scholarly journals A Comparative Analysis of Indigenous Research Guidelines to Inform Genomic Research in Indigenous Communities

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole K Taniguchi ◽  
Maile Taualii ◽  
Jay Maddock
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Biological Samples ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Genomic Research ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Research Guidelines ◽  
Indigenous Groups

BACKGROUND: Genetic research has potential benefits for improving health, such as identifying molecular characteristics of a disease, understanding disease prevalence and treatment, and developing treatments tailored to patients based on individual genetic characteristics of their disease. Indigenous people are often targeted for genetic research because genes are easier to study in communities that practice endogamy. Therefore, populations perceived to be more homogenous, such as Indigenous peoples, are ideal for genetic studies. While Indigenous communities remain the focal point of many genomic studies, some result in harm and unethical practice. Unfortunately, the harms of poorly formulated and unethical research involving Indigenous people have created barriers to participation that prevent critical and lifesaving research. These harms have led a number of Indigenous communities to develop guidelines for engaging with researchers to assist in safely bridging the gap between genetic research and Indigenous peoples. SPECIFIC AIMS: The specific aims of this study were: (1) to conduct an international review and comparison of Indigenous research guidelines that highlight topics regarding genetics and use of biological samples and identify commonalities and differences among ethical principles of concern to Indigenous peoples; and (2) develop policy recommendations for Indigenous populations interested in creating formal policies around the use of genetic information and protection of biological samples using data from specific aim 1. METHODS: A comparative analysis was performed to identify best research practices and recommendations for Indigenous groups from four countries: Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. The analysis examined commonalities in political relationships, which support self-determination among these Indigenous communities to control their data. Current international Indigenous guidelines were analyzed to review processes of how genetic research is conducted and the use of biological samples is handled with Indigenous peoples. RESULTS: Results suggest the need for genetic and genomic research policies for the world’s Indigenous people. Indigenous groups are most vulnerable to research exploitation and harm; therefore, identifying principles that work for Indigenous people will lead to best practices for all populations. CONCLUSIONS: Development and implementation of best practices informed by research guidelines in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. may be helpful to advise Indigenous leaders, policy makers, and researchers to the proper conduction of genetic research within Indigenous communities. Comparative analyses are a useful tool for identifying areas for further work in developing genetic research policy for Indigenous communities. OUTCOME: The outcomes of this analysis are relevant and useful to Indigenous communities and inform the development of community-based genetic research guidelines. The recommendations can be used in designing appropriate policies for future genomic research with Indigenous peoples.

scholarly journals COVID-19 and Indigenous peoples in Chile: vulnerability to contagion and mortality

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-402
Author(s):  
Pablo Millalen ◽  
Hector Nahuelpan ◽  
Alvaro Hofflinger ◽  
Edgars Martinez
Keyword(s):  
General Population ◽  
Regression Model ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Analyze Data ◽  
Chilean Government

This research investigates whether Indigenous Populations are disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19 infection and deaths in Chile. To answer this question, we use a regression model to analyze data from the Chilean government. Our analysis indicates that municipalities with a higher proportion of Indigenous people evinced higher rates of infection and deaths to COVID-19. Indigenous groups were not only highly affected at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak; their rate of infection and mortality has increased as the virus has spread to the general population. We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic can have devastating effects on Indigenous communities, mainly because it increases the historically accumulated inequalities and structural racism linked to colonization, neoliberalism, and neo-extractivism in Chile.

scholarly journals Us Mob Online: The Perils of Identifying as Indigenous on Social Media

Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Carlson ◽  
Tristan Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Mixed Methods Research ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Digital Environment ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Insight Into

