This coperformed autoethnographic inquiry explores “the West” as both a seductive and a subjugating narrative terrain on which betweener identities must navigate the colonizing structures of Western epistemologies. On this terrain, we collaboratively engage the metaphors and tropes of “Cowboys” and “Indians” within a broader critique of knowledge production in the Western academy. As a decolonizing performance, our journey invites a collective turning of the academic gaze away from objectifying the Other and toward making Western systems of knowledge themselves the objects of inquiry.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlexanderB. K. (2000). Skin Flint (or The Garbage Man’s Kid): A generative autobiographical performance. Text and Performance Quarterly, 20, 97-114.
2.
AlexanderB. K.MoreiraC.kumarh. s. (2012). Resisting (resistance) stories: A tri-autoethnographic exploration of father narratives across shades of difference. Qualitative Inquiry, 18(2), 121-133.
3.
DeloriaV.Jr. (1969). Custer died for your sins. New York, NY: Macmillan.
4.
DenzinN. K. (2005). Emancipatory discourses and the ethics and politics of interpretation. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 933-958). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
5.
DenzinN. K. (2011). Custer on canvas: Representing Indians, memory, and violence in the New West. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
6.
DiversiM.MoreiraC. (2009). Betweener talk: Decolonizing knowledge production, pedagogy, and praxis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
7.
DiversiM.MoreiraC. (2012). Decolonizing constructions of childhood and history: interrupting narratives of avoidance to children’s questions about social injustice. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 25, 189-203.
8.
MadisonD. S. (2009). Dangerous ethnography. In DenzinN. K.GiardinaM. (Eds.), Qualitative inquiry and social justice (pp. 187-197). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
9.
MillsC. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
