Abstract

The process of knowledge creation has always been entrenched in the perpetuation of existing dominant social relations. The subjugated and marginalized social groups face multiple forms of domination including the epistemic one. Such domination has to be challenged through appropriate methods informed by the apt epistemic standpoint. The social construction of reality by positivist scientific methods and its naturalization through the claim of objectivity and neutrality has to be subjected to the test of its contextual privilege. The research from the marginalized society’s point of view should lead to epistemic emancipation that demands a moral imperative to do research from the ‘within’ rather than the dominated. While questioning such prevailing claims of both European and caste epistemologies, this article argues for a Tribal epistemology that is instrumental in the emancipatory struggle of the community and highlights that such epistemic defiance can challenge the issues of social inequalities, injustices, and exploitation that are embedded in our social relations.

Key Words: Tribal Epistemology, Social Research, Domination, Subjugated Knowledge, Emancipatory Research Methods

Introduction

Teaching in an interdisciplinary department of social exclusion studies made me realize that the concept of social exclusion is a multidimensional one that needs multidimensionality in addressing issues of exclusions. This concept is defined as the ‘inability to participate’ by individuals and social groups in the mainstream life of a nation. However, the problem arises when one tries to identify with the constitutive ingredients of such mainstream. If it is a space of reproduction of dominant hegemony, then the resistance against such ‘mainstreaming’ from the excluded groups is visible in various forms. Hence, creating a democratic mainstream space that respects diversities of various kinds is a challenge that is monumental in front of traditional nation-states like India where the Brahminical culture is promoted as the national culture while ignoring ‘other’ cultures. Teaching a research methodology course at the doctoral level titled ‘Research in Social Exclusion Studies: Methodologies and Methods’ made me realize that mainstream academic knowledge has standard methodological, ontological, and epistemic positions that are located in the dominant European and caste social relations, that has been produced and reproduced in the name of knowledge. While moving further it was also realized that the knowledge is socially embedded and constructed, hence political. It is far from the claims made by both dominant European and caste epistemic positions that knowledge production is a neutral process, such claims face an inherent challenge that the ‘dominant ideologies’ are the instrument in the hands of the dominant to maintain and reproduce the existing social hierarchies.

Epistemology: from Description to Emancipation

Epistemology is a theory of knowledge that delineates a set of assumptions about the social world about who can be a knower what can be known and how we can know something. In de Sousa Santos’s (2018, 2) opinion, it is about analysis identification and validation of knowledge in general, as well as justified belief. Broadly speaking three epistemological positions are predominant in social research. The first one is positivist epistemology, which is also referred to as logical positivism. The purpose of this epistemic position is that is to explain, discover laws and predict the course of social life. Social scientific positivism while taking the naturalist approach to studying the social world, posits an epistemological view that the reality in the natural world is ‘out there’ that is to be verified, measured, defined, and classified. This objective reality can be investigated by removing ‘emotional contaminants’ (Scott 2013, 18).

In the Enlightenment period philosophers and scientists saw the universe as a logical and organized place run on rational and ordered principles. The key to understanding the universe was to uncover these principles with the help of objectivity and deductive empiricism. Scientists seek out universally valid, timeless and applicable laws concerning the natural world. On similar lines, the positivists seek the social world as orderly rather than chaotic or random which can be measured, classified, defined and shown to work on similar ordered universal laws. The work of social scientists was to uncover these laws through the same rigorous testing of hypotheses in the value-free, objective style of natural scientists. The resultant social laws would be universal, that applies to all societies, timeless and unchanging. It assumes that society ‘out there’ is an objective reality that acts upon individuals similarly to natural law works on the natural world. It assumed that all individuals are rational and self-interested and respond to social forces, and all individuals act in essentially the same ways.

