Guerrilla History - Indigenous Methodologies w/ Sardana Nikolaeva & Masha Kardashevskaya

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we have two fantastic guests, and a continuation of our sporadic Sources and Methods series of episodes!  This time, we bring back Dr. Sardana Nikolaeva (whom you will remember from our recent episode Indigenous Diamonds of Russia's Sakha Republic), and bring on Dr. Masha Kardashevskaya for the first time.  They discuss the work they are doing on indigenous methodologies, which is based off of their studies of indigenous populations in Russia's Sakha Republic, in Indonesia, and in Canada. A really fascinating conversation, and much to learn, we hope you find it useful! Sardana Nikolaeva is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, where she is an indigenous anthropologist studying indigeneity, indigenous methodologies, extractivism, and more.  She cowrote the wonderful paper we discussed in our previous episode with her, which you should read here: https://www.ziibiinglab.org/indigenous-diamonds Masha Kardashevskaya is a scholar of peace and conflict studies who has been studying indigenous groups across multiple continents. While Masha doesn't use social media, she and Sardana are starting a podcast imminently, which we will share the information about on our various social media platforms when it is up, so stay tuned! Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You don't remember den, Ben, boo? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to Gorilla. History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use

the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki, joined as usual by my co-host, Professor Adnan Hussain, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing well, Henry. It's great to be with you. Absolutely nice to see you, as always. We have a really terrific conversation lined up today with two fantastic guests, one returning and one first timer. But before I introduce the topic at hand and the two guests that we have, I'd like to remind you listeners that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with everything that Adnan and I are doing individually and collectively.

by following us on social media. We're on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-A-U-R-N underscore Pod. Instagram at Gorilla underscore History. Again, Gorilla 2-Rs. And you can subscribe to our free Substack and get updates straight to your email inbox by going to GorillaHistory.

Dot Substack.com. Again, Gorilla with 2-Rs. One last thing before I introduce our two guests on the topic at hand, this episode is going to be in our ongoing series of sources and methods. And when we have the series of sources and methods, I always have Adnan briefly remind you listeners what this series is about and why thinking about sources and methods is important for us to do. So Adnan, can you remind the listeners a bit about our sources and method series? Well, yes, Henry, it's an ongoing series to look at how to approach topics for guerrilla historians.

So the idea is that we might be able to learn from primary sources and also from primary sources. source research in one's own communities, but how one approaches that has to be done very carefully with good self-reflexive understanding of the consequences of producing knowledge under various circumstances and with various approaches. And so we've established this series to encourage people to learn about how to do primary source research and also how to make it useful and available for their communities in struggle for their liberation and for social justice. And so I'm very excited today that we're going to have a more methodological discussion with two scholars, you know, who work with indigenous communities.

Yeah, absolutely. That was a great reminder of the series and listeners. You will see that this episode is going to be perfectly placed within that series. We're talking about indigenous methodologies today and we're joined by doctors Masha Karashevskya and Sardana Nikolaevah. Hello to Sardana and Masha. It's nice to have you both on. on here. Listeners will remember that Sardana was on recently talking about her work on Indigenous Diamonds and Masha, it's your first time on the show. So I'll turn it over to Masha first to introduce herself to the listeners. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and the work that you do? Hi everyone. So my name is Masha. I come from the Sahara Republic

and I have graduated with a PhD in Pissom Conflict Studies from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and did my doctoral research in North Sumatra, in Indonesia, with the Bataktoba communities. And after graduating with my PhD, I have also worked with indigenous women in Canada, in Mabitoba. And I have also conducted over the summer last year research in the Sahara Republic with the communities, the Sakha communities in the Arctic. region of Derhoyansk, or like, Derhayansky Ulus, yeah, on climate change and horseworthy. Yeah, really fascinating and looking forward to talking about the work that you do over the course of this episode and hopefully beyond. So, Donna, I'm going to turn it back over to you. Now, as I mentioned, we had you on a relatively recent episode of guerrilla history,

but can you remind the listeners who you are and the work that you do? Hi, everyone. My name is Ardana Nikolaewa. I'm also like Masha from the Sahara Republic, the northeastern part of Russia. And I did my studies in the United States, in Russia, in the United States and in Canada. And I'm a trained anthropologist. I got my degree from the University of Manitoba. And currently I am postdoctoral fellow with the University of Toronto.

And my previous research, I worked with the indigenous Sahel. and Evanke communities in one of the indigenous territories within this harbuck. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that a good way to open this conversation. So as I mentioned, this conversation is going to be about the work that you have done on indigenous methodologies. And I know that you're writing paper based on your research on indigenous methodologies. But I think that it will be very important for the listeners to understand the the kind of communities in which you have conducted your research with. Now, I know that Sardana and Masha, you have both done research with the indigenous communities within the Sahara Republic,

that is the Saha people and the Avanke people. But Masha, I'm going to be very interested in hearing about the Indonesian communities and the indigenous Canadian communities that you've worked with as well. So in terms of the populations within the Sahara Republic, I'm going to have Sardana open us up and talk a little bit about who those people are as a grounding. What are those communities like? And, you know, I know that you're from the Saha Republic and your Saha yourself. So how approaching, you know, the examination of a group that you come from also plays into your examination of who they are as a people. So for my doctoral research in anthropology, I did ethnographic field work in three villages in one of the, as I mentioned, in one of the indigenous territories. in the Sahara Republic.

And so three communities that I visited and lived in, they're predominantly Avanki people. Avanki people, they are known as small-numbered indigenous peoples, according to the politics of recognition of indigenous within the Russian Federation. So meaning that they are legally recognized as indigenous peoples within Russia, which is the opposite to the Sahat people. We're not recognized as indigenous. We are indigenous, but not recognize as indigenous legally

because of the laws on the numerical qualification in the legal quantity or population size, which is, I will always find that to be very interesting. But the communities that I worked with, the predominantly Evanki people who practice the traditional economies and one of the major traditional economy is Rhingya herding.

Because the population, the Aventi, they mostly live in the higher Arctic area. And so this is the difference and the difference with the Sahā people because Sahai people more involved in the horse herding and I believe Marsh will talk a little bit about that,

but the Evanghi people traditionally are involved in the reindeer hunting. And in comparison with the other indigenous peoples, they're very different, you know, like they have their own indigenous world views and their cultural practices and beliefs. However, they're also quite diverse communities in the villages is that I visited. So they also have Sahai people, and they also have some of the ethnic minority members

from Sahara Republic and also from outside Sahara Republic. But the predominant population are advancing. And so my focus was on the indigenous politics and the indigenous activism. So I worked mostly with the local indigenous women, activists and it just happened that most of them they were community elders and they yes so I looked at the the the how they negotiate the extractive activities and they shape you know like in the form local indigenous activism within that specific

context yeah so my research was my doctoral research was as I said, in Indonesia, in the province of North Sumatra, and as you know, Indonesia has, you know, several main islands. One of them is Sumatra, but there is also other islands, right, like Jabas, La Bessi, Kalimantan, Papua. And so Sumatra is a big island, and there is a province called North Sumatra on the, you know, it's up on the closer to the province of Ache, so under Ache, there is North Sumatra. And so in North Sumatra, there are numerous, and Indonesia is a very diverse country, so there are lots of ethnicities living together in the province of North Sumatra. One of the ethnic groups are the Tobabatak people, and they reside mainly in the province of North Sumatra, but also in many other places, obviously, across Indonesia as well, those people who out migrate from their areas.

