Indigenous Scholar Research Articles

Indigenous Feminism in Environmental Sustainability: Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks on A Road (1942)

Abstract In this essay, I explore and analyze Zora Neale Hurston’s autoethnography The Dust Tracks on a Road (1942) as an alternative to the modern anthropological simplification of nature and the African American indigenous identity. Hurston’s indigenous feminist subjectivity is focused on environmental sustainability and her resistance to anthropocentrism and racialized labor. Hurston’s subjectivity as an indigenous feminist scholar can be articulated as minoritarian in the critical posthumanities since it is not about margin; rather, it revolutionizes anthropological discourse by re-signifying the African American lumberer identity and environmental sustainability in a robust, appealing, and unique manner. She reconceptualizes Black indigenous lumberers by articulating their historical and cultural relationality with the forests owned by forest industries in Polk County, Florida.

The impact of decolonizing methodologies: reflections of Indigenous researchers

PurposeTo share the narratives of six Indigenous Researchers representing the diverse thinking of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The narratives describe the impact Decolonizing Methodologies have on our lives within the framework of Tuhiwai Smith’s Indigenous Research Agenda.Design/methodology/approachLinda Tuhwai Smith’s Indigenous Research Agenda framework is used to explore through narrative, the impact Decolonizing Methodologies had on the authors’ professional awakening as Indigenous Researchers. Each author reflects on their first encounter with Decolonizing Methodologies and describes through their narratives how the book influenced and guided their research and community work.FindingsPositionality as a Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander is imperative to being an Indigenous Scholar. Understanding who one is requires critical reflection and is a part of developing an Indigenous Research Agenda. The challenges each Indigenous scholar’s narrative explores is navigating a Western system while staying true to our values and identity as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. At the core is our ability to work in partnership with the community to bring forth sustainable change.Originality/valueThis paper explores the impact Decolonizing Methodologies had on the authors thinking and research approaches. The narratives the authors share is from the positionality of being Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

Nicole Redvers: Indigenous health scholar

Nicole Redvers: Indigenous health scholar

Kei Kōnei Aronui – the Collective Experiences of MAI Ki Aronui, a Māori and Indigenous Doctoral Scholar Support network.

Kei kōnei Aronui (Aronui is here) is the title of a waiata (song), composed by Jani Wilson (former coordinator of MAI ki Aronui), and is sung when welcoming newcomers into our space – declaring our presence and identity. This collective article presents the narratives of nine scholars affiliated with MAI ki Aronui, a Māori and Indigenous doctoral support network – hosted at Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland University of Technology) in Auckland, Aotearoa (New Zealand). Authors were invited to contribute short narratives or illustrative pieces describing their experience of MAI ki Aronui and their PhD or research journey. These contributions likely represent similar sentiments shared by fellow Māori and Indigenous PhDs. They include a range of creative and conventional vignettes illustrating the experience of being an Indigenous scholar in a western academic institution. The educational pathway for Māori and Pasifika, in Aotearoa has several compounding pressures, resulting in these scholars being amongst a small minority in Aotearoa’s universities. This collaborative article attempts to present the collective experiences of Māori and Indigenous scholars from elsewhere who found a place of belonging and acceptance, beyond the margins of academia and centred within an Indigenous worldview.

Beyond the Capitalist, Colonial, Carceral and White Supremacist University: Radical Abolitionist Imaginings and Activism

This article takes up the idea of collective organizing as a way to create learning and teaching spaces as liberatory. It engages the radical abolitionist work of Ruth Wilson Gilmore that insists we organize collectively as scholars and teachers in the university, to imagine that which engenders freedom. This paper also engages the writings of Black Studies Scholar Rinaldo Walcott and Indigenous Scholar Sandy Grande to reveal how the university with its compensatory individualism and politics of recognition work to maintain anti-blackness and white settler colonial practices. It ends with some examples of refusal and abolitionist practices aimed at creating and imagining spaces of learning and living.

Placental Social Ethics: Designing for Epistemologies of Resistance

Placental Social Ethics: Designing for Epistemologies of Resistance

In Defense of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn: Readings in Courage and Love

Abstract: In this narrative, I share the lifeline that Cook-Lynn's writings offered to me as I navigated the academy. Crucial lessons from Cook-Lynn include reflections on what it means to be an Indigenous feminist scholar in the twenty-first century and how we reaffirm our responsibilities to our respective Indigenous nations and communities.

