Indigenous Education and the Metaphysics of Presence

A Worlded Philosophy

Carl Mika

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317540236
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

Indigenous Education and the Metaphysics of Presence: A worlded philosophy explores a notion of education called 'worldedness' that sits at the core of indigenous philosophy. This is the idea that any one thing is constituted by all others and is, therefore, educational to the extent that it is formational. A suggested opposite of this indigenous philosophy is the metaphysics of presence, which describes the tendency in dominant Western philosophy to privilege presence over absence. This book compares these competing philosophies and argues that, even though the metaphysics of presence and the formational notion of education are at odds with each other, they also constitute each other from an indigenous worlded philosophical viewpoint.

Drawing on both Maori and Western philosophies, this book demonstrates how the metaphysics of presence is both related and opposed to the indigenous notion of worldedness. Mika explains that presence seeks to fragment things in the world, underpins how indigenous peoples can represent things, and prevents indigenous students, critics, and scholars from reflecting on philosophical colonisation. However, the metaphysics of presence, from an indigenous perspective, is constituted by all other things in the world, and Mika argues that the indigenous student and critic can re-emphasise worldedness and destabilise presence through creative responses, humour, and speculative thinking. This book concludes by positioning well-being within education, because education comprises acts of worldedness and presence.

This book will be of key interest to indigenous as well as non-indigenous academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, indigenous and Western philosophy, political strategy and post-colonial studies. It will also be relevant for those who are interested in philosophies of language, ontology, metaphysics and knowledge.

1
Introduction

The first hallmark of American Indian philosophy is the commitment to the belief that all things are related – and this belief is not simply an ontological claim, but rather an intellectual and ethical maxim.

(Arola, 2011, p.563)

Directed towards a specific indigenous philosophy, Arola’s comment nevertheless relates to indigenous thought generally. With that preface in mind, as a Maori writer I am extending his observation and agreeing with him that all things in the world herald an ethical responsibility for the indigenous self. One version of the interrelationship that he notes expresses the eternal convergence of the world within any one thing, and so one ethical outcome is that the individual person should implicate a sense of mystery within any one object. Even more curiously, perhaps, this fundamental collapse of the All within the one also has significance for the nature of thought itself. I do not want to overemphasise thought as the sole participant with that holism, preferring instead just to begin with that focus simply because the nature of thought is often neglected in statements that argue for holism. It does strike me as a curious possibility with indigenous philosophy that, as soon as the ultimate, true ground of thought has been identified, it appears to swim out of view, to be replaced by an apparently similar idea of a ground. Another creature altogether may have moored itself. Again, we can pinpoint that fresh idea as the fundamental basis of thought, but then like its predecessor it recedes. But the idea has not necessarily separated itself off from us. This interrelationship between indigenous self and idea can be thought of as one example of the link between self and things in the world in general, and it forms the crux of this book in several ways.

To continue specifically with the idea: while writing, I would often intend to pick up where I left off, only to find that the basic idea had apparently moved on, to be substituted with another. The neurological decision on this might note a lapse in concentration whereas in indigenous thought it is plausible that the idea itself is taking charge. The lapse occurring is, in fact, one in the conversation between the idea and me, where the idea has simply decided to stop revealing itself to me in a way I can hear or see. It no longer sees fit to talk with me and disclose its possibilities to be reflected on. In indigenous thought, as I go on to say, the idea is a material entity (Mika, 2014a; 2015e; Mika & Tiakiwai, 2016) that is constituted by all other things in the world; it is as equal to the situation as my own neurological decision to think is. So, it should come as no surprise – to me while writing, or to anyone else – that an idea should decide of its own accord to seemingly drift away and allow another to take its place. Whether the former idea has indeed moved on or has just decided to slip into the background of the current idea can only be speculated on. And this ability to speculate is itself the convergence of both the human and non-human worlds, the latter including the world of the idea. That we can think at all, shows that the external world makes us up, or forms us. Like all other things, the idea may have moved on, or it may have simply withdrawn on its own account for a time but remain there in a hidden sense whilst still influencing us in ways we do not apprehend.

