Two-Eyed Seeing

Two-Eyed Seeing, known in Mi'kmaq as Etuaptmumk, is a way of viewing the world through both Western and Indigenous knowledges and worldviews together. It was introduced by the Mi'kmaq elders Albert D. Marshall and Murdena Marshall of Eskasoni First Nation, together with the professor Cheryl Bartlett. Albert Marshall describes it as learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous ways of knowing and from the other eye with the strengths of Western ways of knowing, and to use both eyes together. The concept was first put forward as a way to encourage Mi'kmaq university students to pursue an education in science without having to set aside their own Indigenous knowledge to do so. Since then it has been taken up in the strategic plans, government policies and research programs of a range of institutions, among them the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In education, Two-Eyed Seeing offers a model for teaching science and other subjects in a way that treats Indigenous and Western knowledge systems as complementary rather than requiring students from Indigenous communities to choose between them.