Inclusion Of Indigenous Peoples Research Articles

Inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in Olympic legacy-shaping processes

Inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in Olympic legacy-shaping processes

Enabling a National Program for Ecological Corridors in Canada in support of biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and Indigenous leadership

Identification and protection of important areas to improve connectivity in support of biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and Indigenous Rights has been a key aspect in the Convention on Biological Diversity's policymaking for over two decades. Target 3 of the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework reiterated this need, calling on nations to conserve 30 % of terrestrial and marine areas by 2030 through “well-connected” and equitably governed systems of protected and conserved areas, among other considerations. In response to this call, Canada has initiated and amplified a new National Program for Ecological Corridors to enable collaborative efforts to protect and restore ecological connectivity across the country. Using multiple methods, including a literature review and a combination of interviews and workshops with conservation stakeholders, seven enabling conditions to support the effective and equitable implementation of the program were identified. These enabling conditions encompass respectful and meaningful engagement of and inclusion of Indigenous Peoples; establishing high-level commitment and vision, consistent with international and national biodiversity conservation and climate change commitments, supported by predictable, sustained funding and enabling legislation; and developing an appropriately scaled national corridor vision and supporting criteria and indicators to effectively monitor and communicate outcomes for biodiversity and people. Supporting mechanisms and strategies are detailed that can be used to effectively enable a national corridor program in Canada, providing early lessons learned and next steps for consideration by the wider global conservation community who are also striving to meet their own biodiversity and climate change adaptation goals.

Indigenous Military Inclusion: A Settler Colonial Critique of the Regional Force Surveillance Units

In the context of this special issue's inquiry into whether it is possible to decolonise Australian international relations, this article investigates the service of Indigenous people in the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The military is a crucial site to investigate the colonial state of Australian international relations not only because it is an institution that performs key international relations practices such as war and diplomacy, but also because it defines and projects the identity of the state both domestically and internationally. In the past two decades, there has been a sustained effort to include Indigenous people in the ADF. An inclusive and multicultural defence purports to represent a post‐colonial state where Indigenous and non‐Indigenous people stand next to one another for the defence of their shared country. However, in Australia, Indigenous people do not enjoy the wealth of the nation equally and remain dispossessed from their land and economically disadvantaged. Using discourse analysis of publicly available materials praising Indigenous military inclusion, this article argues that the inclusion of Indigenous people in the Australian Defence Force risks further entrenching the settler colonial project.

Genomics and inclusion of Indigenous peoples in high income countries

Genomics research related to Indigenous people has been at worst exploitative and at best, retrospectively on a journey to improve effective engagement of Indigenous individuals and communities. Genomics can positively impact all stages of clinical management, and to improve genomic effectiveness researchers aggregate genomic data from diverse global sub-populations, such as shared ancestry groupings, as people within these groupings will have a greater proportion of shared DNA traits. While genomics is already being used worldwide to improve lives, its utility and effectiveness has not been maximized for individuals with Indigenous ancestry. Several large datasets of human genetic variation have been made publicly available, of which the most widely used is the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD), but none of these databases currently contain any population-specific data for Indigenous populations. There are many reasons why Indigenous people have been largely left out of genomics research and, because of this, miss out on the benefits offered. It is also clear that if research is to be effective, it needs to be done ‘with’ and not ‘on’ Indigenous communities. This systematic review of the literature regarding Indigenous peoples (in high income countries) and genomics aims to review the existing literature and identify areas of strength and weakness in study design and conduct, focusing on the effectiveness of Indigenous community engagement.

'Consent' as epistemic recognition: Indigenous knowledges, Canadian impact assessment, and the colonial liberal democratic order.

