philosophical inquiry with indigenous children: an attemptto integrate indigenous forms of knowledge in philosophyfor/with children

In this article, I propose to integrate indigenous forms of knowledge in the Philosophy for/with Children theory and practice. I make the claim that it is possible to treat indigenous forms of knowledge, not only as topics for philosophical dialogues with children but as presuppositions of the philosophical activity itself within the Community of Inquiry. Such integration is important for at least three (3) reasons: First, recognizing indigenous ways of thinking and seeing the world informs us of other non-dominant forms of knowledge, methods to produce knowledge and criteriato determine knowledge. Second, the dominance of western standards of producing and determining knowledge, especially in non-western societies,needs to be reduced, balanced and informed by local knowledge and experiences. And third, indigenous forms of knowledge reinforce a culturally responsive P4wC that responds to the challenges in multicultural and ethnically diverse classrooms. There are two (2) possible intersections where such integration may take place, namely: a) Epistemology, where I claim that the integration of a "presentational epistemology" immanent in indigenous patterns of thinking provides a counterweight to Lipman'sadherence to analytic representational epistemology, and b) Pedagogy,which takes shape in an "indigenized" Community of Inquiry that highlights the values of interconnectedness, situatedness and relationality.