Creating Space: Indigenous, Queer, and Gendered Conversations in Creative Practice, Arts-Based, and Mahi Toi Research Methods

Abstract

As we seek theory and methods to begin to articulate identities of Indigenous queerness and gender diversity, a space of absence and potential unfolds before us. Indigeneity, queerness and particularly gender diversity are repeatedly positioned at the margins of research. This marginality is multiplied when considered in its intersections. We, as theorists, invert space to re-orient these marginalities at the centre, drawing on a combination of arts-based, mahi toi and creative research practices as a pathway for Indigenous, queer and gender diverse research. The potential embodied in this practice is explored through the metaphor of a waka journey. This begins with the origin point, exploring the literature that informs and shapes our approaches to research methods. We identify the motivations and origins of our PhD theses, the allure of arts-based methodologies in pursuing these projects and mahi toi as the ultimate descriptor of the artistic and creative methods we both are drawn into. Next, we gaze across the moana, which articulates the methodological and theoretical tensions we navigate and that shape our respective research approaches. Gliding through the moana, we navigate research on our waka, which articulates the vessels of our research and reveals our specific methods. We end with our landing point. Engaging the circularity of Indigenous epistemologies, we establish a new origin.1 This reflects the journeys we undertake as theorists and develops pathways for future voyages. These phases of movement weave our narrative, asserting that creative practice is one avenue through which we can reorient research to hold Indigenous, queer, trans and gender-diverse stories of identity, being and belonging