Being Known by a Birch Tree
Animist Refigurings of Western Epistemology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v4i3.182Keywords:
animism, epistemology, indigenous, situated knowing, relational ontologyAbstract
Animism, as derived from Ojibwa philosophy and articulated by anthropologists of religion, begins in a relational worldview and implies ways of knowing that challenge a Cartesian framework. Beginning with a story of my relationship with a weeping birch tree at my childhood home in northwest Ohio, I examine elements of an animist epistemology using Indigenous philosophers such as Carol Lee Sanchez, Vine Deloria, Donald Fixico, and Makere Stewart-Harawira. But to trouble the dichotomy between indigenous and Western ways of knowing, I draw also on Nonindigenous scholars such as Donna Haraway and ‘situated knowledges’; Karen Barad and ‘intra-acting,’ and Val Plumwood and ‘spirituality of place.’ My goal is to situate humans as but one extension of Earth’s ability to know and to explore how we might take our places in a community of knowers, only some of whom are human.
References
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Braud, William, and Rosemarie Anderson. 1998. Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
Buber, Martin. 2008 [1970]. I and Thou (trans. Walter Kaufman; New York: Touchstone).
Buckley, Thomas. 1992. ‘Doing Your Thinking’, in D.M. Dooling and Paul Jordan-Smith (eds.), I Become Part of It (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco): 36-52.
Clarke, D.S. (ed.). 2004. Panpsychism: Past and Selected Readings (Albany: State University of New York Press).
Code, Lorraine. 1991. ‘Knowledge and Subjectivity’, in What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press): 27-70.
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———. 2001. ‘Power and Place Equal Personality’, in Vine Deloria and Daniel Wildcat, Power and Place: Indian Education in America (Golden, CO: Fulcrum): 21-28.
Ermine, Willie. 1995. ‘Aboriginal Epistemology’, in Marie Battiste and Jean Barman (eds.), First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds (Vancouver: UBC Press): 101-12.
Fixico, Donald. 2003. The American Indian Mind in a Linear World (New York: Routledge).
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Hultkrantz, Åke. 1983. ‘The Concept of the Supernatural in Primal Religion’, History of Religions 22: 231-53. doi:10.1086/462923.
Ingold, Tim. 2006. ‘Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought’, Ethnos 71.1: 9-20. doi:10.1080/00141840600603111.
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Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. ‘“Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.2: 499-535. doi:10.1086/342914.
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———. 1992b. ‘Sharing the Flower: A Non-Supernaturalistic Theory of Grace’, Religion 22 (July): 208-20.
———. 2000. ‘The Cosmos as Intersubjective: Native American Other-than-Human Persons’, in Graham Harvey (ed.), Indigenous Religions: A Companion (New York: Cassell): 23-36.
Pintarics, Joe, and Karen Sveinunggaard. 2005. ‘Meenoostahtan Minisiwin: First Nations Family Justice “Pathways to Peace”’, First Peoples Child and Family Review 2.1: 67-88.
Plumwood, Val. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (New York: Routledge).
———. 2002. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason (New York: Routledge).
Polanyi, Michael. 1966. The Tacit Dimension (New York: Doubleday).
Robinson, Gene E. 2004. ‘Beyond Nature and Nurture’, Science 304 (April 16): 397-99.
Saler, Benson. 1977. ‘Supernatural as a Western Category’, Ethos 5.1: 31-53. doi:10.1525/eth.1977.5.1.02a00040.
Sanchez, Carol L. 1993. ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: The Sacred Connection’, in Carol J. Adams (ed.), Ecofeminism and the Sacred (New York: Continuum): 207-28.
Sanders, Scott Russell. 1995. ‘Buckeye’, in Writing from the Center (Bloomington: Indiana University Press): 1-8.
———. 2002. Interview with Scott Russell Sanders by John Elder, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lannan Podcasts, Lannan Foundation. Online: http://podcast.lannan.org/2009/07/23/scott-russell-sanders-with-john-elder/ (accessed 29 January 2010).
