Indigenous research methodology – weaving a research interface

ABSTRACT

Indigenous research Knowledges and methodologies have existed over millennia, however it is only recently that Indigenous scholars have been able to challenge institutional Western hegemony to reclaim sovereignty in the research space. Despite the high volume of quantitative research describing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, there has been limited evaluation of the value added through incorporation of Indigenous Knowledges and methodologies. ‘Research at the interface’ has been discussed as an Indigenous research methodology for researchers to contextualise and inform their research practices, between Indigenous and Western systems of knowledge. In this article we address the significance of ‘research at the interface’ for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research, as an exciting opportunity for innovation to ensure strength, self-determination and resilience for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities engaged in research. We also introduce weaving a methodology for ‘research at the interface’ as a process for conceptualising Indigenous and quantitative research methodologies at the interface.     

The orang utan is not an indigenous name: knowing and naming the maias as a decolonizing epistemology

ABSTRACT

Much of wildlife conservation literature and practices rely on euro-western nomenclature that are legacies of empire. Although seemingly neutral, the practice of (re)naming nature depends on political, philosophical, and social assumptions that encode top-down behaviour and governance in conservation practices. Indigenous communities’ processes of classifying nature are not recognized as valid and, as such, their conservation strategies are made invisible. If Indigenous knowledge is accounted for by contemporary conservation, it is often from a paradigm that focusses on ecological-scientific knowledge, rather than the complex inter-species relationships that Indigenous communities have with nature. As such, Indigenous communities are often perceived as a barrier or problem towards conservation, due to what is perceived as their lack of care for species of conservation interest. In this article, drawing on a kin study of maias conservation in Sarawak, I explore the power dynamics and tensions emerging within practice and discourses of conservation. In particular, I focus upon the struggles and negotiations in which conservation actors understand the orang utan, as they are commonly known in an international space, that overshadow the Iban ways of naming and knowing the orang utan as maias. Finally, I discuss the Iban classifications/names and relations with nature and how this affects different understandings of conservation.     

Extra-activism: counter-mapping and data justice

ABSTRACT

Neither big data, nor data justice are particularly new. Data collection, in the form of land surveys and mapping, was key to successive projects of European imperialist and then capitalist extraction of natural resources. Geo-spatial instruments have been used since the fifteenth century to highlight potential sites of mineral, oil, and gas extraction, and inscribe European economic, cultural and political control across indigenous territories. Although indigenous groups consistently challenged maintained their territorial sovereignty, and resisted corporate and state surveillance practices, they were largely unable to withstand the combined onslaught of surveyors, armed personnel, missionaries and government bureaucrats. This article examines the use of counter-mapping by indigenous nations in Canada, one of the globe’s hubs of extractivism, as part of the exercise of indigenous territorial sovereignty. After a brief review of the colonial period, I then compare the use of counter-mapping during two cycles of indigenous mobilization. During the 1970s, counter-mapping projects were part of a larger repertoire of negotiations with the state over land claims, and served to re-inscribe first nation’s long-standing history of economic, social and cultural relations in their territories, and contribute to new collective imaginaries and identities. In the current cycle of contests over extractivism and indigenous sovereignty, the use, scope and geographic scale of counter-mapping has shifted; maps are used as part of larger trans-media campaigns of Indigenous sovereignty. During both cycles, counter-mapping as data justice required fusion within larger projects of redistributive, transformative and restorative justice.     

A Recipe for Change: Reclamation of Indigenous Food Sovereignty in O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation for Decolonization,Resource Sharing,and Cultural Restoration

Abstract

O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation (OPCN), an Indigenous community in northern Manitoba, Canada, was flooded and forced to relocate from ancestral lands to a nearby settlement under such circumstances. Regaining strength from their inherent cultural values grounded in their relationship with the land, OPCN eventually formed a community-based food program called Ithinto Mechisowin (IMP) (‘food from the land’). This article uses OPCN's concept of resource (wechihituwin) and decolonization (pasekonekewin) to present a nuanced understanding of Indigenous food systems in Canada. We argue that the ways in which IMP inspires reconnection with land, thereby improving access to culturally appropriate healthy food, are steps forward in strengthening Indigenous food sovereignty.     

