Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

#62 - Indigenous Wisdom or Intellectual Tourism: Problematizing Indigenous Academic Knowledge

• Shandin Pete, Aaron Brien, Salisha Old Bull • Season 3 • Episode 62

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Discussion on Facetiousness and Cultural References 0:00

Indigenizing and Decolonizing Literature 6:11

Thanksgiving, Columbus Day, and Liberation Day 11:02

Challenges of Academic Engagement 17:15

Sovereignty and Indigenous Knowledge 31:32

Data Sovereignty and Academic Validation 50:40

The Role of Indigenous Scholars 59:59

The Impact of Academic Research on Indigenous Communities 1:03:06

The Role of Traditional Knowledge in Academia 1:10:48

The Importance of Cultural Context in Academic Research 1:13:28

Validation of Expertise and Cultural Practices 1:15:23

Challenges of Balancing Modern and Traditional Roles 1:28:53

Reflecting on Sovereignty and Expertise 1:29:08

Planning for Future Discussions 1:30:15

Hosts: Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), Salisha Old Bull (Salish/Apsáalooke), (Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné). 

How to cite this episode (apa)
Pete, S. H., Brien, A. & Old Bull, S. A. (Hosts). (2025, May 20). #62 - Indigenous Wisdom or Intellectual Tourism: Problematizing Indigenous Academic Knowledge [Audio podcast episode]. In Tribal Research Specialist:The Podcast. Tribal Research Specialist, LLC. https://tribalresearchspecialist.buzzsprout.com

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/

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Shandin Pete:

You hear me? Just fine, yeah, I can hear you,

Aaron Brien:

yeah, like the whole time I said it, did you not hear me?

Shandin Pete:

I heard you. Oh, I heard you. Just being facetious. I'd be in facetious. Sufficious, sufficious. You just being a bit of vicious. I just being a little I, let's break that down. I just being a little facetious. That how you say it? Facetious, facetious, oh, for I can't say it now, but ah, breathe facetious. There it is. Oh, what you got going on there? Look at that, lovers.

Aaron Brien:

That was in the friend studio.

Shandin Pete:

That's when you guys are in the friend zone.

Aaron Brien:

No, at, in LA at the at, friends, you know the TV show Friends,

Shandin Pete:

you said that was when we were in the friend zone.

Aaron Brien:

No, I think she still friend zones. Me, when still friend

Shandin Pete:

zoning? Yeah, we should

Aaron Brien:

get friend shooties. They're in this paper sack right here. And then this one, this one is Big Bang Theory. But then it just looks like we're in luelas dorm room in 2002

Shandin Pete:

It looks like she's sitting next to the that creepy guy on poltergeist with the hat. You know it comes walking by the house singing like some Mormon hymn.

Aaron Brien:

We're sitting there like she's we're sitting there like it's the first time we're at a white person house party,

Shandin Pete:

sitting up straight, got your coat on, still, hands on your lap, laughing at all the jokes

Aaron Brien:

that even made us pick up A magazine,

Shandin Pete:

drinking water out of a wine glass you it. Check out this tune though, yeah, go ahead. No, tell me

Aaron Brien:

it wasn't for you. What? It wasn't for

Shandin Pete:

you. Oh, you're talking to me. Okay.

Aaron Brien:

I was not talking to you.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, okay, check it out, Man. Here we go. I I like that. This is like that. When they come in with the lead around this era, you know, 1970 there's no role. They don't roll. Yeah, then they hit the roll.

Aaron Brien:

I've heard that song before.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, it's Badlands, 1971 yeah, oh no. I don't know where it was recorded, or if it's a recording of a recording, I just don't know,

Aaron Brien:

probably recorded in Musco cheese.

Shandin Pete:

That's like an era though, you know that lead? Yeah, I remember doing that once when I was singing with my mom. I was really young, like 1415, maybe 1617, I can't. Remember, but I busted out. I was busting out leads like that. Now about after a while, she said, can you stop doing that?

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, don't do that. We don't do that around here.

Shandin Pete:

You mean that's, that's your era. Man, that's your era. That's

Aaron Brien:

probably why she reminds her of too many things, too

Shandin Pete:

many memories. Man, I'm feeling rough today. Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Brien:

We don't have to record long. We can just put something down, you know,

Shandin Pete:

no man, we're gonna go two hours. They didn't know. Ain't no giving up, you know, my I do like all the time, like my little sister told me once, said we're Indians. We don't ever give up. We're playing hide and seek.

Aaron Brien:

That's the real context of the story.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah, she couldn't find me. Her and my sister couldn't find me. They were looking for hours. I felt like hours. I was all sweaty, you know? And in the closet, yeah, starting to

Aaron Brien:

throw sticks.

Shandin Pete:

They're like, probably ready to give up. One of them, my older sister, she wanted to give us, ah, let's just give up. We can't find him. Then my younger sister, no, we're Indians. We never give up.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, you guys just indigenized, hide and seek.

Salisha Old Bull:

That's how you do it.

Shandin Pete:

That's the classic. So there's a there's a formula for indigenizing. Did you know that? No, there's a formula for it. You look at the classic and popular literature today, that's pretty easy. It's pretty easy. And I bet you can name one way among the list of things on which one would decolonize something? You ready? Yeah, one thing go. First thing comes your mind a feather. Now, if you just said a feather 10 years ago or 25 years ago, I'd say, Yeah, you're right, but the feather has gone. Is that out? Feathers out, feathers out. Man, feathers out. That's too regional. Too regional. We gotta think pan. Think pan,

Aaron Brien:

man, that's tough. Oh no,

Shandin Pete:

it's not tough. It's not tough at all. Turtle. I mean, I I didn't have that on the list, but I thought, yeah, I think now, yeah, just mentioned a turtle in some way, and you're on your way to decolonizing and more. Keep going.

Aaron Brien:

We could, um, you replace all the P's with M's.

Shandin Pete:

All the P's with M's. Yeah, I don't get that one. Yeah, no, I'm gonna say no on that patriot, repatriate. Oh, okay, you're stuck on that man. You get it? I don't know. No, I know it's in you to

Aaron Brien:

me the repatriate and rematriate things funny to me, because they're like, No, we're gonna rematriate. But it's all still in English. This is all in English. So it's like, wow,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, what are

Aaron Brien:

you going to replace a letter? But it's, I don't know.

Shandin Pete:

That's one we that's one we need to do a little background research on because it has the roots in something not of this land. I think, I think, I think I don't know.

Aaron Brien:

Usually when somebody says that they're talking about New Zealand,

Shandin Pete:

no, I think actually it's like, it's like Middle Earth. I was going to say not Middle Earth, but, no, no, it's somewhere like Asia or something. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to speak ignorantly. What's

Salisha Old Bull:

the question again? Oh,

Shandin Pete:

I'm trying to get back this decolonization formula. Oh, formula. Mention the turtle one morning. We can move on to what he wanted to talk about. Man, I don't know. Don't be dumb. Don't be lens. Man, you gotta

Salisha Old Bull:

braid it, or there. Smudge it.

Aaron Brien:

You gotta braid it,

Shandin Pete:

smudge it. Braid it up, weave it down, smudge it. Well, braid it. Then wait. Would you braid and smudge or smudge then braid?

Aaron Brien:

I'm not sure. Braid didn't smudge, but. Always

Shandin Pete:

braid the knowledge and then smudge that knowledge down.

