Indigenous Pathways into Social Research: Voices of a New Generation [1° ed.] 1598746952, 9781598746952

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Indigenous Pathways into Social Research

Indigenous Pathways into Social Research Voices of a New Generation

Donna M. Mertens Fiona Cram Bagele Chilisa Editors

Walnut Creek, California

LEFT COAST PRESS, INC. 1630 North Main Street, #400 Walnut Creek, CA 94596 http://www.LCoastPress.com Copyright © 2013 by Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN 978-1-59874-695-2 hardback ISBN 978-1-59874-696-9 paperback ISBN 978-1-59874-697-6 institutional eBook ISBN 978-1-61132-684-0 consumer eBook Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Indigenous pathways into social research : voices of a new generation / Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, Bagele Chilisa, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-59874-695-2 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-59874-696-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-59874-697-6 (institutional eBook) — ISBN 978-1-61132-684-0 (consumer eBook)  1. Indigenous peoples—Research. 2. Social sciences—Research. I. Mertens, Donna M. II. Cram, Fiona. III. Chilisa, Bagele. GN380.I5289 2012 300.72—dc23 2012032798 Printed in the United States of America ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992. ∞

Contents

List of Illustrations 7 Preface9 Chapter 1 The Journey Begins 11 Fiona Cram, Bagele Chilisa, and Donna M. Mertens Chapter 2 The Process that Led Me to Become an Indigenous Researcher 41 Andrina Komala Lini Thomas (Vanuatu) Chapter 3 I Never Really Had Any Role Models 59 Art Hernandez (Mexico/United States) Chapter 4 Indigenism, Public Intellectuals, and the Forever Opposed—Or, the Makings of a “Hori Academic” 71 Brad Coombes (Aotearoa New Zealand) Chapter 5 Becoming a Kaupapa Ma-ori Researcher 89 Cherryl Smith (Aotearoa New Zealand) Chapter 6 An African Narrative: The Journey of an Indigenous Social Researcher in South Africa 101 Kholeka Constance Moloi (South Africa) Chapter 7 Drawn from the Traditions of Cameroon: Lessons from Twenty-One Years of Practice 123 Debazou Yantio Yantio (Cameroon) Chapter 8 Indigenous Research with a Cultural Context 133 Fiona Hornung (Australia) Chapter 9 Being and Becoming an Indigenous Social Researcher 153 Gabriel Cruz Ignacio (Mexico) Chapter 10 Indigenous Researcher’s Thoughts: An Experience from Research with Communities in Burkina Faso Using Participatory Methods 171 Issaka Herman Traore (Burkina Faso)

Chapter 11 Becoming an Indigenous Researcher in Interior Alaska: Sharing the Transformative Journey 189 James Johnson, III (Alaska) Chapter 12 An Aboriginal Health Worker’s Research Story 203 Juanita Sherwood (Australia) Chapter 13 Nurturing the Gift of Understanding Different Realities 219 Keiko Kuji-Shikatani (Japan/Canada) Chapter 14 Inuujunga: The Intricacy of Indigenous and Western Epistemologies in the Arctic 239 Looee Okalik (Canada) Chapter 15 The Context within: My Journey into Research 249 Manulani Aluli Meyer (Hawai’i) Chapter 16 Prospects and Challenges of Becoming an Indigenous Researcher 261 Motheo Koitsiwe (South Africa) Chapter 17 Hinerauwha-riki: Tapestries of Life for Four Ma-ori Women in Evaluation 277 Nan Wehipeihana, Kataraina Pipi, Vivienne Kennedy, and Kirimatao Paipa (Aotearoa New Zealand) Chapter 18 Research in Relationship with Humans, the Spirit World, and the Natural World 299 Polly Walker (United States) Chapter 19 Lens from the “Bottom of the Well” 317 Ricardo Alfonso Millett (Panama) Chapter 20 Neyo way in ik issi: A Family Practice of Indigenist Research Informed by Land 333 Shawn Wilson and Alexandria Wilson (Alaska) Chapter 21 A Native Papua New Guinea Researcher 353 Simon Passingan (Papua New Guinea) Chapter 22 From Refusal to Getting Involved in Romani Research 367 Rocío García, Patricia Melgar, and Teresa Sordé in conversation with Luisa Cortés, Coral Santiago, and Saray Santiago (Spain) Chapter 23 Interpreting the Journey: Where Words, Stories Formed 381 Victoria Hykes Steere (Alaska) Chapter 24 The Onward Journey 395 César A. Cisneros Puebla (Mexico) Index403 About the Editors 407

Illustrations

Tables Table 8.1 Self-Identified Advantages and Disadvantages of an Australian Aboriginal Researcher Table 10.1 Participatory Methods and Women’s Satisfaction with Services Social Accountability Matrix Table 15.1 Holographic Summary of Indigenous/Quantum/ Enduring Epistemology Table 21.1 Timeline of Work Experiences

145 184 257 356

Figures Figure 4.1 Childhood Illustration of Purakaunui and Its Politics of Place Figure 8.1 Basic Elements for a Researcher of Indigenous Peoples and Communities Figure 8.2 Cultural Connectivity Figure 12.1 The Model: A Living Method, Illustrated by Willurei Kirkbright-Burney 2010 Figure 21.1 Simon Passingan Trekking on Yawan Community Land

76 141 148 213 359

Preface

This volume has been motivated by a mix of curiosity and hope. Around the world, Indigenous peoples experience inequalities that push them to the edge of society, make them unwell, and often result in premature death. While many non-Indigenous people are committed to eliminating these disparities, the voices of Indigenous peoples themselves need to be heard loudly and clearly in terms of their own accounts of their histories, their present-day needs and priorities, and their aspirations and dreams for their future. The involvement of Indigenous people in research and evaluation is an important part of enabling this to happen. The task of becoming an Indigenous researcher or evaluator is not straightforward. Those wishing to pursue this path may venture out into the world from a place of family poverty. They may face the challenges of education systems that passively exclude non-majority students. And then there is the task of unpacking research and evaluation systems that may not be particularly responsive to Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing. Not all journeys are the same. And not all motivations for undertaking this journey are the same. Hence, our curiosity about what led Indigenous people to step on the pathway to becoming a researcher or evaluator and what and who the barriers and enablers were along that pathway. We particularly wanted to know about the people who nurtured, mentored, and supported them. We were also curious about their approaches to conducting research and evaluation with Indigenous ­communities and the extent to which they applied their values and cultural heritage in their research approaches. We also hoped that, in the first instance, we would be able to locate Indigenous researchers and evaluators from around the world and that

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some would want to contribute their stories to this book. More than this, we hoped that these people would be making contributions to the social justice and transformation agendas of Indigenous people. Even if they themselves were not explicitly aware of what they were achieving, we suspected and then found that Indigenous researchers and evaluators, merely by wanting to work in ways that were compatible with their own traditions and values, are important change agents. It has been a privilege and an inspiration to hear the stories of their journeys. We now hope that other Indigenous people—young and old— will see such a journey as something they can undertake themselves or encourage and support others to pursue. In addition to the willingness of the contributors to this volume to share their stories, we also had support from an editorial board composed of Sandra Thompson, Dalene Swanson, Roianne West, and Kim Usher. We thank them for their careful, thoughtful comments to the authors that contributed to the quality of the chapters. We also want to thank Mitch Allen of Left Coast Press, Inc., for his support and belief in this project from the beginning. In this volume, you will read the stories of Indigenous people from around the world. The first chapter will establish a context and problematize the meaning of indigeneity as well as clarify our interpretations of this contested status. The following chapters are each written by an Indigenous person who has chosen to share the details of his or her journey into the world of research and evaluation. We hope that you enjoy and feel as inspired by these journeys as we did as editors. In the spirit of acknowledging who we are and how we found our pathways into research and evaluation, we share our own journeys into social research in the About the Editors section at the end of this volume.

Chapter 1

The Journey Begins Fiona Cram, Bagele Chilisa, and Donna M. Mertens

The ways of Indigenous research are as old as the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the seas, and the deserts and the lakes that Indigenous people bind themselves to as their places of belonging. It is not that Indigenous peoples are anti-research. They have always conducted research. As Castellano (2004, p. 98) writes, “Aboriginal knowledge has always been informed by research, the purposeful gathering of information and the thoughtful distillation of meaning.” So the “bad name” that research has within Indigenous communities is not about the notion of research itself; rather it is about how that research has been practiced, by whom, and for what purpose that has created ill-feeling. For many Indigenous peoples, the boundaries of their lands have been redrawn by colonial powers and they have found themselves confined or shifted to territories not of their own choosing. Other Indigenous peoples have remained on their lands and have only just recently been confronted by forces that challenge their guardianship of their traditional territories. Still others have never had legally recognized land to call their own. In many ways, the journeys of the Indigenous researchers reveal struggles over territory that are similar to how Indigenous peoples have been positioned in relation to their lands. Indigenous researchers’ stories provide increased understanding of how they caretake and illuminate the territory of Indigenous knowledge. In this volume, Indigenous researchers from across the world share their experiences of awakening to the ways of research and their subsequent journeys to find pathways whereby research and evaluation could be of service to their people. The chapters are from researchers who come from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Vanuatu, Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 11–40. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 11

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New Zealand, Australia, Botswana, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Spain, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea, and Japan. Many of the Indigenous peoples writing here have suffered “European colonization and cognitive imperialism” (Battiste, 2000, p. xvi). In some instances, these researchers have decolonized and indigenized or harmonized European ways of knowing with Indigenous ways; in other instances, they have envisioned new ways of conducting research that resonate with the researched’s cultures and ways of knowing. The contributors reflect the diversity found within Indigenous communities in terms of where they are from, the length of time they’ve been engaged as researchers, the meanings they make of the type of research they conduct, what the research can be called, and the naming that connects them to this research. Some situate themselves as researchers, others as program evaluators, and still others as both. They are diverse about whether or not they define themselves as Indigenous researchers and what they call the research they do. They also offer their reflections about their Indigenous status, their awareness of it over their lifetime, and under what conditions they would actually be considered to be Indigenous. Some of the researchers writing here grew up with a conscious awareness of their cultural and traditional ways. For others, this awareness came later in life as they struggled to understand educational settings where things were done and understood in ways that sat uneasily with them. The stories of their journeys into research provide us with an understanding of their negotiations with power, resistance to oppression, and the value that comes from understanding Indigenous ways of knowing in conjunction with research in culturally complex communities. It was the striving to privilege their own knowledge and ways of knowing that led these people to places where they can stand confidently as researchers and evaluators and define who they are and how they wish to be recognized as members of Indigenous communities. Some of the issues they address are the meaning of Indigenous research and whether they can be called Indigenous researchers. In this chapter, therefore, we explore the meaning of indigeneity, complete with recognition of the challenges involved in determining who can legitimately describe themselves as Indigenous and who can speak on behalf of Indigenous peoples and communities. We examine literature that is bringing a wider lens to the meaning of Indigenous research, including the growing number of resources now available, such as Chilisa’s (2012) Indigenous Research Methodologies, the American Higher Education Consortium’s Indigenous Framework for Evaluation (LaFrance & Nichols, 2010), Linda T. Smith’s (2012) Decolonising Methodologies, Marie Battiste’s edited volume (2000) Reclaiming Indigenous Voice

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and Vision, and Shaun Wilson’s (2008) Research Is Ceremony. These Indigenous thought leaders set the context for a discussion of what we call the research and evaluation work undertaken by Indigenous researchers and evaluators in this collection. We follow this introductory section with a brief summary of each of the chapters contributed by the Indigenous researchers telling their own stories of their journeys into social research.

Who Is IndIgenous? The recognition of who is Indigenous is fraught with tensions related to ethnicity, race, colonization, and culture. Definitions span from a drop of blood to self-identification, to more complex historical conceptualizations that involve race/ethnicity, colonization, marginalization, and/or relationship to the land (Daes, 2000). In some places, marriage to an Indigenous person can confer Indigenous status. The term “race” derives from periods of colonial expansion. Classifying humans according to appearance or race helped Europeans make sense of human diversity. This was then taken a step further in attempts to justify a hierarchy of mankind that places white men at the top and black men closest to gorillas and apes (Gould, 1981). Race assumes that the phenotype, or group of physical characteristics, is an appropriate way of classifying people into social groupings. From this, it is often assumed that biology determines other factors (e.g., intelligence, musical talent, propensity toward violence). The promotion of the term “ethnicity” marked a step back from a race-based reductionist approach to human behavior and value. Barth (1969) defined an ethnic unit as those individuals who say they belong to ethnic group A rather than ethnic group B and are willing to be treated and allow their behavior to be interpreted and judged as As and not Bs. However, ethnic identity is not solely about an individual’s choice to define himself or herself as a group member, as it has both objective (other-defined) and subjective (self-defined) components. Official government classifications of race and ethnicity have been used to deny rights to groups of people based on biology or physical characteristics (Hochchild & Weaver, 2007). At the same time, classifications that have been used to justify and advance inequalities can also be used by members of marginalized groups “to mobilize against their subordinate position” (Hochchild & Weaver, 2007, p. 160). The connection between structural subordination and indigeneity led to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (United Nations, 2007), which acknowledges the dual reality of many Indigenous people who live in two worlds. In one world, they

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hold fast to their cultural traditions, beliefs, and values. The other world is that of a colonizing nation, and it is where many Indigenous peoples go for work, education, health care, and welfare services (Reid & Cram, 2004). There can be little doubt that this experience shapes the health and wellness of Indigenous peoples (United Nations, 2007). Not only are many Indigenous people marginalized from the societies they must now inhabit, many of those whose right it is to claim to be Indigenous are marginalized from their cultural traditions and membership in their respective tribe(s) (Smith, 2006). UNDRIP (United Nations, 2007, p. 2) expresses concern over the injustices that colonization has wrought on Indigenous peoples, including their dispossession from their “lands, territories and resources.” Such dispossession occurred in the absence as well as the presence of treaties between Indigenous peoples and newcomers that affirmed Indigenous sovereignty (Alfred, 2005; Lashley, 2000). How much, however, should this experience of subordination within contested territory define what it is to be Indigenous? The dominance of Australia, Canada, the United States, and New Zealand within Indigenous discourses has written dispossession and marginalization into the substratum of indigeneity legitimacy. However, when Indigenous peoples regain sovereignty, they will still be Indigenous—in spite of the loss of this seemingly defining characteristic. In the early 1990s, Fleras and Elliot’s (1992, p. 1) definition included the descendants of the first inhabitants of a territory, “Aboriginal peoples”, were now subordinate members of a larger, dominant society. In this definition, a claim to be the first on the land, along with an experience of marginalization and colonization are seen as essential to the authorization of indigeneity. For example, Braun, Allison, and Tsark (2008, p. 329) define Native Hawaiians as “individuals who trace their ancestry directly to the Polynesians who peopled and governed the Hawaiian archipelago before the arrival of Westerners in 1778.” This is also highlighted by Motheo Koitsiwe in his chapter, when he cites Anaya’s (2004) definition of Indigenous peoples as being those who are descended from the pre-invasion inhabitants of lands that are now occupied and dominated by others. Where does this definition leave those who know their ancestors were the first to walk the land, but whose tenure has remained unchallenged? Are their connections to the land and their claims to guardianship of it denied because of their membership in a majority culture? A definition of indigeneity that is linked to colonization makes sense for Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Russia, Australia, the Arctic, New Zealand, and parts of Africa and the Pacific. However, in those parts of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific where Indigenous peoples were

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not displaced by white settlers, the definition makes less sense (United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues [UNPFII], 2009). In Africa, it is not common to use the term Indigenous. Native Africans who were in Africa before the arrival of European colonizers do not selfidentity as Indigenous peoples (Kapoor & Shizha, 2010). It is common in Africa to narrowly define Indigenous peoples to mean specific peoples who are nondominant compared to other ethnic groups and who have close ties to the land, often depending on it for livelihood. When used in this sense, it refers to the San, Hadzaze, and Maasai who are mainly pastoralists and hunters as well as the Indigenous peoples of Somalia (Eversole, 2005). While African peoples rarely use the word Indigenous in reference to themselves, preferring ethnic group or tribe (Eversole, 2005): “All citizens of African origin who are African, not through being offspring of settlerism and colonialism, are accepted as Indigenous people” (Kapoor & Shizha, 2010, p. 3). And what of those who may not have been the “first” but whose roots to the land now reach across thousands of years? Will their dispossession of ancients, or perhaps even the merging of two peoples many generations ago, prohibit a claim of indigeneity? An estimated 70% of Indigenous peoples are in Asia, and the majority of these peoples are not the original inhabitants of an area. In Asia, prior, rather than original, inhabitants are used to identity peoples as Indigenous. But why are definitions of who is Indigenous in research important? Where do they lead us and what do definitions on indigeneity contribute to researchers’ efforts to build a body of literature on Indigenous research methodologies? It can be argued that the (re)vitalization and future of Indigenous peoples is supported and potentially facilitated by Indigenous research methodologies and this is why these questions are important. Daes (2000, p. 2), for example, recounts the story told by Tezozomoc about the recovery of the Aztec people from their slavery by Spain. The Aztecs’ ability to do so was because “their heritage and history survived in the memories and hearts of their elders.” One lesson from this story is that if people continue to believe in and cherish their heritage, then even centuries of occupation and oppression will not destroy it. Another lesson is about the importance of methodologies that enabled the knowing of these elders to be gathered and used for the betterment of the people. Chilisa (2012) provides a way out of the conundrum associated with defining who is Indigenous by conceptualizing indigeneity as a cultural group’s ways of knowing and the value systems that inform their lives. When Chilisa’s (2012) concept of indigeneity is applied to research, then we ask: What is the influence of ways of perceiving reality, ways of knowing, and the value systems that inform the research process? Using this perspective, Chilisa notes that Euro-Western paradigms of research are

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Indigenous to Euro-Western societies. However, there are major groups of people whose perspectives are not included in the Euro-Western paradigms. The Indigenous perspectives of research that are included in this book are those that reflect the realities, knowledges, and values of Indigenous peoples who have been colonized in the Third World and those who were first to, or prior inhabitants of, their land and have not had their perspectives represented in Euro-Western paradigms of research. These are the voices that are being made visible through the recognition of Indigenous knowledge systems that serve to resist attacks on their cultures and look for pathways forward to increased human dignity. Chilisa (2012, p. 13) identifies the following characteristics of Indigenous research: 1. it targets a local phenomenon instead of using extant theory from the West to identity and define a research issue; 2. it is context-sensitive and creates locally relevant constructs, methods, and theories derived from local experiences and Indigenous knowledge; 3. it can be integrative, that is, combining Western and Indigenous theories; and 4. in its most advanced form, its assumptions about what counts as reality, knowledge, and values in research are informed by an Indigenous research paradigm.

