Thesis as kin: living relationality with research

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-170
Author(s):  
Lauren Tynan
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Short Form ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Doctoral Studies ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
Latin Word ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
Relational Accountability

As a trawlwulwuy woman of tebrakunna country, Australia, I invite scholars to embrace research and writing as kin, extending an ethic of relational accountability to all relations, including the thesis. “Thesis as kin” derives from an Aboriginal ontological translation of the English (originally Latin) word “thesis,” broken into two parts, “the” “sis”, revealing the short form for sister “sis” as the primary entity. “Thesis as kin” can similarly be translated as “thesis askin,” an agentic provocation that situates knowledge production with the thesis itself and suggests the thesis is askin’ (asking) questions. Not limited to doctoral studies, imagining thesis as kin respectfully and humbly responds to scholars’ calls that Indigenous research paradigms centre relationality. This article advocates for a research practice beyond consumerist reproduction, towards a process of kinship. It is an attempt to caretake all our relations by living the processes of relationality with research.

Transdisciplinary Research and Aboriginal Knowledge

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 78-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Christie
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Transdisciplinary Research ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
The University

AbstractIndigenous academic researchers are involved in Indigenist, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, all of which present problems and opportunities for Indigenous knowledge traditions. Transdisciplinary research is different from interdisciplinary research because it moves beyond the disciplinarity of the university and takes into account knowledge practices which the university will never fully understand. Indigenous knowledge traditions resist definition from a Western academic perspective - there are Indigenous knowledge practices which will never engage with the academy, just as there are some branches of the academy which will never acknowledge Indigenous knowledge practices. In this paper I present the story of my own non-Indigenous perspective on Indigenous research and what happens to it in a university. I am not concerned here with the knowledge production work Aboriginal people do in their own ways and contexts for their own purposes, but rather turn my attention to some of the issues which emerge when transdisciplinary research practice involves Australian Indigenous communities.

Yarning as protected space: relational accountability in research

2021 ◽  
pp. 117718012098615
Author(s):  
Stuart Barlo ◽  
William (Bill) Edgar Boyd ◽  
Margaret Hughes ◽  
Shawn Wilson ◽  
Alessandro Pelizzon
Keyword(s):  
Research Methodology ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Indigenous Australian ◽  
Australian Context ◽  
Data History ◽  
Research Relationships ◽  
Relational Accountability ◽  
Relational Process ◽  
The Way

In this article, we open up Yarning as a fundamentally relational methodology. We discuss key relationships involved in Indigenous research, including with participants, Country, Ancestors, data, history, and Knowledge. We argue that the principles and protocols associated with the deepest layers of yarning in an Indigenous Australian context create a protected space which supports the researcher to develop and maintain accountability in each of these research relationships. Protection and relational accountability in turn contribute to research which is trustworthy and has integrity. Woven throughout the article are excerpts of a yarn in which the first author reflects on his personal experience of this research methodology. We hope this device serves to demonstrate the way yarning as a relational process of communication helps to bring out deeper reflection and analysis and invoke accountability in all of our research relationships.

scholarly journals Silent Voices, Absent Bodies, and Quiet Methods: Revisiting the Processes and Outcomes of Personal Knowledge Production Through Body-Mapping Methodologies Among Indigenous Youth

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 160940692098793
Author(s):  
Darrien Morton ◽  
Kelley Bird-Naytowhow ◽  
Andrew R. Hatala
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Research Methodologies ◽  
Body Mapping ◽  
Indigenous Youth ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
Visual Research ◽  
Theater Program ◽  
Indigenous Research Methodologies

At the interface of Western and Indigenous research methodologies, this paper revisits the place of the “personal” and “autobiographical” self in qualitative visual research. We outline a community and partnership-based evaluation of a theater program for Indigenous youth using arts-based body-mapping approaches in Saskatoon, Canada, and explore the methodological limitations of the narrator or artist’s voice and representations to translate personal visual-narratives and personal knowledges they hold. In so doing, we describe how body-mapping methods were adapted and improvised to respond to the silent voices and absent bodies within personal visual-narratives with an epistemological eclecticism handling the limitations of voice and meaningfully engaging the potentiality of quietness. Extending the conceptual and methodological boundaries of the “personal” and “autobiographical” for both narrator and interlocutor, artist and observer, we contribute to debates on the processes and outcomes of personal knowledge production by articulating a generative, ethical, and culturally-grounded project mobilizing body-mapping as a quiet method that pursues self-work—the passionate and emergent practices of working on one’s self and making self appear in non-representational and ceremonial ways.

scholarly journals What Does Being a Settler Ally in Research Mean? A Graduate Students Experience Learning From and Working Within Indigenous Research Paradigms

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 160940691877048 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Snow
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Institutional Expectations ◽  
Conducting Research

Research with Indigenous peoples is fraught with complexity and misunderstandings. The complexity of negotiating historical and current issues as well as the misunderstandings about what the issues really mean for individuals and communities can cause non-Indigenous researchers to shy away from working with Indigenous groups. In conducting research for my doctoral dissertation, I was a novice researcher faced with negotiating two very different sets of social contracts: the Western Canadian university’s and my Indigenous participants’. Through narrative inquiry of my experience, this article explores issues of ethics, institutional expectations, and community relationships. Guided by Kirkness and Barnhardt’s “Four R’s” framework of respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility, I aimed to meet the needs of both the groups, but it was not without challenges. What do you do when needs collide? This article shares my process of negotiating the research, the decisions made, and how I came to understand my role in the process as a Settler Ally. It closes with some implications for other researchers who are considering their own roles as Settler Allies.

