Kitkińike: In the direction of bibliographies as cultural landscapes

Kitkińike

Kitkińike is a Nimiputímpt word which can be interpreted literally or symbolically. Kitkińike is commonly found in the phrases that orientate speakers towards what can be described in English as the cardinal directions. The root word kińike means ‘one of two choices’ and when paired with another suffix means ‘from’.¹ The prefix ki means ‘by means of’.² An example of the word together can be found in the word for west: tińéyne∙kitkińike leyle’∙k.³ This can be defined as ‘by means of the west’ or ‘from the direction of west’. In the context of this web project, kitkińike is being interpreted as a direction which can provide a means of both conceptually and formally orientating towards, and within, bibliographies as cultural landscapes. This is done by cutting through academic epistemologies and attuning expectations in new directions. The interest here is in the ways that bibliographic sources can be used to re-direct researchers across landscapes of Indigenous knowledges, so re-shaping approaches to research itself.

Thinking with the gestural orientations of kitkińike allows us to nurture an appreciation of the transformative potential of bibliographic work as a dynamic and ongoing anticolonial practice. Rejecting the presumption that the so-called ‘secondary literature’ is of lesser significance than face-to-face knowledge creation ‘in the field’, this work offers a series of kitkińike as organising principles for those seeking to orientate towards social research with First Nations people, places, and communities.

In what follows I invite you to dwell with the four kitkińike that conceptually move an Indigenous bibliography towards new attunements. The aim is to identify and foreground the threads of connection, voice and anticolonial critique that arise from the materials themselves, rather than enacting a merely algorithmic re-shuffling of categories. My intention in this work is to insist that fieldwork begins in bibliographies. Understanding bibliographies as cultural landscapes means that they enable us to undertake a foundational form of fieldwork as we read, sort, and create our sources of information. This kitkińike does not replace fieldwork nor does it seek to create new hierarchies of epistemic importance. Rather, this kitkińike proposes a dynamic and intertextual approach to locating, assembling, and critically attending to constellations of Indigenous voice.

Attuning with the organising principles that I offer here, it becomes possible to curate an existing bibliography anew. This formation of bibliography as object orients attuners in four directions: kitkińike of self, kitkińike of care, kitkińike of community and kitkińike of reclamation.

Self

Kitkińike of self is key. This direction opens researchers to attunements of self through Indigenous epistemologies and voices. This kitkińike emerged from a recognition of foundational assumptions and limitations amongst social science colleagues regarding where Indigenous voices can be located. Research practices risk becoming an extension of colonial power relations when researchers presume field sites as the only site in which to encounter First Nations voices and perspectives. It could even be argued that researchers are practicing a form of ‘cultural mining’ when we see our traditional practices of participant observation as the primary vehicle through which knowledge is created. These approaches are very researcher centric. Moving in the direction of voice and self in a cultural landscape that already exists in writing rather than solely ‘in the field’ is a key in considering an anticolonial anthropology kitkińike.

Care

At its core kitkińike of care entails a kind of timeless thinking that preserves past traditions and looks to the future and continuation. It takes as its foundational orientation a response to ongoing processes of the colonial project and its many impacts across all aspects of Indigenous daily life. This includes addressing disparate health outcomes, speaking and researching in First Nations languages, growing and collecting native foods and caring for country. Kitkińike of care reorients that which is taken for granted and attunes researchers to new understandings of gender, family, and tradition. It is important to recognise that care comes in many forms and that includes cultivating spaces of Black joy. By showcasing and sharing joy (via social media, exhibitions, publications, etc) Black creatives are debunking stereotypes and shaking up expectations. This is another important form of care.

Kitkíńke of reclamation embraces decolonizing as a major theme and encompasses research into archives, museums, Indigenous sovereignty, Indigenous knowledges, mapping of landscapes, and Native Title. This kitkińike doesn’t just describe how to do Indigenous research, it demonstrates it as well with its approach to processes of editing and selecting contributors. Kitkíńike of reclamation is an acknowledgement of the ongoing colonial project with a focus on giving new form and revarious orms of sovereignty. Kitkíńke of reclamation manifests in textual form writing the kind of change that activists and change makers have been calling for in policy and community development for generations, but which governments have either ignored or failed to respond to. Kitkíńke of reclamation is the model for the futures First Nations peoples want and deserve.

Reclamation

Community

In kitkińike of community, authors step away from solely personal stories and narratives and turn their focus to wider considerations of inclusivity and togetherness. Works explore themes of group representation but also the preservation of the uniqueness of the group identity. Contested histories are explored through giving voice to those lost in the archive and challenges to colonial representations enacted through acts of curation and education. Community also moves in the direction of collaborations—both within communities and across communities and cultures. Co-design and co-production are hallmarks of this dynamic space. In thinking about, with, and for community, Indigenous scholars engage and re-energize major debates in research and arts, creating new ways considering relationships, boundaries, and forms of inclusion.

Kitkińike