The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System: Dancing with Native American Epistemology

Description

This book investigates the phenomenological ways that dance choreographing and dance performance exemplify both Truth and meaning-making within Native American epistemology, from an analytic philosophical perspective. Given that within Native American communities dance is regarded both as an integral cultural conduit and “a doorway to a powerful wisdom,” Shay Welch argues that dance and dancing can both create and communicate knowledge. She explains that dance—as a form of oral, narrative storytelling—has the power to communicate knowledge of beliefs and histories, and that dance is a form of embodied narrative storytelling. Welch provides analytic clarity on how this happens, what conditions are required for it to succeed, and how dance can satisfy the relational and ethical facets of Native epistemology. Front Matter ....Pages i-xi Introduction (Shay Welch)....Pages 1-29 Native American Epistemology (Shay Welch)....Pages 31-52 Native Epistemology and Embodied Cognitive Theory (Shay Welch)....Pages 53-89 Native Epistemology and Dancing (Shay Welch)....Pages 91-155 Native Dancing: The Truthing in Performative Knowing (Shay Welch)....Pages 157-196 Back Matter ....Pages 197-215