Indigenous Development Research Articles

Indigenous Inland Fisheries Development and Management in India

This paper provides a comprehensive review and analysis of indigenous inland fisheries development and management practices in India. Drawing on extensive literature review and case studies, it examines traditional ecological knowledge, community-based management systems, and the integration of indigenous practices with modern scientific approaches. The research highlights the diversity of inland fisheries across India's varied ecosystems and the critical role of indigenous communities in sustainable resource management. Key challenges including overfishing, habitat degradation, and socioeconomic pressures are analyzed. The paper proposes policy recommendations to support and scale indigenous management practices while addressing conservation needs. Findings underscore the importance of participatory, culturally-appropriate approaches that leverage local knowledge for inland fisheries development in India.

DRONES IN WARFARE: NIGERIA'S ADOPTION OF TECHNOLOGY IN FIGHTING INSECURITY

Rapid technological advancements have driven the increasing complexity of warfare, positioning unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, at the forefront of military operations globally. This study examines Nigeria's adoption of drone technology in its fight against insurgencies, banditry, and communal violence. As part of its evolving security strategy, Nigeria has integrated drones into its military operations to enhance intelligence gathering, surveillance, and precision strikes. Despite the operational benefits, the use of drones raises ethical concerns, especially related to civilian casualties, and poses challenges due to limited transparency and regulatory oversight. The study employed a systematic literature review (SLR), drawing on secondary data sources and reports that address the role, effectiveness, and challenges of drones in Nigeria's defense strategies. Key findings highlight that Nigeria's military, particularly the Air Force, has successfully deployed both indigenous and foreign-acquired drones, such as the Amebo, Gulma, and Chinese CH-4, to bolster its intelligence and combat operations. However, the lack of a robust legal framework and the need for improved training and data processing infrastructure hinder the full realization of drone technology's potential. Based on the findings, the study recommends enhancing Nigeria's regulatory framework to ensure ethical drone deployment, investing in indigenous UAV development, and improving inter-agency coordination for more efficient use of drone capabilities. These steps are crucial to ensuring that drones can effectively contribute to Nigeria's national security while minimizing the associated risks.

All Hands on Deck: Coordinated approaches to Indigenous early career development

The Developing Indigenous Early Career Researchers Project is a three-year longitudinal study funded by the Australian Research Council investigating the experiences and perspectives of Indigenous early career researchers working in universities across Australia. In an earlier paper we explored self-identified needs of Indigenous early career researchers regarding the development of sound research trajectories and careers in the academy (Locke et al., 2022). This paper takes a step further in investigating, who is responsible and should be held to account for supporting the development of these Indigenous early carer researchers. Data collected from across all three stages (2020, 2021 and 2022) of this project suggests that Indigenous early career researchers consider that all university staff, including themselves have certain responsibilities towards developing their academic career trajectories. Some Indigenous ECRs also pointed out the roles that external agencies such as government and funding bodies play in guiding institutions to value and promote the diversity and wealth of knowledge that Indigenous academics bring to the academy. This paper engages an Indigenist research approach and employs relatedness theory in advocating the development of policies and programs to support the career trajectories of Indigenous Early Career Researchers, from an Indigenous epistemological standpoint. To close, this paper posits that to achieve optimum outcomes for Indigenous ECR’s there needs to be systematic and coordinated institutional approaches to developing career trajectories that ameliorate challenges and barriers to Indigenous ECR career progression.

Overcoming human exceptionalism: The role of ethical nature-culture relations in the developmental contexts of indigenous children.

Indigenous populations, including American Indians, Alaska Natives, First Nations, and other first peoples worldwide, have been largely overlooked in child development research. This commentary examines how Indigenous relationality intersects with developmental science, advocating for a shift from human exceptionalism to an interconnected relationality among people, land, and more-than-human beings. Drawing from diverse Indigenous knowledge and practices, The Six Pillars to Advance Indigenous Relationality among Children provides frameworks for integrating Indigenous worldviews emphasizing interconnected responsibilities and sustainability. Embracing Indigenous relationality-grounded in respect and reciprocity-dismantles inequitable systems, enhances socioecological well-being, and supports healthy Indigenous child development, fostering responsible relationships with the land and ensuring a sustainable future for generations.