This discussion about the idea is one example of the possibility of all things forming each other. One aim of this book is to understand the oneness that sits at the core of indigenous philosophy as education itself. This oneness is not simply inert or static; it is much more formational. Additionally, I intend to explore a stated opposite of this indigenous philosophy – the metaphysics of presence, or, for the purposes of this book, simply ‘presence’ – and its impact on that indigenous suggestion of interconnection. Although the metaphysics of presence and the formational notion of education are at odds with each other, they constitute each other. This potential holds particular repercussions for presence, because presence likes to think of itself as presenting any one thing as self-sufficient and on its own. The immediate constitution of presence by its formational opposite – and the idea that they implicate each other is closer to an indigenous one – is an educational problem as well. Thinking about education and its formational nature asks me to bring my ability to speculate on the issues. To start with, emphasising an aspect of education that sits quietly at the base of indigenous literature means that I have to identify that ground of thinking that would give credit to things in general and, in doing so, allow for the current idea to drift off (shadow itself?) and have another step in for it. I do indeed seek to consider education away from its current dominant association with teaching and learning and to revive it from a theoretically indigenous and Maori perspective. However, again I consider that my speculation is not all my own. Already we see a conflict with presence, which requires the writer to represent an object as if it originates from him- or herself. The only way to achieve that more ambitious aim of incorporating the world and my thinking, as far as I can see, is to reiterate the deep indigenous philosophy that things in the world are collapsed within any one thing, not fragmented as other colonising philosophies would have it. The fact that it is reiterated attests perhaps to the sway that the fragmented view holds in both academic and everyday colonised existence. In other words, I reiterate to resist. By reasserting the idea that all things attend within one entity, and by simultaneously and continuously glancing sideways (and at some stages confrontationally) at that idea’s antithesis, I discuss an education that does not let go of that holistic worldview. But the proposition needs to be repeated as it unfolds in its various contexts, not as a mere abstract mantra that threatens to divorce itself from our everyday existence by becoming overly spiritualised.

My goal of re-theorising education through some ground principles of indigenous thought is an optimistic one because it tries to account for those principles alongside colonisation. Here we have to be mindful that the very medium of the language, structure and grammar we use is likely to thwart an indigenous metaphysics, at least to some extent. We can state an absolute truth such as ‘the world is interconnected’, but the statement is saturated with an unseen field of truthful and rational assumptions. This field sometimes allows for something to be said but quietly undermines it so that it falls into line with its own expectation of truth and rationality (Mika & Southey, 2016; Mika & Stewart, 2015). This problem is due to the metaphysics of presence, which is the field and parent of that sabotaging linguistics. Both indigenous metaphysics and ‘presence’ propose something about things (and hence we relate to things on the basis of those propositions), and to that extent they both propose how things form us. They therefore educate us. They do so in vastly different ways, however, with an indigenous view of ‘the world within an object’ preferring that an idea is just as animate and interconnected with all other things as a human being. Barad notes about animacy that “neovitalist theories” (Klein-man, n.d, p.80) fail to inquire into the purpose of distinctions between animate and inanimate. She suggests that these distinctions are important because they highlight the uniqueness of some beings’ natural ability to flourish. We can note here that the distinction is important now for the thriving of both colonial and precolonial thought in one entity; that is, an entity is composed of thought that distinguishes sharply between living and non-living and evolves to that extent with that demarcation as part of its makeup.

After questioning both the human/non-human and animate/inanimate divides, Barad continues that “[t]hese are important political and ethical questions that need a place in our theories if those theories are indeed thinking companions with a chance for life” (Kleinman, n.d, p.80). Presence, on the other hand, educates us as indigenous peoples by proposing and implementing that things – including those ideas that Barad talks about – are most certainly not all coalesced as material entities within one thing, and that we should not be thinking of ideas as living, material entities either. In both presence and interconnected metaphysics, one is not just conceptually educated; one is materially constructed by the existence of those narratives. My optimism at emphasising the worlded aspect of education is short-lived yet ongoing because presence both stalls holistic thought but opens its own self up for indigenous, holistic critique. Our reflection on that incalculable, mysterious phenomenon must similarly meet its limits. Education, as actively constitutive force and as idea, is frustrating and tantalising from an indigenous perspective as well as through the deeply implanted lens of presence.

Worldedness as education

I approach this book with a certain brand of holism in mind: that any one thing is constituted by all others. In the Maori language, there are various concepts that signal the fullness of the world within one thing. I discuss some of this naming in Chapter 3 through the Maori language and prefer the term worldedness to articulate this deep holism. It and its related terms, worlded and worlding, are neologistic but have been used by others to denote several phenomena. Two uses of them elsewhere are particularly well known: with specific reference to the Third World, Spivak (1985) employs worlding to describe the imperial act that glazes over the true workings of the coloniser, making what the latter does seem normal, and Heidegger (1962) discusses the worlding of the world – how the world becomes world. Worlding with Heidegger asks after the infinite myriad of relationships that are peculiarly meaningful to humanity. A third description – more directly relevant for this book – comes from Buss and Genetin-Pilawa (2014), who emphasise the interconnectedness of concepts and things in the world. This version of the active world is one preferred for this book; it “is at once rich with cohesion and contradiction … mutually constructed and bound to place” (p.1). Broadly I mean by worlding and its variations worlded and worldedness the following: one thing is never alone, and all things actively construct and compose it (Mika, 2016c). As one thing presents itself to me, others within it may appear and hide, but even if I cannot perceive them (which I cannot) we can be assured that they are there. An object that I perceive is therefore fundamentally unknowable; I can speculate on it and give it a name, but all I can be certain of is that it is mysterious precisely because it is ‘worlded’. I can experience the thing in its full force without actually sensing that influence, but talk of knowledge is only minimally useful when we are considering it. I am no more familiar with any one thing than if I had never encountered it. Indeed, I experience an aspect of the worlded thing and its mystery when I meet the limits of my ability to say much about it, or when I realise that I cannot fully know it. Perception is given rise by the formation of the self with the full force of all things in the world.