Early sociologists took the scientific model and applied it to the social world. According to Emile Durkheim, ‘what is demanded is that the sociologist put himself in the same state of mind as the physicist, chemist, physiologist when he probes into a still explored region of the scientific domain’ (Scott 2013, 19). It assumed that the society was deemed to run on sets of universal laws that could be uncovered just like the laws of physics or chemists. Western epistemology focuses upon the validation of modern science that is premised on systematic observation and controlled experimentation which is a specific creation of Western modernity that is different from other ways of knowing that are popular, practical, commonsensical, oral and intuitive. Scientific knowledge, combined with superior economic and military power, granted the global North the imperial domination of the world in the modern era up to our very days (de Sousa Santos 2018, 6).

The epistemologies of the South that may strengthen the struggles against capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy can also be included in caste epistemology in the Indian context.  The ‘dominant groups establish a hegemonic hold on society primarily through successfully positioning their epistemic privilege and dominant worldview as the most legitimate and natural way to view the world’ (Vaditya 2018, 273). The second one is the interpretative or hermeneutical epistemic position which is interested in studying the everyday methods that people employ for the production of social order. Its goal is to document the methods and practices through which members of society make sense of their world and discover the meanings of their social reality. The third Critical epistemology tries to disclose the dominant social myths and illusions that have been created as hegemony, while doing so it also fosters emancipation and empowerment of the socially marginalized. It regards ‘social reality’ as a verb as it is the creation of dominance. The Tribal epistemology as a critical epistemology questions the validity of positivism as well as caste epistemologies and proposes alternative ways of knowing, perceiving and theorizing tribal social realities.

Tribal Epistemologies: Theorizing the Realities from Within

The European epistemology also known as enlightenment epistemology ‘rests on a dualistic foundation, qualities such as rationality, reason, objectivity, and impartiality are privileged over and opposed to, irrationality, emotion, subjectivity and partiality’ (Vaditya 2018, 274). To reclaim subjugated indigenous knowledge epistemology has to be interlinked with methodology [1] and methods [2]. Here epistemology is a theory of knowledge that becomes the guiding source of methodology and methods. Reclamation of subjugated knowledge is possible through emancipatory research practices, which are inclusive of a variety of research methods and methodologies. Several research approaches are arising from epistemologies in feminism, critical hermeneutics, postmodern, and critical theory, critical action research, and Indigenous and collective memory work, all of which share an emancipatory research objective. The epistemological assumptions of these varied methodologies contend that those who are in the marginalized position of society experience silence and injustice.

The research from the margins is not research on the marginalized but research by, for, and with them/us. It is research that takes seriously and seeks to trouble the connections between how knowledge is created, what knowledge is produced, and who is entitled to engage in these processes. It seeks to reclaim and incorporate the personal and political context of knowledge construction. It attempts to foster oppositional discourses, ways of talking about research, and research processes that explicitly and implicitly challenge relations of domination and subordination. It is grassroots in the sense of considering as ‘legitimate’ what we have to say about our own lives and the lives of others, and how the conditions of those lives might be transformed. The research work that seeks to be carried out by/on marginalized communities has to give priority to notions like respect, representation, revising, reclaiming, renaming, remembering, reconnecting, and recovering. Implicit in all of these principles are strategies for resisting dominant norms in research (Brown and Strega 2005, 14).

Unlike the Western ‘methodological individualism’ social epistemologists and feminist epistemologists have recognized that the ‘epistemological agents are communities rather than individuals’ (Calvert-Minor 2011, 210). In Ogaba’s (2019, 210) opinion, ‘It is fundamental to tribal epistemology that it is a people’s epistemology rather than an epistemology carved out of some preconceived ideas of rationality, truth and justification’. Even the central theme in Native American epistemology is the ‘notions of ‘ceremonial worlds’ and ‘narrative’ (Hester and Cheney 2001, 319). The tribal communities create knowledge collectively; unlike western epistemology which emphasizes on ‘disembodied individual’ that is removed from the context and emotion involved in creation of knowledge. Spaces like traditional ‘dormitories’ assume an important role transmission and modification of tribal knowledge. Tribal epistemology considers realities both physical and spiritual that are inter-connected, considering that all living things are manifestations of spirit and were gifts from the creator. Unlike the Western/positivist epistemology, in the tribal thought structure and process ‘myth’ and ‘oral tradition’ assume preponderance and acceptable ways of knowing the reality.