Social media is a highly valuable site for Indigenous people to express their identities and to engage with other Indigenous people, events, conversations, and debates. While the role of social media for Indigenous peoples is highly valued for public articulations of identity, it is not without peril. Drawing on the authors’ recent mixed-methods research in Australian Indigenous communities, this paper presents an insight into Indigenous peoples’ experiences of cultivating individual and collective identities on social media platforms. The findings suggest that Indigenous peoples are well aware of the intricacies of navigating a digital environment that exhibits persistent colonial attempts at the subjugation of Indigenous identities. We conclude that, while social media remains perilous, Indigenous people are harnessing online platforms for their own ends, for the reinforcement of selfhood, for identifying and being identified and, as a vehicle for humour and subversion.

scholarly journals Facilitating Sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction in Indigenous Communities: Reviving Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge and Practices through Two-Way Partnering

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 855
Author(s):  
Tahir Ali ◽  
Petra Topaz Buergelt ◽  
Douglas Paton ◽  
James Arnold Smith ◽  
Elaine Lawurrpa Maypilama ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Disaster Risk Reduction ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Community Members

The Sendai Framework of Action 2015–2030 calls for holistic Indigenous disaster risk reduction (DRR) research. Responding to this call, we synergized a holistic philosophical framework (comprising ecological systems theory, symbolic interactionism, and intersectionality) and social constructionist grounded theory and ethnography within a critical Indigenous research paradigm as a methodology for exploring how diverse individual and contextual factors influence DRR in a remote Indigenous community called Galiwinku, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Working together, Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers collected stories in local languages using conversations and yarning circles with 20 community members, as well as participant observations. The stories were interpreted and analysed using social constructivist grounded theory analysis techniques. The findings were dialogued with over 50 community members. The findings deeply resonated with the community members, validating the trustworthiness and relevance of the findings. The grounded theory that emerged identified two themes. First, local Indigenous knowledge and practices strengthen Indigenous people and reduce the risks posed by natural hazards. More specifically, deep reciprocal relationships with country and ecological knowledge, strong kinship relations, Elder’s wisdom and authority, women and men sharing power, and faith in a supreme power/God and Indigenous-led community organizations enable DRR. Second, colonizing practices weaken Indigenous people and increase the risks from natural hazards. Therefore, colonization, the imposition of Western culture, the government application of top-down approaches, infiltration in Indigenous governance systems, the use of fly-in/fly-out workers, scarcity of employment, restrictions on technical and higher education opportunities, and overcrowded housing that is culturally and climatically unsuitable undermine the DRR capability. Based on the findings, we propose a Community-Based DRR theory which proposes that facilitating sustainable Indigenous DRR in Australian Indigenous communities requires Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners to genuinely work together in two-directional and complementary 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.

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.

Indigenous Studies in the United States and Canada

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aubrey Jean Hanson ◽  
Sam McKegney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Indigenous Voices

Indigenous literary studies, as a field, is as diverse as Indigenous Peoples. Comprising study of texts by Indigenous authors, as well as literary study using Indigenous interpretive methods, Indigenous literary studies is centered on the significance of stories within Indigenous communities. Embodying continuity with traditional oral stories, expanding rapidly with growth in publishing, and traversing a wild range of generic innovation, Indigenous voices ring out powerfully across the literary landscape. Having always had a central place within Indigenous communities, where they are interwoven with the significance of people’s lives, Indigenous stories also gained more attention among non-Indigenous readers in the United States and Canada as the 20th century rolled into the 21st. As relationships between Indigenous Peoples (Native American, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) and non-Indigenous people continue to be a social, political, and cultural focus in these two nation-states, and as Indigenous Peoples continue to work for self-determination amid colonial systems and structures, literary art plays an important role in representing Indigenous realities and inspiring continuity and change. An educational dimension also exists for Indigenous literatures, in that they offer opportunities for non-Indigenous readerships—and, indeed, for readers from within Indigenous nations—to learn about Indigenous people and perspectives. Texts are crucially tied to contexts; therefore, engaging with Indigenous literatures requires readers to pursue and step into that beauty and complexity. Indigenous literatures are also impressive in their artistry; in conveying the brilliance of Indigenous Peoples; in expressing Indigenous voices and stories; in connecting pasts, presents, and futures; and in imagining better ways to enact relationality with other people and with other-than-human relatives. Indigenous literatures span diverse nations across vast territories and materialize in every genre. While critics new to the field may find it an adjustment to step into the responsibility—for instance, to land, community, and Peoplehood—that these literatures call for, the returns are great, as engaging with Indigenous literatures opens up space for relationship, self-reflexivity, and appreciation for exceptional literary artistry. Indigenous literatures invite readers and critics to center in Indigeneity, to build good relations, to engage beyond the text, and to attend to Indigenous storyways—ways of knowing, being, and doing through story.

