Indigenous Methodologies Research Articles

Indigenous evaluation

Background: Indigenous evaluation incorporates Indigenous ways of knowing and draws upon cultural paradigms (Indigenous Evaluation Toolkit, 2022). Indigenous evaluation literature is limited in both quantity and quality outcomes resulting in a lack of clarity. This scoping review was conducted to identify guiding principles, Indigenous evaluation methodologies, and explore key concepts and gaps within the literature. Methods: This scoping review was guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist and Arskey and O’Malley’s Scoping Review Framework. It included peer-reviewed articles and grey literature. Articles were identified through electronic database searching and reference lists using keywords. This review only included data written in English, available in full text, included keywords and identified the author and title of the publication. Articles that were not specific to Indigenous peoples or outlined Indigenous methodologies that were not related to evaluation were excluded. Results: Out of 348 articles, 94 met the inclusion criteria for this review. The literature revealed 13 guiding principles (collaboration, respect, relationships, self-determination, flexibility, trust, truth, reciprocity, power, time, sovereignty, responsibility/accountability, and relevance) and 15 Indigenous evaluation methodologies (culturally responsive, community-based, participatory, storytelling, empowerment, decolonizing, strength-based, self-reflection/location, mixed methods, talking circles, tribal critical theory, two-eyed seeing, the 4 R’s, trauma-informed approach, and ethical space). Conclusion: Key findings in this review demonstrate the need for further development of a culturally responsive Indigenous evaluation approach and for future research to outline how to put Indigenous evaluation methodologies and guiding principles into practice. Filling this gap will make a significant contribution to the field of evaluation research for Indigenous peoples, communities, and evaluators.

Growing Our Roots

This study examines early language and literacy from Indigenous perspectives, addressing the educational gap for Indigenous children. Through an Indigenous methodology, 22 participants revealed themes on culturally responsive education, cultural identity, tradition preservation, and addressing intergenerational trauma. Findings emphasize the need for equitable practices and suggest ways to enhance Indigenous language and literacy learning in homes, schools, and communities.

Indigenizing research methods: making research outcomes better for all

In the context of Indigenizing academic practices and promoting cultural inclusivity within library and information institutions, this paper explores the significance of incorporating Indigenous approaches to research within LIS research methods courses. It argues that Indigenous research methods can be adapted and applied to other contexts, especially where research is being done in Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) communities, who also have a history of being marginalized in research. This paper advocates for research methods to be transformed by incorporating Indigenous approaches into research methods education and empowering students to become culturally competent researchers. The paper will demonstrate how the use of Indigenous methodologies provides students with an understanding of alternative paradigms informed by indigenous ways of knowing.

Indigenous Methodologies in International Research on Indigenous Family and Community Engagement

Indigenous research methodologies have been theorized by prominent Indigenous scholars over the past few decades and advocated for in research focused on Indigenous communities for their emancipatory power to reestablish Indigenous peoples’ expertise and self-determining and sovereignty rights over education and research. Western intrusion in Indigenous education and community focused research through colonial schools and Western research methodologies has negatively impacted the schooling experiences of Indigenous children, their families and communities, as well as the ways they are studied and depicted in research. Responding to calls for Indigenous methodologies in research focused on Indigenous communities, this literature review introduces an Indigenist Methodological Framework, developed from canonical scholarship on Indigenous methodologies, that we use to explore the applications (and potential misapplications) of Indigenous methodologies in 20 international studies about Indigenous family and community engagement. We aimed to determine if adherence to the elements of an Indigenist Methodological Framework served to disrupt extractive, exploitative, and damage-centered practices in and portrayals of Indigenous communities (common in Western research methodologies). Further, we critically analyzed the findings of these studies to see if they offered more culturally responsive and strength-based conceptualizations of Indigenous families and communities. We uncovered applications and misapplications of Indigenous methodologies that impacted researchers’ commitments to and actions towards establishing and maintaining relational accountability throughout and beyond the research while also influencing findings that, in most cases, challenged narrow and deficit-based perceptions and portrayals of Indigenous students, families, and community members.