Transmission of cultural knowledge takes place through oral tradition among them the ‘culture is generally transmitted from generation to generation through stories, myths, and re-enactments of rituals and ceremonies’ (Ogaba 2019, 207). The predominant and common mode of oral tradition is narrating the story. Knowledge is transmitted through stories shaped in relation to the wisdom of the storyteller at the time of the telling. This tradition is passed down to posterity to make sense of past moral values as well as the moral changes in the present. The tribal epistemology distinguishes between an outsider’s account of theorizing the realities from a cultural distance and the cultural insider’s ways of theorizing their social realities and constructing knowledge. In Ogaba’s (2019, 210) opinion:

By tribal epistemology, social scientists mean a cultural group’s ways of thinking and of creating, reformulating, and theorizing about knowledge via traditional discourses and media of communication, anchoring the truth of the discourse in culture. From the tribal standpoint, the ways of creating knowledge are parts of the mosaic of cultural knowledge that includes the whole person, family, kin group, and society. As a concept, tribal epistemology focuses on the process through which knowledge is constructed and validated by a cultural group, and the role of that process in shaping the thoughts and actions.

The Tribal epistemology assumes that knowledge is socially constructed in a particular cultural context. The southern African concept of ubuntu stands for the ontology of co-being and coexistence “I am because we are” in contrast with the Western philosophy of “I think therefore I am”. The indigenous philosophy of Pachamama, which has been included in the Constitution of Ecuador, designates ‘nature not as a natural resource but rather nature as a living being and source of life, to which rights are ascribed as to humans: nature rights side by side with human rights, both having the same constitutional status’ (de Sousa Santos 2018, 10). Such is the case with the concept of Quechua‘s idea of chachawarmi.[3] In the Andean Part of Latin America, the notion of interculturalidad-translating ‘interculturality’ is the core component among the indigenous social movements in their social and political struggle for recognition, it attempts ‘to break out of the prison of colonial vocabulary—modernization, progress, salvation (Aman 2016, 97).

Apart from knowing the social realities through oral traditions ‘and tribal use of native epistemologies to construct and theorize knowledge, it is encoded and passed on to the next generation (Ogaba 2019, 210). Epistemic disobedience, thus, is part of the process towards decolonial humanity in that it questions who counts as human, who counts as a knower, and whose knowledge counts as knowledge. These are central interrogations in Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and movements. Epistemic creativity is an important way to challenge dominant epistemic assumptions. The tribal epistemology assumes that the ‘culture is variable, an ongoing conversation embodying conflict and change, shaped by the dialectic of structure and agency, inherently ideological, and prone to manipulation and distortion by powerful Interests’ (Ogaba 2019, 211). Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999, 4) claims that:

To resist is to retrench in the margins, retrieve what we were and remake ourselves. The past, our stories local and global, the present, our communities, cultures, languages and social practices—all may be spaces of marginalization, but they have also become spaces of resistance and hope.

Wilson (2008, 73) highlights the non-linear nature of Indigenous epistemology, and the research practice upholds the view that an epistemology where the relationship with something (a person, object or idea) is more important than the thing itself. In the research, consequences need not be forma, it is celebrated as a ceremony for improving a relationship with an idea. Contrary to enlightenment epistemology, the Indigenous epistemology is fluid, non-linear, and relational, in other words, it announces that ‘no research without relation’. Kovach (2005, 28) draws several key assertions from an Indigenous epistemology, which can guide the research process with the indigenous communities:

(a) Experience as a legitimate way of knowing.

(b) Indigenous methods, such as storytelling, as a legitimate way of sharing knowledge.

(c) Receptivity and relationship between researcher and participants as a natural part of the research ‘methodology’ and

(d) Collectivity as a way of knowing that assumes reciprocity to the community.

