When I received the request to review this book by long-time scholar in Native American philosophy, aerial dancer, and choreographer, Dr. Shay Welch, I must admit I became quite nervous. I am no dance theorist, have no experience in choreography, nor do I consider myself a professional or expert dancer. But as I considered the request, I came to understand why I might have been recommended, as I have relevant experience in Native American dance. I have been dancing with the Mexica Tiahui Danza Azteca group in Portland, Oregon for approximately ten of the thirteen years I have worked with this group, so I have some relevant experience in a form of Native American dance, singing, and drumming, about which I was given permission to discuss on a general level. I also have some background in some of the concomitant ceremonial practices that provide the backdrop for all of these more specific cultural practices, all of which are often referred to as “Danza.” With this, I thought I might be of some limited assistance in evaluating Welch’s work. So, I accepted the request and I am very glad I did. … [please read below the rest of the article].

Image credit: Palgrave Macmillan

The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System: Dancing with Native American Epistemology
Shay Welch
Palgrave Macmillan, 2019
215 pp.

Welch weaves together scholarship on Native American epistemology, phenomenology, embodied cognition, and dance theory to offer a profound analysis of Native American epistemology that explains how Native dance is so central to Native cultural practice, education, and community building. Her aims are thus two-fold: First, Welch aims to outline “a Native American epistemology, specifically in terms of its being a performative knowledge system. Very specifically, my purpose in this book is to fully develop an analysis of the Native American philosophical definition of Truth, which is purely procedural and action-centered; that is, my goal in this book is to articulate what it means and how it is for Truth to be constituted by the performance of an action rather than by content or nature of statements” (6).^[1] Second, she aims to exemplify this view by arguing that “the phenomenology of dance choreographing and dance performance exemplifies both the definition of Truth and meaning-making within Native American epistemology” (6). That is, Welch aims to argue that “dance and dancing can both create and communicate knowledge” (6).

To accomplish these aims, she offers a deep phenomenological analysis of embodied cognition that explains the construction of meaning and truth via cognitive schemas and conceptual metaphors. Welch thereafter submits that a radical conception of embodied truth and meaning-making lies at the heart of dance, especially Native dance, which itself satisfies core foundational elements of Native American epistemology. In so doing, she demonstrates how Native American epistemology is a performative knowledge system and why Native American dance is such a central cultural practice.

In my view, Welch is eminently successful in these aims. She therefore makes a significant contribution to Native American philosophy, Native American Studies, phenomenology, and Native Dance theory. She also makes a significant contribution to philosophy, more broadly, insofar as this project successfully stretches the fuzzy and permeable boundary of philosophy to its limits; that is, it challenges readers to seriously consider the possibility that philosophy extends to the very movements embodied in dance. With this, Welch submits a far-reaching meta-philosophical critique and challenge that asks the reader to deeply examine what philosophy is or could be.

This book would be most useful to scholars in Native American philosophy, comparative epistemology, phenomenology, Native American studies, and dance theory. It would be most appropriate to use in graduate and upper-division undergraduate philosophy courses. In some contexts, the book’s introduction might be useful in lower-division undergraduate philosophy courses, provided it is accompanied with significant preparatory context and explanatory work by the instructor.

Welch’s project is complex and difficult to summarize in a way that is concise, accurate, and nuanced; it is also rather difficult to read, as I’ll address below. In light of this, what follows is a summary that is lengthier for a standard book review. I offer this in hopes that my summary will be helpful to those who wish to either give this book careful study or assign it to students. After my summary, I will give my comments and concluding remarks.

Book Summary

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 serves largely as an introduction that situates both the author and project in broader context of Native American philosophy, Native American studies, and dance theory. After stating her thesis and giving chapter summaries, Welch sharpens the project’s focus by making several qualifications, of which I will mention some that are most relevant here. To begin with, this project is fundamentally pluralistic and interdisciplinary. It also offers an analysis of Native American epistemology that is exemplified by an explanation of the central role that Native dance plays. Hence, this project is intended to bring various areas of scholarship into conversation to offer this account without presuming it to be the account or presenting it as complete, fixed, or final. For this reason, Welch offers abundant citations to honor, give voice to, share, and draw attention to the work of others that she includes in this account.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 begins the project in earnest by outlining foundational requirements of Native American epistemology. To do this, and as she does throughout the project, Welch draws on the work of Native American philosophers like Burkhart, Cordova, Deloria Jr., Fixico, and Waters among many others.

