A research and expository notebook by Orest Kinasevych
“Indeed, through this article, in the Western academic sense, we see technology, adaption and adoption, synthesis and innovation by the Chickasaw Nation. But those from Native communities, including this author, see self-determination in praxis. Language is a matter of cultural survival.” (p 302)
“Listening to, or reading, authentic Indigenous stories means you are accessing different cultures. Please don’t forget that. Sometimes, what you are reading simply will not make sense to you because you lack the cultural context.” (p 98)
References used in presentation at Graduate Students Conference on Indigenous Knowledge and Research in Indigenous Studies, 2018.
“All things considered, it may be the central assumption of technological society that there is virtue in overpowering nature and native peoples.” (p 6)
“The case for studying endangered languages is very strong on linguistic grounds. It is often enormously strong on humanitarian grounds as well. But it would be self-serving of linguists to pretend that this is always the case. … We should always be sensitive to the concerns of the people whose language we are studying. But we should not assume that we know what is best for them.” (p 810)
“… the families’ supporters argue for the importance of valuing traditional healing practices as fundamental cultural values that ought to be preserved and respected no matter what Western medicine might favour or predict.” (p 69)
“Since adaptability is inevitable, the original culture makes the best of things, as we will see in the example of the Cherokee and mobile technologies.” (p 243)
“Enculturation. The process of learning a culture is called enculturation. The enculturation process usually progresses in stages; six-year-olds are more enculturated than three-year-olds, teenagers have almost completed the process and in many cases are under the impression that they have, which can be a source of tension between them and fully enculturated individuals.” (p 229)
“The closest one can come to understanding Japanese time is to approach via the route of MA. MA is time-space. … in the West we pay particular attention to the arrangement of objects, and in Japan it is the arrangement of the spaces — the intervals, MA — that are attended. In speech this means that it is the silences between words that also carry meaning and are significant.” (p 208)
“According to Fuentes, our denial of the past has led to the degradation of morality and the denial of the lessons of the past. Denial of the rights as well as the reality of other cultures is another of the consequences of Western time concepts.” (p 201-202)