Indigenous perspectives for strengthening social responses to global environmental changes: A response to the social work grand challenge on environmental change

ABSTRACT

The “Grand Challenges for Social Work,” is a call to action for innovative responses to society’s most pressing social problems. In this article, we respond to the “Grand Challenge” of Creating Social Responses to a Changing Environment from our perspective as Indigenous scholars. Over the last several decades, diminishing natural resources, pollution, over-consumption, and the exploitation of the natural environment have led to climate change events that disproportionately affect Indigenous peoples. We present how environmental changes impact Indigenous peoples and suggest culturally relevant responses for working with Indigenous communities. We propose a decolonizing cyclical, iterative process grounded in Indigenous Ways of Knowing.     

Digital survivance and Trickster humor: exploring visual and digital Indigenous epistemologies in the #NoDAPL movement

ABSTRACT

The decolonizing turn in the humanities and social sciences calls for scholarship that analyzes social media practices through the lens of Indigenous epistemologies. In this article, we model the ways that Indigenous epistemologies might contribute to theories of social media practices as we explore ways that the digital image can drive identification with and engagement in political acts. The article analyzes social media tropes circulated across various platforms among Indigenous communities and allies in relation to the #NoDAPL movement. We argue that attempting to analyze Native American traditions through Western theory will only work towards colonizing these Indigenous texts. Thus, whereas we employ insights from digital and visual methods of analysis (Highfield, T., & Leaver, T. (2016). Instagrammatics and digital methods: Studying visual social media, from selfies and GIFs to memes and emoji. Communication Research and Practice, 2(1), 47–62), we also highlight the strategic use of humor in the visual materials shared through various social media platforms utilizing the framework of the Trickster. We argue that the visual and digital phenomena we studied might best be understood as a form of digital survivance, drawing upon Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor [(1994). Manifest manners: Postindian warriors of survivance. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press]. term ‘survivance’ as a portmanteau that combines ‘survival’ and ‘resistance’ in its characterization of Indigenous storytelling traditions. Whereas centering the Indigenous figure of the Trickster might suggest that social media has failed to live up to its promises, this epistemological approach also explains the hope that Indigenous communities hold in uniting via social media for what has been and continues to be a long-term battle for sovereignty and for the protection of the earth and all of its beings.     

Stopped in our tracks: From ‘giving an account’ to an ethics of recognition in feminist praxis

When the Western Australian government announced in 2010 that Indigenous people would be compensated for unpaid wages, a Yindjibarndi woman named Bigali Hanlon submitted an application to access her government files so that she could lodge a claim. At the age of four, Bigali was taken from her home in Mulga Downs, Western Australia to live in a church‐run hostel for ‘fair‐skinned’ Indigenous children until she was sent into indentured domestic service as a teenager. Three large files document her history. These files, combined with in‐depth interviews, and a film about Bigali and other Indigenous Australian people, Walking Tracks Back Home, form the basis of this article. In reflecting on the issues raised by Bigali's story, we draw on feminist writing on the costs associated with being called to give an account of oneself, considering how listening might form the basis of an ethics of recognition in feminist praxis.     

In Memoriam E. K. M. Masinambow

Wolfe's book proposes affinities between transformations in anthropological knowledge and the changing strategic imperatives of Australian settler colonialism. He sees settler colonialism not as an event but a structure determined by a logic of elimination directed at Indigenous Australians. This article considers the persuasiveness of his claims in relation to the core concepts of settler colonialism and race relations and his approach to gender relations. It situates the book under review in wider debates about the history and anthropology of Indigenous Australians, and in the context of an earlier controversy generated by Wolfe's analysis of the concept of the Dreamtime.     

