Ethics of Response-Ability

You have encountered a “Great White Beast”, a fleeting, shapeshifting figure that performs the world as indeterminate.

To encounter a Great White Beast is to be reminded that there are no right decisions to be made, but that we are nevertheless to hold ourselves accountable to our own choices.

In this case, when it comes to ideas like intra-dependency and relational worldviews, there are no 'easy' ways out.

The ethics involved with drawing from such ontologies in academic work cannot be resolved through ‘right’ ways of doing things. Non-Indigenous researchers engaging any form of generative ontologies need to take responsibility for whichever option they choose: 1. engaging Indigenous scholarship, or 2. not engaging Indigenous scholarship - While neither option is “innocent” .

In dealing with this Great White Beast, I have chosen to rely on a very selective body of western scholarship to formulate ways of thinking outside of the classic western subject/object divide and not appropriate Indigenous scholarship in formulating my own understanding of ontologically generative paradigms.

Where appropriate, I have placed my journey in dialogue with Indigenous scholarship.

Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BearWatch Project