Skrbina, David. 2005. Panpsychism in the West (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Smart, Ninian. 1995. ‘The Philosophy of Worldviews, or the Philosophy of Religion Transformed’, in Thomas Dean (ed.), Religious Pluralism and Truth: Essays on Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion (Albany: State University of New York Press): 17-31.
Stewart-Harawira, Makere. 2005a. ‘Cultural Studies, Indigenous Knowledge, and Pedagogies of Hope’, Policy Futures in Education 3.2: 153-63. doi:10.2304/pfie.2005.3.2.4.
———. 2005b. The New Imperial Order: Indigenous Responses to Globalization (London: Zed).
Taylor, Bron. 2010. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. ‘Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4.3: 469-88. doi:10.2307/3034157.
Wapner, Paul. 2010. ‘Contemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet’, Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, Center for Contemplative Mind webinar, February 24, 2010. Online: http://vimeo.com/9889811 (accessed 24 February 2010).
Zajonc, Arthur. 2009. Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry (Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Books).
Allen, Paula Gunn. 1992. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (Boston: Beacon Press, 2nd edn).
Barad, Karen. 2003. ‘Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.3: 801-31. doi:10.1086/345321.
———. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).
Barrett, M.J. 2009. ‘Beyond Human–Nature–Spirit Boundaries: Researching with Animate Earth’ (PhD diss., University of Regina, Saskatchewan). Online: http://porosity.ca/ (accessed 31 August 2010).
Battiste, Marie. 2002. ‘Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education: A Literature Review with Recommendations’ (Ottawa, ON: National Working Group on Education and the Minister of Indian Affairs, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada [INAC]).
Berragan, Liz. 1998. ‘Nursing Practice Draws upon Several Different Ways of Knowing’, Journal of Clinical Nursing 7: 209-17. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2702.1998.00146.x.
Bird-David, Nurit. 1999. ‘“Animism” Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology’, Current Anthropology 40, suppl.: S67-91. doi:10.1086/200061.
Braud, William, and Rosemarie Anderson. 1998. Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
Buber, Martin. 2008 [1970]. I and Thou (trans. Walter Kaufman; New York: Touchstone).
Buckley, Thomas. 1992. ‘Doing Your Thinking’, in D.M. Dooling and Paul Jordan-Smith (eds.), I Become Part of It (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco): 36-52.
Clarke, D.S. (ed.). 2004. Panpsychism: Past and Selected Readings (Albany: State University of New York Press).
Code, Lorraine. 1991. ‘Knowledge and Subjectivity’, in What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press): 27-70.
Deloria, Vine, Jr. 1994. God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (Golden, CO: Fulcrum).
———. 2001. ‘Power and Place Equal Personality’, in Vine Deloria and Daniel Wildcat, Power and Place: Indian Education in America (Golden, CO: Fulcrum): 21-28.
Ermine, Willie. 1995. ‘Aboriginal Epistemology’, in Marie Battiste and Jean Barman (eds.), First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds (Vancouver: UBC Press): 101-12.
Fixico, Donald. 2003. The American Indian Mind in a Linear World (New York: Routledge).
Foucault, Michel. 1994. ‘Two Lectures’, in Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, and Sherry B. Ortner (eds.), Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press): 200-221.
Francl, Michelle. 2009. ‘Contemplative Practice in the Science Classroom’, Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, Center for Contemplative Mind webinar, October 22. Online: http://vimeo.com/7223309 (accessed 28 April 2010).
Hallowell, A. Irving. 2002 [1960]. ‘Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View’, in Graham Harvey (ed.), Readings in Indigenous Religions (New York: Continuum): 17-49.
Haraway, Donna. 1988. ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies 14.3 (Autumn): 575-99.
Harvey, Graham. 2006. Animism: Respecting the Living World (New York: Columbia University Press).
Hogan, Linda. 1995. Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World (New York: Simon & Schuster).
Hultkrantz, Åke. 1983. ‘The Concept of the Supernatural in Primal Religion’, History of Religions 22: 231-53. doi:10.1086/462923.