Building Indigenous Australian Social Work

Abstract

An Indigenous social work guided by Indigenous Australians’ participation and experience that has, at its heart, human rights and social justice is in its infancy in Australia. The present paper continues a discussion on Indigenous Australian social work theory and practice developments being generated by those working in this field. Aspects of this “praxis” include recognition of the effects of invasion, colonialism, and paternalistic social policies upon social work practice with Indigenous communities; recognition of the importance of self-determination; contemporary Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues working in partnership; the impact of contemporary racist and neocolonialist values; and rethinking contemporary social work values and practices. There is discussion of appropriation and reinterpretation of social work concepts, incorporation of international and local Indigenous theory, and the framing of social work by Indigenous Australians’ views and values.     

Decolonial Hip Hop: Indigenous Hip Hop and the disruption of settler colonialism

ABSTRACT

Contemporary Detroit has gone through many changes – or so it appears. From streets lined with vehicles made by Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors and driven by the nearly 2 million people who called the city home in 1950 to certain parts of the city looking like ghost towns; from a population that dwindled to 670,000 to the revival of downtown. Yet, what has been remarkably consistent is the invisibility of the Motor City’s Indigenous population. Indeed, Indigenous erasure, combined with rhetoric and policies that continue to marginalize and subjugate African Americans in Detroit, create a place rooted in multiple colonialisms. This essay examines how Detroit’s Indigenous Hip Hop artists resist settler colonialism through art, creativity, and culture as well as the practices of Detroit 2.0, a rhetoric and policy used by Detroit elites to reimagine it as a place of opportunity. By making visible the connections between blackness and indigeneity, as well as by linking the struggle of colonized peoples in Detroit to those in Palestine, Indigenous artists are not only asserting their humanity and challenging the longstanding idea of their erasure, but also constructing pathways for artists and activists to disrupt the effects of multiple colonialisms that continue to marginalize people of colour in urban areas. Detroit’s Indigenous Hip Hop artists make socially conscious music and also participate as activists in the city of Detroit. They serve as a window onto contemporary Indigenous identity, represent an exemplar of the urban Indigenous experience, and combine activism with art in a variety of ways.     

Child Maltreatment in Remote Aboriginal Communities and the Northern Territory Emergency Response: A Complex Issue

Abstract

Forty years after the 1967 Referendum and 10 years after the Bringing Them Home inquiry published its report into the Stolen Generations, in June 2007 the Howard Federal Government launched an Emergency Response intervention in the Northern Territory, having recognised the urgent need to reduce the incidence of child maltreatment in remote Aboriginal communities. This intervention was developed in response to the Northern Territory Government report on child sexual abuse in Indigenous children that described the urgency of the situation. In the present review of the literature, the complexity of the issue of child maltreatment, in particular child sexual abuse, in Indigenous Australia is explored. The Northern Territory Emergency Response1 ¹The current Rudd Federal Government has adopted most of the policies involved in the Northern Territory Emergency Response and has called for a comprehensive and independent review to be completed by 30 September 2008. is examined in the light of research evidence, detailed in numerous government reports, that reducing child maltreatment in Aboriginal communities necessitates both Aboriginal self-determination and extensive consultation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people working in the field. The extent to which the Emergency Response is evidence based and the complexity of making a report about child maltreatment, in particular child sexual abuse, in a remote Aboriginal communities are explored. Implications for policy and practice are also discussed.     

Detecting Two-Spirit erotics: The fiction of Carole laFavor

ABSTRACT

This article examines the life and novels of Carole laFavor, arguing for her importance to and influence in Two-Spirit studies. Along with being a writer, laFavor was a powerful voice for social justice and Indigenous health sovereignty in Minnesota and the nation. Her two novels, Along the Journey River and Evil Dead Center, which both focus on Anishinaabe lesbian detective protagonist Renee LaRoche, are the first lesbian detective fiction published by a Native author. Renee's embrace of a specifically Two-Spirit erotics anchors her to family and brings her tribal community a powerful healing when she employs her skills to protect her people from instances of racism, abuse, and injustice. This article, then, reads these novels as the first of an emerging genre of texts that claim an overtly Two-Spirit erotic as well as vital precursors to the present embrace of sovereign erotics in Indigenous studies.     