scholarly journals Activist Research Practice: Exploring Research and Knowledge Production for Social Action

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aziz Choudry
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Building Relationships ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Power And Resistance ◽  
Knowledge Practice ◽  
A Current

Research is a major aspect and fundamental component of many social struggles and movements for change. Understanding social movement networks as significant sites of knowledge production, this article situates and discusses processes and practice of activist research produced outside of academia in these milieus in the broader context of the ‘knowledge-practice’ of social movements. In dialogue with scholarly literature on activist research, it draws from the author’s work as an activist researcher, and a current study of small activist research non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with examples from movement research on transnational corporate power and resistance to capitalist globalization.. It explicates research processes arising from, and embedded in, relationships and dialogue with other activists and organizations that develop through collaboration in formal and informal networks; it contends that building relationships is central to effective activist research practice. In addition to examining how activist researchers practice, understand and validate their research, this paper also shows how this knowledge is constructed, disseminated and mobilized as a tool for effective social action/organizing.

scholarly journals Considering Indigenous Research Methodologies: Critical Reflections by an Indigenous Knower

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Gone
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Indigenous Studies ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Research Methodologies ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Epistemologies ◽  
Indigenous Research Methodologies ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
University Settings

Within the domain of academic inquiry by Indigenous scholars, it is increasingly common to encounter enthusiasm surrounding Indigenous Research Methodologies (IRMs). IRMs are designated approaches and procedures for conducting research that are said to reflect long-subjugated Indigenous epistemologies (or ways of knowing). A common claim within this nascent movement is that IRMs express logics that are unique and distinctive from academic knowledge production in “Western” university settings, and that IRMs can result in innovative contributions to knowledge if and when they are appreciated in their own right and on their own terms. The purpose of this article is to stimulate exchange and dialogue about the present and future prospects of IRMs relative to university-based academic knowledge production. To that end, I enter a critical voice to an ongoing conversation about these matters that is still taking shape within Indigenous studies circles.

He Āpiti Hono, He Tātai Hono: That Which is Joined Remains an Unbroken Line: Using Whakapapa (Genealogy) as the Basis for an Indigenous Research Framework

2005 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 86-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Graham
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Indigenous Identity ◽  
Research Framework ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
Unbroken Line

AbstractThis paper explores the notion of whakapapa as providing a legitimate research framework for engaging in research with Māori communities. By exploring the tradition and meaning of whakapapa, the paper will legitimate how whakapapa and an understanding of whakapapa can be used by Māori researchers working among Māori communities. Therefore, emphasis is placed on a research methodology framed by whakapapa that not only authenticates Māori epistemology in comparison with Western traditions, but that also supports the notion of a whakapapa research methodology being transplanted across the Indigenous world; Indigenous peoples researching among their Indigenous communities. Consequently, Indigenous identity is strengthened as is the contribution of the concept of whakapapa to Indigenous research paradigms worldwide.

Following in the footsteps of the wolf: connecting scholarly minds to ancestors in Indigenous language revitalization

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
T’łat’łaḵuł Patricia Rosborough ◽  
čuucqa Layla Rorick
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Continuous Part ◽  
Indigenous Language Revitalization ◽  
Adult Language Learners

The authors’ respective experiences as Indigenous people, scholars, language activists, and Kwak’wala (Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw/Kwakiutl language) and ḥiḥiškʷiiʔatḥa (Hesquiaht dialect of the Nuu-chah-nulth/Nootka language) adult language learners and teachers are discussed in relation to the literature on spirituality and the supernatural. Using dialogic and autoethnographical voices, the authors highlight the long-term effects of metaphysical interaction on learning, as well as acknowledging its role in Indigenous research as a foundational and continuous part of Indigenous search for knowledge. Indigenous cultural principles and the narrative research practice of Indigenous scholars guide the authors in drawing on the traditions of teaching through story, centering relationships, and practicing reciprocity in the context of where Indigenous researchers stand in continual relationship to their Indigenous communities.

The Challenge of Oral History to Environmental History

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Williams ◽  
Mark Riley
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Environmental Knowledge ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Environmental Practices ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Colonial Archives ◽  
Environmental Histories ◽  
Key Interventions

Oral history has much to offer environmental history, yet the possibilities and promises of oral history remain underutilised in environmental history and environmental studies more broadly. Through a reflection on work in environmental history and associated disciplines, this paper presents a case for the strength and versatility of oral history as a key source for environmental history, while reflecting on questions of its reliability and scope. We identify three major insights provided by environmental oral history: into environmental knowledge, practices and power. We argue that, rather than being a weakness, the (inter)subjective and experiential dimensions of oral accounts provide a rich source for situating and interrogating environmental practices, meanings, and power relations. Oral history, moreover, provides a counterweight to a reliance on colonial archives and top-down environmental accounts, and can facilitate a renewal - and deepening - of the radical roots of environmental history. Furthermore, as a research practice, oral history is a promising means of expanding the participatory and grassroots engagement of environmental history. By decentring environmental expertise and eroding the boundaries (both fictive and real) of environmental knowledge production, oral environmental histories can provide key interventions in pursuit of a more just, sustainable world.

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