Former U.S. Marine captures national Indigenous economic development award

- story on Cando EDO of the year winner James Stevens.

Indigenous Development of MIC-Based C-Band Dual Chain Down Converter Unit for GEOSAT- Spacecraft Checkout System

As part of miniaturization, the development work for the C-band dual-chain down converter, which is extensively used in TM (Telemetry) data acquisition system in GEOSAT spacecraft checkout system has been taken up in MIC (Microwave Integrated Circuit) approach using microstrip line structure. A prototype unit is realized using standard surface mount devices (SMD) and few indigenously developed MIC components namely, the directional couplers, the power dividers etc. The MIC-based down converter module, which forms the heart of the unit is housed in an Aluminium milled box having the dimension of 150 x 150 x 25 mm3. Except internal Local Oscillator (LO), RF Switches and Power supply, all other circuitry are mounted withinthis milled box which is housed in 1U chassis. It meets all the requirements of a conventional down converter. The paper describes the salient features of the unit, its detailed design approach and realization plan and finally the test and evaluation results of the prototype unit developed indigenously.

Reflecting on the 1775 Mount Gamalama Eruption: Lessons from Indigenous Knowledge for Sustainable Development in Ternate Island, North Maluku Province, Indonesia

The volcanic Molucca islands have provided the world with their precious cloves, which have been highly valued in medicinal properties for millennia. Cloves have antibacterial, antiviral, and analgesic characteristics. They were considered silver bullet cures in medieval epidemics and the early COVID-19 pandemic response. Cloves originated from Ternate Island, the center and regional trade hub of the Molucca Islands. Its cloves had reached Babylonia 4,000 years ago, marking its importance in global trade. Qualitative research was conducted on the 1775 Mount Gamalama eruption's impact on indigenous knowledge development. To confirm the findings, I conducted field visits, key informant interviews, field observations, and a literature review. Tolire Lake is an apparent landmark in Takome village, which has a sacred white crocodile, a java plum hill, a lush forest, stunning landscapes, and an underwater mythical village. The residents are testaments to human resilience, preserving indigenous knowledge and turning it into disaster risk reduction tools. They built settlements on safer ground and designated parts areas for conservation-based tourism. In addition, modern science introduction enhances disaster early warning and alert systems and empowers indigenous communities. Understanding indigenous knowledge and wisdom is critical to building resilience and sustainability through disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts. Indigenous knowledge produces lessons in environmental protection, social justice, and economic growth. The world can learn from indigenous and scientific knowledge combined to sustain the island, its people, and its prosperity.

The origin of the Protogeometric style in northern Greece and its relevance for the absolute chronology of the Early Iron Age

Classical archaeological chronologies are steeped in relative dating, but the application of absolute methods does not always support such clear-cut seriation. Here, the authors consider the significance of a Macedonian vase in reconciling the conventional and absolute chronologies of Early Iron Age Greece. Decorated with compass-drawn concentric circles and found in a Late Bronze Age context at ancient Eleon, Boeotia, the authors argue that this vessel establishes a chronological anchor and supports a twelfth-century BC emergence of the Protogeometric style in central Macedonia. A model for the indigenous development and dispersal of the Macedonian Protogeometric style is presented for future elaboration.