PostcolonIal IndIgenous ReseaRch PaRadIgm If Indigenous peoples have different ways of knowing, then it follows that an Indigenous worldview needs to be brought to the research context. Chilisa (2012) and Wilson (2008) describe such a research paradigm that incorporates relational ontologies, relational epistemologies, and relational accountabilities. The emphasis on relational constructs emanates from Indigenous value systems that recognize the connections between people, past, present, and future, and all living and non-living things. As many of the contributors to this volume note, connectivity is important for the ethical basis it provides for making decisions about research. These values also impinge on the research process in the need to frame the research in ways that are respectful and reciprocal. The respectful researcher “listens, pays attention, acknowledges, and creates space for the voices and knowledge systems of the Other” (Chilisa, 2012, p. 22). Such a researcher draws on the spirit of ubuntu to provide ethical guidance; ubuntu is an African principle based on the premise that “I am because we are.” Desmond Tutu (1999, p. 33) explains the meaning of ubuntu: A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened when others are able and good, for he [or] she . . . belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated

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or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than they are.

Throughout this volume, the researchers describe ethical value systems based on respect, connectivity, reciprocity, and a desire to see research contribute to a better future. This ethical stance has implications for the relational nature of epistemology that is discussed in the next section.

contestIng “KnoWledge”: the QuestIon of ePIstemology Research and the contestation over what counts as knowledge are just as implicated in the marginalization of Indigenous peoples as are Christianity, disease, warfare, and constitutional maneuvering (Ormond, Cram, & Carter, 2006). Early documentation by newcomers described Indigenous peoples within the worldview of these “others”, often with the result that Indigenous peoples came to be seen at best as “exotic” and “noble savages” and, at worst, as the “problem” and other than human (Janke, 1998). The acceptance of these new “truths” and the common sense they created about Indigenous peoples under the auspices of colonial rule helped push Indigenous peoples into “minoritized spaces” (Ermine, Sinclair, & Jeffery, 2004; Laguerre, 1999). Linda Smith (1992, p. 7) describes the majority of these pa¯keha¯ (Ma¯ori word for white people) researchers as “willing bedfellows of assimilationist, victim-blaming policies.” Scheurich and Young (1997) have argued that “White racism or White supremacy became interlaced or interwoven into the founding fabric of modernist western civilization” (p. 7) through “racially biased ways of knowing” (p. 4). The resulting exclusion of other epistemologies has impacted severely on non-white peoples around the globe (Bishop & Glynn, 1999; Smith, 1999). Indigenous knowledge has been marginalized as an interesting add-on rather than something that has its own epistemological and ontological traditions (Kovach, 2009; Wilson, 2008). The new racist knowledge about Indigenous deficits justified the redistribution of the goods and services of society in inequitable ways. Unsurprisingly, some Indigenous people also internalized the messages that they were somewhat “less” than the new norms that privileged whiteness (Jones, 1999). Even under extremes of marginalization and cultural disruption, Indigenous peoples have continued to believe in and assert their sovereignty. They have continued to march in protests, contest broken treaties, occupy disputed lands, and establish and strengthen their own institutions (United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues [UNPFII], 2009). Over the past twenty to thirty years, there has also

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been a growing awareness among Indigenous peoples that research and evaluation can be reclaimed and can work in our favor; that, “If we have been researched to death, maybe it’s time we started researching ourselves back to life” (Castellano, 2004, p. 98). Linda Smith (1999) talks about how we can decolonize research so that it better serves the interests of Indigenous peoples. This includes allowing Indigenous stories to be told and heard as well as using research to destabilize those power structures that continue to hold Indigenous peoples at the margins of societies. Beginning in Australia in 1986, a recent manifestation of Indigenous resistance to the imposition of this external “common sense” has been the development of research protocols for those wishing to undertake research with Indigenous peoples (Ermine et al., 2004). These guides have been developed by funding agencies (e.g., Health Research Council, 2008), and by Indigenous peoples themselves (e.g., Alberta Mental Health Board, 2006; American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 2003; Assembly of First Nations, 2012; Te Awekotuku, 1991). These protocols stress the importance of principles such as respect and reciprocity, the importance of elders and cultural and spiritual protocols, the role of mutual understandings and power sharing, and the time and space it takes for good relationships to develop and flourish (Te Hennepe, 1993). For example, a consultative process in Aotearoa New Zealand about research ethics stressed the importance of the relationships between those conducting research and those being researched with, along with the importance of keeping the journey being undertaken “safe” for everyone through adherence to cultural protocols and practices Ormond et al., 2006. In this way, research would be “correct” and those involved were more likely to be enriched by it (Mead, 2003). In this context, “useful” research would serve a social justice agenda by challenging the inequitable distribution of the goods and services within a colonized society that prevents Indigenous peoples from living long, healthy, and fulfilling lives (Reid & Robson, 2007). These protocols have seen the growth of participatory research methodologies and calls from Indigenous peoples for their own people to be part of, if not leaders of, research teams. The growth of community-based participatory research in the United States and participatory action research in other parts of the world are some of the developments of the calls from Indigenous peoples for new, more culturally responsive ways of research (Chávez et al., 2008; Eruera, 2010). Arbour and Cook (2006, p. 154), for example, argue that “respect for aboriginal culture, knowledge, tradition and values are fundamental to the development of culturally competent research.”

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IndIgenous ReseaRch As the interrogation of Euro-Western research methodologies on their tendencies to exclude other knowledge systems gains momentum, academic institutions are under pressure to commit themselves to undertaking research based on Indigenous culture and the languages of the researched as well as serving their needs (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 1996). In Africa, Prah (1999) for instance, argues that Africans cannot, in all seriousness, study themselves through the eyes of other people. Chilisa (2012) invites researchers to interrogate their roles and responsibilities as researchers and poses the following questions: • How can we conduct research without using only Western academic constructs and terminologies? • How can we minimize the intrusion of terms in our research reports that may culturally and contextually lack contingency with our experiences? Can academic languages accurately communicate our experiences? • What is the contribution of our languages stored in folklore, mythologies, and proverbs to the building of Indigenous conceptual and theoretical frameworks and the design of interventions to improve the quality of life of our people? • Who is reading our research and in what and whose language? (Chilisa, 2012, p. 130)

The invigoration of Indigenous research around the world was greatly enriched by the 1999 publication of Linda Smith’s seminal book, Decolonising Methodologies. This book set a firm foundation from which Indigenous people could argue the case for research that was by Indigenous people, for Indigenous people, with Indigenous people. In the words of Ermine and colleagues (2004, p. 9), “Indigenous peoples are now poised to assert the Indigenous perspective on research and reclaim a voice that contributes to the dismantling of an old order of research practice.” Although there has been a predominance of qualitative Indigenous research, this does not mean that Indigenous peoples are innumerate (Simmonds et al., 2008), or that the physical sciences are beyond their reach (Cajete, 2000). Rather, qualitative research has facilitated narratives and testimony in ways that are congruent with Indigenous peoples’ storytelling traditions and has been the most accessible avenue through which to begin to understand how research can engage with, and seek to represent, Indigenous knowledge (Battiste, 2002; Bishop, 1996; Lee, 2003). Linda Smith (2006, p. 7) describes Indigenous researchers as often being in the margins of their disciplines, institutions, and research communities, as they unsettle the status quo by questioning the legitimacy

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of dominant research paradigms. In some circumstances, the value of Indigenous research is recognized, thus moving these researchers away from the margins into a space that allows for knowledge creation with the potential for social change. This is seen in the chapters in this volume that address environmental issues, climate change, and economic and educational improvements. In other circumstances, there may be accusations that Indigenous researchers lack objectivity and are open to bias—a view that fails to value the social justice agenda many Indigenous researchers are working within by conducting rigorous research. As Smith (1999, 2006) asserts, tribal accountabilities should not be mistaken for a lack of professional integrity. Chilisa (2012, p. 171) also adds that “validity with a postcolonial critique framework starts with a call for recognition of conceptual frameworks, theoretical frameworks, and data collection and analysis methods derived from the researched’s frames of reference and Indigenous knowledge.” Thus, priority is placed on respectful inclusion of community members in the research in order to be responsive to the Indigenous knowledge that characterizes their community. Porsanger (2004) has noted that not all Indigenous people adopt an Indigenous methodological approach to research. It should also be noted that not all Indigenous people who adopt an Indigenous research lens to research call themselves Indigenous researchers, nor do they want others to know them in that way. It is indeed rare to identity researchers by where they come from or where they do research. For instance, it is rare to refer to researchers as Western researchers. Even when they are referred to as Western researchers, it does not mean they do research on Westerners. Often research that people do is distinguished by either purpose or by methods. Some researchers in this volume thus see themselves as social science researchers who use Indigenous methodologies to inform the way they conduct research in their communities. In some ways, the marginalization of Indigenous knowledge by Western academic institutions has led to the reification of that knowledge. Agrawai (2009) argues that the division of the fields of scientific and Indigenous knowledge is more about well-bounded political and social concerns than about categorically distinct knowledge concepts. In a similar fashion, an Indigenous researcher, Maggie Kovach (2009, p. 12) writes that “As the academic landscape shifts with an increasing Indigenous presence, there is a desire among a growing community of non-Indigenous academics to move beyond the binaries found within Indigenous-settler relations to construct new, mutual forms of dialogue, research, theory, and action.” In the West, the investment made by funding institutions in Indigenous research capacity has produced changes in the number and capacity of Indigenous researchers in academe. In some

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places and disciplines (e.g., education, health), Indigenous researchers do not want mentoring or junior roles within research teams. Rather, senior Indigenous researchers are seeking colleagues. The writers in this volume, even those who speak from a place where they are one of a mere few Indigenous researchers, are seeking colleagues who support and challenge them within the context of relationships that are acknowledging and respectful of Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing. A note of caution is in order as well: A researcher is not necessarily seen as credible by the Indigenous community simply because of shared heritage (Geleta, In press). The research participants might still view the researcher with suspicion or as a threat, engendering a lack of willingness to share information until the researcher’s intent is clear and proper protocols have been observed. In his research in Ethiopia, Geleta, who was born and raised in Ethiopia and whose mother tongue was the language of the participants, thought he would be perceived as an insider. The most frequent question he was asked was why he wanted to undertake the research. His reason was that he wanted to examine the extent to which a microfinance program achieved poverty reduction and facilitated women’s empowerment. Geleta’s research purpose was viewed by the program staff as a potential threat to the continuation of their program. The program staff also questioned the legitimacy of his ethnic status because only his mother was from the tribe in the study location and genealogy in this culture follows the father. The program staff agreed to share the positive aspects of their business with him. When he accessed the people who received the loans, they were equally, if not more, suspicious. They asked him why he thought they would tell him the truth if he was going to share their information with the lending agency. He was able to build a trusting relationship with some of the participants through his continuous presence in the villages and at the coffee ceremonies that are common social gatherings there. Gradually, he came to accept that he had to allow himself to be interviewed by the participants as part of the process of building a relationship in which they felt comfortable sharing their stories with him. Contributors in this volume share their experiences in conducting research using Indigenous methods that privilege Indigenous languages, knowledge, and culture as well as using Indigenous knowledge to inform the development of new Indigenous research methods. The journeys described by the Indigenous researchers and evaluators are at one level the same in many ways, while at the same time they are different and unique. The purpose of this volume is to enable Indigenous and nonIndigenous readers alike to pause, reflect, and connect with the exciting resurgence of Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing. For current and aspiring Indigenous researchers, we hope that the stories of your peers will resonant for you. For non-Indigenous researchers, we hope

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that these stories will enlighten you and deepen your understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing and their application within a research context. We also long for the day when the stories of Indigenous researchers’ struggles for legitimacy within mainstream institutions, organizations, and society more generally are history. And, as many of the authors argue in this volume, this day will also be linked with a reduction of health, educational, and other disparities that afflict their peoples and the facilitation of Indigenous aspirations to live, work, and love as Indigenous peoples.

summaRy of IndIgenous chaPteRs Andrina Komala Lini Thomas Andrina is from the country of Vanuatu, which is comprised of many small islands in the South Pacific. She is part of the Indigenous Let Melanesia ethnic group. Prior to colonization by both the French and British in the early 1900s, Vanuatu was a matrilineal society. Patrilineal culture was introduced at the time of colonization. The patrilineal culture of descent has created an atmosphere that is hostile to women and to their abilities to enjoy their right to equal opportunities, especially in employment and decision making. Andrina descended from a matrilineal descent segment of the Vanuatu culture that respects and shares power with women in governance. Her parents and family members encouraged her to seek leadership positions in governance. Through her experience as a social worker, she came to see the contrast between women’s experiences under a patrilineal compared to a matrilineal system. This inspired her to seek her Ph.D. with a focus on building the capacity of women from Vanuatu for leadership. She accepts that it is her responsibility as an Indigenous researcher to study problems encountered by women who migrate into urban centers and to propose solutions to these problems. Her journey has been fraught with economic challenges and discrimination that she experienced in terms of having access to higher education and the financial support needed for that education and for participation in professional conferences. She relies on Indigenous methods of data collection that derive from traditional storytelling in a nonhierarchical-conversational relationship.

Art Hernandez Art grew up in a poor Mexican American family in the United States. He enrolled in college under affirmative action policies that were supporting members of minority groups to pursue higher education. He majored in psychology because he was intrigued with the study of human behavior

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and saw the opportunity to explore methods to change peoples’ attitudes of prejudice and injustice. Art describes himself as oblivious to experiences of discrimination, yet he felt a sense of discomfort that he later attributed to discrimination while in school and then applying for graduate school. After he completed his undergraduate degree, he was hired to teach English as a Second Language. He quickly realized that he was hired for the position, for which he was not professionally prepared, because of his Mexican heritage. When Art applied for graduate school, his major undergraduate professor did not send the letters of recommendation that he had promised. Art’s training in clinical psychology provided him with a transformative experience as he realized the damage done when psychometric measures that had not been validated for ethnic/racial minority groups were used to track minority students into special education. He also reports the low expectations that others had for him because he was “Mexican.” Art’s early teaching experiences working with Hispanic students brought an awareness of the deficit perspective of these students and how that limited the students’ life chances. He had the opportunity to obtain additional professional training in program evaluation and it was at this point that he brought the threads of discrimination, validity of measurements, and the need for cultural competency together. He now implements the tenets of cultural competency as a program evaluator, using research methods that allow for responsiveness to different worldviews based on culture, language, beliefs, and behavior.

Brad Coombes Brad Coombes is a Ma¯ori researcher and professor from New Zealand who contemplates how his identity as an Indigenous person was coconstructed by his heritage and by others who held assumptions about him as an Indigenous person. Brad raises the complex question about who is considered to be Indigenous and notes that literature has provided several perspectives on this, ranging from simple self-identification to criteria related to ancestry, to relational approaches that encompass the effects of politics and resistance to colonizers. He hypothesizes that the definition of indigeneity might include aspects of all of these definitions, but what is important is the opportunity for a dynamic interplay among peoples, places, and social causes. He was fortunate that his grandparents shared with him at an early age the history of the Ma¯ori and their culture, particularly with respect to taking of their lands by European colonizers. The impact of the loss of their land was broad and deep; they lost arable land and water resources, and so lost income from farming, bringing poverty and migration to the cities. Perhaps even more destructive, they lost access

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to their important cultural sites and burial grounds, and so lost their ability to uphold the spiritual traditions that date back thousands of years. Brad’s professional career as a researcher was connected to the Waitangi Tribunal and the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, a positioning that was particularly appropriate given the history of the Ma¯ori struggle to regain their land. Brad makes clear the diversity among members of different tribes and the complications involved in making ethical decisions about the repatriation of the land. His approach to research is rooted in the Ma¯ori tradition of storytelling, using strategies such as participatory video approaches that resulted in self-made documentaries that present the history and evidence of their claim to the land. A political wind that called for more Ma¯ori researchers and professors drew him into a position in a university, where he relishes the opportunity to combine teaching, research, and political activism, all the while experiencing the tensions that arise in terms of the acceptability of this positioning in academe.

César A. Cisneros Puebla César A. Cisneros Puebla grew up in a middle-class family in Mexico City. His mother’s family was a typical small entrepreneurial one in the 1950s that thrived during the “Mexican miracle.” His father’s family was different because they came to Mexico City in their journey to migrate to United States, following his grandpa who lives in California as a railroad worker. César grew up in a very family-oriented space with strong values about friendship and social responsibility. One of his uncles had a large library in his place, and César liked to go there to read different authors’ works. At some point, his uncle moved his personal library to César’s family house, and César became a devourer of books, a voracious reader. That was very influential to his career. He earned a B.A. in psychology, an M.A. in sociology, and a Ph.D. in political science, all in Mexican universities. He started to work at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Iztapalapa, Mexico, as a lecturer in the earlier eighties. César’s academic career has been related to methodology and epistemology from the very beginning. In Latin America, there is a strong connection between social science and social and political activism in public universities, and César was no exception to this. His first activities as a researcher were in rural communities, with an emphasis on participatory action approaches. Later, he analyzed subjectivity in relation to the social and political structures of subordination and domination. In the nineties, his methodological interests led him to qualitative methods, and in 2001 he went to the University of Alberta to spend two sabbatical years as visiting professor at the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology. Since then, César has been active in the international arena of qualitative inquiry.

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Cherryl Smith Cherryl Smith grew up in a strong Ma¯ori family where her Indigenous culture was nurtured and supported, and she experienced the deficit perspective applied to her and her family when they left that community. Her story highlights the importance of land in the Ma¯ori culture; she describes how her grandmother unsuccessfully fought through the courts to reclaim the lands taken from them. The word research was associated with documentation of problems in the Ma¯ori community with no solutions offered. When Cherryl learned Kaupapa Ma¯ori theory and methodology, she saw how research could be used as a tool for reclamation for her people. Cherryl collaborated with another Ma¯ori researcher, with the support of her community, to set up a Ma¯ori research institute (Te Atawhai O TeAo: Independent Ma¯ori Institute for Environment and Health). The institute combines research and film making to disseminate their research work on issues related to challenging oppressive education, health, and justice systems. Cherryl and her partner view their role as researchers as bringing forward the voices of Ma¯ori who experience marginalization as a way of informing those who have the power to make changes. Their research is community based and that basis provides their definition of rigor. The researchers incorporate appropriate prayer and food rituals into data collection, especially when working with groups who have experienced trauma. They have developed networks across Ma¯ori tribes and are researching healing pathways that are intergenerational in nature, addressing the harmful legacy of colonialism.

Kholeka Constance Moloi Kholeka Moloi was born in South Africa at the time apartheid was instituted as a legalized system for relocation of black Africans as well as for a discriminatory school system. She became a teacher, and later a principal, in poor schools, as these were the rare job opportunities that were open for black South Africans. As a principal, she worked with parents and the surrounding community to create a school where Indigenous knowledge was valued and used as a basis for improving the quality of education for her students. During Kholeka’s lifetime, she has seen apartheid end but she has not yet seen the promise of equality for black Africans. These experiences led her to see research rooted in Indigenous knowledge as a tool for social change, focusing her energy on transforming schools into learning organizations. She describes the Western, imperialist research methods that constituted her Ph.D. program and her growing awareness of Indigenous knowledge systems and their applicability to research. Kholeka reframed research as a process for co-creating and using local knowledge to conduct research that benefited both the researcher and the

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community. She documented success of schools founded on the value of collectivism that defined African culture before colonization. Bringing an Indigenous lens to research reveals the social capital that is viewed as an asset for poor people who are able to navigate their struggles for survival, food, and shelter despite overwhelming odds. As a university professor, Kholeka relishes her role as a change agent within academia through her research work, support for Indigenous students, and community service.

