The following meditation is on the Ermine’s “Ethical Space of Engagement” is a result of a second reading of the paper, many months later, with more background study on Indigenous Governance. My understanding of Indigenous Governance is an emergent knowledge set from Tribal Park co-governance, definition of Indigenous Homelessness, conversations and of course this paper. The focal point remains within the short window I have to help develop an Independent Housing Authority for a First Nation.
It is apparent through conversation and meditation that Western understanding and Indigenous (autochthonous) understanding is different. The way I am inclined to construct the Independent Housing Authority may not represent, or even engage with, Indigenous worldviews. These differences are the uniqueness of distinct history, knowledge traditions, philosophy, and social and political reality. It is possible that even in discourse our working definitions of morality, values, etc. differ, which creates difficulty in forming a shared understanding. “At a superficial level of encounter, the two entities [Western and Indigenous] may indeed acknowledge each other but there is a clear lack of substance or depth to the encounter” (p. 195). Emrine argues that it is these deeper undercurrents that influence our behaviours and interactions that need to come into consciousness, or awareness, as a major dimension in the complex situation of engaging two different worldviews. The ethical component is defined in this paper as “the capacity to know what harms or enhances the well-being of sentient creatures” (p. 195). They are both the morality and edifices of our civilization. Ethics speaks to our capacity and integrity to stand up for our held notion of good, responsibility, duty, obligations, etc. These inform our actions, which may also infringe or violate the spaces of others. Ethical standards can be determined by the individual as our own autonomous zone that we will not cross and are sensitives to others crossing. Then there are moral architectures built by our family that can create certain taboos. Next are the boundaries from the community ethos, which in Indigenous societies, is cultivated by the Elders and oral traditions that inform codes of conduct. Finally, there are more collective principles informed by our knowledge systems, autonomy of our communities, and treaties with other societies. All of these individual, kin, community, and collective components inform our ethical complexes. These ethical complexes are what come into question as two worldviews engage with one another, especially when one is imposing itself on the other. That is the main issue of Euro-centrism or Western universality. It is a monoculture that claims one model of society is more appropriate, which becomes an engrained belief in the wider populace, despite the potential inappropriateness to diverse human communities, such as Indigenous people. As mentioned, “the realization [is] that diverse human communities do not share a common moral vocabulary, nor do they share a common vision of the nature of human beings as actors within the universe” (p. 198). Given the difference of perception, Ermine essentially asks us to hold a mirror to recognize “it is really not about the situation of Indigenous peoples in this country, but it is about the character and honor of a nation to have created such conditions of inequality” (p. 200). The potential prosperity in the co-existence depends on the realization within society, law and governance. Co-existence also necessitates that Aboriginal rights and, I add, Indigenous organizations must be informed by and asserted through Indigenous knowledge, not Western knowledge Reference: Willie Ermine. (2007). The Ethical Space of Engagement. Indigenous Law Journal: 6(1), p. 193-203.
2 Comments
12/22/2019 05:09:30 pm
Perspective is important, I will tell you that much. If you do not have an understanding of perspective, then this is the right blog to start learning. It is not easy to understand the concept of it all, that is sure. If you really want to be a person who does the things that you love, then perspective is important. I hope that you start learning how important perspective is in the things that we do in this life of ours.
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