Indigenous Research Design: Transnational Perspectives in Practice

Indigenous Research Design is an interdisciplinary text that explores how researchers reimagine research paradigms, frameworks, designs, and methods. Building upon the theories and research teachings presented by Indigenous Peoples in Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Research Methodologies, editors Elizabeth Sumida Huaman and Nathan D. Martin present practical formations and applications of Indigenous research for a variety of community, student, professional, and educational projects.

With contributions from a broad selection of Indigenous scholars across disciplines and continents, this collection shares research stories and innovations directly linked to Indigenous Peoples' lived experiences. The contributors ask researchers to rethink how their work is gathered, interpreted, and presented while providing guidance for how Indigenous knowledges and critiques inform each element and stage of the research process. This volume aims to inspire new and Indigenous-led ways of thoughtfully developing research questions, conceptualizing qualitative research paradigms, and collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data.

Equipped with chapter learning objectives, critical reflection questions, a glossary, and featuring a foreword written by Manulani Aluli Meyer, this engaging text is a vital addition to the field of research methods and essential reading for any aspiring and established researchers, including university and college students who encounter qualitative and mixed-methods research in their respective disciplines.

• Artist Statement
• Foreword

  Part I – Indigenous Research Designs: Methodologies, Contexts, and Visions

• Chapter 1 – Design for Life: Decoloniality and Research for Infinite Possibility
• Chapter 2 – On Reframing or Transcending Colonial and Other Patterns in Life
• Chapter 3 – Shaping Research Preparation and Design Through Indigenous Storywork
• Chapter 4 – Deciding in Relation with Community: An Indigenous Studies Critique of the Canadian Indigenous Methodologies Field

  Part II – Research Questions: Origins of Thought, Epistemologies, and Purposes

• Chapter 5 – Killing Kin/Haunting Life: Towards Indigenous Vocabularies of Loss and Repair
• Chapter 6 – Re-imagining Two Laws within Indigenous Research: Truth Telling Beyond Australia's Climate Crisis in South West Gulf Country, Northern Territory
• Chapter 7 – Ngā hua o te wānanga: The Fruits of wānanga
• Chapter 8 – Kakala Research Framework: a Garland in Celebration of a Decade of Re-educating, Reconceptualizing, Re-thinking, and Redesigning

  Part III – Research Lenses and Research Approaches: Relationships, Innovations, and De-linkings

• Chapter 9 – Naagdowendiwin as a Methodological Approach to Research
• Chapter 10 – Māori Data is a Taonga
• Chapter 11 – Pueblo Reclamation of Indigenous Research Design
• Chapter 12 – Indigeneity as Analytic: Recentring Ethnography through Indigenous Experience
• Chapter 13 – Using A Guarani-Window to Decolonize Qualitative Research in Rural Paraguay

  Part IV – Researcher Positionalities and Ethics: Ontologies Beyond Identity

• Chapter 14 – Putting Research into the Heart: Relationality in Lakota-Based Research
• Chapter 15 – Walking in My Mother's Footsteps: Nêhiýaw Resurgence Research
• Chapter 16 – Afrocentric Research Ethics: Decolonial Possibilities for Indigenous Research and Research Design
• Chapter 17 – Confronting Academic Colonialism: Reflections on my Role as an Ainu Researcher

  Part V– Research Partnerships and Research Applications: Holographic Epistemologies and Pluriversalities

• Chapter 18 – Marriage of Emancipation by Turning to the Tindanam: Research that Moves with the Movement in Indigenous Resistance to Large-Scale Mining in Upper East Region of Ghana
• Chapter 19 – Engaged Ethnographic Research with Indigenous Communities: Insights from a Language Policy Study in Nepal
• Chapter 20 – Tribal-University Partnership Methodology for Re-Searching with Manoomin/Psiŋ
• Chapter 21 – Full Scientific and Indigenous Rigor: Lessons from a COVID-19 Vaccine Trial with Two Tribal Nations
• Chapter 22 – "You Walk with People, Not Above, Not Below, with Them": Designing Indigenous Teacher Research for Tribal Nation Building

• Epilogue

"A unique collection that considers multiple ways of conducting Indigenous-based approaches to research and honours perspectives from various Indigenous researchers from across the globe."
—Dr. Marlyn Bennett, Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Work, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary

"Indigenous Research Design is a compelling compilation of Indigenous scholarship that calls on researchers to critically reassess and broaden their methodologies. This meticulously curated collection offers an exploration into Indigenous knowledge systems, providing an in-depth investigation of Indigenous research processes. It covers a wide range of topics, from research question formulation and innovative research methodologies to researcher positionalities, ethical considerations, and research dissemination. This volume is a must-read for researchers of all disciplines and an invaluable resource for use in research methods courses."
—Dr. Fenot Aklog, Director of Monitoring Evaluation and Research, Institute for Student Achievement, Adjunct Associate Professor, CUNY-CSI

"This text showcases diversity of Indigenous research approaches and how together they enrich knowledge construction, application, and sharing to establish sustainable knowledge justice and positive social change locally and globally."
—Dr. Francis Adu-Febiri, Sociology Professor, Social Sciences Department at Camosun College and author of First Nations Students Talk Back: Voices of a Learning People