My speech from earlier this year. Super long—it was a 20-minute speech—so feel no obligation to read it. :) WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: RESOLVING CONFLICT BETWEEN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES & INDUSTRY YFNRC—WHITEHORSE, YT MARCH 26, 2014 Tanya Laing Gahr Thank you for welcoming me to the territory of the Taan Kwachan Council and Kwanlin Dun First Nation, and thank you to Jerry, Judy and Julie with the Yukon First Nations Resource Conference for inviting me. I am especially honoured and a bit embarrassed to be sharing this stage with the very knowledgeable Gordon Mohs, from whom I can learn so much. I also ask your forgiveness for speaking in generalities, and ask that you please excuse any inexactness of terms or painting with a broad brush the differences between western and Aboriginal cultures and worldviews. The reason for this either/or point of view may become obvious as we go along. Academics like to use words like “paradigm”. I like to use it too, because I like the term “paradigm shift”. This, to me, represents that process of learning to see reality in a different way. To have new eyes. To discover that there may be another way of conceiving Truth. My hope is that I can coax some of you toward one as well. I’m here today to talk about resolving conflict between First Nations communities and industry—or, perhaps more accurately, the need for a new approach to conflict resolution. Historically, settlements reached in negotiations between Aboriginal communities and outside organizations and governments overwhelmingly favoured non-Aboriginal entities and worked against the interest of Aboriginal people. Broken promises and treaties, forced land claims, and policies of assimilation and annihilation have occurred using western methods of negotiation and settlement-based conflict resolution. So, effective and equitable resolution requires an altogether different approach—one that recognizes indigenous worldviews and the importance of building trust and consensus through interconnected relationships. But let me start by telling you a story. It is almost April. I am told that in many territories, the April moon is also known as the Frog Moon, for that is when the frogs begin to sing. When frogs sing, the rains come. One day a cricket was walking among the frogs. The cricket started to chirp and the frogs started to croak back. The cricket said to the frogs, Oh, your croaking sounds terrible. My chirping is much better. The Cricket was very smart and cunning. He tricked the frogs into chirping by saying things to them like, It is better to chirp. Croaking is ignorant. Croaking is low. Everyone knows that intelligent people like me chirp. The frogs wanted to seem smart, so one by one the frogs decided that maybe he was right and they started to chirp, not croak. Soon all the frogs chirped and chirped and chirped. And the rain never came. All the frogs suffered because there was no rain. Finally, one by one the younger frogs started saying, Do you remember when our grandfathers use to croak? What a sound that was, but the rains always came! So the young ones started to croak. Then their mothers and their fathers remembered the joy of croaking and the rains came back. The Cricket was doing what a cricket should do. But a cricket should never tell a frog what to do. The frogs should never do what a cricket does. Each one of us has a song to sing. All the songs are the same to those who sing them. They are equal. This presentation began with a course I took in conflict resolution, a course in which I immediately got into conflict with my instructor. During a class on negotiation strategies designed to give the negotiator their best possible outcome, my colleague and I suggested that the techniques we were being taught were culturally specific—that this was the language of business and didn’t seem to include other cultures, including First Nations. The response was that we didn’t really need to worry about that in this course. That most professional dealings would use similar strategies and these would be applicable in, he said, about 80 per cent of any of the situations we would find ourselves. This angered me on many levels and I did what any good student does to show up her instructor. I wrote a paper to point out the errors in his thinking. I’d like to tell you another story. A clever smuggler came to the border with a donkey. The donkeys back was heavily laden with straw. The official at the border was suspicious and pulled apart the mans bundles till there was straw all around, but not a valuable thing in the straw was found. But Im certain youre smuggling something, the official said, as the man crossed the border. Now each day for ten years the man came to the border with his donkey. Although the official searched and searched the straw bundles on the donkeys back, he never could find anything valuable hidden in them. Many years later, after the official had retired, he happened to meet that same smuggler in a marketplace and said, Please tell me, I beg you. Tell me, what were you smuggling? Tell me, if you can. Donkeys, said the man. For me, the process of decolonization, and recognizing the structures of oppression that are built in to the policies and practices of our country was my first exercise in seeing donkeys. And I’m hoping you’ll start seeing the donkeys as well. Because they’re there. Has anyone here sat in on one of Bob Joseph’s