And so my research was together with the communities who live in that area. And the reason why they're Tobab Batak-Tobah people, because they also reside. Their ancestral area is around Tobab Lake, which is a really big lake in North Sumatra, or one of the biggest lakes, I guess, in Southeast Asia as well. And they're dependent on forest, the communities that I worked with. And so the kind of the economy that they leave off is rice farming. There's aerobica and robust coffee trees. There is also vegetable and food farming.

But then there is also benzene farming. And so the conflict, so since I studied peace and conflict studies, so I picked this community because I was actually at the time working with an organization, a popular education filmmaking organization. And I got to know an organization, a local social movement, a local organization that was working together with the communities in terms of defending land rights for, of indigenous territories of these communities. It's called Kasper Pan. This is a well-known organization in North Sumatra. It's been established in the 1980s and it's been working using popular education

methodologies with the communities, organizing farmers, organizing, you know, also indigenous communities to fight for their land rights. And so the communities that I work with, their land or territory was threatened by a concession that was given to a pulp and paper company. And so they were defending the land and the forest because they saw the forest, the chaminian or the benzene forest or maybe incense forest. So it's a sap. It's a tree and the tree has a, like there is a special kind of knowledge that they have, traditional knowledge that they have where they sap the tree. and there's kind of something like a rubber that kind of comes out of it, like a liquid comes out and it dries out,

and then there's a whole kind of livelihood is based on those trees, right? And usually you kind of use it for pharmaceuticals, you use it for tobacco, use it for, you know, cosmetics, perfume and all those things. It smells really nice and rituals as well. And so, and they wanted to defend their land. And so they reached out to these organization called Caswipa N. And so, and they kind of fought together in order to be able to get the territory that they have, these forest territory that they have, out of the concession area.

And so I kind of conducted together with one main community of Panadumana and Spithuja in that area. But I also went to several other communities in order to be able to, understand the context. So there were communities that were doing mediation with the company, for example. There was one community who was kind of trying to engage in mediation to be because they work kind of in that factory area or like a pulp and paper. How would you say that? Like it's a, is it a factory or mill? And so in that area and they were being exposed to pollution, they also lost part of their land, ancestral land to the pulp and paper mill itself. And so I also went to several other communities who were mostly farming communities, who were also

trying to get their ancestor land in order to make a living out of farming, which was then planted by the eucalyptus trees. And so that's kind of the context where I work for my doctoral dissertation. And then in terms of the Canadian indigenous in the context, like indigenous communities in the context of Canada, in Manitoba, it was mostly with women because they worked as a research associate at a research center called Resolve that studies gender-based violence. And so I was working together with indigenous women, women's organization that was working on, with women who experienced gender-based violence or intimate partner violence. And then with, as I said, in the Sahara Republic over the summer, I worked with in the village of Arilah, which is mostly

indigenous Saha communities whose livelihood depends on horse-riding. And so we were looking at climate change and what is the impact of climate change on these horse-riding communities. Wow, fascinating. There's so much to talk about here with you

because of your experiences, expertise, and scholarship. I almost don't know where to start. There's so many good things to ask you. So hopefully we'll get to at least a few of them. But one thing I noticed in your descriptions were, and I know the previous conversation is about diamonds and other aspects of extraction of natural resources and what you were also describing, Masha, is a very involved

process of trying to protect the land, protect rights and sovereignty to the land in order to maintain it, preserve it from the ravages of an extractivist kind of exploitation and polluting kind of form of production. You know, I'm wondering about from the methodological perspective how much that context, that sort of overriding context of indigenous peoples being put under pressure by, you know, capitalist and state projects of extraction, informs the way you approach knowledge production since, of course, in the past and in the history of ethnography and anthropology, in many cases, you know, indigenous peoples were studied by ethnographers as part of the production of colonial knowledge that exposed these peoples to further penetration by, you know, the state

or corporate projects. So how does that context inform the sort of approach to knowledge that you both take in your work. I think, I feel like the question is very complex, right, because you have so many aspects to it, I think. Like, one thing that I was thinking about as you were kind of formulating the question was when we were discussing the paper on indigenous methodologies and the paper basically, and we're kind of looking into making it into an additive book eventually. And so it's kind of evolving the project.

but the paper has been written in the form of dialogue. But one of the conversations that we've had is why is it that we're interested in terms of looking at these other, like, because it was indigenous, like we identified as indigenous researchers, but then we're also conducting research in indigenous communities who are not necessarily our own communities, right? And so, and within indigenous methodologies, there's a huge focus on, you know, that you're supposed to conduct your research with your own communities. And so I think that that's kind of like one of the, seems to be a little bit, one of the ideas that comes out, like at least for me that seems to be like one of the assumptions.

And I think like when we were talking about it, and sometimes, you know, I even felt as I was kind of thinking about conducting research in another community other than my own, sometimes I felt guilty about it because I was like, okay, is this really, can this, can this really be liberatory or is it more of an exploitative type of research and extractive? type of research. And so, and I think that's a really important discussion to be had, I think, and I think it's not only one conversation that's going to kind of respond to that question of whether extractivism within research and exploitation of data for purposes that are not exactly libertary are, you know, and I think that's kind of like any research I think that is publicly shared can contribute to some extent to exploitation as well, right? And so, but I think when we were discussing, you know, what is it? Like, is it, is it, is it, is it good enough or is it okay to conduct research as an indigenous person with other indigenous communities? And I think for me personally, for example, and I think for Sardana, it was some, like in Sardana's context, I guess it's a little bit different because she conducted research in her own ancestral area with, even though it's also across indigenous context as well a little bit. But I think that's and that also brings, I'm not sure this is really confusing, but it's like there

was a lot of thoughts and so I'm trying to organize. And so there was obviously insider outsider discussion that happens as well, right, in terms of methodological discussions. But like one of the things that we were thinking about was that for me personally, it was like having had that experience of personal exposure or like my own community being exploited for, you know, for resource extraction, that I think it was also a really important component for me to kind of be interested in this other community who was also experiencing similar things that my communities experience. And so in that way, I think there was a lot of empathy in terms of developing this research interest. And I think that happened to me throughout my experiences

because I worked in Papua as well with Papua and Indigenous peoples. I also worked in the Philippines in Mindanao where the Ra indigenous communities as well there, who are kind of also have had very sad experiences with resource extraction, especially mining, but also other forms of resource extraction, I guess. And I think I always felt drawn to those stories and the kind of experiences that they shared with me because of the fact that it sounded so familiar to me, right, personally. So it was like, okay, I'm hearing your story, but it sounds exactly like, the story of my own community as well. And I completely agree with that,

you know, like with some of the things that Masha talked about, that from the very beginning, like, for example, the same way as Masha, I felt that there's some sense of responsibility and more so the ethical and the culture responsibility to do this sort of research, because again, as Masha, I come from the, from the community that has been experiencing

the impact of the diamond mining industry since 1950, since the very beginning, because my village was the hub of the beginnings, you know, like of the diamond mining industry within the Sahara Republic at that time. But I personally, I didn't, you know, like observe the beginnings, you know, like how the clashes and the tension that existed at the time between the local community and also the extractive activities.

