Indigenous Views Research Articles

The Piikani Well-being Project: Indigenous-led metrics and mapping to improve human and agricultural system health within the Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet Nation

As the first stewards and scientists, Indigenous Peoples have collected data on land relationships across homelands since time immemorial. Settler-colonial experiences have associated data and maps as tools of dispossession, disparity, and disempowerment. Today, however, Indigenous-led statistics and mapping efforts yield powerful tools for Nations in addressing the interconnected wellness of Indigenous biosystems, lands, and people while honoring collectively held knowledge and community protocols. This article details both quantitative and qualitative Indigenous research, with geospatial methodologies of the Amskapi Piikani (Blackfeet Nation), in the creation of the Amskapi Piikani Nation’s first well-being index. The Piikani Well-being Index (PWI), generated by this project, is grounded in cultural values and informed by traditional and current knowledge(s) defining 80 variables. The PWI encompasses areas of human health, agriculture and food sovereignty, cultural systems, social and educational lifeways, environmental stewardship, institutions and governance, economics, and land tenure to include traditional land use and Native land revitalization after centuries of systematic oppression, assimilation policies, structural inequities, and trauma. This project navigates data sovereignty challenges while mobilizing data generated by the Nation’s first Indigenous land use census. Offering new insights for our Tribal leaders and organizations at nation, local, and watershed scales, the PWI represents an Indigenous system view to better build community research agendas and action. This article discusses the challenges incurred in data collection and use while identifying areas of future work determining metrics and tools to cover the environmental, social, economic, and health research needs of Indigenous communities through data sovereignty.

Wisdom Local Tegal City Communities in the Modernization Era and Strategies to Maintain It

Indigenous peoples are generally very familiar with their environment. Human nature as a culture being is understood ecologically as one of connected environments. Indigenous peoples' view that humans are an integral part of nature and act responsibly, respectfully and compassionately towards the survival of the universe. Local wisdom as traditional knowledge of nature conservation and environmental protection is regarded as highly valuable and brings many benefits to human life. Purpose of the study It is to describe the holistic and internal strategy to maintain the local wisdom of Tegal public city in the era of modernization. The methods used are qualitative literature or review literature. The Wisdom local of Tegal city exists to this day, the tradition of resident town Tegal for drinking tea, Muti tradition of Tegal city community, Upload tradition of Tegal city community, and Eid Al-Fitr is called Fitri in Tegal City parish. is traditionally used. Strategies are implemented to preserve the wisdom of field scores in an era of modernization: Instill a love of culture in society, host cultural festivals, promote culture, and create culture as an identity.

Multimodal Language Rights and Indigenous Totemic Identity: Cross-Cultural Participatory Research

ABSTRACT Indigenous language rights and identity practices are marginalised in education, bringing a need for mainstream educators to understand and respect Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and sharing knowledge. Engaging elementary students (ages 4.5 to 12 years), the cross-cultural participatory research was conducted for three years to understand Indigenous language practices that were multimodal, including digital storytelling, singing, e-book making, dance and video making. The Indigenous school community gave central place to totemic traditions in their multimodal language use. To understand Indigenous views of lifeworlds through a non-linear view of time, Bakhtin’s chronotope is used to illuminate time-space in the students’ multimodal texts. The findings are significant because failure to engage with and understand Indigenous knowledge contributes to the production and maintenance of inequity. The research counters hegemonic effects and silencing of Indigenous communities, demonstrating how Indigenous culture and multimodal literacies can be taught hand-in-hand in the 21st century.

Tlacoqualli in Monequi "The Center Good"

Tlacoqualli in Monequi "The Center Good"

The importance of community support for women in a Gulf Coast Indigenous tribe

PurposeCommunity support is an integral aspect of health and well-being for Indigenous peoples. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the valuable role of community support for Indigenous women specifically, who experience reproductive health disparities at alarming rates. This study helps fill an important gap in Indigenous scholarship by centering the resilience of women and Indigenous tribes and by using a framework that is consistent with Indigenous holistic views of health.Design/methodology/approachThe data for this paper was collected as part of a larger study exploring the reproductive health experiences of a state-recognized Gulf Coast tribe. A total of 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who identify as women and as members of this tribe using qualitative descriptive methodology. This method is recommended for research with Indigenous communities. A community advisory board with representatives from this tribe provided feedback throughout the project.FindingsThemes expressed by participants included Community Closeness and Support; Community Support in Raising Children; Informal Adoption Common; and Community Values of Mutual Aid and Self-Sufficiency. The findings support current literature noting the value of generational and communal ties for Indigenous peoples. Implications of this research include the need to value and support community networks in programs serving tribes, in addition to meaningfully including Indigenous communities in developing interventions.Originality/valueThis paper centers Indigenous women’s resilience, approaches the health and well-being of Indigenous tribes holistically and helps to fill an important gap in literature describing informal adoption (outside the legal system) in state-recognized Indigenous communities.

