On October 24th, 2024, the Electa Quinney Institute (EQI) and American Indian Student Center (AISC) held their annual Indigenous Felt Knowledge Festival. The festival celebrates the idea of “felt knowledge,” which ascertains that the body carries knowledges and experiences that, as one student describes, “Can be shared without the constriction of time and colonial restrictions.” Furthermore, as Dr. Sharity Bassett of EQI explains, “Bodies hold ancestral stories and oftentimes we understand truths phenomenologically before we can articulate them in written or verbal form. Indigenous bodies become texts that decolonize as they move through space and indigenize as they engage cultural practices and knowledges.”
Indigenous Felt Knowledge Festival helps Indigenous students reconnect with the phenomenological truths by providing them with a space to reconnect with their cultures and discover other cultures as well. During the most recent festival, there were classes on how to make moccasins, a lesson on Oneida pottery, musical performances, dance performances, and opportunities for students to engage with cultural practices that they may not have had the chance to participate in growing up.
When asked about what felt knowledge means to them, one student said, “I believe the idea of a body as a transmitter and receptor is a very empowering way to view oneself and especially in this case, an Indigenous body transmitting and receiving culture. Indigenizing as we engage felt personal to me as I feel [that] through Indigenous education, I have felt more involved with my Indigeneity.”
– Slater Gutierrez is a history major in the Honors College and is an Indigenous Kinship and Responsibility Scholar through the Electa Quinney Institute.