Decolonizing Methodologies

In Decolonizing Methodologies, Tuhiwai Smith focuses on the links between research and European imperialism and colonialism, first exploring the history of research and indigenous peoples, and then examining different “methodologies that are being developed to ensure that research with indigenous peoples can be more respectful, ethical, sympathetic and useful” (9). This is the first time I am reading Tuhiwai Smith’s work, but her basic assertions have become somewhat common in the study of history, not just in works that focus on subaltern subjects, but also on knowledge production, particularly related to race. While I will continue to wonder exactly how methodologies for dealing directly with indigenous peoples can be employed by historians, who work with documents, Decolonizing Methodologies is a timely reminder as I engage in knowledge production that a successful project will not exist in a vacuum and may impact the lives of real people. My project will focus on girls and young women deemed “potentially delinquent,” and the social workers and VISTA volunteers at Hull House neighborhood centers who designed and delivered programs in order to purify their behavior. In 1964, LBJ’s War on Poverty began to provide federal funding in part to ease juvenile delinquency. For young urban men, this meant training and employment. For young women at Hull House, “job training” was in-center childcare and secretarial work, and a mandatory Charm School, including lessons on make-up, sewing, cooking, and home decorating—a clear effort to domesticate. But Poverty funds also supported the in-migration of middle- and upper-class young women, who were able to build legitimate careers managing these programs for “potentially delinquent” girls and young women. According to the key concepts outlined by Tuhiwai Smith, I have to be very careful about the way I approach the girls and young women once deemed “potentially delinquent.” I know firsthand what it is to be labeled “delinquent,” and while I recognize it as ridiculous, my subjects may not be as cavalier. More problematic is that if I am not able to include an oral history component, everything I am able to say about these girls and young women will have been generated by social workers and VISTA volunteers. I will need to be very careful not to echo their judgments, but be consistently critical of the conditions in which those judgments occurred, including race, class, and gender dynamics. But let me ask this: Is it going too far to approach my “potentially delinquent” girls and young women as subaltern, and the social workers and VISTA volunteers who sought to “help” them as internal colonizers? Might approaching their relationship that way somehow delegitimize the experiences of indigenous peoples, who were literally and not just theoretically colonized?