Debazou Yantio Yantio Debazou Yantio Yantio is from Cameroon; his research journey began in a university course in research methodology that focused on the use of research to address problems in rural development in his country. Debazou’s early research in agriculture showed him the disparity between scientific knowledge and knowledge based on the lived experiences of people in the community. He witnessed the damage caused to small farmers that resulted from state actions that privileged large collectives at the expense of traditional small farms. This brought about a shift in Debazou’s way of understanding what was needed to support the agricultural sector; it was not more instruction on farm management, rather it was challenging the power structures that inadequately considered local contexts and that deny local farmers a voice in national policy. Debazou does not consider himself an Indigenous researcher; he is an Indigenous person who is a social science researcher who understands the importance of local context as a basis for establishing the relevancy and validity of research results. In other words, he involves local people in the conceptualization of the problems and solutions and respects the oral traditions in the cultural knowledge base. He serves in leadership roles to advocate for capacity building for evaluation research appropriate to the African context, increase access to scientific literature and professional engagement with colleagues, recognize the need for local evaluators in leadership roles, and increase funding for this type of research.

Fiona Hornung Fiona Hornung is an Aboriginal Australian from the Uidingi and Gungarri peoples in Queensland; she sees her responsibility as a researcher to serve the Aboriginal Australians as well as the Torres Strait Islander peoples. Fiona acknowledges her ancestors and the importance for Indigenous people to know the destructive history of colonization on their ways of being. The Australian government took Indigenous children from their homes to assimilate them to their Western ways and has only recently apologized for this. Fiona traces her interest in research to her childhood, when she was always curious and asking questions. She became a schoolteacher and applied her curiosity to the learning of Indigenous

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students. Fiona developed a model for Aboriginal research called the cultural connectivity model that reflects the traditional ways of knowing, language, art, customs, spiritual connections, and knowledge. The research model begins with consultation with Indigenous leaders, along with negotiation and building mutual understandings about permissions to enter and ways to respectfully engage with community members. The need for respect for culture, land, and people is integrated throughout the research process. Specific attention is paid to the benefits intended for the Indigenous people in the form of access to research results. Fiona combines the Western approach of action research with her Indigenous knowledge to conduct research reflective of the culture and aimed at creating positive social change.

Gabriel Cruz Ignacio Gabriel Cruz Ignacio is an Indigenous person from Oaxaca, Mexico, who entered the research field when his country offered higher education opportunities for studying ethnolinguistics. Gabriel’s own early schooling experiences did not occur in settings that allowed his use of his Indigenous language, nor did it reflect the Indigenous knowledge present in his home community. Gabriel discusses the integration of his personal and professional lives as he brought his Indigenous identity to bear on his professional teaching life. He began his research activities by observing the challenges for Indigenous language students in Spanish-speaking classrooms. His focus turned to how to use the Indigenous language as a medium for communication and the construction of knowledge as a way to support the transition of his students into classrooms that used Spanish for instruction. He used a sociolinguistic theoretical frame to conduct autobiographical narratives about bilingual Indigenous people as a way of capturing their experiences negotiating the linguistic and educational terrain. Gabriel advocates for intercultural situated research and education as a way for Indigenous peoples to form partnerships with non-Indigenous teachers for the preparation of teachers that reflect and are responsive to the social and cultural composition of the students in Mexico. While still considered a novice researcher, Gabriel is serving as a leader in the field of bilingual education and support for the preservation of Indigenous languages and cultures, having cultivated relationships with other Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and community members. Working with a research collective has helped mitigate the financial challenges associated with being a student without resources of his own to support his research activities. Gabriel’s goal is to improve the design of public education, language, and culture policies for Indigenous localities.

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Issaka Herman Traore Issaka Herman Traore is from eastern Burkina Faso in Africa, where an oral tradition of research has existed for centuries. Researchers are viewed in different roles—as memory keepers, healers, and seers. In order for development programs to be accepted by community members, they must be approved first by one of the types of researchers recognized in the Indigenous community. By virtue of Issaka’s university studies, he became a “degree owner” researcher. He describes the process of combining his university knowledge with his Indigenous knowledge to become a complete researcher by means of forming on-going relationships with the elders in his community. This started his journey to discover Indigenous techniques that were not remembered or valued in the development sector but had potential to improve rural communities. Issaka’s pursuit of further academic training was impeded by the lack of access to appropriate programs in Africa and financial resources with which to pursue education elsewhere. Issaka notes that the oral tradition has implications when collecting data; some elders do not want to transmit information when the researcher is writing it down. The elders pride themselves on being memory keepers and use drugs that enhance their abilities to remember things. Issaka learned about participatory action research methods and applied these when researching with rural people in Burkina Faso. As a matter of human rights, he discusses his responsibility to value the knowledge of centuries past and to use this knowledge for the well-being of people in the rural areas. Issaka also feels a sense of responsibility to contribute to the African school of thought about research and evaluation so that the transmission of their knowledge, skills, and know-how will be shared with the new generation of Africans and the rest of the world. He describes several Indigenous data collection methods that rely on talking and listening until a consensus can be reached. Among these are the palabre system, which allows everyone to provide their point of view and then for the elders to make a decision. If the elders do not reach consensus, then they send for elders from nearby villages and they talk until a consensus is reached. The basis of the decision is viewed as the moral integrity of the Indigenous experts. Issaka also learned that farmers wanted to share their knowledge about farming, animal husbandry, and food security by drawing a picture on the ground that illustrated their practices. He works collaboratively with researchers from other African countries; however, he is frustrated by the lack of funding available for developing African-based Indigenous studies. The African Evaluation Association and the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation have provided Issaka with a network of colleagues with whom he serves in a leadership role. In this way, and in addition to his professional writing

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and presentations, he is contributing to the development of an African school of thought on research and evaluation.

James Johnson, III James Johnson is a Native Alaskan whose journey into the world of research combines the traditional knowledge and values of his community with those of the academic world of program evaluation. His family and tribe value the land and the rivers. Unfortunately, their relationship with the land was eroded by the introduction of alcohol and urbanization by non-native traders and gold miners, resulting in a high rate of suicide. James succumbed to alcohol addiction, but with the help of family, friends, and appropriate treatment, he is now serving in the role as a healer in his community. His mother played an important role in his journey as she recommended that he accept the position as a Native Alaskan evaluator for the human services program in which he was enrolled at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks Interior-Aleutians campus. Although quite a novice, James learned some research methods and began data collection by conducting focus groups. He quickly surmised that the quality of the data improved if he took the time to establish relationships with the participants. From his grandparents and parents, he learned to treasure the land and its riches and to truly listen to people, allowing them the time they needed to provide answers. James adapts the grounded theory approach to qualitative research to gain insights into people’s experiences from their own perspectives. He is able to bring a positive interpretation to the lack of attendance at training programs that are scheduled during salmon fishing season: It is not that the people are uninterested in training; they need the food to survive the winter. Such information changes perceptions of Indigenous people from lazy and not caring to work, to people who work very hard to survive, respect the rhythms of nature, and want to improve their quality of life. James’s awareness of the deep scars carried by Indigenous Native Alaskans reinforces his desire to combine healing with research and evaluation. It is not enough to collect and analyze data; one must be responsive to the psychological, social, and economic needs in the community. James benefited from a relationship formed with Ma¯ori researchers and evaluators who came from New Zealand to provide professional training in Indigenous evaluation. The Alaskan Native evaluators formed a fellowship that works cooperatively to document the meaning of Indigenous evaluation across tribal groups and to conduct evaluations that are reflective of their culture.

Juanita Sherwood Juanita Sherwood is an Aboriginal woman of Australia who began her journey as a researcher because of the decline in health her people

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experienced following colonization. She viewed community-led research as a tool to get the action needed to improve their access to health services. As a school nurse, Juanita discovered a higher-than-expected rate of conductive hearing loss in Aboriginal children starting school, which impeded their abilities to benefit from their educational experiences. She was instrumental in lobbying the government to get research funds to identity successful educational and health strategies for these students. Juanita used a consultative community participatory approach to inform policy makers of the situation and to conduct research aimed at finding solutions over a ten-year period. Juanita was influenced by reading Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s decolonizing methodologies, as were many of the other authors in this book. She recognized that Western ways of researching had often done harm in the Aboriginal community by misrepresentation. The elders selected her to work with them to learn more about Aboriginal ways of knowing, which led her to appreciate the methods of storytelling and responsibilities that she shared. Juanita experienced the isolation of being a sole Indigenous researcher in the academy, as well as being relegated to the status of research assistant, implying that she was not capable enough to be a lead researcher because of her indigeneity. She and her colleagues formed an Indigenous staff network for support and to further the conduct of research that contributed positively to finding solutions to health problems in the Aboriginal community.

Keiko Kuji-Shikatani Keiko Kuji-Shikatani is Japanese by birth; her story raises the question: Who should be considered Indigenous? Keiko discusses the identity crisis she struggled with in trying to determine if she could be counted as Indigenous. Her decision to contribute to this volume rested on her desire to critically examine those parts of her Indigenous culture from Japan that she brings with her to her current work as an evaluator/researcher in another culture. Through Keiko’s early experiences as a minority in different mainstream cultures, she learned to observe carefully, be respectful of differences, and try to understand things from the perspective of the other. She became aware of the stark differences in the quality of childhood by a school visit to UNICEF in which she learned that many children grow up in war zones, with very little hope for a happy childhood. This led Keiko to prepare herself for a career in international development. Her experiences caused her to ask: What happens when a development worker’s intentions are good, but the results of the development work are harmful? This became the basis for her Ph.D. studies as she explored how to appropriately include various stakeholders in the determination of what interventions would be useful and how effectively they had been

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implemented. Keiko had the opportunity to return to Japan to use her research and evaluation skills to train Japanese teachers in evaluation. During this time, she became aware of how being an Indigenous Japanese evaluator/researcher was an advantage in that she could understand the nuances of language and culture that would be lost on a non-Indigenous person. Keiko’s history as a descendant of the samurai tradition provided her with the values of accountability and working for the betterment of society strongly influences the way she conducts her work now.

Looee Okalik Looee Okalik is an Inuit whose family is Indigenous to Canada. Her people have conducted research from time immemorial, establishing knowledge about the land and the environment and the need for respect of nature. Looee’s mother selected Looee to carry on the knowledge of their ancestors, so she grew up in their company as a way of gaining the knowledge that needed to be passed down to her. Looee’s early experiences in journalism taught her to find out the facts, engage appropriate people, and use her negotiation and advocacy skills to impact change. Her research focus changed to health-related issues in the Inuit community when opportunities were presented to gain skills in this area specifically for Indigenous researchers. By integrating traditional Inuit knowledge into her research work, Looee was able to demonstrate the effect of increasing toxins and global warming on animals and the Inuit’s food supply. Research is viewed as an activity achieved through partnerships, with inclusion of colleagues and communities to ensure they are on the right path to wellness. The Canadian government has provided strong support for Inuit-related research. The Inuit have developed guidelines for research conducted in their community that include sharing the results of the research with them. The Inuit language is still used in their communities, so language is an important issue in research. Inclusion of many generations, from elders to youth is also important, as all have important contributions. Looee also describes opportunities for Indigenous peoples to share their experiences internationally, bolstered by the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Manulani Aluli Meyer Manulani Aluli Meyer is Indigenous to Hawaii and became entranced with the question of the meaning of Hawaiian ways of knowing. Her research gained focus as she explored epistemology as a key to understanding the turmoil experienced by Indigenous Hawaiians, especially as reflected in lack of relevant curriculum in schools that held low

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expectations for this population. Manulani struggled with the meaning of indigeneity and found answers by delving into her past. She found that knowing more about her Hawaiian culture changed everything, including how she viewed herself as an Indigenous person. Manulani also discovered a theme related to healing in her work with Indigenous Ph.D. students across the world, urging researchers to heal themselves and then to lend a healing hand to others. Research is viewed as a guide to action for ourselves as well as for others who have the power to make changes in society. Manulani takes us into philosophical territory, examining the relation between that which we can observe (knowledge), our processing of our observations (knowing), and the understandings that lead us to action. She uses the metaphor of a hologram to examine the relations between body, mind, and spirit and provides a summary of how these terms have been depicted by Indigenous peoples as well as by philosophers. Manulani explores how she learned the need to give her life to the questions that give it meaning, to find the truth of her people and bring it forward, and to know herself as a healer in order to heal others. It is by recognizing our commonalities that we can work together for change.

Motheo Koitsiwe Motheo Koitsiwe is an Indigenous researcher from South Africa who experienced the tragedy associated with apartheid in the form of inferior education systems and the continuation of that system through institutionalized racism. Motheo has been instrumental in building the opportunity for Indigenous knowledge to be recognized and taught in the school and university systems. In this way, he shares his experiences as a community-based researcher in the area of traditional health practices and promotion and traditional cultures, languages, and religions. Motheo’s grandmother and other elders held knowledge about the stars and other heavenly bodies that they transmitted through the oral tradition of storytelling; knowledge that was marginalized by colonizers. Because the Indigenous knowledge holders do not know how to read and write, they are viewed as illiterate and their knowledge is devalued. Yet they are rich in knowledge that is held in memory and transmitted orally. Motheo discusses a variety of definitions of Indigenous research and characterizes himself as an Indigenous researcher because he is Indigenous to South African, conducts Indigenous research informed by Indigenous worldviews, and uses Indigenous research methodologies and theoretical frameworks. Motheo argues that the preservation of this knowledge is necessary to solve problems related to climate change, food security, moral degeneration, and conflict resolution. He raises

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questions and presents principles of ethics with regard to research with Indigenous communities, emphasizing the need to see the participants as active agents in the process who bring valuable knowledge to the research. Motheo works collaboratively with other Indigenous researchers to establish a research and educational center focused on Indigenous knowledge systems and ways to share that knowledge across borders through the use of technology. Motheo and his team developed manuals for a curriculum in Indigenous knowledge systems as well as a documentary film. He encountered resistance from Indigenous people who had experienced negative effects from researchers in the past, and he had to develop protocols for respectfully entering their communities.

Nan Wehipeihana, Kataraina Pipi, Vivienne Kennedy, and Kirimatao Paipa Nan, Kataraina, Vivienne, and Kirimatao are Ma¯ ori women from Aotearoa New Zealand who collaborated on a chapter about their journeys because they share many interconnections in terms of tribal affiliations, familial connections, and academic studies. Their stories are integrated with the history of colonization of Ma¯ ori that included the signing of a treaty that was meant to protect their Indigenous rights, land, and dignity. However, their rights were not protected, and the Ma¯ ori suffered significant loses of land, language, well-being, and culture. Each of the author’s stories provides part of the picture of a journey to become Indigenous researchers. Nan began her career with a variety of positions that eventually led her to conduct market research, which enabled her to increase her skills in Western research methods but did not connect her with Ma¯ ori colleagues. She moved into research management and eventually started her own research consultancy, with an emphasis on forming relationships with Ma¯ ori communities as part of the process. However, Nan often struggled with being a minority member of research teams largely composed of non-Ma¯ ori researchers. Hence, she has developed the skills and networks necessary to design research that is in keeping with the Ma¯ ori culture. Kataraina brought experience as a youth worker to her early forays into research, conducting community-based evaluations with Ma¯ ori tribes. Kataraina also felt the discomfort of not having control of the research and was fortunate to have one of the volume editors, Fiona Cram, as a mentor. Kataraina brings a creative spirit to evaluation research, incorporating music, art, poetry, song, and dance into her data collection and reporting sessions as well as into her professional presentations about research and evaluation. Vivienne says that she fell into research by virtue of being invited by her sister, Kataraina as well

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as by the possibility of doing something positive with the Ma¯ ori people. Vivienne shared Fiona as her mentor, her passion for supporting Ma¯ ori, and conducting research that was reflective of Ma¯ ori values and beliefs. Kirimatao also describes her journey into research as being accidental. Having been the subject of research, she had negative feelings about the whole thing. However, she was invited to collaborate on a Ma¯ ori research project and she was hooked. Kirimatao describes the lessons she learned from her parents not as academic learning but as ways of solving problems and about her cultural heritage, its strengths, and the legacy of shame and racism associated with it, particularly by the older generations. Kirimatao spent years as a political activist, which led her to learn the Ma¯ ori language and strengthen her connection with the elders and other members of her community. The four women engaged in postgraduate study in the field of evaluation as a cohort who learned and supported each other as they traveled their journey together.

Polly Walker Polly Walker is a Native American Cherokee who describes her journey into research as a calling through a network of relationships that she undertook to correct the injustices that had been visited on her people. Polly’s experiences through childhood and as an educator in schools serving Apache students impressed on her the legacy of colonization as an explanatory factor in the lack of student achievement. Polly benefited by doing her graduate studies in Australia with Aboriginal scholars who introduced her to the concept of structural violence and reinforced her own cultural valuing of her relations with humans, nonhumans, and place. This led Polly to develop an Indigenous research methodology called interconnected knowing, which involves the mind, body, and spirit in interrelationships. The researcher is aware of the many ways we know things, both intellectually as well as through our senses. This also includes dreams and visions, which are seen as important ways of knowing. Polly fights to bring recognition to Indigenous ways of knowing in the academy through her development and use of Indigenous research methodologies. As a researcher of peace building, it is especially important for her to be aware of Indigenous peoples’ loss of lands and ways to heal wounds caused by colonization.

Ricardo Alfonso Millett Ricardo Millett is of African descent, but he was born and raised in the Panama Canal Zone because his grandparents had migrated there from the West Indies, seeking economic opportunities associated with building

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the canal. His ticket out of Panama came in the form of a scholarship to attend a university in the United States that was part of a policy to improve relations with Latin America. Ricardo’s education took place during the civil rights era, giving him the opportunity to protest racism through social activism. He studied the history of discrimination in the Canal Zone as a way to understand better the conditions that impacted him and his family. The weight of racism was strong and resulted in the early death of several of Ricardo’s ancestors; however, he also had strong models and support for pursuing education to work toward challenging such oppression. Within the academy, Ricardo met racism in the form of discouragement from his advisor based on a presumed lack of ability based on his skin color. Nevertheless, he persisted and studied economics and policy analysis to better understand society’s distribution of wealth. Ricardo’s career path took him into evaluation research, with a focus on how the social and political system could legitimate less than equal status on subjugated peoples. His work in the grant-making community has given him opportunity to reframe the funding decisions regarding evaluation research to ensure that they address the diversity of voices and include issues of power differentials in the determination of the authenticity of results.

