Modifying Photovoice for community-based participatory Indigenous research

For a while now I have been researching and writing about Australian Indigenous education issues. Like you all, I have seen much good work and learnt much from what is going on across the country and internationally to improve outcomes for Indigenous learners in formal education processes. And still we go on with the struggle and with the limitations that Western sciences and practices place on us in the process. This paper draws together theoretical propositions from the work we have been progressing for the higher education sector over the past decade and to point to some foundational principles that can help establish some early beginnings with Indigenous education as a discipline in the higher education sector.

The Cultural Interface.

This paper proposes a set of principles to assist in developing ethical codes for the conduct of research within the Aboriginal community or with external partners. It places the discussion of research ethics in the context of cultural world view and the struggle for self-determination as peoples and nations. It affirms that Aboriginal Peoples have a right to participate as principals or partners in research that generates knowledge affecting their culture, identity and well-being. To provide context and rationale for the principles presented, the paper outlines features of the current public dialogue on research ethics, how ethics are framed in Aboriginal cultures, and how Aboriginal perceptions of reality and right behaviour clash with norms prevailing in western research. Current initiatives of Aboriginal communities and nations, research granting councils and institutions to establish ethical guidelines for Aboriginal research are highlighted as evidence that the development of workable ethical regimes is already well begun.

http://archives.algomau.ca/main/sites/default/files/2012-25_003_007.pdf

Ethics of Aboriginal Research

In reflecting upon two qualitative research projects incorporating an Indigenous methodology, this article focuses on the use of the conversational method as a means for gathering knowledge through story. The article first provides a theoretical discussion which illustrates that for the conversational method to be identified as an Indigenous research method it must flow from an Indigenous paradigm. The article then moves to an exploration of the conversational method in action and offers reflections on the significance of researcher-in-relation and the inter- relationship between this method, ethics and care.

https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/fpcfr/2010-v5-n1-fpcfr05263/1069060ar.pdf

Conversation Method in Indigenous Research

Participant observation was created during the late 19th century as an ethnographic field method for the study of small, homogeneous cultures. Ethnographers were expected to live in a society for an extended period of time (2 years, ideally), actively participate in the daily life of its members, and carefully observe their joys and sufferings as a way of obtaining material for social scientific study. This method was widely believed to produce documentary information that not only was “true” but also reflected the native’s own point of view about reality. 1 The privileging of participant observation as a scientific method encouraged ethnographers to demonstrate their observational skills in scholarly monographs and their social participation in personal memoirs. This dualistic approach split public (monographs) from private (memoirs) and objective (ethnographic) from subjective (autobiographical) realms of experience. The opposition created what seems, from a 21st-century perspective, not only improbable but also morally suspect. 2 More recently, ethnographers have modified participant observation by undertaking “the observation of participation” (B. Tedlock, 1991, 2000). During this activity, they reflect on and critically engage with their own participation within the ethnographic frame. A new genre, known as “autoethnography,” emerged from this practice. Authors working in the genre attempt to heal the split between public and private realms by connecting the autobiographical impulse (the gaze inward) with

/pdf/the-observation-of-participation-and-the-emergence-of-public-myv4gf2p14.pdf

The observation of participation and the emergence of public ethnography

Part I: The Lodge of Indigenous Knowledge in Modern Thought 1. Eurocentrism and the European Ethnographic Tradition Assumptions About the Natural World Assumptions About Human Nature Assumptive Quandaries The Ethnographic Tradition 2. What is Indigenous Knowledge? Decolonizing the Eurocentric Need for Definitions Entering Uncharted Territory Locating Indigenous Knowledge Traditional Ecological Knowledge The Transmission of Indigenous Knowledge Part II: Towards an Understanding of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Their Knowledge and Heritage 3. The Concept of Indigenous Heritage Rights International Definition of Indigenous Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage Sacred Ecologies and Legal Corollaries Interconnected Rights Indigenous Knowledge as Intellectual Property Indigenous Legal Systems 4. The Importance of Language for Indigenous Knowledge Indigenous Languages and the Natural World The Eurocentric Illusion of Benign Translatability Consequences of the Eurocentric Illusion 5. Decolonizing Cognitive Imperialism in Education The School System Cognitive Clashes Decolonizing the System Educational Contexts 6. Religious Paradoxes Divine Order and Secular Law Correcting False Translations Freedom from Missionaries Sacred Healing Sites Tourism, Vandalism, and Problems of Privacy Right to Harvest and Use Ceremonial Materials in Religious Practices Indigenous Burial Grounds Return and Reburial of Ancesters' Remains and Artifacts 7. Paradigmatic Thought in Eurocentric Science Medical Research and "Biopiracy" Genetic Diversity in Agricultural Biotechnology 8. Ethical Issues in Research Eliminating the Eurocentric Bias in Research RCAP Ethical Guidelines for Research in Canada Canadian Research Councils Policy Statement of Ethical Conduct on Research on Human Subjects Breaches of Confidentiality of Sacred Knowledge Community Control of Research Professional Organizations and Ethics 9. Indigenous Heritage and Eurocentric Intellectual and Cultural Property Rights Culture Versus Nature Recovery of Sacred and Ceremonial Objects Authenticity Communal Rights to Traditional Designs in Modern Artworks Cultural Appropriation Exhibitions Issues in the Performing Arts Advertising Use of Indigenous Peoples and Arts Part III: Exising Legal Regimes and Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage 10. The International Intellectual and Cultural Property Regime UN Human Rights Conventions and Covenants The International Intellectual Property Regime Technology, "Know-how", and Trade Secrets International Trade and Aid Measures Protection of Folklore Special International Instruments Concerned with Indigenous Peoples 11. The Canadian Constitutional Regime Interpreting the Constitution of Canada Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage as an Aboriginal Right 12. The Canadian Legislative Regime Federal Cultural Property Law Federal Intellectual Property Law Federal Common Law Provincial Law Part IV: The Need for Legal and Policy Reforms to Protect Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage 13. Rethinking Intellectual and Cultural Property Moral Rights Personality or Publicity Rights Patents, Trademarks, and Passing Off The Commodification of Culture 14. Current International Reforms United Nations Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples (1995-2004) Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1994) Protecting Traditional Ecological Knowledge 15. Enhancing Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage in National Law National Protection Strategies Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits The Importance of Indigenous Use and Management of Ecosystems Present Status of Ecologically Related Knowledge Effective Protection of Knowledge and Practices 16. Canadian Policy Considerations National Protection Strategies Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Operational Principles Canadian Reforms International Reforms Part V: Conclusion Acronyms References Acts, Regulations, and Guidelines Legal Cases Index

Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge

The road: Indian tribes and political liberty

Illustrating contexts for and voices of the Indigenous humanities, this essay aims to clarify what the Indigenous humanities can mean for reclaiming education as Indigenous knowledges and pedagogies. After interrogating the visual representation of education and place in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, the essay turns to media constructions of that same place as an exemplary site for understanding Aboriginal relations to the Canadian justice system, before sharing more general reflections on thinking place. The task of animating education is then resituated in the Indigenous humanities developed at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, as a set of intercultural and interdisciplinary theoretical and practical interventions designed to counter prevailing notions of colonial place. The essay concludes by placing education as promise and practice within the non-coercive normative orders offered by the United Nations. In multiple framings and locations of the Indigenous humanities, the essay aims to help readers to meet the challenges they themselves face as educators, learners, scholars, activists.

James Youngblood Henderson

Papers

Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge

The road: Indian tribes and political liberty

Thinking Place: Animating the Indigenous Humanities in Education

Aboriginal tenure in the Constitution of Canada

The Road: Indian Tribes and Political Liberty