This article unpacks the logic of the equivalence invoked by the Government of Canada between Indigenous consent and the inclusion of Indigenous peoples and knowledges in impact assessment. We situate the logic within the politics of recognition in Canada-a politics that aims to shore up national unity in the face of regular challenges to it. We use the Canadian results from a recent scoping review on conceptions of environmental justice in impact assessment to highlight the challenges of invoking recognition, and we provide a theoretical analysis of these challenges. To do this, we highlight the ways in which 'we-making' is 'knowledge-making' and 'knowledge-making' is 'we-making'. In this sense, recognizing Indigenous knowledges is part of Canada's answer to the challenge of constructing and stabilizing a political 'we': a community of political subjects with shared connection to a nation state via the institutional, social, and cultural apparatuses that generate the kind of publicly visible legal and technical knowledge upon which the state's authority depends. We show how this project relies on actively obscuring the relationship between 'we-making' and 'knowledge-making' by treating 'knowledge-making' as neutral and un-situated, putting into practice a universalist logic. This logic shores up power because obscuring the situatedness of dominant knowledges also obscures the situatedness of the dominant political orders with which they are intertwined. We ultimately argue that Canada's approach to recognizing Indigenous knowledges helps consolidate power by sidestepping ongoing jurisdictional struggles with Indigenous peoples.

Regulating Mine Rehabilitation and Closure on Indigenous Held Lands: Insights from the Regulated Resource States of Australia and Canada

Countless environmental, social, and economic issues can stem from poor mine closure and post-mining land use planning practices. Such post-extractive landscapes have a disproportionate effect on local Indigenous communities that continue to live in these often remote areas on their traditional lands, with such peoples only recently being able to document and bring their values and stories to closure, rehabilitation, and post-mining land use policy. A strong regulatory environment is the often suggested response to such concerns, and this chapter examines the regulation of mine rehabilitation and closure (MR&C) practices in the developed resource states of Canada and Australia. Analysis of current regulation and policy along with examples from MR&C practice demonstrate that the regulatory state is failing to ensure social, economic, cultural, and environmentally safe landscapes for local Indigenous people on whose lands these mines were situated. This research highlights recent reform in both jurisdictions, primarily designed to limit state liability for abandoned mines, and the impact of that reform upon the influence and inclusion of Indigenous peoples’ interests and rights in MR&C. The chapter highlights the common structural, institutional, political and resource challenges that Indigenous peoples across Australia and Canada face in ensuring that their lands and country are effectively and safely rehabilitated, and argues that having a comprehensive regulatory environment is not enough. Greater Indigenous engagement, management, control and ownership of MR&C processes is required if we are to see better outcomes for local people in post-extractive landscapes.

Cultural safe healthcare initiatives, implementations, and recommendations, for Indigenous peoples of Canada: a systematic review

The health of Indigenous peoples across Canada continues to be significantly impacted by experiences of racism when seeking healthcare. Implementing cultural safety was identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as a critical way to mitigate these negative health consequences. This systematic review aims to outline cultural safety and its associated derivatives in academia, what cultural safety is, and why it is important in the context of indigenous healthcare. A systematic search of PubMed was carried out refining searches to Canadian contexts, published after December of 2015, and limited to peer-reviewed reviews and systematic reviews. A thematic review of the articles identified four central ideas of importance regarding the information presented in the papers; definitions of cultural safety and associated derivatives, the importance of including culture in healthcare, recommendations to healthcare settings, and evaluation methods of cultural safety initiatives. It is clear that there is a need for an explicit and consistent definition of cultural safety with the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in the creation of this definition. To determine effectiveness, gaps and areas for improvement, evaluation methods inclusive of the unique Indigenous worldviews are imperative to develop culturally safe healthcare practices and institutions.