excellent seminars, Working Effectively With Aboriginal Peoples? I did a few years ago. That workshop exposed a lot of donkeys for me. But colonization involves more than the overt, tangible policies of oppression that many in this room are already versed in. It’s more than the devastating acts of aggression, the land grabs, the residential school system, the deliberate and official “othering” of Aboriginal Peoples. Colonization also includes suppression of Aboriginal worldviews, which have been held by Western scholars, businesses and governments to be inferior and not worthy of consideration. Aboriginal worldviews have been largely left out of business and policy conversations and, indeed, history itself. Even the language with which Western society considers and renames the territories of Indigenous people in North America in order to proclaim ownership—terra nullis, for example—is evidence of the intended obliteration of Aboriginal worldviews and histories. How prevalent are these ideas? Depends. How many ways do you see reality? On the whole, we not only dispute the validity of other worldviews or deny their existence—we just don’t see them. They’re donkeys. I want to tell you another story. Last fall, I met a man we’ll call George. George believes in the “rightness” of scientific process, of western knowledge, and of a singular reality. He believes knowledge isn’t valid unless it’s been published and peer reviewed. He believes in linear time, in good and evil, up and down, right and wrong. I told him he was binary—all ones and zeros. George didn’t like that. More than that, George did not like—in fact, HATED—the idea that there may be other ways of perceiving reality. Of knowing what you know. Our conversation was very heated and ended with him saying, “If you are telling me that you think there is another way to experience reality—without some sort of mental disorder—then we have nothing else to talk about!” We had nothing else to talk about. But I don’t think his reaction, as over-the-top as it was, is unique to George. We tend to cling to our dominant worldviews. And worldviews—like social mobility, like access to education and capital and capacity—are privileges that the dominant culture enjoys. Seeing the donkeys? The Indigenous paradigm, or philosophy, if you prefer, represents an entirely different worldview, one that sees reality as a complex set of relationships with ideas, animals, the land, and the universe. Nurturing these relationships—through respect, reciprocity, and responsibility—is almost a form of ceremony, and maintaining accountability in these relationships is, in many Nations, central to resolving conflict. Knowledge cannot be owned or discovered but is merely a set of relationships that may be given a visible form; knowledge itself is relational and emergent. The academic in me loves that phrase. Aboriginal philosophy conceives all of existence as energy in which all things are “imbued with spirit, and in constant motion”. This notion of constant motion or flux is linked to a cyclical view of the world in which everything is interconnected—a worldview that emphasizes process over product. Think of the representations we see in Medicine Wheels: these represent, among other things, circular conceptions of time, a holistic understanding of experience, a non-hierarchal, shared-power concept of human relations, and of humans in a relationship of care and responsibility with nature. These views are reflected in many Aboriginal languages, which are typically verb-rich and action-oriented and describe happenings more readily than objects. Such language usage and thought reduces binary conceptions that exist in many Western philosophies and language: there is no either/or, saint/sinner, heaven/hell, us/them, or animate/inanimate. Remember binary George? A First Nations academic noted, “If everything is animate, then everything has spirit and knowledge. If everything has spirit and knowledge, then all are like me. If all are like me, then all are my relations” This relational aspect of Aboriginal languages is a reminder that we are of the earth rather than on it, and reminds Aboriginal people of their responsibility to all objects, to all past, present, and future life, and to the universe itself. This approach differs from Western philosophies, the Worldviews of George, which force us to be separated, isolated individuals. Dominant western worldviews include a linear, present-centred conception of time; an analytical conception of knowledge; individualistic versus communally based interests; a human-over-human conception of relationships as evidenced by zero-sum negotiations and agreements; and human-over-nature conceptions. So you can see, even before we come to the table, we are already in conflict. Our worlds are colliding. What I am recommending, then, is a decolonized approach to resolving conflict resolution between First Nations communities and outside entities. But I don’t think this is beneficial to just those communities engaged in discussion. I think a greater understanding of Aboriginal worldviews can actually change the nature of communication on a global level. But I like to think big. A decolonized approach to conflict resolution and transformation does more than simply respect the worldview of Aboriginal people—it also nourishes the field of knowledge itself. It provides greater understanding of the human experience that goes beyond an individualistic notion of society