Sovereignty and the other in Ecuadorian nationalist discourse

This article explores how exhortations for national unity are intrinsically linked to the symbolic displacement of a problematic other through an examination of elite Ecuadorian nationalist discourse and its construction of Indigenous activists as internal enemies. Specifically, this article looks at the role that the 2008 border row between Ecuador and Colombia played in publicly legitimating a concept of Ecuadorian citizenship rooted in racial homogeneity. Ecuador's northern border served as an ideal mechanism for performing the Ecuadorian state's authority to establish the internal borders that separated ‘citizens’ from ‘enemies’. These performances of state legitimacy highlighted Ecuador's victimisation by a more powerful neighbour/imperial proxy as a means for building regional empathy, while reinforcing the legitimacy of the Ecuadorian government to marginalise Indigenous social movements as a means to symbolically assert ‘national unity’.     

Following the River’s Flow: A Conversation about Single Session Approaches with Aboriginal Families

Alison Elliott and James Dokona were interviewed by Henry von Doussa, and this article is the written version of that interview. In it, Alison and James separately refer to issues such as early skepticism about the applicability of a single session therapy approach with Indigenous families (Alison), a growing experience of its ‘fit,' philosophically and culturally, and the hope that can be engendered in one conversation. They underline the importance of the oral tradition, and other cultural concepts such as Dadirri (deep listening) as well as the trauma-informed principles of choice, collaboration, and empowerment, through using their language, asking permission, working together on solutions, and not coming across as an expert. The article is infused with the practical ideas and the values inherent in the authors’ work, including permission-seeking, reflection, containment, and their use of a whiteboard as a resource to capture multiple perspectives, a genogram (including pets), and to facilitate yarning. The flow of this conversation in itself reflects James’ imagery of the therapeutic conversation being like a river running – you don’t know which way it’s going to go.     

“We Live and Breathe Through Culture”: Conceptualising Cultural Connection for Indigenous Australian Children in Out-of-home Care

Indigenous Australian children are overrepresented in the out-of-home care (OOHC) system, with numbers and rates on an upward trajectory. There is now serious concern that this overrepresentation is creating a second Stolen Generations in Australia, noted within policy campaigns such as Family Matters—Kids Safe in Culture, not in Care, and Grandmothers Against Removals. While placement in OOHC is designed to protect children’s long-term safety and wellbeing, it threatens cultural connection, which is fundamental to Indigenous identity and wellbeing. Some government policies that aim to foster cultural connection have not been effective, while others, such as the 2014 permanency legislation in Victoria, arguably threaten cultural connection. This article highlights the vital importance of cultural connection for Indigenous child development, arguing that for Indigenous children, family connection strengthens cultural connection. We argue that family needs to be recognised as a critical component of cultural connection that is equally as important as placement stability in OOHC. Consequently, statutory and community organisations responsible for Indigenous children in OOHC must focus on facilitating and strengthening family relationships, not only to foster cultural connection, but also to explore reunification possibilities.

IMPLICATIONS

• Cultural connection is fundamental to Indigenous identity and wellbeing, but requires family connection if it is to be fostered and strengthened.

• When Indigenous children live in out-of-home care, social workers in child and family welfare need to ensure that children are connected to culture.

     

Orlando Patterson,his work,and his legacy: a special issue in celebration of the republication of Slavery and Social Death

The reissue of Orlando Patterson’s Slavery and Social Death provides an opportunity to reflect on developments in studies of slavery, postcolonial sociology, and comparative-historical sociology since the book’s initial release in 1982. In this special issue of Theory and Society, contributors from ancient history, anthropology, and sociology examine the book’s broader intellectual significance by situating it in Patterson’s corpus, covering a range of works including his fiction and scholarly publications, early work on Jamaican slave revolts, and private correspondence with key thinkers. The volume’s ambit, then, is not a single book but rather a broader field of social thought. As the articles in this issue demonstrate, the concepts and theories introduced by Patterson are still vital. In some ways, we argue, a Pattersonian sociology has only recently come to its full fruition, thanks to ongoing developments in postcolonial studies, critical race studies, anthropological and historical study of slavery, globalization studies, and feminist theory.

