Philosophy
Razaq Thoughts / Essays & reflectionsWhat If We Learned to See with More Than One Perspective?
Bartlett, Marshall, and Marshall’s article on Two-Eyed Seeing made me reflect on a simple but demanding idea: meaningful understanding may require more than one way of seeing. Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall introduced Two-Eyed Seeing, or Etuaptmumk. It encourages us to learn from the strengths of Indigenous knowledge with one eye and from the strengths of Western knowledge with the other, and to use both together for everyone's benefit. Importantly, the approach recognizes each knowledge system as distinct rather than requiring one to be absorbed into the other.
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What If We Learned to See with More Than One Perspective?
Bartlett, Marshall, and Marshall’s article on Two-Eyed Seeing made me reflect on a simple but demanding idea: meaningful understanding may require more than one way of seeing.
Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall introduced Two-Eyed Seeing, or Etuaptmumk. It encourages us to learn from the strengths of Indigenous knowledge with one eye and from the strengths of Western knowledge with the other, and to use both together for everyone's benefit. Importantly, the approach recognizes each knowledge system as distinct rather than requiring one to be absorbed into the other.
What I find important is the emphasis on co-learning.
The authors argue that meaningful collaboration begins with recognizing that different knowledge holders need one another and are willing to learn together. Without that openness, attempts to bring knowledge systems together can become symbolic rather than transformative.
This has an important implication for sustainability.
Complex environmental problems rarely fit neatly within one discipline, one method, or one worldview. Different forms of knowledge may reveal different parts of the same problem, and their relevance may change with context.
Two-Eyed Seeing therefore asks us not simply to collect more information, but to become more thoughtful about how we listen, whose strengths we recognize, and when different perspectives may be most useful.
It also reminds us that Indigenous knowledge is living knowledge. The authors emphasize its connections to community, Elders, language, stories, ceremonies, practices, and land. It cannot always be separated from those relationships and treated as information alone.
For me, the deeper lesson is this:
Respecting different ways of knowing does not require making them the same.
Sometimes better understanding begins by allowing different perspectives to remain distinct, while still learning how to work alongside one another.
Perhaps sustainability needs not one perfect way of seeing, but the humility to recognize that no single perspective sees everything.
Reflection on Cheryl Bartlett, Murdena Marshall, and Albert Marshall’s “Two-Eyed Seeing and Other Lessons Learned Within a Co-Learning Journey of Bringing Together Indigenous and Mainstream Knowledges and Ways of Knowing.”
#TwoEyedSeeing #IndigenousKnowledge #Sustainability #Etuaptmumk #CoLearning #WaysofKnowing #IndigenousWaysofKnowing
Work Under Review
Two-Eyed Seeing and other lessons learned within a co-learning journey of bringing together indigenous and mainstream knowledges and ways of knowing
- Original author
- Bartlett et al. (2012)
- Bartlett et al. (2012).pdf
The original work discussed in this article.
Room for another perspective
Join the discussion
What stayed with you? What would you question? Thoughtful disagreement and shared experiences make a good article the start of a conversation.
Perhaps Two-Eyed Seeing can also be read as a responsibility to build relationships before choosing methods. The useful perspective may depend on who is involved and what obligations the problem creates.
What happens in a co-learning project when the two approaches point toward different decisions? Learning from both seems easier to describe than deciding whose judgment governs a disputed outcome.
Could a follow-up show one environmental decision that changed through Two-Eyed Seeing? An example would help distinguish a different decision-making process from simply adding more perspectives to a report.
This connects with your discussion of whose terms govern knowledge sharing. Inviting an Elder into a project does not itself change who decides which contributions count as evidence.
The reference to language makes me wonder what translation leaves behind. A scientific description may convey an observation while missing the responsibilities carried by the words used to teach it.
The movement from collecting information to learning together is the key distinction for me. A project can gather Indigenous contributions while leaving its original research question completely untouched.