Pulling together: Participatory modes and Indigenous roads to enact anticolonial responsibility in social studies research

Abstract

ABSTRACT Researchers and practitioners in social studies education have not often taken up responsibilities to Indigenous communities on whose Lands they work and live. Drawing on Indigenous research methodologies, along with specific Indigenous stories and artwork, four authors of varied positionalities, contexts, and regions offer conceptual and methodological insight into disrupting settler colonial research habits and sustaining commitments with Indigenous Communities. Through vignettes describing our own research practices, we propose three attributes of anticolonial participatory research responsibility in social studies. We emphasize the need for Indigenous leaders to drive research processes and planning; integrated, relational views of theory, practice, research, and policy to transcend binary understandings and colonial outcomes of social studies education; and long-term, reciprocal partnerships with community members, to center Indigenous community practices and Knowledges in order to expand possibilities for social studies education. The article explores these features, their demands, and implications for all readers as educators on Indigenous Lands.