And that's why I thought within the communities that worked with, this was their first encounter with the extractivism and specifically diamond mining. And I guess like this is what attracted me to think about more critically, about the industry, but also how it affects the local indigenous communities. So there was this responsibility, I guess, you know, like this in a sense of like solidarity based on the ideas and the my own feelings about the indigenous solidities. But another thing is because I'm a trained anthropologist and when you're, you know, like PhD student, when you're a grad student, you learn everything about, you know, like

ethics of research, you know, like how to, how to conduct, you know, like how essentially to become native, right, to the groups, you know, like, and the people that you're studying with. And, like, I always thought, like, it's, that it was very problematic, you know, like, and very questionable, because if you look at the anthropologists and discipline, especially within the was in academia, most of the people, most of the end. Apologies, they are white male and coming from the Western universities and they go to these far-flung places, you know, like to study and observe people. And it's still very much like that, you know, like, as me is still being within the discipline. Like, I realized that. And one of the

things that I was thinking based on our conversations with Masha and also with some of the instances that I observed when I was conducting my field work, but also after I came back to write my dissertation, is that maybe it's not anything and everything and everybody needs to be studied. Maybe, you know, like some people, they need to be more, especially anthropologists, think more critically about their position, where they're coming from, and why they're conducting this research. And also, within the context of of my own project because I was looking at the post-Soviet expressions of political acting and political being among the indigenous communities.

And of course, you know, like, you are kind of like expected to use the Western anthropological literature, right, in your writing and in your thinking about the indigenous peoples in Russia. And when I was looking through and reading the literature, I realized that most of them, they're like complete misrepresentations of our experiences. And I was telling that to Masha and how I found that to be so problematic. Because like some of this stuff that they write, the anthropologists, they have written about experiences of indigenous peoples, especially during the Soviet period, they were, they sound. more like propaganda, you know, like ideological propaganda, anti-Soviet, anti-socialist propaganda. And if you, and what I think about my people, my community, and also the activists

who I worked with within the Afghan indigenous communities, I was like, it doesn't work like, it doesn't work like, I didn't like, the experiences were very different, and And that's why I try to have the, from the very beginning, you know, like the more critical perspective, like in comparison with the Western Anthropologies. And another thing is that why we wanted to think more in-depth and more critically about indigenous with indigenous research, this is how we call it, you know, like when you come from this, from one indigenous community and were conducting research with another indigenous group somewhere else.

We realize that the fact that you're indigenous in one place, it doesn't mean that you understand the indigenous experience is another place, that there actually, a lot of labor is involved, you know, like more learning involved, because you have to understand not only the historical background, but also the political, and the economy background because they are very different from one place from one geography

to another geography and we realize that in most of the writings about indigenous peoples it doesn't necessarily exist even the studies they had been done by other scholars

who identifies indigenous so we wanted to highlight that it requires more labor if you're indigenous scholar and if you decide to work with the other indigenous groups or other indigenous communities in other places. So this is how we studied our conversation.

Can I add? And I think just to add to what Sardana shared, I think, like, in terms of, like, there's a whole discussion on reflexivity and positionality, right? And so, and I think what Sardana kind of talked about makes me think also, and I think this is a bit of a new idea, like we haven't gotten there yet, but I think there's also has to be a level of ideological

reflexivity and positionality on your own positionality as a researcher. If you're going from one context to another context, or even if you're conducting research in your own context, I think it's really important to kind of reflect on your own ideological positions. And I think now that Serdana talks about it, as I reflect back on my own experiences. I've done that consistently throughout my research where I'm like, and when I was writing the dissertation also to think about, you know, what is my, like, why am I saying? What am I saying? How does that reflect back in terms of how people would look at it, you know, if they were not me or if they were the community members, for example?

Yeah, that will be very interesting. I think we would want to definitely explore. that a little further and deeper about that positionality of the researcher and your experiences in thinking through that. But I wanted to come back to something Sardana that you mentioned about finding that the ethnographic and anthropological literature that discusses your people gets things so wrong. I'm wondering if you could maybe illustrate a little bit more the manner in which they do, because there's a few ways. people can you know these researchers can get things wrong it's like you know they could be you know just really misunderstanding the you know culture that they're presumably supposed to be you know

becoming an expert in in understanding they could miss the meanings that it has for people in their lived experience or it could also you know even be that the western academic mode of characterizing and representing knowledge about others just distorts because there's a whole different frame of analysis. So it seems like there are multiple levels where there could be something that you would encounter and say, wow, this doesn't make any sense. I'm just wondering maybe you can kind of illustrate how that operated, because you are yourself, of course, also trained in those methodologies, and you can recognize. them, but, you know, so you might have some other insights into, like, what exactly are they

getting wrong? And you also mentioned the Soviet period, and that would be very interesting just to kind of situate, broadly speaking, the way in which a certain kind of Western academic approach was definitely connected with imperial interests and aspirations, you know, to kind of use, that's kind of what I meant by colonial knowledge is, you know, from the 19th and early 20th century is also similarly anthropologists working in the 20th and 21st, even into the 21st century can sometimes deploy a study of indigenous peoples in order to kind of undermine, you know, other geopolitical rivalries and contestations and competition that they have. And this can be a way of talking about it and deploying it in the

that way. So I was interested, perhaps, you maybe might talk about those two things. And finally, you mentioned something about you have to be embedded in the local kind of condition and situation. And you can't just sort of approach all of the different indigenous communities that you might engage with, you know, through the same prism because they have unique features of history, geography, and culture. But yet at the same time, I think it's very, very, you know, true and important what Masha said in her discussion about being an indigenous researcher in Indonesia is recognizing that there are some kind of similarities and hearing similar stories that one can empathize. So I'm just wondering about that. Maybe you might together talk a little bit more about

how you refine both what's distinctive and what's shared by the positionality of these people's facing aggressive states, extractivist economies, corporate exploitation, and so on, right? That's maybe their positions are structurally in some ways the same, but yet they also have, you know, distinctive features and histories. How does one kind of deal with that as yourselves indigenous researchers who are doing comparative work in the case of, or I don't know if it's comparative, but you have multiple locations where you have engaged with indigenous peoples, Masha. So that might be another discussion to follow from what you were, you know, what you were discussing, Sardana.