Mining and Indigenous Peoples

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Bainton
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Heritage Management ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

Anthropologists have been studying the relationship between mining and the local forms of community that it has created or impacted since at least the 1930s. While the focus of these inquiries has moved with the times, reflecting different political, theoretical, and methodological priorities, much of this work has concentrated on local manifestations of the so-called resource curse or the paradox of plenty. Anthropologists are not the only social scientists who have tried to understand the social, cultural, political, and economic processes that accompany mining and other forms of resource development, including oil and gas extraction. Geographers, economists, and political scientists are among the many different disciplines involved in this field of research. Nor have anthropologists maintained an exclusive claim over the use of ethnographic methods to study the effects of large- or small-scale resource extraction. But anthropologists have generally had a lot more to say about mining and the extractives in general when it has involved people of non-European descent, especially exploited subalterns—peasants, workers, and Indigenous peoples. The relationship between mining and Indigenous people has always been complex. At the most basic level, this stems from the conflicting relationship that miners and Indigenous people have to the land and resources that are the focus of extractive activities, or what Marx would call the different relations to the means of production. Where miners see ore bodies and development opportunities that render landscapes productive, civilized, and familiar, local Indigenous communities see places of ancestral connection and subsistence provision. This simple binary is frequently reinforced—and somewhat overdrawn—in the popular characterization of the relationship between Indigenous people and mining companies, where untrammeled capital devastates hapless tribal people, or what has been aptly described as the “Avatar narrative” after the 2009 film of the same name. By the early 21st century, many anthropologists were producing ethnographic works that sought to debunk popular narratives that obscure the more complex sets of relationships existing between the cast of different actors who are present in contemporary mining encounters and the range of contradictory interests and identities that these actors may hold at any one point in time. Resource extraction has a way of surfacing the “politics of indigeneity,” and anthropologists have paid particular attention to the range of identities, entities, and relationships that emerge in response to new economic opportunities, or what can be called the “social relations of compensation.” That some Indigenous communities deliberately court resource developers as a pathway to economic development does not, of course, deny the asymmetries of power inherent to these settings: even when Indigenous communities voluntarily agree to resource extraction, they are seldom signing up to absorb the full range of social and ecological costs that extractive companies so frequently externalize. These imposed costs are rarely balanced by the opportunities to share in the wealth created by mineral development, and for most Indigenous people, their experience of large-scale resource extraction has been frustrating and often highly destructive. It is for good reason that analogies are regularly drawn between these deals and the vast store of mythology concerning the person who sells their soul to the devil for wealth that is not only fleeting, but also the harbinger of despair, destruction, and death. This is no easy terrain for ethnographers, and engagement is fraught with difficult ethical, methodological, and ontological challenges. Anthropologists are involved in these encounters in a variety of ways—as engaged or activist anthropologists, applied researchers and consultants, and independent ethnographers. The focus of these engagements includes environmental transformation and social disintegration, questions surrounding sustainable development (or the uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of mining), company–community agreement making, corporate forms and the social responsibilities of corporations (or “CSR”), labor and livelihoods, conflict and resistance movements, gendered impacts, cultural heritage management, questions of indigeneity, and displacement effects, to name but a few. These different forms of engagement raise important questions concerning positionality and how this influences the production of knowledge—an issue that has divided anthropologists working in this contested field. Anthropologists must also grapple with questions concerning good ethnography, or what constitutes a “good enough” account of the relations between Indigenous people and the multiple actors assembled in resource extraction contexts.

