine standing in front of 50 people that are just looking at you in awe because of the things you're saying. There's a lot of temptation to make stuff up or to appease what you think they ought to hear.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, and the justification is that you're using real knowledge, but you might embellish it or you might alter it or you might enhance I don't want to say like sometimes people don't lie, but their ego allows them leeway and a certain liberties that normally wouldn't be there with among their own people, right, yeah?

Aaron Brien:

yeah my issue with academics and this ego feeding is that it's allowed people who are and I want to make sure I say this there's nothing wrong with learning your culture later in life that's not what I mean. And there's nothing wrong with being a descendant of a tribe and showing some sort of tribute to that bloodline. You have right. But I feel like academics, universities have become the NICU for the culturally impoverished.

Shandin Pete:

The what the NICU? What is a NICU? Culturally impoverished? The? What? Like the mic you what does?

Song Narrator:

that make you what's a mic?

Aaron Brien:

you nick nick nick, nick, n, n, I c k, nick. Yeah, like for babies a nick. You, what the heck is a nickICU? Nicu, nicu, I've never heard of that. Yeah, nicu, what is it For babies? Like in hospitals.

Shandin Pete:

Is it like a pacifier?

Aaron Brien:

No, it's for like babies who are struggling, and they keep them in ICU.

Miranda Rowland:

Intensive care.

Aaron Brien:

Intensive care for babies.

Shandin Pete:

Like a neonatal intensive care unit.

Song Narrator:

Unit NICU. I got it Okay.

Shandin Pete:

NICU. Keep going. Keep going. All right, I want the listeners to follow along.

Aaron Brien:

The NICU. They've become this for late cultural learners. For late cultural learners, it's because the we allow that we allow people to excel too quickly. Like in native country, like in me, if I wanted to be a certain way. If I go to crow, there's steps I have to follow, regardless of what my degree is said, regardless of what my position, even with my tribal government, says, there's rules. There's rules that I have to follow and regardless of what people say, just like we're talking about saying in the past episode that there's a hierarchy there is a hierarchy, there is there's rules to follow. Yes.

Aaron Brien:

And every time you go veer in and out of those rules you're put in check Immediately put in check, immediately put in check. Yeah, some of sometimes these rules aren't necessarily a cultural thing, but they're a. They're a um, a pace thing. Yeah, your pace is too fast, so they'll check you. Hey, slow down, yeah you know and that can be done in many ways.

Aaron Brien:

That could be like saying, like saying we're just not going to give you that right or that way or that whatever it is right, yeah, so slow down. That's your cue from your community to check yourself, and so, as long as your community or your tribe is always the audience, it's always the rubric and how you're going to do your work yeah you never really actually experience that thing we're talking about because you're in a constant state of peer review yeah, yes and it's constantly.

Aaron Brien:

what I see in academics is they've allowed people on the fringes of culture to now become the voices of the cultures. Yeah, which is dangerous to me because these are people, because I would consider myself a fairly cultural person. Okay.

Aaron Brien:

But in terms of knowledge and practice, I don't have it all.

Aaron Brien:

All, yeah, I don't know really that much.

Aaron Brien:

So if, if I go to a talk or a lecture and I'm listening to somebody talk and I'm like I know myself, I know that I'm really not in a position to talk about certain things, yeah, but now this person is, I know it's fake, because if I'm not there yet and I'm talking to the source and I'm living in the source, and if I'm not there, there's no way that you six, 700 miles away from your community and you just found out that you're native, or you just found out that you have some ancestry, found out that you're native, or you just found out that you have some ancestry.

Aaron Brien:

There's no way you're going to learn those nuances and the amount of time. But you're up here talking about them, yeah, and you're talking about them. You could talk about them to white people, that doesn't bother me. You're talking about them to young native scholars and you're going to impact the way they do their work, the way they think, and it's going to manipulate them in a way that can be dangerous, not for their academic work but for their actual intellectual growth yeah, yeah, does that make sense it does that.