Cultural safe healthcare initiatives, implementations, and recommendations, for Indigenous peoples of Canada: a systematic review

The health of Indigenous peoples across Canada continues to be significantly impacted by experiences of racism when seeking healthcare. Implementing cultural safety was identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as a critical way to mitigate these negative health consequences. This systematic review aims to outline cultural safety and its associated derivatives in academia, what cultural safety is, and why it is important in the context of indigenous healthcare. A systematic search of PubMed was carried out refining searches to Canadian contexts, published after December of 2015, and limited to peer-reviewed reviews and systematic reviews. A thematic review of the articles identified four central ideas of importance regarding the information presented in the papers; definitions of cultural safety and associated derivatives, the importance of including culture in healthcare, recommendations to healthcare settings, and evaluation methods of cultural safety initiatives. It is clear that there is a need for an explicit and consistent definition of cultural safety with the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in the creation of this definition. To determine effectiveness, gaps and areas for improvement, evaluation methods inclusive of the unique Indigenous worldviews are imperative to develop culturally safe healthcare practices and institutions.

"… Inside of my home, I was getting a full dose of culture": Exploring the ecology of Indigenous peoples' development through stories.

According to the Indigenist ecological systems model (Fish et al., 2022; Fish & Syed, 2018), Indigenous Peoples' histories and cultures are critical to their development. However, the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples' histories and cultures in their environments is complicated by settler colonialism-a societal structure that seeks to eliminate such important contexts. The exclusion of Indigenous Peoples' histories and cultures in their environments can have adverse effects on psychological functioning (Fryberg & Townsend, 2008; Wexler, 2009). Despite this, Indigenous Peoples continue to access their histories and cultures throughout their development to survive and thrive (Vizenor, 2008). Though the Indigenist ecological systems model offers theoretical insight into the histories and cultures that contour Indigenous Peoples' environments, there are no empirical studies that examine its most basic claims. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by exploring how historical and cultural contexts intersect with the environments that affect Indigenous Peoples' development. Through a QUANT-qual embedded mixed-methods design, our analyses of Indigenous Peoples' digital story narratives (n = 73) suggest that immediate (e.g., parents, peers, school) and distant (e.g., media, government, policies) environments are the most salient to Indigenous Peoples' development. Culture figured into Indigenous Peoples' immediate environments to a moderate extent and distant environments to a prominent extent. History did too, but to a lesser extent. We discuss the implications of these findings for Indigenous well-being and recommendations for creating a more equitable developmental landscape via partnerships with Indigenous Peoples. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Review of participation of Indigenous peoples in plastics pollution governance

Abstract While calls for Indigenous participation in plastics pollution governance are increasingly common, exactly what participation means remains unclear. This review investigates how English-language peer-reviewed and gray literature describe Indigenous participation and its barriers and analyzes the dominant terms, models, enactments, and theories of Indigenous participation in plastics pollution work. We find that different actors – Indigenous people and organizations, non-Indigenous authors, mixed collaborations, and settler governments and NGOs – are talking about participation in acutely different ways. Non-Indigenous actors tend to focus on the inclusion of Indigenous people, either as data, knowledge, or a presence in existing frameworks. Mixed Indigenous and non-Indigenous author groups focus on partnership and collaboration, though with significant diversity in terms of what modes of decision-making, rights, and leadership these collaborations entail. Indigenous authors and organization advocate for participation premised on Indigenous rights, sovereignty, creation, and leadership. We end by characterizing Indigenous Environmental Justice (IEJ) in the literature. IEJ provides a notably unique way of understanding and intervening in plastics pollution. The text is designed so researchers and organizers can be more specific, deliberate, and just in the way Indigenous peoples participate in plastic pollution research, initiatives, and governance.

‘That water out there is no damn good for anybody’: Experiences with declining water quality in a First Nation community

In many Indigenous communities, the wellbeing of waterways correlates to the health of the population that it supports. However, current laws and water governance systems often fail to protect water sources and jeopardizes health and wellbeing, particularly in Indigenous communities. This study, curated by an Anishinaabe First Nations community located in Ontario on the Lake of the Woods (LOTW), was designed to detail the varying impacts of adverse water quality on people in the community. A community-based participatory research approach included interviews with Elders and key informants to understand lived experiences of adverse water quality, sources of pollution, and individual and community impacts. Key findings revealed changes in water quality within and between years, with water quality degrading over time. Further, changes in water quality were associated with changes in the community’s health, food sources, and activities. Finally, a paternalistic colonial history between Indigenous people and the Government of Canada continues to resonate and cause strained jurisdictional relations between the two groups. Opportunities and future water stewardship strategies require the active participation and inclusion of Indigenous people in policymaking, programming, and water management. As proposed by the LOTW community, this includes improving water quality monitoring, upgrading septic systems in the community, reintroducing wild rice to the shorelines, and creating water activities programming for Indigenous youth.

