American Indian Studies

To the colonized, the term 'research' is conflated with European colonialism; the ways in which academic research has been implicated in the throes of imperialism remains a painful memory. This essential volume explores intersections of imperialism and research - specifically, the ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and tradition as 'regimes of truth.' Concepts such as 'discovery' and 'claiming' are discussed and an argument presented that the decolonization of research methods will help to reclaim control over indigenous ways of knowing and being.

From Oceania to North America, indigenous peoples have created storytelling traditions of incredible depth and diversity. The term “indigenous storywork” has come to encompass the sheer breadth of ways in which indigenous storytelling serves as a historical record, as a form of teaching and learning, and as an expression of indigenous culture and identity. Decolonizing Research brings together indigenous researchers and activists from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to assert the unique value of indigenous storywork as a focus of research, and to develop methodologies that rectify the colonial attitudes inherent in much past and current scholarship.

Elements of Indigenous Style offers Indigenous writers and editors—and everyone creating works about Indigenous Peoples—the first published guide to common questions and issues of style and process.

The Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies extends beyond the investigation of qualitative inquiry itself to explore the indigenous and non-indigenous voices that inform research, policy, politics, and social justice.

This comprehensive reader on indigenous archaeology shows that collaboration has become a key part of archaeology and heritage practice worldwide. Collaborative projects and projects directed and conducted by indigenous peoples independently have become standard, community concerns are routinely addressed, and oral histories are commonly incorporated into research. This volume begins with a substantial section on theoretical and philosophical underpinnings, then presents key articles from around the globe in sections on Oceania, North America, Mesoamerica and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

This second edition incorporates new literature along with substantial updates, including a thorough discussion of Indigenous theory and analysis, new chapters on community partnership and capacity building, an added focus on oracy and other forms of knowledge dissemination, and a renewed call to decolonize the academy. The second edition also includes discussion questions to enhance classroom interaction with the text. In a field that continues to grow and evolve, and as universities and researchers strive to learn and apply Indigenous-informed research, this important new edition introduces readers to the principles and practices of Indigenous methodologies.

This volume explores conceptualizations of indigeneity and the ways that indigenous philosophies can and should inform educational policy and practice. Beginning with questions and philosophies of indigeneity itself, the volume then covers the indigenous philosophies and practices of a range of communities—including Sami, Maori, Walpiri, Navajo and Kokama peoples.

Responding to increased emphasis in the classroom and the field on exposing students to diverse epistemologies, methods, and methodologies, Bagele Chilisa has written the first textbook that situates research in a larger, historical, cultural, and global context. With case studies from around the world, the book demonstrates the specific methodologies that are commensurate with the transformative paradigm of research and the historical and cultural traditions of third-world and indigenous peoples.

Bringing together the theory and practice of anti-oppressive research, this text emphasizes the importance of critical reflexivity and participatory methods. The contributors to this volume, including both emerging and established scholars, write from marginalized perspectives, explore a variety of methodologies, and address current theoretical issues in social justice research, discussing ontological and epistemological considerations within the field.

The thoroughly updated third edition of Strong Helpers’ Teachings skillfully illustrates the importance of Indigenous knowledges in the human services. Making space for the voices of many Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, practitioners, and service users, Cyndy Baskin’s text models possible pathways toward relationship building and allyship.

In 2008, Canada established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to mend the deep rifts between Aboriginal peoples and the settler society that created Canada’s notorious residential school system. Unsettling the Settler Within argues that non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization in order to truly participate in the transformative possibilities of reconciliation.

In When the Other is Me, LaRocque brings a metacritical approach to Native writing, situating it as resistance literature within and outside the postcolonial intellectual context. She outlines the overwhelming evidence of dehumanization in Canadian historical and literary writing, its effects on both popular culture and Canadian intellectual development, and Native and non-Native intellectual responses to it in light of the interlayered mix of romanticism, exaggeration of Native difference, and the continuing problem of internalization that challenges our understanding of the colonizer/colonized relationship.

Vine Deloria, Jr., leading Native American scholar and author of the best-selling God is Red, addresses the conflict between mainstream scientific theory about our world and the ancestral worldview of Native Americans. Claiming that science has created a largely fictional scenario for American Indians in prehistoric North America, Deloria offers an alternative view of the continent's history as seen through the eyes and memories of Native Americans. Further, he warns future generations of scientists not to repeat the ethnocentric omissions and fallacies of the past by dismissing Native oral tradition as mere legends.