Research Guides: Canadian Legal Research Manual: Indigenous Legal Research Guides

Indigenous Legal Research Guides

This portion of the Legal Research Manual features a non-comprehensive list of guides on Indigenous legal research.

Hadley Friedland, "Reflective Frameworks: Methods for Accessing, Understanding and Applying Indigenous Laws"
(2012) 11:1 Indigenous Law Journal 1.
This article takes up the practical question of method, examining the question: How might legal scholarship assist with the practical tasks of finding, understanding and applying Indigenous laws today?
Hadley Friedland & Val Napoleon, "Gathering the Threads: Developing a Methodology for Researching and Rebuilding Indigenous Legal Traditions"
(2015-2016) 1:1 Lakehead Law Journal 16.
State law is not the only source of relevant or effective legal order in Indigenous people’s lives. Law matters to all societies and Indigenous societies are no different in this regard—and so, it stands to reason that for Indigenous communities, Indigenous laws continue to matter today. The question that arises out of this logical starting point has become our primary research concern: “How do we begin to engage constructively with Indigenous legal traditions to substantively identify and articulate these Indigenous laws?”
Val Napoleon & Hadley Friedland, "An Inside Job: Engaging with Indigenous Legal Traditions Through Stories"
(2016) 61:4 McGill Law Journal 725
According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, the revitalization and recognition of Indigenous laws are essential to reconciliation in Canada. How, then, do we go about doing this? In this article, Val Napoleon and Hadley Friedland introduce one method, which they believe has great potential for working respectfully and productively with Indigenous laws today. They engage with Indigenous legal traditions by carefully and consciously applying adapted common law tools, such as legal analysis and synthesis, to existing and often publicly available Indigenous resources: stories, narratives, and oral histories. By bringing common pedagogical approaches from many Indigenous legal traditions together with standard common law legal education, they hope to help people learn Indigenous laws from an internal point of view.

"An Introduction to Legal Research of Indigenous Orders" in The Comprehensive Guide to Legal Research, Writing & Analysis, 4th ed by Jessica Asch and Tara Williamson
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2024

The authors come from a practice rooted in community-led research and partnership, so considerable emphasis is placed on ethical relationship-building and community engagement, which are cornerstones of their practice. The purpose of the research and writing may dictate the extent to which some of these practices will be relevant or the amount of attention they will require. For example, a student drafting a paper for a class may not engage in much primary research or embedded learning. Still, understanding the history, context, and importance of rigorous, ethical research in Indigenous law is imperative for responsible scholarship in the field.
Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology by Jo-Ann Archibald Q'um Q'um Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan & Jason De Santolo (Eds)
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2019

This book 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.
Indigenous Methodologies: characteristics, conversations, and contexts, 2nd ed by Margaret Elizabeth Kovach
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2021

This text provides a framework for conducting Indigenous methodologies, serving as an entry point to learn more broadly about Indigenous research.
Indigenous Oral Histories Manual: Canada and the United States, 2nd ed by Winona Wheeler et al
Call Number: D16.14 .S685 2023 LAW

Publication Date: 2023

Using examples from Indigenous community oral history projects throughout Canada and the United States, this text is informed by best practices to show how oral history can be done in different contexts.
Indigenous Research: Theories, Practices and Relationships by Deborah McGregor, Jean-Paul Restoule & Rochelle Johnston
Call Number: E76.7 .I53 2018 LAW

Publication Date: 2018

Scholars understand what Indigenous research is, but how we practice Indigenous research ethically and respectfully in Canada is under exploration. This ground-breaking edited collection provides readers with concrete and in-depth examples of how to overcome the challenges of Indigenous research with respect to Indigenous worldviews, epistemologies, and ontology. In collaboration with their communities, and with guidance from Elders and other traditional knowledge keepers, each contributor links their personal narrative of Indigenous research to current discussions and debates.
Indigenous Research Design: Transnational Perspectives in Practice by Elizabeth Sumida Huaman & Nathan D Martin (eds)
Call Number: ebook

Publication Date: 2023

This book presents 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.
Kaandossiwin: how we come to know: Indigenous re-search methodologies, 2nd ed by Kathleen E Absolon (Minogiizhigokwe)
Call Number: E76.7 .A26 2022 Stauffer

Publication Date: 2022

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.
Native Women's History in Eastern North America Before 1900: a guide to research and writing by Rebecca Kugel & Lucy Eldersveld Murphy (Eds)
Call Number: E78.E2 N38 2007 Stauffer

Publication Date: 2007

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.
Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson
Call Number: GN380 .W554 2008 Stauffer

Publication Date: 2009

This book describes a research paradigm shared by Indigenous scholars in Canada and Australia, and demonstrates how this paradigm can be put into practice.
Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies by Chris Andersen & Jean M O'Brien (Eds)
Call Number: GN380 .S68 2017 Stauffer

Publication Date: 2017

This text provides a synthesis of changes and innovations in methodologies in Indigenous Studies, focusing on sources over a broad chronological and geographical range.