Introduction to Decolonizing and Indigenizing the “Religion and Science” Discourse

DECOLONIZING RESEARCH: INDIGENOUS STORYWORK AS METHODOLOGY. Edited by Jo-Ann Archibald Q'um Q'um Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan, Jason Santolo. London: Bloomsbury, 2022 . Pp. 288. Paperback. $26.95. INDIGENOUS RESEARCH METHODOLOGIESBy Bagele Chilisa. 2nd ed., Los Angeles, CA: Sage 2020 . Pp. xxiv + 368. Paperback. $45.00. DECOLONIZING EPISTEMOLOGIES: LATINA/O THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. Edited by Ada María Isasi-Díaz and Eduardo Mendieta. New York: Fordham University Press, 2012 . Pp. 321. $95.00. INDIGENOUS METHODOLOGIES: CHARACTERISTICS, CONVERSATIONS, AND CONTEXTSBy Margaret Kovach 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2021 . Pp. 313. Paperback. $32.95. DECOLONIZING METHODOLOGIES: RESEARCH AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLESBy Linda Tuhiwai Smith. 3rd Edition. London: Bloomsbury, 2022 . Pp. 344. Paperback. $25.60. APPLYING INDIGENOUS RESEARCH METHODS. Edited by Sweeney Windchief and Timothy San Pedro. London: Routledge 2019 . ISBN: 978131516981. Pp. 166. Paperback. $54.95. INDIGENOUS EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE WESTERN WORLDVIEW: A DECOLONIZED APPROACH TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINEBy Randy S. Woodley. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022 . Pp. 141. Paperback. $21.99. “Indigenizing” has become all the rage in the [Western] Academy, as scholars from a variety of disciplines have become interested in exploring the contributions and insights that can be provided by non-dominant worldviews and epistemologies, both within and outside of “the West.” And it is not just “indigenizing.” Believing that it is important to work in collaboration with people whose worldviews, methods, and methodologies are different from our own, scholars have attempted to diversify the Academy by including a greater plurality of perspectives, relying on a host of critical theories—decolonial, postcolonial, queer theory, critical race theory, to name but a few—to develop tools for engagement. Each of these is a distinct category of analysis, of course, with distinct goals and concerns, but while each follows a different thread into the Gordian Knot of entangled colonial, racist, sexist (etc.) ideologies, they are connected by a shared conviction that if we want to engage with perspectives from outside the Academy, it is not enough to change only institutional structures, we must change the structures of thought which are intertwined with and reinforce those institutional structures. In other words, we need to fundamentally change the way we think. This fundamental challenge explains why, despite our desire for engagement, our attempts to work with people and theories from outside of the Western academy so often go awry. The problem is not the desire for engagement; it is that we often fail to acknowledge and address how our most fundamental frameworks, methods, and worldviews undermine our efforts. “Simple” solutions, such as “decolonizing,” are enormously complicated because the very concepts and frameworks we use for thinking are themselves part of the problem. Unless we address the basic frameworks that embody and reinforce histories of violence and exclusion, our collaborations will continue to reinforce those violent histories and silence the very voices that we claim we want to hear. There are a number of reasons that the Science and Religion Discourse (SRD) is well poised to contribute to this fundamental task of rethinking knowledge production within the Western Academy. First, knowledge claims have been central to the religion and science discourse—what I have called a “doctrines and discoveries” approach to religion and science, in which we focus on the truth claims of religion and science. While this approach has been widely criticized, it persists, largely because it is deeply embedded in a Eurocentric view of knowledge as bits of information that exist independently of context and can be shared across cultures. In this “storehouse” view of knowledge, religion, and science are fundamentally bodies of knowledge whose truth claims must somehow be reconciled to produce a presumably more accurate body of knowledge. Developing new models for understanding religion and science, and the relationship between them, is doubly relevant because, in Western thought, knowledge claims both within and without the Academy are usually grounded in scientific or religious worldviews and rely on scientific or religious justifications. In this and other ways, our understanding of “religion” and “science” already represent inherently Western constructs. Even more importantly, our understanding of religion and science are intertwined with colonial ideologies. This should not be surprising since the distinction between religion and science develops concurrently with European colonial expansion (Harrison 2015), and this particular way of understanding religion and science is intimately connected to modernity and coloniality because, to simplify somewhat, the ability to “properly” distinguish between the experiences of “religion” and “science” was used as a primary indicator of being modern and rational. This distinction was used to define and legitimate Western religious and scientific practices over and against those of other peoples and, along with perceptions of the superiority European science and technology, consolidated Western norms and practices as “modern” while defining non-Western practices, behaviors, and ideas as primitive, superstitious or “magical thinking.” This simultaneously established Western superiority and justified Western colonialism. (Adas 1989; Styers 2004; Harrison 2015; Stenmark 2018, 2021). All of this illustrates why attempts to engage with non-Western perspectives are hampered by the categories of “religion” and “science” themselves. In fact, the concept of non-western perspectives on religion and science—to say nothing of the idea of indigenizing religion and science—is itself a kind of an oxymoron because the understanding of knowledge reflected by this particular distinction between “religion” and “science” is already thoroughly Western, thoroughly colonized, and thoroughly colonizing. If we are going to have these conversations, they need to be entirely reframed, and that process starts with unpacking our concepts, problematizing the boundary between them, and searching for alternative ways to explore these experiences. In short, decolonizing. Which is a necessary precursor to indigenizing, or indeed any engagement with non-Western, non-dominant worldviews and epistemologies. This special issue represents a step in this process of unpacking, focusing on the critiques and contributions of indigenous and decolonial thought as they relate to the Science and Religion Discourse (SRD). I invited a number of scholars who have been active in the SRD—theologians, ethicists, and scientists with a variety of interests—and asked them to reflect on the contributions of indigenous and decolonial scholarship both for our respective disciplines and for the project of rethinking knowledge production in the Western Academy. They were asked to assess two of several recent publications/re-prints on indigenous and decolonial epistemologies and methodologies, focusing on the value of these books for their own disciplines and their own work. It is important to note that these reviewers are not experts in indigenous thought or decolonial theory—quite the opposite!—they are simply experts in their own work and in their own particular disciplines, who acknowledge the need to include multiple perspectives, voices and ways of knowing within the field, and wanted to think together about how to better accomplish that in light of the insights and critiques provided by decolonial and indigenous epistemologies, methods, worldviews, etc. This was a kind of “in-house” conversation for those of us who occupy privileged epistemological positions so that we can reflect with one another on how privilege manifests itself in our own work and in our own engagements. After the reviewers had read their chosen books, they exchanged first drafts and then participated in a round table discussion—the video of that discussion is available on the Religious Studies Review website. After the discussion, they revised their reviews, which are published here. This format—where every participant reviewed more than one book, and every book was reviewed by more than one person—created an overlap that allowed for an exchange of perspective and created a certain multiplicity. After reading other reviews, a number of the reviewers expressed that they somehow felt “I didn't do this right because I didn't do this like everyone else.” However, this was the goal, and the variety of perspectives reflected in these reviews is a feature, not a bug, because it honors these particular sources. The goal is not some definitive statement—one viewpoint to rule them all—but learning to speak from many different perspectives without the need to resolve them. These reviews represent a variety of styles, viewpoints, and commitments. No single idea dominates, except perhaps the realization of how intertwined we all are in these systems and how difficult they are to escape. The reviewers suggested in their own ways that we have to deconstruct the very ground we are standing on in order to think differently—we need to start with the challenge of thinking about “religion and science” without thinking about “religion” and “science.” The fundamentally colonial nature of our central concepts—and the fundamental importance of the idea of “religion” distinct from “science”—makes this conversation so difficult. However, it also makes it useful for those outside of the SRD because the distinction between “religion” and “science” is one of the founding binaries of modern/Western thought. To the extent that we challenge that, we are challenging the foundation upon which everything is built because the distinction between science and the humanities is necessary to the claim that [Western] science is somehow unique and universal. If religion and science are not distinct, then what is? When we challenge that boundary, we challenge all of them.

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