My Research Is My Story: A Methodological Framework of Inquiry Told Through Storytelling by a Doctor of Philosophy Student

This article uses an Indigenous Research Methodology known as Storywork. Following Indigenous protocols and pedagogy through the telling of stories, the reader and listener is introduced to an Indigenist paradigm and research standpoint. Through describing my standpoint, the stories demonstrate the centrality of my Indigeneity in my methodology while also confirming an Indigenizing framework of inquiry. The stories highlight decisions and actions of government that have dismantled cultures and knowledge systems but can also be applied to public policy to enable and embed culture. Critical reflections within the stories depict Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing in research.

I Am Not Represented Here: Cultural Frameworks and Indigenous Methodology Primer for Postsecondary Settings

The purpose of this article is to share approaches for Indigenous students who are novice researchers at post-secondary settings in finding space and culturally relevant ways of representing their worldview in research through Indigenous methodologies and cultural frameworks. While there may be some similarities between Indigenous methodologies and Western qualitative research approaches, there are obvious cultural differences. This article presents an example of an Indigenous Māori centered approach and examples of Aboriginal approaches using Indigenous research methodology through cultural frameworks that may have relevance to both Indigenous students and non-Indigenous allies who support them on their research journey.

An Indigenous Research Methodology That Employs Anishinaabek Elders, Language Speakers and Women’s Knowledge for Sustainable Water Governance

Indigenous research paradigms are congruent to Indigenous worldviews and have become more dominant in areas such as Indigenous policy and education. As Indigenous research paradigms continue to gain momentum, the historical legacy of unethical research is addressed as more Indigenous communities and organizations develop their own research protocols. There is a plethora of articles explaining Indigenous research methodologies, but few examine the inclusion of the knowledge from Elders, language speakers, and Indigenous women in sustainable water governance. My Indigenous research methodology draws on the works of Indigenous scholars Shawn Wilson, Linda Smith, and Margaret Kovach, with specific focus on Wendy Geniusz’s Biskaabiiyang. My Indigenous research methodology is specific to the Anishinaabe territory of the Great Lakes region and includes Anishinaabek Elders, Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway language) speakers, and Anishinaabek women. This article seeks to contribute to Indigenous research paradigms and methods by elucidating the importance of engaging Anishinaabek Elders, Anishinaabemowin speakers, and Anishinaabek women in sustainable water governance.

Indigenous Health Workforce: exploring how roles impact experiences in Higher Education

Indigenous people have an integral role to play in improving Indigenous health outcomes by leading and being a part of the health workforce. Educating Indigenous health professionals is hence of great importance. Indigenous health students are not always acknowledged for their multiple professional and community roles and how these can affect their university education experience and success. This paper hence examines the experiences of 27 Indigenous health students and their lecturers at one Australian university around the concept of roles. The study used an Indigenous Research Methodology combined with theory driven thematic analysis. Results identified both positive and negative experiences of roles that significantly affect Indigenous health students. The study showed that students’ roles in family and community are complex and can come into conflict with student and future professional roles when students attend university. Academics interviewed for the research showed little to no understanding of Indigenous students’ complex existing roles. This research may assist universities and educators to support Indigenous health students to transition from community to university and achieve success.

Whatuora: Theorizing "New" Indigenous Research Methodology from "Old" Indigenous Weaving Practice

Despite Indigenous peoples’ deeply methodological and artistic ways of being in and making sense of our world, the notion of “methodology” has been captured by Western research paradigms and duly mystified. This article seeks to contribute to Indigenous scholarship that encourages researchers to look to our own artistic practices and ways of being in the world, theorizing our own methodologies for research from our knowledge systems to tell our stories and create “new” knowledge that will serve us in our current lived realities.I explain how I theorised a Māori [Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand] weaving practice as a decolonizing research methodology for my doctoral research (Smith, 2017) to explore the lived experiences of eight Māori mothers and grandmothers as they wove storied Māori cloaks. I introduce you to key theoreticians who contributed significantly to my work so as to encourage other researchers to look for, and listen to, the wisdom contained within Indigenous knowledge and then consider the methodologies most capable of telling our stories from our own world-views.

Beadworking as an Indigenous Research Paradigm

In this article, I outline three principles that form the conceptual basis of an emerging Indigenous research paradigm that I call beadworking. I then relate how beadworking informs my understanding of and engagement with an Indigenous research methodology. Beadworking addresses how Indigenous Peoples’ creation of beadwork can be used to help Indigenous researchers navigate the research process, while being grounded from within an Indigenous worldview. It is my hope that in sharing my research paradigm, it will inspire other Indigenous researchers to define and articulate their own research paradigms through the unique positionality of their own Indigenous People.

Keeoukaywin: The Visiting Way - Fostering an Indigenous Research Methodology

Decolonizing research methodologies are increasingly becoming the forefront of research with, for and/or by Indigenous peoples. This paper aims to highlight an Indigenous research methodology that emerged from a Metis researcher’s relation with Omushkego people from Moose Cree First Nation (Moose Factory, Ontario, Canada) during my doctoral research from 2012 to 2016. The contents of the article represent a decolonizing process of doing research with a broader research aim to make links between land-based pedagogy and milo pimatisiwin (good life). It is with the Omushkego people of Moose Cree First Nation and how the community itself led me to remember, to reclaim and to regenerate what I came to identity as Keeoukaywin meaning the Visiting Way. With relationality at its core, the Visiting Way - Keeoukaywin - re-centers Metis and Cree ways of being as a practical and meaningful methodology to foster milo pimatisiwin, living and being well in relation. The study shows how an Indigenous research methodology promotes self-recognition in relation to the land, history, community and values and demystifies our own epistemic relation to historical truths.

Tāme Iti and Twitter: a voice from prison

This is the first known study concerning the use of social media by an imprisoned campaigner of Indigenous rights. We used grounded theory to analyse Twitter messages of imprisoned Māori rights campaigner, Tāme Iti, who was arrested during the 2007 Terror Raids in Rūātoki, New Zealand. The approach undertaken is grounded in kaupapa Māori, a critical, anti-oppressive, emancipatory and decolonising Indigenous research methodology. Our grounded theory analysis categorised three themes within the data: (1) Māramatanga: Insights from Prison, (2) Māoritanga: Living Māori Culture and (3) Tōrangapū: Thoughts on the Outside. We show that social media can be used to dismantle the communication barriers of spatial confinement and as a tool to counter dominant narratives.