To begin with, Welch outlines major presuppositions of Native American epistemology. This epistemological framework denies that knowledge can be gathered, owned, or be completely possessed by a single individual, who uses it for individual gain. Instead, knowledge is pluralistic, perspectival, and polycentric. It is held communally, requires the interaction of others, and is to be shared for the good of the group.

Welch then identifies the two main purposes of knowledge in Native epistemology. First, it guides individuals on the right path (33). Second, it serves to “nurture relationships between individuals and community members, including non-human persons and the environment, to ensure harmony betwixt them and to pass down the stories of the histories of such relationships” (33). For these reasons, Native epistemology cannot be demarcated from ethics, and the fact/value distinction is rejected.

Next, Welch outlines two central principles of Native epistemology. The first is the Limiting of Questions Principle: “Some things are not meant to be known regardless of whether or not we can ask questions about it or if we could imagine some such possibility” (34). The second is the Moral Universe Principle: “… the universe itself is moral and all facts are normative” (35). According to Welch, “… facts contain moral valence insofar as facts are often put to use for normative purposes, broadly speaking” (35). In sum, “… what is Right is True and what is True is Right” (35).

After outlining other key elements of Native epistemology, Welch then presents the Native conception of truth and knowledge. Truth is defined as “… the respectful successful performance of some action to achieve some goal” (39). And knowledge is defined as “… knowing how to P, not that P” (39). On this view, action can admit degrees of success and thereby degrees of truth. The respect requirement applies to the performance of the action, the acquisition of knowledge, and the process of knowing. This process of knowing is reciprocal, relational, and shared; as such, it is a form of gifting that forges, strengthens, and maintains communal bonds. According to Welch, this conception of knowledge and truth is a function of respectful, successful action that “… corresponds to the enactive approach to embodied cognition,” which holds that “… all higher-order cognitive functions like reflection and deliberation are ‘exercises of skillful know-how’ (Gallagher and Lindgren 2015, 393)” (40, my emphasis). Enactive cognition, more specifically enactive metaphors, will play a major role later in the project.

Chapter 3

In Chapter 3, Welch draws on the work of Johnson, Lakoff and Johnson, Damasio, and others to delineate the role of the cognitive unconscious in native epistemology, including the central role of metaphor and narrative in native ways of knowing. She uses embodied cognitive theory as a correlate to help explain, but not justify, these features of Native American epistemology. If meaning and knowledge is fundamentally embodied, then this helps show how they emerge from action, which in turn helps explain how Native truth is procedural (53). This in turn helps explain how “… dancing is the most unmediated and clearest mode through which to generate and communicate knowledge and Truth from the perspective of Native American epistemology” (53–54). Ultimately, the theoretical dovetails between these two areas are conceptual image schemas and conceptual metaphors in the cognitive unconscious.

To begin with, Welch claims that “… knowledge is constituted by meaning” (54). Meaning, however, is grounded in embodiment insofar as it is derived from unconscious bodily perceptions of space, time, and other environmental qualities (56). She continues:

Initially, meaning arises from embodied movement and interactions that are later extended metaphorically in the form of image schemas in our linguistic and conceptual mappings. An image schema develops when our sensorimotor experiences track repeated patterns and relations. The resultant image schemas are what give our broader experiences shape and meaning, as well as serving as models and modes of reasoning insofar as the repetitions generate neural mapping that eventually constitute what gives rise to abstract thought (57).

Derived from embodied perceptions, image schemas then serve as metaphors that can extend to other experiences, situations, objects, or ideas. For Welch, image schemas emerge from embodied perceptions like verticality, twisting, circularity, motion toward or away from, and motion in or out. A container serves as a “foundational, pervasive image schema” that “serves as a universal primary metaphor” insofar as many experiences, ideas, objects, or situations can be perceived as inside or outside of some perceived boundary (58).

Image schemas and the various ways in which they are metaphorically extended constitute a complex unconscious substratum. This substratum serves as the initial and primary resource for embodied meanings as well as tacit knowledge of rules and structures, from which conscious cognitive processes are derived (61–62), Since embodied perceptions often occur within a broader cultural context, they are often shaped by that context, which thereby gives rise to culturally specific meanings, image schemas, and metaphors (68).

