| Providing homes in Indian Country has many challenges. While there is recognition of housing and infrastructure problems, there is little consideration of Native American philosophy or religious values. This study addresses this lack by utilizing the Navajo hooghan as a case study to examine how these values impact thinking, planning, construction and inhabitation of the hooghan..;Religion, whether practiced formally or not, collectively informs how people view the world and their place in it, consciously or unconsciously. Assumptions about the nature of reality, the ways of knowing reality, and values or morals, are foundational for how we perceive and act in the world, our worldview. Analyzing traditional homes are foundational to understanding Native American worldviews and values.;This study employed two approaches to understand the Navajo hooghan. The top-down approach examined how Cartesian philosophy still informs research agendas and the theorization and production of knowledge. This approach entailed investigating the philosophical and epistemological discrimination that occurs when a dominant group's philosophy is imposed as normative to research peoples not belonging to the dominant group. The top-down approach also examined the work of Indigenous philosophers and assayed the work of five phenomenological philosophers. Appraising the significant overlap between Indigenous and phenomenological philosophies provides the rationale for employing phenomenological tenets within the bottom-up approach.;The bottom-up approach was employed to justify the need to study Native American architecture; to investigate Cartesian and emerging post-Cartesian ontologies, epistemologies, axiologies, and language that inform our understanding of Native American cosmology; to appraise how these different cosmological approaches impact the comprehension of the Navajo hooghan; and to explore present-day concerns of Navajo individuals about the hooghan and Western-style housing.;This qualitative study sought to understand Native American worldview and values as a foundational way of understanding the tribal meanings of the built environment. Utilizing Hallowell's, Bird-David's and Morrison's existential principles of 'person', 'power' and 'gift' as foundational ontological, epistemological and axiological precepts, this research empirically finds that the Navajo hooghan qualifies as an other-than-human person who shares blessings and a reciprocal relationship with the Dine.. |