The mesh, the poetics of (not)being and the hauntings of identity in Kim Scott’s Benang: From the Heart

ABSTRACT This paper aims to establish how ecological thinking, or the idea of interconnectedness among all beings, from the Indigenous onto-epistemic view in Kim Scott’s Benang: From the Heart warrants a poetics of being and identity as fluid, floating, permeable, or leaking, never rigid or definitive. It builds on the idea of the mesh and the aesthetics of uncanny and how this view attunes to the Indigenous openness for kinship with, companionship of, intimacy and becoming with other beings. Such a view thus enacts Harley, the main protagonist, as regenerating his effaced Aboriginal identity through entanglements and becoming with all beings, humans and nonhumans, or Country at large, in both the latter’s material and spiritual aspects.

Towards an emic model of business culture

PurposeThis paper aims to generalize emic studies of culture and thus provide indigenous view nuanced particularly for emerging markets.Design/methodology/approachThe authors review four local business frameworks and deconstruct each into three different constructs. The authors systematically evaluate culture specific studies, particularities of jaan pehchaan (India), guanxi (China), sviazi (Russia) and wasta (Arab countries).FindingsBuilding on social networking theory, the authors synthesize an emic model for four types of large emerging markets cultures – China, Russia, India and Arab countries – and divide them according to their affective, conative and cognitive elements.Practical implicationsBy knowing the impact of the constructs and how to leverage it, managers can successfully penetrate and manage these complex markets.Originality/valueCurrent models of culture, such as the ones proposed by Hofstede and GLOBE, are etic in their orientation, attempting to find variations in common dimensions across different cultures. Emic approaches to studying culture are more bottom-up and are idiosyncratic to the culture.

Mapping Indigenous Land: Native Land Grants in Colonial New Spain by Ana Pulido Rull (review)

Reviewed by: Mapping Indigenous Land: Native Land Grants in Colonial New Spain by Ana Pulido Rull Paula López Caballero (bio) Mapping Indigenous Land: Native Land Grants in Colonial New Spain by Ana Pulido Rull University of Oklahoma Press, 2020 DURING THE FIRST CENTURY of Spanish colonization in the Americas, the most common means of obtaining plots of land—for Indigenous peoples as well as Spaniards—was to request a royal land grant (mercedes reales). The grants were documents issued by the representatives of the king in Spain's colonies: the viceroy and the Real Audiencia. In New Spain (present-day Mexico), records created to request, oppose, or negotiate these land grants included a painting or map as part of the evidence presented by parties involved. Forty-eight examples of these paintings, created between 1571 and 1617, are stored in the Mapoteca of the Archivo General de la Nation. From this corpus, Pulido Rull selected fourteen paintings for detailed analysis, which along with their legal records form the empirical basis of this book. Pulido Rull's historical investigation is complemented by infrared and ultraviolet radiation analysis of these documents, which makes it possible to document how the maps were modified, possibly during the course of legal arguments. The book also includes twenty-seven color plates and fifty-one black-and-white images. Pulido Rull argues that these maps were sites of cross-cultural communication between Indigenous peoples and Spaniards in which Indigenous views regarding disputed lands can be observed. She proposes understanding these maps as subjective interpretations of space created according to a specific intentionality. They can therefore be read as a mechanism for the participation and negotiation of Indigenous painters, as well as those they represented, in the legal processes for awarding land grants. The book comprises five chapters. After a clear, concise introduction, the first chapter provides general historical context on legal processes for obtaining lands. This pedagogical chapter is useful for nonspecialists. The second chapter, the book's longest, may be read as the flip side of the first one, as it examines the most formal aspects of the whole corpus of maps: pictorial strategies for representing space, questions related to the maps' authorship, and the graphic conventions used within them. Chapter 3 examines records, created mainly by Indigenous nobles, for requesting land grants. Analysis of these records demonstrates the opportunities available to these elites and the [End Page 177] privileged position they managed to maintain throughout the first century of colonization. The fourth section analyzes records in which maps were used to oppose land grants. In contrast to the previous chapter, this chapter displays the practical rather than legal limits of the colonial system: upon reviewing the cases, it is clear that bending the law was a common practice for magistrates, above all to favor Spaniards over Indigenous peoples. The final chapter presents cases in which Indigenous peoples affected by land grants opted to negotiate instead of simply opposing the grants. Analysis of these cases clearly illustrates the multiple ways in which maps contributed to legal processes and resolution of conflicts. The most explicit example is that of Huixquilucan (State of Mexico), where a Spaniard requested two plots of land for goat herding. In order to prevent goats invading plots used for crop cultivation, the town authorities presented a map to the courts. The visual discourse of this document organizes space in such a way that implies that land grants could only be awarded in specific locations. This message is actually retained as an argument in the written transcriptions of the record, showing how the artist had the opportunity not only to represent the territory of the town but to influence the decision of the magistrates and judges by favoring the position of the affected Indigenous residents of Huixquilucan. In short, the multiple, rigorously and minutely analyzed cases in this book are clear examples of the complexity and reach of the perspective that Pulido Rull develops. The promising hypothesis she proposes is to understand, in the same analytical movement, both the practical exercise of the law established by the colonial order and the artistic expression developed by mapmakers. In doing so, Pulido Rull contributes to the...