Well, first maybe start Sardana, if you would, with any reaction had to my previous, yeah, points. Thank you. Yes. Very, very happily, because there are so many examples, but I like to use a couple of the examples when I try to show how the, especially, you know, like the cold air literature, anthropological literature, ethnographic writings about. indigenous peoples within, you know, like living within the Soviet Union, within that socialist period, you know, like how it's very much problematic. I would, like, actually, like, say sometimes to my students that, you know, like, take all of this, everything, all of the anthropological literature at that time and just throw it away.

It's like, yeah, but it's true. But anyways, you know, like one of the things that, and I noticed myself when I was, writing the indigenous diamonds study, I was seeing this phrase, you know, like the prison of nations, thrown, you know, like the, within the, all the literature that talked about the indigenous communities during the Soviet period. And I was like, prison of nations, like, and they, the anthropologists, they keep using it and using it. And I got curious, like, where it's coming from. Because they're writing about our home.

You know, like our home is not a prison. Like, we're not in prison people, like as far as my experiences go, you know, like in the experiences of my parents and my grandparents. And we didn't see our home as our indigenous territories as prison. So what's this coming from? So, and I dug into the, you know, like. trying to find what is the original source, and the original source was the CIA document which talked about the, like, ethnic minorities, and the title, the title of the document

was that presented to Congress in the 1960s, in the 1960s, like saying that in the Soviet Union prison of nations. And the document talked about, you know, that the minority experiences of the minorities, you know, like indigenous peoples in the, specifically in our area. And this is where we all started, you know, like, and that's why, that's why, like, I think that we need to be very cautious, I guess, you know, and very skeptical when you see this kind of phrases use in the literature to describe the indigenous places, you know, like, and the most frustrating is, like, they still use it. And they still describe, like, our home, Marcia and my home, as prison, you know, like, or they go as far as, like, say, Gulag.

And we didn't have Gulag's, like, since 1960s. Like, we know that because you can actually visit those places in the Arctic. And they're, like, they're some kind of, like, preserved areas. And people go there, the tourists, they usually go there just to see, you know, like what is there. But we didn't have them since 1960s, but still, you know, like this, the image, I guess, like imagery, like very exotic imagery of Golog and the prisons,

they still very much exist even among the anthropologists who consider themselves to be the experts, you know, like in indigenous experiences at that time. So this is the first example. And the second example is, this comes from, from the couple of the sources

which directly talked about my community and also the community neighboring to where I live. So the anthropologist, she's an American anthropologist and she talks about,

she did research in our home region after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990s. And she writes about you know like this. very, not like very in-depth, but she talks a little bit about the transition, you know, like of the indigenous, how the indigenous peoples experience this transition period from

the socialist economy to new neoliberal capital's economy. And in one of the parts, she talks about how most, of the communities they experienced the industrialization, which makes sense, which makes sense. You know, like if you lived at that time, like both Marcia and I, who lived through that time, it's there was a intense in the industrialization process is happening because, you know, the economy completely collapsed almost like overnight. But, you know, like, but the statement that the anthropologist, makes, it's that, well, because of this de-industrialization in 1990s, the local indigenous

people, they had to go back practicing their traditional economies. And I found that to be very curious because we grew up practicing our traditional economists. Like, we never lost it. I mean, like, you know, like some of this, you know, like, they change, you know, like how we I guess, you know, like, some of the elements of it, you know, but the knowledge was still there. And we always practiced, like, I literally grew up on the land because I came from, from poor families. So, you know, like we had to practice our traditional amounts of substance in order to, you know, to add to the wages of my parents. And this is like, and I thought this is a complete misrepresentation, you know, like of our living and the, on the fact that we didn't actually lose or we're not forced to lose our traditional economies and our traditional, you know, like thinking about the land because it's still very much preserved.

So I found that to be, again, very, this example to be very illustrative, you know, because. we're talking about the and Oregon anthropology who stayed with the family in one of the villages made a look for a year and she's making these kind of

claims and very generalizing claims about the traditional economies and like indigenous experiences and what people experienced before and after it so I think that

this could be very good examples and another one is and it's also like another thing that baffled me always. And this actually relates to the Westerners who claim to be communist. So what they say, I don't know, like, that the communists from Central Russia, they brought civilization, you know, like in the development to the, this poor, primitive indigenous peoples, for example, in the Sahara Republic. And it's like completely

forget that we had our own revolutionaries. And we also had we had our own understanding of socialism and communism and our people actively participated in building socialism and communism.

So we're not just sitting around and waiting to be saved. So I find it to be also this example of the white savior trope that exists. But, you know, the context is a bit different.

You know, like, if you look at the North American context, it will be a white saverism, you know, within the colonial context. But in our case, it was also, it was within, you know, like the communist period. And people completely forget about that. So I guess, like, this is the examples that I can use to showcase, you know, like how, like, most of the, or, okay, let's be generous, you know, like, some of them. some of the writings about indigenous peoples, especially in the Arctic, they can be very misleading. And secondly, very generalizing, you know, like, kind of like completely admitting the diversity of indigenous experiences and also how we experience our own histories. I want to take a step back for a second, and I think that you'll both have a lot to say on this,

because we've been touching on this point off and on. for the last couple of answers, really. And it's going back to this thinking about insider versus outsider, what the locus of knowledge production is, who is producing the knowledge on these indigenous communities, and thinking about how that locus, when that locus of knowledge production changes, how the understanding also changes.

And so we have this tendency in, Western capitalist society to see outside objective observers as being more objective than people from the communities who are producing knowledge on their own communities from within the community. And you've talked about a few different places where this knowledge is produced. You know, you've talked about the CIA producing knowledge of these various communities. Of course, the primary source is Western academics, as you said, kind of parachuting in, learning how to nativize their thinking, reading the background literature on the communities that they're going to, but then going to these far-flung places, and observing in what they see to be a

native way, these communities jetting back and then writing reports on what they have observed and learned in this process. That's where most of the knowledge that's available to people in the West comes from, but there is also that production of knowledge by the indigenous communities themselves and by indigenous people observing their own communities and other indigenous communities in the cases where there is that exchange between indigenous communities. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how that locus of knowledge production is an important thing to think about. And I'm particularly interested, Masha, in the perspective, not only of thinking about is the knowledge being produced by some ideological and political arm of

imperialism who's just creating narratives like the CIA example that Sardana gave, Western academics who are in some cases going in with an objective lens and doing their absolute best, but in other cases, maybe not so much. And then also this perspective of the indigenous community themselves being able to produce their own knowledge of their own people or, in your case, not only observing your own people, but other indigenous communities that you have studied as well. So how does that locus of knowledge production change the way in which we should see, or maybe color the way in which we see the knowledge that is produced? Thanks for the question, Henry. I think I want to complicate that a little bit more.

And I think... Please do. We love complications. And I think that that one being from the community, I think, like, Chris Fogwell, for example, talks about Westernized university, right? In general, anyone who is educated within the Western knowledge production structures is kind of, you know, like if you don't have that ideological reflexivity and you don't reflect on your own position, ideological positionality, that I think you're bound to kind of repeat those same, you know, even if you're indigenous, I think. And it's very much possible if you're not indigenous and you're aware of those things and you're really reflexive in terms of your ideological positionality and how you kind of process knowledge and how you relate to people, then I think you can definitely, I think, go beyond that, right? So I think that that's, for me, that that seems to be like a little bit more nuance than like black and white.

