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A
Native Perspective on Contemporary Technology
By
Barbra Wakshul
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| Daniel Wildcat |
Daniel Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee
Nation of Oklahoma. He directs the Haskell Environmental Research
Studies Center at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence,
Kansas. Wildcat also chairs the American Indian Studies Program
at Haskell, and is an adjunct faculty member of the Bloch School
of Business Administration at the University of Missouri at Kansas
City.
Wildcat received his bachelor's and master's degrees in sociology
from the University of Kansas. He is currently completing an interdisciplinary
Ph.D. in public administration and social sciences at the University
of Missouri at Kansas City.
Wildcat has published extensively on
topics ranging from technology and traditional knowledge to Indian
education. He is an invited speaker throughout the United States
and Europe on North American Indian worldviews and diversity. His
research and thinking focus on how tribal nations lived sustainably
for long periods of time and what can be gleaned from studying
them. As he prepared to travel to Romania as a guest lecturer in
the Open Society Institute's Higher Education Support Program,
Wildcat was gracious enough to share his thoughts on contemporary
technology from a Native perspective.
Winds of Change:
You've said that
the exploration of new technologies and knowledge must not overlook
that of the past. Can you describe the old technologies that need
to be remembered and kept current?
Daniel Wildcat:
We should look in
three areas: housing, food and planning and assessment models. The
rectangular "spec" houses that continue to be built across Indian
Country are not only ugly but extremely wasteful from an energy perspective.
Native architects and designers should examine the insights our ancestors
had that enabled them to build dwellings that took full advantage
of an environment's climate, landscape and materials one found in
the places they called home. Design and sustainability
issues were foremost when
our ancestors built the pueblos in the
desert southwest, grass lodges on the
southern plains, earth lodges along the
Republican and Missouri Rivers, and
the teepee (tipi) of the plains. They had
knowledge about how to build dwellings
that fit the landscape they inhabited.
I am not suggesting that we go
back to building exactly the way they
did; what I am suggesting is that there
may be some very appropriate and sustainable
indigenous design features we
should take advantage of today.
With respect to food, we find little evidence that earlier generations had the
kind of lifestyle (environmental) diseases that plague us today: obesity, diabetes,
high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer. In looking at the diets our ancestors
subsisted on, we see the undeniable benefits of eating grassland bison as opposed to feedlot fattened cattle.
Bison is much leaner than "manufactured"
beef. Corn, fish, wild rice: no matter where we go on this continent, we find tribal people
knew how to exist on foods native to their environments. We should look very
carefully at what modern nutritional science is telling us about contemporary
diets, where foods are viewed first and foremost as economic commodities.
As far as assessment models go, I think we must draw on what Rick Williams, Oglala
Lakota, executive director of the American Indian
College Fund, calls our "natural intelligence."
Our ancestors had good
sense?\an experiential wisdom?\that
allowed them to always be mindful of the complex results
of actions they took. One needs to be attentive to the land and learn from it
and all our living relatives (including plants and animals). The notion that
in the life system of planet earth we are all connected and related is hardly
romantic. Rather, this connectedness is a fair representation of Native realism.
It is akin to what many scientists, engineers and mathematicians now call a complex
system, where the current situations and conditions we face are the results of
processes through which structures consisting of numerous parts interact.
Much of reality is better understood
as complex dynamic interactions and
processes not reducible to simplistic
and deterministic cause and effect
logic. This is something inherent in
many indigenous worldviews. Bringing
Native thinkers into the field of planning
and assessment may therefore be
particularly useful, since they are predisposed
to big-picture thinking. Our
ancestors were thinking out-of-the box
long before it became the popular catch
phrase of corporate trainers.
WOC:
What are the implications of
disconnecting technology from the bigger picture?
DW:
The implication of disconnecting
technology from the "big picture" of our human experience is that
we forget the unique lessons we learned about living well or, as
my colleague and friend George Godfrey, Citizen Band Potawatomi, would say, "living
lightly on the land." The problem we face today
is that the measure of technological progress is often thought of
as the extent to which humankind can control and mitigate the so-called
forces of nature. I find it hard to imagine a more problematic and
dangerous idea. Why not figure out a way to live with nature? We ought
to think of ecosystems
and environments as our natural
communities, full of our relatives.
We must recognize a symbiotic relationship
between nature and culture.
Until very recently, tribal identities
and culture emerged from the complex
environmental and ecological systems
where our ancestors lived.
WOC:
How can incorporating the Native
perspective prevent the destructive side of technology from overshadowing
its constructive aspect? What specifically do you see as coming out
of this marriage between Western and Native views?