Indigenous Cultural Identity of Research Authors Standard: research and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in rural health journals.

The Indigenous Cultural Identity of Research Authors Standard (ICIRAS) is based on a gap in research publishing practice where Indigenous peoples' identity is not systematically and rigorously recognised in rural health research publications. There are widespread reforms, in different research areas, to counter the reputation of scientific research as a vehicle of racism and discrimination. Reflecting on these broader movements, the editorial teams of three rural health journals - Rural and Remote Health, the Australian Journal of Rural Health, and the Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine - adopted a policy of 'Nothing about Indigenous Peoples, without Indigenous Peoples'. This meant changing practices so that Indigenous Peoples' identity could be embedded in authorship credentials - such as in the byline. An environmental scan of literature about the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in research revealed many ways in which editorial boards of journals could improve their process to signal to readers that Indigenous voices are included in rural health research publication governance. Improving the health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples worldwide requires high-quality research evidence. This quality benchmark needs to explicitly signal the inclusion of Indigenous authors. The ICIRAS is a call to action for research journals and institutions to rigorously improve research governance and leadership to amplify the cultural identity of Indigenous peoples in rural health research.

Barriers and facilitators for Indigenous students and staff in health and human services educational programs.

Indigenous Peoples are underrepresented in many of the Health and Human Services Educational Programs (HHSEP, e.g.: Nursing, Social Work). As various studies have reported the benefits of diversifying HHSEP, the barriers and facilitators of increasing the number of Indigenous Peoples in these professions must be identified. The purpose of this exploratory study is to identify and understand the barriers and facilitators Indigenous Peoples face when entering, learning or working in HHSEP. A narrative approach was used in the facilitation of culturally safe sharing circles with Indigenous students and staff to collect perspectives based on their individual experiences in HHSEP. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify emerging themes in participant experiences and the impact of those experiences on participation in learning and working at the university in these educational programs. Results from this exploratory study identified current academic structures and ideologies rooted in colonialism, that act as barriers for engagement and inclusion of Indigenous students, staff, and clinical and academic faculty. These findings shaped the main themes of this study including negotiation of identity in different spaces, negotiating colonial structures in HHSEP, and negotiating changes and transitions in HHSEP. We anticipate these preliminary results will act as a catalyst for uncovering further changes to be made regarding attitudes, procedures, and practices present in an academic environment that limit the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in HHSEP.

Indigenous health equity in health register ascertainment and data quality: a narrative review

