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Reclaiming Relationality through the Logic of the Gift and Vulnerability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2020

Laurie Gagnon-Bouchard Open the ORCID record for Laurie Gagnon-Bouchard [Opens in a new window]  and
Camille Ranger Open the ORCID record for Camille Ranger [Opens in a new window]
Laurie Gagnon-Bouchard*
Affiliation:
Université du Québec à Montréal, 405 Rue Sainte-Catherine Est, Montréal, QCH2L 2C4, Canada
Camille Ranger*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Université du Québec à Montréal, 405 Rue Sainte-Catherine Est, Montréal, QCH2L 2C4, Canada
*
Corresponding authors. Email: [email protected] and [email protected]
Corresponding authors. Email: [email protected] and [email protected]
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Abstract

This article addresses the conditions that are necessary for non-Indigenous people to learn from Indigenous people, more specifically from women and feminists. As non-Indigenous scholars, we first explore the challenges of epistemic dialogue through the example of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). From there, through the concept of mastery, we examine the social and ontological conditions under which settler subjectivities develop. As demonstrated by Julietta Singh and Val Plumwood, the logic of mastery—which has legitimated the oppression and exploitation of Indigenous peoples—has been reproduced in academia, leaving almost no room for Indigenous knowledge and epistemes. In the same vein, Sámi scholar Rauna Kuokkanen reclaims and suggests the logic of the gift as a means to render academia more hospitable to Indigenous peoples and epistemes. In our view, reclaim(ing) as a concept-practice is a promising way to disrupt colonial, racist, and sexist power relations. Thus, we in turn propose to reclaim vulnerability as defined by Judith Butler in order to deconstruct masterful settler subjectivities and reconstruct relational ones instead. As theorized by Erinn Gilson, we propose epistemic vulnerability to imagine the conditions of our learning from Indigenous peoples and philosophies.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 35 , Special Issue 1: Indigenizing and Decolonizing Feminist Philosophy , Winter 2020 , pp. 41 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © by Hypatia, Inc. 2020

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