"I Got to Know Them in a New Way": Rela(y/t)ing Rhizomes and Community-Based Knowledge (Brokers') Transformation of Western and Indigenous Knowledge

Cult Stud Crit Methodol. 2014 Apr 1;14(2):179-193. doi: 10.1177/1532708613516428.

Abstract

Drawing on three culturally specific research projects, this paper examines how community-based knowledge brokers' engagement in brokering knowledge shaped the projects' processes. Informed by Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) conceptualization of the "rhizome," we discuss how community knowledge brokers' engagement in open research-creation practices embrace the relational foundation of Indigenous research paradigms in contrast to mainstream Western research practices that are engaged as linear, objective, and outcome-oriented activities. In turn, we offer propositions for building team environments where open research-creation practices can unfold, informing a periphery of shared space for Indigenous and Western paradigms.

Keywords: decolonizing the academy; ethnicity and race; indigenous approaches to knowledge; methods of inquiry; non-Western epistemologies; pedagogy.