Wisdoms

I am indebted to my Métis kin that created a space in their lives and experiences for me to come to an understanding of Métis experiences in/with/through the city. In order for people to share in such a way trust is so deeply important. Trust is built through creating and maintaining safe places where thoughts and feelings are received so gingerly as to not deter anyone from sharing and growing. Although I am the primary researcher of this inquiry, I spent a lot of time listening and receiving in the best way I knew how. I would share last even if it meant not sharing my photos. This was important to me as I knew this might be build trust. From the first moments that potential kins contacted me I was being influenced. The interactions provided reflections which later contributed the wisdoms of this work. Influences, as I understand, are moments of potential fusion, moments where I get caught by a story, feeling, or thought that lingers with me and does not pass until I have acknowledged and invested energy into having a relationship with it. Influences flow from and through relationships; they commingle together in the moments of shared dialogue, and they too, commingle off the page; they interact and are relational to one another. As influences flow through relationships and are worn in our lived experiences, they become widsoms (Makokis., et al. 2020). As Lee Maracle (2015) articulates so beautifully, “our medicine is gathered from experience of our falls from the path from the discoveries of the medicines that revitalize the remembering required of us to return to our responsibilities and hold up the knowledge gained from those historical moments” (p. 12). Wisdoms help us to understand our experiences, to discern miyo pimatisiwin – how to live a good life.

The wisdoms that are shared here are guided and held responsible to the original research questions — how do Métis individuals born and raised in urban environments re-construct, affirm, and express their Métis self-understandings in the city; how do our self-understandings situate within a collective?; how do they contribute to individual and collective well-being?; do these self-understandings enable us to live well and flourish in the city? The lynchpin of this work addresses how Métis individuals, born and raised in urban environments, express their Métis self-understandings. I have walked with these questions in my mind and heart; the wisdoms articulated are what the stories have told me in relation to these important questions.

The wisdoms that are shared in the following sections begin with the learnings from the research inquiry, then from ni’wahkoomowak (my relatives). After those sections, I share my learnings through a relational understanding, while keeping in mind these are not separate categories but are all interconnected. I know that wisdoms are tied to responsibilities; to be wise is to know how you can contribute good to the world. The first gathering presented responsibilities to me; even though this was intimidating, it is part of ethical research. The last section of the dissertation gives voice to how I might walk with these wisdoms and enact responsibilities that I have been given in this process. There is a deep desire to do good by the kin and this inquiry, but also to do good by the Métis community that I have grown up in.

I am reminded of a dream I had a few months ago. I was on a stage, giving a presentation on orality, when I looked into the crowd, I saw my dad and Reg standing together smiling at me. My dad had a bright light surrounding him, he adorned his usual big smile — I sensed he was proud of me.

I don’t claim to know everything about becoming Métis, or Métis history, all I am claiming here is how I came to understand myself and the questions through the stories of those that sat with me each month. Their stories have become medicine enabling me to move through this world in a way that honours who we are, and what might be a possible shared future. I have had much time to think about the wisdoms but I find myself trying to wear them in; much like a new pair of shoes, they are not yet comfortable as time and practice are still needed. I find myself, at times, overwhelmed in thinking of the responsibility that comes with knowing what must come next…much like I felt at the beginning of this inquiry, not sure what exactly to do or how to do it…I am still trying to figure these things out. I move forward though thinking that there is something at stake if I do not try to wear these wisdoms, I need to wear them for our past loved ones who sacrificed so much, for the present and future.

