Two-Spirit Love
Hensci and welcome to Two-Spirit Love. This site is currently being used to conduct a doctoral study. Please feel free to ask any questions, and if you are interested in participating please click here to be taken to the screener.
Hensci and Greetings,
My name is Roger Kuhn. Some of you may be familiar with my name because of my role as Chair of the Board for the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS). I am not writing to you today on behalf of BAAITS or through my role as board member for BAAITS.
Today I am writing to you as a fellow Two-Spirit person, as well as a student and academic. In addition to my work with BAAITS, I am a student studying toward a PhD in Human Sexuality at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where I also teach as a core faculty member in one of their graduate counseling psychology programs.
My dissertation is focusing on Two-Spirit people. My question is: How do Two-Spirit people conceptualize love? I became interested in this as a question when I began to think about the numerous ways Two-Spirit people and communities have survived despite the continued deleterious impacts of colonization. I hypothesize one way we have done this is through, love, what my tribal nation (Poarch Band of Creek Indians) calls vnokecetv. Vnokecetv translates from Muscogee to English meaning love, though it is love from a communal sense, what Western philosophers call philia.
I am asking you to join me in studying Two-Spirit love. Interested participants will be asked to participate in a one-on-one interview at a mutually convenient time online with me to discuss your personal narrative and relationship with love from your Two-Spirit perspective.
The study is open to all Two-Spirit identified people who are over the age of 18. Participants do not need to be enrolled in a state or federally recognized tribal nation, though must identify in some way as Indigenous. The study will launch February 2, 2019. Personal interviews will be conducted via Zoom.
The results of the study will be presented in my dissertation which will be published. I may also use these data in book format.
The survey is hosted by Google Forms and can be accessed by visiting the following link:
If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly at rkuhn@ciis.edu. I am supervised by Dr. Nicolle Zapien at CIIS for this project. And if you have concerns about this study please contact the Human Research Review Committee at CIIS. hrrcoffice@ciis.edu.
Thank you,
Roger Kuhn (Poarch Creek)