I think it's more kind of having that very internal compass and understanding that this is, you know, this is what happens oftentimes if you're not reflexive, if you're not, you know, thinking carefully about and even within communities, right, like when I was in the Arctic over the summer, we had all these discussions that were very pro and contra, right? Like you had two groups of people who have completely differing opinions. Like, for example, in terms of the experience of the Soviet Union, you know, and so two very different positions. And so even within communities, those discussions are happening. And it's, you know, like in terms of, for example, in the context of Russia with the liberals and, you know, those people who would like to go back to the old

days, right, to the Soviet Union or like supporting the communist ideologies or ideas that were, you know, more dominant during the Soviet Union. So I think that that's, that the discussions, those discussions happen. I think just knowing that those are happening and having that ability to kind of step back a little bit and think, wait a minute, like, this is what's happening here and, like, where do I stand or how do I understand this and how do I interpret this, right, so that it's not, and I think making sure that it's not harmful

in the long run as well, right, in terms of misrepresenting what's going on, I think is really important too. So, yeah. And just a brief interjection before you continue, and I'm sure Sardana has plenty to say on this as well, I'm really glad that you brought up this component of the ideological discussions that happen within indigenous communities because far too often from things that I have read, which are conducted by Western academics, they almost construct an ideological monolith of indigenous communities where if there is any discussion of ideological tendencies or debates or discussions or polities or whatever, if there is. And in many cases, there is not.

But if there is, they often create this monolithic imaginary of what that indigenous community is from an ideological standpoint, which completely flattens that component of life itself. You know, that discussion, that political, ideological discussion and debate that happens within a community is an important component of what makes that community who they are. So the moment that you either ignore that or you. you create this monolithic imaginary of what that group is, you erase that component of their life. And that's something that, I mean, I am not in the field of anthropology myself, but I have read a fair amount of anthropology. And I have seen a lot of that myself. I am sure that the two of you who are actually in the field have much more to say on that than I do. But, you know, I'm sure that I'm not the only person who has seen papers where that is, there's that tendency where in some cases

they seem like very well-meaning, you know, analysts of this culture. But they create this monolithic imaginary of the community when it comes to the ideological side of things, which is bizarre. Yeah. And I think because of that, it's so important to kind of reflect that complexity, right, like that it's not that simple. Like, it's not black and white. It's very complex. It's very dynamic. It's, and I think that gives life to the communities, too, in terms of like the kinds of decisions that they're making and the kinds of discussions that they're having. And just to add to that as well, just reflecting on my own work in the, and as opposed to I was over the summer in the Sahara Republic, I think for me, like, as you were talking, I was kind of just being a little bit critical of myself because in North Sumatra, I speak Indonesian, I speak fluent Indonesian, but I don't speak Batakhtoba. And so, and I think that I missed out in a lot of those details, because I could catch all those details.

else when I was in the Sahara Republic because I speak the language. So I understand those conversation. I understand like I went through like my family has those discussions, right? So everybody has those discussions. And so I could catch it right away. Like when it's a discussion about private property, the commons, it's like very heated discussions happening right away. And so, however, in North Sumatra, when I was with, you know, even though, you know, I can speak Indonesian, but a lot of the discussions, these kind of very nuanced discussions are happening in the local language, right, in Batak-Toba language. And so because of that, like, I was not able to catch all of those details. And I think that's kind of like, even though you have that, you know,

when you're doing Indigenous with Indigenous research, you have that solidarity, you have empathy, all of all of that. But I think at the same time, if you are not from the community, then you are missing out on the details. And the knowledge that you produce then is limited in that way, because you don't have that, the contextual understanding of the complexity. Yeah. Yes. And I completely agree with Masha. And this is something that, you know, like you have to think about all the time, right? Again, it requires, as I have mentioned before, like a lot of labor, which a lot of people they don't want to do, but this is something. And, you know, I'm talking about the knowledge production.

I actually, in where we come from, but like, I'm not sure about if this practice exists in other indigenous republics and the indigenous territories, but like our people within our republic, they have the whole very long tradition of self-publishing. And self-publishing about local histories, about the local personalities, you know, like about the local important figure, cultural figures, political figures and such. And I found those sources to be much more eliminating than what I have read about in the anthropological ethnographic studies about the same people. Because it, you know, like this is the local knowledge, you know, and it has been produced how the local activists they want to present and represent, you know, like

the histories, traditions, you know, like, and their philosophies. And interestingly, like, it's the practice that is, again, very, very widespread, and the people usually self-publish would they own. Like, for example, the local activists, the elder women activists in villages where I did my research, they actually self-published books about the history of the region and of their villages using their pension money. And their pension is not that much, but they have this sense of responsibility that this is something that we need to preserve because this is the part of our history, of our community

history and it needs to be preserved in their written form. And that's why they decided to self-publish. And they also, like, when they do that, they conduct, you know, like the whole research. It's not just, you know, like, they collect interviews, they do archival research. They go to the capital city and they find archives about the village, you know, like about the local population. they read the books about the local culture. So it's like legitimately, you know, like very well done scholarly work.

So I would say. But I'm not true if, you know, like this practice exists in other places. And I was bringing this up because it's such an excellent strategy, you know, like of the local historical preservation. But another thing, like I like the, Henry, your point about the, Either, like, this representing indigenous people as monolith, like, even within, like, the political discussions, because I just remembered that our people in Sahara Republic had been beefing with the Communist Party in Central Russia, like, just, like, a couple of weeks ago. And it's funny, like, you know, like, if you know the context, because, like, our home region is always presented as oppositional region. to the dominant political party, United Russia, because the local people, in all of the elections, they always vote communists.

And that's why the Central Russians, they don't like us very, very much, because they think that, you know, they're backward. They're like, they vote communists. And all of that. But at the same time, like, again, there was, like, very heated beefing with the Communist Party happening. just like a couple of weeks ago. So I found it to be very funny. And another thing that Marsha talked a little bit about that,

and this is something that we also discuss a lot the national belonging. You know, like when the anthropologists, for example, when they write about their positionality, they always only talk about the racial positioning

or, you know, like they're fast positioning, like sometimes, they talk about that, like not very often, but sometimes. But they completely admit the, what the nation they are coming from. And I always find it to be very curious because, you know, like, if you belong to this nation, you know, like, you still, to some degree become the representative of that nation, you know, like if you go someone else, right? And there are some of the instances.

When the indigenous researchers coming from the North American institutions and they conducting research in, let's say, in our home region, they didn't realize like how important it is to think about one's national belonging. Because we don't live in isolation as indigenous peoples. We're still part of the geopolitical conditions, you know, like, and we're still. still affected by them to a certain degree. And this is something that we found that it's important to talk about. Because, you know, like, why could you not, you might not, you know, like, accept your

belonging to the North American nation, let's say, the United States as a Native American, but still, if you go to other places, you're going to be seen as a representative of the United States. Like, you know, like, there's just because you have from that area. And, you know, like, if you're coming from the United States or from Canada, it's, and you go to the non-Western countries, non-Western places, like it always has this, the privilege. And you will have that privilege when you go to other places.

