Two-Eyed Seeing

As I started reading about Indigenous sovereignty earlier this year, I was introduced to the topic of two-eyed seeing. It’s an approach to research, planning, and policy that aims to include both western and Indigenous worldviews. Is two-eyed seeing simply another academic construct to maintain the status quo, or can it actually support the dismantling of capitalist and colonial structures to produce real change? In this brief article I’ll explain what two-eyed seeing is, how it’s being used for Indigenous language revitalization, and what future possibilities exist for this approach to be applied online.

Etuaptmumk, or Two-eyed seeing, is a guiding principle introduced in 2004 by Elder Albert Marshall, from the Moose Clan of the Mi’kmaw Nation and describes a process of weaving together traditional Indigenous and mainstream knowledges.¹ Because this blending of differing approaches is always unique, it’s crucial that the approach be validated by by recognized community Elders and Knowledge Holders. Two-eyed seeing has often been applied in areas such as ecology, health, and education, where mainstream sciences can be combined with Traditional Knowledge about the Spirit World. Jacqueline M. Quinless further describes two-eyed seeing as a bridging process and a way to engage in the “decolonization of research methodologies”.²

Beyond integrative health and science, Elders Albert and Murdena Marshall have envisioned two-eyed seeing as a way to restore connection with language and culture.³ The metaphor of two eyes being used together is one of seeing the world around you and producing a richer, deeper perspective of the world. The overlapping perspectives produce a wider and deeper “field of view” than either perspective in isolation.⁴ For non-Indigenous researchers and practitioners, two-eyed seeing asks that they “listen, wait and be prepared to follow as well as lead”.⁵ The wide, overlapping nature of two-eyed seeing relies upon a humble approach of considering both perspectives as “Two-Eyed Seeing neither merges two knowledge systems into one nor does it paste bits of Indigenous knowledge onto Western.”.⁶ Laura Hall expands on this idea, describing two-eyed seeing as “making conscious decisions to activate the right lens based on which one is more appropriate to use given the circumstances at hand.”.⁷

An example of how guiding principles of two-eyed seeing can be used to revitalize traditional languages and connectiveness is through relational technology. Elder Murdena Marshall describes connectiveness as “the knowledge about an individual’s relation to the Creator and all of creation.”⁸ and Dr. Paul John Meighan describes relational technology as being in-relation and accountable to the Indigenous community. Relational technology can be vital in the service of helping in-demand Elders and language teachers reach more people. Using two-eyed seeing, technology can be “an extended ecology of existing land-based relations”⁹ where language learners can come together asynchronously or in real-time. KOBE Learn is a suite of apps developed by language teachers, Elders, and community members to teach Ojibwe, Cree, and Oji-Cree to young language learners and children.

In the same way, Indigenous language learners can use technology in a relational, two-eyed approach to pass on what they have learned to even more people. Eden Fineday, a nehiyaw iskwew (Cree woman) from the Sweetgrass First Nation in Treaty 6 territory, is a student of nêhiyawêwin (the Cree language) and has posted weekly Cree lessons online as she shares her language reclamation journey.

In describing how to weave together Indigenous and western worldviews, Elders Albert and Murdena Marshall emphasize that to successfully implement two-eyed seeing is to “acknowledge that we need each other and must engage in a co-learning journey”.¹⁰ In aligning with the goals of decolonization, co-learning, interdependence and connectiveness, approaches to two-eyed seeing must always focus on the repatriation of Indigenous lands and life, and never as an easier path to reconciliation.¹¹

1. Cheryl Bartlett, Murdena Marshall, and Albert Marshall, “Two-Eyed Seeing and Other Lessons Learned within a Co-Learning Journey of Bringing Together Indigenous and Mainstream Knowledges and Ways of Knowing,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 2, no. 4 (November 2012): 331–40, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-012-0086-8, 332. ↩︎
2. Jacqueline M. Quinless, Decolonizing Data: Unsettling Conversations about Social Research Methods (Toronto Buffalo (N.Y.) London: University of Toronto press, 2022), 80. ↩︎
3. Marilyn Iwama et al., “Two-Eyed Seeing and the Language of Healing in Community-Based Research,” Canadian Journal of Native Education 32, no. 2 (2009): 3-, 3. ↩︎
4. Iwama et al., “Two-Eyed Seeing and the Language of Healing in Community-Based Research.”, 5. ↩︎
5. Iwama et al., “Two-Eyed Seeing and the Language of Healing in Community-Based Research.”, 6. ↩︎
6. Iwama et al., “Two-Eyed Seeing and the Language of Healing in Community-Based Research.”, 5. ↩︎
7. Laura Hall et al., “Research as Cultural Renewal: Applying Two-Eyed Seeing in a Research Project about Cultural Interventions in First Nations Addictions Treatment,” The International Indigenous Policy Journal 6, no. 2 (2015), https://doi.org/10.18584/iipj.2015.6.2.4, 5. ↩︎
8. Iwama et al., “Two-Eyed Seeing and the Language of Healing in Community-Based Research.”, 5. ↩︎
9. Paul John Meighan, “What is language for us? The role of relational technology, strength-based language education, and community-led language planning and policy research to support Indigenous language revitalization and cultural reclamation processes” (McGill University, 2023), https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/bz60d3092, 137. ↩︎
10. Bartlett, Marshall, and Marshall, “Two-Eyed Seeing and Other Lessons Learned within a Co-Learning Journey of Bringing Together Indigenous and Mainstream Knowledges and Ways of Knowing.”, 334. ↩︎
11. Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (September 8, 2012), https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630, 21. ↩︎

Featured image: Green trees on brown soil during daytime. Photo by Ariana Kaminski. Source: Unsplash