BackgroundHealth registers play an important role in monitoring distribution of disease and quality of care; however, benefit is limited if ascertainment (i.e., the process of finding and recruiting people on to a register) and data quality (i.e., the accuracy, completeness, reliability, relevance, and timeliness of data) are poor. Indigenous peoples experience significant health inequities globally, yet health data for, and about, Indigenous peoples is often of poor quality. This narrative review aimed to (i) identify perceived barriers for the ascertainment of Indigenous peoples on health registers, and (ii) collate strategies identified and used by health registers to support comprehensive ascertainment and high-quality data for Indigenous peoples.MethodsA Kaupapa Māori theoretical framework was utilized to guide this work. Four electronic databases were systematically searched for original articles and screened for eligibility. Studies involving health registers with Indigenous population(s) identified were included if either ascertainment or data quality strategies were described. Data extraction focused on the reporting of research involving Indigenous peoples using the CONSIDER checklist domains, ascertainment, and data quality.ResultsSeventeen articles were included spanning publication between 1992 and 2020. Aspects of four of eight CONSIDER domains were identified to be included in the reporting of studies. Barriers to ascertainment were themed as relating to ‘ethnicity data collection and quality’, ‘systems and structures’, ‘health services/health professionals’, and ‘perceptions of individual and community-level barriers’. Strategies to support ascertainment were categorized as ‘collaboration’, ‘finding people’, and ‘recruitment processes’. Categorized strategies to support data quality were ‘collaboration’, ‘ethnicity data collection and quality’, ‘systems-level strategies’, and ‘health service/health professional-level strategies’.ConclusionsPoor-quality data for Indigenous peoples in health registers prevents the achievement of health equity and exemplifies inaction in the face of need. When viewed through a critical structural determinants lens, there are visible gaps in the breadth of strategies, particularly relating to the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in health register and research governance, and actions to identify and address institutional racism. Indigenous led research, meaningful collaboration, and a sharing of knowledge and experiences between health registers is recommended to enable research and health registers that support Indigenous self-determination and health equity.

The representation of Indigenous peoples in chronic disease clinical trials in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

BackgroundIndigenous peoples are overrepresented with chronic health conditions and experience suboptimal outcomes compared with non-Indigenous peoples. Genetic variations influence therapeutic responses, thus there are potential risks and harm when extrapolating evidence from the general population to Indigenous peoples. Indigenous population–specific clinical studies, and inclusion of Indigenous peoples in general population clinical trials, are perceived to be rare. Our study (1) identified and characterized Indigenous population–specific chronic disease trials and (2) identified the representation of Indigenous peoples in general population chronic disease trials conducted in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.MethodsFor Objective 1, publicly available clinical trial registries were searched from May 2010 to May 2020 using Indigenous population–specific terms and included for data extraction if in pre-specified chronic disease. For identified trials, we extracted Indigenous population group identity and characteristics, type of intervention, and funding type. For Objective 2, a random selection of 10% of registered clinical trials was performed and the proportion of Indigenous population participants enrolled extracted.ResultsIn total, 170 Indigenous population–specific chronic disease trials were identified. The clinical trials were predominantly behavioral interventions (n = 95). Among general population studies, 830 studies were randomly selected. When race was reported in studies (n = 526), Indigenous individuals were enrolled in 172 studies and constituted 5.6% of the total population enrolled in those studies.ConclusionClinical trials addressing chronic disease conditions in Indigenous populations are limited. It is crucial to ensure adequate representation of Indigenous peoples in clinical trials to ensure trial data are applicable to their clinical care.

The popular sovereignty of Indigenous peoples: a challenge in multi-people states

ABSTRACT The doctrine of popular sovereignty holds that the ‘supreme authority of the state’ belongs to the people, not to the political institutions exercising public power. What are the implications of this view when there is more than one people in the territory of that state? The case of Indigenous peoples highlights this question, as they are unequivocally peoples who are distinct from the majority population. This paper subjects to criticism of the received view according to which the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in democratic institutions is sufficient for the realization of their popular sovereignty. Instead, we argue that their constituent power must be recognized – the power to create and negotiate the constitutional order. The realization of popular sovereignty in settler states thus necessitates a process where the constitutional order is negotiated by Indigenous peoples and the majority population in conditions where the two parties are mutually recognized as sovereign.