Shandin Pete:

That brings me to my second point, which is this the thing you said there's a spectrum of scholars, and we've talked about this before. And the same thing that you said all the spectrum of indigenous scholars, native scholars.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, I mean some people just didn't have it the way others did, some people just didn't have it the way others did. But the important thing is what you said is that if there is a methodology, if there is a construct that keeps us from telling lies or embellishing, if you're not connected authentically, I mean you can even go one more step because you can say, oh yeah, I'm connected to my community, but which part of that community? Because even within that community you can have a lot of variance as to what might be the actual norm of that community. You know, you know what I mean, that's, that's present too, and so so just imagine, just even just in this little, just these two little examples that we talked about are the thing you said and that I said and miranda said just imagine universities trying to hire people. Without all that understanding, without all that, you can get away with so much man and I feel like that's why they stay in that too yeah they get hired and then they stay.

Aaron Brien:

That that's why you have these like 20, 30, 40 year old legacy people in these academics. But when you go to things at home or when you even go to basic functions, they're not there they're not there.

Shandin Pete:

No.

Aaron Brien:

And that doesn't mean again, that doesn't mean people can't know things, people know things, people have knowledge, yeah. But again, it's how that knowledge is attained, how it's used and who that knowledge is for. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

I always go back to. I'm not a bridge to divide guy. It doesn't bother me if white people don't understand me. That's not my audience. Those are for different people. Now, and if in my journey or whatever journey in my good path, remember she kept saying that branda, or uh, your good trail yeah yeah good if in your good trail you find resilience. Yeah, of course, decolonize the way you think oh yeah, I'm just kidding.

Aaron Brien:

I mean, if you're doing an infomercial now, yeah, if white people learn something from what I say right on, but that at no point are they truly ever my real audience yeah I'm not. I don't do the work I do for them yeah if they benefit from it, then right on, I'm not against that yeah, but I've never I, I, I'm really aware yeah that of that and it's always playing into my decision making and yeah, and miranda's seen that with me firsthand, right and sometimes yeah it can be annoying, yeah, so yeah, yeah, man yeah well

Miranda Rowland:

if I can kind of add on to that, like talking about your audience and whatnot, you know. So when I did my archive research which was, which was my first try, my first attempt, right, yeah, like the first time I had ever gone and done it um, and you know, when we had our disagreement about it and I wasn't super sure, like on my direction with it. Yet, you know, just starting really broad, just going through the archives, just figuring out what way I was going to take my research really, because that's where the crow um stories are, that's where all their sources are you know.

Miranda Rowland:

So I'm sitting there doing this research, you know, and it took me a while to like realize that, like I'm dealing with, like knowledge about crows, that I feel like it should be respected, you know, and I kind of felt like I needed to kind of get a grasp on what I was doing before I tried to do any real research on it. Like where? Like exactly that, who is my audience? Where is this data gonna go?

Miranda Rowland:

you know, and we had decided that my data would live in the archives. You know when I were to write about it. And wanting to treat that knowledge with enough respect, because it's not just me researching it, it's not just for me. You know, this belongs to our entire tribe, you know, and being conscientious of that and having the self-awareness that, like I, have to mind what I'm doing while I'm out there doing this research, if that makes sense, you know yeah, I think it does.

Shandin Pete:

It does in. Um. Uh, aaron, you said it best because there's this and you know, and I know, there's this internal sort of guard you have in your head all the time because you're thinking about not necessarily any. I don't know. When you say that tribe, it means something and it probably doesn't mean the same thing to everyone.

Shandin Pete:

That means some and it probably doesn't mean the same thing to everyone and I oftentimes I avoid even saying this is for the tribe. I often say, well, this is for the people that it matters, or or my advisors, or the people, my community, versus the tribe. Because nowadays when we talk about tribe it's I don't think maybe maybe I'm wrong in this, but it doesn't seem like it was in the past where there's sort of a maybe a more cohesive unit, because tribe now is there's tribal government, there's these different pockets and communities, there's tribal leaders, there's tribal cultural people there's tribal units that have nothing to do with culture, tribal shenanigans.

Aaron Brien:

Tribal shenanigans, yeah, yeah, tomfoolery and shenanigans, yeah some tomfoolery. You're right though.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. So when I was writing this little piece that was my thought I said this is who I want to read this. And it wasn't. It wasn't anybody back in my home, because I know they might not ever read this because it's in the academic journal.

Shandin Pete:

It's written in a way that's, I don't know, not for the common person, it's like for academics, but this was for indigenous academics for the everyday native scholar to pick up and read and say, okay, I agree or I disagree, or I agree, but this, this and this or I disagree, because this is where you're wrong. It was written to sort to sort of put this idea that I have about things out there in in a way, that's gu and you could put anything in there. It could be human-plant relationship, it could be data sovereignty, it could be indigenous knowledge for science, it could be indigenous knowledge for social work and you can find the same pattern of this paper in any one of those where there's a misunderstanding. Yeah, go ahead.

