Skennenko:wa - A Narrative Inquiry Into Experiences of Collaboration

Abstract

Indigenous communities in Canada have long endured unethical research practices that have historically hindered rather than helped their communities. These non-reciprocal approaches stem from research being conducted on rather than with Indigenous populations, leading to the marginalization of Indigenous voices and perspectives. In an attempt to reconcile and move forward in a good way, there has been a shift to better understand and engage in ethical research. This narrative inquiry, grounded in community-based participatory research (CBPR), metaphorically and practically articulates how we worked relationally with a Knowledge Keeper and Indigenous organization to co-compose a culturally grounded physical health education program. This inquiry focused on honouring Indigenous voices, values, and perspectives was co-composed alongside the Kahnawà:ke School Diabetes Prevention Program and guided by Knowledge Keeper Amelia. With Amelia as co-author, this research highlights the ethical and relational complexities of merging Indigenous and Eurocentric perspectives within research. Framed within Dewey’s theory of experience and Clandinin’s three-dimensional narrative inquiry space, the inquiry incorporates the concept of “world-travelling” to articulate the relational complexity of cross-cultural research collaborations. Through open dialogue, collective analysis and shared learning, we engaged in the process of Ska’tne, meaning ‘working together,’ which offered us a path forward for ethical, community-engaged research rooted in respect and reciprocity. Additionally, conversations with Knowledge Keeper Amelia reflect on “skennenko:wa”, the Kanien’kéha concept of peace and balance, as a guiding principle for developing collaborative, culturally grounded PHE programming. By embracing a relational ontological commitment, this inquiry responds to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call to action, encouraging researchers to engage meaningfully with Indigenous communities. Through telling and retelling stories, this research may provide an example of how to foster shared understanding and respectfully engage with Indigenous perspectives.

Introduction

Knowledge Keeper Amelia: Skennen, it means peace. Kó:wa, it means large or big. So you're saying to somebody, skennenko:wa, I give you my great peace. It's always about coming from here (Amelia places her hands over her heart). I give you my great spirit of peace. I'm in balance and so I'm expecting that you, too, can be in balance.

Derek: I love that. And you're part of that journey back to me being my balanced self. I appreciate you for that.

These words, taken from the midst of a narrative inquiry (Clandinin, 2022; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), are part of a conversation between Derek, a doctoral student, and Amelia, a Kahnawà:ke ¹ Knowledge Keeper. The study is grounded within a three year collaboration around designing a community-based, culturally-grounded physical health education after-school program focused on enhancing wholistic wellness (social, emotional, physical and spiritual) of Kanienkehá:ka youth. Lee and Derek began work with the Kahnawà:ke Schools Diabetes Prevention Program (KSDPP) research team, including academic researchers and community members in 2018. Amelia has been a KSDPP team member since its inception in 1994. While a program was theorized and practically co-composed alongside KSDPP and the community, COVID-19 closed the community to outsiders; the program was not implemented. This paper does not discuss the program and focuses on co-composing shared understanding and respectfully engaging with Onkwehón:we ² perspectives of the KSDPP research group (Kovach, 2021; Battiste, 2019; Smith, 2021; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Lugones, 1987).

While community ‘engaged’ research is widely supported, its practical application is less understood. Lee and Derek pursued a narrative inquiry into the collaborative conception of the programming. An autobiographical narrative inquiry (Clandinin, 2013) was initially chosen, but focusing solely on Derek’s experiences risked silencing Indigenous community members (Dubnewick et al., 2018; Lessard et al., 2021). Amelia, a close guide during the initial project, joined as a co-researcher and the paper’s direction changed. Our intent is to show the complex, living processes of co-composing community-based research referred to by Amelia as skennenko:wa. Skennenko:wa means coming together in great peace and speaking from our hearts. Skennenko:wa evokes the importance of moving forward together in balance to honour community values of respect and reciprocity when engaging in research alongside Indigenous communities. When Derek invited Amelia to engage in this work with Lee, Jean, and himself, she expressed her “heart is wide open” to the narrative inquiry and was appreciative of being a co-researcher. Narrative inquiry alongside Lugones (1987) concept of ‘world’-travelling’ and the Kanienkehá:ka concept of skennenko:wa created an inquiry ground with respect, reciprocity, and reconciliation at its core.

