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Project 57 Week 30: Relationality

Published August 14, 2024 by Ashley Edwards

Relationality is a foundational concept of Indigenous knowledge and philosophy. Citing Clara Sue Kidwell (1993), Sandra Littletree et al., explains how “expressions of Indigenous knowledge are the discernable manifestations of knowledge—the nouns that are created when we exercise our relationships with the land, water, ceremonies, people, stories, teachings, and observations” (2020). Moreover, “these are the tangible and intangible objects, belongings, art, songs, words, and thoughts that may become part of the collections of information institutions” (Littletree, S., et al, 2020).

Relationality is understood as interconnectedness and it is a “central core of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis worldviews and ways of knowing” (First Nations Pedagogy). According to Dudgeon, P., & Bray, A., “Indigenous relationality is recognized as the life force, and that which supports and nourishes life” (Indigenous Relationality: Women, Kinship and the Law, 2019). Dr. Amy Shawanda (Odawa Kwe) explains how “Our Indigenous Knowledge comes from all living beings, and we honor them and reveal their importance within songs, stories, ceremonies, and within our laws. This is what creates the Relational Accountability of our relationships, thus causing us to be aware of our roles and our responsibilities to each other and to the living world” Nda-nwendaaganag (All My Relations). In essence, the idea of relationality posits that we are all interconnected and, as Littletree et al, citing Shawn Wilson (2008) expresses, that “we all exist in relationship to each other, the natural world, ideas, the cosmos, objects, ancestors, and future generations, and furthermore, that we are accountable to those relationships” (Littletree, S., et al, 2020).

Another way to understand relationality is through the phrase “All my relations” as detailed by Thomas King in the introduction to the Indigenous short story collection, “All My Relations: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Native Fiction”. King illustrates how

"'All my relations' is at first a reminder of who we are and of our relationship with both our family and our relatives. It also reminds us of the extended relationship we share with all human beings. But the relationships that Native people see go further, the web of kinship to animals, to the birds, to the fish, to the plants, to all the animate and inanimate forms that can be seen or imagined. More than that, “all my relations” is an encouragement for us to accept the responsibilities we have within the universal family by living our lives in a harmonious and moral manner (a common admonishment is to say of someone that they act as if they had no relations)."

– (Thomas King, All My Relations: An Anthology of Contemporary Native Fiction, p. ix.)