Aaron Brien:

Well, remember, one of the things things not to harp on old stuff, but that was one of our biggest deals was like we could, we can, in research method. To me, indigenous research method was right away, it was really clear that it was a theory, like a theory mass it was, it was a, it was a thought masked as a theory. Right, it's just, it was this philosophy, this kind of superficial philosophy. Yeah, we saw that right away like, yeah, I remember you and I talked about it. This was years ago and we're like this is this is not real, okay. But then we, we, we started working on things and we said I remember having this conversation with you and this got brought up that this could, actually we could create a method that would work for all of these fields. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

I remember that, regardless of what you're talking about, it's pretty simple, because the application of native knowledge on a subject, there's a way to do it, and we were getting to the point where we were actually writing that down and your papers.

Aaron Brien:

Once we started reading your paper, because of the things we had talked about, the things that we started doing doing, I could see where you were going yeah I seen what you were setting up and I was like this to me, because that's the way the native mind works, and it was cool, because I'm not claiming, I'm not trying to claim your paper, but what happens that?

Shandin Pete:

that approach as a co-author.

Aaron Brien:

Sorry, yeah, I need, I need to, I need to brush up on my cv. It was like it was like watching science, like a real science, a testable hypothesis. Sure, miranda was reading the paper, but it you use very large words in there. Yeah. Like you're very articulate. Okay. That's not even like the. That's not what was impressive. Yeah, what was impressive was that your paper made sense to a native scholar that didn't know the method. Right, that doesn't know the method, she doesn't know Miranda, doesn't know the way Shandeen thinks. Right.

Aaron Brien:

Right, but because she has some grounding and being Crow and Crow landscape. Yeah. The way you were writing, I could see it making sense to her. You're talking about Salish plants. We're not Salish, right, but it made sense. Yeah, and that was to me. What I seen was the moment that this made sense. What I seen last week didn't. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

And that's the thing that was like. I was so into. I was like I wonder who else had that moment. I want to know that moment. I want to like not in the sense of like tell me about the moment you found inspiration, like I really didn't want to know what triggered it in their brain. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

Like what made it click inside their brain, like what was it? You know, like what you mean, did it? What, what click, make what click like when I watched it, when I watched her reading it, there was a click oh, okay, that change yeah, yeah, yeah while we were talking, I was sitting right next to her and I'm like well, what was it?

Aaron Brien:

I want to know exactly when it happened. And then I want to find out other native scholars who experienced that. Yeah, that thing. Yeah, I don't know how to ask that, though. I don't.

Miranda Rowland:

I don't because I attempted to ask a few people and I don't know go ahead I don't either, because Because I tried to talk Well, I feel like my dad had an idea about it. I talked to my sister you know, aaron, and I don't know how to explain that Like that moment of it where I read it and I was like holy cow, it just I don't know, I don't even know how to talk about it. But it's funny because we went to the store after that and I was like holy cow, like it, just I don't know, I don't even know how to talk about it. But it's funny because we went to the store after that and I was walking around Winco and then Aaron was like are you okay? And I was like no.

Aaron Brien:

I'm not okay. I'm not okay. I'm not okay. It was awesome. I was all excited. She was like bummed out and kind of like going through this, whatever, and I was like excited because I finally seen it. The stuff we talk about, yeah, every time, we record, yeah, stuff that led to this podcast, the questions we asked yeah years and years and years, the times we sat at the drum and visited about stuff, sat at the table, visited all of it was just conversations between you and me yeah and yeah, your paper is the result of your brain.

Aaron Brien:

But that made sense to me. I was like, yeah, of course sean dean's gonna write like that. I've never seen anyone that actually like changed. You know, I've never seen it the exact moment, you know it's hard to explain. Even now I guess I realize like now it's easy to explain to Amanda because she was sitting there yeah, I get it.

Shandin Pete:

I get what you're saying, like the I don't think you do I had this. No, I had the same realization, I think where, where? Yeah, let's hear about it well it's.