and culture—and business. The negligence of Aboriginal worldviews in favour of so-called Western ideologies has left the field of communication poorer. This form of colonization affects not just the land but also the mind, the spirit, and the body of the colonized people being controlled by others. Colonization puts all of us in conflict with ourselves, which ultimately dehumanizes us. Thus, decolonized approaches to resolving conflict provide infinite possibility, including the reunification of self and relationships to spirit, body, and all of existence that Western approaches neglect. Are you excited yet? I told you, I like to think big. Most North American approaches favour western conflict resolution techniques—and therefore non-Aboriginal Peoples. Techniques for resolving differences are often seen to be an invention of Western cultures. Dispute resolution strategies emphasize technique and intellectual experience. Negotiation. Settlement—a loaded term if ever there was one. Zero-sum outcomes. In many conflict resolution styles, intellect is privileged over emotional experience; indeed, emotions are considered roadblocks to “work through” so that the real issues can be analyzed. The problem, if we can call it that, with most Western problem-solving methods is that they privilege technique over process, and have a narrow purpose: the satisfaction of individual interests. So, a dispute isn’t necessarily resolved because all parties have come to a peaceful and beneficial outcome, but because one party argued better, negotiated better, or had better advantages. Western methods of conflict resolution, including so-called principled negotiation, are a form of colonization when used in disputes with indigenous people. They privilege western culture. These are models that do not acknowledge nor accommodate differences in culture—particularly the underlying worldviews that shape culture. When these Aboriginal worldviews are not accommodated, already marginalized and colonized peoples’ ability to meaningfully contribute to a consensus-based agreement is restricted, and the voices of aboriginal people are largely silenced. Worldview represents the lived realities of a people; to deny Indigenous peoples the right to function within their worldviews is to deny the reality of their experience. The ideas regarding the transformation of conflict differ among First Nations based on an understanding of interconnectedness, an emphasis on process and relationships over techniques and strategies, and a holistic approach to consensus. Reconnection with community, with ancestors and future generations, with nature, and with self are all part of the outcomes of indigenous conflict transformation. There are many methods of transforming conflict among aboriginal people—as many methods as there are nations, perhaps. There are methods like the Talking Circle, or peacemaking circles, that are increasingly used as a method of reconciliation and arbitration among many Canadian First Nation communities, and, encouragingly, as a method of restorative justice for youth in non-Aboriginal communities. It is important to understand that conflict resolution techniques are not universal among indigenous people. And it’s important to remember that many Aboriginal people are in the process of relearning their traditional ways of resolving conflict—much like the Frogs remembering how to sing their song. There are, however, similarities that can provide grounding for government and industry to create meaningful agreements with First Nations communities. All methods of indigenous dispute resolution favour the maintenance and restoration of relationships. What is important is to place the focus on relationship, reciprocity, and reparation rather than the binary settlement understanding of conflict resolution. This calls for an integrated approach to dispute resolution—not merely the Western approach of I win/you lose, nor full immersion in a community’s traditional methods, but an approach that benefits all. A singular template is improbable. However, if all participants were to approach the discussion with an awareness and acceptance of different worldviews—and the validity and knowledge contained within each—and a willingness to speak both from the head and the heart, there is a greater probability of a win-win outcome. What this requires is a focus on the relationships of all present and all those who the leaders represent. Consensus is achievable only when all the participants are regarded as equal and all the worldviews represented are validated and accepted. Lived experiences of First Nations people must be heard and respected. Everyone must be given the opportunity to speak and to be heard, and a commitment to stay with the process for however long it is necessary to reach consensus is required. All parties must understand that the goal is not settlement or agreement but healing of relationships that have been damaged by colonization. And I think we need to all be aware that this is a process in which we are all participating. We need to be a bit more forgiving of each other and ourselves as we move through this process. When healing becomes the end toward which all parties are striving, peace and true resolution become possible. Frogs. Crickets. Donkeys. And even George. All my relations. —Tanya Laing Gahr
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 18:24:54 +0000
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