Narrative Inquiry as Theoretical and Methodological Framework

Clandinin and Connelly (2000) and Connelly and Clandinin (1990) grounded narrative inquiry in Dewey’s theory of experience (1938) with his two criteria of experience—interaction and continuity enacted in situations. Dewey’s theory provides the frame for a narrative conception of experience through the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space with dimensions of temporality, place, and sociality (Clandinin, 2013). Clandinin and Rosiek (2007) point out,

Framed within this view of experience, the focus of narrative inquiry is not only on individuals’ experience but also on the social, cultural, and institutional narratives within which individuals’ experiences are constituted, shaped, expressed, and enacted. Narrative inquirers study the individual’s experience in the world, an experience is storied both in the living and telling and that can be studied by listening, observing, living alongside another, and writing, and interpreting texts. (p. 42)

Working within pragmatic philosophy (McKenna & Pratt, 2015), Clandinin and Rosiek (2007) show the particular ontological and epistemological stance of narrative inquiry as understanding experience (a theoretical frame) and a methodology for inquiring into experience. Drawing on Coles (1989), Neumann (1997) and Addams (2002), political and social contexts are always at work in narrative inquiry but are not the starting point for inquiry. As Clandinin (2022) writes, narrative inquiry is situated in relationships and in community, and it attends to notions of expertise and knowing in relational and participatory ways. The study of experience as understood narratively, highlights a sense that lives are always changing and, in the midst, (Greene, 1995). As Connelly and Clandinin (1998) note, people’s lives are understood as composed over time where life stories are lived and told, retold and relived. To engage in narrative inquiry, we engage in understanding lives over the long haul, as always in motion, and as always situated within multiple contexts.

A key idea in narrative inquiry with its focus on the relational and relationships is drawn from Lugones’ (1987) concept of ‘world’-travelling. While we say more about ‘world’-travelling later in the paper, we note that Lugones (1987) wrote of different worlds which people inhabit and of the possibility to travel between these multiple worlds. In Lugones’ (1987) description of worlds and ‘world’-travelling,’ she described “those of us who are ‘world’-travelers have the distinct experiences of being different in different ‘worlds’ and of having the capacity to remember other ‘worlds’ and ourselves in them” (p. 11). It is through travelling to each other’s ‘worlds,’ we come to appreciate the deep multiplicity of beings, leading to a more genuine and respectful interaction. Dewart et al. (2019) wrote of exploring ‘world’-travelling within research contexts. The risks of ‘arrogant perceptions’ are significant in research which positions individuals as the ‘other’ or as a ‘subject’ for study. Narrative inquirers have taken up Lugones’ (1987) writings to more explicitly develop research processes that create possibilities to ‘world travel’. In narrative inquiry, ‘world’-travelling’ is not a process in the abstract, but a process that calls us to question who we are and are becoming as people in relation (Caine, Clandinin, & Lessard, 2022; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).

Methods

The study design was approved by the KSDPP Community Advisory Board and Amelia, as honouring Indigenous storytelling traditions and offering ways to co-construct knowledge among community individuals and academic researchers. The pragmatic ontology of narrative inquiry ³ situated Derek, Amelia, Lee, and Jean as experiential knowledge holders (Clandinin, 2013) and within narrative conceptions of knowledge (Clandinin et al., 2014). Drawing from the theoretical foundations of narrative inquiry, we adopted Lugones (1987) concept of ‘world’-travelling to show the relational process of moving among worlds.

We remained attentive to the three-dimensional space of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) throughout the inquiry with continual reflection upon how experiences are simultaneously situated within temporality (past, present, and future experiences), sociality (personal and social aspects of an individual’s experience), and place (concrete, physical, and topological). The inquiry process began with Derek’s review of field notes compiled over his time in Kahnawà:ke which allowed him to co-compose three 5 page narratives with Lee and Jean. Each narrative focused on significant experiences and tensions as he attempted to co-compose the after-school program. The three-dimensional narrative inquiry space was used to inquire into each narrative in order to co-create a retelling of the narrative inquiry to draw forward cultural threads, institutional threads, and personal and social threads. Derek and Amelia engaged in 7 conversations between March 14^th and June 27^th, 2024.

Each recorded conversation began with reading one of the narratives and the unpacking followed by creating spaces for Amelia to think with, and respond to, the narrative. In final conversations, the entire paper was read with Amelia with her words integrated into the three narratives and their retelling, which allowed her to “write” alongside Derek. The fragments of the three narratives and dialogue follow.

Three Narratives in Dialogue

Narrative One: Crossing The Rapids

Nearing the edge of the Saint Lawrence River, the suspension on Lee’s SUV bounces over the last expansion joint of the bridge. We are approaching the community of Kahnawà:ke. While the commute to our first KSDPP Community Advisory Board meeting is exciting, I (Derek) feel uncertain as Lee drives us slowly through the reserve streets towards the community hall. A command from Google Maps alerts us, “You have arrived at your destination.” As he puts the vehicle in park, I nervously wonder if I have anything valuable to contribute.