Financing Indigenous entrepreneurs: A review and research agenda

Empowering Indigenous communities through entrepreneurialism is touted as key for reducing Indigenous disadvantage, but little headway has been made. One core and persistent issue is difficulty accessing finance to support growth. To understand why and to guide future policy and research, we review the current state of research on Indigenous financing and develop a thematic framework around four themes: political-economic environment; antecedents to the financing decision; financial solutions; and financial preferences, decisions and outcomes. Indigenous entrepreneurs face unique intercultural, social and economic barriers to finance, and these need to be better understood to help accelerate Indigenous community development through entrepreneurial activity. JEL Classification: G21; G28; J15; N20

The Respectful Terminologies Platform Project and Envisioning Indigenous Governance

This paper will discuss the Respectful Terminologies Platform Project (RTPP), a project focused on creating a system of Indigenous terminologies, and questions of governance within cataloging and other descriptive practices. As an emerging Indigenous-lead project created through years of advocacy work, RTPP is engaged in work to vision a means of Indigenous vocabulary development focused on community governance and protocols. At the same time, existing governance systems for terminology and vocabulary systems such as the Library of Congress, and the Canadian Subject Headings, and projects such as the Homosaurus serve as examples of different models of governance. This paper will explore concepts of governance, the role of UNDRIP in systems of terminology, and Principles such as CARE. Woven throughout the paper will be moments to envision a system which human rights as the central guiding consideration for systems of terminology.

Probing the electronic ground state of the nitrogen-vacancy center in nanodiamonds at room temperature

The color centers in diamonds are promising candidates in the context of quantum information science, quantum computation, and spin-based quantum sensors due to their spin-dependent optical transitions. The manipulation and optical readout of electronic spin state is measured using a technique known as optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR). Here, we discuss the indigenous development of ODMR setup to coherently manipulate and precise readout of spin state of nitrogen-vacancy centers (NV) in nanodiamond at room-temperature. The study involves the confocal mapping of an ensemble of NV centers to measure spin state-dependent optical transition by applying an optical excitation and microwave field simultaneously. The spin state control appears as a dip at 2.87 GHz in the measured emission intensity spectra as a function of microwave frequency. An ODMR contrast of 3.4 % is achieved at the NV center emission maximum of 660 nm and an inhomogeneous dephasing time of 0.03 microseconds. We find an inherent small split in the ODMR dip which is induced by local strain in nanodiamonds. The split becomes stronger while applying an external magnetic field, which forms the basis of NV center-based magnetometry. The results are useful for spin-based microwave-optical quantum transducers, quantum sensing, and quantum memory devices.

Compulsory Etiquette: Emotionality and the Constraints of Urban Indigenous Life

Abstract: The infrastructures of urban Indigenous life are marked by a type of dissonance that constantly confronts settler narratives of who and how Indigenous peoples are. The myriad violences that mark colonial power order urban Indigenous life within an unbearable nexus of assimilation, terror, and dispossession. Such violence places considerable demands on Indigenous peoples’ social and material worlds, such that the pressures to visualize, embody, and narrate Indigeneity in the service of a multicultural state are unending. In this article, I outline the politics of emotionality as both threatening to the settler state and a fissure that reveals a desiring for another world. I examine the fixation on the bickering in community meetings at the only urban Indian center in Philadelphia during the 1970s and 1980s to take stock of the ways negative affect is a signal of Indigenous refusals of settler values and marks the city as a zone of affective struggle. The contracts into which Indigenous peoples enter as forms of material survival get leveraged by the state, which demands Indigenous people relinquish sovereignty over their bodies. In the process, the state continues its primary mission to destabilize Indigenous community development and deny the possibilities of futurity. Yet, as Indigenous people push against settler-colonial regulations, the outbursts generated from bickering are affects at the point of refusal of the settler state to determine the totality of Indigenous life. Thus, negative affect, while tense, can generate community by offering an opportunity to reconfigure the terms of social life according to multitribal dialogue as a move toward reclaiming the future.

Examining community-level protection from Alaska Native suicide: An Indigenous knowledge-informed extension of the legacy of Michael Chandler and Christopher Lalonde.