Aaron Brien:

You smudge the knowledge off, smudge it off,

Shandin Pete:

smudge the colonial stench.

Aaron Brien:

Knowledge. What I prefer to weave knowledge. Remember, we talked about we did talk about this,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, I prefer to weave. I mean, if you think about it, weaving does take significantly more strands and strength.

Aaron Brien:

I need to give a knowledge basket for all to place all my resilience in

Salisha Old Bull:

all your thick skin,

Shandin Pete:

no, your calluses. That's gross.

Aaron Brien:

Put my wisdom baby inside this basket. Get that one the river of knowledge. Anyway, what? Are we talking about?

Shandin Pete:

This can't be it. This is not it. No, this is just my my intro banter. We're probably

Salisha Old Bull:

talking about Thanksgiving

Aaron Brien:

Columbus Day.

Shandin Pete:

Thanksgiving Columbus Day. Wait now, what's this? Liberation Day stuff going on. What is that? I don't why? What are you talking about? I don't know. I seen it in the news. It's like a new US holiday, right? Liberation Day.

Aaron Brien:

Liberation Day. I don't

Shandin Pete:

know. I don't want to talk about it. So let's talk about, let's talk about your, your most recent visit to

Aaron Brien:

well, just so, so the listeners know, I made it, Miranda and I made a trip hope there to British Columbia, DC, yep, our neighbors To the north. Mm, hmm. Visited old Shannon and Silesia and we had, we had a lot of laughs,

Shandin Pete:

man, we had a blast, a

Aaron Brien:

plethora. But I guess you can explain why I was invited up there. No,

Shandin Pete:

no, I don't want to, all right, no, I'm just kidding. I could mention a few details. So, yeah, you know, what else you want to do? Talk about it. I was going to talk about, yeah,

Aaron Brien:

well, then let's give him some let's provide the listener with some context. So

Shandin Pete:

this idea started long ago, and it took shape at a previous institution in which we all had formerly taught at, and it was an attempt to provide a venue to discuss important matters or matters of importance, specifically for indigenous minded people. I don't know if that describes it, but what we're trying to do, we're just trying to generate discussion about things that mattered to us, and do it in a public and open forum in a certain way in which people could enjoin in that discussion and contribute in whatever manner they want. So solution, I were fortunate enough to secure small amount of money to throw on this series of events, and we had a chance to invite Aaron up to be a guest for a couple different events. It's kind of falling off. It's falling off.

Aaron Brien:

It, it, are you playing a game on your phone?

Shandin Pete:

No, I mean, so we just, we, yeah, we wanted you to come up and we wanted to have a and in, in short, we wanted to sort of have a session like we do in our podcast here talk about things that are live

Aaron Brien:

session, yes, live session, yeah, where some questions were presented to me and but it was more as a panel with all three of us and yeah,

Shandin Pete:

it the way it turned out. Yeah, it was more of a panel, but we had some some tough questions that needed answering or that needed discussion, and I think that was that's what sort of kicked us off with these tough questions. I. And, yeah, I don't know. I want to what was your, what was your take on it? You got to sort of see the kind of the the workings of an indigenous presentation in a large, large institution, and the audience that typically populates these kind of events.

Aaron Brien:

It was good. It was good. Everybody was nice, yeah, I mean, the questions were hard, yeah, questions were hard, a lot harder than I had thought. Yeah. They were written by you. I think so. They were pretty complicated in nature, with large words. They were good. I think, I think my sense of humor, in the way I kind of view the world, and also the way I talk, maybe was a bit much for the you for the Vancouver crowd, because I'm a uh, I can be obnoxious, so, but I think overall, it was good. It was a neat experience. I mean, yeah, besides the talks, the food was good, like, the food was really good. You guys hosted a pretty badass, you know, made us feel welcome. And so that part was like, when you're traveling, you know how that's always kind of a thing where you're like, you're never fully comfortable. You know what I mean, when you go to some place and you're kind of like, yeah, so you guys did a pretty good job of making me feel comfortable and making us feel comfortable. And then, so that made the talking part relatively easy, yeah, but day I was pretty I mean, that was my second talk, plus a museum visit. Yeah, you're pretty wiped out. And contrary to the podcast, I I do get tired of hearing myself talk. And so, yeah, yeah, it was a bit, it was exhausting, but it was good. I had a good time. I think I some of the best conversations we have door, like, if, if there was a mic in the car, you know, I still haven't figured out how you how do you do that? Like, how do you make that? How can you replicate that kind of stuff doing something like this, or, like, in a forum or something? It's hard because, yeah, you know,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, I just know how. I don't know how to do that. Um, I was, I was diving into some interesting scholarship because I had this idea, and this kind of goes along the line of what you you're talking about right now, and it's I said this thing in a meeting to try to get folks to understand, like the complications of of talking to people of a different, I wouldn't say, totally different worldview, but from a different sort of cultural understanding. And I said, you have to, you have to understand the formality, the formalities of agreement, in order to, in order to come to a mutual understanding of, or order to engage properly with with people. And I started investigating that this, this thing, I just said in this meeting to see if there's any research on it, and in particular, I started looking up the formality of of what's the word? The formality of engagement is a is a a small branch of scholarship where it's particularly in anthropology. And this might be familiar to do. But so there's, you know how anthropologists study things, you know, they're always looking at. I don't know what. How would you say they're always looking like, trying to be objective observers of things you know, and look at them. Look at things from from a grand social perspective, I suppose, but they said there's some things that that help in understanding the formality or the informality of engaging in a conversation, and one of those. Something that we're all sort of familiar with, and that's the idea of code switching. You know, where you have to switch on and off, the way you talk, the manner in which you talk, content in which you talk, he's got he's getting his hat backwards and he's rubbing his face. What's going on?

Aaron Brien:

Man, deal with tail you're talking about,

Shandin Pete:

okay, so let me, let love. Let me just shove all that aside and say this, the way we talk on this podcast is has a level of informality.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, I would say it's mostly informal, very informal.

Shandin Pete:

And does this manner of speaking in which we speak, does that occur, or does parts of that occur in a more formal setting?

Aaron Brien:

The way, the way we're talking, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

the way we're talking now, let's say we we're still among a like minded indigenous folks, but the nature of what we're doing is much different. Does the way that we communicate now change?

Aaron Brien:

I think yeah, for most people, it would be different. I would say we're probably, I don't want to act like an elitist, but that might be what makes us a little bit different than most people. My scholarship voice is not much different than what people hear on the podcast, with the exception of, like, a little less smart ass and maybe I don't cuss, but for the most part, how I talk, yeah, how I write, and, and, um, yeah, for the most part, I mean, of course, there's going to be a certain way you're going to speak.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, you can change. You're going to change some word choices

Aaron Brien:

some I think you laugh louder off the podcast. I do you? Yeah, you should you laugh?

Salisha Old Bull:

I mean, well, good at your drums busted.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, there's an easy laugh. You're You're a big laugh like you're comedians dream, you know what I mean? If I was on stage having to throw zingers, and I know I'm going to get Shaun Dean rolling, you know, loud on the podcast, but oh yeah, if I'm hearing you correctly, I think, yes, yeah, most part you're right. You're right. There's like a different Yeah, so are you getting that, that why can't, or how come that doesn't, can't replicate itself? Well,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, I'm trying to tear apart a bit. So the conversation that we might have driving in a car down the road is that even similar to what we're doing right now on on this podcast, it seems a bit different.