More Than Personal Communication

In this project report, I introduce the citation templates for Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers that I created in partnership with the staff of the NorQuest Indigenous Student Centre. These citation templates have been adopted/linked to by twenty-five institutions across Canada and the United States. They represent an attempt to formalize something that Indigenous scholars have been doing for decades: fighting to find a better way to acknowledge our voices and knowledges within academia. I outline how the project was developed, highlighting the importance of stable, respectful relationships, before delving into some of the literature and personal experiences that provided the reasoning for why more culturally responsive citation is needed. Part of the background is acknowledging my own experiences as an Indigenous scholar, but I also draw on literature from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars to illustrate the interdisciplinary need for these templates. I provide in-depth explanations of each element in the new citation templates to explain the reasoning behind and/or importance of each element. For example, I outline why including the individual’s nation/community is important for breaking down the pan-Indigenous stereotype and helping scholars to recognize the variation of knowledge across the hundreds of unique Indigenous communities. While the main focus of this paper will be these specific citation templates, I hope that it will also empower, inspire, and provide a case study of how academia can make small changes to improve the respectful recognition of Indigenous knowledges and voices. Given the recent focus in educational institutions on being more inclusive of Indigenous ways of knowing, I think it is only right that we also look at reconsidering how we treat things like Indigenous oral knowledge in academia and whether there are systems in place that implicitly prioritize written knowledge over oral knowledge in a form of ongoing colonialism.

Talanoa vā: indigenous masculinities and the intersections of indigeneity, race, and gender within higher education

ABSTRACT Indigenous scholars constantly contend with deficit tendencies associated with the value and place of their cultural knowledge and practices within higher education. When gender is imbued through a racialised view of indigeneity or the indigenous scholar, the proposition of ‘other’ and ‘othering’ becomes a struggle of power relations which necessarily shapes the critical encounters in higher education spaces. This article utilises ‘talanoa vā’, a Pacific indigenous critical analytical framework for understanding how academics comprehend indigenous masculinities through negotiating and interrogating the intersections of indigeneity, race, and gender. Captured through talanoa, we story our lived experiences as Pacific and indigenous scholars within New Zealand universities. We argue that, although ‘indigenous or indigeneity’ discourses have inspired and empowered minority scholars, utilising Pacific concepts enables a closer interrogation and negotiation of indigenous masculinities centred on spirituality and good relations, which is often overlooked when considering race, gender, colourism, and power within university settings.

Irihapeti Ramsden: The Public Narrative on Cultural Safety

The magnificent voices of Indigenous women who want to restore, preserve and extend the beauty of Indigenous culture must be relocated and honoured as the last best hope of escaping the tragic impacts of colonization. This paper started as an exploration of New Zealand Indigenous scholar Irihapeti Ramsden’s extraordinary efforts to imbed Cultural Safety as a foundation for nursing training and unity of purpose for all community helpers to alter the trajectory of colonization and its tragic impacts on Indigenous peoples. It morphed into a celebration of the powerful ‘reflective topical auto-biographies’ or meta-narratives of adaptability and resilience all Indigenous people need to share as we recover and heal from intergenerational traumas inflicted in the name of civilization and racial supremacy. Transformative change starts with self discovery as Irihapeti Ramsden taught her student nurses. Women and children are the most poignant victims of that foolish colonial project and their survival stories can lead all humanity back to respectful and loving sustainability. Indigenous women’s resilience stories need a special space in academic literature. Their enduring women-spirit has always guided this First Nations to be better first as an Indigenous man and more importantly as a human being. Irihapeti Ramsden’s journey to put Cultural Safety out there in mainstream academia began with a powerful reflective inner healing journey. Her life and work was a remarkable gift to all. The title of this paper derives from Section Three of her PhD thesis. It must be shared throughout all the worlds’ spaces in need of decolonization. Her ultimately political meta-narrative to alter ignorance and arrogance within education, government and society is one all Indigenous writers and scholars must study and articulate across often culturally unsafe places and spaces within Canada’s colleges and universities.