Shandin Pete:

It's like when you yeah, I want to hear it it's like when I don't know, you know, pick, pick us, pick a sport. And let's say, I got really into baseball and and I bought a bat and I thought, man, this bat's awesome, you know, it's a really good bat, and I used it. And when it wore out I bought a bat of the same brand, same company, and I used this bat and then somebody comes along and says, hey, why don't you try my bat? And then you try that bat and you realize you've been batting with garbage for 20 years. You're like, I've been loyal to this brand and this is garbage, this is a garbage bat. And this guy has just come along and showed me this other bat and now I can hit I don't know X amount of yards further. It's like that, when you have those moments where you, where you had a, something that you thought was pretty normal, you thought you were going along, and then you get this realization, you get kind of depressed. You have this depression because you think I yeah uh-huh

Miranda Rowland:

I guess that reminded me of like thinking about it, you know, because like going through school and trying to figure out how to do everything you know. Yeah.

Miranda Rowland:

And like, and I was telling Aaron, I said there's, there was just something there that I just kind of bothered me. Yeah Kind of bothered me, like the whole time I was kind of I felt like I was churning, you know, churning milk into butter, just like trying to figure it out, and I think that realization hit this is what. This is what I've been looking for. Yeah, this is what I should be doing or aiming for in my own research.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah and it yeah yeah, I went through that. I could feel it.

Miranda Rowland:

I didn't know what it was. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

Well, and to add to that I think that's where the disappointment lies is because it's a realization and knowing that you can only get that from your people and not from a university. Yeah, because the way Sean Dean thinks doesn't come from, doesn't come from the university. I think what academics has given people like Sean Dean or myself, or even you, is like the ability to write, like you learn a different lexicon, like, yeah, you, you might have a different audience to test what you're doing. Or like hash out your, your, your circle changes a little bit, your network changes, but the core of it, the way you think, the way you're approaching the research you're doing, are like hash out your, your, your circle changes a little bit, your network changes, but the core of it, the way you think, the way you're approaching the research you're doing, that doesn't come from the university. And remember you even said Miranda, you said I realized now that if I'm going to do this research and I can't remember it was the cultural burning right.

Miranda Rowland:

Yeah, yeah, I was like I like.

Aaron Brien:

I yeah, that's what I said.

Miranda Rowland:

I said, I realized now that if I'm going to do this research, then it has to be at home.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, because, that's yeah and that makes sense. After that, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what I was going to relate was I had this realization in grad school.

Aaron Brien:

What, what? No, I want to hear this. This is the whole thing I wanted to hear.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. So in grad school, I mean I wasn't aiming to Well, no, I guess I was. I mean I wasn't aiming to well, no, I guess I was. I guess I was aiming to I wouldn't say revolutionize what I thought indigenous or native science was, but I wanted to make a contribution in a certain way and I seen my peers around me utilizing what they claimed as indigenous methodologies and you know, I just felt like I was not, I couldn't do what they were doing because it didn't feel right.

Shandin Pete:

Something felt wrong about it. It and um, I I think mostly because because of this idea that, um, this idea that has been sort of driven into indigenous scholarship, is that what we do is unique, different and, on top of all that, often billed as better than anything, better than Western science. And that is uncomfortable for me because I've never been raised to try to think what I do is above anybody or better than anybody. Just, that's just the way that my mom raised me. No, you're not, and she didn't have to say these things, it's just the her demeanor was transferred to me and sort of it always felt uncomfortable when you like look no not even that she didn't have to do that.

Shandin Pete:

It's just it's just growing up with her knowing how she treated other people. Now she treated situations, it just just naturally copied that. And so, even today, when I hear my fellow colleagues like pointing the finger at academics, the university, western science, as being all these horrible, bad things and of course there is, of course there's been things that were bad, of course, things that were bad, of course but to say that what we know and what we, what we are thought are, and our thoughts are this one level higher, I think, is that's that's really problematic, because and that's that tells me that there's something wrong with the ego if that's the thing that we're going to adopt. And that's what I sort of seen, in a way, when I was navigating through grad school and then finally I thought it just doesn't seem right and I made the decision to say I'm just going to jump through the hoop, I'm going to finish this. I'm not going to dress it up as indigenous research, I'm not going to dress it up as anything.

Shandin Pete:

I'm going to solve this very practical problem, if I can, without bringing in the medicine wheel or the seven grandmother teachings or anything but what I did use. What I did use was this diagram that I had drew up that seemed to illustrate sort of a theory of knowledge that made sense, that relied on the things that we believe in, how we validate knowledge and where we seek our sources of power or inspiration, if you will. I used that and I didn't rely on any of the cultural tropes of today of holism, non-reductivism, relationality, none of that. I just I'm just gonna approach this very practical problem and, um, it felt more authentic and real. I didn't have to dress things up, even though it seems like that's kind of what was wanted of me I'd like to see that, the diagram that you're talking about.