Welch then outlines how embodied cognitive schemas engender embodied cognitive metaphors. According to Welch, embodied cognitive theory posits that “… how we conceive the world is a function of our embodied interaction with the world and, as such, most of our depictions, linguistic representations, imaginative operations, and abstract thought are metaphorical with respect to our spatial-locomotive-sensory activities and experiences” (70). Cognitive metaphors “… originate in our embodied image schemas constituting our primary metaphors that bring embodied logics with them and then are extrapolated and applied out and onto the world by mixing together to imaginatively create more robust metaphors that capture our higher-level conscious cognitive activities” (71).

Cognitive metaphors are applied naturally, automatically, systematically and are often ingrained from early childhood. They are also value-laden and culturally located. Cognitive metaphors are at work, for example, when understanding is characterized as grasping, ideas as objects, theories as buildings, goodness or virtue as high or up, and arguments as competitions. Similarly such metaphors are at work when metaphysical categories, commitments, ideas, or principles are characterized as foundational, grounding, or bedrock.

With this embodied cognitive theory in place, Welch again draws on the work of Native scholars to show how this is consistent with Native ways of knowing. Intuition and insight, broadly construed, play a crucial role Native epistemology and explains why it includes interactions with nature, dreams, visions, vision quests, and blood memory as important sources of knowing (63). Indeed, it might help explain what many take to be the non-binary foundation of Native logic. Lastly, it helps broadly explain the procedural knowledge that grounds our ability to establish harmony within oneself, with others, and with the environment, all of which are key features of Native ways of knowing.

Welch also shows this consistency with embodied metaphor. According to Welch, “Metaphor as an experiential epistemological device imbues all mediums and modes of Native ways of knowing. And the most prevalent abode for metaphor is also the most conspicuous site of metaphor – storytelling” (76). Stories and storytelling serve many functions within a community. They narrate the origins of the universe, the cosmos, of peoples; they outline the relation of human persons to land or water, to non-human persons, and the relation of all things to each other. They also “… relay cautionary tales about proper ethical behavior and the consequences of misdeeds and missteps, and explanations about our relations to others and other-than-human persons” (76). Trickster stories serve as prime examples of such cautionary storytelling.

The praxis of Native storytelling is radically democratic and respectful of autonomy. “The goal is for individuals, especially children, to eventually unravel the meaning of the stories in their own time and in their own way to guide them on the right path …” (77; Welch also cites Cordova 2007, Hester 2004, and Welch 2013). This creates space for reciprocal communication, as well as the comparison of meanings, needs, or emotions. It also sparks empathetic or imaginative activity that makes possible shared meanings and understandings. All of this is called “respectful wonder,” a concept that will play an important role later in the project (80–81).

In sum, the conceptual structure of Welch’s view thus far is as follows: Embodied perceptions are at the heart of cognitive schemas, which are at the heart of cognitive metaphors, which are at the heart of storytelling, which is at the heart of Native ways of knowing. With all this now in place, the task now is to show how Native dance is a form of narrative storytelling and can serve as a significant mode of conveying truth.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 outlines the role of dance in Native American cultural practice, including its role in storytelling, gift giving, and in finding and creating both meaning and truth. Welch begins by noting that this general claim about the central role of Native dance is already well-known; her task is to help explain how this is the case (94–95). She begins by stating “… there is no question that dance is a form of oral narrative storytelling. Native dancing and performances of all kinds play a weighty role in all aspects of Native culture. Within the Native worldview, dance is a critical mode through which to express and communicate stories, including trickster stories, personal testimony, sociopolitical values, and prayers” (94–95).

Native dance storytelling is community-centered and serves to share community knowledge. As a “dynamic language,” dance storytelling brings tribal narratives to life in the present, and in doing so, establishes “relations of kinship and harmony” that link the community with its past and present, which helps shape its future (95). Such reification reinforces tribal narratives, reinvigorates tribal relations, and revitalizes tribal sovereignty. Native dance can take place outside broader ceremonial practices; it can also be fun and entertaining; however, it is never merely fun or entertaining.

According to Welch, “… all forms of performance are considered either ceremonial or sacred … this is true only insofar as the ontology of Native metaphysics imbues all things, persons, and actions with ceremonial power and sacredness by virtue of their stemming from locality and the normative universal energy, such as wakan, mana, or usen” (95–96). Native dance is therefore ceremonial and imbued with the kind of metaphysical and epistemological sacredness of ritual. This blurs the distinction between dance, ceremony, and ritual, such that all are often referred to as “dance,” and thereby explains the inextricable link between dance and larger ceremonial practices like the sun dance (Lakota), rain dance (Zuni), stomp dance (Cherokee), and deer dance (Yaqui) (96).