As required by the KSDPP code of research ethics, I prepared a one-page document about myself to present to the community. While writing this piece, I recollect feeling overwhelmed with analysis paralysis as I grew increasingly conflicted about what to include. Amidst the glow of my computer screen, I wondered, “What is valuable about my life to share?”. Scanning my academic CV, I assembled the jigsaw of my life in a way that highlighted my professional achievements. I included everything, stewing over whether this would be enough for me to be accepted. Now, armed with one page about my jobs held, degrees earned, and accolades received, I feel prepared. As the closing thump of Lees’s driver’s door snaps me back to reality, I check to make sure I have the paper in my worn leather computer satchel. It’s time.

Walking into the community center, the smell of moose meat soup lingers. The wide-open floor plan has tables positioned in a square at the center. I notice the small bustling kitchen where food is being prepared. I am reminded of the dichotomous boxes that I struggle to get out of: European/Indigenous, insider/outsider, academic Western knowledge/traditional Indigenous knowledge. Why do there need to be dichotomies? I wonder again what I, a white outsider from Saskatchewan, bring to this place.

Lee and I are encouraged to help ourselves to food. A local clan mother and KSDPP office manager, explains the food is healthy and locally rooted. I opt for a small bowl of moose meat soup and cornbread. The local police chief introduces himself and asks, “Do you like the soup?” While I want to tell him it reminds me of home and my time teaching in Big Island Lake First Nation, I hesitate, too nervous to share, and say, “It’s delicious”. He smiles, as he explains he hunted the moose, and the recipe is an old family recipe. Despite not being a hunter myself, being an outdoor education teacher, and growing up amongst the dense pine forests of Northern Saskatchewan’s boreal forest, his words open a space for us to share experiences about the outdoors and sports.

As the room fills, our conversation ends. I look for the most acceptable place to sit. Uncertainty must have been written on my face as at this moment Elder Amelia ushered me to sit with her and asked, “Where are you from? Who are your parents?” I began telling her stories of my upbringing as a middle child in a middle-class family in a small town surrounded by forests and lakes. The KSDPP director says we should begin and asks Amelia to open the meeting in a good way. While I don’t understand the Mohawk language, I see others bow their heads and hear confirmations from them with an “mmmm” and nodding heads. After Amelia finished what I now know as the Words Before All Else, everyone reviewed the agenda. We begin with newcomer introductions. Despite my one-page document, my brief interaction with Amelia, the opening words, and other introductions nudged me to think about what might be best for others to know about me, and why I am here. I catch myself looking down at the typed sentences, reflecting on the words, sentences, and experiences that weren’t included. I change trajectories and follow Amelia’s lead and begin with a story of where I am from, who my parents are, and how my experiences alongside Indigenous youth brought me here where I hoped I could learn and grow alongside their community.

Knowledge Keeper Amelia and Derek in Dialogue About Narrative One

When Derek recollected his experience driving to his first KSDPP Community Advisory Board meeting, he remembered his anticipation as the SUV bounced over the bridge’s expansion joint symbolizing a transition from his familiar world to the community of Kahnawà:ke, outside Montréal, Québec. The pressure of the steel cables holding up the bridge seemed to capture the tension between dominant researcher narratives he experienced from McGill University’s academic standards and the community engagement required to build relationships with the Kahnawà:ke community members and KSDPP.

He felt this tension days before as he hunched over his computer, wrestling with the task of crafting a one-page document to present at the meeting. As he sat in his home office, staring at the blank Word document, the blinking cursor seemed to mock his lack of progress as he considered not only how his experiences and his choices fit together to form a meaningful and understandable whole, but also which parts of this story would be most valued by the community. Each keystroke and word selection felt like a choice between McGill’s dominant institutional narrative of research excellence and his narrative of who he was as someone who could belong in both academic and community spaces. Choosing that dominant research narrative felt like a safe choice. While he went with that story, he remembered thinking this might not be what they wanted. There were other narratives he could choose, ones that resonated much more with his desire to work alongside youth. As Derek read narrative one, Amelia spoke to his experience and how outside researchers and academics often begin.

See how you started out with being nervous about how you can introduce yourself to the people and you first started with ‘This is my CV, and this is where I'm trained and so on and so on’ and I don't care. I really don't care about that because it doesn't tell me anything about who you are as a person. And do you have experiences in your family? Whereby maybe there's somebody that's diabetic. That's why you got interested in doing diabetes. Just like my example. My mother was diabetic.

While Derek expected Amelia to elaborate on how she saw him positioned alongside the narrative of colonization, Amelia shook her finger and responded,

I mean, you don't own this story [of colonization]. You don't own it. And you're not responsible for that…. It's only you're taking care of your own understanding of what we're talking about right now…. We come from different worlds. We come from different sides of the world really, geographically. From Kahnawà:ke to Saskatchewan…But yet we get along because we're trying to understand each other.