Salisha Old Bull:

Yeah, I feel like it's different because, because I was kind of thinking about that. And I think when we're by yourself, we don't have to censor the topic and the things that we're talking about. We don't have to, yeah. You don't have to worry about Yeah, if what we're saying can be said that to Yeah, for everybody, you know, yeah, we just have a general understanding of

Aaron Brien:

but I would say, oh, go ahead. Sorry. I'm sorry. Well, just

Salisha Old Bull:

when you're talking with it's like when you're talking with a friend, like you have a level of confidence and some of the things that you talk about, and sometimes those are not, they can be personal, but sometimes even if they're not personal, it's like you kind of, you kind of get that you're you guys are making me lose my train of thought. You kind of, even if it's not a personal thing, like a TMI thing, yeah, you still know, like what you're talking about is just for you guys. Like, it's not for for it wasn't meant for to be, yeah, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. So we know, we know people are going to be listening to this, right? So we can't go totally, totally open, open mic on it. Even when we're in a car, there's kids in the car, we had to up a little, a little level of, uh, censorship, in a way. So What?

Aaron Brien:

What? I guess everybody knows, like.

Shandin Pete:

All, oh, yeah, yeah. So what we did in this,

Aaron Brien:

you try to calm her down a bit, you know,

Shandin Pete:

you try to sober him up a bit so he's a little less feisty. No. So in this, um, in this session that we did, which we called it a colloquium, which essentially was, uh, sort of a panel, but I think it was a less formal. We had some questions, and we we tried to speak to each other, not to the crowd, about these things that we were investigating. But again, there, we knew we were being listened to. We knew there was a audience. And I guess in a in that sort of way, we, we would sort of cater to what the audience, reactions or not reactions were. And that's, that's sort of that in some way. I don't know if that's a limitation, but it does. It does something different to the way we the way in the manner in which we speak. So if the idea is then, well, how do we capture sort of the the car ride conversation that we feel well, we had some good conversations just sitting eating, eating some dinner, sitting in the car, driving. We got into some deep subject matter. But a lot of that was facilitated by a lot of lot of comedy, things that we found funny, things that happen, so I don't know this like the formality of engaging with the with the crowd. It challenges. It creates a challenge to capture that real, raw, unedited. Conversation. I don't know. I don't know if it's suitable. I don't know if it's suitable.

Aaron Brien:

I mean, we're not talking about, like, inappropriate things most of the time. I feel like what we're talking about might be so niche.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, that's what I mean, yeah, yeah. We're not talking all talking dirty and telling dirty jokes, yeah? But

Aaron Brien:

sometimes, and then almost some of them conversations, especially after this week, they were kind of like therapy sessions in a way. So everybody, you know, but I guess what I talk about is not necessarily the topics, but how the flow happens, and kind of how we don't necessarily have to like, it's nice when you don't have to explain things, yeah, you can just talk to somebody, and it just kind of goes and it's funny, because the episodes that I like and that I've heard people give feedback to me, which it's not like it happens all the time, but, you know, there have been people be like, Oh, I like this episode. Well, actually, episodes where we didn't give a lot of feedback, a lot of background, we just kind of talked, yeah, those people seem to like that with us, like you guys just visit. It's like listening to two people visit, yeah? And I took it granted, because what I realized is visiting is like a skill, yeah? And people don't have that like that. That's like going away. People don't have the ability to visit, yeah, right, right. Like, we don't have to have an agenda or a purpose or we could just talk, you know, yeah, yeah, that's more of the the thing is, like, it's probably not a cultural trait people talk about very much, but visiting is definitely like a cultural thing. It's a, I mean, everyone visits, but, yeah, Indian country, it's like known people visit. But, well,

Salisha Old Bull:

I think there's probably cultural context to it too, though, because I remember that time. I remember what, what we're ever talking about in the past, but, but just thinking, I just have like little snippets, like little air and burn snippets, I can't remember, but anyway, you said, you said, I think you were talking in terms of crows like you, you don't, you don't like, come see like, if you're going to visit somebody, you don't like, hurry up and see them and leave. And then the other thing you said was, you. Not good to show up to visit, but then make the person feel sad, like upon leaving, like making them feel bad or whatever because of the topic of conversation.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, I wouldn't want to bring anybody down. You should leave. Yeah, that was a good visit, you know, kind of my grandma, my dad's debt, mom used to talk like that. Try not to be a burden, you know, like on people. So when you go to their home, what you're going to visit with them about, if you want to just talk about, she never said this to me, but she's, I would think if you want to talk about what just you want to talk about, then you stay home, you know. But you're going to someone's home. They're drinking coffee together, or tea, or whatever. It's a two way street. You just try to visit, you know. Now there are times where I've gone to people's homes because I had a specific reason to talk to that person, like a particular, some certain guidance I needed. That's, that's kind of different, you know? That's you're asking for something, you know? So, yeah, just in general, it's like conversationalist. People who are conversationalist would probably get what I'm saying, like a conversation is, I mean, it really is a skill. I think it's a skill,

Shandin Pete:

agreed, agreed,

Aaron Brien:

or fire. What are you eating? Gold dish, ma'am,

Shandin Pete:

is it flavored? Or is it just your standard, original flavor, the original ma'am, no list, yeah, the traditionalist, yeah, man, yes, that I did. That makes, makes it somewhat difficult and so, so the truth behind these questions and the title of this thing we did, which was, now, I'm gonna read this title now, and I think it's kind of witty, but it wasn't really for us, right? So this was, it was called indigenous, indigenous wisdom, or intellectual tourism, problematizing the use of indigenous knowledge in academia. I mean, that's like a that's, that's a that's an academic title, but say it wasn't for us that. Well, at least that was my thoughts. Okay, this is, this is not for us. This is a title just to get people to show up, to say, Okay, I want to know more about this. I want to show up. So layered in, there is something that is of interest to us, but not specifically that title. And then in addition, the cat, the questions were also not necessarily for us, but we I wanted to use them as a sort of a starting point for us to have a conversation about these important things. And we just happened to let people kind of choose which one they thought was important to them. Then I would try to launch into and guide a conversation about things that were more important to us and and I'm curious. I'm curious, from your perspective, what was, what was the important matter that was discussed, that that was, that was really purposeful for our sort of our understanding. I

Aaron Brien:

I think the overall, it seemed like all the questions, I think we only got through four out of the five, yeah, the theme seemed to be like, Well, no, I take that back. There was a particular question that was asked that I feel like I answered wrong. Okay, and it was the sovereign the first question you asked me was the sovereignty question?

Shandin Pete:

Oh, yeah, that was confusing. I was thoroughly confused by that.

Aaron Brien:

I still don't understand how you were.

Salisha Old Bull:

Wasn't it your question, though, how would you be completely

Shandin Pete:

I'm I don't know the answer to these questions is, is why? And so

Aaron Brien:

they weren't presented in this order, though,

Salisha Old Bull:

the first one was, wasn't it? Number four.

