non-Indigenous Academics Research Articles

Reckoning with epistemological and ontological dissonance: a narrative inquiry into settler Canadian professors’ experiences decolonizing and Indigenizing the academy

ABSTRACT The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) Calls to Action urge Canadian higher education (among other sectors of society) to learn the shameful truth about Indian Residential Schools and work towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Through narrative inquiry, non-Indigenous academics shared their experiences of a faculty learning community on Indigenization of their teaching and curricular practices. They each, subsequently, co-composed with the researcher a narrative account based on those experiences. This paper presents one of the resonant threads that arose from the analysis of those narrative accounts, namely: Epistemological and Ontological Dissonance.

Exploring the marking of a reflective assessment task: a collaborative autoethnography by educators navigating Indigenous allyship in higher education

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to closely examine the experiences of non-Indigenous academics in marking a single assessment task designed to promote cultural safety practice in a health professional programme. In recognition of institutional racism and significant health and wellbeing disparity in Indigenous wellbeing, cultural safety is recognised as essential knowledge across professions in tertiary education. An assessment task was designed to support students’ written critical reflection to promote their cultural safety practice. A collaborative autoethnography by four academics critically reflected on the tensions in marking this reflective assignment as non-Indigenous educators. Thematic analysis was conducted on transcriptions of the authors’ discussions and a framework was developed in response to repeating sites of tension. The Indigenous allyship assessment framework: sharing the load was framed around the central theme of Navigating the Unsettling. It specifically draws attention to navigating the Personal (Heightened Responsibility and Partial Knowledge), Pedagogical ( Judge the Meaningful and Feedback Conversations) and Persons and Processes (systems) (Efficiency Culture and Cost of Marking) tensions. Our conclusion was that non-Indigenous educators need to consciously navigate unsettling challenges to do justice to assessment tasks to promote cultural safety.

Relational learning: Embedding Indigenous ways in whitestream social work

Social work globally acknowledges its need to decolonise its education to produce social workers who can work responsively alongside marginalised Indigenous peoples. Yet the problem is that universities have struggled to operationalise the integration of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing into social work education. Uniquely, this study explored relationships that impact on the integration of Indigenous content for academics in social work education. A qualitative approach was used, interviewing both Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The outcome of the study produced a relational model for academics that focuses upon six key relationships an academic has: to self; with students; to Indigenous knowledges, languages and cultures; with peers; with those in power and the whitestream; with elders, kaumatuas and Indigenous communities. With the goal of decolonising social work education, this relational model provides insight into different ways that an academic may develop and embed their integration of Indigenous content into their teaching. This study offers a relational model that could promote curriculum change in social work, as well as in other disciplines beyond Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Enriching research practices through knowledge about Indigenous research methodologies

Introduction
 Learning about Indigenous research paradigms and methodologies offers insights and reflexive opportunities for those who seek to improve their research practice. This paper explores how research at the ‘interface’ can enrich scholarly inquiry across the academy. Whilst a single paper cannot do justice to the sophistication and nuance of Indigenous methodologies, as an authorship team of one Indigenous and two non-Indigenous academics, and through our established relationship and subsequent conversations, we present in this paper seven distilled methodological learnings that can enrich standard qualitative research practice. We predominantly explored the work of Indigenous scholars worldwide, and where relevant have drawn on non-Indigenous scholars where there may be ‘interface’ compatibilities. We also build off some of our previous work such as Andrews (2020a, 2020b), Andrews (2021) and Bolton and Andrews (2018).
 It is very important to clearly state that we are not suggesting readers, particularly non-Indigenous readers, use this paper as a template for Indigenous research, or as a guide for conducting research with Indigenous peoples and communities. Rather, our intention is to share our personal learnings about Indigenous research with a view to bridging methodological understanding to achieve high quality qualitative research. Indigenous researchers have sought to navigate the interface between Indigenous and western research to generate new knowledge that reflects the interests, values and priorities of Indigenous peoples. The last twenty-five years has seen significant effort by Indigenous scholars across the globe to establish an Indigenous academic research agenda and pioneer change in research practices. The interface between Indigenous and western knowledge systems has much to offer research as a basis for the generation of new knowledge (Durie, 2004; Martin, 2008). It is at this interface, or intersection between two knowledges, that we make connections and offer our insights.
 This paper is divided into four sections: Beginning, Middle, Reflective End and New Beginnings, a framework drawn from our work. Within these four sections are seven key methodological reflections under the sub-headings: Understanding place in research, Positionality, Worldviews in research, Privileging knowledges, Relational accountability, Storytelling as methodology and Circular research processes, and at each sub-heading is our key learnings. This is shown in Figure 1, noting the arrows grow in size as we approach ‘Beginning Again’ as a way of illustrating the enriching of knowledges and practices as the learning process loops iteratively.