     

THE STIGMA OF WHITE PRIVILEGE

Beginning in the 1970s, the efforts of the Australian settler state to help its Indigenous minority shifted away from ‘assimilation’ and embraced the principles of ‘self-determination’. According to the rhetoric of the self-determination era – explored in this article as the ‘liberal fantasy space’ – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians should be in control of efforts to improve their lives, ultimately making state intervention redundant. A by-product of this shift was to radically change the role of non-Indigenous people who sought to participate in Indigenous development. No longer in charge of Indigenous advancement, they were now cast as partners and supporters.

This article explores some of the complexities of White anti-racist subjectivities in the self-determination era. It draws on ethnographic research with a group of progressive Whites who work in Indigenous health in northern Australia. A striking feature of contemporary White anti-racist discourse is a reluctance to claim any agency in the process of Indigenous improvement. I argue that applying the concept of stigma to White privilege is a novel and productive approach to understanding this desire for self-effacement. White stigma works in a parallel fashion to the case of liberal Germans who believe the German collective identity is irrevocably tainted by the Holocaust. In the Australian case, the negative characteristics associated with Whiteness act as a barrier to the broader goal of constructing ethical White subjectivities fit for the ‘liberal fantasy space’ of post-colonial justice. In their attempts to overcome this barrier and transcend White stigma, White anti-racists mobilise the identity tropes of missionary, mother, and child. Ultimately, these efforts at self-fashioning point to the ultimate fantasy of decolonisation: the desire of White anti-racists to disappear.     

Addressing systemic neglect of young indigenous children's rights to attend school in the northern territory,Australia

Indigenous children in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia have the highest school non‐attendance rates and the lowest literacy and numeracy outcomes in Australia. The NT Department of Health and Families classifies failure to send children to school as neglect, and as such, a form of child abuse. This paper contends that the failure to provide children with learning opportunities by a lack of insistence by authorities on attendance is a form of systemic neglect. It suggests that an educative approach is required to lead rather than coerce students into attending school, encouraging maximum participation in learning experiences that bridge cultural landscapes, and is inviting, inclusive and informed. The purpose of this paper is to recommend changes to ongoing systemic neglect of school truancy by examining models that build an Indigenous teaching staff and in so doing, integrate culturally responsive teaching with systemic support to produce a ‘school attending’ culture. Ethics approval for this paper has been sought and approved from the NT Catholic Education Office. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“I want to create change; I want to create impact”: Personal-activism narratives of Indigenous Australian women working in public relations

The role of activism is important in the field of Indigenous Australian public relations as a strategy for creating change and giving back to Indigenous people and communities. However, there is a dearth of information on how, when, and why Indigenous women employed in public relations engage in activist practices. This paper aims to help fill this gap by exploring the activist practices used by Indigenous women working in public relations in their personal lives. By considering personal activism from the perspectives of Indigenous women in public relations, we can further conceptualize activism within the profession. Through the critical lens of Indigenous women’s standpoint theory, and utilizing an Indigenous yarning method, five Indigenous women discuss their definitions of activism and the various ways in which they engage in activism within their personal lives. This paper builds upon the ideas of activism within public relations and demonstrates the power of public relations in terms of influencing social change for Indigenous people and others.     

Datafying anti-poverty programmes: implications for data justice

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to illuminate the significance of datafication for anti-poverty programmes, meaning social protection schemes designed specifically for poor people. The conversion of beneficiary populations into machine-readable data enables two core functions of social protection, those of recognising entitled beneficiaries and assigning entitlements connected to each anti-poverty scheme. Drawing on the incorporation of Aadhaar, India’s biometric population database, in the national agenda for social protection, we unpack a techno-rational perspective that crafts datafication as a means to enhance the effectiveness of anti-poverty schemes. Nevertheless, narratives collected in the field show multiple forms of data injustice on recipients, underpinned by Aadhaar’s functionality for a shift of the social protection agenda from in-kind subsidies to cash transfers. Based on such narratives the paper introduces a politically embedded view of data, framing datafication as a transformative force that contributes to reforming existing anti-poverty schemes.