Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-019-9852-x

A Neoindigenous Perspective on Language Silencing

in Science Education

Gale Seiler 1 & Hildah Kwamboka 1

Published online: 7 May 2019

# Springer Nature B.V. 2019

Abstract
The authors draw on their own experiences as practitioners, one as a Biology and Agriculture
teacher in Kenya, and the other as an educator in a summer science program serving African
American youth in a city in the Midwestern United States. They document and analyze
moments of language contestation and explore the use of the construct of neoindigenous to
see in what ways it illuminates new understandings of continued colonization through
language silencing in relation to science teaching and learning. A self-study methodology is
used, which includes memory work, narrative, and conversation, and allows the researchers to
fuse personal narrative and sociocultural exploration. What emerges are glimpses of what is
lost and rendered valueless when English and the language of science are positioned as elite
and correct. The research also shows the difficulty for educators of diminishing the power of
science that is sustained by access to its language, even when they intentionally try to create
hybrid spaces that value non-dominant student language.

Keywords Non-dominant . Neoindigenous . Silencing . Colonization . Self-study

The history and the persistence of language silencing in and by science has been part of the
indigenous experience—silencing brought by colonial forms of education and colonial lan-
guages, as well as by Western science and its curricula. The idea of neoindigenous highlights
the similarities in experience between indigenous and other groups by acknowledging
Bpowerful connections among populations that have dealt with being silenced, and signals
the need to examine the ways that institutions replicate colonial processes^ (Emdin 2016 p. 9).
Emdin (2016) argues that commonalities of experience across time and space have led to
particular ways of looking at the world that are, to some extent, shared. For example,
indigenous peoples have close ties to their physical place; however, they have often been
physically displaced from their original lands, sometimes repeatedly, and contained in bounded
areas. Indigenous peoples also Bhave unique ways of constructing knowledge, utilize unique

* Gale Seiler
[email protected]

1
School of Education, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
1042 Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053

modes of communication in their interactions with one another, and hold cultural understand-
ings that differ from the norm^ (p. 8). Indigenous populations have been oppressed by
schooling as their language and other aspects of their culture were stripped in educational
institutions.
Emdin draws parallels between many populations of native peoples in colonized lands and
African American youth in the USA. In Emdin’s words B[t]hese two distinct groups, who are
years apart and have different types of experiences culturally, have the same types of challenge
with traditional institutions of education^ (p. 10). Through our lenses as practitioners, we apply
this idea to schooling in the USA and Kenya, in an effort to capture the historic roots of these
contestations in spaces where institutions replicate colonial processes and perpetuate the power
imbalances inherent in them. While educators in many former colonies have aimed to Buse
their education system in an attempt to build a new citizenry^ (Hammett and Staeheli 2013 p.
310) on which democracy can be based, this decolonizing project is fraught with challenges, as
countries also strive to position themselves in a globalizing economy. Meanwhile, in the USA,
a decolonizing lens is not frequently applied to the education of African American students,
because the origin of the country in the colonial enterprise of slavery is often forgotten.
We acknowledge, however, that utilizing Emdin’s idea of neoindigenous raises many
questions. Does the addition of neo dishonor the experiences of indigenous peoples or the
work of indigenous teachers, students, and scholars? Or does it extend and honor their work?
What benefits accrue from recognizing these shared experiences, both historic and current?
Can neoindigenous help us see and understand schooling in new and constructive ways that
may lead to greater change?
Our interest in language silencing in/through science teaching is rooted in the idea of
resistance to settler colonial logics (Patel 2015) and the assumptions of objectivity and
neutrality that persist in science education as well as in many research methodologies,
including some qualitative research. In the following pages, we explore how we theorize
science classrooms and language use in them; then, we explain and demonstrate our use of
self-study as an overarching methodology employing multiple methods of data gathering and
analysis. Self-study acknowledges that we Bare not disinterested but are deeply invested in
[our] studies^ (Bullough and Pinnegar 2001 p. 13). It also recognizes a questioning of the
legitimacy of knowledge and knowledge production associated with many forms of research.