Aaron Brien:

No, it was three. Let

Shandin Pete:

me pull up the, let me pull up the or the original. Read the question. Oh yeah, let me read this. Let me read these questions. But let me pull up, pull them up in the order in which

Aaron Brien:

pick two questions we'll talk. About

Shandin Pete:

him again. Let's do it so you want to do, give

Aaron Brien:

me a chance to do a mulligan.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, let's get back to the questions, and in the order in which they were presented. I thought they were in the same order, though, that

Aaron Brien:

way people who were there, they can listen to this podcast and say, like, maybe Aaron will elaborate on maybe, maybe

Shandin Pete:

he's talking crazy. Okay, here it is. Yeah, here it is. So the first question that was asked or that that we dove into, was when indigenous knowledge is validated by academia. Does it gain legitimacy or lose sovereignty? So

Aaron Brien:

what I should have said, We got stuck on defining sovereignty, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

because that was my that was my question, yeah. But I

Aaron Brien:

would tell you, yeah, it depends on the intent of the research to do with it. Ma'am,

Shandin Pete:

well, yeah, I'm gonna agree. But I mean, even if the intent was, let's Okay, let's make up a scenario say the intent was, was meaningful for any tribe.

Aaron Brien:

Meaningful is a tough word, because I

Shandin Pete:

Okay, let's, let's say that it helps, it helps unravel a mystery or solve a pressing problem in a community of tribal people? Yeah, let's say that that knowledge that's validated by academia is that,

Aaron Brien:

if it's driven, if it's led and driven by that tribe, I think it can be seen as a form of sovereignty,

Shandin Pete:

okay, okay, what? Okay, in terms

Aaron Brien:

of legitimizing or validating being validated by academia, I think it's more a tribe choosing to use academia as a tool for something, yeah, which is very which I think is different than than wanting to be accepted by academia, wanting to live in that circle, yeah tribe, under the tribe's guidance, is using tools that are that are in academics yeah situation, or to win A law case, or to Yeah, to further a pursuit, yeah, that can be seen as a form of sovereignty. Yeah, yeah. We got hung up because you said, let's define sovereignty first. Yeah. When if you remove the word sovereignty from the question sovereignty can be confusing, because it's both a noun and then what's the action word? Verb?

Shandin Pete:

Verb? Sure, let's pretend it's a verb. I think that's right, yeah, it's like an action noun.

Aaron Brien:

I think it's a noun. Okay, so then it gets tricky, because then that's when I said, sovereignty really is the ability to make decisions, right, like an individual ability to make decisions, yeah, and, but I don't believe people have true sovereignty. I don't think it exists. I don't believe it exists cuz we're bound by something that hampers our decision making ability, okay, something that opens us it limits our ability to make decisions. Yeah, that's what I was trying to say,

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, I got that. And that's where I was getting confused, because, because then I thought, well, what, what's what is making us, what is the thing that's making us make decisions? And you said, and you said, like the rules or the tradition or the guidance by social

Aaron Brien:

what's the word? Well, we all know it's wrong to kill people, yeah, but we kill somebody, yeah?

Shandin Pete:

So then, so sovereignty. Sovereignty, then is just, it seemed more complicated than just the the will to make any Well, that's

Aaron Brien:

because I think you're, you're applying tribes and tribal governments to it, yeah, that's part of it. But that's like, just that, the bare bones solvency. It's just the ability to make decisions. I have the ability to make the decisions, and I can make those decisions, yeah, and I. Remember he's taken away. That's a loss of sovereignty. And

Shandin Pete:

I remember in in one episode, we talked about sovereignty, and it's, it's the ability to make both good and bad decisions.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, I think it doesn't, it don't matter positive. It's like, yeah, a tribe has the right to make yes within the boundaries, yeah, the federal government. That's why we're defined as limited sovereignty, or domestic dependent nation. Now people argue that because they're arguing sovereignty as a philosophy, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. That's where I was. That's where I was at because you

Aaron Brien:

can argue it as a philosophy, but you got to be very clear, yeah, sovereignty. So I was philosophy is different.

Shandin Pete:

So I was thinking, was it still sovereignty? If what you're doing is infringing on someone else's sovereignty? And I don't think that matters out.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, you said that, and you said that, and yeah, it took us down a little bit of a different

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Sidebar, yeah, and that's my original

Aaron Brien:

answer. Was like, No, but that's not necessarily the case, because if we look at sovereignty like a muscle, yeah, like, challenge thing that happens all the time, yeah, yeah, what's happening in the Middle East? You could look at what's happening in Russia and the UK, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

So this was so, this is the so I get that, I get that now, yeah. But who like, if we think of it as a noun, are you even as a verb? I guess. Where does it Where does it come from? Where does sovereignty come from? That's,

Aaron Brien:

I think that's too deep for me. Yeah.

Salisha Old Bull:

What do you mean by where does it come from? Because the definition is inherent. I don't think it's tribal. Inherent. Inherent. Remember that the word is, like, nobody gave it to Yeah. So why are you asking where it came from? Well, okay, from nobody. It came from nobody, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Well, well, I Well, I say that because you hear this word often, or this phrase, we're going to lose our sovereignty.

Salisha Old Bull:

You know, I think, like, that. Like, if you put it together and you don't break up the whole context of the question, I can just barely wrap my mind around it, but it's kind of like the unit. Like, if you think about the uniqueness of a first nation or of a tribe? Yeah, they're, they're uniqueness. There's some, some specific things that that define or like, if you want to look at it scientifically, I guess, because if you're looking at it in a political context, you know? Like, that's where that word is mostly used, right? Yes, yeah, in there, but it's being brought into academics because of the radicalism that's being brought into academics. Yeah? So if you think about, if you if everybody's the same. So this is going back to termination, if everybody's the same, there's like no reason to defend, you know, the reason for a tribe to have, well, in the United States, for a tribe to have a their own system of government, like, right? And so going, if you go back to that era of termination, that's kind of the context and, like, the basis that they sort of through, and how they ended up terminating, like that big old group of tribes that they did, you know? Yeah. And so if you think about, if you think about it in that way, part of, part of now moving forward are somehow when, when you're looking at law or policy or whatever, some of those things are based on Reports, and some of those reports originate from large institutions like universities, yeah. And so if the report or the research is not there, then the research they're using is old research, or it's something that's done by somebody who doesn't understand the cultural context, yeah, so I can see, I can see how that being brought into, into the MOOCs. But at the same time, I think what was difficult about that question in the moment was, well, one we. Are sitting in Canada and trying to, trying to be sensitive to the audience at the same time, because you just, you had to be sensitive, yeah, you know. And so you're like, Okay, you're trying to find the best way to because when you think about it, Aaron said it before, is like you grow a resiliency to the way that you're treated as you're growing up. If you grow up in a certain environment,

Shandin Pete:

in your basket of resiliency,

Salisha Old Bull:

yeah, and I guess, in layman's terms, it's you grow a thick skin, right? And, yeah, sometimes it makes you be crass or brash or whatever. You know you don't even, you don't even mean to be that way. It's just, you're just so used to getting treated negatively, even by your own people. You're, you're, yeah, treated negatively, like constantly, that you just grow this weird. And so then when you get in a room that is not like that, you have to be so careful, to be careful how you talk, and you have to be careful how you pick your what are those analogies? And yes, like,