MABEL COOK COLE'S PHILIPPINE FOLK TALES: AN ETHNOASTRONOMICAL ANALYSIS

Although anthropologists, and more recently astronomers, have studied and published on the astronomical beliefs and practices of different Philippine ethnic groups, one other source of information available to ethnoastronomers is the astronomical data contained in myths and legends. This paper analyses the astronomical stories contained in the book <italic>Philippine Folk Tales</italic>. These stories were compiled and annotated by the American anthropologist Mabel Cook Cole and published in 1916, and they focus on indigenous views of the Sun, the Moon and the stars. Most of the 'folk tales' in Cole's book derive from northern Luzon and ethnic groups in the Davao district on the island of Mindanao.

Can Rights of Nature Save Us from the Anthropocene Catastrophe? Some Critical Reflections from the Field

AbstractThe world can no longer deny that the planet is on the verge of an Anthropocene catastrophe. As scientists from different fields and from around the globe are discussing the causes, impacts, challenges, and solutions to the arrival of this human-induced new geological time, the field of law cannot remain behind. Rights of Nature (RoN), granting legal personhood to nature and its elements such as rivers, is an emerging transnational legal framework fast gaining international traction among Euro-American legal scholars as a new tool to combat environmental destruction. Grounded in reflections derived from long-term collaborative ethnographic work among indigenous communities, this article aims to critically and empirically unpack several interrelated concerns and blind spots at this moment of the RoN snowballing effect around the globe related to claims that this new legal proposal is rooted in indigenous lifestyles and views about nature/the environment.

Iti noa ana, he pito mata: A critical analysis of educational success through a Māori lens and two case studies of whānau within Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Tūwharetoa

The educational success of Māori students is of high national interest and priority in New Zealand. A plethora of educational research exists on how to lift student achievement and the need for indigenous views in transforming outcomes for Māori (Macfarlane, 2015). This presentation shines a spotlight on Māori whānau (families’) perspectives of the challenges and barriers to academic success they encountered on their educational journey in mainstream schooling. Insights yielded from this doctoral research by Māori whānau offer an opportunity to rethink the overall role and purpose of educational success for future generations of Māori whānau. The research draws upon Western theories merged with Indigenous methodologies, such as Kaupapa Māori Theory (Smith, 2012) and Pūrakau (story telling) (Lee, 2009), to unravel the narratives of the past and present. Two case studies of whānau from Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Tūwharetoa provided insight into the interconnected relationship between cultural trauma and educational success. Interviews with these whānau uncover themes that informed the creation of a model called ‘He rere pepepe ki te anuhe Framework’ – Transforming pathways for whānau through educational success. This model offers restorative solutions that offer optimism for a new future. It is a critical response to the issues facing Māori in New Zealand’s education system within the Eastern Bay of Plenty. The research findings affirm that systemic bias exists in New Zealand’s education system and has had a detrimental impact on the educational success of tamariki Māori (Māori children) and whānau across many successive generations. A major finding identified from the two case studies is that Māori have not recovered from colonisation, particularly the impact of 204 years of historical and cultural trauma experienced across successive generations of whānau that has resulted in the loss of language, culture and identity.