But Native dance can also take on socio-political and educational dimensions, as is seen in some Danza Azteca groups that work to include communalistic Nahuatl practices and cultural education in the group’s activities. And Native dance is not limited to reflecting narratives of the past; it is also an expression of the present sensibilities of contemporary Native peoples; indeed, contemporary native dance also serves as a form of “choreopolitics” that contributes to tribal narratives, imagines alternative futures, resists colonial oppression, and heals individual and community trauma (103, 99–104).

In all these dimensions, Native dance is understood as a form of gifting; the gift is the truth or knowledge shared by the performer’s storytelling and the reflective wonder it inspires in the audience. As such, receiving a gift is a form of receiving a part of the giver’s spirit, including that of the giver’s ancestors. It therefore serves to establish a profound reciprocal relationship between the giver and receiver imbued with moral responsibilities and obligations.

Next, Welch sketches how dance creates meaning through embodied metaphor. To do this, she draws on the work of Katan, Gallagher, McNeil, Noë, and Sheets-Johnstone. Welch begins with the significance of gesture, which she defines as “embodied symbolic communications” (105). Gesture is not a distinct language; rather, it is another dimension of language that functions as an intersubjective form of visual or pictorial narration (106). Everyone has a distinguishing gesture signature and gesture habits, just like everyone has a particular dance style. According to Welch, gesture “completes thoughts” and renders them visible (107). Indeed, gestures often express more than the speaker intends such that they often reveal the speaker’s inner thoughts and indeed betray the speaker’s words. This leads Welch to conclude that language as a whole is embodied (107). It is “… actually nonlinear, holistic, global, and imagistic, where linear verbal language is but one component” (107). Yet, gesture transcends movement insofar as it can be used to communicate embodied metaphors that are enacted when words fail.

This also leads Welch to introduce and explain the aforementioned enactive cognition, which posits that “…perception is active, skillful know-how instead of passive reception” (108). In enactive cognition, perception is inextricably linked to interactive thought, such that one cannot occur without the other; indeed, perception is shaped by interactive choices about what and how one perceives. According to Welch, “The more we are able to go through the process of developing our sensorimotor’s skills in relation to our other perceiving organs and our environment then we are able to directly perceive more and more of the world … Our ability to see things for what they are is entirely dependent upon our ability to move around and with them” (110).

Welch then combines metaphor, gesture, and enactive cognition to introduce the aforementioned enactive metaphors, which refers to the ways in which we engage and enact the cognitive metaphors we construct from image schemas derived from embodied perception. Using the container example above, we might use hand gestures to help communicate the idea of a container, and move our bodies around this imagined container to express being outside of it, while using other hand gestures to express something that’s in it. Here, gesture, metaphor, and enactive cognition work together to bring an idea to life beyond the words being expressed; and it activates the enactive powers of those to whom the idea is being expressed. Their sense of wonder is activated and they become participants in an intersubjective form of “performative meaning making at the embodied level” (114). With this, Welch concludes that “… gesture, as one kind of enactive metaphor, turns out to be a form of embodied implicit knowing within and as storytelling” (113). This provides the link between enactive metaphor and procedural knowledge: “Enactive metaphors, as a combination of enactive perception and gesture, give rise to knowing through performance” (114).

Welch then explains how dance creates meaning and conveys truth via embodied storytelling. To do this, she draws on the work of Sheets-Johnstone, and her conception of kinetic body logos, which “… manages and shapes the embodied creative patterns of thought” (119). In presenting this work, Welch quotes Sheets-Johnstone at length in what by my lights brings her project to its theoretical bedrock (120–121). Welch argues that ultimately:

… [V]erbal language is not and does not constitute experience. Therefore, attempts to verbalize experiences obscure the fine qualitative and affective constituents of experiences that make them rich and unique to the individual. This is also why we find so many of our abstract concepts filtered through embodied metaphors. To give substance to our language in a way that can capture experience requires us to revert back to thinking about experience with and through our bodies and then converting those felt qualia into lifeless language (120).