And I believe, I personally believe that you need to think about that more critically. me. Well, I also want to add in a small comment about publishing, which it's really interesting that you bring up this aspect of publishing within Saha and wondering about whether or not that's something that happens in other areas that there's indigenous or national minorities within different places. I know I can speak for the context of Tatarstan, and it's very, it's similar in some ways, but very different from what you described in Saha. we have a national Tatar publishing company, which is very popular. Like, they have branches of stores. They publish books in Tatar, Russian, and even some in English, believe it or not. Like, you can walk down Bauman Street in Kazan, the main tourist street of the city and buy some books of Tatar literature, poetry. I mean, they've got 8,000 different copies of poems from Musa Jalil and Gabdullah Takai. they have books on Tatar culture, on Tatar history.

They have 20,000 different Tatar cookbooks. Believe me, I have most of them. So it's very interesting, but that's funded by the Republic of Tatarstan. And so that publishing company is able to produce a lot of different works, which are critically important for the understanding of this region and the people who are here, but it is funded by the government of this republic. That's very different from the context which you spoke about in Saha, where you have these pensioners essentially funding the publishing with their pension money. And I can tell you, listeners, the pension money here is not very much.

So that is a very, very limited budget that they're operating on. But it's interesting that I'm in a place that the national ethnic minority group is actually a majority group of the Republican, which is why it's the Republic of Taristan. and also Saha Republic. And just so the listeners know, Republic status is granted within the Russian Federation to areas which are historically populated by one of the national minority groups. And so it's interesting that publishing is it a very important part of this knowledge production in these two places, but that it is carried out in such a different way.

And it would be really interesting, as you mentioned Sardana to look at other parts of Russia and these other republics and other areas where there's indigenous communities present to see how publishing is carried out in those places and the sort of support for those, the publishing efforts, but then also beyond just the context of Russia, of course, also thinking about how that knowledge production and whether publishing plays an important role in it takes place within those indigenous communities. I just wanted to reflect a little bit on that. You know, now that I'm thinking about the experience that I have with the publishing company

here versus your description of what's happening. But would you have the, you know, like the local national publishing houses, right? Like, which are funded by the local regional government. But this is in addition to that, which the practice that exists only within, you know, like the, within the territories. And the, so that's why I call it self-publishing, because I imagine that the national publishing is a bit different than the self-publishing, very. Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. So, and they mostly focus into like the local self-publishing activists. They primarily focus on the local, very local, like village history, for example, or writing about the, for example, the book that I found to be extremely valuable, the only book that actually exists on the topic, it was written and published by a local teacher in one of the villages. So she collected information and created this wonderful narrative of the history of locally indigenous people participating in the development of the diamond mining industry in the region. And the, you know, like the reindeer herders, you know, like how they contributed to the industry and especially the earlier years in the 1950s, 1960s, and what is the situation now, you know, again, all of that. So, and, like, honestly, this is, like, the only source that exists about that topic, and it was published just a teacher. And she did, like, I read it, and it's a wonderful, wonderful historical narrative with this, you know, like, personal, local community touch, I guess.

And it has a lot of pictures in the, like, which she collected from the family members, from the, the community members who wanted to contribute. So essentially, like, this is all not only just like one person publication, but most of the self-published work that I found they actually collected for it. And this is another aspect that I found to be fascinating in these self-publishing works. To add to that, so over the summer when I went to Berkhyaansk, I actually found an encyclopedia on Verhijansk, and it was published, I think, by the local government. So, and it was like the most comprehensive encyclopedia I've seen on a region, like on one,

only one region, right? So, and it was really nice. I mean, and it seems to be like there is a level of publishing that happens, right, like in terms of knowledge production. So like the national, the Republican level, there is, I think, a number of publishing houses. And then you have, you know, original level, the original government can publish some books that, they found, find important, and then there is self-publishing that happens at the very bottom level. But I think in Indonesia, Indonesia obviously is a huge country with a huge population, and so academia here and knowledge productions very well developed, and so there are a lot of local universities, and I think just making sure, I think, when I was conducting

my research, making sure to consult those local knowledge production centers. And at the same time also I think I refer to them as organic intellectuals but like the activists and the people who work with the communities and the people who actually are from the community the elders in the communities are a huge source of knowledge because they know so much and like in specific communities I guess like if you find an elder who can talk to the history and the rituals and the kind of important issues in the community they can be really important key informant in one's research and then and then and then also for me the local organization they had their own publishing too so they published a lot of books and different reports and they had their own

kind of a journal a magazine that they distributed to the communities as part of their popular education program as well and so that also was a huge source of knowledge for me in order to understand the context and then just for me also personally because I conducted research in a community that was very culturally different from my own and from any other community that I've known in my life, then it took a lot of kind of digging up, right? Because when you read anthropological ethnographic research, it's very different from talking to people because things change, first of all. And second of all, like, it's a living knowledge, right? So sometimes what you read is not exactly when it's pulled by someone orally. So I think like storytelling itself, especially in communities where storytelling is well developed,

can be a great source of knowledge in itself in order to understand the history of the people and also the context that they live in. And I wanted to add very quickly on the Marsha talked about. that, about how the knowledge that you produce, you know, like as a scholar, as a researcher, as an indigenous scholar, as a researcher, how this knowledge is going to be used. And this is the question that is not necessarily raised by the outsider scholars, the literary researchers and the, you know, like ethnographers. But, like, for Marsha and me, we had to think about that, you know, like, how the knowledge

that we produce about this marginalized, communities, you know, like in a sense, very exotic selves, you know, like an orientalized communities, how they're going to be used, you know, like the outside, you know, like outside the areas where we did our research. And it's actually made me think about this one example, you know, like trying to, how a lot of the, some of the, let's say, like some of the, let's say, like, some of the scholars, like coming from, from our home agent, how they try to, how they try to adapt to the academic discourses produce about our own people. And there's one example that I saw this presentation with one PhD student where she talked

about the experiences of indigenous peoples during the Soviet period. And she seemed to be like very anti-socialist, like pretty much like a liberal. And she talks, like, in one of the parts of her presentation, she talks about schools, boarding schools that were created by the Soviet government, you know, like in the early years of the Soviet Union, like 19-20s and such. And we had it all like those school, boarding schools. And the villages where I did more research, they also had some. And one of the things that I noticed, and this is not something that other people would notice, but I noticed that she is using the term residential schools. And I was like, and most of her audience, she was talking in English,

and she was invited by the American, some kind of, like, organization or something. And she was deliberately using the term residential schools. And I was thinking about that, you know, like using that, term, which is the most familiar to the people who live in North American, Canada, in the United States, like, it immediately brings out, like, extremely negative, you know, like the horrible narratives, you know, like, in the history of residential schools, right? And I was thinking, like, what are she doing that on purpose, you know, like trying to adapt, you know, like how she personally,

because of her political positioning, political ideology, how she understood, you know, like, understood, you know, like the educational system at that time, or, you know, like she, or, you know, like, it wasn't unintended. And, however, for the audience that she had, Americans, Canadians, seem to, like, Europeans, like, I imagine that when they heard that term residential school, like, it immediately, They're like, oh my God, like, you know, like, that's a horrible, you know, like horrible war happening with the indigenous children, you know, like at that time. And I'm not saying that, you know, like maybe some of the schools during that time were problematic, but I actually know the history of the residential school in one of the villages, not residential school, but the school of the family in one of the villages where I did my research. And firstly, it was a tiny school. And secondly, the children were not living at the school. Like, only the children who didn't have any relatives. Like, they had to stay within the building, which was very small.