Aaron Brien:

and I think, on top of my upbringing and kind of just all that stuff my job as a preservation officer, and I've said this before on here, that it's a, it's a argument driven work, so you're constantly in a state of, Like, proving your point or whatever. So I've learned a bad habit of being almost too straightforward. So when I when I go back into like academic settings, and people don't work that way, I can be seen as like a rude person or brash or like I don't like it when people are like, Oh, you tell it like it is Aaron, or like I've heard him say, I'm like, well, that's just because I'm saying. It doesn't mean that's the way it is. I'm just loud and obnoxious, you know? But anyway, going back to the sovereignty thing. I The question. I'm the blame on you, shandeen, that the question you posed to me as a sidebar to the overall question took us down a rabbit hole. It did that I wasn't ready for, and I don't think the crowd was ready for because, I think, because I work for tribal government and I and I exercise nation to nation consultation, yeah, view of how sovereignty works as A tribal government is different than what somebody who's um, uh, attending our teaching at a liberal University, might view it, yeah, because I see, I see, I work directly with the problems and the successes of it, you know, yeah, yeah. I see, I know, I know it's not a true sovereignty, and I know, yeah, that how it's thrown around, the terms thrown around, and, yeah. And, of course, if I come out on record and I say, we don't have sovereignty, blah, blah, blah, then I'm like a political leper, you know? Like, yeah. So I think if, if we were to revisit this question about indigenous knowledge, is it validated by academia? Does it gain legitimacy? I think intent has a lot to do with it, and who's leading that that work, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. And the the point I brought up about, about losing sovereignty the way, the manner in which we're speaking about it, is like this, I don't know, I don't know the word you call it, but it's not, it's not a sovereignty that emanates from a framework of of political or policy kind of things, right? The sovereignty that people talk about when they say, Oh, we're going to lose our sovereignty that seems related to like treaty, language, policy between government to government relations, those kind of things, but personal sovereignty or cultural sovereignty, it's far different thing. It seems like you always have the ability to make a choice, but that, again, is also governed by some internal social rules. That's why I think you're saying you can't have you can't have both of them, because they're all sovereignty is governed by some. Thing. So true sovereignty, the purest version of sovereignty, where you just do what you want, whenever you want, however you want, that's governed by, at least, if we're talking about cultural sovereignty, by something so then this question, then is, is kind of doesn't make sense, then, in that particular way, because, I mean, what? What is there to lose if Harvard says, oh, yeah, them, them. Paiutes were right about this plant that grows somewhere, and it's medicinal in some way. What is it? What is what harm does that do?

Salisha Old Bull:

Well, I think the other thing too is and that pick it on the Paiutes with that term, well, no, because that's spot on, because that term, then also is going to that the phrase that everybody uses lately, data sovereignty, yeah, oh, yeah. And in terms of, I think it's like intellectual property or something like that, where, if, if somebody writes it, there's a danger to to that situation. And I think, yeah, the the idea is that because if it's written in within an accredited university, and the person's so this was something I was kind of getting out with Aaron and and the person's going to receive a credential because of this. It changes the whatever is in that paper. You know, there's, there's something about that, because that's how, if you take out the the topic of the of the paper, like so, if the paper is about indigenous research, indigenous anything, you take that all out and just make it a paper about somebody else that's not indigenous, or something else that's not indigenous, that's how those things are utilized, in terms of it's thought or saw as something like In terms of ownership, and you take credit and a very individualistic way of viewing that research. And so, yeah, yeah, that term, I think people are scared about that, because it's even before that. What was it before that? Everybody was scared about those DNA tests, remember, like, 23andme or something, there's like those different tests, but so it was even kind of like a pre moment to the data sovereignty part. So, yeah, so it's the unknown, you know, not knowing what's going to happen to the the information. What is the what right? What right of ownership does the institution have of that information after? It's after you received a credential based off of that? Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. Man, there's a whole thing that I don't quite get about the data sovereignty thing, like I have some issues with it, but I just need, I need to know more before I can jump into speaking of it. What?

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, I don't know nothing about data sovereignty. But are we going to the next question?

Shandin Pete:

Well, let's answer this. Let's definitively answer this in a very simple way,

Aaron Brien:

when they sit around and trying to define sovereignty, yeah, don't have it.

Shandin Pete:

We don't have it because we're trying to figure it out.

Aaron Brien:

Why? Because I think it's like, breathing, right? Yeah, you don't sit around and like, think of oxygen, and you're not trying to define what oxygen is. And yeah, like, you, you don't really acknowledge your lungs and your oxygen tether and danger, yeah, yeah. Then all of a sudden it's a topic. It becomes a topic for somebody, like, right oxygen take around, or they can't breathe, like they're wheezing, there's inhaling,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, yeah,

Aaron Brien:

people who don't have those issues, that's not a topic. Yeah? So if we're sitting around and there's this constant state of trying to define sovereignty, yeah, where people that it's in question, right? Yeah, and the fact that our sovereignty is in question, whether it's individual sovereignty, political sovereignty, data sovereignty, what all of this stuff, yeah, the fact that we feel the need to define it typically means that it's in day. J Right, right, and if I'm wrong, then whatever you know, it's 11 o'clock at night in Montana. Best answers,

Shandin Pete:

you brought the mood down. Way down.

Aaron Brien:

Talk about data sovereignty.

Shandin Pete:

No, I'm not going to talk about it. Now. I do not want to talk about what I want. What I do want to say is, the problem with this question is it assumes that, well, I mean number one, it assumes we understand and know what indigenous knowledge

Aaron Brien:

is and sovereignty and sovereignty. It's assuming that we understand what sovereignty is, and let me

Shandin Pete:

put another and on there, and also that we all agree on the terms of how something is validated. I mean, academia is pretty clear how things are academically validated. Pretty god darn clear for the most part.

Aaron Brien:

That's the problem with academia is because right now, academia is turning into its own thing. Yeah, what people are, developing research, developing topics of studies, developing new work, yeah, all that that can only live within academia. Yeah, yeah, and,

Shandin Pete:

and, and one of the problems that came or the one of the things that came up and when we were discussing this, I think is super important for our our our matters is that we don't really have a great way to validate this wide swath of what in, what counts and what doesn't count as indigenous knowledge, like what is we don't we don't have that, and so it lives in this space of academia that also is governed by its own rules and its own processes that we engage in, and sometimes don't engage in, and it just, it just seems too loose. It's too loose so anybody, and we've seen this, I've, we've, we've witnessed the writing of dissertations that are founded in in indigenous knowledge, indigenous whatever. And there's not one person on the committee that can validate some of the things that these people are saying in in all honesty, there's not people who are traditionalist practitioners of or producers of indigenous knowledge that can put a stamp on and say that on that and say, Yeah, this is right. What you're saying is correct. Yeah, we don't have that.

Aaron Brien:

99.9% of the time. People don't have that luxury, because there's also this problem in academics where indigenous people who hold those positions still find it necessary to fall within those parameters, so they they play the game, yeah, oh, yeah. And so even if you do have a native on there, which is pretty rare, right, right, right on committee, whether it's a he or she, it seems to not matter that yeah, that often times those people, although they're native, are still not people who can look at your work and say, Yeah, you meet the academic criteria for your thesis or dissertation. Yeah. In terms of indigenous knowledge, it lacks in these areas. Yeah. And then it's like, considered a no no to do that, when, in fact, that's a common thing if you mess up. Yeah. When it comes to cultural knowledge, you checked people check yeah, oh yeah, what you said was incorrect. This is what you should have said, and why you should have that. You know, yeah, they're quick to do that. So, oh yeah, this is really what all this stuff is supposed to be for. It's supposed to test your method, supposed to test your knowledge. And it's like we're afraid to do that when it comes to to this indigenous research, or indigenous knowledge. So, on the, on the on the in your, in your, how you? On the poster, it was you. It says problem problematizing. How do you say that?

