Aboriginal Law & Indigenous Laws

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. But such traditions have too often been relegated to the realm of myth and legend, recorded as fragmented distortions, or erased altogether. 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. By bringing together their own Indigenous perspectives, and by treating Indigenous storywork on its own terms, the contributors illuminate valuable new avenues for research, and show how such reworked scholarship can contribute to the movement for indigenous rights and self-determination.

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. T

Indigenous methodologies have been silenced and obscured by the Western scientific means of knowledge production. In a challenge to this colonialist rejection of Indigenous knowledge, Anishinaabe re-searcher Kathleen Absolon describes how Indigenous re-searchers re-theorize and re-create methodologies. Indigenous knowledge resurgence is being informed by taking a second look at how re-search is grounded. Absolon consciously adds an emphasis on re with a hyphen as a process of recovery of Kaandossiwin and Indigenous re-search. Understanding Indigenous methodologies as guided by Indigenous paradigms, worldviews, principles, processes and contexts, Absolon argues that they are wholistic, relational, inter-relational and interdependent with Indigenous philosophies, beliefs and ways of life. In exploring the ways Indigenous re-searchers use Indigenous methodologies within mainstream academia, Kaandossiwin renders these methods visible and helps to guard other ways of knowing from colonial repression. This second edition features the author's reflections on her decade of re-search and teaching experience since the last edition, celebrating the most common student questions, concerns, and revelations.

Sixteen classic essays--plus new commentary--many by the original authors--describe a broad range of research methods and sources offering insight into the lives of Native American women. The authors explain the use of letters and diaries, memoirs and autobiographies, newspaper accounts and ethnographies, census data and legal documents. This collection offers guidelines for extracting valuable information from such diverse sources and assessing the significance of such variables as religious affiliation, changes in women's power after colonization, connections between economics and gender, and representations (and misrepresentations) of Native women.