Amelia drew on a concept of worlds, in terms of place, but also worlds that embody traditions and cultures.

I notice people outside of our traditions, culture, whatever you want to call it [as] they introduce themselves. Well, I'm a businessman, and I work at a big office, Blah blah, you know what I mean? It doesn't say anything about you. What values do you have? Why did you get interested in going into that business? You're talking about how you talked yourself into assuming all kinds of things even before you walked into the door. That's why, it's to calm you down. Then, you know, who are you, though? What's your family? We have no idea of your family. I have all your XYZ behind your name, but that doesn't mean anything about you. That's where I focus. I always ask, who are you related to? What part of the world do you come from? Because you do have your own culture. You do have your own traditions, even in your family. I mean, you don't have a clan, but you still have something that ties you to your family line of where you belong.

Amelia showed how she models respect and welcomes others’ perspectives.

And for us, it's always been the Two Row Wampum. That you're here and we're there. Our worldview and your way of doing is not working for us. So how do we move forward? All we can do is go down the river together. The same river. We're going through Mother Earth the same way.

Reflecting on her past experiences as part of a research community around diabetes research, Amelia advised new researchers in the following words.

When we get a group of researchers that come in and want to do a project, the first thing I always ask them is, have you ever been to Kahnawà:ke? That's my first question. And then the second question is if you have time in whatever project you're doing…The best way for you to get into the community is to come in and find out what kind of activities are going on…then volunteer your time.

Amelia highlights the importance of having a connector within the community.

But the first thing too, do you know somebody in the community you can attach yourself to and not literally, but you know them and so they can invite you to come in, if they're Indigenous then they'll usually say “wait, why don’t you come and visit?” Once you come to the house and we can have coffee, we can sit on a porch or I can invite you to a meal or you can invite me to a meal at your place…So you get to know each other.

For Derek, Amelia was his connector, slowly teaching him through her words and actions, how having a connector within the community fosters additional introductions and opportunities to get involved within the community. Amelia explains the relationship was reciprocal.

We connected right away, and it was easy for the conversation to go back and forth. And I was honoured at the same time to be asked to help out in any way I could. I didn't feel as if I knew enough to help…. I really appreciate being asked. And that time it was an honour to be asked because you were very respectful in every which way that I could think of… How you asked the questions and how we jived right away.

As Derek thought of how long they had been learning alongside each other, he was transported back to his first meeting and sliding the paper back into his satchel. It was a reaffirmation, a recognition, that Amelia was not interested in the dominant research story, at least not starting with it in co-composing a relationship with Derek.

Narrative Two: It’s Not About the Syrup

As I [Derek] extend my hand to Knowledge Keeper Amelia and offer to drive her home from the meeting, I sense how grateful she is from the way she smiles at me. Together we step toward my vehicle and the trunk opens with a soft click; Amelia’s bag finds a resting place and I assist her into the passenger seat. I’m driving her home today as I do sometimes after these meetings. A golden sweetgrass hoop sways gently from the rear-view mirror; Amelia asks about the hoop, and I explain it was gifted from another Knowledge Keeper to keep me safe on my travels. Amelia nods as if to confirm that within this community, the sweetgrass hoop is an emblem of unity and protection. As I drive, I also glance down at my watch. I know I should not be thinking of time when I am with Amelia, but I feel the pressure and already know that later my supervisor will ask about the progress of my research. I make myself attend to Kahnawà:ke’s winding road and the landmarks I have learned to notice with Amelia’s help. Rounding the last bend in the road, Amelia’s home, nestled amongst the trees, comes into view.

As the car comes to a halt, we get out and I lift out Amelia’s bag and walk her to the porch. Our steps echo on the wooden planks, a farewell song in the making. But Knowledge Keeper Amelia surprises me with an offer for tea. Again, I feel the pressure of the research tasks on today’s to-do list tug at my mind. I know in my bones though from growing up in the farming communities of Saskatchewan and from what I have learned from Amelia there is no way I can respectfully turn down her offer to share her time, her home, and family with me. I do not want to turn down her invitation but want to prolong this special time with her. I follow her into her home, where her husband and granddaughter greet me with warmth. The kettle whistles on the stove, a signal for teatime. Amelia asks me my preference, but I say “I’ll have what you are having”. She hands me tea and takes her own. I feel the heat seep into my palms. I savor the earthy richness of the tea laced with spices and ginger. Drinking this kind of tea is new to me but outside, the sun shines and I can hear the bird song. Amelia invites me to her deck. We sit and drink our tea slowly.