Science Classrooms as Sites of Cultural Re/Production

Non-dominant1 students are often instructed to leave their culture Boutside the school door,^
and there are often rules and norms in place to enforce this. These unwelcome cultural
referents may be ways of talking, thinking, noticing, and asking and answering questions, or
they may be science knowledges emanating from students’ out of school lives, such as cutting
hair and playing drums. Exclusion of these from classrooms exemplifies the colonization of
students’ bodies and minds that often occurs in schools. But is it even possible (much less
desirable) for students to enter school without the cultural ways and referents to which they

1
We use the term non-dominant to refer to both student populations: African American students in the USA, as
well as students in schools in Kenya. While we recognize the many differences between these contexts, our use of
this terms designates that both contexts demonstrate great power imbalances in which the students are without
much power and voice.
Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053 1043

were socialized? This is only plausible if we think of culture as something that is contained and
packaged, and thus can be left outside.
Instead, we recognize that culture has porous boundaries and is fluid, emergent, and
continually negotiated through cultural resources and embodied practices within particular
social structures (Seiler 2013; Sewell 1992). Thus, we see classrooms as cultural spaces, that
is, as places where culture is produced and/or reproduced. Owing to the porousness of social
fields and the emergent nature of culture, classrooms exist naturally as hybrid spaces
characterized by the mixing of human cultural practices and experiences. Working in the
USA, Warren and Rosebery (2011) have shown that incorporating cultural ways into learning
contexts can lead to greater engagement and improved learning. Similarly, in South Africa,
Seiler (2018) demonstrated that learning is enhanced when teachers make pedagogical choices
that align with students’ cultural dispositions, such as call and response. These kinds of
examples reveal classrooms as places of hybridity, wherein cultures come together.
Bhabha (1994) explores this notion of hybridity and illuminates a complex relationship
between colonizer and colonized that produces cracks in structure that may be taken advantage
of by the oppressed group, in order to transform that structure. Thus, hybridity can be linked
with agency and transformation of schools and classrooms (Seiler and Elmesky 2007), but that
does not mean that hybridity emerges uncontested. As Bhabha described, hybrid spaces are
often sites of struggle and resistance, for schools and classrooms exist in a larger social context
with great power imbued in our institutions. By failing to recognize hybridity as a place of
possibility, teachers and schools continue to colonize the minds of young people, and as often
happens with youth in anti-indigenous or neoindigenous spaces, schools fail to educate them in
meaningful ways.

Oppression Through Language

Language, as a form of culture, is able to flow across the porous boundaries of social spaces
(Seiler 2013). However, as described above, that flow is often resisted by the institutions and
actors who control access to and participation in those spaces. Bakhtin (2010) asserted that
language not only indicates differences in vocabulary, but also is an indication of Bspecific
points of view on the world each with its own meanings and values, forms for conceptualizing
the world in words^ (p. 291). Thus, insistence on usage of colonial languages continues to
serve the imperialist goals of the colonizers.
The power of language can be seen even today in so-called post-colonial locations. Most
textbooks used in African countries come from European publishers and are written in colonial
languages (Tollefson and Tsui 2003), and they do little to take into account the cultural and
linguistic backgrounds of African learners (Seiler 2018). European languages have been
retained as the language of instruction and assessment in most locations in Africa, as supported
today by the World Bank’s language-in-education policy (Mazrui 1997). Eurocentric, colonial
interests continue to hold power over curricula in the USA as well, where little progress has
been made to center the experiences and language of African American students in science and
mathematics (Mutegi 2013). Thus, in both the USA and Kenya, schooling requires that
students Bdivorce themselves from their culture^ (Emdin 2016 p. 13), in this case language,
to embody Eurocentric ways of communicating and constructing knowledge.
The use of colonial languages like English is made even more problematic when combined
with privileging the language and practices of Western science. Students’ everyday ways of
1044 Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053

knowing and talking are not routinely valued in science because they are considered inferior
(Seiler 2018), leading to a relationship with science as something that is foreign (Jegede and
Aikenhead 1999). While students may play with the porousness of cultural boundaries and the
transposability of everyday language into science classrooms, this often conflicts head-on with
how science sees and names the world.