Indigenous Self-Discovery: “Being Called to Witness”

This paper presents a reflective topical narrative in a style this author described in researching Irihapeti Ramsden (2003), an Ngai Tahupotiki (Maori) nursing instructor of Aotearoa (New Zealand). It is a reflection on the nature of Indigenous scholar’s inquiry, or what Irihapeti Ramsden recognized as an often melancholic journey of self-discovery. It is an attempt to understand how, where, and why colonization has reduced us to dependent remnants of the self-reliant and independent peoples our stories remember. We are collectively creating an alternative voice to colonial lies/myths and calling for the restoration of the human dignity stolen along with lands, resources and human rights. Irihapeti Ramsden (2003) used her own melancholic journey of self-discovery to re-ignite trust and reciprocity between people, and to bring the idea of Cultural Safety to colonial New Zealand, thereby establishing a splendid map for future generations of all spaces in need of decolonization. She was met with considerable resistance in her homeland as she raised awareness of the truth about abuses of power by colonial institutions and bureaucracies. By similarly nagging in often difficult processes of self-discovery Indigenous scholars everywhere are helping to unravel a global inheritance of colonial practice. Reconciliation will only be possible when citizens honour Indigenous people’s resistance, resentment and rebellion to European myths of conquest. Indigenous scholars are Being Called to Witness seven generations and to preserve the beauty and strength our ancestors wanted to protect. Our ancestors scarified a great deal, and we must wipe our tears, open our eyes, listen deeply, clear our throats, and raise our strong voices to bear witness to our ancestors’ prayers.

Decolonizing Nutrition Science

ABSTRACT Colonization and decolonization are common concepts within the discourse of Indigenous scholars and show significance within the recently emerging Native Nutrition conferences. Yet these words and the meanings they convey rarely appear within scholarly literature of nutrition professionals. To what extent are the concepts of colonization and decolonization relevant to the scope of nutrition education, practice, and research? If they are relevant, why are they not more common within professional discourse? Here we briefly describe these concepts and address these questions. We report findings from a study designed to examine barriers to Indigenous scholar participation within nutrition professions. Our results suggest that greater awareness and more fully understanding the dynamics of colonization hold potential to improve nutrition research, education, and practice. Not only is colonization woven into the tapestry of North American history, but our results support assertions of Indigenous scholars that its deeply embedded patterns still echo through our food, education, and health professions and systems. We identify several barriers and colonizing patterns and 2 interrelated lines of decolonizing work, and present a cross-cultural engagement protocol for pursuing decolonizing work. Exploring the complexities and nuances of these ideas more thoroughly is both a developmental process and a collective responsibility that we see as deserving more attention within food and nutrition disciplines. If implemented, we suggest that decolonizing practice holds potential for advancing nutrition science while also creating a more welcoming environment for future Indigenous scholars.

Indigenous Women and Indigenous Scholar Community Building

Indigenous Women and Indigenous Scholar Community Building

História, historiografia e historiadores mapuche: colonialismo e anticolonialismo em Wallmapu

This paper tries to analytically chart the production of indigenous scholars in the Latin American academic panorama through a critical discussion of the research conducted by Mapuche historians in the 21st century. In a first section, we dwell on the category of indigenous scholar, the dimensions of indigenous emergence over the last 30 years and its impacts, tensions and debates in the context of Latin American history research. Subsequently, we analyse the main works produced by Mapuche historians who gravitate around the so-called Comunidad de Historia Mapuche (CHM), debating their main theoretical-methodological frame of reference, their epistemological proposals and the themes approached. By widely quoting texts by Mapuche historians, we hope to contribute to the dissemination and discussion about this current of Latin American indigenous history that emerges from the “periphery of the periphery” and is still fairly little known in Brazil.Keywords: indigenous history, Latin American historic research, Mapuche historians.

Living Our Research Through Indigenous Scholar Sisterhood Practices

In this article, we explore the concept of Indigenous scholar sisterhood practices and its powerful role in affirming Indigenous women to survive and thrive in the act of research and the larger academic landscape. We address how we, as Indigenous women scholars, extend beyond transactional validity practices in qualitative research and engage in a collective form of validity that is holistic and grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing. We explore what it means to live our research and reclaim academic spaces among a collective sisterhood, as we grapple with questions of what valid and rigorous research looks like from an Indigenous perspective. Recognizing that attempts to decolonize methodological spaces can be complex and tempered with struggles, we provide personal accounts of Indigenous scholar sisterhood practices of love, prayer, vulnerability, and resistance and protection used to maneuver through this space together. As Indigenous women scholars, we conclude by reimagining the value of collective work as a means to not only survive academia but lift up our communities.