I gaze at her backyard, where a shiny bucket adorns a maple tree. I remark on the tranquility of this place, a contrast to the city’s noise. She smiles softly and nods, then shares the secrets of the trees. Her voice speaks of ancestral wisdom. She tells me how the maple tree is more than a source of syrup. It is a symbol of tradition, reciprocity, and gratitude. She speaks of the art of tapping, a practice passed down through generations. She captivates me with her stories, revealing the gift and the reciprocal duty of caring for the trees. As my teacup empties, I sense it is time to leave and we say our goodbyes. As I back out of the tree-lined road, I feel excitement and gratitude as I think about what I have learned in these couple of hours. However, I still feel uncertain about how this time with Amelia helps me progress my research.

Knowledge Keeper Amelia and Derek in Dialogue About Narrative Two

Derek realized he felt tension spending time alongside Amelia when he glanced at his watch and hesitated before accepting her invitation for tea. Tensions surfaced as he struggled to not be caught thinking about research expectations and to attend to the importance of what Amelia was offering: the tea, the sunshine-filled deck, and the conversation. Derek had to dismiss the pressure of deadlines and expectations to come alongside. Derek’s concerns about time and tasks, deadlines and expectations, are evidence of how deeply the rhythms from the dominant story of research has seeped into his knowing. And yet Derek knew to resist those rhythms, to stay open to coming alongside Amelia and her rhythms, to learn new ways of knowing. He knew he needed to learn from this gift of time that Amelia, an Indigenous woman who holds a place of honour in her community and has an Honorary Doctorate from McGill University, offered. He resisted the pull of university research tasks to begin to understand a different way of engaging in research.

Amelia spoke of the maple trees.

When you have trees in your yard, and especially the maple tree, that was the first one of discovery whereby they realized that there was an animal…sitting next to the tree and it was dripping, the maple was dripping and the animal went there and it was actually drinking it, because it is water… for us, the water is more important. The syrup is a French thing. When the people came across the water, they found out if they boil it… they have syrup, it’s sweet, but that's not it, it's the water that we want. You tap the tree as long as there's no moths. As soon as the moths come out then…you don't need to gather the water anymore because it's the end of the tapping, and then we take that water to the longhouse for that maple water ceremony. They say, how grateful they are and thanking the trees, that they’re still doing what they're responsible to do. All our mother Earth wants is that we recognize that and, then we have to also be responsible, to give thanks for it.

Amelia’s teachings through the maple water ceremony allowed Derek to see the community values of reciprocity, respect, and cultural continuity while highlighting the importance of valuing all relationships. When Derek asked if the maple tree teachings could be seen as a metaphor of the ethical research process, Amelia responded,

Because, for us it's not a business. As soon as they [Europeans] tap a maple tree, they boil the drippings, and they make it into a product. For us, it’s the process. It’s going and finding the tree you want to tap and you give an offering. The tree is giving you something. It's giving you the maple water. And we, as Onkwehón:we, we are responsible to give tobacco. I can cut my nails…I can bring a penny…I can take a piece of my hair and I could give it as an offering because it's the process, they're giving to you and you're giving to them. That's where it goes both ways, where it's not a business, it's a tradition, it's what we've culturally been brought up with and that when somebody gives you something, you accept that offer, but at the same time you give back as well. So that there's always a trade just like how we're having this conversation right now. You're asking me for certain things and I'm offering certain things and we're both getting something out of it. Because, it goes both ways…And that goes back hundreds and thousands of years and it's always been like that and the way forward is to continue doing it in a reciprocal way.

Derek noticed the ways Amelia drew his attention to moving more slowly, drinking tea and telling teaching stories. As Derek set aside the tension around academic deadlines, he began to travel to Amelia’s world. Derek was learning again of Basso’s (1996) insights that wisdom sits in places and of being immersed within places to understand the teachings.

I always think of the sweet grass braid as a grandmother or a mother sitting down on a chair with her daughter or granddaughter sitting in the front of her and she's braiding the child's hair…, I think back to when our daughter was young… it's like as you're braiding along, you tell the story of how that braid is as important as the skennen, kahnikonhri:io and ka’satsténhsera.. It's skennen, meaning the peace you have within yourself… that's why sometimes when you turn around and you say to somebody, skennen, you say, I'm giving you some of my peace. Because that's the respect that happens. Ka’satsténhsera meaning the mind, it's a good mind, it's balanced. You know, everything that you do is in balance, okay? And, kahnikonhri:io, meaning it's the righteousness of everything you do, that you're always being respectful of everything. So those are the 3; the 3 words that go with that braiding. That's why when that grass, that hoop that you talk about, that's always going around. It's never an end, no beginning either because it's always going.