But most of the children who had to come to the central village in that territory, they were staying with their relatives, with their family numbers. And, you know, like, it doesn't sound, you know, like, the system of the residential school that existed in Canada, for example. Well, like, it's completely different. And so I was thinking that, you know, like, if someone going to reference, you know, like the knowledge that, you know, like she produced, you know, like using the predominantly Western literature.

And I know that literature, because I read it, myself. We're using the same sources. There is not a lot about, you know, like, educational system during the Soviet period, specifically targeting indigenous peoples. So I know the sources. I have read them. So I was thinking, like, you know, like people are going, how the other people, after listening to that presentation, how they're going to use that knowledge that they learned. And I don't think she thought about, you know, like the consequences that they might be, occur intended or unintended, you know, like after like she talked about that, like with that using these start of terms. So and this is the, and I think like Marshall can add to

that like, you know, like thinking about how the knowledge that we produce as indigenous scholars working with indigenous peoples, how it might be used, you know, like not in an intended way, how we intended to use it. And also, like, I was thinking about that, again, in terms of my research that I'm trying to do on sanctions, like, now I'm scared because, you know, like, my research might be used by some, some people in the Western government and, like, how to make, you know, like, sanctions more effective. So, people, they can, they could, right? Like, very much easily. So now I'm thinking about, should I do that research? Maybe I shouldn't.

you started getting into some of the practices involved with publishing with sharing of research about the way in which this research is used and so i just you know you've both been so generous with your time but just as a way maybe of wrapping up together the outcomes of your own reflections on methodology as indigenous scholars both uh studying um your own communities but also engaged in relationships with other indigenous communities is what are some of the practices and methods that you have found and you are using and recommending in your methodological article to avoid some of those problems that you've been mentioning and the risks and dangers that you've critiqued about misinformation but also the abuse or the exploits. use of, you know, scholarship and knowledge. You know, so, you know, what kinds of besides, I mean, you've mentioned a few, and you could underscore those again as well, but maybe just looking broadly, what are some of the

approaches and actual practices and methods that you think are more responsible, ethical, and also if, you know, as I was saying, effective in producing knowledge that has relevance and value to the indigenous communities themselves and the goals for which they might have of such knowledge being produced and shared. I think there are a number of, a number of, a number of methods or ways of approaching in a research with indigenous communities, in a response way. One of them could be, and I think there are a number of things that we discuss in relation to that. And so one of them is, and I think that's something that we kind of already talked about is that being indigenous in one context does not necessarily suggest that we understand

the indigenous context in another region. So I think we still have to do our homework. We have to be aware of that, of the limitations of our knowledge, and kind of approach it in that way as well with recognition that we don't know as much and we shouldn't assume things ahead of time without asking and clarifying questions. And then I think another important consideration as well is that it's kind of, it's something that we discussed about and maybe Sardana can add a little bit more to this,

but that the whole aspect of the politics of recognition that who is indigenous and who is not indigenous differs and complicates our understanding of indigenous in general. And so, like, for example, in Indonesia, that's a very complex discussion of, you know, defining indigenity and defining who is indigenous and who is not. And so, and those discussions also happen, like even in my own area of research where, you know, we did engage in discussions around because people have to claim indigeneity. And they also have, in order to be able to fight for the ancestral lands and to justify to the

government as well, that we are fighting for these land because we have the right to these land as indigenous peoples. And the government has a very complicated way of recognizing indigenous unity. And I think just knowing that that's very complicated, but it's not that it's around the world. It's very complicated. And indigenous peoples have been defined by the nation states oftentimes and have also limited the kind of expressions that the indigenous communities have around the world as well, around who they are and how they leave and what they eat and how they dress. And so I think that that's kind of really important to take that into consideration. And then, I don't know, do you, Sir Dana, do you want to add to that?

I can add that one of the important things is at least, you know, like how we framed it in our article and also in like we talked about that a lot and we also mentioned that in this discussion as well how you have to be constantly self-reflexive about your positionality

as indigenous scholar but also as the about your national belonging. Like for example we belong to the we have the Russian citizenship our Russian Federation of Presidency. And it does come, we know, like with a very specific context.

But also, Marcia and I, we grew up, some of our portion of our growing up was during this all here times, you know, like, and they also complicates our understanding of ourselves as indigenous peoples, you know, like, and the, and our understanding the histories of our communities. And when you're self-reflex if enough, you have better understanding of heterogeneity of indigenous experiences. And not only within our own home region, but also in other places. Like, for example, despite the fact that Marsha and I would come from the same area, we actually had quite different experiences growing up.

Because I grew up within the hub of the diamond mining, that's why the population of my village, when I was a child, it was very diverse, you know, like a lot of the white people, you know, like Russian, Ukrainians, and it created very intense, racialized dynamics. and I personally experienced, you know, like racism coming from some of the members of the population at the time while I was growing up. But Mara, she grew up in very completely different, like very different in life, in fact, because she came from smaller village, smaller village, which was predominantly Sah people. and so therefore, you know, like, I would say that there was, you know, like the very heterogeneous experiences, like even of us growing up in the same place. And lastly, I would say that one of the important things that, and I think Marcia can use the example of her or that practice, is maintaining the long-term relationship with the communities that will work with.