With enactive cognition, enactive metaphor, and embodied storytelling in place, Welch then draws on the work of performance philosopher, Einav Katan, to delineate how dance communicates meaning and truth. In presenting this work, Welch argues that “… dance is, in essence, the manifestation of meaning qua movement. That is, dance does not represent the meaning of something, it articulates meaning, specifically through the use of somatic precision in and through movement” (124). In articulating meaning through movement, dance relies on enactive cognition and enactive metaphors to articulate meaning; in doing so, the dancer employs movement “as if” to embody or personify thoughts or emotions that triggers enactive cognition in the audience (125–126). Indeed, Welch argues that “…because our bodies are capable of so much more movement, they are able to comprise cognitive affects and ideas that are wholly ineffable …” (129).

This is understood through the concept of kinesthetic empathy, according to which the audience is moved to feel, think, and indeed move along with the dancer (129–130). This occurs at the neurological level, insofar as mirror neural patterns for movements are activated when one watches someone else engage in those movements; likewise, mirror neural patterns are activated when such movements elicit thoughts or emotions (130–131).  Kinesthetic empathy occurs generally reflexively and involuntarily, although the viewer has to be open to being moved by the performance (132). Indeed, with kinesthetic empathy, a performer is capable of using movements to communicate multiple, complex, indeed contradictory, ideas or emotions all at once (135–136). For Welch, “Motion and emotion are directly related and therefore movement generates emotions which direct thinking – even and especially abstract thinking, which prompts understanding, which ultimately, I contend, leads to creating knowledge. This is how, in short, dancing is a form of Truthing” (131, my emphasis).

Welch argues that since Native American metaphysics emphasizes motion in a participatory and constructed pluri-verse, it becomes clear that Native dance creates and communicates meaning and truth through the enactive metaphors expressed in movement. Such movements are not representing, recalling, or recovering some thought or emotion: They create them; they bring them to life; they make them ontologically real (142). For example, broad enactive metaphors that express circularity or gift giving, and even specific ones enacted by sacred clowns, are constructed and given life in the present to transmit truth and knowledge to the audience. As Welch states, “[w]hen we grasp and appreciate that and how dancing participates in the metaphysical construction of a world, we can see that dancing, in its very nature, creates Truths; it is a form of Truthing” (142).

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 weaves the project together to show how this analysis of Native American dance satisfies the core requirements of Native procedural knowledge outlined in Chapter 2. Welch also distinguishes the Native theory of truth from that proposed by Johnson, as well as Lakoff and Johnson, which thereby maintains Welch’s aim to avoid justifying Native dance and truth with a western epistemological framework.

According to Welch, dancing is embodied metaphor, embodied perspective, and is always in the process of becoming (159). Drawing on the work of Katherine Hawley, Welch claims “[t]he primary criterion by which we can evaluate the Truthing of a performance is through the successful communication of the story through kinesthetic empathy” (169). By this means, all truths embodied in dance metaphors can be communicated inter-subjectively between the dancer and the audience. This sort of intersubjective communication has to be done consistent with the dancer’s goal in telling the story and the message the dancer intends to communicate. In this way, the story’s message and thereby truth embodied in the dance is a gift from the dancer to the audience. This goal and message, however, must get across, although success in this may come in degrees.

At any rate, this inter-subjective interaction must leave room for the audience to engage in the aforementioned respectful wonder: It guides them down their own path to react in their own way, to feel their own emotions, draw their own conclusions, and respond to the dancer’s performance in a way they deem appropriate. Through this sharing of truth, this act of giving, a relationship of kinesthetic empathy is created between the dancer and audience. The audience’s uptake of the dancer’s performance, their respectful wonder, and their response to the performance sets in motion a reciprocal ethical relation that satisfies the respect criterion in Native American epistemology.

Lastly, this analysis of Native dance and truth is distinguishable from the theory of truth proposed by Johnson, and Lakoff and Johnson. Although there are several similarities between both frameworks, there is one major difference: the latter theory presupposes a propositional conception of knowledge and a correspondence theory of truth, both of which Native American epistemology explicitly denies. Consequently, it cannot be argued that the analysis of Native American dance and truth is justified by a Western epistemological framework. Although there are similarities between them; there are significant differences that render them independent.

Comments

Strengths

Apart from the overall plausibility of Welch’s view, perhaps the greatest strength is its reach insofar as it can be extended along three different dimensions. First, it seems to me that Welch’s view need not be limited to Native dance. To be sure, dance is crucial to Native American cultural practice, and articulating its relation to meaning-making, truth, and Native American epistemology is already a formidable task, but I couldn’t help but think that Welch’s view could also be extended to other Native American practices.