 Wisdoms from Seeking

Wisdoms from methods

Photos

“It just sat with me, I was having a moment; it hit me to take this picture” (Charmaine)

“Photos were the kindling” (Devonn)

The photos were the locus of our inquiry. Individuals transgressed their inability to see the practices in their lives through capturing photographs placing a “bookmark” (Devonn) on an experience that they could later return to and reflect. The act of returning and reflecting brought them into an awareness of their day-to-day lived experiences providing an opportunity to derive meaning from those moments. As shared by Charmaine, taking photos “gives you a minute to slow down…get out of my thoughts and remember where I came from”. Reflecting back to our conversations at the gathering, individuals struggled, at first, to take a photo of an enactment, something abstract. Because photos are still images, Patricia for example, recorded a video of her making elderberry syrup instead of just taking a photo of the berries turning to syrup. Certain moments might be best video recorded, especially when they are kinetic. Other situations, like artifacts from past relatives, are better suited for photography. In future research inquiries, giving an option to use one or the other can be a better avenue for individuals to have more freedom and flexibility to how they want to document their practices. Even though some individuals did not take any videos, it did not compromise the inquiry thus indicating that a multimodal inquiry can allow individuals to enter into the circle in ways that interest them without feeling excluded. Another possibility is having the research circle complete a process similar to the one I enacted for this project. I recorded reflection videos, which I re-watched and created subsequent videos as my understandings became more refined. This process would yield an additional layer of rigour as the individuals in the circle would be assessing their own stories as they move through the process and see patterns in their own lives. However, there are caveats that need to be attended to. Having research kin use videos to this degree would need additional time to fully prepare them with training in how to story their experience for these purposes. Moreover, multimodal possibilities yield a great amount of data to sift through. Photographs, videos (both participant and researcher), and dialogue felt overwhelming at times albeit also providing an extra layer of validity to the inquiry. For example, my research reflections, layered with the individuals thoughts and feelings through the gathering dialogues or their videos were useful to see cohesion or dissonance. Both are equally important; I appreciated the moments of dissonance as it produced ‘ahah’ moments for me (for example, my experienced as I came into an understanding of practice — seen in this section ) prompting me to reconsider or reassess the process and my assumptions.

Gatherings

Relying on multiple gatherings enabled the group to coalesce while also creating a process for individuals to become comfortable with the methods. When first designing the process, I worried individuals would not want to commit to six months of gatherings as it was a considerable time frame. Happily, they were all willing to commit their time to the inquiry. Although people were unable to attend every single gathering, collectively, they acknowledged the importance of cyclical sessions. During one gathering, Berkley commented on the iterative nature of the sessions as they allowed us to deepen our understandings of the topic. As someone who has participated in research studies that required me to provide my experiences in one sitting, I never felt like I created any rapport with the researcher or with the research. Iterative gatherings allowed rapport to be formed. Since the end of our last gathering, I have stayed connected to all of the participants and Elders. I believe the inquiry would have suffered if I had only one gathering. Providing time between each gathering, helped individuals digest the discussions while providing time to broadened the awareness to their everyday practices.

Struggling to align Western and Indigenous systems

Listening to a by Anishinaabe scholar, John Burrows, I was reminded that “writing flows from relationships” (personal communication, 2020). As I was struggling to get into writing at the time of his talk, his words triggered additional reflections in solidifying that what I write down from this inquiry is a further reflection and articulation of my relationships. Because this form of writing is a western academic pursuit, I found myself entangled in the difficulty of expressing Métis knowledge and oral systems in such as way as to not subsume either knowledge system. However, listening to John Burrows I was reminded, thankfully, that although I am speaking, thinking, writing in English, this too can be a spiritual endeavour and this too can be an honouring of my relationships that have enabled and propelled me to this point. These relationships are not just human; they reach into the spiritual ethers allowing me to understand who I am as a celestial being in relation to all of creation. Through this journey, I have been visited by relatives in dreams, in thoughts, in contemplations and they are just as equally valid as the human relatives that shared with me in this process. Moreover, I have visited with nipomakii (chickadee) as I offered tobacco so I can be continually guided by their knowledge.

There is a tension between Western academic and Indigenous knowledge systems as they validate knowledge differently and often have differing views of what constitutes knowledge. I grappled with questions such as, what does a literature review look like in an oral system? What knowledge is for writing or for verbal delivery? Who is part of the validation process? What defines academic rigour in both an oral system and written-based institution? Is this work academic enough? Some of these questions have caused anxiety and stagnated the work at times however, it has been the oral system that has created a path for me to move into the flow of aligning. This dissertation is not perfect, yet the imperfection can provide a glimpse of what might be possible.