Two Contexts

This research draws upon the experiences of the co-authors in two different contexts. Hildah
draws on her experiences as a Kenyan teacher of Kenyan students, in an educational system
shaped and maintained by colonial interests. She was a science and agriculture teacher for
4 years in Kenya where teaching was assessment-centered, whereby national examinations
were the marker of success or failure in academia. In the second context, we examine moments
of contestation in interactions between students of color and Gale and other white instructors in
a summer science program in Des Moines, Iowa. The program was based on ambitious science
teaching (Windschitl 2006), which emphasizes creating opportunities for sensemaking through
science talk. Participants investigated, in a series of inquiries, the questions of why mosquitoes
buzz and bite. Co-author Gale Seiler was one of the designers and lead teachers for the summer
program; co-author Hildah Kwamboka was a graduate assistant who arrived in Iowa just a few
weeks before and assisted with day-to-day functions of the program and with collecting and
analyzing data.

Research Methodology

Considered broadly, we might call our work practitioner research, as we are both teachers in
the contexts that we study. As we searched for methodological inventiveness and alternative
modes of doing and reporting our research as practitioners (Fox et al. 2007), we turned to self-
study because it provides a look at self within a larger context (Hamilton et al. 2008), in other
words, it fuses the personal with sociocultural exploration. Speaking about self-study in
teacher education, Bullough and Pinnegar (2001) remind us that Bfor public theory to influence
educational practice it must be translated through the personal^ (p. 15). To this end, we used a
variety of research methods, namely, memory work, narrative inquiry, analysis of discourse,
and conversation. In all the methods used, we situated ourselves, as researchers and teachers,
within the social and cultural context. We do not see our embeddedness as a limitation; rather,
it enabled us to analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience and to
translate theory through practice. Self-study enabled us to understand the contestations
experienced, noticed, and missed in-the-moment as sociocultural manifestations of time and
place. As we engaged in the research process, we were increasingly drawn to the idea of
neoindigenous, for what it could help us see in our experiences and data.

Memory Work

In making sense of her teaching in Kenya several years before, Hildah Kwamboka used
memory work, that is, Bremembered moments perceived to have significantly impacted the
trajectory of a person’s life^ (Ellis et al. 2011 p. 275). Memory work is a social constructionist
Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053 1045

and feminist research method that bridges the gap between theory and experience. Crawford
et al. (1992 p. 41) explained, B[t]his collapsing of the subject and object of research, the
‘knower’ and the ‘known’, constitutes or sets aside a space where the experiential can be
placed in relation to the theoretical^. This memory work was done recursively over time, and
what is presented as findings is the product of the memory work, that is, the co-author arriving
at the social meanings embodied in her previous experiences and actions.

Narrative Inquiry

Narrative inquiry provides researchers with a framework through which they can investigate
the ways humans experience the world depicted through their stories (Webster and Mertova
2007). Gale Seiler engaged in narrative writing before, during, and after the summer program.
Not just the writing, but the reading, revising, recombining, and representing were all part of
the inquiry. As with Hildah’s memory work, what is presented is a product of this on-going
work, which included the Bconstruction and reconstruction of personal and social stories^
(Connelly and Clandinin 1990 p. 2).

Analysis of Discourse

All learning sessions of the summer program were video recorded, and video and rough
transcripts were reviewed to identify evidence of the porousness, or lack of porous-
ness, of cultural spaces, that is, where the participants attempted to bring their own
language into the science spaces of the summer program. Once specific vignettes were
selected, they were transcribed in greater detail to visualize the language contestations,
that is, the shifts between everyday and science terms, and how youth and instructors
were involved.

Conversation

We include conversation between the researchers as one of our research methods because so
much of our sensemaking, noticing aspects of the data, and connecting experiences and
memory with theory was done through conversation. Conversation highlights the reality that
research is emergent and iterative and involves collaboratively constructed meanings that
emerge from an ongoing conversation (Paulus et al. 2008).