Amelia calls Derek to slow down, maybe even to stop and be still. As Derek inquired into his experience that afternoon, he is reminded of how this place of learning is different from the hustling university lab space filled with computer screens, data, and books. These two places of learning called Derek in different directions. In his afternoons with Amelia, stories, listening and being attentive were valued. In the university lab, slowing down and stopping could be seen as being unproductive. In the university space, Derek was after the answers because that was what was valued. Alongside Amelia, he was left with questions. As Derek listened to Amelia, he was reminded of the relationships that were important to his development. As Amelia reminded him that trees were also teachers, Derek awakened to the ways the land was also a teacher in his childhood place.

But again, it's only Kahnawà:ke, don't forget that one. Because if you go to a Metis community or Salish community, Anishnaabe, it's going to be a little bit different, but the respect is there. Always that word of respect. It's always there…The minute you came into the community. That's what I heard. That's why I know you're taking it to heart and you're trying to understand. And you're not afraid to ask. But you're asking in a respectful way. That's why people are willing to share with you. It’s not only that, but you also came in volunteering your time. For KSDPP and helping with whatever gaps that some of us have. And so, with that help, you've already had your foot in the door for a long time. And, so I adopted you, you're adopted, whether you like it or not [laugther].

Amelia reminds Derek that each Indigenous community is unique and respectful research is different in different Indigenous communities. Amelia acknowledges Derek’s time spent volunteering as they both embrace the word, skennenko:wa, which evokes the importance of moving forward together in balance. By doing so, Amelia and Derek honour community values of respect and reciprocity when attempting to engage in ethical research.

Narrative Three: The Straw House and the Three Sisters

As I [Derek] enter the office of KSDPP, I am greeted with the smell of coffee and reminded of early morning staff meetings when I worked as a teacher. I notice a small glass window cut into an office wall that allows me to see the familiar sight of golden straw, layered within the walls. Puzzled by a house seemingly built of straw, the office manager, explains that the straw-insulated walls are an eco-friendly alternative to insulation. The walls are lined with office storage boxes containing documents chronicling the past 25 years of research and programming. Community and research team members arrive for the meeting and the place is filled with conversations, greetings, and jokes.

I know now everyone will gather around the table in the center of the office when the meeting begins. Amelia begins by asking each of us to “remove the burrs” by removing the troubling aspects of our lives, at least for the time being, so we can bring our minds together in a “good way”. Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen, the Thanksgiving address, follows as Amelia bows her head, a signal that others follow. In her Kanien’kéha language Amelia offers thanks and expresses gratitude for all aspects of creation and life. Others nod in approval. Hearing Amelia’s words make the hairs on my arms rise. Amelia reminds us of our duty to bring our minds together, to act in harmony with nature and authentically cooperate by listening to diverse perspectives and to utilize the collective decision-making process to benefit the community and the next seven generations. Each meeting I attended began in similar ways. I learned to look forward to post-meeting conversations over coffee as people sat on the back deck of the KSDPP office hearing Knowledge Keepers and others talk about wellness, Indigenous food sovereignty and gardening.

It was on this back deck I first heard community members tell the story of the three sisters. I learned that corn, beans, and squash are seen as sisters who support and nurture each other as they grow together. The corn provides a sturdy stalk for the beans to climb, the beans infuse nitrogen into the soil for the corn and squash, while the squash’s broad leaves shade the soil, conserving moisture and suppressing weeds. Three unique plants, independent yet working together, use their strengths to benefit the collective. The story stayed with me and had a powerful hold on my memory and imagination.

Elder Amelia and Derek in Dialogue About Narrative Three

As Derek inquired into his experiences in the straw house and the stories he heard at meetings, he began to see the storage boxes of file folders as a kind of memory box (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) of the people and their stories who gathered long before he arrived. In this place, community members and researchers were learning how to work together. Amelia spoke of her experience over many years with research and knowledge, specifically to how Indigenous knowledge is often discounted in academia.

It's been done…research has been done to show that we knew our ancestors knew that. This is where we got our traditions, our customs, or what we were supposed to be doing for ourselves. And that's why, when they do research, Oh really? You're just researching it now, like, as if you doubt it. You guys have to catch up with something that's been going on for hundreds of years.

Amelia spoke of her dislike and reluctance to work with helicopter researchers who seek to research for personal gain, with no reciprocity back to the community.

There were several research projects that came to the community asking for things. But where's the money going to go? It's going to go to the researchers…None of that is going to come back to the community to start something or contribute…And helicopter researchers, they come in, they take all the research they want and it's gone…We had to put something (code of research ethics) together in order for it to be covered so that you can't do that anymore.

Derek hears the tension in Amelia’s voice as she spoke of an extensive amount of non-reciprocal research conducted about, or on, Indigenous populations around the world. In her own community, Amelia highlights the importance of continuing “doing it in a reciprocal way.” Derek awakens to how he, too, will become a character in the stories Amelia may tell one day, knowing he must remain attentive to always moving forward in a good way. Amelia acknowledges the importance of volunteer work as he tries to travel to an other’s world.