Native dancing often takes place in the context of singing and some form of drumming, all of which often takes place within the context of a broader set of ceremonial practices. All of these specific practices could be said to embody a rich and complex set of overlapping enactive practices that themselves embody an equally rich and complex set cognitive metaphors grounded in embodied perceptions going back for generations. Might the same or a similar thesis be extended to Native American singing, drumming, and the broader ceremonial practices that set the context for these more specific ones? Welch suggests this, but for understandable reasons doesn’t pursue it (95–98). But judging from my various experiences in Danza Azteca, I don’t see why not, and for this reason, Welch’s analysis opens the way for additional culturally-sensitive and non-appropriative philosophical work into these other dimensions of Native American cultural practice.

Second, I am tempted to suggest that Welch’s thesis that Native American dance embodies truth can go even farther in affirming just how philosophical this form of dance can be. For example, in my experience, some Danza Azteca steps are overtly philosophical insofar as they embody metaphysical commitments regarding the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water), the four directions, various categories of motion-change, and the relation to land. The structure of the dance, including the step that leads, the number of beats per step, the number of steps per movement, the number of times the movement is repeated, all have numerical relation to the commitments mentioned above. Indeed, the very positional structure of Danza Azteca formation embodies the sacred circle, a balance of dualistic male and female energies, and the relation between center and periphery.

As Welch argues, these movements do not merely represent ideas or concepts; instead, they constitute bodily expressions and affirmations of metaphysical commitments that preserve traditional thought and values, remind its current practitioners of them, and transmit them to the next generation. In this context, words matter in the transmission of traditional thoughts and values, but dance matters much more. It expresses and affirms more than one can say; it communicates thoughts and values more deeply; and it does so with the utmost concision – no words at all. When this form of Danza is so overtly philosophical in such obviously metaphysical ways it seems hard to deny Welch’s thesis; indeed, it seems plausible that it could be even more strongly stated.

Third, this view has wide-reaching implications for philosophy writ large. In the introduction, Welch shares several stories of being told that Native American philosophy does not exist on grounds that Native peoples did not do philosophy. This was told to her by gate-keeping academics, both inside and outside the discipline of philosophy (17). Academic philosophy has come a long way over the years to be more diverse and inclusive; however, needless to say, it has a long way to go. I too could share similar stories about my work in conquest-era Nahua philosophy, and I am sure many folks in now well-recognized subdisciplines of philosophy has had to contend with gate-keepers who charge that what they do is not philosophy or somehow not significant enough to be taken seriously. However, if Welch is correct, and Native dance can be seen as a central means by which Native truths and values are communicated, and if the very movements undertaken in Native dance can be seen has having profound philosophical content, then this suggests a much more expansive conception of philosophy than is commonly recognized. To put it bluntly, this view of philosophy blows the gates wide open.

Weaknesses

The most significant weakness, by my lights, is primarily stylistic in that the book could use a restatement in a second edition. Welch’s project is extraordinarily ambitious, compelling, and generally successful; however, and as I mentioned above, it’s a rather difficult and complicated read. She also sometimes struggles to clearly articulate some of the theoretical connections she is trying to make. For example, in Chapter 4, Welch introduces the idea of a corporeal orature, which refers to a kind of alignment with speech and movement; however, she doesn’t seem to make clear how this fits into the conceptual structure that she had already built. That is, it isn’t clear how this concept fits into the structure of enactive cognition or enactive metaphors. The same can be said about how kinesthetic empathy fits into this structure, as well as the tables that she provides (118–119, 137). Unfortunately, much of the work of making these connections is left for the reader piece together.

All this strikes me to be understandable—after all, Welch is trying to articulate in words and tables what is primarily expressed in movement, some of which might ultimately be ineffable. However, my sense is that the book would benefit from a second articulation and perhaps expansion to make the ideas and connections clearer. It could also perhaps eliminate vague connections that are either tangential to the project, too sketchy, or simply not there. This would be helpful in reaching broader audiences, especially native ones who would benefit most from this work, and perhaps help in persuading those who might approach this project with more skepticism.