Weaving Indigenous and Western ways of knowing in ecotoxicology and wildlife health: a review of Canadian studies

Western-trained, non-Indigenous researchers in Canada have an ethical responsibility to collaborate with Indigenous Peoples and to re-envision the scientific research process through the lens of reconciliation. The health of the natural environment has long been a concern to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples, and weaving different ways of knowing could provide a path forward to address critical wildlife health concerns. Here, we conducted a review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature that claims to weave Indigenous and Western ways of knowing in ecotoxicology and wildlife health in Canada, coding for background information, wildlife health stressors, research methods, Indigenous participation, and research outcomes. Seventeen studies met the inclusion criteria, the majority of which were published since 2015 and took place in Canada’s North. Research collaborations were often between First Nations or Inuit knowledge holders (most frequently, active harvesters and Elders) and Western-trained, non-Indigenous academics. Most studies were initiated by mutual agreement between community partners and researchers, but no study was “Indigenous-led” at any stage of research. Studies investigated environmental contaminants and health-related topics in a range of wildlife, usually traditional subsistence species. The most commonly studied disease was avian cholera, and the most studied class of toxicants was metals and trace elements. Indigenous knowledge was primarily collected via interviews. Studies often used multiple methodologies to braid or weave knowledge, but the most frequently used methodology was community-based participatory research. To provide a more holistic understanding of the process of weaving knowledge, we conducted an in-depth examination, applying a decolonizing lens, of two exemplar cases of collaborative research with Indigenous communities. This exploration led to the conclusion that research that weaves ways of knowing must not be approached with a “one-size-fits-all” mindset, but instead should emphasize relationship building, continuous engagement, and ethical practices. By adopting such practices, Western-trained, non-Indigenous academics can better address critical wildlife health concerns while contributing meaningfully to advancing healing and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.

Teaching Australian Indigenous Studies: Non-Indigenous academics negotiating structural impediments in a regional context

This paper examines the experiences of two non-Indigenous academics in a regional Australian university who taught/coordinated a first-year course, Introduction to Indigenous Australia (SCS130). Drawing on our own experiences, we explore the implications and contentious nature of non-Indigenous academics teaching Indigenous Studies and align this discussion with structural critique. As non-Indigenous academics, some argue that it is culturally disrespectful and pedagogically problematic for us to deliver this course. We consider that the work of embedding Indigenous perspectives should not be relegated solely the responsibility of Indigenous academics, and that our teaching contributes to reconciliation and begins to fill a significant gap in awareness and understanding among Australian students in higher education. The course SCS130 aims to introduce students to Indigenous perspectives through narratives, film, documentaries, academic and non-academic texts, biography and art. The objective of the course is to engage students with the complexity of colonisation and its ramifications for constructions of individual and national identities. Student survey qualitative data is used to provide an analysis of the course and to illustrate the conflict between our pedagogic practice, student expectations and the structural impediments to our decolonising teaching aims.

An analysis of education academics' attitudes and preconceptions about Indigenous Knowledges in initial teacher education

For more than 20 years, there has been effort made within primary and secondary classrooms and curricula to include Indigenous peoples’ perspectives. This has been met with mixed reactions from classroom teachers. Initial teacher education academics and providers have also been slow to implement and transform their teaching and learning despite the shift in policy rhetoric. This paper reports on a small pilot study conducted at a Queensland university exploring how academics perceive the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledges within both institutional and professional contexts and initial teacher education programs. Findings varied, however, they generally indicate a lack of institutional and individual responsibility to embed Indigenous Knowledges in initial teacher education. The paper argues for the urgency for change and the need for non-Indigenous academics and initial teacher education providers to begin critical conversations about how Indigenous Knowledges are being silenced within their current practices, and ways in which they can do better.

