Mohawk Interruptus- Kim The

In Mohawk Interruptus, Simpson discusses her methodology and fleshes out her concepts of recognition and refusal in her work with the Kahnawà:ke. In her methodology section, she justifies why she chooses to do her ethnography in the way she does. For example, she purposely chooses to interview people who are not just the common “go to” people for interviews. She also makes very clear that she has chosen to not collect some information due to the potential damage or harm it could cause. Her methodology seems to fit well with her concept of refusal.

Simpson describes recognition as a means through which colonizers contended with “the Indian problem.” Simpson describes how this has manifested in the form of the dominant culture being accepting of celebrating rituals and tradition, but disregard and turn away from discussions of colonialism, power, and oppression.  

Simpson also describes refusal as a way the Kahnawà:ke people she interacted with exerted their rights, self determination, and sovereignty. She provides a new perspective to sovereignty. Simpson’s concept of refusal also fits well with what Visweseran describes in Fictions of Feminist Ethnography delving deeper into the idea that every ethnography is a failure. It also goes along with how she was describing “hearing silence” as a method rather than as a series of mistakes that would typically belong in a lessons learned chapter.

            Refusal would be an important methodology to apply in research because I think all too often, we as researchers expect that we will be told everything. On the other hand, we often feel like we also need to ask questions to cover all the angles and perspectives or analyze the data in such a way that covers all angles and perspectives. We do not often take into account the damage that could be done in revealing what people do not want to be recognized. Instead, Simpson utilizes the refusal methodology to mindfully gage when she should leave things be and acknowledge the lack of information given as intentionally done as a means of contending with colonialism and other oppressive power structures.

            In my own practice related to disability studies, we contend with refusal and what forms of knowledge are best left to be. For example, would having full access to and utilizing a medical record give us information about oppressive power structures that we may need to contextualize disabled people’s lives. Do we cause harm when we view people with disabilities through the lens of the medical record? What would it mean for a person with a disability to exercise refusal to release their medical records? What is the value in gathering only self-disclosed information? Does having knowledge of the content of medical records change the way you view the person with the disability in an essentializing and reductionist way?

Discussion questions:

How should we go about writing refusal into our writing if we choose to use this methodology?

What are different forms of refusal?

Are there cases for which recognition is needed? What might these be? How do you balance needs for both recognition and refusal?