Chandler and Lalonde broadened the scope of inquiry in suicide research by providing theoretical grounding and empirical support for the role of community, culture, and history in understanding Indigenous youth suicide and reimagining its prevention. Their work pushed the field to consider the intersectional process of individual and collective meaning-making in prevention of Indigenous suicide, together with the central role culture plays in bringing coherence to this process over time. Their innovation shifted the research focus to include the shared histories, contexts, and structures of meaning that shape individual lives and behaviors. We describe here a new generation of research extending their pathbreaking line of inquiry. Recent work aims to identify complex associations between community-level structures and suicidal behavior by collaborating with Alaska Native people from rural communities to describe how community protective factors function as preventative resources in their daily lives. Community engagement and knowledge co-production created a measure of community protection from suicide. Structured interviews with rural Alaska Native community members allowed use of this measure to produce relevant, accessible, and actionable knowledge. Ongoing investigations next seek to describe their mechanisms in shaping young people's lives through a multilevel, mixed-methods community-based study linking community-level protection to protection and well-being of individual youth. These efforts to understand the multiple culture-specific and culturally mediated pathways by which communities build on their strengths, resources, and practices to support Indigenous young people's development and reduce suicide risk are inspired by and expand on Chandler and Lalonde's remarkable legacy.

A Socio-Cognitive Approach to Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration for Indigenous Tourism Development: The Case of Nepal’s Newars

A Socio-Cognitive Approach to Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration for Indigenous Tourism Development: The Case of Nepal’s Newars

Curriculum Indigenization in oral health professions' education worldwide: A scoping review.

To explore the literature on Indigenous content within the oral health professions' education curricula. This scoping review included all types of literature on oral health care educational programs on Indigenous content, following the JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) methodology. An initial search using "Indigenous," "education," and "oral health" as keywords informed a full search strategy for MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus, ERIC, EPPI, MedEdPORTAL, Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, Australian Government Department of Health, and Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet. The search included literature available until November 1, 2023, irrespective of language. Two reviewers independently screened the studies, and data were extracted and presented in tabular and narrative summary formats. A total of 948 records were identified, and 101 studies were chosen for full-text review. Twenty-three studies met the criteria for data extraction. Of all studies, 95.6% were published between 2007 and 2021, mostly from Australia and New Zealand. The most frequently covered content included Indigenous culture, followed by history, Indigenous oral health, and Indigenous Peoples' health. Rural and clinical placements were the most employed delivery methods, and evaluation surveys were the most employed assessment technique. Barriers to delivering an Indigenous curriculum included students' disinterest and limited interaction with Indigenous communities, while facilitators included cultural immersion and supportive mentorship. Despite progress in integrating Indigenous content into oral health education, challenges persist. Prioritizing Indigenous perspectives, community partnerships, and standardized assessment tools is needed. Future research should focus on long-term impacts and best practices for Indigenous curriculum development and delivery.

Reducing vulnerability to climate change among millet and sorghum farmers in Ghana: interrogating the contribution of climate-smart agriculture in northwestern Ghana

Reducing vulnerability of smallholder farmers to climate change is a global issue. One approach viewed as important in reducing farmers’ vulnerability to climate change is Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). CSA is often seen as an approach to redefine, reposition and sustainably manage agriculture. Given the importance of CSA practices in sustaining the food needs of many farm households in sub-Saharan Africa and Ghana, this study investigates CSA practices that were introduced to farmers by Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Development (CIKOD), interrogates the contributions of CSA to reducing farmers vulnerability to climate change and established the relationship between CSA and climate change adaptation. The study employed a mixed method approach, using 146 smallholder millet and sorghum farmers. Questionnaire and interviews were used to generate primary data for analysis. Descriptive statistics, involving Chi-square test and relative importance index were used to analyze the questionnaire while thematic analytical approach was used to analyze the interviews. The results of the study revealed that CSA practices such as crop rotation, weed control, contour farming, and land rotation are deployed by smallholder farmers to respond to drought, dry spell and flood in the Municipality. Asset holding capacity, credit, access to climate information, and extension services were found to be key determinants of farmers’ adoption of CSA practices. The study recommends the need for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to provide some technical support to smallholder farmers to successfully adopt these practices for sustainable farming. Again, the study recommends the need for non-governmental organizations and development partners, which over the years have shown interest in promoting CSA practices among farmers, to continuous to support and promote the adoption of CSA by farmers.