Findings

We hesitate to call this section findings, as we recognize that it differs from conventional
qualitative research findings, both in the processes employed to reach this point and in the
presentation of what has been produced. Here, we show products of the memory work,
narrative inquiry and analysis of discourse that we undertook. In the last section, we show
the use of conversation as a final research approach and product. These are examples of the
overarching methodology of self-study, therefore, they show how we grappled with language
silencing across our experiences and how we used neoindigenous to make sense of them. We
offer these in the hope that they bring the reader into our experiences, as well as into our
sensemaking of our experiences.
1046 Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053

Memory Work—Hildah

When I was teaching Biology and Agriculture in 11th grade in Kenya, my students from
seven tribes each spoke at least three languages including English. All subjects except
Kiswahili were taught and tested in English. Like any other teacher, I followed the
syllabus, textbook, and the national assessment standards. In Biology, I assessed
my students on mastery of the correct scientific language. Proper use and
spelling of vocabulary were greatly emphasized, with particular attention to
using scientific language without error, particularly spelling errors. This meant
that if students explained their understanding in plain English but without
scientific language, their response would not be scored correct. They would
not be considered scientifically knowledgeable. Furthermore, if a student used
the correct language but erred in spelling, their response would be marked
wrong and points deducted.
I remember when my students had to identify an organelle in a diagram. It
was a mitochondrion, but I could not score them right if they spelled mito-
chondrion wrong or even if they wrote mitochondria (plural)! According to the
education system and exam guidelines, they had not learned. The same kind of
assessment was used in their national examination to graduate from high
school.
One day I decided to do something different in the Agriculture course that I taught. In
Agriculture, there was less strictness to adhere to science terminology and spelling, as
long as students showed understanding of the concepts in their explanations, albeit in
English. In one formative assessment, I asked my students to write the test both in
English and their tribal language where possible. The task was to identify common farm
weeds, the economic importance of those weeds, and their scientific names (binomial
nomenclature). To my surprise, my students knew a lot about weeds, including
information that was missing from the textbook. They expressed firsthand
knowledge of how to control weeds and the economic importance of weeds
that I, as their instructor, was not familiar with. My students showed a great
understanding and enthusiasm of the agricultural content and had a lot to say
when they were not limited to English or scientific vocabularies and spelling.
After grading, all the students scored at least 18 out of 20. These were the same
students who were struggling in my Biology class, and whom I would rate
under average on Biology tests. I sat in my office for a moment and asked
myself, can I teach Biology like this, at least sometimes? As you can guess, the
answer I arrived at was no. I said to myself, BBiology is a science and there is
no way you can do science like this and I have to prepare my students for the
tests. Agriculture is an art and science, but Biology is not.^ I did not think
about it again.

Narrative Inquiry—Gale

It was a hot and humid day, typical of the Midwest in July, as we began the summer
program focused on insects in an urban ecosystem. We loaded into a car to drive to the
location in Des Moines. Several project members headed to the community organization
Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053 1047

to meet the bus and pick up the participants, while I and others waited at the school and
readied materials.
We knew it would be a challenging two-weeks, but we did not anticipate a number of
problems that arose on the first day. Rather than recruit participants as promised, our
community partner assigned 15 of their day campers to attend our program. This meant
that we had youth who had not chosen to be with us—not a good start for the non-
authoritative kind of science space we hoped to create. On top of that, about 30 minutes
into the first morning, there was a thunder storm that caused a temporary power outage
and blew out the air conditioning at the school where we were housed. That lasted
almost to the end of the two weeks and increased tensions during a very hot and humid
spell. After day one, it was clear that our goal of emancipatory science experiences
would be difficult to achieve.
I was drawn to ambitious science teaching (AST) because of its emphasis on student
sense-making through talk. Much of my work as a teacher and a researcher has been
around the affordances and constraints of talk in science classrooms and ways of
transforming classrooms to use students’ everyday knowledge as resources for science
teaching and learning. Although, AST was not in itself aligned with social justice goals, I
saw it as rich with possibilities for engagement of non-dominant students in science.
I had been using AST, in my role as a teacher educator, with pre-service teachers over
several years. Although I believed that AST aligned in many ways with how I taught
during the 17 years I was a high school teacher, it was in many ways new, even to me.
So, I was excited to have the opportunity to actually step into the role of doing AST with
young people, specifically 5th and 6th grade African American students. In preparing for
the program, I provided a crash course to the other instructors in the goals and practices
of AST, and we talked in advance about the kind of space we hoped to create. We hoped
to diminish the power relations to create a space unlike school. A space where students
could use their everyday language and resources for learning science, and for building
science identities.
A great deal of time was spent each day and in each activity eliciting student ideas. For
example, we began delving into mosquito biology by listing what students already knew
about mosquitoes, as well as how they felt about them. We made extensive use of public
records of student thinking. Large sheets of white paper with student ideas lined the
walls of the room. We made a habit of crediting student ideas by continual reference to
them, for example, BRemember what Serena noticed about the size of the larvae?^. A
great effort was made to take up student ideas without evaluating them. Through these
means, we attempted to create a hybrid space in which students could participate using
their own ways of thinking and communicating. Though instructors were trying to create
this kind of space, we were not always successful in doing so.
On the first day of the summer program, we engaged the young people in trying to
answer the question why crickets chirp. I was the lead instructor, as I had the most
experience with science teaching. I was thinking specifically, but broadly, about what I
was trying to accomplish—eliciting their ideas, encouraging them to use evidence, etc.
—and I paid less attention to the actual language I was using. Later, when viewing and
discussing the videorecordings, we saw that I relied on the terms male/female in
discussing how crickets chirp, and quickly passed over the participants’ efforts to use
their everyday language, boy/girl. However, students persisted, and by the third day,
both young people and instructors consistently used boy/girl.
1048 Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053