Decolonizing Research Practice

2014 ◽  
pp. 178-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Evans ◽  
Adrian Miller ◽  
Peter J. Hutchinson ◽  
Carlene Dingwall
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Dissemination Of Research ◽  
General Improvement ◽  
Indigenous Methods

Indigenous approaches to research are fundamentally rooted in the traditions and knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples themselves, although Indigenous methodologies and methods have become both systems for generating knowledge and ways of responding to the processes of colonization. Very specific Indigenous methods emerge from language, culture, and worldview. This chapter describes two such Indigenous research approaches drawn from the work of two Indigenous scholars with their communities in Australia and Canada. Although creative and new, these approaches draw deeply from their communities and thus express and enact traditional knowledge systems in contemporary terms. This approach may result in more pertinent research, better take-up and dissemination of research results, and a general improvement in the situations of Indigenous communities and peoples.

scholarly journals Preferences for different representations of colonial history in a Canadian urban indigenous community

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1065-1088
Author(s):  
Scott D. Neufeld ◽  
Michael T. Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Intergroup Relations ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Intergenerational Trauma ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Group Interest ◽  
Social Identity Approach

When a social group’s history includes significant victimization by an outgroup, how might that group choose to represent its collective history, and for what reasons? Employing a social identity approach, we show how preferences for different representations of colonial history were guided by group interest in a sample of urban Indigenous participants. Three themes were identified after thematic analysis of interview and focus group transcripts from thirty-five participants who identified as Indigenous. First, participants expressed concern that painful, victimization-focused representations of colonial history would harm vulnerable ingroup members, and urged caution when representing colonial history in this way. Second, while colonial history was clearly painful and unpleasant for all participants, many nevertheless felt it was important that representations of colonial history tell the whole truth about how badly Indigenous people have been mistreated by outgroups. Participants suggested these brutal representations of colonial history could also serve the interests of their group by bolstering ingroup pride when representations also emphasized the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Finally, participants described how brutal representations of colonial history could help transform intergroup relations with non-Indigenous outgroups in positive ways by explaining present challenges in Indigenous communities as the result of intergenerational trauma. We discuss findings in terms of their relevance for ingroup agency and their implications for public representations of colonial history.

Hyperincarceration and Indigeneity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thalia Anthony ◽  
Harry Blagg
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Psychiatric Care ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Out Of Home Care ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Colonial Governance ◽  
Colonial Oppression

Indigenous people have been subject to policies that disproportionately incarcerate them since the genesis of colonization of their lands. Incarceration is one node of a field of colonial oppression for Indigenous people. Colonial practices have sought to reduce Indigenous people to “bare life,” to use Agamben’s term, where their humanity is denied the basic rights and expression in the pursuit of sovereign extinguishment. Across the settler colonies of Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, the colonial drive to conquer land and eliminate Indigenous peoples has left deep scars on Indigenous communities and compromised bonds to kin, culture, and country. Indigenous people have been made refugees in their own countries. Contemporary manifestations of penal incarceration for Indigenous people are a continuation of colonial strategies rather than a distinct phase. The concept of “hyperincarceration” draws attention to the problem of incarceration and its discriminatory targets. It also turns our attention to the turnstile of incarceration in Western postmodernity. However, the prison is but one form of exclusion for Indigenous people in a constellation of eliminatory and assimilatory practices, policies, and regimes imposed by colonial governance. Rather than overemphasizing the prison, there needs to be a broader conceptualization of colonial governance through “the camp,” again in the words of Agamben. The colonial institutionalization of Indigenous people, including in out-of-home care, psychiatric care, and corrective programs, is akin to a camp where Indigenous people are relegated to the margins of society. We eschew a narrow notion of hyperincarceration and instead posit a structural analysis of colonial relations underpinning the camp.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document