A Turn Toward Caring Research: Iterative Consent, Reflexive Multilingual Methods, and Reciprocal Knowledge Production

The discipline of geography continues to redress historically violent methods and move toward a more ethical and intentional research practice, one hopes. Derived from research with professional immigrant Latina caregivers during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021–2022), this article offers a reflective approach to the growing conversation of more intentional geographical methods. Learning from feminist and Indigenous methodologies as intertwining, this project takes reciprocity and accountability to and with the caregivers seriously. The research combines artistic portraiture and ethnographic methods to center caregivers as knowledge creators deserving of respect, attention, and artistic portrayal. Collaborative portraits, created by BIPOC artists, were part of the fifteen semistructured testimonio conversations and allowed the tangible centering of caregivers as people to be seen and heard. Learning from the caregivers themselves and through reflective work on methods, this article theorizes a process of iterative consent, multilingual methods, and reciprocal knowledge production and asks what a more ethical and accountable research partnership can and should look like.

Two-Spirit Peoples' experiences accessing and receiving care from community pharmacies.

Two-Spirit Peoples face unique challenges in accessing and receiving health care in Canada due to health services, including community pharmacy services, being built on hetero- and cis-normative models that impede appropriate care for this group. Currently, there is limited published information on Two-Spirit Peoples' experiences accessing and receiving care in community pharmacy settings. To address the lack of published information, 21 Two-Spirit individuals shared their experiences in a focus group setting. Four different focus groups were held across Canada, including 1 in Saskatoon, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Toronto. Informed by Indigenous methodologies, data were recorded via audio recording and notetaking, and the audio was transcribed and then analyzed for themes using the Voice-Centred Relational Method. Three major structural systems that affect the experiences of Two-Spirit Peoples in community pharmacies were identified: 1) white supremacy, 2) capitalism, and 3) heteronormativity. These 3 systemic issues presented themselves via racism, homophobia, transphobia, pharmacists' lack of knowledge about Two-Spirit individuals and their health and lack of time spent educating or building relationships with Two-Spirit Peoples. Participants provided suggestions for how community pharmacists can better serve the Two-Spirit community, such as using inclusive language, adding pronouns and preferred names to patient files, increasing knowledge about Two-Spirit health and advocating for Two-Spirit Peoples. The results suggest that dismantling current structures and ideologies in community pharmacy and society are required to overcome the identified issues. Two-Spirit Peoples face barriers when it comes to accessing and receiving care in community pharmacies, resulting in many Two-Spirit individuals avoiding health care to save themselves from unsafe and uncomfortable interactions. Pre- and postlicensure pharmacy education about Two-Spirit Peoples is required to improve Two-Spirit Peoples' experiences accessing and receiving care in community pharmacies.

Access to land and nature as health determinants: a qualitative analysis exploring meaningful human-nature relationships among Indigenous youth in central Canada

BackgroundHuman relationships with and connections to nature and the “land” are a commonly accepted Social Determinant of Health. Greater knowledge about these relationships can inform public health policies and interventions focused on health equity among Indigenous populations. Two research questions were explored: (1) what are the experiences of meaningful human-nature relationships among Indigenous youth within central Canada; and (2) how do these relationships function as a determinant of health and wellness within their lives.MethodsDrawing from three community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects within two urban centers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the integrated qualitative findings presented here involved 92 interviews with 52 Indigenous youth that occurred over a period of nine years (2014–2023). Informed by “two-eyed seeing,” this analysis combined Indigenous Methodologies and a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach.ResultsOur integrative analysis revealed three cross-cutting themes about meaningful human-nature relationships: (1) promoting cultural belonging and positive identity; (2) connecting to community and family; and (3) supporting spiritual health and relationships. The experiences of young people also emphasized barriers to land and nature access within their local environments.DiscussionPolicies, practices, and interventions aimed at strengthening urban Indigenous young peoples’ relationships to and connections with nature and the land can have a positive impact on their health and wellness. Public Health systems and healthcare providers can learn about leveraging the health benefits of human-nature relationships at individual and community levels, and this is particularly vital for those working to advance health equity among Indigenous populations.