First Peoples economic landscape: analysis of the ecosystem

PurposeThis paper focuses on First Peoples Founders of for-profit entities in Australia and the role of the Indigenous Economic Development Agencies (IEDAs). We explore the challenges facing First Peoples enterprises, influenced by historical exclusion from white settler society, and the practices of the IEDAs from the perspectives of Founders and agencies.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative study utilising Indigenous Standpoint Theory and Indigenous research methods, elevating Founder perspectives, in the Yaruwu language - the Nilangany Ngarrungunil, owners of knowledge, to that of research collaborators.FindingsThe First Peoples economic landscape is continually evolving with IEDAs contributing to that evolution despite contentious identity ownership definitions. Founders secure in their own identity, are focused on self-determination and opportunities provided by IEDAs, government and corporate sector policies. However, opportunities are undermined by ongoing racism, discrimination and prevailing stereotypes leading to homogeneity, invisibility and exclusion. Founders question organisational commitments to overcoming systemic exclusion in particular their commitment to building respectful relationships and understanding First Peoples ways of working. Instead, Founders focus on building a sustainable First Peoples economic ecosystem through relationship-based practices rather than transactional reconciliation which ignores the reality of the lived experience of everyday racism.Originality/valueThis study extends the scholarly discourse on First Peoples for-profit enterprise success written with an Indigenous voice. We demonstrate how this Founder generation are strengthened by culture with identity infused in organisational practices underpinning their aspirations of economic self-determination.

Design of three-dimensional integrated microsystems for intelligent space storage

Abstract To meet the domestic intelligent storage demands for space exploration and satellite missions, this paper explores the indigenous development of intelligent storage through research on process technology, thermal simulation technology, and testing techniques for three-dimensional integrated microsystems for space intelligence storage. The study achieves high-density functional integration of domestically produced space intelligent storage three-dimensional integrated microsystems. The intelligent storage module, with microsystem technology at its core, provides a more efficient application space for miniaturization, lightweight design, high-density integration, and high reliability.

Beyond attachment theory: Indigenous perspectives on the child-caregiver bond from a northwest tribal community.

Healthy Indigenous child development is grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Attachment theory has been influential in understanding the significance of parenting for infant development in Western science but has focused on child-caregiver bonds predominantly within the parent-child dyad. To bring forth Indigenous perspectives regarding understandings of parenting, the attachment bond, and the well-being of Indigenous children, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 members of a Northwest tribal community (21 female) in spring and summer 2020. Themes included Community caregiving, Family value systems, Bonding, Traditional teachings, and Historical trauma. The need to expand the lens of attachment theory beyond the dyad is clear. Implications for improving the child welfare system and prevention programs within Indigenous communities are discussed.

Indigenous bridging/foundation education: student feedback on programme successes, challenges and opportunities

Hikitia te Ora (Certificate in Health Sciences) is a 1 year Indigenous bridging foundation programme at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. The programme aims to increase Māori and Pacific health workforce representation. This qualitative study applied a Kaupapa Māori positioning to elucidate the strengths, challenges, and opportunities of the programme. Data were collected through two workshops and seven focus groups with a total of 67 participants who were students of Hikitia te Ora from past and present cohorts, or their family members. Using a general inductive thematic analysis, the primary themes identified were that programme successes encompassed whanaungatanga (process of establishing relationships), academic and pastoral support, programme structure and the teaching content. Challenges included social cliques and divisive social groupings, timetabling of courses and high workloads. The three areas that emerged for further development include extending Pacific content, increasing the number of students in the programme, and maintaining a programme-specific study space for students. Implementing the findings from this study into Hikitia te Ora is expected to improve educational outcomes for Māori and Pacific students and may have the potential to benefit other bridging foundation courses aiming to promote Indigenous health workforce development.