Editorial

Editorial

Building Indigenous knowledge: Exploring the Pedagogy of Māori knowledge in the Digital Computing Information Technology Tertiary Sector of New Zealand

In 2021, Computing Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ, 2021) held a conference for academics to explore information technology in a changing world. It provided a platform for those academics that teach in this industry a forum to discuss knowledge transfer and teaching practices. A workshop on “Mātauranga Māori in Information Technology,” which is a specialised type of expertise that continues to be in its infancy was presented. Mātauranga Māori in academia is a body of Indigenous Māori knowledge passed down from generation to generation, stretching back to te ao marama, the creation of the world (Sadler, 2007). Therefore, the depth of Mātauranga Māori is embedded in the earth and waters that cover the lands (Royal, 1998). Exploring ways to transfer this type of knowledge to a classroom or global online environment for Information Technology is a new type of pedagogy. Building the academic capacity of people and academic programmes in Information Technology that supports Mātauranga Māori is pioneering for Indigenous academics. Navigating this pathway in the tertiary sector is delegated many times to the Indigenous academic to take leadership in this discipline. It also becomes a challenge for the Indigenous academic to retain leadership in these areas when these topics become globally attractive, like Cyber Security, where the representation of Indigenous experts are scarce in this industry and the outcome is that knowledge transfer tends to be the responsibility of the non-Indigenous academics to lead capacity building initiatives. This article discusses five key issues: 1) programmes in the Digital Computing Information Technology sector; 2) Mātauranga Māori in Information Technology; 3) the pedagogy of teaching and delivery; 4) Indigenous leadership in this sector; and 5) capacity building initiatives. It draws heavily from the literature and experience of those academics who work in the Institute of Technology and Polytechnics in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Sovereign women: why academia? A journey gathering word-gifts and heart berries

ABSTRACT With the rise of Higher Education institutions seeking increased Indigenous representation within staffing, publications, and student numbers, this article considers key methodological processes, issues, and challenges associated with utilizing and embodying Indigenous and Storytelling research practises within colonial contexts. The value of new and social media as platform for cultural practise, and its potential for participant recruitment and findings dissemination is discussed. These are drawn from the author’s experience as an Indigenous academic woman researching with Indigenous academic women. Issues and responsibilities raised related to observing and developing appropriate community protocols when accessing, working with, and reporting from this group as an insider/outsider. Overall, it was found that consciously working to centre Indigenous Storying and sovereignty through research and writing practices within these systems may be received or perceived as ‘unpalatable’ and/or a challenge by non-indigenous academics but is a necessary manifestation of Indigenous practise for this researcher.

Finding Common Ground

Abstract: This article assesses a collaborative digital storytelling project between Chief Leschi Schools, a Puyallup Tribal K-12 school, and University of Washington students, teachers, and institutional leaders. This assessment emphasizes the importance of and examines how to build trust and facilitate co-planning in digital storytelling workshops centering Indigenous voices. Collaboration between Indigenous and non-indigenous students and teachers offered unconventional learning experiences and community celebrations of Indigenous youth. Inductive, qualitative research drawing from personal memos, interviews, focus groups, and surveys revealed the significance of co-planning and trust-building between participants of distinct social and formal education backgrounds. This analysis showcases how these different factors shaped and sustained the project, resulting in what the authors hope will be an enduring commitment. Recommendations include: (1) Emphasis on consistent and ongoing participation to cultivate trust and facilitate continuous communication; (2) purposeful engagement of students’ fundamental skills, presenting digital narratives that align with their interests and competencies; and (3) adopting an approach for non-indigenous academics and academic institutions of prioritizing and actively engaging in collaborative partnerships with Indigenous communities. The article underscores the significance of recognizing and resolving complex power and cultural dynamics between universities and tribes for successful project co-planning and implementation.