“Indigenous in Me: Nemachtili in Freirean and Critical Indigenous Methodologies”

I raise the questions: How does nemachtili encompass a Freirean and critical Indigenous methodology to address learning spaces? How is nemachtili articulated in an online learning space? This study engages nemachtili through a critical case study of an online course for Chicano youth as a research approach responsive to the racialized settings that Chicanos inhabit.

Indigenous Peoples’ rights and tourism: thinking about colonisation

Advancement of Indigenous rights through tourism requires practitioners and researchers to think carefully about the roles and responsibilities of Indigenous methodologies and decolonising work. In adopting a stance of refusing colonisation, reflections on tebrakunna country are aimed at introducing ways for Indigenous scholars to accommodate both cultural protocol and western scholarship requirements without compromise.

Finding “the center point”: decolonial and indigenous methodologies in education historical research

PurposeThis paper centers a decolonial and Indigenous methodological approaches to educational history research. This research offers how Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith impacts one education historian’s scholarship alongside conversations of historiography concerning the Lumbee people and how their education history becomes contextual and reclaimed through decolonial and Indigenous methodological approaches.Design/methodology/approachLeaning on epistemological questioning and historical research with decolonial and Indigenous methodologies to provide a needed approach to historical education analysis.FindingsThis research demonstrates how history and epistemology work together to decolonize educational histories by understanding the impacts of settler colonization and recenters histories with Indigenous (Lumbee) voices.Originality/valueThis approach to qualitative historical research provides space for Indigenous epistemology and decolonial and Indigenous methodological approaches to education history that critically examines history told from a European/Western epistemological lens as a way forward to center Indigenous communities.

Understanding Indigenous peoples experiences to inform recommendations for improving cultural safety and care in radiation therapy centres in Alberta, Canada

IntroductionRates of common cancers are continuously increasing among Indigenous peoples and are above the incidence rates of non-Indigenous Canadians. When considering the intersecting social determinants of health such as culture, geography, funding, and access to basic health services, these all contribute to the unique cancer burden faced by Indigenous people. Indigenous patients sometimes feel alienated by the word “cancer”, intimidated in the oncology setting and often avoid or delay seeking care, bypass screening and preventative care, and cease prescribed treatment before it is finished. Providing culturally competent, safe care to improve Indigenous health outcomes have been suggested and prioritized in health care systems across Canada. MethodsUsing an Indigenous methodology, sharing circles were held in Northern Alberta, Canada. Five Indigenous survivors of cancer and two Indigenous caregivers shared their experiences with oncology treatment in the radiation therapy centre. Results were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis was conducted. ResultsThis resulted in four main themes (1) historical and cultural understandings (2) reduce systemic harm by having dedicated Indigenous staff, cultural competency, and Indigenous specific supports (3) meaningful time commitment and relationship building (4) importance of kinship and Indigenous-centred, family-and-patient-centred care. These themes fed into the development of nine recommendations for policy and decision makers to improve cultural safety in the Alberta radiation therapy centres. ConclusionSupport for Indigenous patients and caregivers is essential to improve care in the radiation therapy centres. The findings from this work will support recommendations for health decision and policy makers within radiation therapy centres, which may be transferable to other centres within oncology and health.

