25.4.2023. Research is Responsible Guesting with More-Than-Human Communities

Victoria Peemot gave a talk in frames of a new seminar series “Indigenous / Decolonial Methodologies Research Methods” (led by Reetta Humalajoki and Nadia Mamontova) at the University of Turku, Finland.
Abstract. Ontologies of Indigenous peoples are inseparable from their epistemologies. The questions What do I know? and How do I know it? are underlined by one’s relationships with the kinship group, homelands, and nonhuman animals. I approach Inner Asian onto-epistemologies through a Tyvan guesting practice aaldaar. I expand on understandings of the guesting practice and introduce it as a theoretical concept and field research methodology. First, I lean on the concept of guesting in analysing the normative regulations of relationships within land-based, human-nonhuman kinship (cher törel) systems. Second, I suggest that a researcher (myself) inadvertently participates in the cher törel kinship relationship and follows its regulations. This notion frames aaldaar as a responsible knowledge exchange between a guest-researcher and hosts—human-nonhuman communities in the Saian and Altai Mountains of Inner Asia.