Shandin Pete:

Problematizing the use of indigenous knowledge in academia? Yeah, right at the bottom there,

Aaron Brien:

one of the biggest problems is that the way we use indigenous knowledge in academics is it's only for academics. It can only live within that, and it's got its own set of rules. It's It's its own culture. So we're trying to make this thing work for whatever purpose. We don't, we don't know now, because academics are their own monster, it legitimizes people, yeah, beliefs that aren't authorized, yeah, and that's real and like, people don't want to talk about it because it's offensive. But there's people who've made their name in academics, Native people, yeah, and non native people. People that are considered experts in their field, yeah, indigenous people, indigenous research, who've made their name, not in those communities, but rather just in indigenous academics, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, yeah.

Aaron Brien:

I'll be the first to admit that I don't think this is isolated to any individuals or communities, because I don't want to, like, just point people out. But I would even say that it's like eras and growth. Yeah, that even you and I for Yeah, I would like to think we're both connected, and say, least just connected. But you go through stages where you're trying to do what you're supposed to do in academics? Yeah, and you're and you're forced to make a decision to say, am I going to continue to do this, or am I going to figure it? Am I going to generate some sovereignty and do this on my own? But I do think there was a time in my work where I I had to, like, do a lot of self reflection and think, yeah, this doesn't feel right. Yeah, yeah, and, and so I think it's totally within reason for a community to, like, Shut somebody down, oh, yeah, and, but it seems like we're, we're not allowing that.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, it gets it gets tricky in, in, in public spaces, I guess. And academia, academia seems like a public space kind of like, you know, like when you go to a powwow and your drunk uncle shows up and everybody just lets him dance for a while. You know, they're not going to harass him to let him go. You know it's not, but if he gets starts getting out of hand, tribal cop, take him out of there. You first, you try, first you

Aaron Brien:

you get the one. Yeah, bossy, and she's like, out down to leave, yeah. Then he starts crying. Well, I wanted to bring up something that, oh, okay, okay, okay, and I don't want you to get worried. I'm not gonna see any names, but you sent me a video. You have a particular group of people who are respected, like really respected singers. Yeah, I'm not gonna give context to this, though, so I want people tracking it down. Okay? These people in the singing world are pretty respected individuals, right? Sure, the video you sent me was of them singing right along with the Rock Band, which is fine, that's cool. I've even done that, yeah, but they were singing on the beat, yeah? So to me, that's where it like, it stepped over the line a little bit, yeah? It was like, yeah, it's not my style anymore to, like sing along with a blues band or whatever. And I admit, I did that before. Like, I've done that. I've tried, like, to do, like, the fusion stuff, yeah? And, but what I would never do is sacrifice the integrity of my own singing, where I'm like, if somebody said, Well, we want you to sing on the beat, because the This music is in this timing and it's on the beat. No, it's not going to happen, because that's not the way you're supposed to sing, right? Yeah? So to me, that's how research is, like academic research, it's like, there is almost an allowance with, with the performative part of it and the hokiness and the cheesiness there's like, sometimes you can't avoid it, right? Yeah? Because, like, in all things are sacred, right? So how do you say that in a way that's not cheesy sometimes? Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, it seems to be a threshold. Are my boogers sacred? Yeah?

Aaron Brien:

Well, if they're yours, then

Salisha Old Bull:

if they're yours.

Aaron Brien:

But it seems like yeah, I get to me Yeah. Every topic has a threshold, yeah, where there's a point in which you need those people to check you Yeah, and like, I don't want to act like I'm pointing out certain people. I'm just saying in that setting, regardless of what the setting is to me, I know for a fact I would have said, No, I'm not going to sing on the beat, because that's yeah, the incorrect waves, yeah. In fact, as a singer, my whole singing life, I've tried to avoid that. It's like the thing. It's like the Yeah, yeah. It's the singer's worst nightmare is to, like, sing a crow hop and then get on the beat, and then you're stuck, and you're like, trying to get out

Shandin Pete:

the beat. Oh, so awkward. So awkward. Or, like, when the when the one guy leads who's kind of not, you know, it's kind of bit a bit green. Everyone has to

Aaron Brien:

wait that one extra beat. Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

he's, yeah. Starts, he starts to lead on the beat, or he does the downbeat on the beat, on the wrong beat. Yeah? It's just, ah, so hard, so hard to do. Yeah?

Aaron Brien:

So since I'm triggered now, okay, that, to me, is a form of validation, like there was a form of validation they were looking for to be a part of the scene, a part of the scene, or whatever it is, yeah, and, and what I'm saying is, I think it's totally okay to use academics. I think it's totally okay to live in that world, to even stay in that world for a long time that I don't think there's anything wrong with it. The part which you reach that threshold, you have to be very self aware and confidence in the work you're doing, to be willing to go past that threshold, or to be willing to say, this is the this is my point. So that means that everything I do from this point, this is I've now reached my limit, in terms of when it it goes from good work to like you're just doing too much now it's just too much. It's like you can't be that way, like you gotta check yourself. So yeah, yeah, I think that's a hard question. When you think about it, it's like,

Shandin Pete:

it is really it? What is point

Aaron Brien:

for every everybody's different. So that's why I still believe indigenous research is not a methodology. I think it's a philosophy, and it's even like individual philosophy, because I don't think it exists as a method yet.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. I mean, for sure, as a as as a methodology, it seems to be there aren't some constraints that make sense yet. I mean, you can say, you know, you can say, well, the methodology is, is part of it is that all things are sacred. Wow, that's too broad. I mean, that's just somewhat broad, you know, or all things are related. That's the methodological stance of indigenous research, and said, Well, that's good, but it doesn't help me choose a method.

Aaron Brien:

No, it doesn't help me choose a method. Great sentiment. It's a good sentiment, yeah, and it's a competitive philosophy, or is it completely inaccurate? It's kind of in the middle. It's not a completely inaccurate statement. No, a simplified form of a complex belief system, yeah, that you can't define using, like, not necessarily using English words and yeah, levels and, you know, so yeah.

Shandin Pete:

And I think some people would, yeah, cool. Well, I was

Aaron Brien:

just going to say the moment in which you sacrifice that too, where you say, Well, I can say this in English right here, everything's sacred. Then I could just leave it there, knowing that that's not a complete accurate statement. It's not completely inaccurate. And the moment I don't want to explain that, then maybe that's the moment of like. That's kind of a form of selling out. That's kind of a form of like, yeah, man, represent the idea. Then, if I don't want to explain it, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. It's a, it's a, it seems exploitive. It's almost like when it's almost like, when people say, this is exploitive. An elder told me. An elder told me, without telling you who the elder. I mean, the word elder in itself is problematic. But you know, when they don't want to name the source, it's it's problematic. It's an exploits, it exploits people's ignorance.

Aaron Brien:

And then there's even a difference in indigenous knowledge. When it's like this is what I learned from these people. This is what my opinion of what I learned from these people. That's different. My opinion is different than what was taught to me. So like, but I noticed there's people in indigenous research that will ponder opinions off as that form of indigenous knowledge, they'll say, Oh, this is learn from them, and this is what I made of it. Well, that's not that even limits those things. So you look at like, you guys have coyote stories. We have old man coyote stories. Those are like. They're not limited to a like, a protagonist and a moral. And like, they function different, right? Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, it's not, it's not a fable.

