Working a Third Space: Indigenous Knowledge in the Post/Colonial University

Abstract

What are the role and responsibility of the professor of European ancestry, who hasalso battled for legitimizing Indigenous epistemologies and educationalconsiderations in academe, in working with students who take up the challengesinvolved in this scholarship? This article focuses on an analysis of some of thearticulated responses to a panel presented at a graduate conference in a faculty anduniversity committed to equity and social justice. It creates space to address suchquestions as What does it mean to take Indigenous thought seriously in aneducational institution? How can the relational and traditional/historic aspects ofthese knowledges, with their commitment to spiritual, intellectual, emotional, andphysical dimensions, move beyond acceptance to being seen as normal? How toensure that intellectual space is open to this turn to the re-creation of suchknowledges in the context of the post/colonial university? The article interrogates theroles, limits, and possibilities of education in addressing persistent epistemologicalinequities as certain knowledges are valued in the university whereas others arerelegated to secondary status when they are acknowledged at all. Guswentha andHomi Bhabha's notion of third space provide analytic moments to investigate thetensions and contestations as knowledges collide, interact, and reform in confineddiscursive spaces.