Reshaping the University: Responsibility, Indigenous Epistemes, and the Logic of the Gift (review)

Kuokkanen begins this critique of the academy by employing the metaphor of the Deatnu River from her Sami homeland as a "border between worlds" (x). The deconstructive approach that lies at the heart of this important book employs significant insights from Gayatri Spivak's work and seeks to bring "various, even opposing discourses together" (xiv) in order to unsettle and illuminate the inconsistencies, vagaries, and fluidity of borders, particularly those borders that induce "separations and sharings" (xxi) and those that demarcate and create conceptual oppositions "in order to open up the possibility of multiple perspectives" (xxii).¹ This utilization of various deconstructive and critical theories as "stepping stones" rather than prescriptive, rigid categorizations enables Kuokkanen to examine the dominant, ignorant epistemic conventions of the university and illuminate a path toward genuine transformation of the academy.

Kuokkanen asserts that as an institution the academy supports and reproduces certain systems of thought and knowledge as well as certain structures and conventions that rarely reflect Indigenous worldviews. She labels this the "sanctioned interest of the academy at large" (1). In this book she aims to interrupt these dominant academic discourses and calls for a new relationship between the academy and Indigenous peoples based on notions of hospitality and reciprocity. The academy must acknowledge and welcome Indigenous epistemes if it is to truly address and overcome this ignorance, for, as she rightly claims, "it is unacceptable for a site of learning to be so ignorant" (5).

The concept of episteme is central to Kuokkanen's analysis, and in her articulation of Indigenous epistemes she draws on the work of Foucault.² Epistemes are "a lens through which we perceive the world; we use it to structure the statements that count as knowledge in a particular period. . . . [I]t is a mode of social reality that is taken for granted ground whose unwritten rules are learned . . . through the process of socialisation into a particular culture" (57). Thus, the concept of episteme goes further than epistemologies, which focus only on the nature of knowledge, but it also includes ontology, methodologies, worldviews, and ethics. Indigenous epistemes are willfully marginalized within the academy. She contends that "by and large the academy still operates as if there is only one episteme" (65).

Kuokkanen offers the gift as a way of understanding how the academy could exemplify a genuine hospitality to Indigenous epistemes. "The logic of the gift foregrounds a new relationship—one that is characterized by reciprocity and by a call for a responsibility to the 'other'" (2). Universities thus have a responsibility to receive the gift of Indigenous epistemes with respect and gratitude, with openness and an ethic of sharing rather than exchange. The logic of the gift requires recognition that this will be an ongoing process and needs commitment to overcome entrenched institutionalized ignorance. Thus, this will not be an easy nor uncontested process.

Kuokkanen offers suggestions, not prescriptions, on how the academy may open itself to the possibility of the gift of Indigenous epistemes, for, as she rightly claims, "there is no single approach to doing this. . . . [T]he logic of the gift is embedded in practices that take into account the multiplicities and specificities of each individual context" (164). She calls for an indigenizing of the academy and argues that it is up to the academy to do its homework to ensure that this process is not tokenistic and disingenuous. Before it can genuinely accept the gift of Indigenous epistemes, the academy will have to profoundly transform itself. It will not be enough to merely to include Indigenous systems of knowledge or ways of knowing in pedagogies and curricula (2-3). She also suggests that universities must examine their own practices of domination and ensure that Indigenous representatives are involved in critical decision-making processes (154). Universities will have to be reflective about their role in the marginalization of Indigenous epistemes.

Kuokkanen highlights the "need for rigorous analyses that will...