Aaron Brien:

So that's why they can be heard all 1000 times, and each time they can be used different ways. So like, to me, that's, that's like, some me publishing this is what this old man called story means. Then it's like, well, then I made it that thing now, when really that's not how their function works, you know, yeah, yeah. And I'm not saying you can't have your opinion in indigenous research. I think it just has to be clearly stated. This isn't a this is. Is what I've gathered from the knowledge that was given to me, which is what you should be doing in any form of research. Anyway. Should be, but you should be. You shouldn't be made a young researcher shouldn't be making statements like, this is what my tribe believes in. Yeah, then where did you get that from? Yeah, yeah. Variations exist in a tribe. Did you learn it? Oh, my maternal grandfather, whatever, who it was? Yeah, born to cite, where you got it from? Yeah. And we can't shame people either from learning things from, like, archival sources. And that's a weird thing happening, where it's almost like you're not allowed to learn from books, or you're not allowed to learn that's crazy too, because that's, it's just where we're at, right? You should

Shandin Pete:

learn from the mountains. Yeah, go to the mountains. That's where knowledge is. Oh,

Aaron Brien:

I mean, yeah, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Anyway, right, like, Yeah, it's fun. It's peaceful. Up there. You know, it's peaceful. Hang out. Everyone should

Aaron Brien:

go to the mountains, yeah? So I don't know. So that was that one question. So, yeah, that was, there was two that I kind of stood on. Okay, let's look at it again. And the other one was the window dress scene one. Oh, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

okay, let's look at it again, indigenous knowledge or intellectual window dressing. How do we keep academia from just playing indigenous that was the second one I think we chatted about. So

Aaron Brien:

I've changed. I kind of changed my stance on this. So this is what I said, what I thought, okay, words, okay. That's the only way indigenous knowledge can exist within academia. Is window dressing. That's the only way, okay, cuz it can't fully ever get it. Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

okay, yeah, yeah. I get

Aaron Brien:

what you're saying. Passer by knowledge all the time, yeah. So what I think the only way to combat that is to reduce and narrow the questions. So what are we asking of indigenous knowledge we gotta get out of this. Like, what does it mean to you to be indigenous? Like, these really broad like, Yeah, huge swaths of like, this is what it means. Like, yeah. The only way to make things worthwhile, I think, is to start being specific. You know, gotta be. You have to be because, yeah, if we just acknowledge the fact that this window dressing idea can't go away because academic institutions in in their overall concept for every student is window dressing. They're only there for a short time. Yeah, so there's no way that any academic program is going to fully understand any indigenous knowledge system, because if I don't, and I feel like I'm a practitioner of it, if I don't fully understand it, there's no way that any institution will no matter how liberal they are. Yeah, and so the other thing was, because of that response, it almost seems like their only avenue of indigeneity is to be playing it, yeah, because I don't know how. I don't know how you fully encompass our beliefs and world views, concepts, philosophies, if you fully understand it, and then how does it manifest itself in that academic setting? I don't know how that would happen. I just my brain, so I sat on this, and I kind of thought about it, and I'm like, I answered that question wrong. I don't even remember how I answered it, because it was the last question I think we asked. But I just don't know how it's possible.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, I think you're right. And I wrestle with the same, the same issue as well, that you know, if you take, if you take any, if you try to take any, any pathway of to knowledge, out of context, out of its context, it loses. It gets lost. It gets lost because it

Aaron Brien:

has no other option.

Shandin Pete:

Or, or, or it doesn't, it doesn't become lost. Or, I guess another way is if it doesn't become lost, it becomes static, becomes frozen, and it's not really, it doesn't serve the same purpose because it's been taken out of the context in which it was generated. Because, to me, knowledge, knowledge is a it ought to be considered a living thing, and it needs continually, it needs to be continually fed data to continue to refine. And its purpose, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that that's this. It just seems to be make sense. So I think you're right. I It's hard to take if what I think of as true indigenous knowledge from what we see in our communities, that that can't be put into academics. It just can't it just, there's just no way. So I think God's

Aaron Brien:

sense not enough. No, we're asking these questions of, like, that's why it's, if you're going to do it, it's important to like,

Shandin Pete:

yeah and yeah. And I think that's why there's been attempts to try to attach a sort of, like a ceremonialism or a tradition to academics, that sort of mimics where some of these come, where these knowledges are produced. But it just, it just doesn't that's dangerous man, that that's

Aaron Brien:

dangerous a lot of reasons. Yeah, but what it's also, it's ignorant, because, yeah, the majority of native people aren't practitioners. Yeah. So then to use a analogy, or to use a method of ceremonialism and research isn't going to make sense to people anyway. So now what you're doing is you're it's like a form of money laundering, where you're like, Yeah, watching dollars. And now, you know, people are getting that other four it's, it's the clean daughter dollars they're getting, you know, where everybody that's a practitioner. We have to deal with all of it. We have to deal with all of it and live amongst all of it. And so now, when people go to these academic institutions, and they get this weird, filtered version of it. That's what they're bringing back to their communities. But because of their acquisition of their degrees and credentials, it places them in positions of authority. So then they become the, the spokesman of those things. Yeah, and so then now that younger people come up and see them as the official of that thing, so then it's just creating this diluted thing that's happening. Yeah, because we're not constantly doing this self checking thing, we're not bringing what we learned back to those people saying, This is what I learned, and this is what I think. What do you guys think? And then they say, You're full of shit. But then I take that, and I say, alright, where am I full of shit at show me. Then they show me. Then it's my job to fix it, yeah. But because I already defended my thesis, I already wrote my capstone paper, there's no need for me to fix it. So then I'm like, why already got what I needed? Yeah? And there seems to be this thing happening where, when you watch people, when you're in it, when you're in academics, it's hard to see it, because you're like, struggling, right? Because school's hard, yeah? But now I've been out long enough, and I've seen people go through and come out the other side, yeah, and I've seen the way communities react to them? Oh yes. And so then I'm like, that's almost like, where it should be studied. It's like, well, what happens to them right after, you know, and how's

Shandin Pete:

so, I don't know.

Aaron Brien:

I'm struggling guys.

Shandin Pete:

No, there's, there's a lot of truth in in what you just said. It's, it's something that, like I said, I wrestle with often, and I try to guide the people I work with, and the influence that I can impart in academics to to to get a higher resolution of understanding of what, at least for an indigenous scholars, what what indigenous, not indigenous knowledge is, but for the non indigenous folks, for them to understand, sort of the boundaries of how, how useful and not useful it is, and not, not to to blur those boundaries. But I mean that that one's sort of easy, like dealing with non Indigenous people and understanding this, that's sort of easy, because they're, they're arm lengths away, you know, they could say, yeah, that's wrong. Don't do that. And they just, they trust and, believe me, I guess, but,

Aaron Brien:

and they're always going to be arm lengths away, yeah, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

It's, it's the, it's the internal struggle that's, that's, it's very delicate. You know, the indigenous scholar is a delicate creature, and and they are, they're sensitive, yeah, and you can't, you can't, you can't treat them like a community member in your community.

Aaron Brien:

No one next way it's presented to us there, it's presented like this indigenous indigenous scholarship.

