Indigenous Relational Ontologies and the More-than-Human Paradigm: Reframing Art Historical Method

Abstract

This essay argues that Indigenous relational ontologies provide a foundational framework for rethinking art historical method in ecological terms. Drawing on Plains Cree intellectual traditions, it foregrounds concepts such as wâhkôhtowin (kinship and interdependence), kanawâpâtahmowin (the condition of seeing), and miýikosiwin (a gifted form of relational insight) to demonstrate how Indigenous visual knowledge contests the human/non-human and nature/culture divides that continue to structure Western art history. Rather than treating relationality as a recent theoretical innovation associated with post-human or ecological thought, the essay shows that Indigenous epistemologies have long articulated more-than-human understandings of culture in which land, water, animals, ancestors, and spiritual forces actively participate in the production of knowledge and memory. Drawing on Blackfoot scholarship, particularly the work of Betty Bastien, alongside the teachings of Blackfoot Elder Herman Yellow Old Woman, the essay reframes testimony, survivance, and visual practice as relational processes grounded in networks of responsibility among human and more-than-human beings. By placing Indigenous epistemologies in conversation with contemporary critiques of colonial knowledge systems—including Max Liboiron’s analysis of structural colonialism in research practice and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s critique of linguistic imperialism—the essay argues that the ecological future of art history depends not on expanding its thematic scope but on rethinking its methods. It proposes an approach grounded in Indigenous pedagogies that foreground reciprocity, relational accountability, and the living relationships through which knowledge is sustained, transmitted, and held responsible.