Reflection Paper

Marty

Enter the name of Instructor

Ethics

August 31st, 2019.

Reflection Paper

Indigenous studies have always attracted my attention. This subject has remained close to my understanding. ‘Indigenous Identity: What is it, and who has it’ has opened for me new avenues for exploration, however, I believe Henry Weave, the author’s attempt has been so thorough in order to create an understanding about the indigenous people. The central concern what I found in these readings was self and community identification. Although Weaver has put in it much effort to explore the traits of colonization and oppression, still I believe some aspect has not been addressed completely. Taking forward a bit narrow approach offered by the author, it is not right to just consider the cultural aspect as the reason for the boundaries of this day. Alike other, my concerns pertain to cultural identifications and world views about indigenous people. These concerns remain valid until no one attempts to write a thorough edition of research about indigenous identities.

Some aspects which are interesting in this collection are new ideas about cultural identities. The writer has presented new aspects of culture, which she believe are everlasting. She has adopted some unconventional approaches to create the interests of readers. For example, at some places in her writings she has compared and contrasted the cultural traits of both the European and Americans. For her, cultural evolves in times and is not an abrupt phenomenon. Here she differs with bunch of other authors, who believe that culture is a product of the amalgamation of civilizations. Her views are pillared upon an individual identity, which makes the readings interesting. For example, she takes an individual approach and explores the way, it results in creating social and cultural identities. She has experimented this approach in the search of European and American identities. Some more surprising aspects she has revealed are about how European laid the foundations for American culture.

After a thorough read of articles discussing, I have also implied my critical perspective into it. Although there could be many starting points to search for the historical, cultural or civilizational traits, they are different in each case. For example, in searching about Asian culture, one needs to consider the aspects relevant to that specify civilization. Similarly, the founding elements to explore the civilizational traits may be same but at some point during the research, they are needed to be reconsidered. For example, Weave has implied the same yardsticks in researching about civilizational traits of Americans and Europeans. It is right since both civilizations have the same cultural and social traits, but once the Americans colonies were formed, many attributes were redefined, which must have been taken into account in that same perspective, which is narrowly focused upon. My critic is based on the method of employing research and not over the ideas presented.

Once completed my reading, I have been challenged to reconsider my ideas about civilizations and cultures. For many years, I was of the view that a gradual rise of culture and society takes a start from civilizational patterns, but somehow this reading has moulded my thoughts. I was not wrong, neither the author is, but the problem exists in the manner we look toward the rise of cultures and identities. The research in this domain will on one side continue to challenge the existing norms, on other side it will help to evolve new perspective about cultural identities, which is anticipative. However, if the founding element for future research are moulded and brought over to the same domain, that might be more comforting. It can serve us in two ways, one by presenting new ideas and the other by challenging the traditionalist viewpoint about identities.