Salisha Old Bull:

It's a it's a conflicting situation, because that message of getting educated is an old message, you know, and it's not so on the one hand, if you have a community that you're. Or you're going back to and in the back of their minds, they know that they seen you grow up, and they encouraged you to go to way to school, and then you come back, it kind of throws them off a little bit when you came back, but you're coming back to do a research because I don't know if they were necessarily intending on being the research subject after they told you to go to school. Yeah, yeah. But then the I had a I had a thought with something along the line of, like, your personal values. Your personal values have a lot to do with that confliction, you know, because you, your personal values are not aligning with, you know, the institution in itself and and that's, that's already a challenge. But then there's a point, like, when you, when you come back and you, it changes you. You know, you're not the same. It changes you. And I think there's like, there's something mysterious about it that I just, I just had it in my mind, but it's like you, you're like this anomaly of a person. It's like you're, you're all of a sudden, you're all knowing, but at the same time, nobody, nobody wants to, nobody wants you to come around, but at the same time they do, and then they they need your material, because then all of a sudden, everybody needs to do a lesson plan with your new work, your new work as a lesson plan. So it's like this, give and take, and also, yeah, there's more to it. I'll have to remember what I was just thinking just now, but you become like this weird creature or something school. Yeah, it's

Shandin Pete:

like you've dressed yourself up. You dressed yourself up with the Oh, I

Salisha Old Bull:

remember. Oh no, I remember what I was just thinking. I don't think this concept, this concept, I think so here's the weirdest idea, and it's kind of a rabbit hole. I couldn't say every tribe, but I could say there's a lot of instances where this happens. And we've had somebody, you guys have had a guest before who had this experience, but they're not indigenous. They're clearly not indigenous, and clearly just enlightened by the idea of of this new life experience. And they're really open minded. Anyway, in most cases, this is like a white person, right? Who comes, yeah, and they make all these friends with all these and your guys's word, all these practitioners, and they start hanging out. And they get these, they get to have all these life experiences such as taking a sweat or something like that, you know, well, get it, yeah, I don't know what it is. Yeah, I feel like somebody might have a story about this and could explain this. There's probably some weird coyote story that explains the situation, but I don't know why it is. But why is it that person who then becomes fluent in the language, like, in a year, like in one year, all of a sudden they can just, like, converse with, like, the oldest person on the res, and they're laughing and joking and in the language, and you're like, What the hell I've been taking these languages classes for all my life, and I can't make one sentence. Anyways, anyways, anyways, there's a word. There's a word. And so my thinking is going along the lines like, if there's a word for this, I feel like this is a related word, because I remember one time, just for the sake of, like, not talking about people, I remember hearing this older lady one time call the the white person in the group, sleuth, yeah, like it was like, a a word for that person that represented like, but they were like, accepted into, like, the social, the social construct. Like it was like they were, like, always a part of the situation. And it kind of reminds me of, like, how we have this changed, this change. It's almost like a thing that's turned around, like, maybe somebody who goes to school and comes back and and they become this different. Person, you know, they become this part of the social construct where, you know, we have a lot of expectation on that person. But I think it gets real. The conflict in it all is like our relatives think that, Oh, you're going to go to school and you're going to come back and you're going to help the tribe, but the the reality is, I'm not sure if that's really what they mean, like when they told you to go to school, because when you come home, you come home and there's like, nowhere to work. They

Shandin Pete:

don't want you. Like, oh, we thought we got rid of you. We should go work in Missoula. Maybe we need to make

Salisha Old Bull:

a word. Maybe we need to make a word for the for for that type of person who just gets kind of put on the outskirts of everything. But yeah, they're, yeah, everybody needs their dissertation in order to to carry on. I

Shandin Pete:

think it's a I think it's a strange, it's just like, it's a strange mix of things and but I think it comes down to, well, at least in my opinion, how we validate people and their expertise? You know, we've, we've sort of adopted because of the the governance structure that we have and the need to have people who can, manage programs and those kind of things. Do we need people with skills that are not found in indigenous communities or in tribal communities, like you don't, you don't go off and grow up and learn, you know, grant management that's just something you don't you don't get, you know, just grown up native, you don't get that. So you got to get some credentials to do those kind of things. So there's, there's a sort of expectation that, okay, go off and let those folks validate some, not something for you, that in the form of a degree or diploma. But in the meantime, if you're not, if you're not doing the thing to maintain yourself in a, in a in a traditional, in a traditional or customary sense among your people, then you sort of lose your you don't get validated. You don't get validated to be a person who can do that thing that's outside of the tribe and the thing continue to still do that thing that's inside the tribe. So it's almost like you need, and it, I don't know that's true anywhere you go with in humanity, is you gotta, you gotta play, you gotta play a game that that meets, meets two needs often. And if you're if you're letting one slack, or you've never had one, then it becomes somewhat challenging. But then that that gets really mixed up, though, because if you look at most people, a lot of tribes. I I'm not going to say which tribe or where, but a lot of the top positions are filled by people who don't have that internal cultural validation. That's just a guess, but it seems to be remain true. People who are at the top of the programmatic food chain are not practitioners of tradition. That's kind of a bold statement, and it's probably not true for everybody. But

Aaron Brien:

just by the nature say that even in in most councils are not people who are practitioners. Yeah. In fact, when you do meet people and councils who are it's kind of a rarity, yeah? Um, there seems to be some weird little uptick, at least in Montana, of people in council who are at least advocates of culture, yeah, which is even, even different than in the past, you know, yeah, knowledge enough to advocate for Yeah, to at least not get in the way. Yeah, yeah, because

Shandin Pete:

we've seen that. We've seen a lot of that getting in the way, but think they're advocating, but just getting in the way. Yeah,

Aaron Brien:

yeah.

Shandin Pete:

So I think that's a huge thing. This the idea of validating knowledge and where or validating expertise is a huge thing. What's it going to say? Aaron, I

Aaron Brien:

was going to say it's 1137

Shandin Pete:

let, let's revisit, let's revisit these, some of these remaining questions in a, in a, in a subsequent episode. And we'll, we'll try to break them down a bit more. Yeah, I'm glad

Aaron Brien:

I got to. I wanted to, so those two questions were kind of bothering me. So you wanted to vent. I wanted to, I wanted to do a have a do over, but I'm blaming the first one on you, because you started talking about sovereignty, then I got sidetracked, and yeah,

Shandin Pete:

I did it because I was confused. And I'm this what we talked about today clarifies it a bit more for me. Now I was trying to get to that clarification. Then. So sorry, man, sorry, I spoiled your trip. Okay, sorry. Yeah, cool, man, let's cut it off there. Then and then, um, let's talk about it some more. Man, is I'm not going to talk about these other questions or not. I don't mind,

Aaron Brien:

I don't mind. We don't have to. Yeah, we'll see if we're in the mood. I

Shandin Pete:

don't know mood, yeah, I want to. I want to. I want to listen to the audio of our, of our session, and see if there's something in there that we might want to revisit also, but, but let's just like anything. Let's not make too many plans for what's next.

Aaron Brien:

Okay, that sounded sad, but I know

Shandin Pete:

we're not supposed to leave something

Aaron Brien:

to look forward to.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, let me revise that. Yeah, man, let's talk about that. It's going to be cool, dude, what a great suggestion. You're a swell guy. Okay, all right, that's enough. I'm gonna stop this recording. Then we're done. Yeah, yeah, you

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Aaron Brien

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Shandin Pete

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