What Is a Critical Indigenous Research Methodologies Framework?

To our knowledge, there are no direct definitions of what specifically constitutes a Critical Indigenous Research Methodology; however, we do have a sense of how and in what ways indigenous scholars have begun to critically address the call for indigenous-based research and practices. Denzin and Lincoln (2008) suggest that one way to begin to conceptualize CIRM is by considering the following position: “Critical indigenous inquiry begins with the concerns of Indigenous people” (p. 2), and the concerns of indigenous peoples are not necessarily confined to a dichotomous opposition of human concern versus environmental concern. Moreover, for Evans, Hole, Berg, Hutchinson, and Sookraj (2009), discussions of indigenous methodologies need to include a consideration of who are engaging in the research and how they do so. For them, an indigenous methodology “can be defined as research by and for indigenous peoples, using techniques and methods drawn from the traditions and knowledges of those peoples” (quoted in Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008, p. x). This definition recognizes a direct connection between ensuring that indigenous research methodologies include beliefs that are based on indigenous principles of relating and of sharing knowledge. This definition also raises another important consideration: that is, separating indigenous methodologies from indigenous knowledges not only is faulty—it also removes any sense of indigeneity from the methodology. Indigeneity is broadly defined as the enactment and engagement of being an indigenous person. In other words, methodologies inherently carry with them the ways in which those who are guided by them view the world. This worldview is inherently a part of one's knowledge system.

Research as Service

Still other scholars have presented a specific purpose that an indigenous research methodology should fulfill. According to Hart (2010), “An Indigenous Methodology includes the assumption that knowledge gained will be utilized practically” (p. 9). Hart's observation suggests there is a significant need for putting knowledge or research to practical use and echoes the work of other scholars who suggest research must address particular challenges or specific issues if it is going to be useful for indigenous peoples (Deloria, 1969; G. Smith, 2000; L. Smith, 1999, 2000; Weber-Pillwax, 2001; Wilson, 2001a, 2008). This serves as a further reminder that a CIRM approach is driven by service and is tied to well-being, rather than an approach that views knowledge accumulation as the end goal. Thus there is a clear sense in CIRM of the need to conduct research rooted in transformative processes that assist communities in ways that meet their needs.

The literature is also clear on the idea that a community's needs are best assessed by the community itself. Members of a community understand the local context, challenges, and resources; it is up to them to identify needs. Explaining how researchers engage communities on this level, Lumbee scholar Robert Williams (1997) draws on his experience as director of an indigenous legal clinic at the University of Arizona, writing that the clinicians in the practice go out into communities, listen to people there, and become “story hearing fools” (p. 764). This process of becoming “story hearing fools” largely ensures that communities drive the practices and research in which practitioners and researchers engage.

The community-driven nature of CIRM should not be taken as an argument that this kind of research is in any way anti-intellectual or nonempirical; rather, it helps to justify CIRM as a process that serves the needs of the people—as defined by the people—as well as to advance intellectual inquiries further in ways consistent with indigenous understandings of empiricism, multisensory learning, service, and responsibility. This focus on engaging in research endeavors that directly address the needs and concerns facing indigenous communities, it has been argued, serves as one example of what may differentiate a CIRM framework or paradigm from a traditionally Western one. Consider Perry Gilmore and the late David Smith's writings (2005) wherein they argue, “The notion that one should seek knowledge for knowledge's sake is revered in Western traditions of scholarship. Indigenous research seeks to contribute both to academic and local communities” (p. 82). Although we would note that there is often overlap and intermingling between academic and local knowledge, nevertheless this theme of connection between research by and research for indigenous peoples is echoed in multiple places and carries significant implications for what the role of the researcher is and how it is perceived (see also Chapter Eighteen concerning community participation).

The Four R's of CIRM: Relationality, Responsibility, Respect, and Reciprocity

In response to the call by the indigenous researchers to (re)claim an indigenous intellectual life and thought-world, we suggest a framework built on relationality, responsibility, respect, and reciprocity. This CIRM perspective shares similarities with other critical perspectives—notably its commitment to research that is driven by the community, that serves the needs of the community, and that ultimately works to recognize basic human, community, and civil rights. However, other facets of CIRM make it distinct from other critical approaches, as will be elaborated in the next sections.

