Philosophical inquiry with indigenous children: An attemptto integrate indigenous forms of knowledge in philosophyfor/with children

Abstract

In this article, I propose to integrate indigenous forms of knowledge in thePhilosophy for/with Children theory and practice. I make the claim that it ispossible to treat indigenous forms of knowledge, not only as topics forphilosophical dialogues with children but as presuppositions of thephilosophical activity itself within the Community of Inquiry. Suchintegration is important for at least three (3) reasons: First, recognizingindigenous ways of thinking and seeing the world informs us of other non-dominant forms of knowledge, methods to produce knowledge and criteriato determine knowledge. Second, the dominance of western standards ofproducing and determining knowledge, especially in non-western societies,needs to be reduced, balanced and informed by local knowledge andexperiences. And third, indigenous forms of knowledge reinforce a culturallyresponsive P4wC that responds to the challenges in multicultural andethnically diverse classrooms. There are two (2) possible intersectionswhere such integration may take place, namely: a) Epistemology, where Iclaim that the integration of a “presentational epistemology” immanent inindigenous patterns of thinking provides a counterweight to Lipman'sadherence to analytic-representational epistemology, and b) Pedagogy,which takes shape in an “indigenized” Community of Inquiry that highlightsthe values of interconnectedness, situatedness and relationality.