Australian Indigenous early career researchers: unicorns, cash cows and performing monkeys

ABSTRACT Data from the Developing Indigenous Early Career Researchers (ECRs) project reported that efforts of Indigenous ECRs are often undermined by examples of micro-racism. Shared personal experiences revealed racist attitudes and assumptions held by some non-Indigenous academics. This draws critical attention to the fact that while many institutions have developed Indigenous strategies to address disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff and student’s, racism is prevelant in higher education institutions across Australia. In this study, Indigenous ECRs metaphorically described their presence in the academy as unicorns, cash cows or performing monkeys. These terms illustrate the way in which Indigenous ECR attendance in the Australian higher education sector has been viewed, devalued and/or undermined by non-Indigenous academics and the institutions in which they are employed. Specifically, the notion of behavioural racism is used to critique the level of engagement and commitment of non-Indigenous academics to the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges and worldviews.

First In Family, First For Family: Indigenous academic women's legacy motivation

Indigenous academics are a minority within the academy, with the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics, staffing, and student numbers well established. A growing body of literature examines the motivations of Indigenous peoples who enroll and complete University degrees, however a dearth of literature examines the journeys and motivations of those who choose to be academics. A review of papers largely produced by Indigenous academics highlights that though a paucity of literature directly centers their motivation in undertaking their initial studies or joining the academy; legacy, family and community motivations appear regularly, though often mentioned in incidental, backgrounded or de-centered ways. Drawing upon existing literature, interviews with 17 Indigenous academic women, and Indigenous Research Methodologies, this article foregrounds and centers consideration of legacy motivations for academic women’s professional work, and initial journey into higher education study. It argues the implications of academic engagement for Indigenous women, in so-called Australia, include wider influences, impacts and outcomes for their immediate familial, extended kinship and broader Indigenous community groups. It posits that these are not secondary or incidental, but primary motivations and shaping influences on Indigenous women's academics careers and how they should be understood, valued and supported by institutions.

‘You’ll Never Get Cultural Competence in Science’: An Australian Perspective on Integrating Cultural Competence into Science Teaching Via Cultural Accountability

In the last decade, the Australian higher education sector has championed the inclusion of cultural competence (CC) as a key graduate quality. Diverse disciplinary learning and teaching approaches requiring careful consideration about how best to achieve the end goal of supporting graduates on their individual, life-long pathways to engage with CC. Science can be viewed as an inflexible and immovable discipline. This perception seems particularly prevalent with respect to scientists acknowledging epistemes outside of a western cultural frame. It follows that eliciting curriculum reform with respect to CC broadly, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives more specifically, was perceived to be a significant challenge. Through interviews with eleven non-Indigenous academics across the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney, we uncovered several strategies for including multiple knowledges in science, with academics traversing these new horizons by building on the work of and collaborating with Indigenous Elders and academics to create enriched learning spaces. Alongside these strategies are staff reflections on their CC journey, which indicate that this endeavour entails necessary and vital discomforts that ultimately enable transformation. This process while guided by CC, led to experiences of cultural humility and a conviction in the role of cultural accountability.

The TRC, Reconciliation, and the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School

