Walking the Land, Feeding the Fire: Knowledge and Stewardship Among the Tlicho Dene

Chapter Five. Experiencing Kweèt' ı̨į̀: Collaborating and Taking Action

131 chapter five Experiencing Kweèt’ı ̨ì ̨ Collaborating and Taking Action Before deciding what to do, leaders need to listen to the people. —Alphonse Quitte, 1993 Everyone should help each other to think about the problems. —Madelaine Drybone, 1993 In June 2004, Father Jean Pochat and I sat talking. I expressed my respect for the Tłı̨chǫ elders with whom I worked and for their reverence for the spirit in all things. I also expressed how I love the gentle way in which these elders tell stories to guide behavior. He listened to me. He then told me that as a young man he had learned more from the Tłı̨chǫ elders than he had during his years of study and more than he had taught them, about truly loving and the spirit of God. He went on to say how he could literally see how deeply the elders love and respect the dè. As we parted, he again told me how much he loves listening to the elders. This chapter is an overview of collaborating and taking action. I focus on PAR as collaborative research that in many ways mirrors Tłı̨chǫ ways of considering problems, finding solutions, and taking action. To exemplify the importance Tłı̨chǫ place on people who, like Father Pochat, contribute and listen to the Tłı̨chǫ perspective when collaborating, I portray a few Kweèt’ı̨į̀ individuals who are remembered for these characteristics. As in the previous chapter, this historical overview focuses on the value of relations in which personal autonomy is supported and group cooperation is secured. First, I consider participatory and collaborative research that has been undertaken with the Dene in the NWT because it is based on listening and observing. I then describe Kweèt’ı̨į̀who have developed relations with 132 · Kweèt’ı ̨ì ̨: Collaborating and Taking Action Tłı̨chǫ that have been cemented by listening and experiencing Tłı̨chǫ nèèk’e as well as by respecting the personal autonomy of others and giving of oneself. Finally, I discuss why the Tłı̨chǫ requested PAR, how it fits with the Tłı̨chǫ knowledge system, and how it is appropriated to fit Tłı̨chǫ needs. Since the 1970s, elders and leaders have repeatedly stated that they want their knowledge documented by local researchers so that they can be part of the decision-making and management processes affecting themselves and the dè. The same demands, of course, are being made by First Nations across Canada. The questions are: Why did Tłı̨chǫ elders and leaders request PAR? How did this help them to advance their desire for young people now and in the future to be self-determining? Answers to these questions call for reflection on research approaches used over the previous few decades and the importance that the Tłı̨chǫ place on understanding other systems of knowledge. Figure 5.1. Father Jean Pochat and Jimmy Martin at the Heritage Fair, Chief Jimmy Bruneau School, March 2010. (Photograph from Tessa Macintosh Photography) Kweèt’ı ̨ì ̨: Collaborating and Taking Action · 133 Participatory and Collaborative Research The Dene have been instigating participatory and collaborative research over several decades. June Helm and Joan Ryan began their anthropological inquiries with the Tłı̨chǫ in the 1950s. Ryan started as a teacher and later became an anthropologist, using her skills to train community researchers. By the late 1950s, Helm had completed anthropological research with the Slavey Dene residing in Jean Marie River (Helm 1961). In Whatì, Helm was immediately recruited to assist young people with their reading and writing skills so that they could stay home with their families instead of going to a federally approved Catholic residential school. She did this while fulfilling her academic obligation to document the native subsistence economy (Helm and Lurie 1961). Helm was particularly interested in change and continuity among the Tłı̨chǫ, who had limited contact with the outside world except other Dene until later. She was interested in understanding how a composite hunting band consisting of unrelated families had come to create a community based on parent–child and sibling ties, as she had observed in Jean Marie River (Helm 1979, 148). Julian Steward had thought the composite hunting band to be originally characteristic of Dene social organization (1955, 143–47). Based on research with Dene throughout the 1960s, particularly in Whatì, Helm (1968) concluded that no singular entity could be specified as “the band” in Dene society. Rather, there were...