Ways of Knowing

Blackfoot Ways of Knowing:The Worldview of the Siksikaitsitapi is a journey into the heart and soul of Blackfoot culture. In sharing her personal story of "coming home" to reclaim her identity within that culture, Betty Bastien offers us a gateway into traditional Blackfoot ways of understanding and experiencing the world. As a scholar and researcher, Bastien is also able to place Blackfoot tradition within the context of knowledge building among indigenous peoples generally, and within a historical context of precarious survival amid colonial displacement and cultural genocide.

This book offers insight into designerly ways of knowing from the perspectives of experts and professionals engaging in diverse forms of design in workplaces and other public domains. It also aids in the understanding of design practices from designers’ viewpoints via case studies. By pursuing a reflective inquiry in their design epistemology (designerly ways of knowing), design praxiology (practices of design), or design phenomenology (forms of designs), self-studies of design practices, and presenting studies of designs, the authors of this book demonstrate how they influence the people and the object of inquiry or design. The case studies presented in this book also illustrate how designers develop their expertise, and provides inspiration for the incorporation of design-thinking and practice in education.