The indigenous research privileges indigenous concerns, practices and participation in the research process. The research agenda is conceptualized as constituting a programme that is situated within the decolonization politics of the indigenous peoples’ movement. The research becomes a tool in the hands of indigenous people that encourages ‘the acts of reclaiming, reformulating and reconstituting indigenous cultures and languages have required the mounting of an ambitious research programme, one that is very strategic in its purpose and activities and relentless in its pursuit of social justice’ (Smith 1999, 142). The decolonial-historical approach proposed by Bodhi (2022, 67) also challenges both European and Caste epistemology which are epistemically blind and silent to the concerns of indigenous people.

Against European and Caste Epistemologies

The British colonial rule superimposed a social change process on the tribal population that they thought was ‘necessary to civilize them, and the Indian administrators inherited this line of thinking after British rule ended in the country (Padel, 2015). This tendency could be described as epistemology, which is understood as the process of assimilation of tribal communities into both caste and peasant societies rather than treating tribal realities that co-existed along with the caste social realities. Akhup (2015, 31) attempts to view tribal studies from the epistemology of ‘location in the field’ and argues for ‘an embedded theorization process positioned as ‘reverse anthropology’ approach.

The important goals of critical and emancipatory research methods include identifying the role of interest and ideology in the processes and outcome of research practices. It encourages researchers to take organic positions in research to assume an active role in the social justice struggle through research as a process and outcome. While doing so it exposes the hypocrisy of dominant research practices and encourages gross root action. It takes an epistemic position of ‘social embeddedness’ and ‘no research without relationship’. It prioritizes agendas like social equality, and social justice for oppressed groups, not just, as an ideological position but that is deeply rooted in their very real lives, struggles and experiences to overcome certain stereotypes and improve their human rights positionalities. This is connected with the struggle of tribal communities that document their lived realities, experiences, and concerns, and counter certain stereotypes and biases by challenging the structures and ideologies of oppression. In that process, it claims that the knowledge-building process has never been a value-free enterprise rather the social realities were never static, and any claim of stable social realities are not above the paradigm of ‘social construction of reality by the dominant western and caste epistemologies’.

It repudiates the division between knower and knowable, object and subject, researcher and researched. It questions the ethics and utility of such research practices that maintain the distance between knower and knowable. It encourages alternative ways of thinking, which are different from Western, and caste epistemologies by rejecting the fixed and unchanging social realities (which are lying out there) as well as objective, neutral and value-free research process. According to Bodhi (2022), tribal epistemology needs to debate decoloniality, difference/decentering, survivalist politics, context epistemology, cultural deconstruction, settler epistemology, logic of elimination, epistemicide, epistemological disintegration, diversity politics, epistemological stability and epistemological integration. While arguing for decolonizing ethnography in India Tripura (2023, 1) argued that ‘the methods and frame of reference employed must be congruent with indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing. Furthermore, it also insists that critical reflexivity, responsibility, and sensitivity are keys to Tribal studies in India’.  Bhukya (2021, 13) suggested as a way forward for the Adivasi study project in India and proposed the theoretical approach of ‘decoloniality’ that does not homogenize diverse Adivasi communities and their histories. The important point to remember is that ‘the issue of indigenous people is not only epistemological but also political’.

The tribal epistemology engages with the tribal realities that are marked by the loss of knowledge related to land, water, forest agriculture, livelihoods and language in India. The British rule and administration created both the British and native-caste society’s colonialism in mainland tribal India. The tribal regions have been freed from British colonialism but not the colonialism of caste society. In the opinion of Xaxa (2022, 65) ‘internal colonialism has persisted and become deeply entrenched in social, economic, political, and cultural structures, due to the nature and agenda of development pursued by the state’. It resulted in varied forms of ‘epistemological disintegration’ of tribal communities; it is not a concrete reality that all communities are experiencing. However, many tribal communities are exhibiting epistemological stability and others some degree of ‘epistemic distortion’.[4] In another sense, there have been some academic efforts made here and there through alternative epistemic positions to restore tribal autonomy over their collective destiny. In other words, the efforts are against the process of tribal assimilation that ‘is characterized by a loss of power and identity, fragmentation of the community, a blurring of social boundaries, ruination of language and spoliation of history. This has led to the ‘epistemological disintegration’ of the Tribes (Bodhi and Jojo 2019, 46).