Miranda Rowland:

I'd like to see that. Oh yeah, but like the, the way you describe that, like going through grad school, like even in undergrad, you know, kind of just feeling almost like you don't fit in or it's not, you know, not supernatural, not supernatural, but not natural, yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

For me anyway you know.

Miranda Rowland:

I just want to clarify that.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah, not supernatural.

Miranda Rowland:

And I don't know if that like segues into like imposter syndrome or whatnot, but you know, like so, like when I go through these things, I wonder what other Native scholars are going through that too. You know what are they running into and like how are they dealing?

Shandin Pete:

with these things.

Miranda Rowland:

I wonder what other native scholars are going through that too. You know what are they running into and like, how are they dealing with these things? Yeah, you know, so it's, it's good to hear like your account with it and to just kind of know that you can come through, that you know and you can?

Shandin Pete:

there is the light at the end of the tunnel, you know there is and and it, and it relies on um figuring out where your idea of authenticity comes from. It's not going to come from it's not. I mean it can come from many sources. I'm not going to say it's not going to come from a book, but we read a lot of things that don't make sense to help us make sense of a lot of things. We'll encounter more things that feel wrong than feel right. I think those are things that help guide us into what we do.

Shandin Pete:

But in relation to that, like that division that's always drawn between Western science, indigenous science or white people and Indian people, you know, in my experience, you're coming to find out we're we're more alike than we are different, and the things that really make us different are the things that we think are not alike, or the things that we find are different are the things that we disagree on. That didn't make no sense. That didn't make no sense. Holy shit, I'm going off, we're gonna, but I'm trying to make did you did, you did you use it up, did you use?

Shandin Pete:

no, no, no, no I got a point here. I got a point here because all right, because this is the other thing.

Shandin Pete:

This is the thing, this is the very that, one of the confusing things that happened um, not only this division, but this, this super generalization that all indigenous people, tribes, were all different and unique, implying that even some people say this well, there can't be just one indigenous methodology because we're all so different. You know 500 different unique new nations. We're all different and I'm like I don't know if that's entirely true and I don't feel like it is, simply because of the fact that so I wrote this paper and you get it. Aaron gets it. There gonna be other people that are gonna get it too. They're gonna be some other people that get it and they're gonna get mad because they didn't want to get it.

Shandin Pete:

Like, I don't agree with this, but they're going to get it. They're going to get it. They're not just going to read it and say, oh wow, cool paper about indigenous things. It's going to evoke a reaction. So I think tribal people across turtle island, no, double people across north america we're more similar. We're more similar than we've been fed to believe, and the first part of this paper that I wrote by indian yeah, that we're being fed that by non-indians.

Shandin Pete:

The first part of this paper I wrote was really long and but I had to cut it out because it just. It was just. I went past my word limit, but it was making that case that what I'm saying seems like it applies to all these groups. I don't know, but that's what it seems like.

Aaron Brien:

Well, it definitely seems like it applies to more groups than it does not apply. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

Maybe it's hard to make the case that it's completely universal, but it's not as divided as we were led to believe. Right, I think there's basic premises that Native people follow, especially in North America. You know, I'm also one of these guys too that's really getting tired of like the whole world. We're like all indigenous people around the world. It's it's like well, let's just cool our jets here. Yeah, let's just focus on where we're. Yeah, yeah, take a time out. Let's take a time out. We're starting to claim the universe and all this stuff. It's, it's just getting. It's getting bad.

Aaron Brien:

But it was nice to read your paper because I I'm not I wouldn't say I'm in the in academics like I used to be. I'm always questioning things, though, and I'm always looking into things, so it was nice to like just read. Well, I didn't even read. I was driving to listen to like common sense writing in right in native research, because I had to clean the palette after what I had listened to. Yeah, I, yeah, I'm getting tired, okay, of these people. I'm gonna say this because this is part of this topic today. The catalyst for these moments of realization that Native scholars are having are typically born out of bad research. Yeah, bad work done. These aren't coming because they read the. I have a Dream speech. They're not happening. They're happening because they had a run-in with a bad scholar and I don't mean bad like this mean person, but shallow work, superficial work, buzzword, trendy work and these things that are feeding yeah into the, into these popular narratives.

