Hozhóogo Nasháa “Walking in Beauty”: A Journey From Diné Wisdom to Ethical Transdisciplinary Research
Open Access
- Author:
- Benally, Timothy
- Graduate Program:
- Recreation, Park and Tourism Management
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- May 16, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Derrick Taff, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Rebecca Bliege Bird, Committee Member
Andrew Mowen, Program Head/Chair
Edwin Sabuhoro, Committee Member
Erica A H Smithwick, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Indigenous
Service-Learning
Transdisciplinarity
Indigenous Methodologies
Experiential Education
Navajo Nation
Mutual Beneficence
Higher Education - Abstract:
- “Walking in Regenerative Beauty at Penn State” explores my journey as a Diné Scholar traversing a new academic landscape at Penn State University. Over the last six years, from an undergraduate B.S. in Psychology to a master’s in Recreation Parks and Tourism Management (RPTM), my narrative demonstrates how childhood lessons from the concept of Hozhóogo Nasháa or “Walking in Beauty,” have my personal and academic conduct in higher education. My journey honors the transformation from learning to live in balance with nature through hunting and herding sheep to confronting and navigating the colonial contexts of educational and public institutions in Pennsylvania. My primary research surrounded the experiences of my graduate colleagues in the LandscapeU National Research Traineeship during a service-learning trip to the Navajo Nation as I honored my home paths while introducing them to our communal and culturally rich realities. Through reflexive semi-structured interviews and the Diné oral tradition, my thesis documents these encounters that simultaneously challenge the colonial norms inherent to our institution and demonstrate the importance of relational accountability in research. My key findings revealed how the trip complemented the goals of the transdisciplinary learning and cultivated an environment for personal reflection and a critical understanding of the challenges of my community concerning the Food, Water, and Energy Systems Nexus (Stein & Jaspersen, 2019). These outcomes were compared to the experiences of trainees who did not attend the trip — advocating for the usefulness of transdisciplinary approaches in tandem with non-traditional educational practices in higher education like service-learning. This study contributes to the more extensive discussion on decolonizing academia by demonstrating the need for institutions, specifically Land-Grant institutions like Penn State, to engage more responsibly and reciprocally with sovereign Indigenous Nations. Particularly acknowledging those living Nations that were dispossessed and forcibly assimilated in the inauguration of such institutions. My thesis advocates for more respectful educational frameworks integrating Indigenous perspectives and methodologies, such as those allowing me to detail my Beauty Walk into the Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism Management (RPTM). Moreover, on a personal level, this thesis calls for future educational initiatives that benefit our Indigenous youth and allow them to tell their stories as they address an ongoing history riddled with injustice. This thesis seeks to reaffirm the importance of centering research in relational contexts and personal reflection. It demonstrates the lived usefulness of Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of knowing in contemporary academia and advocates for approaches that honor these traditions to make research more regenerative and mutually beneficial to the communities in which it engages.