Shawn, Alexandria, Stan, Peggy, and Jamie Wilson The Wilson’s (parents and three children) are of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Canada; they collaborated in telling their stories about their journeys into a deeper understanding of Indigenous research. Stan Wilson, the father, was raised on the reserve in northern Canada, an area set aside by the Canadian federal government for First Nations people. He remembers the love of being in the woods and the desire to continue his learning in school. Stan was denied access to schooling beyond the elementary level because First Nations students could not attend the town high school. A supportive teacher arranged for him to have access to the high school books, but he had to learn everything on his own. When Stan did attend the residential school for First Nations people, he was struck by the tensions inherent in the relationship between the world of the students that emphasized a respect for nature and the white community’s low expectations for them. He dedicated his life to articulating the strengths of the Cree Nation and communicating those to his fellow Cree as well as to the white world with a goal of keeping the values and culture alive. Peggy Wilson, the mother, is of Scottish ancestry, but grew up in a community in Canada adjacent to a First Nation. As a teacher in an Aboriginal school, she met and married Stan. This provided her with the opportunity to learn about this culture, and eventually, to conduct research with

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community members. Through the experiences of raising her children in this multicultural context and continuing to teach in schools that served diverse Aboriginal students, Peggy became aware of the patterns of discrimination that became the basis of her research agenda. Alex Wilson, Stan and Peggy’s daughter, benefited from the rich heritage she shared with her parents in terms of respect for nature; she was also aware of the discrimination directed toward her even as a child. As a two-spirited person, Alex also experienced discrimination directed at LGBT community members that later became the catalyst for her becoming a researcher. Her research focus is on the dynamics of achieving an empowered identity as a two-spirited person who is subjected to homophobia, sexism, and racism that she approached in the Cree way. The principles that guide her research include communality of knowledge, relational accountability, reciprocity, and holism. Alex views herself as a researcher, scholar, and community activist who uses Indigenous methodologies. Shawn Wilson, the oldest son, benefited from his parents’ wisdom and experienced more opportunities to obtain advanced education. He was able to integrate the Indigenous knowledge with his counseling degree in the form of adapted storytelling as therapy. He had the benefit of interacting with the Aboriginal people of Australia and seeing the similarities and differences in their experiences and beliefs. This brought him to focus on the role of spirituality in healing as a topic of research. Shawn’s contributions in terms of the decolonization of research methodologies have added to the understanding of doing research with an Indigenous worldview. Jamie Wilson, the youngest son, views research as integral to life; his work in the educational authority in Canada emphasizes the use of research based on incorporating the geographic space in which the community resides. He instituted a community-based report card for a First Nation school that included feedback from and for parents in a user-friendly format. Thus, the work of the Wilson family exemplifies the relational accountability.

Simon Passingan Simon does not consider himself to be an Indigenous person; rather, he says that he is and has always been a Papua New Guinean. His people lived in Papua New Guinea (PNG) before any colonizers came, thus, he is a Native Papua New Guinean. His research career began when he attended university and was asked to investigate the effect of a heavy frost on the communities that live in the PNG highlands. Simon describes the diversity of Native Papua New Guineans and the implication of the diverse languages, cultures, and living conditions on his research. By traveling around the country over many years, he has deepened his understanding of the protocols that are considered acceptable to be welcomed

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into the communities in which he conducts his research. Simon trains other researchers from PNG to be aware of and respectful of the appropriate protocols for community entry as well as to be culturally responsive in the methods that are used for data collection. He describes his joy when he saw how the use of participatory action methods led to communities seeing themselves as active agents in determining their futures and the changes that occurred based on this realization. Simon also describes the tensions in working with donor agencies whose agendas seem to contribute to the continuation of poverty rather than to the stated goals of reducing poverty. He has been an active force in addressing issues related to accessibility and climate change and hopes that the people of PNG will be able to work from their strengths in terms of communal values to bring a brighter future for all Papua New Guineans.

Rocío García, Patricia Melgar, and Teresa Sordé in conversation with Luisa Cortes, Coral Santiago, and Saray Santiago Rocío García, Patricia Melgar, and Teresa Sordé are part of a research team from a Spanish university. They have co-researchers from the Roma community in Spain, including Luisa Cortes, Coral Santiago, and Saray Santiago. International human rights organizations have reported rights violations in the form of inadequate education, health services, and economic opportunities for Roma people for decades. The Roma people organized at a conference in Madrid to demand research that presented viable solutions, rather than the continuous documentation of problems and the reinforcement of negative stereotypes in their community. Together, the research team developed the communicative methodology that allows for critical dialogue about phenomena as well as engagement of Roma in positions of power. Through a project funded by the European Framework Program of Research, the team conducted research that resulted in a transformed school experience for Roma children. The chapter focuses on Luisa’s experience, along with that of her two daughters, as co-researchers in the school transformation study. Luisa learned to read and write as a part of the capacity building that was part of the research study. The school was located in a dangerous neighborhood to which police and ambulances would not go; the relationship between the school and the parents was dismal. The transformation began with the development of a mechanism to involve parents in their children’s learning and school decision making. A family room was established in the school where parents could organize, support, and extend the school activities. In addition, a high school program was organized, and, for the first time, the entire sixth-grade class moved on to high school. The research teaming worked because they took time to build trust and the

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university-based researchers really listened to the Roma co-researchers. The community members saw changes in the form of real solutions to educate their children and to provide a safe place for the youth and families to gather. Luisa recognized the expertise of the researchers in proposing strategies for success in the school as well as the essential involvement of the Roma people for the strategies to work in their community.

Victoria Hykes Steere Our blood remembers. It is the remembering that sets us free. When we leave this life, our shells turn back to dust, and all that is lost forever is what we chose to think, to dream, to imagine. In the Arctic, our world, a world of ice and snow, darkness and light, again faces drastic climate change, but now many nations covet what lies beneath its oceans, seas, and land. What of us? Who will imagine a world based on a legal paradigm that is not rights or property based? What legal framework would value and cherish all life equally: human or animal or plants? A world where unbridled riches and poverty are no longer the norm. I told my beautiful friend, Fiona Cram, I did not belong in this book. Although I do a tremendous amount of research, what I seek is elusive. If education focused on teaching each child to become his or her best self, what creativity would that unleash? If the world embraced becoming a part of the land and sea, rather than owning or attempting to control it, what would cities or villages look like? Victoria benefited by forming relationships with Indigenous people from other parts of the world, including Cherryl Smith and Fiona Cram from New Zealand. Questions are necessary, as are friendships and sharing new books, ideas, and hope.

RefeRences Agrawai, A. (2009). Why “Indigenous” knowledge? Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 39, 157–158. Alberta Mental Health Board. (2006). Aboriginal research protocols: Healthy Aboriginal people in healthy communities. Edmonton, Canada: Alberta Mental Health Board. Alfred, T. (2005). Sovereignty. In J. Barker (Ed.), Sovereignty matters: Locations of contestation and possibility in Indigenous struggles for self-determination (pp. 33–50). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). (2003). Traditional knowledge and intellectual property: A handbook on issues and options for traditional knowledge holders in protecting their intellectual property and maintaining biological diversity. Washington, DC: AAAS. Anaya, S. J. (2004). Indigenous peoples in international law. New York: Oxford University Press. Arbour, L. & Cook, D. (2006). DNA on loan: Issues to consider when carrying out genetic research with Aboriginal families and communities. Community Genetics 9, 153–160.

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Assembly of First Nations. (2012). First Nations ethics guide on research and Aboriginal traditional knowledge—For discussion purposes only. Ottawa: Assembly of First Nations. Barth, F. (1969). Introduction. In F. Barth (Ed.), Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of culture difference (pp. 9–38). London: Allen & Unwin. Battiste, M. (2000). Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Battiste, M. (2002). Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy in First Nations education: A literature review with recommendations. Ottawa: National Working Group on Education and the Ministry of Indian Affairs. Bishop, R. (1996). Collaborative research stories: Whakawhanaungatanga. Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press. Bishop, R. & Glynn, T. (1999). Culture counts: Changing power relations in education. Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press (published by Zed Books, New York in 2003). Braun, K., Allison, A., & Tsark, J. U. (2008). Using community-based research methods to design cancer patient navigation training. Progress in Community Health Partnerships 2, 329–340. Cajete, G. (2000). Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers. Castellano, M. B. (2004). Ethics of Aboriginal research. Journal of Aboriginal Health 1(1), January, 98–114. Chávez, V., Duran, B., Baker, Q. E., Avila, M. M., & Wallerstein, N. (2008). The dance of race and privilege in CBPR. In M. Minkler & N. Wallerstein (Eds.), Community-based participatory research for health: From processes to outcomes (2nd ed., pp. 91–106). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Daes, E.-I. A. (2000). Protecting knowledge: Traditional resource rights in the new millenium. Keynote address to the Defining Indigenous Peoples’ Heritage Conference, Vancouver, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, February 23–26. Ermine, W., Sinclair, R., & Jeffery, B. (2004). The ethics of research involving Indigenous peoples. Saskatoon, Canada: Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre. Eruera, M. (2010). Ma te wha¯nau te huarahi motuhake: Wha¯nau participatory action research groups. MAI Review, December, 95–103. Eversole, R. (2005). Patterns of Indigenous disadvantaged worldwide. In R. Eversole, J. McNeish, & A. Cimadamone (Eds.), Indigenous people and poverty: An international perspective (pp. 29–37). London: Zed Books. Fleras, A. & Elliot, J. (1992). The nations within: Aboriginal-state relations in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Geleta, E. B. (In press). The politics of identity and methodology in African development ethnography. Qualitative Research. Gould, S. J. (1981). The mismeasure of man. London: Pelican. Health Research Council. (2008). Guidelines for researchers on health research involving Ma¯ori. Auckland: Health Research Council of New Zealand. Hochchild, J. & Weaver, V. (2007). Policies of racial classification and the politics of racial inequality. In J. Soss, J. S. Hacker, & S. Mettler (Eds.), Remaking America: Democracy and public policy in an age of inequality (pp. 159–182). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Janke, T. (1998). Our culture, our future. Report on Australian Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights. Sydney: Micheal Frankel & Company and Terri Janke. Jones, C. (1999). Ma¯ori-pa¯keha¯ health disparities. Can treaty settlements reverse the impacts of racism? Wellington: Funded by an Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowship in Public PolicyOffice. Kapoor, D. & Shizha, E. (Eds.). (2010). Indigenous knowledge and learning in Asia/Pacific and Africa: Perspectives on development, education and culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Kovach, M. (2009). Indigenous methodology: Characteristics, conversations, and contexts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. LaFrance, J. & Nichols, R. (2010). Reframing evaluation: Defining an Indigenous evaluation framework. Canadian Journal of Evaluation 23, 13–31. Laguerre, M. (1999). Minoritized space: An inquiry into the spatial order of things. Berkeley: University of California, Institute of Governmental Studies Press. Lashley, M. E. (2000). Implementing treaty settlements via Indigenous institutions: Social justice and detribalization in New Zealand. The Contemporary Pacific 12, 1–55. Lee, J. B. (2003). Nga¯ tohutohu: A pura¯kau approach to Ma¯ori teacher narratives. In D. Fraser & R. Openshaw (Eds.), Informing our practice: Special volume. Selections from the TEFANZ Conference, pp. 29–42. Palmerston North, New Zealand: Kanuka Grove Press. Mead, H. M. (2003). Tikanga Ma¯ori: Living by Ma¯ori values. Wellington: Huia Publishers. Ormond, A., Cram, F. & Carter, L. (2006). Researching our relations: Reflections on ethics. Alternative: An International Journal of Indigenous Scholarship, Special Supplement 2006—Marginalisation, pp. 175–192. Porsanger, J. (2004). An essay about Indigenous methodology. Nordlit 15, 105–120. Prah, K. K. (1999). African renaissance or warlordism? In M. W. Makgoba (Ed.), African renaissance: The new struggle (pp. 37–61). Cape Town: Mafube Publishing and Tafelberg Publishing. Reid, P. & Cram, F. (2004). Connecting health, people and country in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In K. Dew & P. Davis (Eds.), Health and society in Aotearoa New Zealand (2nd ed., pp. 33–48). Auckland: Oxford University Press. Reid, P. & Robson, B. (2007). Understanding health inequities. In B. Robson & R. Harris (Eds.), Hauora: Ma¯ori standards of health IV. A study of the years 2000–2005 (pp. 3–10). Wellington: Te Ra¯pa¯ Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pa¯mare. Scheurich, I. & Young, M. (1997). Coloring epistemologies: Are our research epistemologies racially biased? Educational Researcher 26, 4–16. Simmonds, S., Robson, B., Cram, F., & Purdie, G. (2008). Kaupapa Ma¯ori epidemiology. Round table: New Zealand epidemiology. Australasian Epidemologist 15, 3–6. Smith, L. T. (1992). Te Rapunga i te Ao Marama: The search for the World of Light. In M. K. Hohepa & G. H. Smith (Eds.), The issue of research and Ma¯ori. Monograph No. 9. Auckland: Research Unit for Ma¯ori Education, University of Auckland. Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). New York: Zed Books. Smith, L. T. (2006). Researching in the margins: Issues for Ma¯ori researchers—A discussion paper. Alternative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 2, 4–27. Te Awekotuku, N. (1991). He tikanga whakaaro: Research ethics in the Ma¯ori community. Wellington: Manatu Ma¯ori. Te Hennepe, S. (1993). Issues of respect: Reflections of First Nation students’ experiences in postsecondary anthropology classrooms. Canadian Journal of Native Education 2, 193–260. Tutu, D. (1999). No future without forgiveness. New York: Doubleday. United Nations. (2007). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Geneva: United Nations. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (1996). The declaration of adult education and lifelong learning. An African position paper presented at the African regional consultation on adult and continuing education and the challenges of the 21st century. Dakar, Senegal: UNESCO. United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). (2009). State of the world’s Indigenous peoples. New York: United Nations. Wilson, S. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Black Point, Nova Scotia, Canada: Fernwood Publishing.

Chapter 2

The Process that Led Me to Become an Indigenous Researcher Andrina Komala Lini Thomas

The Place: Vanuatu Let me begin by describing the land I come from. Republic of Vanuatu was constituted on July 30, 1980 (Republic of Vanuatu, 2004). The region was formerly known as the New Hebrides (Pacific Churches Research Centre, 1981). Prior to independence, the territory was inhabited by Indigenous people of Melanesian ethnicity known as New Hebrideans, when the country was named by England’s Captain James Cook in 1774 (Deacon, 1934). Today, Vanuatu (meaning our land) comprises a group of islands silhouetted in the shape of the letter Y, with Torba Province being in the most northern tip and Tafea Province being in the most southern tip in the archipelago (Vanuatu, 2008). Vanuatu has over eighty islands, of which “65 are inhabited” (PiauLynch, 2007, p. 1). Some of these islands are remotely located, giving the country a land mass of “12,190 kms or 4,707 square miles” (Vanuatu Destination South Pacific, 2008, p. 1). As of October 2011, Vanuatu had a population of 234,023 people. It is a medium-sized Pacific state situated in the Pacific ring of fire (VNSO, 2011). Colonized and administered by both France and Britain in 1906, the interests and futures of the original inhabitants of the former New Hebrides were made irrelevant by the colonizers (Huffer & Molisa, 1999). Vanuatu is part of Melanesia because it hosts an Indigenous population from the Melanesian ethnic group (Encarta Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011). The word Melanesia means the islands of the ­black-skinned ­people (BBC, 2008). Other countries that belong to southern Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 41–58. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 41

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Melanesia are the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and New Caledonia (BBC, 2008). While Melanesian experiences of European influence in the Pacific may vary in detail, many of these nation states share the undermining of their Indigenous traditional power and cultures (Knitter & Muzaffar, 2002). Multiple languages originating from Austronesian, are spoken in Melanesia (Encarta Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011). Vanuatu is no exception, as between 110 and 118 languages are spoken there (Van Trease, 1987). Salong (2008) says that because Vanuatu hosts so many languages, its inhabitants would also have “many mental pictures” of a single subject (p. 4). Both matrilineage’s and patrilineage’s descent cultural systems operate in Vanuatu (Van Trease, 1987). Schneider and Gough (1961) identify the unilineal regulations and values that apply in s­ ocieties operating as matrilineal or patrilineal lineage descent cultural s­ ocieties. Matrilineality (Stege & Huffer, 2008) is a lineage descent cultural system emphasizing the importance of the female gender, with lineage and descent passing through consanguine means from mothers to daughters and sons. Matrilineal women have a voice, space, and property rights in community affairs (Huffer & Molisa, 1999). They create patrimonies, legacies, and property rights for their lineages and social clans (Maltali, Sandy, & Tamashiro, 2009). Patrilineality (Van Trease, 1987) nevertheless, provides for the needs of patrilineal men as the reproductive and productive labor of patrilineal women are used to create men’s patrimonies and legacies and property rights (ILO, 2006). Patrilineal women have no voice, space, and property rights in patrilineal societies (ILO, 2006). Matrilineages in Vanuatu provides for the needs of both matrilineal males and females within its societies (Huffer & Molisa, 1999; Maltali et al., 2009), while patrilineality safeguards the needs of only patrilineal males within its societies (ILO, 2006; Marck, 2008 ). Patrilineality was incorporated into Melanesian societies and in particular Vanuatu, through colonial and religious influences (Facey, 1981; Van Trease, 1987). Women who originate from patrilineages e­ xperience extensive discrimination from men within their societies (ILO, 2006; Piau-Lynch, 2007). They are consistently prevented from enjoying ­ their human rights and fundamental freedoms in Vanuatu’s economic, political, social, cultural, and civil arenas (Vanuatu National Council of Women, 2005).