DW:
First, in order for these two
views to come together, Native people need to make a place for that
to happen, where this coming together is respectful
and honest. I hope the tribal colleges
will become this place. But even
science in our tribal colleges is, I feel,
unfortunately shaped by the large federal
funding sources that seem to have
no interest in indigenous worldviews,
knowledge and wisdom. This is in
many respects the crux of the problem:
so long as the methodologies of
Western science are held as the touchstone
for true knowledge, the knowledge
Native peoples acquired through
many generations of living with the
land are precluded from serious consideration.
Native worldviews can prevent
the destructive aspects of technology
because they never look at technology
independent of the "big picture" of life on this planet. The crucial point is
that the physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual layers of life cannot
be separated out from the specific places, unique ecosystems, and the environments
where people live. Most of our tribal cultures and worldviews were in fact largely
emergent from the places where our tribes lived.
The world has not grown smaller, as information and communication technologies
(ICT) gurus and advertisers would like us to think. Rather, information and communication
technologies have in some very profound ways given us the opportunity to extend
the big picture in which we operate. But keep in mind we need to give primary importance
to the people "on the ground" so to speak. Not only because their
information is the richest from an experiential standpoint but because what they
express and how they express "the
facts" will go beyond the homogenous quantitative
data-processing models most scientists examine. I am not arguing against the
use of those models or even the further development of them, although while they
tell us often about the sources of the problems, they fail to suggest practical
solutions.
One final point here needs to be emphasized: our ancestors made mistakes throughout
their history. Look at the incredible cultural developments found at Cahokia,
Chaco Canyon, the complex of southwestern cliff dwellings
and many of the mound complexes
of the east and southeast United
States?\all abandoned centuries before
1492. Yes, we made mistakes, and like any attentive human beings, we learned
from them. There is a much thinner line between trial and error and formal experimentalism
than many scientists are willing to admit. No people or culture on this planet
has a spotless record when it comes to making choices that were unsustainable.
WOC:
You've lectured about how the
"www.virtual reality of the new global
economy makes us forget the people
behind the monitor." What are the consequences
of this and how can a Native
perspective heal this problem?
DW:
By always looking at e-markets,
virtual persons and virtual communities through a computer monitor,
one develops a very unrealistic perception of the world. The virtual
realities of the Internet further remove one from living relations
and very rich communication. It seems as if the more humans get caught
up in virtual communities consisting of virtual persons, the less
attentive they are to the human and ecological communities.
I am not surprised to be hearing that people who spend large amounts
of time on computers may have higher rates of depression. If one is
not careful, computers seem to encourage an inattentiveness
to the very life and energy
or power that surrounds us. How ironic
that today "being connected" seems to have less to do with the phenomenal world around
us than the batteries, satellites
and high-speed Internet connectivity
our machines require.
WOC:
As a tribal college professor,
what guidance do you offer your students interested in a career in
technology? How do you guide them to truly think outside the box?
DW:
I am increasingly asking my students
to master not only content in all the courses I teach, but also to
show the practical applications of ideas, concepts, and knowledge
they gain. I try to demonstrate how ideas and knowledge, when applied,
lead to certain logical results—often results quite negative to
ourselves and our relatives.
My friend Roberto Gonzales Plaza, native Chilean and biology/chemistry
professor at Northwest Indian College, has repeated to me several times
recently: "We have the knowledge we
need, the issue is why do we fail to use
it?" As John Dewey pointed out repeatedly in his writing on
American education, we set up systems of education where we completely,
and with disastrous consequences, separate knowing from doing. Mainstream
education is so full of rote memorization and abstraction. Even when one addresses
philosophy and metaphysics one needs
to constantly ask, "So what?" This is where Native traditions have something
very valuable to contribute: the
practical applications of knowledge
that makes something meaningful.
I heard Oren Lyons, a traditional Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, and a member
of the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy,
remark that it makes a big difference whether one sees the natural world as full
of resources or relatives. In many of our oldest tribal traditions, we saw the
natural world as full of our relatives. Think about it: you better not treat
your relatives like resources. This is indigenous realism, not romanticism. This
one conceptual shift could have profound positive consequences.
Let me express some optimism here. If American Indians and Alaska Natives will
take seriously the wisdom of their ancestors and bring it into the fields of technology
and science, I think we will see some incredible success in precisely the areas
where modernity and post-modernity have failed. Indigenous innovation in design
and technologies could help people on and off the reservation, or for that matter
improve the overall quality of life on this planet.
Barbra Wakshul is a contributing editor
and the marketing director for Winds of Change.
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