Witnessing Encounters: A Response to Nicole Ineese- Nash’s “Ontologies of Welcoming”

• Main Author: Pacini-Ketchabaw, Veronica
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Educate 2021
• Subjects: Curriculum and Instruction; Curriculum and Social Inquiry; Educational Assessment; Evaluation; and Research; Educational Methods; anishina*
• Online Access: https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/vol2021/iss45/5; https://educate.bankstreet.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1418&context=occasional-paper-series

Responding to Nicole Ineese-Nash’s beautiful offerings is exhilarating and humbling. “Ontologies of Welcoming” invites us to create openings that those of us who have been educated within a Western tradition are unequipped to do. Before writing, I read Nicole’s contribution more than 10 times, unsure how to respond to it as a non-Indigenous scholar in Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, and Lenapewak and Attawandaron territory. Reluctant to appropriate knowledge that isn’t mine, I was aware that not responding for fear of implicating myself in ongoing colonization would be yet another way to enact my privilege.