Becoming a Researcher The formal process of my becoming an Indigenous researcher started in 2007 during my senior management career in a financial i­nstitution in

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Vanuatu. While living in Vanuatu, I perceived how Indigenous ­patrilineal and matrilineal women who lived in the urban centers of Vanuatu are discriminated against. Discrimination is more extensive for patrilineal women because their society classifies them as inferior to men; regardless of how educated and qualified they are, their role is reserved for the domestic sphere and never lead to any other. Women in urban centers experience discrimination in their daily lives and in their employment. If they find paid employment, they are usually relegated into non-decision‑making jobs (Randell, 2003; Strachan et al., 2007). Women are discouraged from leading and managing in the workforce (Huffer & Molisa, 1999). Although some women had relevant management, leadership and ethical values training, skills, and the capacity to lead and influence others, they were relegated into junior positions (Republic of Vanuatu, 2004) in paid employment. Many writers have spoken about women’s discrimination in Vanuatu (Strachan et al., 2007; United Nations Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 2000). They argue that regardless of how efficient Vanuatu women are in balancing their multiple economic, domestic, social, and political activities, they are still considered inferior to men in their homes and as employees in the formal employment sectors (Republic of Vanuatu, 2004). Both patrilineality and Vanuatu’s urban patriarchy (Cornwell, 2003) are responsible for the extensive subjugation of women in Vanuatu, with only a handful of women successfully accessing positions of authority in the private and public sectors through the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) equal employment opportunities (EEO) or CEDAWEEO programs (Maltali et al., 2009; University of the South Pacific, 1986). The Republic of Vanuatu (2004) highlights the lack of support for gender-equality from Vanuatu’s urban patriarchy and patrilineal women who held positions of authority. Mason (2000) discusses the reaction of Chief Noel Mariasua, a former chairman of the Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs and Vanuatu’s former head of state, cautioning women not to subscribe to the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) as a reason to think highly of themselves and forget their place in society. If Chief Mariasua, a well-respected chief and former head of state is cautioning Vanuatu’s population to think twice before appointing women into positions of authority, women in Vanuatu will remain unable to assume their human rights and ­fundamental freedoms. I also observed how some women who ascended the hierarchical ladder of decision making in their places of employment became gatekeepers to other women, preventing them from reaching any positions of

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authority (Randell, 2003). The female gatekeepers use their examples of working extremely hard and overcoming discrimination as obstacles to willingly help other women in their quest to access positions of authority (VNCW, 2005). Seeing how groups of women in Vanuatu’s various settings (VNCW, 2005) squabble among themselves for positions of authority gave me the desire to become an Indigenous researcher. In a foreword in Randell’s book Ni-Vanuatu Role Models (2003), former Prime Minister Edward Nipake Natapei says women’s marginalization is due to men’s feelings of insecurity and jealousy against women because of their success. Discriminators created and added more difficulties for women in Vanuatu through their ignorance and lack of knowledge about women’s work, value, and worth in the matrilineal and patrilineal Wantok governance models and in urban governance (Huffer & Molisa, 1999; Republic of Vanuatu, 2004; Van Trease, 1987). In the last thirty years, only five different women have been elected into constitutional power, with three of them originating from the rural areas of Vanuatu (Republic of Vanuatu, 2004). The lack of female representation in the Vanuatu government in the past does not provide for optimism for the input of women into Vanuatu’s future governance (Coleman, 2005). Women understand discrimination to be any influence by men and female gatekeepers that prevents them from acquiring an equal influence in shaping the future direction of Vanuatu. As outlined in the Republic of Vanuatu’s (2004) CEDAW Report: “Women feel that their contribution to the economy is undervalued. . . . They also feel excluded from the highest levels of decisionmaking” (p. 12). I wanted to find alternative means of helping women who did not have a platform and voice to speak up and achieve their dreams involving self-confidence, self-worth, training, education, and participation in the decision-making process for Vanuatu’s future direction. I became motivated to be an Indigenous researcher because of the discrimination that many women, including myself, faced in both the formal and informal employment sectors. My mother was my role model, coach, and mentor as I became a leader and decision maker in my Indigenous ­traditional society of Matantas Village, Big Bay, Espiritu Santo. My leadership and decision-making roles also extended into corporate g­overnance. I observed how the majority of women worked extremely hard in their formal and informal jobs to sustain and maintain their families and to educate their children. I want to research how women can improve their quest for positions of authority and achieve leadership and decision-making positions in both the formal and informal employment sectors. I also want to find

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ways to help poor women improve their participation in Vanuatu’s ­economic activities, as I am aware that microfinance business operations place extreme pressures on marginalized women, working a storm of “blood, sweat and tears,” (Salong, 2008, p. 28) just to survive and sustain their small businesses, and to meet their weekly savings and loan repayment obligations, including the high interest payments they need to make (Salong, 2008).

Influential People in My Journey Matrilineality in Matantas Village in the Big Bay region of Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu recognizes women’s worth and contribution to the family and society and empowers them to become responsible leaders, decision makers, and sustainable developers, upholding democracy and the progress of Indigenous women’s rights (Huffer & Molisa, 1999; Maltali et al., 2009). As I come from the Na Vuhu Sule (Line Stone) lineage descent cultural society1 of Matantas Village, my society values, respects, and shares power with women in the matrilineal Wantok governance model (ILO, 2006; Van Trease, 1987). My earliest memory of intending to become an Indigenous researcher was when I saw how my parents struggled to sustain our family. They always encouraged their children to pursue further education, making the sacrifice to send me to Fiji for senior secondary education and my eldest brother to undertake tertiary studies in the automotive industry in France. The person who most influenced me in my quest of becoming an Indigenous researcher was my late mother, Rose-Morin Moses Prasad. My mother was illiterate, but she was a vanguard for women’s emancipation and participation in positions of authority, moulding me as the leader and decision maker I am today. My mother was highly influential in our society, working hand in hand with me to persuade my maternal uncles, chieftains and lineage descendants, and our community of Matantas Village, to conserve our rainforest (Maturin, 1993) for future generations and not to succumb to intense pressures to log the forest and earn quick cash. My expatriate father, a tradesman of Fijian Indian descent, arrived in Vanuatu in the late 1950s. He married my mother and was instrumental in pushing me to think outside the box. He had desired that I become a politician in the future, although I disliked the proposal. I believed it would be difficult to work with Vanuatu’s urban patriarchy and patrilineages (Cornwell, 2003; Republic of Vanuatu, 1997) (with their belief that men, not women, are born to assume leadership roles) and to get men to recognize the value and worth of women in the p ­ atrilineal

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Wantok governance model (ILO, 2006; Republic of Vanuatu, 2004) and in contemporary Vanuatu. My maternal uncles, Chief Jeffery Moses Ova and Samuel Moses Ova, and my elder brother, Chief Arnold Thomas Chule Prasad, a former Vanuatu member of parliament and former minister of youth, sports, and development opportunities supported my leadership and decision-making roles in the affairs of the Line Stone lineage of Matantas Village. These male leaders regularly sought advice from my late mother, as well as from me, valuing our input about matters of leadership, decision making, and governance and community well-being for the Matantas Village community. My younger sister, Margareth Peato, was also behind my success. Although she knew studying was difficult, she never stopped coaxing me and encouraging me to continue with my educational goals. My spouse, Rovea Thomas, never faltered in his support and encouragement of my journey of becoming an Indigenous researcher. My spouse originates from matrilineages, recognizing that women have their place in leadership and decision-making roles within rural and urban contexts. Rovea knew that, as a leader and decision maker, I was a good social worker, working with a deep sense of duty and devotion and being full of compassion for the less fortunate. I was able to influence others, as well, as Rovea believed that I would get to fulfill my dreams of researching and finding alternative ways to help the women of Vanuatu by showcasing Matantas Village, Big Bay, Espiritu Santo’s matrilineal Na Vuhu Sule lineage descent cultural society, as an Indigenous traditional Wantok governance model that recognizes, respects, and values women as creators of patrimonies and legacies and land inheritance transmitters as well as societal decision makers. My three matrilineal adult children, Sylvie, Cinderella, and Leniker who supported my Indigenous researcher journey by caring for my two mortgages while I was on tertiary studies. Professor Richard Bedford, who recognized my potential as an Indigenous researcher and used my services to undertake various research work in Vanuatu. My two Unitec Auckland, Pacific Leadership Program lecturers, Fraser McDonald and Sandy Thompson, also greatly influenced me to become a better Indigenous researcher and a Pacific leader and decision maker. Last, but not least, my two Ph.D. supervisors, Associate Professor Maria Humphries and Dr. Suzette Dyers, patiently stood by me, were role models, coaches, and mentors, and kept encouraging me never to give up amid the many obstacles I faced along the way in running the Ph.D. marathon right to the end.

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Being an Indigenous Researcher Because my late mother was an Indigenous woman from Matantas Village, I want to showcase matrilineages from the matrilineal Wantok governance model (Maltali et al., 2009; Van Trease, 1987), that recognizes, respects, and values women. I believe Vanuatu’s urban patriarchy, patrilineages, and decision makers in Vanuatu can learn from Big Bay’s matrilineal case study and accord the necessary respect, value, and worth to not only patrilineal women but all Ni-Vanuatu women, to grant them the platform and voice to become effective societal, corporate, and constitutional leaders and decision makers. Vanuatu has acceded to various international instruments such as the UN’s CEDAW in 1995 as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1990) and the Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2006). I am trying to ascertain whether women still experience rampant discrimination in their places of employment, businesses, and daily lives, or whether discrimination has declined because Vanuatu’s urban patriarchy and patrilineages have had a change of mindset due to the adoption of these international instruments, especially the CEDAW. My starting point for becoming an Indigenous researcher includes the early interventions I witnessed, working hand in hand with my late mother, in convincing male and female leaders and decision makers in my home village of Matantas Village not to destroy our rainforest and the surrounding environment (Maturin, 1993). My late mother and I held prestigious positions of leadership, authority, and influence in Matantas Village’s community affairs. To alleviate the plight of women in Vanuatu, I needed to embark on Ph.D. studies to acquire the necessary education, qualification, and skills to help less educated and marginalized grassroots women. One recommendation I propose in my research is for the state and aid donors to establish a national role-modeling, coaching, and mentoring program to provide both grassroots women and men with the necessary management and leadership skills and ethical values training before bestowing women and men into constitutional and corporate positions of authority in the formal and informal employment sectors of Vanuatu. I recognize the need for such a national program because few grassroots men and women have received the pre-requisite management, leadership, and ethical values training and skills needed before they are ushered into positions of authority in Vanuatu’s constitutional and corporate governance. The continuous squabbles between groups of women in the Vanuatu National Council of Women clearly shows that, unless women are given the relevant training and skills to recognize their role to work for the good of all women in Vanuatu, bickering and ­squabbles

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over positions of authority will continue unabated, distracting these women from serving the needs of women in Vanuatu (VNCW, 2005).

My Responsibilities as an Indigenous Researcher I have a duty and responsibility to the Na Vuhu Sule (Line Stone) Lineage of Matantas Village, to the male and female leaders and decision makers and the community of Matantas Village, to the women and men of the Big Bay region, and to the women of Espiritu Santo and Vanuatu as a whole to research and find alternative ways of helping them achieve social justice and well-being. I am aware of rural women in the matrilineal and patrilineal Wantok governance models (Van Trease, 1987) mass migrating (O’Collins, 1998) into urban centers in the hope of finding paid employment (Chung & Hill, 2002) and improving their living conditions. These women are oblivious that with very basic educational capacity and limited jobs in the gardening and domestic spheres (Rodman et al., 2009), the purported lucrative jobs they seek remain elusive. Some women secure menial employment (Kraemer, 2003) and receive very meager incomes (framed in my Ph.D. thesis as meager breadcrumbs falling from the master’s table) (Honderich, 1995; Kohn, 2005), which are insufficient to provide these women and their nuclear and extended families with a good life, including the means to educate their children (Thomas & Humphries, 2010). Out of necessity, some women operate microfinance business to rescue themselves from the brink of poverty. Other marginalized women resort to sex work (Republic of Vanuatu, 2004; Vanuatu NGO Shadow Report, 2007; Wan Solwora, 2010) to put food on the table to sustain themselves and their families. As an Indigenous researcher, I will research the problems of w ­ omen’s mass migration (O’Collins, 1998) into the urban centers and offer alternative solutions to the state and policy makers, recommending an appropriate and better economic model for women in Vanuatu such as the solidarity economic model (Allard, Davidson, & Matthaei, 2009; Neamtan, 2002) to replace social enterprise for those women wishing to participate in Vanuatu’s market economy. Responsibility as an Indigenous researcher compels me to find other avenues to retain their less hectic, idyllic, and slow-paced rural ways of life, including outlining the advantages and disadvantages of the matrilineal and patrilineal Wantok governance models. As Vanuatu’s rural societies perform well in socially cohesive communitarian environments, any solidarity economy projects (Allard et al., 2009; Neamtan, 2002) must be based on groups and solidarity membership. If the s­olidarity economic model is a better economic model for women to achieve ­prosperity and to flourish, projects must enable women to use their

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social capital to benefit themselves and others, rather than causing them more duress through weekly obligations and high interest payments. Commercial social enterprise projects (Salong, 2008) bring immense demands for hard work and attainment of profits (Winn, 2004), thus placing immense hardships on women microfinance entrepreneurs in Vanuatu (Thomas & Humphries, 2010). The United Nation offered an intervention in 1996 through the establishment of microfinance projects to assist urban marginalized women own, operate and maintain microfinance businesses in Vanuatu under the auspices of the Vanwods Microfinance Incorporation. Winn (2004) and Salong (2008) confirm that these Vanwods MFI members also known as Mamas are struggling with their weekly savings, loan repayment obligations, and the exorbitant interest payment they must make on borrowed funds.

My Challenges and Strategies to Overcome Them I had to overcome many challenges on the way to becoming an Indigenous researcher. Firstly, I only started tertiary education in 1997. My secondary studies stopped at Form 5, when I began my own family at sixteen years of age. I worked extremely hard, obtaining various levels of qualifications through distance learning while working full-time in Port Vila, Vanuatu. However, from 2001 to 2003, I obtained a NZAID scholarship to complete a B.A. in management and public administration and then continued with a Master of Business Administration at the University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus in Fiji. I returned to the workforce in late 2003 and then assumed a managerial position in a financial institution from 2004 to 2008. Secondly, I encountered trials and discrimination along the journey of obtaining a Ph.D. My last organization’s staff manual and procedures noted that a staff member who is employed on a permanent basis for more than two years can seek an educational or sabbatical leave for educational purposes. Therefore, I approached my employer at the end of 2007 applying for either sabbatical or educational leave to pursue a Ph.D. I was bluntly told that I was overqualified with a Master’s degree and should forget about further tertiary studies. When I persisted with my study plans, I was compelled to resign from my employment, with educational leave being granted to a male staff member. Deep down, I knew that if I wanted to make a real difference and help women flourish in their search for justice and well-being, I had to remove myself from my comfort zone of continuous paid employment, seek a Ph.D., and obtain the needed qualifications to become an Indigenous researcher. The third challenge I faced concerned my NZAID Commonwealth scholarship, as it contained a technical problem in my original

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a­ pplication. So, for the first six months from January to June 2008 ­during my Ph.D. studies in New Zealand, my family of three—my spouse, my son, and I—had to survive on a single allowance of NZ$325 per week with $175 of the total amount going to weekly accommodation costs. The issue of receiving limited allowances did not deter me or dampen my spirits. My fourth challenge was obtaining doctoral research data from my home country. With very little pocket money and local transportation costs being very high, I walked mostly to and from town and to my participants’ residences to hear their stories. The fifth challenge was seeking funding from the Vanuatu government to host a half-day focus group discussion for state and private employers, women leaders, and entrepreneurs who had a vested interest in women’s empowerment and advancement. Through personal contacts, I was able to secure the necessary funding from the Vanuatu Ministry of Justice, Welfare and Social Development, and the Department of Women’s Affairs to host the half-day workshop in March 2010. I produced a Focus Group Discussion Report (Thomas, 2010) as a prerequisite for this funding. The sixth challenge was how to present my Ph.D. research findings in a format that was not too scathing or unjust to the matrilineal and patrilineal Wantok governance models, as well as the Westminster democratic governance model Vanuatu had inherited from its colonial masters, France and Britain, and now adopted by Vanuatu’s urban patriarchy. After considerable research and ponderings, my supervisors and I agreed that I would present my research findings in a format that highlighted a point incorporating liberal feminist theory and ideology (Heywood, 2000; Tuttle, 1986) that were evident from the personal conversational narratives of urban Ni-Vanuatu women in formal and informal jobs and the participants of the focus group discussion, on the effectiveness of the implementation of CEDAW-EEO programs and the establishment of microfinance projects. Although urban Ni-Vanuatu women were calling for more access to positions of authority in formal jobs and access to microfinance business in informal jobs, from the women’s personal conversational narratives, contradictions arose concerning the effectiveness of liberal feminist ideals to liberate, emancipate, and empower Ni-Vanuatu women. A counterpoint (Hegel, highlighting the contradictions were portrayed through the 2004) ­ post-colonial subaltern voice (Guha & Spivak, 1988; McNicholas & Humphries, 2007; Spivak, 1988) and through my matrilineal Wantok feminist standpoint (Harding, 1991, 2004) position and perspectives of ushering poor urban women into neoliberal pursuits considering what is best for Indigenous women in Vanuatu, arguing for and against

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the liberal feminist ideals (Heywood, 2000; Tuttle, 1986) reasoning and advocating for the matrilineal Wantok feminist standpoint position in various interventions and strategies. As I strongly support the practice and the retention of the matrilineal and the patrilineal Wantok governance model (Van Trease, 1987) and its kastom (noncash) economy (Jolly, 1996) and the benefits that 77% of Vanuatu’s population (VNSO, 2009, 2011) are receiving, I criticize the impacts of capitalism that have created complex hierarchical master/slave relationships (Kohn, 2005; Thomas & Humphries, 2010, 2011) for the poor women who work tirelessly to keep their businesses sustainable and meet their weekly obligations. By mid-2012, I will finalize and submit my Ph.D. thesis. Thereafter, I will return home and continue to find ways to assist the marginalized women of Vanuatu. During my Ph.D. studies, two significant challenges arose and are described below.

Tensions in My Research Role I participated as coordinator for a research project in Vanuatu from October 2009 to May 2010 while undertaking doctoral studies. The research was coordinated and carried out with various staff members of a state organization and commissioned enumerators in allocated islands of Vanuatu. The logistics of getting the survey forms for the research back to Port Vila from remote areas of Vanuatu (highly dispersed and with infrequent airline and shipping services) made this research particularly problematic. The dispersion of Vanuatu’s eighty-three islands (Piau-Lynch, 2007), the limited language capacity of some enumerators, and tensions arising from administering an international project with international leaders with insufficient understanding of local laws, customs, etiquette, and how locals operated made this research especially challenging. I faced conflicts in my role as coordinator for this research project in terms of the demands personnel working under me made and my negotiations with the overseas research team. The staff members’ concerns caused grievances and ill-feelings between me and the project team leader of the overseas research organization I was representing. As a professional, I had to put these ill-feelings, and differences of opinion between me and the overseas research personnel behind me and continue with the research until its successful completion. After I returned to New Zealand at the end of May 2010, I continued to liaise, negotiate, and monitor with relevant personnel and my nuclear family in Vanuatu to ensure that all the survey forms were returned to the overseas contracting organization for assimilation.

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Research Funding Issues I would like to attend more overseas conferences to present the findings of my research work but this is impossible because of lack of funding. For the last three years, I attended various conferences in New Zealand by self-funding the cost of these conferences, transportation, and accommodation. However, in 2009/2010, through the intervention of my chief supervisor, I received funding from the Hamilton, New Zealand, Federation of Graduate Women to attend the International Society for Third-Sector Research Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, in July 2010. I presented a joint paper coauthored with my chief supervisor, Associate Professor Maria Humphries, on “Raising One’s Hand to the Insistent Hand of Neo-Colonialism” (Thomas & Humphries, 2010). In early 2011, I received funding from the Response Trust to attend the Power Sharing Conference in Whakatane, New Zealand, ­presenting a paper on the “The Melanesian Traditional Governance Model in Vanuatu: A Perspective of Matrilineality in the Big Bay Region, Espiritu Santo, in Vanuatu Empowering Women and Including Them in the Decision-Making Process” (Thomas, 2011). I also received funding from the Waikato Management School to attend the Organisation, Identity and Locale (OIL) Conference in Palmerston North, New Zealand, in February 2011, presenting a joint paper coauthored with Maria Humphries on “Who Is Our Neighbour? How Is Our Neighbour?” (Thomas & Humphries, 2011). Access to research funds is problematic for Indigenous researchers. Unless funds are available to cover overseas travel to various conferences, it is difficult for Indigenous researchers to widely present and publicize their work. I had to self-fund seven of the nine New Zealand conferences I participated in and received funding for two of them. It has been difficult to allocate funds from my meager NZAID student allowance to attend these conferences. But I had to make sacrifices and do it. The joint paper I had written with my chief supervisor on “Ni-Vanuatu Women: From Bartering to Entrepreneurship” for a business conference in Hawaii in 2010 (Thomas & Humphries, 2009) could not be published in an entrepreneurship journal because of a fee requirement that I could not fulfil.