You understand what that means… we kind of get to know and understand each other. And this is where the friendship is, the respect is there, and the knowing of what we're talking about is there, it takes time.

Derek wonders about the story of the three sisters and how it reminds him of home, of collecting seeds with his mother and gardening in Saskatchewan. It seems to carry him back to another world where he feels at ease, and reminds him of the multiplicity of the worlds he inhabits. Derek spoke of the biological processes of the three vegetables and why it made sense to plant them together. Amelia tells a contradicting story:

I tell it from a spiritual way. The corn, for instance, is Mother Earth’s nurturer. And it’s the first, corn, that Mother Earth gave us as a food. And corn is the plant that has to be nurtured, and it has to be taken care of. It's not like it can be left to grow on its own. It has to have the people to put that tobacco in there. To fix the dirt in a certain way to the mound so it can grow straight and to get water. It requires a partner. It won't grow on its own. It’s the tallest, it's the one that kind of takes care of the other two. And the bean is the one that is not strong enough on its own because it's like a vine. So it needs the support of that corn stock in order for it to grow upward. And as it's going upward, it's always talking to the creator and saying I am coming and I'm here and I'm healthy and thank you. And then you've got the squash at the bottom where all the animals want to try to eat the corn and the beans. They get deterred because of the prickly leaves on the squash. So it's protected from above, but it's also from the middle and it's also from the floor of Mother Earth as well. It's always been that way and that's how we treat it in a spiritual sense. When we're ready to pass on from being born, we're alive, we're breathing and experiencing all the Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen as we travel in our lives but at the same time when it's time for us, because we have to have an experience physically in order to move on to a spiritual world. When we get to that part where we have to go towards the spiritual world, now what we're talking about in the words that are said is that it's like Mother Earth takes her blanket and she covers us.

As Amelia spoke on the teachings of the Three Sisters, Derek reflected on his upbringing structured by societal narratives which valued individualism and specialization and how Amelia’s stories awakened him to what he had not seen. He struggled to reconcile his past experiences of needing to be the expert with control over research with the storied knowledge in Kahnawà:ke. Amelia’s response reminds Derek of the importance of nurturing respectful relationships within community to ensure that research benefits first the community and then the wider academic audience.

Understanding the Conversations: Co-Composing Worlds through ‘World’-Travelling

In final conversations, Derek shared a version of this paper, including the concept of ‘world’-travelling. Amelia resonated with the notion of ‘world’-travelling and suggested a concept in her Kanien’kehá:ka language, “Ska’tne ⁴ ”, translated to “we are working together”. As she offered the concept of Ska’tne, it was a way of building on her understanding of world travelling.

You really have that sense of belonging because you've placed yourself, even though you come from Saskatchewan, you're reminded of home. And this is home as well. Where you can come in and you can make yourself comfortable and you're not afraid to ask questions. And when you do get answers or when you do get the discussions, you put it in those academic terms for those people out there that need to hear it from another perspective. I can tell it in plain English or I can even maybe say it in Mohawk, I am not sure. But for you to be able to take it and translate it into the bigger audience of people that would be able to listen and understand what you're saying or what you're talking about in that interpretation. It’s only if you've been here for a while that you can kind of grasp what that means. And that's what you've been doing. You've been grasping it and you've been changing it, but not the concept of it, but changing it for that audience out there that's going to be able to understand what we're trying to say.

Living out the concept of “working together” shaped Derek and Amelia’s opportunities to ‘world’-travel and to perhaps, as Amelia notes, to allow readers to ‘world’-travel with her and Derek. While we are hopeful others may value what has been created here, we are also mindful of Lugones’ (1987) conception of arrogant perceptions that can often halt working together or ‘world’-travelling. This type of perception often dismisses the experiences of others, reinforcing hierarchical structures and inhibiting understanding. We wonder how often Amelia’s knowledge has been arrogantly perceived. She expresses apprehension about her and Derek’s inquiry in that the work may not be accepted by the academy, “It all depends on what your professors are going to be asking you for”. Amelia highlights she knows what is usually required to contribute to knowledge. Within Amelia’s experience in research, arrogant perception is both blatant and subtle. Simple acts such as presentation of ethics forms or pre-determined research projects structured without community input can silence those in the community.

Now that they have given me this honorary doctorate. I'm trying to take it to a little bit of a higher level of trying to talk, not imitate, but talk about issues that I can understand and I can relate back to. Because you're giving me words I would not know and I've had to look up in the dictionary to really understand it. And plus, it gives me the opportunity to say okay this is the word in my language. Or I can talk to a few people that have the Mohawk language and I can ask them to give me that word or some of those words or the meaning of that sentence or those words and can we relate it to our words in our language because we have those words.