Analysis of Discourse

In the following section, we show a moment of contestation between everyday language and
the language of science. Through this example, we explore the flow of everyday language into
science classrooms, the attempted authoritative construction of science language, and the
participants’ resistance.
In the second week of the summer program, while learning about the mosquito life cycle,
students were sent home with containers to collect water samples from their neighborhood.
The following day, the water samples (from puddles, flowers pots, and kiddie pools) that the
youth collected were examined and information on each one was recorded by an instructor on
a large data table on the whiteboard. Information that was recorded included the name of the
person who collected the sample, the number of mosquito larvae found in each sample, and a
description of the water, e.g. whether it appeared clean or dirty, and whether or not it contained
material floating in it. The desired learning in this activity was that mosquito larvae are not
found in murky water, nor in water that is perfectly clean and clear. To survive, the water must
have some organic material for the larvae to feed on.
Analysis of the transcript showed that two terms, algae and moss, were used to describe
organic material in Leroy’s sample, and lines 6 through 11 reveal a moment of language
contestation between student and instructors. Maggie and Jack2 are instructors in the following
interaction.
1. Jack: Can you help me describe what the water looks like in your container?
2. Leroy: Umm…It has like some…
3. Maggie: How would you describe it?
4. Leroy: Some moss.
5. Maggie: Moss, looks like moss?
6. Jack: It looks kinda clear but also has some green algae maybe.
7. Maggie: It doesn’t look brown, right? [Holding up the container for her group to look at
against the light.]
8. Jack: I would maybe say clear with algae. How does that sound?
9. Leroy: Clear with moss.
10. Jack: Clear with moss. How does that sound?
11. LeRoy: Okay.
12. Jack: [Writes Clear with moss on the board.]

In line 4, Leroy introduces the word moss to describe the green pieces, but in line 6, Jack, an
instructor, attempts a correction to what is likely a more accurate label, algae, based on the
knowledge that moss is not an aquatic organism and does not live in water. A few seconds
later, line 8, Jack suggests a description to include in the data table on the board and he again
uses algae. However, attempting to value student contributions, which was an overall goal of
the summer program, Jack asks BHow does that sound?^. Leroy’s response in line 9 asserts his
use of moss, which Jack takes up when he repeats Leroy’s words and switches to moss. Jack
checks once again that it sounds alright (line 10) and then writes the description on the board
using Leroy’s word, moss. We also note that Maggie, an instructor with a background in
anthropology (not science), took up Leroy’s term in line 5. However, Jack, an instructor with a

2
Pseudonyms are used for students and instructors.
Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053 1049

background in science and public health, persisted in using algae until line 10, when he
accepted Leroy’s description and added it to the data table.
Leroy’s use of moss to describe the green pieces of organic matter in the water reflects his
everyday language and refers to an organism, moss, that is more likely than algae to be seen
and named in an urban context in the Midwest. Thus, this interaction illustrates the porous
boundaries of school science as well as Leroy’s attachment to place in his neighborhood. By
insisting on the use of moss, Leroy rejected the institutional position of someone whose
knowledge and language is not scientifically accurate. He repositioned himself as someone
who is good at both observation and description, two mainstays of science, while remaining
true to authentic ways of expressing himself and his community.