Considering the Revolution

Considering the Revolution

Working for Justice in Food Systems on Stolen Land? Interrogating Food Movements Confronting Settler Colonialism

The evolving practice and scholarship surrounding food movements aim to address social, political, economic and ecological crises in food systems. However, limited interrogation of settler colonialism remains a crucial gap. Settler colonialism is the ongoing process of invasion that works to systematically erase and replace Indigenous Peoples with settler populations and identities. While many progressive and well-intentioned food movements engage directly with issues of land, water, identity, and power, critics argue they have also reified capitalism, white supremacy, agro-centrism and private property that are central to the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous Peoples. Scholars and advocates have called for greater accountability to the contradictions inherent in working towards social and ecological justice on stolen land. We write this paper as three settler activist-scholars to interrogate ways that social movements are responding to this call. A community-engaged methodology was used to conduct semi-structured interviews with individuals working in settler-led food movement organizations in Northwestern Ontario, Canada and in Southern Australia. We present our findings through three intersecting categories: 1) Expressions of settler inaction; 2) Mere inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and ideas; and, 3) Productive engagements and visions to confront settler colonialism. To explore the possibility of deeper engagements that confront settler colonialism, we suggest a continuum that moves from situating our(settler)selves within the framework of settler colonialism to (re)negotiating relationships with Indigenous Peoples to actualizing productive positions of solidarity with Indigenous struggles. We argue that this work is essential for food movements that aim to transform relationships with the land, each other, and ultimately forge more sustainable and equitable food futures.

Challenges during the execution, results, and monitoring phases of ecological restoration: Learning from a country-wide assessment.

Outcomes from restoration projects are often difficult for policymakers and stakeholders to assess, but this information is fundamental for scaling up ecological restoration actions. We evaluated technical aspects of the interventions, results (ecological and socio-economic) and monitoring practices in 75 restoration projects in Mexico using a digital survey composed of 137 questions. We found that restoration projects in terrestrial ecosystems generally relied on actions included in minimal (97%) and maximal (86%) intervention, while in wetlands, the preferred restoration strategies were intermediate (75%) and minimal intervention (63%). Only a third of the projects (38%) relied on collective learning as a source of knowledge to generate techniques (traditional management). In most of the projects (73%), multiple criteria (>2) were considered when selecting plant species for plantings; the most frequently used criterion was that plant species were found within the restoration area, native or naturalized (i.e., a circa situm criterion; 88%). In 48% of the projects, the biological material required for restoration (e.g., seeds and seedlings) were gathered or propagated by project implementers rather than purchased commercially. Only a few projects (between 33 and 34%) reached a high level of biodiversity recovery (>75%). Most of the projects (between 69 to71%) recovered less than 50% of the ecological services. Most of the projects (82%) led to improved individual relationships. The analysis revealed a need to implement strategies that are cost-effective, the application of traditional ecological knowledge and the inclusion of indigenous people and local communities in restoration programs at all stages—from planning to implementation, through monitoring. We also identified the need to expand research to develop effective tools to assess ecosystems’ regeneration potential and develop theoretical frameworks to move beyond short-term markers to set and achieve medium- and long-term goals. Cautious and comprehensive planning of national strategies must consider the abovementioned identified gaps.

Embodied Indigenous knowledges protecting and privileging Indigenous peoples' ways of knowing, being and doing in undergraduate nursing education

Abstract In the era of Indigenising the academy, health disciplines like nursing are required to teach Indigenous peoples' health, history and culture in their undergraduate programmes in order to meet national accreditation standards. This inclusion of Indigenous peoples' perspectives within nursing education towards registration thus qualifies respective Indigenous perspectives as legitimate parts of the Australian nursing profession's scope of practice, which may sound like a reason to celebrate. However, caution should be exercised. Indigenous and Western knowledge systems are incommensurable. The practice of defining Indigenous perspectives for placements within curricula could be likened to extractive colonialism. Thus, the commodifying of Indigenous perspectives in creating competitive education products is problematic. As a Meriam and Wuthathi man who grew up in the Zenadth Kes (Torres Straits) now living and working on Turrbul and Yuggera country, and as a nurse academic, being immersed in this space of contentions is my reality. In order to enhance the education preparation of nursing students I teach, while simultaneously protect my embodied Indigenous knowledges and the Indigenous perspectives included in the curricula I teach, I privilege Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing in my teaching practice. This yarn is about my experience in this cultural interface.