Reflexivity Statement
Pronoun note: The researcher of this work usually uses she or they pronouns but for the purposes
of clarity within this work will refer to herself as “she” and “the researcher” only.
This work is a (perhaps failed) attempt to unsettle and de-center the whiteness of the researcher,
who is hoping instead to center the important cultural production of Indigenous scholars, by
beginning and continuing with these very important words by Tuck and Yang:
From DECOLONIZATION IS NOT A METAPHOR “When metaphor invades
decolonization, it kills the very possibility of decolonization; it re-centers
whiteness, it resettles theory, it extends innocence to the settler, it entertains a
settler future. Decolonize (a verb) and decolonization (a noun) cannot easily be
grafted onto pre-existing discourses/frameworks, even if they are critical, even if
they are anti-racist, even if they are justice frameworks. The easy absorption,
adoption, and transposing of decolonization is yet another form of settler
appropriation. When we write about decolonization, we are not offering it as a
metaphor; it is not an approximation of other experiences of oppression” (Tuck
&Yang, 2012, p. 3).
The following words were reproduced in Ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous Studies and First
Nations and First Peoples’ Cultures (Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2018.) in the article “The First Real Indians
That I Have Seen”: Franz Boas and the Disentanglement of the Entangled by Rainer Hatoum.
Boas is this researcher’s first known ancestor in the United States.
These are the first real Indians that I have seen. Red skin, eagle noses, the famous
blanket, moccasins, rabbit[?] apron and deerskin jacket. The hair long and loose
or braided, and guys [“Kerls”] more than 6 feet tall. (Franz Boas Professional
Papers 1888, p. 125; translation and emphasis by Rainer Hatoum)
The researcher is uncertain as to how to keep this work out of the realm of appropriation. As the
reader can see, the words of Indigenous scholars are used abundantly with attribution in this
work to guide it, in the hopes of amplifying their important thoughts! This does not mean that the
researcher has a right to them or that they are meant for her. In a research project focused on
decolonializing Montessori Pedagogy through an examination of the self, a transparent sharing
of personal history feels relevant in so far as this work covers topics of ancestral trauma,
relationship to lands and the peoples who occupy them, and education. “Researchers, no matter
how objective they claim their methods and themselves to be, do bring with them their own
biases.” (Wilson, 2008, p. 16.). The researcher is a white-washed Jew born in Wappinger and
Lenape lands (“New England”, see Appendix B), with a US passport, of an academically
advanced background (her father is a doctor and her mother is trained as a psychotherapist and
has also conducted action research, and the researcher of this work was privileged to be educated
in a Montessori environment until 6th grade as well as attending a Montessori-like college). The
researcher is a semi-first-generation American settler colonist (her grandparents fled to the States
during and immediately following WWII and then moved back to Europe, where her parents
mostly grew up, though her dad was born in South-Side of Chicago and lived there until he was
nine. The researchers’ parents moved to the States together a few years before she was born,
from Quebec where they lived briefly about 10 years beforehand.) She comes from two
generations of diasporic refugees/stateless peoples, whose great-grandparents settled for a few
hundred years in Germany, Russia, and Poland, after being expelled from other countries due to
Pogroms and Inquisitions. All of her grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and one also fled the
Bolshevik revolution as a little boy. That grandfather had a PhD in sociology, and his father was
a political prisoner, whereas the rest of her grandparents had between 4th-9th grade educations.
All were anti-fascist and assimilated/non-observant religiously. The researchers’ great
grandparents however almost all had advanced degrees (though two were master tradesmen), one
Maternal great-grandmother was either a Montessori of Waldorf teacher. They were
predominantly Bundists and Mensheviks, though some were Zionists. Her first known ancestor
in the United States was Franz Boas, who is most famous for his ethnographic research on
Indigenous North Americans, cultural relativism theories, and lately, for his part in dismantling
scientific racism and training women in the social sciences. Much of his impact upon the lives of
the Indigenous peoples he studied though, is unknown. The researcher followed in his footsteps
(unbeknownst to her at the time) as an undergraduate, conducting ethnographic research in
Mongolia. One of the researcher’s great uncles (a Zionist who named himself after a massacre at
Gush-Etzion) may have been a member of Haganah, the paramilitary organization that preceded
the formation of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Excerpted from Authentic Montessori in a De/Colonializing World, more on this here
(below: genogram).