Aaron Brien:

They're not asking questions that are deep. They're not asking questions that are meaningful and relevant. They're not questioning themselves. They don't question themselves at all. They're just talking about buffalo and the red road and resilience and fucking ribbon skirts and it's just like out of hand and it's just like in this particular like lecture that Miranda played, I think I heard Indigenous ways of knowing. I heard that phrase Indigenous ways of knowing 300 damn times.

Aaron Brien:

And it was like, but yet we were never presented with indigenous ways of knowing yeah just talked about it what did I tell you what did?

Aaron Brien:

how did I describe it? I said it's like she just hung around outside of an event and never went in. She's went into the doorway, kind of came out. She, yeah, hung out in the parking lot. She like looked in the windows, she did all this stuff, this lady, and she never, actually, freaking, gave us anything. And I started getting frustrated and I'm turning to Miranda and I'm like this is frustrating.

Miranda Rowland:

This is really frustrating to me because what, what, Well, I was just thinking we stopped somewhere and thinking we got back. We got, we stopped somewhere and then we got back in the car and I was like, should I play it? And then you got mad.

Aaron Brien:

You were like, well, if you want to make me mad yeah, it was like a bad drug, like I wanted to hear more of it, but I was going to be pissed off the whole time.

Miranda Rowland:

He's there driving like Cruella on 101 Dalmatians.

Miranda Rowland:

Taking it out on the engine. Yeah Well, we don't have to beat this.

Aaron Brien:

We don't have to beat this subject up anymore, but I was fascinated today by a moment that I seen that I wish more Native scholars would be really aware of when they have these moments, and I think it's not often too that we have somebody that's willing to talk about it, because young scholars, their brains aren't developed, you know, and it's like so the, the willingness like dissect their own emotions is not there you know so yeah um yeah yeah, I appreciated it.

Aaron Brien:

It was fun. I had a lot of fun with it. It consumed a large part of my day. Cool yeah.

Miranda Rowland:

I know I was trying to digest it and he kept asking me and he was smiling really big and I was like man shut up.

Shandin Pete:

Shut up.

Miranda Rowland:

I was like I don't even know what that was.

Aaron Brien:

Oh man. Well, I don't have nothing else we've been recording for how long now?

Shandin Pete:

um two hour and a half, hour and a half yeah, yeah, that's probably good I you know, there's a lot of issues, a lot of issues, and I think, the the more it's not just it's not not just in academics, it's all over the place.

Shandin Pete:

You know, it's in communities where people get elevated because of what they think they ought to say and those who think they ought to say it like what they say. So then they get, they get put in front of the crowd to say, um, the things they need to say, which are a little bit off base sometimes. But you know, sincerity, sincerity is, is a, it's there was a, there was a virtue uh, I guess you could call like a source virtue, right? So being a good, having a good source virtue, means that you knew what was right, you knew what was honest, so that the people who could hear it you know that they were privileged to hear what you had to say because you were sincere, because you told the truth. Sincere because you told the truth. And for the truth to be reconciled, it needs to be agreed upon, and right now we're.

Shandin Pete:

I don't think we agree upon things, but it's not checked enough in academia because everyone's a bit too fragile to take that critique Very true, and we should end on Miranda's dad's quote.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, what did your dad tell you?

Miranda Rowland:

Oh, I thought that was pretty cool. He said some people seek to speak the truth. He said wise people seek to find it.

Shandin Pete:

Yep, I agree. Boom, I thought that was pretty cool. Boom dropped the mic. Well, cool man. Well, thanks for coming on. Thanks for, uh um, putting yourself in a compromising position, fragile.

Miranda Rowland:

Yeah well, thank you for having me.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah.

Miranda Rowland:

Fragile state yeah.

Shandin Pete:

We caught Aaron when he was pregnant with ideas.

Miranda Rowland:

It's a wisdom child. What kind of baby did you have?

Aaron Brien:

A wisdom? Oh yeah, a wisdom baby. A have A wisdom baby? Oh yeah, a wisdom baby.

Shandin Pete:

A wisdom baby. Say it like that bastard Wisdom baby.

Aaron Brien:

You can keep your money. Let me have your money Let me, have you baby.

People on this episode

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Aaron Brien

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Shandin Pete

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