The education system is one of the prime reasons for the epistemic disintegration of tribal communities. The tribal communities are taught in the medium of regional dominant languages. Apart from that, in recent times in indigenous-inhabited territories, the mining companies have removed education from the hands of indigenous peoples, under the guise of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Through CSR education initiatives orchestrated and administered by actors opposed to an indigenous way of life. Indigenous communities continue to combat a similar kind of domination in the present that they encountered during the European colonial era. These CSR education initiatives illustrate the words of the late Paulo Freire, who considered ‘education as the practice of domination’ (Pyke 2002, 58). The tribal society’s position concerning alternative paths to modernity is against a singular path to modernity defined in the dominant West and the caste societies. The operational principle now is engaged governance, this principle is premised on ‘tribal people’s active involvement in the governance of the tribes. This also indicates that ‘tribal communities move back and forth across a governance spectrum between lesser degrees of epistemological freedom and greater degrees of politico-epistemological freedom’ (Bodhi 2022, 67). It incorporates approaches like interpretations, subjectivity, emotions, and embodiment to expand understanding and a meaningful form of enquiry that expands the potentiality for new forms of knowledge creation outside of positivism. It encourages situated aspects of the knowledge-building process that the worldviews ‘can be maps’ that guide the research process from the tribal epistemic position.  It considers the bodily and emotional realm as a source of knowledge that is necessarily inclusive and pays closer attention to elements such as personal experience, subjectivity, worldviews and emotions.

Conclusion

In the end, oppression exists in various forms including epistemic form. Tribal epistemology in general and the emancipatory researcher, in particular, make a political commitment to make research as a tool of social emancipation. That is feasible with the inclusion of the critical epistemic standpoint of ‘tribal epistemology’ in our research process. It gives voice to the tribal realities by exposing the hypocrisy that is involved in dominant academic methods and it takes the explicit political position that social research should empower and emancipate oppressed groups. Tribal epistemology presumes the existence of knowledge in multiple forms, hence multiple epistemologies. It is an emancipatory epistemology that makes social justice a part of the research process as well as the research outcome. It fosters the oppositional discourses to challenge relations of domination and subordination. It acknowledges that the dominant knowledge formations take place under gender, race, class and caste hegemonies and this domination is naturalized in academic research practices with the help of scientific methods. The political as well as epistemic violence inflicted upon tribal communities is a disturbing phenomenon.

End Notes

[1] The methodology here is understood as a theory of how research is done or should proceed.

[2] A method is a technique (or a way of proceeding in) gathering shreds of evidence.

[3] Quechua has become a key concept in the liberation struggles of indigenous women in some countries of Latin America. It designates an egalitarian, complementarian notion of gender relations while dispensing with the patterns and languages under lying Eurocentric feminism.

[4] Bodhi and Jojo. (2019, 46) defines epistemological stability as a state in which a community displays characteristics such as stable ontology, history and cultural processes, distinct social/identity boundaries, firm control over natural resources, experience reality in their language and on their organic socio-cultural terms, have a strong sense of nationhood and has state power to negotiate their realities with the other. ‘Epistemological distortion’, however, is defined as a condition in which a community emits features, such as ontological or identity negotiations with self and others, tension between endonym (name given by self) and exonym (name given by others), demand for engagement and dialogue with the dominant forces, numerous protest and resistance movements, overt assertion and display of cultural practices, attempts to protect and seek recognition for language and script, make historical claims over land, water and forest, resist expropriation by outside forces yet have experienced some degree of cultural appropriation.

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Dr. Venkatesh Vaditya is currently serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, The English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, Telangana. Earlier he served in the Department of Social Exclusion Studies between 2010-2023 in the same institution. His areas of interest include Human Rights, Indian Political Thought, Political Economy, Tribal Studies, and Research Methodology.

 

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