Decolonizing and Indigenizing Music Education through Self-Reflexive Sociological Research and Practice

• Main Authors: Prest, Anita, Scott Goble, J
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2022
• Subjects: Canada; First Nations
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197600962.003.0015

In this chapter, Canadian authors Anita Prest and Scott Goble use sociological lenses to illustrate how, as non-Indigenous researchers, they learned to immerse themselves in local Indigenous knowledge(s) in western Canada. Such learning enabled them to reframe their investigations to reflect the ontological and epistemological orientations of the communities with whom they work. They submit that such immersion and questioning is necessary for decolonizing practices in music education and research so as to fairly represent the worldviews of local First Nations. Drawing on the problematics with new materialism as well as their personal struggles for self-reflexivity, they demonstrate the challenges involved in decolonizing personal epistemological perspectives. Their chapter provides an example of the work to be done in reframing a sociologically informed music education.