Conversation

This conversation represents the iterative sensemaking and co-construction of knowledge that
occurred between the co-authors throughout the research. It is an amalgam of several recorded
conversations that shows how Bbiography and history are joined^ (Bullough and Pinnegar
2001 p. 15). We include it last because it makes our arguments related to what was learned
about the use of neoindigenous and whether it can help us see and understand schooling in
new and constructive ways that may lead to greater change in neocolonial contexts.

Gale: When Chris Emdin discusses nonindigenous, he focuses on commonalities across

experiences of Native Americans and urban black youth in the United States. As we’ve
been talking about our two contexts, we’ve found commonalities across the experiences
of African American youth in the U.S. and Kenyan youth, a continent away.
Hildah: Before the British colonials arrived in Kenya and Africa as a whole, the
continent did not have the boundaries of today. In Kenya, the tribes moved around in
search of favorable and habitable lands. Once settled, they established farmlands and
bartered with neighboring tribes, because different tribes pursued different economic
activities. The arrival of the British colonizers led to wars, killings and restricted
movement. Most of the fertile lands were forcefully confiscated and allocated to white
settlers; European cash crops (tea, coffee, pyrethrum, and sisal) were grown to serve the
European economy. They used local cheap laborers, who became squatters on their own
land. Even today there are people who are still squatters on their ancestral lands. The
displaced native peoples were confined into certain areas, and later efforts were made to
resettle them in different parts of the country. Even after independence, much of the land
is still owned by white colonial families with names that Kenyans recognize.
Gale: Iowa was not a slave state, yet it was not a place of true freedom for blacks either
during or following slavery. For example, during Jim Crow in the South, many
businesses in Iowa towns were for ‘Whites Only’, as were residence halls at the
universities. Sundown towns were present in Iowa, where African Americans were
warned to leave town or stay in their homes after dark. The practice of redlining
occurred, limiting neighborhoods in which blacks could obtain home mortgages or
business loans, thereby confining them to racially segregated areas. As happened in
many urban locations, black communities were displaced by urban renewal, often
federally funded, and in the process people, businesses, and religious and social
institutions were lost. This happened in Des Moines, Iowa in the early 1960s when
much of the Center Street neighborhood was torn down to make room for a highway.
1050 Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053

Many who were uprooted from this thriving black neighborhood moved north of the
new highway. But they were then cut off from the downtown area to their south, thus
containing and isolating them from the rest of the city. This history of racial segregation,
isolation, confinement and displacement is also evident today in school attendance zones
in Des Moines.
Hildah: Despite those dislocations, or perhaps because of them, the attachment to place
and the knowledge associated with place is very strong for both groups.
Gale: And that knowledge is often represented in language. In discussing your experi-
ences as a learner and a teacher in Kenya and the summer program here in Iowa, it is
clear that science language constrains students’ expression, if their own words are not
accepted.
Hildah: In Kenya, the consequences are powerful, for example passing or failing the
national exams. But in Iowa, too, there are strong consequences for how students see
themselves in science, or if they see science as something alien to them and not
welcoming to them. How we are thinking about it, connecting to the histories of
colonialism, it gives us a way of thinking about how structures of education reproduce
themselves. The Kenyan government adopted the same kind of education system like
the European. Using the idea of neoindigenous, we remember that these students are the
great grand-children of those who were colonized. We can wonder what has changed
since our ancestors in terms of schooling and what has been maintained and in what
ways. At this point, there’s no white man in Kenya telling you to do this or do that, but
what are the structures in place that are reproducing the same power, the same inequal-
ities?
Gale: So it sounds like you are thinking of it as indigenous again, recognizing that it is a
new time chronologically, but repression continues in and through schools. So, peoples
are still experiencing the impacts of colonialism in education.
Hildah: Yes, but in different forms. In Kenya, schools were started to educate the
children of the white settlers. Even now after independence, we see the same tiers of
education, and when you look at the performance of schools, and the facilities and
resources, those tiers are not equitable, meaning we are reproducing the same class
inequalities that existed during the colonial period and using some of the same ways, for
example, language silencing, to do it.
Gale: Why do you think neoindigenous is useful in thinking about this?
Hildah: Their past culture is still not welcome in classrooms, and new ways of life that
youth have acquired, maybe some from the West, a hybrid culture they have created, are
also not welcome. So neo gives us the opportunity to look at these new additions that
were not there during the colonial period.
Gale: And we see that same thing in schools in the U.S. with African American youth.
When teachers think about urban black youth, they don’t often think about them in a
historical context. They may think about them as part of the current hip hop culture. But
they don’t understand the historical roots of hip hop culture, much less the history of
repeated dislocations and isolation, and that makes it easier to blame the students and
expect them to abandon their culture at the door.
Hildah: For many educators, science means we don’t have to think about social life and
history. It’s like I was two different people when teaching Biology and Agriculture.
We’ve been socialized that science has to be done in particular ways. That’s messed up,
but that’s how it is.
Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053 1051