The TRC, Reconciliation, and the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School Martha Walls (bio) IN 2015 THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION (TRC) released its final report, drawing Canadians' attention to "the complex truth about the history and the ongoing legacy of the church-run residential schools." Its 94 Calls to Action outlined wide-ranging initiatives to dismantle the enduring colonial attitudes and structures that gave rise to, and sustained, residential schools. In keeping with Eva Mackey's belief that academics are positioned to help "make things right," many regional scholars, both as educators and as members of a profession that has long reified white privilege and colonialism, have committed to the reconciliatory work of the Calls to Action.1 In some ways, these efforts have resulted in observable, if modest, changes: increasing numbers of university courses have been amended to highlight Indigenous histories and explore colonialism, inherent biases of familiar texts and narratives have been reconsidered, and pedagogical practices that reinforce structural privileging of non-Indigenous students and that disadvantage Indigenous ones are being questioned. The symbolic gesture of acknowledging that Atlantic Canada is unceded Indigenous territory has become commonplace and, significantly, some regional scholars – before and since the TRC – have applied their expertise to legal cases, some resulting in important rulings affirming treaty and Indigenous rights.2 Eight years on, however, reconciliation faces sharp critiques, both as a concept that is arguably reduced to platitudes and as a process that has been so abysmally slow that, at its current pace according to one study, all of the Calls to Action will not be met until 2057.3 The shortcomings of reconciliation are apparent regionally. That a settler scholar is exploring this topic for this [End Page 72] anniversary issue of Acadiensis underscores the extent to which the field of Atlantic Canadian history remains dominated by non-Indigenous academics. Moreover, the "complex history" of residential schools in Atlantic Canada remains largely unexplored as scholars working regionally have grappled to only a slight extent with either residential schooling as it operated in this region or with the wider consequences of this scholarly inattention. The neglect of regional residential school history manifests in gaps in university curricula (which filter down to the secondary school level by virtue of teacher-education in universities),4 undermines public knowledge, and impedes the building of new relationships with Mi'kmaw and Wolastoqiyik students and communities that continue to experience the ramifications of residential schooling. The marking of the 50th anniversary of Acadiensis is an apt – if overdue – time for both the difficult reckoning with a collective professional shortcoming around residential schooling in the Maritime Provinces and for suggesting ways that such work might be accomplished. In the Maritime Provinces, the "complex truth" about residential schools rests in the history of the region's only formal residential facility located at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. Funded as all such facilities were by the federal government, the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School (SIRS) operated from 1929 until 1967 under Roman Catholic management and was staffed by the Sisters of Charity, who were headquartered at Mount Saint Vincent College in Halifax, Nova Scotia (and who were also engaged at the Kootenay Residential School in Cranbrook, British Columbia). Founded more than two decades after Peter Henderson Bryce's damning 1907 critique of residential schools as unsafe and ill-conceived,5 the Shubenacadie facility was part of a "second wave" of residential schools that emerged in the early 20th century. This second wave followed the First World War, as the growing rights-centred activism of Indigenous peoples was seen by the federal Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) as a threat to its assimilatory mandate. This second round of residential school construction was part of a spate of new and repressive federal policies, among them an Indian Act amendment that made attendance at school mandatory for Indigenous children – aimed at both curtailing Indigenous [End Page 73] peoples' quests for rights and at strengthening assimilation.6 The establishment of the Shubenacadie facility fulfilled the personal commitment of DIA Deputy Superintendent General Duncan Campbell Scott to the creation of a residential school system that stretched from coast to coast (to coast).7 Each year, for 37 years, 125 to...

"Hot Issue" Critical Review: The Aboriginalization of Inquiry: Tourism Research by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People

In this "hot issue" article, Jacobsen argues that even after decades of inquiry the level of Tourism Studies disconnect from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is troubling. He maintains that (relieved of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander voices for so long) the received literature on tourism is still dominated by non-indigenous academics who continue to forge a discourse based on "Othering." The purpose of his critical review article is to substantively engage with the disconnect that seemingly plagues inquiry about tourism for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. This Jacobsen piece thereby exposes subtle, overarching misgivings observable in the literature underscored by the presupposed "Othering" of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as "inferior people." This hot issue article therefore moves away from discourses of deficit, inertia, imposed Western-centric theorization, and superficial inquiry towards the Aboriginalization of research-intotourism as inquiry that is emancipative and situated within and emanating from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander worldviews. In providing a number of outcomes from a 6-year national research program in remote Australia, Jacobson reflects on their value as the basis for "leadership" and for "future broad directions." To Jacobsen, the Aboriginalization of tourism inquiry must be based on cultural integrity in order to drive the discourse of enabling, cultural ways of business, and appropriate leadership. This hot issue article thus draws attention to the urgent need for Tourism Studies practice to be genuinely committed to the well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, cultures, country, and knowledge. [Abstract by the Reviews Editor]

