Brainstorm Week 9

Both of these readings clarified many ideas and helped me to develop a more holistic understanding of indigenous values and how they differ  from those of Western ways of thinking. Ybarra’s four aspects of Goodlife Writing provided the vocab to describe the key differences between Mexican American and Anglo American life values that I can so clearly see as having roots in ancient pasts. Million’s description of the holistic way of life that values all entities of Earth - living and nonliving - starkly contrasts colonialism and capitalistic values. 

I found an idea presented in Million’s Indigenous Matters to be particularly compelling, that “indigenous knowledge confronts the hierarchies that do violence to matter, including the matter that humans are.” This idea that gendered and racial violence stems from the violence done to the Earth by capitalistic societies that value hierarchies presents an extremely complex analysis. As multifaceted as this idea was, though, it was so easy to understand. I felt as if this paper gave me the vocabulary to describe the connections between all of the ideas presented in this entire class. Million’s paper was most helpful in allowing me to fully understand the connection between feminism, indigenous values and our responsibility to care for Mother Earth. Many Indigenous peoples across the world centered their societies around the concept that all things on Earth are equal and to be treated with respect, which by definition leaves no space for the oppression of patriarchy and the exploitation of earth for economic gain.

Ybarra’s piece further built this idea for me, that cultures that stem from these indigenous groups do not focus on the material gains of life as being the sign of a successful life. Because these material gains then allow people of a society to develop a hierarchy, it  builds in space for oppression. This hierarchical, profit-driven society then looks to the Earth as not the source of life, but as a thing to be used for more material gain. Without this disconnect between and among people and the Earth, para “vivir bien” is possible.