A research and expository notebook by Orest Kinasevych
“I am suggesting that the level of complexity and sophistication in which major events were witnessed in our communities demands that these oral histories and stories be reconceptualized and viewed as primary sources.” (p 244)
“Simply, Native writers write about more than resistances to colonialism. To use Womack’s metaphor, European invasion of our territories is a branch on the tree, albeit a heavy one, but ultimately only a branch.” (p 305)
“Identifying, at the outset, the location from which the voice of the researcher emanates is an Aboriginal way of ensuring that those who study, write, and participate in knowledge creation are accountable for their own positionality.” (p 97)
“There is also the added pressure from human rights legislation and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. What these legal instruments recognize is that Indigenous peoples are not the enemies of Canadian civilization, but are, and have always been, essential to its very possibility.” (p 201)
“I mean, it would be a bit off to deliberately keep calling someone ‘Susie’ when she’s asked you to call her ‘Susan,’ right?” (p 8)
“… from about the year 1000 on, scholastic or analytic reading increasingly replaced the older, slower, subvocalizing rumination of monastic reading, transforming the page ‘from a score for pious mumblers into an optically organized text for logical thinkers.'” (p 11)