Indigenous Methods in My Research Storian is described in one of Vanuatu’s three national languages, Bislama, the Franca lingua, as personal narratives, conversations, or storytelling. Storian has always existed in Vanuatu’s cultural context, as ­stories,

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­ ersonal conversations, and narratives have been used to ­transmit culp ture, tradition, genealogy, and land ownership rights from one generation to the next (Republic of Vanuatu, 2004). Consequently, as Vanuatu has 110–118 different languages (Salong, 2008) and is very culturally diverse, the only means to obtain appropriate cultural interpretations of women’s discrimination and experiences is through personal narratives (Piau-Lynch, 2007; Republic of Vanuatu, 2004). The Indigenous data collection technique, based on Storian or Talanoa (in Fijian), is used as sharing emotions within a non-hierarchical-conversational relationship and uses friendship through stories, when women are encouraged to tell stories in their own words through face-to-face conversations (Otsuka, 2005, p. 3). I used Storian with three groups of participants: 1. Personal conversational narratives with urban Ni-Vanuatu women who through the implementation of CEDAW-EEO programs aimed to access ­positions of authority in constitutional and corporate governance in Vanuatu; 2. Personal conversational narratives with urban Ni-Vanuatu women in informal jobs, who owned, operated and maintained microfinance businesses through the Vanwods Microfinance Incorporation in their quest for financial security in Vanuatu’s economic activities; 3. A half-day focus group discussion comprised of state and private ­ sector employer representatives discussing their CEDAW-EEO programs and ­examples of women’s empowerment in their organizations in Vanuatu.

Naming My Research My Ph.D. research question asks: “To what extent do the United Nations’ CEDAW programmes for EEO and the establishment of microfinance businesses address the emancipatory aspirations and well-being needs of Ni-Vanuatu women?” The study considers whether UN international conventions have been instrumental in changing Vanuatu’s urban patriarchal and patrilineal mind-sets by reducing women’s discrimination and oppression and incorporating more women into positions of authority in formal jobs and microfinance business ownership and operation in Vanuatu. I have submitted and presented conference papers to ten conferences, nine of them in New Zealand and one overseas. I believe that my work is making its way into research discourses. Nevertheless, I am still trying to publish a journal article, hoping that this will take place sometime in 2012 before the completion of my doctoral studies. My research is not limited to Vanuatu’s Indigenous community. I believe with my management, business administration, strategic ­management, and Pacific leadership qualifications and work ­experiences,

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I have the potential to extend research into the areas of labor relations in Vanuatu and to study how employers and employees can work constructively and collaboratively with each other. Other potential research topics include studying business requirements and ethics and social problems that affect women entrepreneurs in Vanuatu. As part of my NZAID-funded Unitec, Auckland’s Pacific Leadership Program study, I did research for a local community organization in Hamilton, New Zealand, for a two-week period. I can also do research on feminist issues and problems, social enterprise, and business and leadership field types. I intend to negotiate and seek funding on my return to Vanuatu for the establishment of a national role-modeling, coaching, and mentoring program for women and men in Vanuatu to teach, train, and support them to become competent leaders before they are introduced into various decision-making roles in corporate and constitutional governance in Vanuatu.

The Meaning of Being an Indigenous Researcher Although the employer in my last place of employment discouraged me from seeking Ph.D. studies, I resigned my job and comfort zone to pursue this Indigenous researcher dream and journey. Vanuatu needs more qualified Indigenous researchers to study Indigenous problems and propose responsible and timely solutions to them. I am proud to be a matrilineal Wantok feminist Indigenous researcher for women in Vanuatu. Very few women are embarking on the path of becoming Indigenous researchers. I will be the second Ni-Vanuatu (Vanuatu nationals are known as Ni-Vanuatu or belonging to Vanuatu) Indigenous woman to pursue Ph.D. studies. I hope to do justice to the women of Vanuatu by studying whether international instruments adopted by the government support the well-being and flourishing of women in Vanuatu. I want to explore to what extent these instruments have changed Vanuatu’s urban patriarchal and patrilineal mind-sets and find a better economic model that conforms to the concept of communalism and social cohesiveness, thus proposing a solidarity economy (Allard et al., 2009; Neamtan, 2002) in place of social enterprise (Salong, 2008; Winn, 2004) for the women of Vanuatu. My community is very supportive, especially Na Vuhu Sule (the Line Stone Lineage—the land-owning tribe) of Matantas Village, the local village members and community of Matantas, as I am showcasing Big Bay’s matrilineal Wantok governance model (Maltali et al., 2009) to Vanuatu, the Pacific, and the world.

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Note 1. Na Vuhu Sule or the Line Stone lineage is the land-owning unit of Matantas Village, Big Bay, Espiritu Santo. The lineages in the Big Bay region make up tribes and social clans that people are born into. Matrilineal tribes of the Big Bay region use animal, plants, and sea totems to describe their lineages, with land and descent being claimed via these lineages.

References Allard, J., Davidson, C., & Matthaei, J. (2009). Solidarity economy: Building alternatives for people and planet (Papers & Reports from the 2007 U.S. Social Forum). Chicago: Change-Maker Publications. BBC, The. (2008). The Republic of Vanuatu h2g2—Pacific Nation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ dna/h2g2/A7641380 (accessed October 6, 2008). Chung, M. & Hill, D. (2002). Urban informal settlements in Vanuatu: Challenge for equitable development. Suva, Fiji: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and ESCAP. Coleman, M. (2005). Gender and secondary school leadership. International Studies in Educational Administration 33, 3–20. Cornwell, R. J. (2003). From the ground up: Entrepreneurial school leadership. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Deacon, A. B. (1934). Malekula: A vanishing people in the New Hebrides. London: George Routledge and Sons. Encarta Encyclopædia Britannica. (2011). http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/ topic/186436/Encarta (accessed October 19, 2011). Facey, E. (1981). Hereditary chiefship in Nguna, Vanuatu: Politics, economics and ritual in island Melanesia. Sydney, Australia: M. Allen Sydney Academic Press. Guha, R. & Spivak, G. (Eds.). (1988). Selected subaltern studies. New York: Oxford University Press. Harding, S. G. (1991). Whose science, whose knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives. New York: Cornell Press. Harding, S. G. (2004). The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies. New York: Routledge. Hegel, G. W. F. (2004). The philosophy of history. Books.google.com: e-Penguin Heywood, A. (2000). Key concepts in politics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Honderich, T. (Ed.). (1995). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huffer, E. & Molisa, G. (1999). Governance in Vanuatu: In search of the nakamal way. Australian National University, Canberra: State Society and Governance in Melanesia Project Discussion Paper 1999/4. ILO. (2006). Social security for all men and women: A source book for extending social security coverage in Vanuatu [Options and Plan]. Fiji: Government of Netherlands & ILO. Jolly, M. (1996). Woman ikat raet long human raet o no?: Women’s rights, human rights and domestic violence in Vanuatu. In A. Curthoys, H. Irving, & J. Martin (Eds.), The world upside down: Feminisms in the Antipodes. Special issue, Feminist Review 52, 169–190. Updated and expanded version in A.-M. Hilsdon et al. (Eds.), (2000), Human rights and gender politics in Asia-Pacific. London: Routledge. Knitter, P. F. & Muzaffar, C. (Eds.). (2002). Subverting greed: Religious perspectives on the global economy. New York: Orbis Books. Kohn, M. (2005). Frederick Douglass’s master-slave dialectic. The Journal of Politics 67, 497–514.

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      56 Andrina Komala Lini Thomas Kraemer, D. (2003). In the house but not at home: House-girls in Vanuatu. Master of Arts thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies, Ontario, Canada, York University. Macdonald-Milne, B. J. & Thomas, P. (1981). Yumi Stanap: Some people of Vanuatu, Leaders and Leadership in a new nation. Christchurch, New Zealand: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific and Lotu Pasifika Productions. Maltali, T. O., Sandy, R., & Tamashiro, H. (2009). The traditional roles of chiefs in local governance in Penama Province, Vanuatu. Port Vila, Vanuatu: FSP, Vanuatu & UNDPBRC Project. Marck, J. (2008). Proto oceanic society was matrilineal. The Journal of the Polynesian Society. http://jeffmarck.net/ (accessed October 16, 2011). Mason, M. (2000). Domestic violence in Vanuatu. In S. Dinnen & A. Ley (Eds.), Reflections on violence in Melanesia (pp. 119–138). Leichardt, Australia: The Federation Press. Maturin, S. (1993). Big Bay national park proposal and opportunities for sustainable development. Fiji and New Zealand: Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society and SPREP. McNicholas, P. & Humphries, M. (2007). The subaltern voice: Hegemony dismantled. Guest editorial by Graham (2009) for the Special Edition of the AAAJ, Accounting and subalternity: Enlarging a research space. Neamtan, N. (2002). The social and solidarity economy: Towards an “alternative” globalization. Vancouver, Canada: The Carold Institute for the Advancement of Citizenship in Social Change. Langara College: http://shatil.org/. (accessed October 1, 2012). O’Collins, M. (1998). Isolation, vulnerability, and governance: Reflections on poverty assessments in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu. Canberra, Australia: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Project, Australian National University. Otsuka, S. (2005). Talanoa research: Culturally appropriate research design in Fiji. Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) 2005 International Education Research Conference: Creative Dissent—Constructive Solutions [Online]. Melbourne, Australia: AARE. http://www.aare.edu.au/05pap/ots05506.pdf, accessed September 6, 2012. Piau-Lynch, A. (2007). Vanuatu: Country gender profile. www://www.jica.go.jp/global/ genwid/report/pdf/ev6van.pdf (accessed April 1, 2008). Randell, S. (Ed.). (2003). Ni-Vanuatu role models: Part one: Successful women in their own right. Port Vila, Vanuatu: Sun Productions. Republic of Vanuatu, The. (1997). Comprehensive reform programme adopted. Port Vila, Vanuatu: Author and ADB. Republic of Vanuatu, The. (2004). Combined, initial, first and second report on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Port Vila, Vanuatu: DWA. Rodman, M., Kraemer, D., Bolton, L., & Tarisese, J. (2009). Review of house-girls remember: Domestic workers in Vanuatu. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Salong, J. (2008). Restoring the pillars of Melanesian economies: A case study of Vanwods microfinance in Vanuatu. Port Vila, Vanuatu: Vanwods. Schneider, D. M. & Gough, K. (Eds.). (1961). Matrilineal kinship. London: University of California Press. Spivak, G. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In Carey Nelson and Leon Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Stege, K. E. & Huffer, E. (2008). Land and women: The matrilineal factor: Cases of the Republic of Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Suva, Fiji: Pacific Island Forum Secretariat. Strachan, J., Saunders, R., Liku, J., & Lapi, G. (2007). Ni-Vanuatu women and educational leadership development. Presented at the 10th Pacific Islands Political Studies Association Conference, December 7–8, University of the South Pacific, Emalus Campus, Port-Vila, Vanuatu.

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      The Process that Led Me to Become an Indigenous Researcher 57 Thomas, A. K. L. (2010). Focus group discussion report to the Vanuatu Ministry of Justice and social welfare and the Vanuatu Department of Women’s Affairs. Hamilton, New Zealand: University of Waikato. Thomas, A. K. L. (2011). The Melanesian traditional governance model in Vanuatu: A perspective of matrilineality in the Big Bay region, Espiritu Santo, in Vanuatu empowering women and including them in the decision-making process. Presented at the Power Sharing Conference, Whakatane, New Zealand, January 12–15. Thomas, A. K. L. & Humphries, M. (2009). Ni-Vanuatu women: From bartering to entrepreneurship. Presented at the Hawaii International Business Conference on Business, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 12–15. Thomas, A. K. L. & Humphries, M. (2010). Raising one’s hand to the insistent hand of neo-colonialism. Presented at the International Society for Third-Sector Research Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, July 7–10. Thomas, A. K. L. & Humphries, M. (2011). Who is our neighbour? How is our neighbour? Presented at the Organisation, Identity and Locale Conference, Palmerston North, New Zealand, February 10–11. Tuttle, L. (1986). Encyclopedia of feminism. London: Longman Group Limited. United Nations. (1990). Convention of the rights of the child. New York: Author. United Nations Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2000). Assessing the status of women: A guide to reporting under the convention on the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. (Updated by the Division for the advancement of women from the combined publication by the United Nations, Commonwealth Secretariat & the International Women’s Right Action Watch). United Nations. (2006). Millennium development goals report. New York: Author. University of the South Pacific, The. (1986). Land rights of Pacific women. Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies of the USP. Van Trease, H. (1987). The politics of land in Vanuatu: From colony to independence. Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific. Vanuatu. (2008). Cultures, countries and their cultures. www.everyculture.com (accessed October 6, 2008). Vanuatu Destination South Pacific. (2008). Vanuatu. http://www.vanuatuparadise.com/ NewFiles (accessed October 30, 2008). Vanuatu NGO Shadow Report, The. (2007). Vanuatu NGO shadow report on the implementation of the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW). Port Vila, Vanuatu: Vanuatu Rural Development and Training Centres; the Woman Against Crime and the Vanuatu Association of Non-Government Organisations. VNCW. (2005). Many rivers we crossed: A tribute to the women of Vanuatu on the special commemoration of the VNCW 25th Silver Jubilee Anniversary. Port Vila, Vanuatu: Vanuatu National Council of Women. VNSO. (2009). Vanuatu Statistics Pocketbook 2009. Port Vila, Vanuatu. Ministry of Finance and Economic Management and the Vanuatu National Statistics Office. VNSO. (2011). Statistics. http://www.vnso.gov.vu/ (accessed October 21, 2011). Wansolwara Special Report on Prostitution, The. (2011). Pacific Scoop 2011. Retrieved December 20, 2011 from http://pacific.scoop.co.nz. Winn, J. (2004). Entrepreneurship: Not an easy path to top management for women. Women in Management Review 19, 143–153.

Chapter 3

I Never Really Had Any Role Models Art Hernandez

I never really had any role models. As a child, I did not dream of ­becoming a college professor, much less an evaluator. In fact, my aspirations were not far removed from my everyday experience. I grew up in a ­working-class family and only as I got older did I find out that we were poor. I just assumed that everyone wore hand-me-down clothes and that when tennis shoes got too small, you cut the toes off so that your feet would fit. It was a time when you didn’t notice the differences between you and the other children. That would come later. I am frankly surprised at what I have done and where I have ended up. I never imagined that I would become a college professor or a program evaluator. I look back and recall many of my neighborhood peers and see how differently my life could have been. Although doing well in school was very important to my parents, they seldom spoke about my going to college; I’m not sure why. Certainly there weren’t any family conversations about it that I can recall as a senior in high school. No one in my circle of friends was talking about going to college, although I’ve come to know that it was because they were all assuming college was the next step. So I almost didn’t apply. In fact, it really was more of an accident than anything else. My serious thinking about college started late in my senior year. Some of us were invited to hear a presentation by Princeton students about efforts being made to recruit Hispanic students in the interest of diversity. I remember they talked about the scholarships available and the very small Hispanic student community, but I’m not sure what else. Whatever it was, I was very interested and impressed (especially when they told us the ratio of men to women was about 1 to 5). I remember Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 59–70. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 59

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also being aware that Princeton was a “name” school and that if they were going to pay for me to go, it might be something to look into. I never gave much thought to why I was one of those tagged to go, but I’m glad that I was. If not for that presentation, I’m sure that I would not have thought to do anything necessary to apply for college. I finally decided against going purely because of finances. Although I might have been eligible for a scholarship, there was still the matter of travel, housing, food, incidentals, and so forth that I wouldn’t have a clue how I would afford. It’s funny that I never mentioned to my parents that I was thinking about Princeton; I just decided that I couldn’t afford it. Instead, I decided to go to the local university, which was also very expensive but as long as I could come up with tuition and books, I wouldn’t have to worry about room and board. I applied at the last possible moment for the SAT, the university, and financial aid. As I reflect on my decision to go to college, I am surprised that I can’t really identify any reason for it. Most of my neighborhood friends weren’t going and most of my cousins weren’t talking about it either. Those who were just older than I was were going to the Vietnam War to fight and some of them died. I was just young enough to avoid being drafted, so my decision to go to school really had nothing to do with avoiding the draft—something that, given my family background, never would have occurred to me in any case. Many of my peers and relatives ended up as skilled laborers, at either the journeyman or master level, and many of them are doing very well for themselves without a college education. As an undergraduate student, I had the opportunity to be involved in a research study that examined career and educational aspirations of children and youth from backgrounds very similar to mine. The principal conclusion, as I recall, was that virtually none of the individuals surveyed or questioned had aspirations that exceeded their family and community experience. I suppose the same was true for me. My undergraduate career was mostly unremarkable, except that most of the students and all of my professors came from a “majority” background. I have always had difficulty with words and ideas that separate people; although I understand there are many distinctions between us, all of those things seem rather insignificant since, in the end, we are all human. In college, I remember the attention paid to the fact that I was a minority student and that our professors and most of our peers were white. Though this was the time of anti-war, civil rights, and counter culture, without realizing it, I was trying hard to fit in. It somehow never occurred to me that people would refuse to accept me or see me as something other than Mexican, Chicano, or Mexican American. I certainly never saw myself in that way. I just saw myself as Arthur—a student,

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a young man, a soccer player—many things, but I didn’t ever define myself in terms of my ethnic background. This isn’t to say that I was oblivious. At that time, there were certain advantages to be had from being Mexican—whatever, given the efforts that many schools and other organizations and entities were making at affirmative action. I readily admit to taking advantage of what I could since even in college I was poorer than most and was almost always working at least two jobs to pay for school and to provide for some support for my single mom and younger brothers. I didn’t mind working, but it left little time for other things. At the time, there were some who felt that these efforts by the majority to redress past wrongs were entitlements and just retribution. I never thought that much about it. I was in the pre-med program largely because I thought that being a doctor would be fun and interesting and pay well. Also, I suppose that I didn’t know enough about college-based careers to really consider what kind of job a college education could lead to. I was a mostly B student in my science and math courses but I couldn’t see the connection between physics or calculus and being a physician. I didn’t discover until later that these courses were not supposed to be related—they were to act as a screen. That surprised and bothered me then and still does. I understand the idea of “best and brightest” and the need to maximize success to reduce cost, but I can’t say that I ever agreed with it as it was applied to restricting access to education and opportunity. I have no doubt that had I have chosen to do so, I could have completed the course of study and successfully completed medical school training. What I’m not sure of is whether success in surviving the screening requirements would have really allowed for me to have the opportunity to do so. At the close of my second year, I took a psychology course as an elective. Although the professor for the course was not exciting or extraordinary in any memorable way, I was fascinated with the subject matter. Even though my introduction to psychology was during the heyday of the popularity of Skinner’s behavioral theory and we spent a lot of time reviewing conditioning experiments with rats and pigeons, I was mesmerized by the thought that here was a power to influence and explain behavior in ways that suggested that it might be possible to dictate the way other people acted and thought. I changed my major. It seemed to me that this science of behavior was much more important and held much more significance than becoming a mechanic for people’s bodies. During this time, I discovered the idea of theory—that it was possible to develop a set of rules and definitions that could explain and even predict phenomena. It was a transformative discovery for me. It helped me think of things in a very different way. It seemed to me that I might discover the differences between people that led to behaviors that were hard to