‘We are the roots!’ Decolonial practices of local tourism

The roots of ancestral legacy persist entangled with the currents of modern globalisation. While the global tourism market promotes corporate ventures and international travel, rural and Indigenous communities confront the challenge of adapting amidst hegemonic influences. In coastal communities of Ecuador, the juxtaposition of pre-colonial belonging and contemporary tourism development exemplifies this tension. Drawing on decolonial perspectives, this paper investigates how rural Indigenous communities on the Pacific coast of Ecuador have navigated their tourism ventures, negotiating notions of private property, access to credit, and business administration formalities, while upholding traditional Indigenous values and collective land property needs—what we term decolonial practices of local tourism. Moreover, the emergence of proximity tourism offers a promising avenue for advancing decolonial practices within the global tourism market, prioritising geographical and cultural closeness over conventional distance-focused approaches. Employing a collaborative approach, the research integrates Indigenous methodologies with conventional research methods, bridging diverse backgrounds within the research team, including academia, consultancy, and Indigenous leadership. The analysis underscores the pivotal role of collective land ownership in preserving cultural identity and fostering resistance to capitalist encroachments. The study concludes with a call to amplify Indigenous voices, cultivate solidarity, and advocate for more inclusive and equitable approaches to tourism development. This imperative stems from the need to decolonise and promote culturally sensitive local tourism practices, urging a reconfiguration of the tourism industry towards a more equitable and respectful engagement with Indigenous communities.

An Indigenous-informed scoping review study methodology: advancing the science of scoping reviews

BackgroundHistorically, Indigenous voices have been silent in health research, reflective of colonial academic institutions that privilege Western ways of knowing. However, Indigenous methodologies and methods with an emphasis on the active involvement of Indigenous peoples and centering Indigenous voices are gaining traction in health education and research. In this paper, we map each phase of our scoping review process and weave Indigenous research methodologies into Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) framework for conducting scoping reviews.MethodsGuided by an advisory circle consisting of Indigenous Knowledge Keepers and allied scholars, we utilized both Indigenous and Western methods to conduct a scoping review. As such, a circle of Knowledge Keepers provided guidance and informed our work, while our methods of searching and scoping the literature remained consistent with PRISMA-ScR guidelines. In keeping with an Indigenous methodology, the scoping review protocol was not registered allowing for an organic development of the research process.ResultsWe built upon Arksey and O’Malley’s 5-stages and added an additional 3 steps for a combined 8-stage model to guide our research: (1) Exploration and Listening, (2) Doing the Groundwork, (3) Identifying and Refining the Research Question, (4) Identifying Relevant Studies, (5) Study Selection, (6) Mapping Data, (7) Collating, Summarizing and Synthesizing the Data, and lastly, (8) Sharing and Making Meaning. Engagement and listening, corresponding to Arksey and O’Malley (2005)’s optional “consultation stage,” was embedded throughout, but with greater intensity in stages 1 and 8.ConclusionAn Indigenous approach to conducting a scoping review includes forming a team with a wide array of experience in both Indigenous and Western methodologies, meaningful Indigenous representation, and inclusion of Indigenous perspectives to shape the analysis and presentation of findings. Engaging Indigenous peoples throughout the entire research process, listening, and including Indigenous voices and perspectives is vital in reconciliation research, producing both credible and useable information for both Indigenous communities and academia. Our Indigenous methodology for conducting a scoping review can serve as a valuable framework for summarizing Indigenous health-related research.

Sustainable tourism development and Indigenous protected and conserved areas in sub-arctic Canada

Rural and northern Indigenous communities across Canada are pursuing new Indigenous-led conservation partnerships with Crown governments as critical alternatives to Western conservation and extractive industries regimes. Colonial conservation policies and industrial development continue to displace Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral territories, with great consequences to land-based economies, food security, and knowledges. Indigenous-led conservation is an umbrella term used to describe a variety of initiatives that includes Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas. Indigenous communities lead the creation, management, and stewardship of these protected areas, which are guided by localized knowledge and priorities. This creates unique opportunities to build new and bolster existing tourism businesses with sustainable socio-economic, cultural, and environmental outcomes. Our research examines Indigenous-led conservation and tourism in the Dene/Métis community of Fort Providence, Northwest Territories, located adjacent to Canada's first official Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area, Edéhzhíe. Guided by Indigenous methodologies and collaborative approaches, this paper presents the analysis of 23 semi-structured interviews with Elders, knowledgeable land users, and community members. While tourism development in the community is currently limited, our results indicate that participants are hopeful about the contributions of Edéhzhíe and tourism to sustainable economies, cultural resurgence, and environmental stewardship in the surrounding communities. Participants demonstrate that Indigenous-led conservation and tourism have the potential to challenge existing colonial, capitalist land use regimes and foster Indigenous governance, reconciliatory processes, and environmental resiliency. Our findings can be used by other Indigenous communities to inform conservation and sustainable development goals related to regional tourism economies.