Indigenous perspectives on the biodigital convergence

The biodigital convergence describes the intersection, and in some cases merging, of biological and digital technologies. Biodigital technologies include mRNA vaccines used to treat COVID-19, digitally controlled surveillance insects, microorganisms genetically engineered to produce medicinal compounds, and more. While significant scholarship has been paid to the ethical dimensions of biodigital technologies from a Western standpoint, little attention has focused on Indigenous views on the biodigital convergence. In this article, we explore the biodigital convergence from a Haudenosaunee perspective and suggest that insights from Indigenous philosophical traditions—specifically regarding relationality and territory—may be necessary for humanity to adapt to the profound and existential changes implicit in the biodigital convergence.

The context of ethnic tourism in the Amazon: understanding the territorial analysis of an indigenous community

This study brings the possibility of understanding the tourist territory of an indigenous community, based on the proposal of a territorial analysis matrix that aggregates objective and subjective categories of analysis, focusing on the indigenous people's view of their space. As a research methodology, a bibliographic and documentary survey was used, and visits were made for field observation. Based on Santos (1996) and Harvey (1973), an analysis matrix of the touristified ethnic territory was proposed taking into account the categories of analysis: form, function, structure and process, as well as absolute, relative and relational space. The matrix was applied in the Sahu-Apé indigenous community, Brazil. The matrix was adequate for presenting as results the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of this community with regard to tourism, thus presenting itself as a useful tool for tourism planning.

Indigenous Māori experiences of fundamental care delivery in an acute inpatient setting: A qualitative analysis of feedback survey data.

This study aimed to explore inpatient healthcare delivery experiences of Māori (New Zealand's Indigenous people) patients and their whānau (extended family network) at a large tertiary hospital in New Zealand to (a) determine why Māori are less satisfied with the relational and psychosocial aspects of fundamental care delivery compared to other ethnic groups; (b) identify what aspects of care delivery are most important to them; and (c) contribute to the refinement of the Fundamentals of Care framework to have a deeper application of Indigenous concepts that support health and well-being. Bi-annual Fundamentals of Care audits at the study site have shown that Māori are more dissatisfied with aspects of fundamental care delivery than other ethnic groups. Retrospective analysis of narrative feedback from survey data using an exploratory descriptive qualitative approach. Three hundred and fifty-four questionnaires containing narrative patient experience feedback were collected from the study site's patient experience survey reporting system. Content analysis was used to analyse the data in relation to the Fundamentals of Care framework and Māori concepts of health and well-being. The research complies with the SRQR guidelines for reporting qualitative research. Four themes were identified: being treated with kindness and respect; communication and partnership; family is the fundamental support structure; and inclusion of culture in the delivery of care. The current iteration of the Fundamentals of Care framework does not reflect in depth how indigenous groups view health and healthcare delivery. The inclusion of an Indigenous paradigm in the framework could improve healthcare delivery experiences of Indigenous peoples. Research around the application and relevance of the Fundamentals of Care framework to Indigenous groups provides an opportunity to refine the framework to improve health equity, and healthcare delivery for Indigenous people.

One Health in Indigenous Communities: A Critical Review of the Evidence.

Indigenous populations around the world face disproportionately high rates of disease related to the environment and animals. One Health is a concept that has been used effectively to understand and address these health risks. One Health refers to the relationships and interdependencies between animal, human, and environmental health and is an emerging research field that aligns with indigenous views of health. To understand the applicability of One Health in indigenous communities, a critical review was undertaken to investigate evidence of One Health research in indigenous communities internationally, assess the strength of evidence, and understand what gaps are present. This review included the appraisal of twenty-four studies based in five regions: Canada, Africa, Australia, South America, and Central America. The review found that there is a need for studies of high strength, with rigorous methods, local leadership, and active involvement of indigenous viewpoints, to be undertaken in indigenous communities internationally that focus on One Health. It highlights the need to further consider indigenous viewpoints in research to reduce limitations, increase effectiveness of findings, consider appropriateness of recommendations, and benefit communities.