Relationality

For us, the genesis of Critical Indigenous Research Methodologies is rooted in relationships. CIRM posits that knowledge is relational and thus not owned by the individual, presenting serious considerations for how we understand the purposes of data and their analyses as well as the purposes of knowledge production and acquisition for indigenous communities. This implication will be further explored in the following section. For now, we want to note our belief that knowledge is both relational and subjective, not based on objective truths that are often thought to define research; that is, objectivity in indigenous research is not a goal researchers should necessarily strive for. As Harris (2002) points out, “For many Indigenous people the notion of objectivity is preposterous because every aspect of Creation is continually interacting; the observer is interacting with the observed, and, therefore logically cannot be divorced from it” (p. 188). Many other critical research paradigms embrace the concepts of subjectivity and relationality; in contrast to CIRM, however, these other paradigms are still operating under very different assumptions about the world than are those paradigms grounded in indigenous worldviews (for example, worldviews that are human-centered or in which subjectivity may also include the metaphysical or spiritual realms).

Metís scholar Cora Weber-Pillwax (2001) also recognizes the role of subjectivity when she states, “Indigenous research methodologies are those that enable and permit Indigenous researchers to be who they are while engaged actively as participants in the research processes that create new knowledge and transform who they are and where they are” (p. 174). Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) extends Weber-Pillwax's point when she argues, “Indigenous research approaches problematize the insider model in different ways because there are multiple ways of both being an insider and an outsider in indigenous contexts” (p. 137).

As we argue that CIRM, as a research stance, is rooted in relationships, we understand that this may not be as evident to readers as it is to us. In part, we want to make two important points concerning our argument for the importance of relationships in CIRM.

The first point is that research must be a process of fostering relationships between researchers, communities, and the topic of inquiry. Embedded in this process is a need to engage from a position of trust; researchers must be trustworthy and held accountable, as Graham Smith (2000) so clearly articulates. Linked to this, the second point is that CIRM acknowledges that there are multiple ways to be in relationship. This starts with a real sense of protocol for conducting research: communities must be approached, permission must be granted, and research must be engaged in with benevolent intent, taking into account generations past, present, and future. The research itself is also conducted with a particular sense of humility; every legitimate relationship necessitates the discarding of egos and requires the researcher to recognize the responsibilities that emerge from the relationship.

Other critical methodologies also make similar points concerning research. We acknowledge that some of the defining traits of CIRM are shared with other critical methodologies. We do not want to argue that all of CIRM is unique; rather, we want to point out that the totality of CIRM, driven by notions of sovereignty and self-determination, makes it unique and important. The connections to other critical methodologies point to the fact that CIRM stands in solidarity with these methodologies.

Along these lines, Nicholls (2009) argues for an understanding of relationality as methodology when, quoting Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999), she states, “Indigenous methodologies tend to approach cultural protocols, values and behaviours as an integral part of methodology” (p. 120). Nicholls further suggests that “relationality, in this context, is ontology, epistemology, and axiology” (p. 120). The behavioral aspects (ontology) of CIRM are driven by the beliefs (epistemology), which are framed by a value system (axiology). Within this value set, Maori scholar Russell Bishop (2005) notes that “researchers are expected to develop prevailing relationships with participants” (p. 117) on the terms outlined by the community. This expectation presents one of the responsibilities linked to the relationships.

Responsibility

The link between relationships and responsibilities is critical. From a CIRM perspective, research is situated within complex relationships that necessitate multiple responsibilities on the part of the researcher. Indeed, Wilson (2001b) speaks directly to this point when he notes,

Embedded in Wilson's words is an outline for thinking about CIRM that suggests indigenous-based research methodologies go beyond an individual-oriented way of engaging the world. Recognizing the importance of relationships, as we have previously noted, requires the researcher to think about how research affects others beyond himself or herself. Relationships exist between people, animals, places, and ideas. In a sense, this relatedness to other living objects/beings in the world situates peoples as just one part of a larger cosmos, not the center of it. To this end, if we have relationships with other peoples, things, animals, and places, we are necessarily responsible to them. As people we learn from, rely on, and survive and thrive because of that which surrounds us. Ideas, as part of the research process, implicate these same sets of relational protocols and responsibilities. Our ideas matter: how and if we pursue them and what becomes of those ideas after research ends—these things have long-lasting repercussions for those with whom we are in relationship. CIRM necessitates careful thought, consultation, and collaboration to care for both the ideas, or knowledge, it generates and the living beings those ideas influence.

Respect

Naturally emerging from relationships and responsibilities is the importance of respect. Respect is a key component of CIRM and is demonstrated in Linda Tuhiwai Smith's earlier mention of protocols (1999) and Bishop's reference (2005) to expectations of building relationships. Respect is one of those things that emerge from the process of building and engaging in relationships. Relationships must be built on mutual and ongoing respect, or the research cannot be conducted ethically. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) continues by writing,

Valid relationships are vital to research and are enacted through processes of respect, as she notes.