Making Indigenous Culture the Foundation of Indigenous Governance Today: The Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative of Nova Scotia, Canada

Making Indigenous Culture the Foundation of Indigenous Governance Today: The Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative of Nova Scotia, Canada Maura Hanrahan (bio) We need to rebel against what they want us to become, start remembering the qualities of our ancestors and act on those remembrances. This is the kind of spiritual revolution that will ensure our survival. —GERALD TAIAIAKE ALFRED, WASÁSE: INDIGENOUS PATHWAYS OF ACTION AND FREEDOM Indigenousness in the Colonial Past and Present Fully aware of their disadvantaged political position, Indigenous leaders continue to engage in Canadian political processes. As Indigenous scholar Dale Turner notes, Canada is one of the world’s constitutional democracies that has, through its legal and political relationships, created political spaces, such as land claims policy, that facilitate the rights of Indigenous peoples.1 But these spaces are limited and, from an Indigenous perspective, inadequate and hugely flawed. The consent of the state is required for virtually any significant political change for Indigenous people, which indicates the ongoing lopsided power relationship between Canadian Indigenous people and the state. These processes are rooted in European and North American settler notions of Indigenous people, communities, and nations and are part of the ongoing colonial project. It is clear that the Mi’kmaq Chiefs of Nova Scotia recognize the necessity of working within the parameters set by colonial superstructures. But they also see the value in trying to strive for forms of sovereignty outside these parameters and in accordance with Mi’kmaq culture. The result of this is the tripartite Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative (MRI), aimed at just treaty implementation and governance and shared social and economic development in Nova Scotia. The MRI is unique in Canada and is not part of any existing Canadian political processes. Calls to reclaim the values that once made Indigenous governance effective are part of an ongoing pattern in which Indigenous ways of seeing, being, and living are seen and utilized as resistance strategies. As Creek/Cherokee scholar Craig [End Page 75] Womack explains, Indigenous cultures, as understood through oral tradition, are inherently political and are marked by flexibility and adaptability. Indigenous cultures allow Indigenous leaders to attempt to “reopen discussion of full national status rather than working within the current limiting legal definitions as if they are set in stone.”2 This is just what the MRI tries to do. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Map of Nova Scotia, Canada. Indigenous governance structures as they exist today are the outcomes of an ongoing colonial process that began with European incursion into North America some four to five centuries ago in the case of the Mi’kmaq. The erosion of Indigenous governance and all that has happened in concert with it has deeply affected Indigenous people in what is now Canada. Indigenous people remain marginalized by political processes and structures in Canada and even from the national political conversation and public discourse. As the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) asserts, “The current relationship between First Nations and Parliament has been characterized by a long history of interference and mistrust, [an] outdated legislative framework inhibiting progress and growth . . . and education used as a tool of oppression.”3 Colonial policy destroyed Indigenous governments as well as governance practices with a combination of stealth and blunt instruments of political [End Page 76] oppression. In 1927, for instance, the Indian Act, which governs every aspect of the lives of status Indians, forbade First Nations people to form political organizations. Latterly, First Nations leaders were excluded from constitutional talks in Canada until the First Ministers Conference on Aboriginal Rights from 1983 to 1987. Referencing the desperate economic and social conditions of many First Nations reserves, especially in the North, the AFN refers to Canada’s system of “apartheid.”4 For these reasons, members of Namgis First Nation, British Columbia, performed a once-outlawed copper-cutting shaming ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in July 28, 2014.5 In this context come calls to return to the Indigenous values which long shaped and underpinned Indigenous governance. These calls are often heard in Indigenous community meetings, for instance, and they also come from such Indigenous scholars as Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Angela R. Riley, Robert Porter...

Editorial

The higher education sector is experiencing a sustained push toward Indigenising agendas in both institutional and disciplinary contexts. Indigenous scholars make a tremendous contribution personally, culturally and intellectually to support this work, particularly in the educative role that Indigenous staff are inevitably required to undertake with our students, colleagues, faculties and institutions. In each of these contexts, the Indigenous scholar is “the subject of inquiry and mode of instruction” (Hart 2003), which poses an array of challenges that often go unnamed and unnoticed, but remain part of the routine challenges facing Indigenous scholars. While we welcome the impetus for including Indigenous knowledges and perspectives in curricula and institutional efforts to enhance Indigenous cultural competencies, we remain critically cognisant of the burden placed on the Indigenous scholar (or Indigenous unit/school) and the challenges that they encounter in facilitating culturally safe, transformative learning opportunities in environments of resistance, resentment and racism.