Witnessing Indigenous Dispossession and Academic Arboricide: Visual Auto-Ethnography as Anti-Colonial Didactic

Abstract Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics are witnesses to the “more than human” ecological impacts of the academic condition, such as the deforestation that occurs in relation to infrastructure expansion of campus sites. In this essay, I use auto-ethnographic photography to evoke the necessity of academic answerability by framing the act of deforestation within the academic boundary as that of land theft and ecological conquest, with political, cultural, and epistemic implications. My visual narrative about my employing university begins with an archival image from the time of the clearing of the campus site, and is sustained by a visual inquiry process that examines the liminal zones of the campus as it expands into the surrounding forest. My intention in this photography-led research practice is to “witness” campus deforestation, seeing it as part and parcel of the colonial academic enterprise in situ.

What Contributions, if Any, Can Non-Indigenous Researchers Offer Toward Decolonizing Health Research?

Four non-Indigenous academics share lessons learned through our reflective processes while working with Indigenous Australian partners on a health research project. We foregrounded reflexivity in our work to raise consciousness regarding how colonizing mindsets-that do not privilege Indigenous ways of knowing or recognize Indigenous land and sovereignty-exist within ourselves and the institutions within which we operate. We share our self-analyses and invite non-Indigenous colleagues to also consider socialized, unquestioned, and possibly unconscious assumptions about the dominance of Western paradigms, asking what contributions, if any, non-Indigenous researchers can offer toward decolonizing health research. Our processes comprise of three iterative features-prioritizing attempts to decolonize ourselves, acknowledging the necessary role of discomfort in doing so, and moving through nonbinary and toward nondualistic thinking. With a nondual lens, working to decolonize ourselves may itself be seen as one contribution non-Indigenous researchers may offer to the collective project of decolonizing health research.

Using bridges made by others as scaffolding and establishing footings for those that follow: Indigenous women in the Academy

The first recorded Aboriginal person to graduate with an undergraduate qualification from any Australian university was Aboriginal woman Margaret Williams-Weir in 1959 ( Melbourne University, 2018 ). Williams-Weir graduated with a Diploma in Education. There have now been six decades of graduating Indigenous Australian women in the discipline of education, and many other disciplines. In this article, we explore Indigenous women’s presence in higher education through the narratives of our lives as Aboriginal women within education and the lives of other Indigenous women, noting their achievements and challenges. We acknowledge that while the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women participating in university study and becoming engaged in education as a discipline at undergraduate and postgraduate levels has increased, we are still significantly underrepresented. Similarly, while we have seen increases in Indigenous university staff within the education discipline, the employment of Indigenous academics has not reached parity with non-Indigenous academics levels and too few are employed in the professoriate and in senior management positions. We will show how we would not have been able to develop our education careers within higher education without the bridges built by those like Dr Williams-Weir and others who went before us. We will share how we have worked to establish the footings for those Indigenous women who will follow us and others. In this way, we work within the context that is for the now and the future.

Yandaarra is living protocol

ABSTRACT We call ourselves Yandaarra, which is Gumbaynggirr for a group shifting camp together. We are Aunty Shaa Smith, story holder for Gumbaynggirr Country (mid-north Coast, NSW, Australia), her daughter, Neeyan Smith and three non-Indigenous academics. In this article, we share the meaning of Yandaarra for our work together. We see Yandaarra as binding beings together, living the protocols of Maangun, the Law, of the Dreaming. We do not talk of Dreaming to imply we were, or are, asleep, but to share this story as part of the creation time, that exists now. For we see Yandaarra, our research, as a re-creation story. It’s about remembering what was/is as part of re-creating, rebinding, remaking protocols as we honour Elders and custodians, human/non-human, past, present and future. Importantly too, our collaboration requires us to know our place and our different histories as Gumbaynggirr and non-Gumbaynggirr people living and working on unceded land. Our focus in Yandaarra is to learn to care for Country and ourselves from a Gumbaynggirr perspective. We are at a stage where radical change is necessary, and Gumbaynggirr wisdom can help create a new pathway of how to live on and with Mother Earth as kin.