Reciprocity

From the three R's (relationality, responsibility, and respect) that are central to CIRM there emerges a fourth element: reciprocity. Reciprocity here moves beyond a “quid pro quo” line of thinking in research and relationships to one that reflects more of a “pay it forward” notion. That is, we take so that we can give to and provide for others—in order to survive and to thrive. In so doing we are bounded, through these relationships, to care for those things around us. This notion flows through the CIRM research process, which is, at its core, relational.

Yupiaq scholar Oscar Kawagley (1995, 2006) notes that indigenous worldviews contain a sense of responsibility and reciprocity. Cree scholar Michael Anthony Hart (2010), drawing on the work of Rice (2005), states, “Another dominant aspect is reciprocity, or the belief that as we receive from others, we must also offer to others” (p. 7). Within reciprocity is a clear sense of relatedness and that whatever is received makes its way back around to others. There is another aspect of reciprocity that contains, as Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2000) explains,

In other words, reciprocity happens through ongoing processes and relationships with others. Relationality, respect, responsibility, reciprocity, and accountability thus animate CIRM and guide all aspects of the research process.

Living Research: Indigenous Empiricism, Multisensory Listening, and Indigenous Epistemologies

For us, another important point in considering CIRM is to acknowledge that indigenous peoples have always engaged in research. We are empirical peoples, as Kawagley (1995, 2006) notes, and research for Native peoples is certainly not a new concept. Indigenous peoples used, and continue to use, our knowledge of the world, gained through generations of empirical observation and sensuous engagement of the world, toward hunting, farming, fishing, and meeting the day-to-day challenges of being in the world. Indeed, traditionally for indigenous peoples research has been engaged toward a high-stakes goal—survival.

A critical aspect to surviving has been the ability of indigenous peoples to research through listening, or more specifically through multisensory listening. For indigenous peoples, this means we listen with more than just our ears: we engage in listening through sight, touch, and smell. We listen to our gut; we listen to our memories; and we listen to what the old mountains and the wily coyotes care to share with us. In the past—and for many of us still, in the present—this was (is) true. Listening, or gathering data by observation and by engaging with the world through the seasons, means understanding how fish or caribou migrate; or when to plant corn, beans, and other foodstuffs; or when or where to build protective living structures. Research in this context, through long periods of observation, notes how the wind blows before a big storm comes and how this is different from how it normally blows. In the following quote, Iñupiat scholar Paul Ongtooguk (2000) clearly articulates the empirical knowledge necessary to survive in the Arctic:

Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) scholar Manulani Aluli Meyer (2001) eloquently adds that these ways of knowing reflect a kind of listening or experiencing through “senses … developed by culture” (p. 144). Noting that “knowledge has a genesis, a place of origin” (p. 148), Meyer reminds us that listening itself is relational, invoking genealogies of place and of family come and gone. Although detailing the depths of indigenous knowledge systems is well beyond the scope of this work, indigenous epistemologies are in many ways at the heart of the embodied research (that is, it is taken up through the senses, in part), of which listening is just one part.

Our fundamental understanding, then, is that indigenous peoples have used research processes informed by particular epistemological, ontological, and axiological understandings of the world for millennia, and that the physical senses, the intellect, and intuition are all integral parts of these processes. CIRM calls for this type of multisensory listening and culturally embedded ways of knowing within research. In making such a call, CIRM recognizes the validity of indigenous research as a set of time-tested, empirical methods of knowledge production, subject as they have been across generations to revision and updating based on observed changes in the environment. Moreover, CIRM calls on the researcher to really listen.

Within the CIRM context, respect for multisensory listening, embodied intellect, and traditional worldviews that understand cause and effect as living, integrated systems reaching through time and space are all elements that intersect with the four R's: relationality, responsibility, respect, and reciprocity (and accountability). These elements are embedded within the larger CIRM context of service, sovereignty, and self-determination. Both conceptually and in being, this rich combination, imbued with local worldviews, knowledges, and practices, guides not only research protocols but larger epistemological, ontological, and axiological questions about the research process: how it came to be; to what end it will be put; how the relationships embedded within it will progress long after grant dollars are spent; or how each generation will teach the next the research that, through lived experience and thoughtful action, has become encoded in place names, language, stories, planting, fishing, hunting, literature, and family ways of doing. CIRM is evolving and in many ways (re)hearing its own voice as well as the voices of community members past and present. In the process of this evolution there has emerged a particular call for a critical perspective on methodologies. It is to addressing the critical nature of these methodologies that we now turn.