Pronoun note: The researcher of this work usually uses she or they pronouns but for the purposes
of clarity within this work will refer to herself as “she” and “the researcher” only.
This work is a (perhaps failed) attempt to unsettle and de-center the whiteness of the researcher,
who is hoping instead to center the important cultural production of Indigenous scholars, by
beginning and continuing with these very important words by Tuck and Yang:
From DECOLONIZATION IS NOT A METAPHOR “When metaphor invades
decolonization, it kills the very possibility of decolonization; it re-centers
whiteness, it resettles theory, it extends innocence to the settler, it entertains a
settler future. Decolonize (a verb) and decolonization (a noun) cannot easily be
grafted onto pre-existing discourses/frameworks, even if they are critical, even if
they are anti-racist, even if they are justice frameworks. The easy absorption,
adoption, and transposing of decolonization is yet another form of settler
appropriation. When we write about decolonization, we are not offering it as a
metaphor; it is not an approximation of other experiences of oppression” (Tuck
&Yang, 2012, p. 3).
The following words were reproduced in Ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous Studies and First
Nations and First Peoples’ Cultures (Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2018.) in the article “The First Real Indians
That I Have Seen”: Franz Boas and the Disentanglement of the Entangled by Rainer Hatoum.
Boas is this researcher’s first known ancestor in the United States.
These are the first real Indians that I have seen. Red skin, eagle noses, the famous
blanket, moccasins, rabbit[?] apron and deerskin jacket. The hair long and loose
or braided, and guys [“Kerls”] more than 6 feet tall. (Franz Boas Professional
Papers 1888, p. 125; translation and emphasis by Rainer Hatoum)
The researcher is uncertain as to how to keep this work out of the realm of appropriation. As the
reader can see, the words of Indigenous scholars are used abundantly with attribution in this
work to guide it, in the hopes of amplifying their important thoughts! This does not mean that the
researcher has a right to them or that they are meant for her. In a research project focused on
decolonializing Montessori Pedagogy through an examination of the self, a transparent sharing
of personal history feels relevant in so far as this work covers topics of ancestral trauma,
relationship to lands and the peoples who occupy them, and education. “Researchers, no matter
how objective they claim their methods and themselves to be, do bring with them their own
biases.” (Wilson, 2008, p. 16.). The researcher is a white-washed Jew born in Wappinger and
Lenape lands (“New England”, see Appendix B), with a US passport, of an academically
advanced background (her father is a doctor and her mother is trained as a psychotherapist and
has also conducted action research, and the researcher of this work was privileged to be educated
in a Montessori environment until 6th grade as well as attending a Montessori-like college). The
researcher is a semi-first-generation American settler colonist (her grandparents fled to the States
during and immediately following WWII and then moved back to Europe, where her parents
mostly grew up, though her dad was born in South-Side of Chicago and lived there until he was
nine. The researchers’ parents moved to the States together a few years before she was born,
from Quebec where they lived briefly about 10 years beforehand.) She comes from two
generations of diasporic refugees/stateless peoples, whose great-grandparents settled for a few
hundred years in Germany, Russia, and Poland, after being expelled from other countries due to
Pogroms and Inquisitions. All of her grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and one also fled the
Bolshevik revolution as a little boy. That grandfather had a PhD in sociology, and his father was
a political prisoner, whereas the rest of her grandparents had between 4th-9th grade educations.
All were anti-fascist and assimilated/non-observant religiously. The researchers’ great
grandparents however almost all had advanced degrees (though two were master tradesmen), one
Maternal great-grandmother was either a Montessori of Waldorf teacher. They were
predominantly Bundists and Mensheviks, though some were Zionists. Her first known ancestor
in the United States was Franz Boas, who is most famous for his ethnographic research on
Indigenous North Americans, cultural relativism theories, and lately, for his part in dismantling
scientific racism and training women in the social sciences. Much of his impact upon the lives of
the Indigenous peoples he studied though, is unknown. The researcher followed in his footsteps
(unbeknownst to her at the time) as an undergraduate, conducting ethnographic research in
Mongolia. One of the researcher’s great uncles (a Zionist who named himself after a massacre at
Gush-Etzion) may have been a member of Haganah, the paramilitary organization that preceded
the formation of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Excerpted from Authentic Montessori in a De/Colonializing World, more on this here
(below: genogram).
By Niki Ralis & Marvin Schweitzer
By Tamara Ralis