Perhaps this is not a weakness, but there seems to be at least a tension that lies at the bedrock of Welch’s project (120–121). More specifically, it seems there needs to be clarification on the relation between the sort of thinking that occurs at the level of embodied perceptions and the sort of thinking that occurs when we use words or linguistic expressions to conceptualize embodied perceptions. It seems that Welch’s view is that there two distinct forms of thought: language-independent thought and language-dependent thought (120–121). Kinesthetic empathy, for example, seems to be a form of language-independent thought, since it occurs at the neurological level of embodied cognition. And one gets the sense that on her view, movement and dance is a form of language-independent thought; indeed, it is perhaps the most direct and unmediated form of communicating meaning and truth, such that words and other linguistic expressions are ultimately ancillary to the meaning and truth they embody. But Welch also seems to argue that dance speaks as a form of language or communication, which suggests that dance is a form of language-dependent thought (124, 131, 142, 169). In any case, clarification on this point would be helpful.

Welch is clear, however, that successful communication in dance may come in degrees, and she discusses ways in which dance can fail to communicate, as well as factors that affect its success (170–177). These factors include lack of authenticity, technique, or affect. They also include the audience’s lack of cultural, linguistic, social, or ethical relationship to the story being told, which affects the performer’s ability to tell the story or the audience’s uptake of the performance (175–176).

However, this raises a worry for me insofar as I can imagine cases where linguistic expression and explanation – language-dependent thought – is essential for communicating the meaning and truth embodied in dance. In other words, I can imagine cases where a dancer could perform exactly as intended, yet an untrained audience can leave the performance with a completely different impression, if that performance is not accompanied with an explanation of the meaning and truth embodied in the movements.

For example, in Danza Azteca, a sequence of dance steps called the saludo is performed before and after every dance. Before the dance, the saludo serves as a prayerful request to both the altar and drums to offer a prayerful dance; after the dance, the saludo serves as prayerful gratitude. The arrangement of these steps explicitly expresses the four elements, the four directions, and the connection to land; however, I can easily imagine an untrained audience interpreting these steps as some arrangement of warrior movements like marching, parleying, and fighting, especially when male danzantes wear warrior regalia and shields. Thus, the danzantes could perform the steps perfectly and with utmost respect yet an untrained audience would take away the wrong message.

It would seem then that avoiding such miscommunication would require at least some context by way of explanation that helps the audience interpret these movements; however, it would seem that this context would have to be provided linguistically. If so, then it would seem that linguistic expression is essential, not ancillary, to the audience’s uptake of the performance; language-dependent thinking is required for the proper uptake of language-independent thinking.

This raises broader questions as to the relation between language-independent thought and language-dependent thought, and where dancing lies between the two. This is not to suggest that all thought is language-dependent; however, it seems that the meaning and truth embodied in dance occurs at the interplay between these two forms of thought. If so, then this might point to a third form of thinking that is a mix of both but is not reducible to either one. If so, then dance—and perhaps other cultural practices—could be conceived to balance these two forms of thinking and perhaps keep them in relation to one another. To be sure, Welch is aware of this relation and tension between them, but perhaps more clarification on this would be helpful.

Conclusion

In sum, I cannot help but express my deep sense of gratitude to Welch for writing this book. It provides a compelling case for Native American philosophy as a performative knowledge system and explains the centrality of Native American dance. It offers new and promising areas for further research along similar lines. And it stretches the fuzzy and permeable boundaries of philosophy to include areas that have long been considered non-philosophical. In doing so, Welch offers both a significant contribution to Native American philosophy and a deep meta-philosophical challenge worthy of profound and prolonged reflection.

References

Cordova, V.F. 2007. How It Is: The Native American Philosophy of V.F. Cordova. Edited by Kathleen Dean Moore, Kurt Peters, Ted Jojola, Amber Lacy, Linda Hogan. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press.

Hester, Lee. 2004. “Choctaw Conceptions of the Excellence of the Self, with Implication for Education.” In American Indian Thought, edited by Anne Waters, 182–187. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Welch, Shay. 2019. The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System: Dancing with Native American Epistemology. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Welch, Shay. 2013. “Radical-Cum-Relational: Bridging Feminist Ethics and Native Individual Autonomy.” Philosophical Topics 41 (2): 203–223.

^[1] Editor’s Note: All in-text citations refer to page numbers in Welch, Shay. 2019. The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System: Dancing with Native American Epistemology. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Categories: Books and Book Reviews

Tags: Alejandro Santana, dance theory, Dancing with Native American Epistemology, embodied cognition, Native American epistemology, Native Dance as Epistemology, phenomenology, SERRC 6/28/2024, Shay Welch, The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System