{"id":431,"date":"2023-01-23T15:53:30","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T23:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/?p=431"},"modified":"2023-02-12T14:48:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-12T22:48:54","slug":"can-we-have-this-conversation-without-classification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/can-we-have-this-conversation-without-classification\/","title":{"rendered":"Can We Have This Conversation Without Classification?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u00a0When reading \u201c<em>Decolonizing Methodologies\u201d<\/em>\u00a0by Tuhiwai Smith (2012), it provides a great starting point in acknowledging the contrast between so called western science and Indigenous ways of knowing. One of her critiques of western science is the \u201cposition that applies views about how the natural world can be examined and understood to the social world of human beings and human societies\u201d (p. 44). This view is shared by Appiah (2019) as he states in the 1800\u2019s \u201cscholars began to think of human beings as part of nature in a way that meant we could be classified, like other animals and plants, by genus and species\u201d (p. 112). My interpretation is of a researcher observing the behavior of an animal species and then taking a similar approach to people of a particular identity in society. Consequently, this observed behavior can then be applied to those who all share this identity. So, what is my concern? Well, despite raising awareness of decolonization efforts, such generalizations and classifications appear to persist. To illustrate, depending on one\u2019s interpretation, references to western science or western society can group a whole assortment of people together into one category whether based on geographic location, or on race. For instance, in critiquing this classification, Appiah (2016) states how this \u201clumps a whole lot of extremely different societies together, while delicately carving around Australians and New Zealanders and white South Africans, so that \u201cwestern\u201d here can look simply like a euphemism for white.\u201d And this point could be levelled at references to Indigenous people too as according to Amnesty International (n.d.) \u201cthere are 476 million Indigenous people around the world and spread across more than 90 countries.\u201d So, to classify a population spread around the world on the experiences of one Indigenous author would sound very colonial, wouldn\u2019t it? Now of course I\u2019m not leveling this point at Tuwihai Smith, she is most aware of \u201cIndigenous peoples as an international group\u201d (p. 20), it is more the risk I see in practitioners oversimplifying the classification of large groups of people. Specifically, this idea that a one size fits all approach works when engaging with anyone of a certain group, which of course would not work. So, while I found Tuhiwai Smith (2012) educational and thought provoking, how does one define complex systems of knowing without colonial forms of classification?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Appiah, K. A. (November 9, 2016). There is no such thing as western civilisation. <em>The Guardian<\/em>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/nov\/09\/western-civilisation-appiah-reith-lecture\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/nov\/09\/western-civilisation-appiah-reith-lecture<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Appiah, A. (2019).&nbsp;<em>The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity<\/em>. Liveright Publishing Corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012). <em>Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples<\/em>. Bloomsbury Academic &amp; Professional. <a href=\"http:\/\/ebookcentral.proquest.com\/lib\/royalroads-ebooks\/detail.action?docID=1426837\">http:\/\/ebookcentral.proquest.com\/lib\/royalroads-ebooks\/detail.action?docID=1426837<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0When reading \u201cDecolonizing Methodologies\u201d\u00a0by Tuhiwai Smith (2012), it provides a great starting point in acknowledging the contrast between so called western science and Indigenous ways of knowing. One of her critiques of western science is the \u201cposition that applies views about how the natural world can be examined and understood to the social world of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cals-503"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter.jpeg",569,460,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter-300x243.jpeg",300,243,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter.jpeg",569,460,false],"large":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter.jpeg",569,460,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter.jpeg",569,460,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter.jpeg",569,460,false],"boardwalk-featured-image":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter.jpeg",569,460,false],"boardwalk-hero-image":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter.jpeg",569,460,false],"boardwalk-logo":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1078\/2023\/01\/butter-119x96.jpeg",119,96,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Niall","author_link":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/author\/nmurray\/"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"\u00a0When reading \u201cDecolonizing Methodologies\u201d\u00a0by Tuhiwai Smith (2012), it provides a great starting point in acknowledging the contrast between so called western science and Indigenous ways of knowing. One of her critiques of western science is the \u201cposition that applies views about how the natural world can be examined and understood to the social world of&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/nmurray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}