Decolonizing academia and indigenous studiesIn the Western academic environment, there is such a thing as an indigenous scholar. Sometimes I think that I have no right to deal with indigenous cultures. I am Russian, from Moscow in particular, I come to Chukotka, and this situation is a priori colonial. The more indigenous scholars there are, the better, because it is the indigenous scholar who can understand what an outsider cannot understand, who have great social capital that an outsider will never have, and knowledge of the language (most often). Then the thought occurred to me that it is wrong to divide scholars into indigenous and non-indigenous. I was constantly in a painful internal dialogue with myself about this. What is your opinion on this issue?Many people are now thinking about working with people outside their own group, ethnic or otherwise. In Helsinki I work in the indigenous studies department, and I am very glad that I can focus on indigenous research methodology.
But it’s not that simple. Probably, for all non-Tyvans I’m just a Tyvan, but when I find myself in Tyva, I understand that there are so many identities that it’s not easy to feel like you belong to a specific group. In the west of Tyva I am always a southern Tyvan, in the south of Tyva I am always a Tyvan from a specific small place with my own family history.
And even in my family, my insider-outsider positions are constantly changing, not only with men, but even with women, because we have different experiences. During the day I talk about horses with men (and among them I am an outsider, as a woman), and at night I talk with women—about family matters, children, everyday life, and with them, I am also not quite at home.
Do you ever feel like you’re paid special attention in academic settings as an indigenous researcher, that you may be invited to a conference or a collective publication solely as an indigenous researcher?I have received invitations to take part in events where the stated topic is related to indigenous peoples. Apart from me, there were no indigenous authors or speakers. And then I began to worry: why were they calling me? But I wouldn't say it’s a particularly difficult experience. In 2017, I met
Sven Haakanson at a conference. He is an Alutiiq [member of the Alaska Native people. — Ed. note], an anthropologist from the University of Washington. And so we discussed how to do research together with our people and for the benefit of our people. The Tyvan people help me in my work, and they have the same motive: to help their people, preserve knowledge or share it.
Does it ever seem to you that this is nothing more than pretty words? That anthropology never helps anyone and the researchers who say that it does people good are simply flattering themselves? It doesn’t do these people any good, it’s published in English, so none of the participants will read the studies.Just today I was thinking about
Natasha Fijn, an Australian anthropologist working in Mongolia. And she wrote about another field school in Mongolia for students from an Australian university. I thought it was wonderful. Natasha did her thesis on Mongolia, worked with herders, now she is the head of the center for Mongolian studies at her university in Australia and is actively involved in cultural and scientific cooperation between two countries.
This is a very positive example. And there needs to be more people like Natasha. She speaks Mongolian, published a book in Mongolia—not even a scientific work, a children’s book.
But such cases are rare. You’re right, what good does it do the people when someone comes over, collects data from them, publishes it in different languages, and then never returns? I hope this bad practice becomes obsolete. And this is where indigenous studies departments help, because they are trying to develop research protocols in collaboration with Indigenous peoples.
Indigenous New Zealand scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith says that any research is by default colonial, that you’re coming from a different place with different levels of opportunity—medical, informational, financial. You ask questions, and a question is always a demand. Even if you ask the most polite questions, you’re still demanding a response, you anticipate it. I sometimes break down internally because I realize that any participatory, ethically verified anthropology is colonial, there is no escape.I should say that I travel to Tyva using money from a Finnish foundation and represent a Finnish university. And yes, inequality immediately accumulates here, of course. And I, too, break down internally, and then try to build myself up again.
What do we do then? Stop doing research? I think that research still needs to be done. We have to acknowledge that research is inherently collaborative and researchers depend on their collaborators from Indigenous communities. We need to make sure that the interests of our collaborators are also secured and that we, the researchers, aren’t the only ones getting paid for being part of the same research project. But there needs to be some kind of equal conditions.
I also have internal discomfort. That’s why it was no coincidence that in the first year of my field work I went to my native area specifically, because it was more comfortable for me to ask people for help there. Because these were my kin, close, distant—absolutely the entire region there is made up of relatives to one degree or another. And since my parents were the first from our village who moved to the city, who had their own house there, many relatives from my father’s and mother’s villages lived with us, stayed with us, the children of relatives studied in Kyzyl and lived with us.
That is, the first time I went, I felt comfortable and I continued this relationship built by my parents. And the second time, I began to think: how many times can I come to people like this, ask for help, and even bring foreign colleagues with me? So that they would accept not only me, but also my colleagues, so that they would help not only me, but also them.