Intersectoral collaboration for supporting the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal families and children in out-of-home care: perspectives from Western Australian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations.

Western Australia has one of the highest rates of Aboriginal children entering out-of-home care in Australia. Kinship care is the preferred culturally safe out-of-home care option for Aboriginal children, yet all jurisdictions, including Western Australia, are far from meeting best-practice national standards. Intersectoral collaboration is a key primary healthcare principle and internationally recognized for improving health systems and outcomes. This paper presents findings from a qualitative research project investigating Aboriginal primary healthcare workers' experiences of intersectoral collaboration challenges and strengthening opportunities. Constructivist grounded theory guided this research involving 55 semi-structured interviews and four focus group discussions with Aboriginal primary healthcare workers. The research was guided by Indigenous methodologies and led by Indigenous researchers Participants were recruited from seven Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations located across Perth metro, Pilbara, Midwest/Gascoyne and Southwest regions in Western Australia. Key themes identified around intersectoral collaboration challenges were communication, including information sharing and interagency meetings, and the relationship with the government sector, including trust and the importance of the perception of Aboriginal health service independence. Key themes around strengthening areas to improve intersectoral collaboration included strengthening service resourcing and coverage, including the availability of services, and addressing high program turnover. The need for a shift in approach, including more emphasis on Aboriginal-led care and aligning approaches between sectors, was another area for strengthening. This study addresses a significant research gap concerning out-of-home care, kinship care, and intersectoral collaboration in an Australian Aboriginal context. Findings highlighted the need to review the out-of-home and kinship models of care to strengthen the system, including creating more formal and structured modes of collaborating and better resourcing family support and kinship care.

Enhancing equitable inclusion for the Pasifika diaspora in mainstream Australia, using Pasifika methodologies within higher education and community settings

PurposeThis paper identifies the value of Indigenous processes in developing a reciprocal working relationship between a Pasifika grass roots community organisation, Pasifika Church and an Australian university. The focus is on the capacity of Indigenous methodologies to authentically attain equity, diversity and inclusion, during the development of stakeholder partnerships, particularly when there are power and resource imbalances between parties.Design/methodology/approach This paper is about the process of how Pasifika methodologies, namely talanoa, e-talanoa and teu le va, were used to create positive reciprocal relationships in a culturally grounded manner. The outcome was an agreement of the three stakeholders, the Pasifika Church, the Pasifika organisation and a tertiary institute to work together on a community educational and training project.Findings The agreement by all parties to adopt Indigenous methodologies from inception enabled the process to be community-led in a culturally safe manner. Critically, these cultural processes established a foundation of trust, expanding possibilities for shared work and projects. For migrant communities, the advocacy and employment of cultural methodologies can empower them through negotiations to maintain their sovereignty over their Indigenous knowledge and priorities. Similarly, it is important for universities and mainstream organisations not only to acknowledge power imbalances and to support community-led priorities but also to cede power around processes of negotiation and discussion.Research limitations/implications This is an experience of four organisations working together. It is uncertain whether the same outcome could be attained with other organisations, personalities and cultural groups.Practical implications The same principles may be harnessed for other migrant communities, allowing for their cultural practices to inform the ways in which stakeholders work together as opposed to the often-dominant euro-centric practices of the West. It is a deliberate effort that privileges Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing.Social implications Migrant communities that perhaps may be subject to the more Western dominant environment are empowered to use their cultural frameworks to create an equal ground with government, tertiary and not-for-profit stakeholders.Originality/value This article is one of the first in Australia to document how talanoa, e-talanoa and teu le va were used to develop a working partnership in a culturally grounded manner to uphold the sovereignty of grassroots Indigenous organisations. This strengthens relationships between migrant communities and mainstream organisations. It outlines Pasifika protocols and successful use of equitable decision-making, led by a grassroots community organisation, a Pasifika Church, whilst liaising with a multi-campus university.