Critical Indigenous Legal Theory Part 1: The Dialogue Within

In this article, I have attempted to outline the ways and means in which I entered my training and understanding as an Indigenous legal scholar. This took me to a Canadian law school, an American law school, and finally to an Indigenous community that took responsibility for educating me in Indigenous lands, laws, and legal orders. The struggles I have detailed here and the stories I have provided serve a few purposes. The first is one that I hope assists Indigenous students attending law school. The purpose in writing this article is to let you know that you do not have to lose the incredibly challenging and beautiful stuff put in us by birth. We come from critical Indigenous legal traditions that allow us to critique, question, and build something better. Canadian law can make our processes of learning this and our substantive knowledge feel like marginalized information. That gut feeling you have that tells you something is not fair is very likely precisely right. Pay attention to it, hone it, and listen to it. It is a part of your critical consciousness, and it is going to make you a very good thinker and potentially an excellent lawyer. The second purpose for, and rationale behind, publishing this article is to provide an understanding for non-Indigenous students about the existence of, and need to ask about, Indigenous laws and legal orders in your legal studies. We are all being short-changed if we do not investigate, inquire, and require discussion. This article also serves as a reminder for faculty and staff at law schools that there is an obligation to address with seriousness and studiousness the reality of Indigenous laws and legal orders in Canada as a multi-juridical entity. Many of our students know this and are living this—we need to catch up with, be informed about, and be respectful of them. The final reason I wrote this piece is to introduce the notion of the praxis of critical Indigenous legal theory. Having taught the course content to a generation of law students and now having had feedback from some of the practitioners, I think that understanding Indigenous law as a praxis/practice, and not just a theory, requires more of us as educators, students, and practitioners.

Indigenous knowledge, indigenous scholars, and narrating scientific selves: “to produce a human being”

I have been invited to write some brief comments on this paper by Robert Bechtel and I want to reflect on some of the important possibilitiesand realitiesof collaboration and collision between science and Indigenous knowledge systems. I think this is a work that is hopeful for a cross-cultural dialogue between scientists and traditional knowledge holders. As an Indigenous scholar, there are many times that I am hopeful also. Gregory Cajete is one of the main minds in Indigenous science. Greg is hopeful in the same ways that I am. In this piece I will tell a short story about his work and how I saw both impasses and openings from his ways of speaking to scientists and educators. Moreover, I was privileged to have A. Oscar Kawagley as my colleague as well. I believe Oscar, if not now, a few decades from now, will be recognized as one of the greatest Indigenous intellectuals of our era. Oscar and I were Ph.D. students together and after graduation, we would meet over the years at conferences. We were also part of an international group of Indigenous scholars and allies that met more than once to develop a National Science Foundation grant proposal mobilizing research related to Indigenous knowledge and learning systems. Many of the things I learned from Oscar have guided my thoughts on both science and education as I have used these ideas to advise graduate students and engage with my non-Indigenous colleagues at universities around the world. I conclude this short essay with one thing I learned from Oscar. I think that bringing the role of Indigenous scholars and Indigenous scholarship into sharp relief is the best way for me to relate to this paper. Particularly, the work of Greg and Oscar—referenced in the paper—gives us a way to see the challenges and possibilities of the emerging and evolving discourses on Indigenous science; and science education.

Walan Girri: developing a culturally mediated case management model for problematic alcohol use among urban Indigenous people.

To describe the design and implementation of a culturally mediated case management model at Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service (Winnunga) for Indigenous clients who consume alcohol at problematic levels. Our research took place from March 2008 to March 2010 in the Australian Capital Territory and built on previous research partnerships between Winnunga and The Australian National University's National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. We conducted a review of existing models to determine elements for consideration in the community controlled setting, and conducted staff surveys to assess current levels of skill and confidence around alcohol screening, brief intervention and care planning. Using the information from the review and staff surveys, we then undertook staff capacity building to build confidence and skills in conducting alcohol screening, brief intervention and care planning. This process was driven by Winnunga's social health team. To meet Medicare benefits schedule requirements, and frame the study within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Chronic Disease Package framework, we included team care arrangements, care planning and health checks. Elements of case management were suggested by staff and incorporated into the final model. Forty staff in the health service participated in identifying training needs for the development of the case management model and undertook a range of training before the model was implemented. Staff working within the social health team decided that the focus of the case management was to build a stronger future for their clients, hence the name of the case management model 'Walan Girri' (Wiradjuri language for strong future). The model included a package of screening instruments and brief intervention, related polices and discussion of 'mob' and 'country.' Changes in Winnunga management and staff, the composition of the research team and the way Walan Girri evolved led to protracted development and implementation. This project highlights considerations for implementing a case management model in a dynamic health service environment. Capacity building for Winnunga staff and for an Indigenous PhD scholar were part of the process and were integral in maintaining momentum in the project.