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understand. I suppose I thought that I might be able to figure out a way to influence people away from prejudice and injustice. I graduated from my undergraduate program with a dual focus on psychology and English and with teaching credentials, so I could work while I went on to pursue my Master’s degree. I knew that the Master’s was the entry-level credential to work in the field of psychology. Although I wanted to teach high school psychology, no positions of that nature were available, so I got a job teaching English at an inner-city middle school. It was scary at first being responsible for the kids, but after a few weeks I found that I very much enjoyed teaching and especially enjoyed the students. They were like me, as I had been. They had few aspirations for themselves. This was a second major transformative life experience for me. I recognized that I could make a difference in the world, affecting the aspiration and perspective of one person at a time, influencing dreams and providing the means of access through understanding. Teaching was an entirely different experience than I ever expected. After a few years and a Master’s degree later, I was recruited to work in another inner-city school, but for much more money. I’m not sure why, but the school that wanted to hire me expected me to teach English as a Second Language (ESL). I never had any training in ESL teaching, nor do I recall applying to teach ESL. Wow, talk about naive! I suppose if I had thought about it at the time, I might have complained about my placement both because of my lack of preparation and the assumption that my ethnic background was all that was necessary. I didn’t know what I was doing and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I still very much enjoyed working with the students, but I came to realize that I was not providing the benefit they deserved. Although I really cared, I wasn’t the right person for the job. Neither my color nor my ethnicity were the qualifications that were necessary. During this time, I chose clinical psychology as my focus for my initial graduate school effort. This was good in a couple of ways. First, it made it easier to explain to my parents. And second, it was the typical track for psychologists interested in working in the schools, since at that time there was no specialized training in school psychology. Finally, although I intended to keep working, pursuing clinical psychology would keep my options open. I took my entrance exams, filled out applications, and asked my favorite professor for letters of recommendation. This was a significant step for me, since my family really didn’t understand what I was doing. I know they were very proud that I had successfully completed college, but I’m sure they were confused about why I would need to go to back to school when I had just completed my degree. I was ready to go wherever I was accepted, even if it meant leaving my family. As it was possible that I’d have to go out of town for school, I

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decided not to tell them anything about going to graduate school until I found out where I was going. I was very surprised when I saw my GRE score—I don’t know what I expected but I suppose that I expected to do much better than I did. According to the testing company, I was average. I still expected to hear something from the schools to which I applied. I didn’t. I was only accepted to the same school that had accepted me as an undergraduate student, so that’s where I went. Besides, I was able to have my first undergraduate professor assigned as my major professor. This was the same professor who had inspired me, introduced me to a different way of thinking, and influenced me to change my major and career goals—I was happy. After completing two semesters, my major professor suddenly died. This was hard for me—made even harder when the chair of the department informed me about the discovery of uncompleted, unsent letters of recommendation to all the graduate schools that never responded to my applications. I had always thought that the lack of response was due to my being very average. To this day, I have no idea whether he simply forgot about sending the letters or whether there was some other motivation. I prefer to think it was the former reason, but after everything in my life, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter. I worked with various professors over the remaining time of my training and was surprised and then concerned during my practicum and internship courses when these professors asked me whether what they were teaching me was applicable to minority or ethnic populations. I remember thinking at the time how strange it was to hear these questions from the very professors who had taught me how to interpret and understand so-called clinical indicators, including the results of psychological assessments. At the end of my training, I discovered that what I was learning about typical or expected results from various projective techniques, like the Rorschach Inkblot or Thematic Apperception Test, weren’t considered by some to be typical for people from minority racial/ethnic groups. After two years of advanced study, memorizing and applying various theories and techniques of psychology, I realized that what had long been taught had long been assumed. At last, I realized that there were important differences between people. Over the next couple of years of school and working in private practice, I learned a lot about ways in which we were the same and different. Growing up, I had never had much experience with prejudice, perhaps I was well protected or just oblivious. I had never thought of people as anything more than people. Except that is not exactly right. I suppose I always knew there were differences; I just thought the differences weren’t as important as the similarities. After my experiences as a psychologist, I began to see these differences from another perspective. Among other

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things, I recognized that students who came from minority backgrounds were more likely to be diagnosed as having learning or other problems that interfered with education. These children were tracked into educational pathways that would inevitably block any possibility that they would ever be able to go on to higher education or pursue a career that would be other than menial. They were supposed to be in school to learn the same skills as any other child, but after placement into special education, no one expected anything from them. I was disillusioned and disheartened. I didn’t want my work to result in the crushing of so many dreams, nor did I want to be responsible for the unnecessary placement of so many mostly Hispanic children into programs of special education. I argued in vain with my colleagues (all of whom were from the majority group) that the inappropriate placement of these children was not beneficial. However, they all believed they were helping, and many would go out of their way to use test instruments and procedures that were likely to result in qualification and placement in special education so that the children could “get the help they needed.” Although I didn’t know it at the time, this was one of my first experiences with the impact of a lack of cultural competency in evaluation. I applied for a doctoral program for which I was recruited through a federally funded Hispanic leadership program. I expected to be a good candidate since at the time I had two Master’s degrees with good grades in both. However, my GRE scores were too old to be used. To be considered for the program, I would have to retake the test. It had been years since I had taken or used any of the mathematics to be tested. In addition, the deadline for registering for the test had long past and I would have to go to the testing center and test on a stand-by basis. Two weeks before the test was scheduled, I bought a test prep book and decided that I really didn’t want to pursue a doctoral degree so that I wouldn’t be too disappointed when I was unsuccessful on one more screening device. I did very well on my retake of the test. Life experiences and additional schooling had prepared me academically, and I believe that the various opportunities to interact in significant ways with the majority cultural group had prepared me culturally. Of course, the fact that I was being compared to a reference and norm group that was very different certainly helped. I was shocked when I was admitted to the university and the doctoral program. I mean, I expected to be, but I had prepared myself not to be. On reflection, I suppose that at least part of the reason I was surprised is that I didn’t know anyone “like me” who had ever gone to a doctoral program, much less graduated from one. I was accepted and informed very late. I needed to make a decision, find a place to live, and move in less than a week if I was going to register and attend classes in the fall.

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Somehow, everything worked out and a week later, I found myself a doctoral student. Hispanic leadership program or not, it seems I was expected to adjust to the systems, customs, and expectations of the university, college, and department, and I found occasionally that I was not fitting in. It was surprising. Where I had been mostly oblivious to being different before, there, I was distinctly different. Although I was part of a doctoral program supported in part by a fellowship, I found that my peers in the program didn’t fully understand or accept me and, of course, my colleagues in the larger (non-Hispanic) cohort group didn’t either. I wasn’t really part of either group. An incident early in my training demonstrates this distinction very well. During my first year, I was taking an introductory course in psychometrics and had the temerity to criticize the leveling exam required of all the new students. Essentially, it was an examination of basic psychology knowledge. Although I did very well on the test, scoring the second highest in the entire cohort and much higher than anyone in the program, I challenged the test on psychometric grounds, arguing that since the standard error was just over half the standard deviation for the group, the results were meaningless. I didn’t fit in with my group because I challenged the test on something other than cultural grounds, and I didn’t fit in with the majority group because, well, I’m not sure why not. This confusion was further illustrated when one of my professors went so far as to challenge my ethnicity because I was “too smart to be a Mexican.” I had the good fortune to be asked to serve as a teaching assistant in my second year. I was to teach an introductory educational psychology class and was both excited and a bit intimidated. My first class had over seventy students, and even after all these years, I clearly remember the feelings I had walking toward the room. I also remember the surprise on the faces of many of the students in the class when I walked to the front of the room on that first day. I didn’t know how to characterize it then or even now. I do know that teaching that class was as transformative as first learning psychological theory. From that first experience, I finally really knew what I wanted to do with the rest of life. The experiences with my professors, spending time, learning, and interacting with so many very smart people, finding that knowing and being able to do was what was important, more so than appearance or any accent might determine, all influenced me. That experience further impacted me and my sense of self in two particular ways. My teaching evaluations included some that indicated that I was very hard to understand because of my “very strong” accent. Anyone who knows me will tell you that my accent (whatever it might be) is not something that could be described as resulting from speaking Spanish as

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a first language. The second impactful experience was at the conclusion of the semester. A very large young man (I think he was a football player) waited until the end of the last class and approached me after everyone else had left. I’m ashamed to admit that I was briefly anxious and looked around to see how I might escape should I find myself in peril. Looking back, I suppose my reaction said something about the fact that I was finally and firmly very aware of differences. The student respectfully and gratefully told me that the experience of that semester had changed him in a fundamental way. He told me he had never had experience with “Messicans” other than as laborers on his father’s ranch and that the semester with me as the instructor had taught him that their “place” in society had more to do with their opportunity than with their potential. I graduated with my Ph.D. in educational psychology and applied for a job as an adjunct professor and for a grant-funded position with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. I taught at night and worked by day developing and managing various programs designed to increase Hispanic student school retention and graduation. These activities were informative in multiple ways. Once again, I recognized that most of these programs were designed to change the students and that very little of what was then taking place focused on ways in which the institutions might make themselves more culturally competent. I suppose, without realizing it, I was beginning to explore the notion of cultural competence. I continued this work for two years while I searched for a full-time academic job. The work I did as a part-time professor and as an “interventionist” was very fulfilling. But I also found that the dominant deficit perspective related to students from minority backgrounds made any ability to intervene limited and of questionable value. I’m sure everything that we did to make a difference touched individual lives in some ways, but we didn’t begin to make the slightest difference in the situations and circumstances that influenced and constrained the opportunity of so many who I still believe had so much to offer. I was appointed assistant professor and began to explore how I could make a difference with my students and in my discipline. Although I had no particular training in program evaluation, I found that because of my training in social science and education, many folks believed that I would have the skill and knowledge necessary to assess and give feedback about the impact or effectiveness of what they were doing. In addition, I now realize that being from a minority background seemed to assure these same people that I would be a “culturally appropriate” evaluator. Unfortunately, and despite all the experiences that should have influenced me otherwise, I never deliberately considered cultural perspectives. I applied the qualitative and quantitative research techniques I

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had learned in school without thinking whether my inquiry should be guided or influenced by the folks who were the “subjects” of my study. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the “scientific” notion of subjects did not change the fact that I was dealing with people, that these people were members of groups, and finally that these groups shared a common worldview related to identity, behavior, values, ways of knowing, and what was knowable, among other things. After all, my training had prepared me with a particular way of discovering and documenting “truth” and valuing that accepted discovered truth was based on the assumptions of lawful, mostly unidirectional, and linear relationships between circumstances and constructs. How could truth be different for different people or groups? I was invited to apply for an opportunity at the American Evaluation Association (AEA) in the second cohort of the Minority Serving Institution initiative and was accepted. Of course, I had participated in a number of professional meetings before, but my first-ever AEA meeting was the most recent significantly transforming experience in my life. Although I had worked as an evaluator on many occasions, I suppose I never considered myself an evaluator. This was probably partly due to the fact that I never realized evaluation was a separate academic or professional discipline and had always engaged in evaluation practice on the basis of my skills with scientific inquiry. Mostly, I was shocked that as an evaluator from a minority background, I had no clue that my work was not culturally competent—that I didn’t even know what cultural competence was. My development as a culturally competent evaluator has depended on my development as a person, as a college professor, and most especially as a result of collaboration with many people at AEA. All my previous experiences went into the evaluations that I conducted, but my first experience at AEA and the opportunity to meet so many practiced and professional evaluators helped me realize that I was not yet an evaluator. Also, I learned what I needed to know and do to become one. Cultural competence is real, meaningful, and important. However, as I began to consider the concept of culture in an effort to understand cultural competence, I was amazed at the range and breadth of definitions I was able to locate for this construct. It seems that just about anything that could conceivably be included in the definition of this idea has been included at some time. General (and particular) notions of history, tradition, language, gender, values, socioeconomic level, demography, geography, methods, power, beliefs, worldview, indigeneity, and respect, among others, combine in different ways and with different emphasis in different definitions to define culture. Regardless of definition, it seemed essential to me

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that cultural competence in practice depends on consideration of both individual and collective (community and group) participants’ (evaluator and evaluatee) points of view. From most perspectives and regardless of purpose, the fundamental activity of evaluation is to make a judgment about or report on value. So, without due consideration of points of view, interpretations of findings (or even the findings themselves), whether related to outcomes or processes, are, of necessity, suspect since a particular point of view not only contextualizes but guides decision making with regard to reality, relevance, rules, and relationships. Not surprisingly, considering my training, I examined existing literature in an effort to understand culturally competent practice in evaluation. This literature review provided a good conceptual framework based on principles of meaningfulness, social justice, and ethical practice. To understand how these ideas might be operationalized, I looked at as many evaluation reports as I could find, believing that the practice of experienced and expert practitioners would be the best guide. After reviewing literally scores of evaluation reports, I was greatly surprised to find little or no mention of the relevant aspects of participant (community) history, culture, value, and so on, except in specific cases that were designed as, or intended to illustrate, participatory (Cousins & Earl, 1995), transformative (Greene, 2000), inclusive (Mertens, 2003), or empowerment (Fetterman, 2001) evaluation. This was curious for a number of reasons, particularly since any understanding and appreciation of cultural competence (or incompetence—see Dean, 2001) would seem to require a discussion of the potential of particular cultural worldviews to assess and assure the validity, reliability, and credibility of any applied approach and because of the attention and work of various groups within AEA, especially with regard to the statement related to cultural competence. As I explored the characteristics and searched implications for guides to practice, I found that I had to continuously reflect on my own values and perspectives. While I had always encouraged my students to be self-reflective and thought myself to be so, I realized the nature of the self-reflection mattered as much as the practice. I began to understand that beyond considering my practice and assessing my fidelity to method, I needed to assess my fundamental beliefs concerning things like truth, knowledge, value, and most importantly what I can only describe as “ways of knowing.” I began to see that I had ignored these things in my previous self-reflection or perhaps assumed too much that the world I saw, understood, and lived in was identical in all respects to the world of others. This self-reflection is something that is now ongoing and in which I engage in at the beginning and throughout any inquiry endeavor.

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As I consider it, it seemed to me that cultural competence is likely to be influenced by the purposes for which the evaluation is conducted. For example, without regard to other considerations, it appears that evaluation that seeks rather than checks (Wadsworth, 2001) should be imminently more likely to be conducted in a manner that could be considered culturally competent. This is at least partly due to the fact that accountability evaluation is typically based on or focuses on models of action and consequences that are devised or determined based on assumed (theoretical) causality (e.g., logic models). In practice, most enterprises concerned with influencing human behavior (e.g., psychosocial, educational, or health prevention or promotion) generally do not adequately consider or even include the influence of moderators or specify the mediators of action as an influential part of the planning or operating model and, even when specified, it is unclear the extent to which either are likely to be determined to be influenced by culture. This suggests that assessments that seek to include the perspective of participants can artificially constrain, or worse, fail to recognize particular points of view, since they are not considered relevant or real from the perspective of the operating model that guides the activity or organizes the inquiry. Finally, accountability perspectives in general do not examine unintended consequence outcomes that may significantly impact the determination of cost-benefit (especially from the perspective of participants) regardless of objective achievement. On the other hand, evaluation that seeks to explain or describe is just as likely to fail to result in explicit recognition of or implicit sensitivity to the perspective of those who are the subjects of the evaluation exercise. One reason for this is that regardless of the sensitivity of the data collectors or their willingness to include and incorporate particular information, the analysis of what is finally collected depends to a great extent on social-scientific conventions, which, in and of themselves, impute values, judgments, priorities, and particular points of view that may be inconsistent or invalid from the cultural context of those individuals and activities that are the focus of the evaluation. This can be true even when participants actively engage in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of information because of power differentials, level of sophistication and confidence, potential for “secondary gain,” and issues of confidentiality, among other things. Although I very much appreciate AEA’s Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation (2011), it does not provide detailed directions or qualifications for culturally competent evaluation. I suppose such a thing is impossible. I have come to appreciate cultural competence both from the perspective of someone who has lived in a context of “other,” as well as someone who has held the lens of examination and helped frame

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and thus determine what is valued and valuable. However, I am committed to continue to consider and decide and to share my perspective with any colleague who might be interested. I am thankful for the opportunities of a lifetime for all that I have received and all that I can offer.