Causaita Puruntuna (“Let's Plan Life Together”): Planes de Vida / Life Plans and the Political Horizon of Indigenous Planning in the Ecuadorian Amazon

AbstractPlanes de Vida (Life Plans) are an initiative in Latin America connecting Indigenous self‐governance with a state vision of a good life for citizens. While Life Plans have been proposed since the mid‐1980s, these are often crafted with the vision and language of states in place of Indigenous ones. Informed by Indigenous Standpoint Theory and Napo Runa living ecologies, we use autoethnography, participant observation, and secondary text analysis to re‐orient the relationship between state and Indigenous planning, and to ask what Amazonian futures would be possible if they started from Indigenous (rather than state) planning. To explore this re‐orientation, we examine the case of the Kichwa organisation FOIN, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We argue that Life Plans can be indigenised with Kichwa planning philosophies and model ways to centre Indigenous methodologies that can shape the transformational potential of such planning initiatives.

Delta voices of climate crisis: Community Digital Storytelling in Bangladesh and Vietnam

This article explores the audiovisual research method Community Digital Storytelling (CDST) as developed for a project documenting Indigenous delta voices in Bangladesh and Vietnam. Centred on the co-production and collection of community stories, this interdisciplinary method incorporates smartphone filmmaking, environmental storytelling, community-based participatory research, and Indigenous methodologies. Addressing community participation, power dynamics and fieldwork challenges, CDST is presented as an adaptable method capable of capturing eco-imaginaries, fostering dialogue on socioecological challenges, and amplifying the voices of marginalised communities. The article contributes a valuable guide to participatory media production with communities in various contexts, offering insights for scholars and practitioners seeking inclusive, respectful, and impactful research practices.

Walking through our differences

In this commentary, I respond to Shawn Bodden’s (2023) work ‘Working Through Our Differences’, which discusses the limits of ontology in critical geographical theories. I build upon Bodden's invitation to bring attention to ordinary voices and acts to understand how people place themselves instead of pointing people to their proper place. I echo the proposal and at the same time, suggest that we might want to even follow how people walk with places rather than to places with respect to Indigenous methodologies and critical geographies. To extend the discussion, I suggest a deeper engagement with the potential of walking as an embodied form of working and to see walking in its plural forms. I also found Bodden's critical writing, in line with Clive Barnett and others, offering an opportunity for us to review some of the classical writings on/against cities. Last but not the least, a reconsideration of ‘invitation and hospitality as situated political acts and embodied ethics could prevent us from enclosing politics with particular ontological experimentation’. I conclude by suggesting that not only do we want to work through our differences, as Bodden suggests, but also we wish to walk through our differences.

Development of the Indigenous Health Toolkit

Indigenous patients frequently experience bias and racism in society and within medical encounters. Biased health care relates to delayed and worsened health care, as well as worse health outcomes. Evidence exists that training can reduce bias and improve care. However, no recommendations or requirements around Indigenous health education exist. Therefore, a team of 7 experts was formed to create a training guide called the Indigenous Health Toolkit to train healthcare providers to provide more effective care to Indigenous patients. Indigenous methodologies were applied to this endeavor to create recommendations and training which included engagement with Indigenous elders, community, youth, and businesses. A 7-module toolkit was created over one year to train healthcare providers to provide culturally congruent and bias-free care to Indigenous patients in hopes of reducing the gap in health disparities that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.