Dr. Dara Kelly from the SFU Beedie School of Business recently visited the Digital Democracies Institute to discuss her work on Indigenous economies. Her approach is informed by time spent working with Māori scholars, and her work focuses on Coast Salish gifting and reciprocity economies. She began by contextualising what it means to witness, especially in light of the outpouring of grief after the missing Indigenous children were found on the grounds of residential schools last spring. For Dara, witnessing is part of having conversations that are remembered for the eternal future, for the next generations. She noted that it is about telling who was here, how we behaved and what the impact was for our collective memory bank in our hearts and minds, and we offer that memory when called on to do so. “In an ethic of care, we carry forward that collective memory into the future, and remember the discomfort and sadness”, she said.
With oral history, knowledge is passed down through generations. Traditions are the process and knowledge is the content. Dara explained that the relationship between both cannot be separated, “though distinction allows us to value and treasure the gift in both the content and the process of sharing.” For Coast Salish peoples, “it remains the most important and accurate way to remember information.” And for Stó꞉lō people of the river, “exchange within this system operates within a worldview that is connected to the river, the heart of where we come from.”
Dara explained that there are two aspects of Indigenous philosophies that shift assumptions of the temporal nature of knowledge. For example, in the Māori worldview the past is a pathway in front of us that leads to the future. “Māori relive the past in the present and in so doing find the future. This reflects three dimensions of time”, Dara said. Secondly, Dara pointed to the Halq’emeylem words “sqwélqwel” and “sxwōxwiyám” that depart from linear conceptions of time. Sqwélqwel refers to oral history of the recent past that reflects true facts and personal history, and sxwōxwiyám refers to a distant past from which everything emerges, and is not characterised by chronological distance. Here Dara referenced Dr. Karrmen Crey’s earlier presentation that discussed the process of setting the world right before the humans arrived in relation to Stó꞉lō Transformer Rocks, as Sxwoxwiyam.
Dara discussed how the process of passing on sxwoxwiyam happens through formal settings, in ceremony and feast. In Coast Salish philosophy what is considered right is exhibited in current voices spoken through ancestors. “In such an epistemology and ontology, what is right is not rationally formed but part of metaphysical cosmology beyond human experience.” According to Dara, the ethic of Coast Salish economy is “when you feed the people you never go hungry”, as “survival is assured through interconnectedness, ethic of care, and reciprocity.” In formal economic exchanges, the Halq’emeylem name for ceremony does not make reference to the gift, but the invitation; the invitation is the gift. Then, at the end of the ceremony, there is the material transaction of property transfer among families and feasts with between two-hundred to one thousand or more people over a period of two to three weeks. This is extraordinary from the perspective of material scale.
Dara noted that in her research interviews, the notions of freedom and unfreedom, and wealth and poverty continued to arise and act as important theoretical tools to understand Coast Salish economies. For example, the colonial history of outlawing potlatch, making it illegal to feast or have gatherings of more than 6 people (even being together as a family), was an erosion of economies. “This destroyed relationships from the family level to the interconnections between communities across Coast Salish territories.” In interviews Dara noted relative poverty came up both in terms of wealth and poverty and definitions that are dependent on context. For example, the Honourable Steven Point said that definitions of wealth in terms of cars and money does not fit with Stó꞉lō perspectives. Rather than colonial definitions of wealth, you are wealthy because you have family, a genealogy, and are able to access the river and its riches. Further, “wealth is defined by two sets of interconnected criteria. First, genealogy, which is less about actual family blood ties, but more a metaphor for kinship ties. The second is knowledge, as we cannot have kinship without knowledge, nor can we accumulate knowledge and hoard it.” According to Dara, hoarding knowledge would be impoverishment because there would be a lack of knowledge distribution.
Dara also pointed to some economic keywords that are defined differently than in English in Coast Salish economies. For example, “work” can be defined in terms of spirituality, for example “work conducted within ceremony, such as the invitation which forges relationships, lighting the fire as part of the family obligation of fire keepers, speaking which reflects the economy of affection, in addition to cooking, prayers and so on.” Another important word referenced across nearly all interviews was “debt”. Dara iterated that we must be careful and cautious not to conflate this with the English word. Here, she is referencing ceremonial debt as part of how relationships are formed and maintained. “In order to measure a thriving economy, debt has to be part of the equation. If someone has no debts, questions about their integrity arise. Why don’t others want to create a debt relationship with them?” Here, debt is about connectedness and social embeddedness. She noted that she is searching for the appropriate word in Halq’emeylem, but for now she is using the English term.
In closing, Dara reiterated that “reciprocal economies meet our well-being needs for belonging, affection, and shared becoming.” She ended on the two related Māori concepts of “tapu” and “mana”. Tapu is untapped potential, while mana is connected to belonging and being a good ancestor. “There is untapped potential contained in the world of gifts and reciprocity. This is limitless wealth, and not in the sense of too much growth.” She asked, “as Canada is waking up to Indigenous knowledges, how do we tap this potential?” As we continue our work at the Digital Democracies Institute, we will continue to consider this question in context of Dara’s presentation and work on Indigenous economies.