Promoting New Psychological Understandings by Use of an Indigenous American Psychological Paradigm

Indigenous Americans are not well represented by mainstream psychology and its reductionistic tenets. As psychology developed, it could not help but to be implicitly biased by the surrounding hierarchical colonial culture—a culture in which Indigenous people and many others were conquered, oppressed, dehumanized, devalued, neglected, and excluded. An Indigenous worldview views humans as co-equal partners of an interdependent holistic system. Striving for healthy relationships with others is foundational to psychological health and well-being from an Indigenous perspective. Discrete entities (including self), independence, autonomy, and hierarchy are considered artificial mainstream conceptualizations that have negatively impacted the well-being of humans and the natural world. Indigenous American psychology appreciates the sacred nature of the whole and its entities, approaching professional psychology with the humility and respect that interacting with sacred entities warrants. Essential tenets of an Indigenous American Psychological Paradigm (IAPP) are discussed therein as an alternative to existing mainstream beliefs. An IAPP offers the ability to address intergenerational psychological problems holistically across time in ways that mainstream psychology has been unable. Psychology is ultimately strengthened by an ability to conceptualize psychology through the new lenses of alternative paradigms such as this one.

The Wolf in the Woods

A close reading of the cause and treatment of lycanthropy in Cherie Dimaline's Empire of Wild is used to discuss differences between Indigenous and Western views on justice, community, monstrosity, and human nature. Utilizing Rupert Ross's Returning to the Teaching: Exploring Aboriginal Justice to provide first-hand understanding of Indigenous justice concepts, Empire of Wild uses myth to provide a moral impetus for community-driven justice models. This paper looks at how myth is integrated into the story, how it differs from other lycanthrope myths, and what the ramifications of that difference means for both the plot and message of Empire of Wild.

Climate Change and Unalakleet: A Deep Analysis

This multi-disciplinary science and Indigenous knowledge assessment paper reviews over 20 years of research materials, oral histories and Indigenous views on climate change affecting Unalakleet, Alaska, USA and Norton Sound. It brings a historical review, statistical analysis, community-based observations and wisdom from Unalakleet Iñupiaq knowledge holders into a critical reading of the current state of climate change impacts in the region. Through this process, two keystone species, Pacific salmon and caribou, are explored as indicators of change to convey the significance of climate impacts. We rely on this historical context to analyse the root causes of the climate crisis as experienced in Alaska, and as a result we position Indigenous resurgence, restoration and wisdom as answers.

Place-based learning and student critical reflection at the Man From Snowy River Bush Festival: a model for embedding Indigenous perspectives in non-specialist subjects

ABSTRACT Students develop diversity-relevant graduate attributes over time. First steps to cross-cultural competency include learning to recognise and respectfully engage with competing interpretations of history and disparate positionalities, including Indigenous diversity. To learn such skills, students need multiple non-threatening opportunities to encounter difference during their degree. This article examines a place-based subject that fosters a pluralist learning culture by holding divergent views in productive tension whilst undertaking immersive site visits, including to The Man From Snowy River Bush Festival. Participants who engaged in critical self-reflection and social ‘perspective taking’ were found to have enhanced capacity to recognise and negotiate competing epistemologies. Acknowledging disparate standpoints appears to be crucial to non-binary engagement with Indigenous perspectives. These findings hold implications for university approaches to the inclusion of Indigenous views and voices in non-specialist subjects.

공존, 상생, 호혜: 사이먼 J. 오티즈의 초기 시에 나타난 토착 생태계와 구전 전통적 세계관

Acoma Pueblo poet Simon J. Ortiz depicts in his poetry the diverse flora, fauna, and inanimate entities of the native land as vivid and vibrant beings. This should be understood in terms of the traditional values of survival, coexistence, and reciprocity. Particularly, reciprocity is a concept that refers to the mutually respectful, complementary, and mutually equal relationship between humans and non-humans. Encompassing and including all living and non-living things, the holistic approach of Indigenous epistemology constitutes, develops, and sustains Indigenous ecology through oral traditions. In this context, this article examines the early poems of Simon J. Ortiz, which were published from the mid-1970s to early 1980s in collections such as Naked in the Wind, Going for the Rain, and A Good Journey. The article particularly focuses on how Ortiz embodies the relationship between human and non-human living or non-living things, and between humans and nature or the land. It identifies the specific instances where Ortiz’s poetic expressions connect with the Indigenous concept of community and ecology, especially those of Pueblos. It thus argues that, by restoring and modernizing the Indigenous view of the ecological or natural community, Ortiz’s ecology clearly distinguishes itself from that of other Western and mainstream White ecological poets, and resists the anthropocentric discourse of the West.