Because I know that the anthropologists, they usually come and go. You know, like they don't come back to the place where they did research. It's kind of like practice, you know, like in the anthropological knowledge production and knowledge-knowledge gathering, which I always found that to be very problematic. But from our perspective, as people coming from the indigenous communities and who actually observed and they experienced this, this, you know, like, in a sense, violence, right? Of epistanic violence is we try, both,

the possible try to maintain the relationship that we built during our field work. And I do believe that this is what makes us indigenous, right? like forging and sustaining indigenous relationships, but also the solidities, you know, like keeping these solidities alive. And Marsha might use the example that actually would be like. Yeah, no, I think that keeping in touch is definitely something that is really important, right, in terms of maintaining the relationship, but also making sure that there is a connection.

with communities and I think and I'm not sure like I've actually after I've done research I have I have tried my best to keep in touch but like there has been with the organization that I worked with there has been leadership change and despite that I have kind of tried to kind of keep in touch and so like the leadership was one at the time when I conducted research and the leadership was different and the staff also were different and I think human relations kind of play a really important role, right, in terms of keeping in touch. But after I conducted the research, COVID happened and everything was in lockdown and everything. And then after that, in 2021, actually, the community, or 2022, after things opened up, the community

organized the huge ceremony where they celebrated the fact that their territory was now recognized as they called Hutan Adat or customary forest under the Indonesian law. And so they had a huge ritual. And I went there to kind of celebrate together and just to be there as a person who has kind of done research and has had that experience of. spending time with them, and so that was kind of their appreciation of me, but also my appreciation of them by going and honoring their ritual in that way. But I think, like, I'm still kind of also in the moment thinking about, at the moment, thinking about, like, what are the

ways that one can still keep in touch after having been out of the field, so to say, for a while now. And I think that that process is kind of still ongoing in terms of thinking through what are the best ways. And I think that's kind of difficult because if you don't have that institutional support, and I think that this is something that needs to be discussed further by probably educational institutions or research institutions or even academics, individual researchers as well, in terms of like what is the institutional support for individual researchers in terms of making sure that they keep in touch and they maintain those connections and contribute in some way to the communities,

to the knowages that they have and that they would like to get as well the use from the knowledge that was created. Yeah, so I still would like to go back again and obviously there are some material, you know, restrictions as well, but it would this, it's something that is on my mind to like to think about what are the other ways

of maintaining those relationships and giving back to the community. And then in terms of the method, one thing that I wanted to mention also is, because Adnan, you asked about the methods, right? And so one of the methods that was, what I think is important is, like, oftentimes when we talk about indigenous methodologies, researchers often talk about storytelling and the importance of storytelling, and that stories play a really important role. And I think we kind of talked about that, but the other side of the other side of the, of that as well is listening. And so, and like in our culture, in our Saha culture, for example,

we have that very strong culture of listening very intently and very deeply in terms of understanding the story, but also understanding the context. And, you know, it's, we have a storytelling tradition, which is called Alon Haugh, and it's a tradition where, you know, the Alon Kohut, or the person who, the storyteller, tells the story. for three days and three nights and non-stop, right? And so, and that's kind of the kind of listening tradition that we come from. And so, and I think that it's important to discuss also within indigenous methodologies and when conducting research within indigenous images to understand that there is also a very

strong tradition oftentimes of storytelling, but also of listening. And that can be really useful in terms of, you know, having a research, relationship with the community members, really listening intently what people say and how they say and what are the words that they use and just paying attention to details like that. So, yeah. I think that that's a great way to end the conversation, but I do want to give each of you the opportunity to tell the listeners how you see this project unfolding. So this is an ongoing discussion between the two of you on indigenous methodologies.

and I know that you're currently working on a paper. How do you see this project continuing to take shape in the near future, just briefly to close up this conversation and let the listeners know what they should be looking for coming out from each of you? So I can start. So we are hoping to publish article, which is in the form of dialogue. We're trying to be very liberal, not in a political sense, but to be liberal with the format.

And, you know, which will be accessible to everyone, you know, like to learn more about what we mean by indigenous with indigenous research. So we're hoping that it will be published soon. And another project stemming from this smaller piece, we're trying to come up with the edited collective volume, which where we want to put together the diverse pieces from indigenous scholars globally, not only in North America, but also globally who happen to work with, who are indigenous, but also who happen to work with the other indigenous communities within their home region or in other geographies as well. So this is the project that we're currently working on.

And maybe, Marcia, we can talk a little bit about the podcast. Yeah, and we're also starting up a podcast. And the podcast is going to be multilingual. So like in English and Russian, and perhaps in Indonesian, if that's going to be possible. Serrana doesn't speak Indonesian, I speak. So, like, that's a bit of a discussion that we're supposed to have, but it's, but between the two of us, we have a number of languages that we could talk in. And so because of that, we want to take advantage of that and make it, um, multilingual, especially taking into account the fact that, you know, it also can be, like a lot of Russian scholars and, um, activists also do not speak English. And so we want the podcast also to be useful to Russians as well, um, in that way. And so the podcast is going to, bring indigenous researchers and activists and organizers talking about various issues and artists as well, so about all aspects of indigenous slides and encourage indigenous solidarity

across around the world. Practice of indigenous internationalism. Yeah, yeah, and just getting to know about, you know, different contexts, because what we found is reflecting on our. experiences and North American experience is that a lot of people don't really know about the context outside of North America. And the same goes, like even being in Indonesia, in Indonesia, people do not know the context. For example, in North America, right, like in its nuanced details. Like, in general, yes, but like the details of the stories of the indigenous

communities in North America are not well known in other parts of the world, too. And so I think that's kind of just bridging those differences and encouraging conversations is something that we would like to do via the podcast. So it's coming up. It sounds amazing. And of course, when it's ready, definitely let us know so that we can help advertise that and let our listeners know about that. So really excited. I will certainly be listening as soon as it's ready. So again, listeners, our guests were Dr. Serdana Nikolaiva and Masha Kardashebskaya doctors. Can you let the listeners know if there's anywhere

that they can follow your work specifically? Anything that you'd like to direct them to? I have some publications that can be found online very easily. So if you're interested in my work on extractivism, on the Sahara public, you can find it there. But also I'm hoping that in the future when the podcast will be finalized, people will be interested enough to check it out.

Yes, thank you. Masha? I'm very private person, so I'm not on social media. But I've been thinking about making some kind of page where I should share the work that I do. So it's kind of something that I am planning to do. So just Google my name at some point and then it will come up, hopefully. But both of our dissertations are available online, so you have to just, as much as said,

you know, like Google our names, and I imagined, you know, that the first thing that will come up with the dissertations, but they open, they're open access. All right, great. So on that note, Ben, Adnan, can you tell the listeners how they can find you in your other excellent podcast? Yeah, and firstly, just thank you so much for sharing your research. and your reflections on how to do research, and I hope listeners will adopt the same attitude of very deep listening

as they get informed, because we pay lots of dividends. So that method of deep listening, I think, should carry over to our audience as well. You can find me on Twitter at Adnan A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N, and you can also check out my other new project, which is just on YouTube. So, but it's also a podcast, and it's just the Adnan Hussein show. I have no interesting kind of fancy title. Just put the stuff out on YouTube so you can find it at Adnan Hussein show on YouTube.

And it's a lot of things that overlap with what we do on guerrilla history, but some other things as well. So do check it out, listeners. Absolutely highly recommend that. For me, listeners, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-K-1-995. As for Guerrilla History, you can follow the show on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A underscore pod. It's also on Instagram at Gorilla underscore History. Again, Gorilla 2-Rs.

We have our Substack page, which is free and we'll give you updates periodically directly to your email inbox, GorillaHistory.com. Again, Gorilla with 2Rs. And you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history. Again, gorilla with two R's. So with that, and until next time, listeners, solidarity. You know what I'm going to do. Thank you.