Ingold, Tim. 2006. ‘Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought’, Ethnos 71.1: 9-20. doi:10.1080/00141840600603111.
Jaggar, Allison M. 1990. ‘Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology’, in Allison M. Jaggar and Susan Bordo (eds.), Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press): 145-71.
Joh, Wohnee Anne. 2008. ‘Authoring a Multiplicity of Selves and No-Self’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 24.2 (Fall): 169-72.
King, Thomas. 2003. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative (Toronto: House of Anansi).
Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern (trans. Catherine Porter; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Mathews, Freya. 2003. For the Love of Matter: A Contemporary Panpsychism (Albany: State University of New York Press).
McGregor, Deborah. 2004. ‘Coming Full Circle: Indigenous Knowledge, Environment, and Our Future’, American Indian Quarterly 28.3-4 (Summer): 385-410.
Meyers, Diana, ed. 1997. Feminists Rethink the Self (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. ‘“Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.2: 499-535. doi:10.1086/342914.
Morrison, Kenneth M. 1992a. ‘Beyond the Supernatural: Language and Religious Action’, Religion 22 (July): 201-5. doi:10.1016/0048-721X(92)90016-W.
———. 1992b. ‘Sharing the Flower: A Non-Supernaturalistic Theory of Grace’, Religion 22 (July): 208-20.
———. 2000. ‘The Cosmos as Intersubjective: Native American Other-than-Human Persons’, in Graham Harvey (ed.), Indigenous Religions: A Companion (New York: Cassell): 23-36.
Pintarics, Joe, and Karen Sveinunggaard. 2005. ‘Meenoostahtan Minisiwin: First Nations Family Justice “Pathways to Peace”’, First Peoples Child and Family Review 2.1: 67-88.
Plumwood, Val. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (New York: Routledge).
———. 2002. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason (New York: Routledge).
Polanyi, Michael. 1966. The Tacit Dimension (New York: Doubleday).
Robinson, Gene E. 2004. ‘Beyond Nature and Nurture’, Science 304 (April 16): 397-99.
Saler, Benson. 1977. ‘Supernatural as a Western Category’, Ethos 5.1: 31-53. doi:10.1525/eth.1977.5.1.02a00040.
Sanchez, Carol L. 1993. ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: The Sacred Connection’, in Carol J. Adams (ed.), Ecofeminism and the Sacred (New York: Continuum): 207-28.
Sanders, Scott Russell. 1995. ‘Buckeye’, in Writing from the Center (Bloomington: Indiana University Press): 1-8.
———. 2002. Interview with Scott Russell Sanders by John Elder, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lannan Podcasts, Lannan Foundation. Online: http://podcast.lannan.org/2009/07/23/scott-russell-sanders-with-john-elder/ (accessed 29 January 2010).
Skrbina, David. 2005. Panpsychism in the West (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Smart, Ninian. 1995. ‘The Philosophy of Worldviews, or the Philosophy of Religion Transformed’, in Thomas Dean (ed.), Religious Pluralism and Truth: Essays on Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion (Albany: State University of New York Press): 17-31.
Stewart-Harawira, Makere. 2005a. ‘Cultural Studies, Indigenous Knowledge, and Pedagogies of Hope’, Policy Futures in Education 3.2: 153-63. doi:10.2304/pfie.2005.3.2.4.
———. 2005b. The New Imperial Order: Indigenous Responses to Globalization (London: Zed).
Taylor, Bron. 2010. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. ‘Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4.3: 469-88. doi:10.2307/3034157.
Wapner, Paul. 2010. ‘Contemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet’, Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, Center for Contemplative Mind webinar, February 24, 2010. Online: http://vimeo.com/9889811 (accessed 24 February 2010).
Zajonc, Arthur. 2009. Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry (Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Books).
Published
2010-10-04
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Stuckey, P. (2010). Being Known by a Birch Tree: Animist Refigurings of Western Epistemology. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 4(3), 182-205. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v4i3.182