Moreover, I can talk about the thing, or, more precisely, I am discussing it as if I am a part of it. As I make an observation about it, I am obviously using language. Language does not just talk about things, and I am not actually using it as such; like any other entity, it is also the sum of the world (Mika & Tiakiwai, 2016). As an indigenous writer, if I could I would express myself so that all things are given the space to fully engage with each other within one entity. I would also discuss a thing as if I were an aspect of it, not separate from it. At least from a Maori viewpoint, I am in the thrall of language so that, when I express myself, I am manifesting the world as a whole (Mika, 2007). I am hence less its master and more of a participant with it (and here we are more in synchronicity with Heidegger’s version of ‘world’). Things in the world orient themselves to me in a particular way, and I answer with those things similarly present. This ability to speculate about, and discuss, a thing in its full nature is another facet of education. To represent things in the world holistically ensures that the sway of all those things retains its shape, and assures for the human self a type of well-being. Incidentally (but most important), this subsequent step I raise here is only possible because of my relationship with the totality of the world. Education from an indigenous perspective would emphasise that I have to consider all those social and philosophical obstacles and reinforcements that open up a thing for me to consider it as a fully worlded one.

But there is another set of philosophies that has the same consequences in terms of how I propose education yet differs quite significantly from those I have outlined earlier. The thing seems tasked with a formidable enterprise, having to appear as a result of the ‘all’ within it as it does, but its attunement with the rest of the world is quite plausible for Maori thought at least. What does seem untenable, though, is the opposite: a set of philosophies that dictate an object is caught up in a static ‘thereness’ and hence displays rigid properties that make it what it is. It is this more recent, colonising metaphysics that insists a thing is solitary and highly positive, and importantly the indigenous self is not immune from its influence. It makes any talk of traditional worlding difficult; indeed, it makes any description tortuous, because whilst discussing worlding, presence is present, and vice versa. Presence encourages me, quite tacitly, to think of any object or idea as that object or idea, not as a traditionally worlded entity. In a very broad way, this proposition meets with Spivak’s idea that ‘worlding’ is coupled with the normalisation imposed by colonisation. This colonising metaphysics, which is a recent phenomenon for Maori, urges me to use particular sorts of language and notions of time to support itself. I am therefore caught in a slippage between my desire to express the worlded entity and the restraints imposed by the language I use and by the layout of logic that does not allow a full demonstration of the All. It would seem that presence, in its manifestation as discipliner of text and thought in general, prohibits the simultaneous resonance of the past and the future within perception and expression; presence ignores the continuous coming-to-be of my ancestors and all others within my work; and in its pursuit of rationalism it renders potential terms to describe my culturally specific metaphysics, off-limits.

Presence in a general sense may not be a problem for indigenous holistic perceptions, especially when used to convey that a thing emerges in front of the self with its relationship to the whole world. But when spoken about in the context of a horizon of thinking that originates from Plato, where a thing is ‘stuck’ for the self’s regard, it takes on a different hue altogether. The metaphysics of presence is an inherited, colonised ground of perception that is more than just an abstract problem; it is overwhelmingly a material one for indigenous peoples. The basis of thought for indigenous peoples, then, cannot be reduced to an uptake of the mind, or a mere Kantian regulative ideal. The phrase ‘metaphysics of presence’ problematises the unquestioned, crucial turn towards “a present under the heading of that which endures and persists, near and available, exposed to vision or given by hand, a present in the form of … presence-at-hand” (Derrida, 1982b, p.32). The label presence is a useful one for this problem that arguably lies at the base of all colonised thought and expression, but I contend in later chapters that, although the phrase ‘metaphysics of presence’ can be speculated on from a holistic perspective, the ground that it highlights is at times elusive. This difficulty we encounter when discussing what appears to be an ultimate ground of colonisation ‘becomes perhaps even more confounding’ when we consider that presence is indeed formed by a notion of worldedness and vice versa.

The indigenous self is therefore formed or educated by a contrary view that an object is ‘there’ in all its presence. The self in the world or the self in the classroom are both constituted by that ‘thereness’ (Mika, 2015d). If we think about the classroom context, we can note that education is like other institutions, such as law and medicine, because it takes an approach to its objects as if they are immediately visible. In its dominant mode, it can at least be said that education in schools does not, or perhaps cannot, account for the possibility that any one student is always one with the place that they originate from, or with time and space as a combined entity. The ability of the indigenous self to slip beneath the surface, under the dreadful, everyday aspects of colonisation, is a further facet of education. Education for indigenous peoples is thus the problematising of colonisation generally, but, in specific relation to this book, it is the critique of the static relationship of the self to an object and its world, and of the self and his or her worlded nature to the colonising proposition that such a metaphysical critique is irrelevant. Writing a book or article must also therefore be an educational exercise, not simply because of its ability to add to thinking and knowledge but also, more importantly, because of its interface with both presence and worldedness.

But what is it about an essentially mysterious view of things’ immediately collapsed nature that urges me to call it ‘education’? I am not suggesting that the more conventional approaches labell...