Gale: I think neo can also connect our thinking to the work of certain Native American
and Indigenous activists and scholars who have been paying great attention to acts of
resurgence and decolonization related to language in education, to tensions between
local knowledge and book knowledge, and to persistence and resistance around identity
and language. We do not hear of resurgence, decolonization, and resistance in relation to
other non-dominant learners. So maybe this is a chance for us to learn from these
activist-scholars and what they have been doing.

Discussion

Returning to the questions posed near the start of this paper, we see several contributions of
applying the concept of neoindigenous to students’ experiences in contexts as distant as the
Midwestern United States and Kenya. Although each context and history is unique, many
aspects of indigeneity were found to apply to colonized peoples who currently exist in both of
these contexts, and we began to see this more clearly throughout the research. Applying a
decolonizing lens to both locations allowed us not only to better see the commonalities of
displacement and containment, but also to understand how they lead to an increased valuing of
place and language that is associated with place by non-dominant students. Neoindigenous
reminds us that asking/expecting/demanding that the correct science terminology be used is
not a trivial act. It makes visible the porousness of culture (Seiler 2013; Sewell 1992) and
shines a light on classrooms as cultural spaces, thus making language contestation visible.
The moments of language contestation shown through memory work, narrative inquiry, and
analysis of discourse represent position-taking accomplished through language, and consid-
ered in this way, they represent battles for who the young people are, battles against dominant
ways of meaning-making and against continued colonization. Furthermore, viewing these
moments through a lens of neoindigenous maintains the connection with Bhabha’s (1994) idea
of hybridity and reminds us that hybrid spaces are often sites of struggle and resistance against
colonial oppression. However, neoindigenous also enables us to see hybridity as an asset and
suggests how science teaching (from assessment to classroom interactions) might change to
begin to use hybridity to create new kinds of spaces for non-dominant youth in science.
Neoindigenous foregrounds colonial power and its consequences. Seeing this play out in
both locations calls attention to the powerful reproductive bias of systems of oppression, across
both time and place. The idea of indigenous again highlights the continuity and reemergence
of colonial domination. It helps us understand why, although all instructors in the summer
program wanted to create a transformative, welcoming science space, this did not always
happen. It reminds us that diligence and bold action are needed to undo settler colonial logics
(Patel 2015).
Recognizing the importance of interrogating the social location of theories, of paying
attention to what theories illuminate and what they background, we suggest that the idea of
nonindigenous may support educators working toward socially just teaching by illuminating
the historical contexts of non-dominant youth and Bchallenging the educators’ ability to
historically contextualize information in both macro and micro ways^ (Hytten and Bettez
2011 p.13).
Furthermore, we believe that approaching this research through self-study emphasizes
several points that are particularly relevant to science education. This type of research holds
potential to contribute to others’ practice and lives by making them reflect on and empathize
1052 Research in Science Education (2019) 49:1041–1053

with the narratives presented. However, it does much more. As stated earlier, self-study
enables sociocultural theory to be brought to life and allows one to look at self within a larger
context, which can lead to understandings not available through other approaches. Using
various forms of self-study (e.g. memory work, narrative inquiry and conversation) illustrates
the many ways that practitioners can become involved in research and learning through their
practice. Such reflective practice is more the domain of practitioners in other areas
such as arts or literature education, thus we suggest the usefulness of it for science
educators. In addition, self-study reminds us of the personal investment and honesty
that is necessary, both in teaching and in research, to resist continued colonization,
through language silencing or other oppressive actions. This is particularly significant
in science education where particular forms of language and knowledge are imbued
with power and status associated with a colonial history.

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