In Lugones’ (1987) description of worlds and ‘world’-travelling,’ the sharing of languages as well as distinct experiences of being different in different worlds helps to shape travelling. In Amelia’s words there is an ease and confidence that comes from shifting back and forth between her language and academic language, and knowing that, there are Mohawk words for some of the ideas.

Thinking about community-based research, and how we might think about ‘working together’, we wondered further about how ‘world’-travelling happened. ‘World’ travel was fostered through living out Lugones’ (1987) notion of playfulness and loving perception. Loving perception is a way of engaging with others that is marked by respect, empathy, and a genuine attempt to understand the other as a full, complex human being. This form of perception requires openness, humility, and a willingness to be affected by the other’s reality. Loving perception is relational and dialogical, fostering mutual recognition and understanding. It is characterized by an ethical stance that values the other’s autonomy and perspective, seeking to build connections rather than hierarchies (Dewart et al., 2019). In their initial meeting, we see Amelia invite Derek in an attempt to get to know him as more complex than simply his resume Derek is offered an opportunity to reconsider what is valuable to share. Within this loving perception, there are gentle reminders to be attentive to arrogant perception. Amelia often illuminates the stereotypes that live within hierarchical knowledge structures that impose assumptions and categories and can shut down conversations and understanding.

Amelia’s story of the maple trees invites Derek to understand that nature is valued differently in the Eurocentric maple syrup production of Quebec. In her world, maple trees are part of a vast interconnected ecological community, reciprocal in nature, and are teachers to be learned from. In the Kahnawà:ke community, interconnected relationships, reciprocity, and gratitude are prioritized. As Derek and Amelia sat on her porch sipping tea, she was at ease in a world where maple trees were teachers and she experienced it as an educative place, a world in which nature and community are places where knowledge lives (Basso, 1996). Her words resonate with those of Kimmerer (2013) and Simard’s (2021) on trees as interconnected through a network of roots and fungi. Both Kimmerer and Simard’s research resonate with Amelia’s teachings from the longhouse and teach us about other understandings and provide us a willingness to be affected by others’ realities (Dewalt et al., 2019).

Amelia consistently used humour to gently teach about complex and complicated conversations which, for Derek, created an “openness to being a fool– being unafraid of seeming incompetent…finding ambiguity as a source of wisdom and delight” (Lugones, 1987, p. 17). When Derek brought up feelings of shame and guilt regarding colonialism, Amelia, with humour and gentleness, shifts the conversation to not “owning this,” but to being mindful of how he is taking care of his own understanding. While Derek could be seen as holding an arrogant perception, there were multiple times that Amelia gently opened a space to be “unafraid of seeming incompetent” which enabled the conversations to be shaped in safe and relational ways. Through sharing experiences of conversation, eating meals together, driving through community, and sharing tea, followed by inquiry into their experiences, they learned about, and travelled to, each other’s worlds.

Amelia wants the work we are doing together to include concepts that will allow others to be ‘at ease’ in a particular ‘world’, to begin to share a set of ideas that allow for agreement with the particular norms of different ‘worlds’ (Lugones, 2003). Perhaps it was as we worked together with a ‘playful’ attitude that was open to possibilities and included the possibility to disrupt particular oppressive contexts, we were able to co-compose research that disrupts the status quo.

Conclusion

The co-composition of a narrative inquiry with Knowledge Keeper Amelia shifted both the paper’s direction and intention. Initially, we proposed Derek’s research process as providing a decolonizing framework, or an illustration of research as reconciliation, relevant in light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) calls to action. We could lay a decolonizing framework overtop the narrative inquiry; however we wanted to show how, alongside Amelia, we worked within a relational ontological commitment to experience. Our hope is that the telling and retelling of Amelia and Derek’s stories of their experiences within narrative inquiry offers an opportunity for readers to think transactionally, to wonder about engaging in community-engaged research alongside Indigenous communities in the contexts and places they take up their research. This is not easy work, the tensions illuminated in this paper show the bumping spaces between the telling and retelling through narrative inquiry, as well as in the representation of stories of experience. What became apparent was a relational space of collaboration which represents what Amelia describes in her Kanien’kehá:ka language as ska’tne; “we are working together” in a good way, with skennenko:wa. The process of ska’tne, or working together, allowed us to co-construct and inquire into what Amelia refers to as common ground, and what could be seen as what Lugones (1987) calls ‘world’-travelling, and becoming at ease, in each other’s worlds. This paper as a product, as well as the process of writing, both metaphorically and practically, offers ways forward as we think about engaging in relational research alongside Indigenous communities.