RefeRences American Evaluation Association. (2011). Public statement on cultural competence. Fairhaven, MA: Author. www.eval.org (accessed September 6, 2012). Cousins, J. B. & Earl, L. (Eds.). (1995). Participatory evaluation in education. London: Falmer. Dean, R. G. (2001). The myth of cross-cultural competence. Families in Society 82, 623–630. Fetterman, D. M. (2001). Foundations of empowerment evaluation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Greene, J. (2000). Understanding social programs through evaluation. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 981–1,000). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mertens, D. M. (2003). The inclusive view of evaluation: Visions for the new millennium. In S. I. Donaldson & M. Scriven (Eds.), Exploring evaluator role and identity (pp. 103–117). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Wadsworth, Y. (2001). Becoming responsive—And some consequences for evaluation as dialogue across distance. In J. C. Greene & T. A. Abma (Eds.), Responsive evaluation, new directions for evaluation (pp. 45–58). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Chapter 4

Indigenism, Public Intellectuals, and the Forever Opposed—Or, the Makings of a “Hori Academic” Brad Coombes

Well-prep’d, knows his stuff and a good public speaker but he’s your typical hori1 academic. Everything has to be turned into Whitey’s-ConspiracyAgainst-The-Ma¯ori, as if Ma¯ori and Europeans can never get along. Is it really that simple? Ma¯ori and non-Ma¯ori forever opposed? One presumed inherently good, the other permanently evil? —Written comment on class evaluation of the author’s teaching (October 2001)

I retain imprecise memories of the events that prompted the above quotation, and there are good reasons for any attempt to forget them. I had been a lecturer at the University of Auckland for only a few years. Prior to that appointment, I grew up near Dunedin, New Zealand—the Deep South; a Scottish, Presbyterian enclave where Ma-ori are few in number. Likewise, the south’s University of Otago—where I completed all my studies before graduating with a doctorate in geography—provided a relatively straightforward environment in which I could evade the implications of a mixed heritage. Those who knew about my maternal-side whakapapa (genealogy) seldom thought it necessary to be raised in conversation; those who did not assumed that I was Indian, an Arab, or perhaps of southern European descent. In that obscurity, I could commit to my studies without having to impart on them the highly politicized agendas that dominated the small, ever-declining kaika (villages) around the Purakaunui estuary where I had been raised. Maintaining separate Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 71–88. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 71

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personal/political and academic/intellectual lives had been an unspoken indulgence with which I had been, though inwardly uncomfortable, outwardly very content. Auckland and the University of Auckland presented a different context, and it soon became evident that, irrespective of my preferences, what had been separate would be brought together. Auckland has a relatively high proportion of Ma-ori and its university was then embroiled in an identity-forming moment in which it would decide its fate as a “Pacific university” or just another colonial institution. Consequently, its executive perceived a need to hire more Ma-ori with Ph.D.s, even though some students would frame this as a politically correct attempt at social engineering, the result of which was an influx of “hori academics.” Although my own identity had been maintained as ambiguous during the employment process, as soon as I was hired, my opportunity for such ambiguity rapidly expired. Within a week, I found myself leading the senior undergraduate class onto a marae (meeting place) to whaikorero (make speeches in Ma-ori) on their behalf, having already taught them a few hackneyed waiata (songs). A few years later, one such exchange became a lasting source of anxiety. A student who self-identified as mature behaved offensively on a marae, interrupting the kaikorero (speakers) of the tangata whenua (hosts) and berating them as “terrorists.” His predominantly younger peers, who had experienced a very different education system, were aghast and, upon their return to Auckland, demanded that I address the issue. My response in class was as deliberately measured as possible. I reminded the student body that marae are designed to be places of conflict—sites of encounter where ideas should be exchanged openly and without concern for appearances. Unfortunately, this measured approach was nonetheless perceived as a threat. A few days later, the walls of the men’s washroom were adorned with large letters in red paint: THE LAST THING THIS UNIVERSITY NEEDS IS ANOTHER MILITANT HALF CASTE LIKE BRAD COOMBES. Not long thereafter, I read the comment on a student evaluation that opens this chapter: Inescapably, I was now a hori academic. From these introductory paragraphs, it will be clear that I cannot disassociate the matter of Indigenous identity formation from personal experiences. Further, I admit freely that others are likely to have constructed my identity as a Ma-ori researcher as much as I or my parentage are responsible for it, leading to the suspicion that Indigenous identities are relational and co-constructed rather than the products of inheritance or personal choice. To respond to the kaupapa (purpose) of this book and to consider my being and becoming as an Indigenous researcher, it is therefore important for me to situate that narrative in an assessment of

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relevant academic literature. In the following section, I will discuss the emergence of relational perspectives on identity formation and use that discussion to account for how interactions with and learning from relatives, the politics of place, and the centrality of land claims shaped my academic identity. In a subsequent section, I will review the (re)emerging debates about the public intellectual, perhaps as an excuse for being “forever opposed” and presumptuous about the inevitability of conflict between Ma-ori academics and pakeha (European New Zealanders), both within and outside the academy. Recent theorization of identity formation and public intellectuals is useful for understanding my own research trajectory. Since leaving Dunedin for Auckland, I have been principal investigator on several research projects for the Waitangi Tribunal2 and the Crown Forestry Rental Trust that funds research for the tribunal: Gisborne Inquiry District 1999–2000; Urewera between 2000 and 2003; Wairoa during 2004 and 2005; Tongariro in 2007, and, more recently, contributions to the East Coast Inquiry. Those projects culminated in reports of up to 2,100 pages per project but, because of their sub-judice status, culturally sensitive content, ethical dilemmas, and infighting among competing claimants, they often yield no more than one or two international academic publications. Regrettably, those projects are of dubious merit in today’s academic context with its emphasis on easily quantified performance measures. I have more colleagues who have referred to the work as “academic suicide” than colleagues who have framed it in positive terms, and the doomsayers are likely correct. Yet, as I was raised to respect the analysis and articulation of local history, such research represents an involuntary form of recklessness—unshakable, bad behavior that I have been practicing since childhood.

IndIgeneIty and IdentIty FormatIon In recent years, there has been a profound shift in academic conceptualizations of identity, leading to an equally significant reframing of the way Indigenous identities are performed or constructed. Although the social sciences have long regarded identity as a partial and emergent outcome of the interactions among social groupings, Indigenous identities have often been treated as a separate case, with limited critique of the discourses of primordialism, landedness, and tradition that typically fetishize Indigenous cultures (Coombes et al., 2011). Recognizing that essentialized identities may hold political currency in a world searching for authenticity, some Indigenous peoples deliberately assume such cultural roles as “ecologically noble” denizens to secure rights or access to resources (Valdivia, 2005). More often, the persistence of such inflexible

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conceptions of identity serves to restrict Indigenous self-determination or rights, especially where Indigenous peoples are seen to depart from public expectations about proper native conduct (Blackburn, 2007, 2009; Sylvain, 2005). Notwithstanding the popularity of such cultural imaginaries in public opinion, in current academic thinking the criterial approach to indigeneity and, more generally, the notion of absolute, immutable, or inherited identities is giving way to relational approaches (Merlan, 2009). Hathaway (2010) maintains that Indigenous peoples are not a natural category but rather a political category; thus, Indigenous identities are social constructs that emerge from interactions with colonizing others. Likewise, Merlan (2009, p. 319) argues that indigeneity “does not have meaning on the basis of something that is ‘simply there’ or objectively ascertainable . . . but, like many other social categories, is a contingent, interactive and historical product.” These recent perspectives evaluate the way that Indigenous identities are co-produced in relationships with other social groups and, rather than agonizing over the implications of cultural hybridity for Indigenous rights, celebrate its inevitability (Coombes et al., 2011). They understand “identities . . . as emergent and shaped by social and historical contingency” and they ask “how and why indigeneity becomes relevant or even possible and how it changes over time” (Hathaway, 2010, p. 304). This more interactional approach to understanding identity and its shifting dimensions corresponds better with the external influences on my own identity that have been intimated in the introduction to this chapter. To suggest, however, that Indigenous identities are relationally constructed is not to claim that they are constructed in relation solely to other peoples. Rather, Indigenous identities are formed on the basis of dynamic interplay among peoples, places, and social causes that collectively influence individual motivations, aspirations, and cultural differences. As Valdivia (2005, p. 286) confirms, “indigeneity is locally articulated in relation to cultural and environmental claims, historically situated and includes a range of positions” (see also Valdivia, 2008). In particular, Indigenous identities form in opposition to colonial norms of citizenship. By its very definition, therefore, indigeneity is a “challenge [to] the construction of the white settler-state,” but it is also true that those “challenges occur in places, not within arbitrary, theoretical space” (Johnson, 2008, p. 29). Because the associated understanding of how place influences culture is itself conditioned by a much more open sense of place construction, such conceptions of identity formation do not represent the reemergence of a simplistic environmental determinism (Larsen & Johnson, 2012). Places are just as inchoate and subject to interactional processes as

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human identities; the social construction of place influences identities, and identities influence the social construction of place. There are many conceptual benefits of this attempt to understand how politics, social causes, culture, identity, and place interact, and it may be particularly important for unpacking the distinctiveness of Indigenous activism and political cultures. How, then, have local causes, the politics of place and interactions among different peoples influenced my development as an academic researcher? A visceral answer to that question is implied in Figure 4.1, which is a digital scan of a pastel illustration that I sketched as a nine year old and was recently discovered among my grandmother’s possessions. Its rediscovery reminds me of many personal traits that were established in early childhood, influenced my later academic life, and extend well beyond the revelation that my handwriting and ability to draw have not improved over the decades. The illustration depicts the Purakaunui estuary, Mapoutahi peninsula, and former pa (fortified village), Moponui Hill, and the communities of Purakaunui, Mihiwaka, and Osborne—the last being the small farming village of my formative years. My maternal grandparents, one from Ngati Kahungunu and the other from the local iwi (tribe) of Kati Mamoe, raised me from an early age to ensure that I learned certain narratives about Purakaunui. My mother’s generation had so rejected their Ma-ori identities that few spoke te reo Ma-ori (the Ma-ori language) or had bothered to learn of iwi history or cultural practice. My grandparents intervened within my generation to ensure cultural continuity and the perpetuation of certain long-standing claims against the crown. The basis for those claims is reflected in the distribution of land in Figure 4.1. Having lost most of its property within the Otago Province, Kati Mamoe endeavored to retain the land remnant to the west (right) of the estuary and did so successfully until the 1890s. At that time, the government seized by compulsory acquisition a long corridor of land to reposition the main trunk railway between Dunedin and Christchurch. Although the public works legislation that enabled that taking of land stipulated both compensation and a maximum of 20 yards either side of the proposed railway line, no money or equivalent land base was transferred to local Ma-ori, and the corridor was surveyed as 880 yards wide (see hatched area labeled “THEIRS”). Because the corridor ranged between a contour above the swamplands of the coast and one below the steep hill country above, most of the productive land was lost to local Ma-ori. What little land remained became fragmented, isolated, and unprofitable, leading to gradual loss of additional assets through non-payment of local authority rates and subsequent statutory management, coercive liens, and mortgagee sales. Despite the illegality of the purchase and the

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Figure 4.1 Childhood Illustration of Purakaunui and Its Politics of Place.

fact that all but a 40-yard strip of the land was unused, Kati Mamoe protests were unheard because they commenced well before the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal and because potential legal costs made the court system inaccessible. As indicated in Figure 4.1, land was also lost in other ways, such as the compulsory acquisition of Moponui to become a scenic reserve in 1917. In the 1950s, my grandfather purchased back a small amount of land (see area labeled “OURS”/“Family Farm”) from the Rail Department to reestablish a farming base. Loss of control over the wider land base meant that connections to the cultural values and archaeological sites within the rail corridor could not be maintained. Earthworks to create a gentle incline for passenger and freight trains interfered with burial sites. Plants that had been used for the collection of rongoa (medicine) or craft fibers became inaccessible because access to the corridor was restricted for reasons of public safety. Centuries-old pathways that linked related families or cultural sites were severed and not replaced. Over time, Osborne in particular depopulated with key families moving to the city because it could no longer sustain an economic base. Storytelling about that history was profoundly influential on my vocational outlook and later research emphases. The initial purpose of Figure 4.1 was to provide a platform for telling those stories to others who should know

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them: Within Indigenous communities, the meaning of research is often hijacked for explicitly didactic purposes, thereby influencing the type of research that is pursued. “Stolen for rail purposes” and “Taken for scenic reserve” are the bases for a profound sense of injustice that has been central to Kati Mamoe politics at Purakaunui. Learning about those matters at an early age directed my attention to the intersections of ethnicity, class, and social justice that remain central to my research agenda today. They also explain my enthusiasm for grounding current events in historical processes and why that historically grounded approach to teaching and research may, at times, irritate those from the majority culture. In reviewing my corpus of academic outputs for the writing of this chapter, a repeated theme is observable—of which I had not previously been so cognizant. It seems that I am excessively meticulous in accounting for historical influences, so much so that I frequently lack space to relate the present-day issues that were intended to be the substance of individual articles. Today’s environmental conflicts over the cultural costs of catchment management at Gisborne were preceded by an exhaustive critique of the past outcomes of catchment control (Coombes, 2003). In attempting to account for why flood protection and conservation forestry schemes of the present were likely to reflect the needs of urban, environmental, and farming groups rather than Ma-ori, I had been obsessed with how “the cabal of vested interests on the Poverty Bay flats remonstrated for the Crown to compulsorily acquire . . . Ma¯ori land” in the past (Coombes, 2003, p. 350). Likewise, wherever I have researched the prospects for collaborative environmental management, I have found it necessary to stretch the analysis back toward events that followed the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Despite being the subject of much Crown insistence in its recent dealings with Ngati Hine, collaborative catchment restoration of the Whakaki wetlands and tributaries was deemed improbable because “it is ahistorical to expect state managers or environmental lobbies to yield willingly their privileged positions” (Coombes, 2007a, p. 70). Historically, farmers within the catchment secured dry land by disrupting culturally important flows of water and, because their present financial security is based on those very hydrological changes that Ngati Hine wants to reverse, they were unlikely to collaborate. I have also concluded that the potential for co-management of Te Urewera National Park is conditioned by its past. From 1896, Te Urewera became a Crownsanctioned “homeland” for Tuhoe, but the government contravened its own legislation and purchased land from individuals of the tribe. Hence, “the history of Te Urewera means that it is not realistic to [co]manage the park under the assumption that management can be separated from

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ownership” (Coombes & Hill, 2005, p. 149). These exaggerated forms of historical materialism doubtless suit the analysis of local circumstances at Whakaki and Te Urewera, but the choice to privilege analysis of the present through the lens of the past reflects a familial preoccupation with histories of land loss at Purakaunui. The need to research local politics with empathy for intra-Ma-ori diversity is another theme in common to my research at Whakaki and Te Urewera and, again, my understanding of the need for that was forged in inter-iwi politics at Purakaunui. The ease with which the Crown acquired a rail corridor that was 840 yards wider than its own laws permitted reflects competing Ma-ori claims of ownership to the land in question. Several centuries before the signing of the treaty, Ngai Tahu—a tribe from the east coast of the North Island—migrated south, leading to several wars over land and resources between it and Kati Mamoe. Although lay opinion and media representations attempt to homogenize Ma-ori as one social grouping, the consequences of intra- and interiwi disputes are unavoidable for Ma-ori. At Whakaki, I was particularly aware of how my advocacy for the restoration project of Ngati Hine could have drowned the last remaining low-land areas owned by Ngai Te Ipu (Coombes, 2007a). At Te Urewera, six or more fiercely independent hapu¯ (sub-tribes) compete for Crown attention over the future of the national park, but that is only one of many such sources of conflict: traditional versus modern groupings, young against old, Tuhoe—that attempted to be neutral in the New Zealand wars of the 1860s—versus those who fought for or against the Crown (Coombes & Hill, 2005). Such issues have also been central to my research within the National Park Inquiry District, where a cult of personality about the relationship between Tuwharetoa and the Tongariro mountains has alienated the interests of such other iwi as Whanganui. Desiring to open the central North Island for development, completion of the main trunk railway, and tourism within a proposed national park, the Crown popularized a notion that the area could legitimately become public land after consultation with as few as one individual and his heirs (Coombes, 2007c). In retrospect, prior knowledge about the significance of such diversity conflicts did not provide simple methodological answers to what are intractable ethical problems, but it did prevent me from rashly siding with any particular group and therefore enhanced the social justice potential of the research. Likewise, an understanding of why so many Kati Mamoe left Purakaunui has promoted general empathy for the fate of urban Ma-ori, whose rights in New Zealand are often contested. Whereas some Ma-ori researchers have habitually disregarded the question of urban Ma-ori, my own research has at times been a vehicle for supporting their attempts to repatriate sites and rights within the city of Auckland (Coombes, In press).

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Moreover, the singularly Ma-ori approach to telling the stories of land loss—not as objective chronologies but as personalized and living histories that must be spoken loudly and not written in private—inspired many aspects of my own approach to research. The centrality of storytelling within intra-family communications has encouraged me to experiment with alternative research methods. For instance, in research for the Urewera Inquiry District, participatory video approaches were used extensively, aiding members of a disaffected hapu¯ to write and direct their own documentaries with assistance from the researcher (Coombes et al., 2011). This enabled the sub-tribe to present their landscape histories to the tribunal despite a context where their voice is actively contested by other sub-tribes, and it provided a means for validating their claims for recognition within, and collaborative management of, the surrounding national park (Coombes & Hill, 2005). To some degree, methodological experimentation of this nature is dangerous within the tribunal’s quasi-legal system, which awards resource rights to Indigenous peoples on the basis of Western precepts of evidence and proof. Yet, it was a natural extension of the storytelling practices that had been used to relate the landscape histories of Kati Mamoe in an equally unforgiving context. Although it is too early to ascertain whether the hapu¯ has been successful with its claims, its members appreciated the opportunity to form their arguments in a nonconventional way that attuned more with Indigenous approaches to communication. It also provided a means for circumventing the fact that competing and more traditional hapu¯ had greater access to human and financial resources and could, therefore, monopolize conventional sources of tribunal evidence. Other forms of methodological experimentation were utilized in work with Raikaipaaka, where the researcher and participants collectively assembled a mosaic website that was constructed from alternative forms of evidence that elders had accumulated—old photographs, letters and petitions, art works, and fishing maps. The weight of alternative information was later used alongside and sometimes in place of conventional research materials in successful land and environmental claims (Coombes, 2007b). These divergences from standard methodologies provided culturally appropriate vehicles for Indigenous expression, but they also provided greater opportunity for genuinely collaborative research. My experience from Purakaunui confirms that outside researchers are often required to draw attention to local causes but they may also recast local history in inappropriate ways. Collaborative storytelling functioned well within the political constraints that the hapu¯ of Tuhoe and Raikaipaaka confronted because it is a sufficiently participatory and flexible approach for conveying the stories of those who have been marginalized from their own places and histories.

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Having listened to my elders discuss the social and cultural consequences of land loss since I was nine years old, it is not possible for me to research or communicate the impacts of colonial processes in an abstract or objective manner. They will always be associated with circumstances or events that make grandparents cry. Accordingly, I suspect that many Indigenous scholars are socialized into their role as researchers or activists on the basis of long-told family grievances and the bleak reality of landscape changes associated with colonial excess. Indigenous identities are not congenital in the same way that eye color is a heritable trait; they are shaped by the telling of stories about family, loss, history, and place, so they are inherently political and socially constructed.

IndIgenIsm and the PublIc Intellectual In many respects, input from re-emerging debates about “the public intellectual” may seem inapt for any discussion about being and becoming an Indigenous researcher. First, as Turner (2006, pp. 171–172) suggests, most claims by academics that they deserve the title are either self-aggrandizing or analytically unhelpful: The notion of “public intellectual” has a characteristically romantic flavour. It means an intellectual who struggles against overwhelming odds to deliver an overwhelmingly important social analysis that is received by an audience that requires a message that will give expression to their lives. Public intellectuals tend to be associated with political causes, especially in relation to colonial struggles. The public intellectual is an alienated outsider who struggles heroically against oppression and injustice.

To associate Indigenous scholarship with the performance of public intellectuals invites the criticism of romanticizing Indigenous academics in ways that obfuscate their own complicity in the social status of Indigenous peoples. Second, Ward (2006, p. 496) suggests that many of the recent debates about the status and function of public intellectuals have “taken place at the expense of what is meant, or might be meant, by the publics.” This tendency to homogenize and sanitize both knowledge sources from the academy and the public policy realm in which they are applied works against Indigenous demands for needs-based and critical research which amplifies voices from the margin (Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008). The re-emergence of the public intellectual as an aspirational figure in the self-conceptions of university staff owes more to neoliberal pressures on the academy to produce “relevant” research than it does to subaltern or Indigenous requirements of the university (Demeritt, 2005).

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A crass remedialism that implores harmonization of Indigenous communities’ performance with the colonizing other’s standards of citizenship has dominated policy for Indigenous peoples in recent years and has been most obvious in state strategies for “closing the gap” (Kowal, 2008). Accordingly, a demand has been created for The Indigenous Academic—a new category of public intellectual—whose social role is to generate palatable commentaries on the need for remedialism, while hawking it to their own communities (Laurie, Andolina, & Radcliffe, 2005; compare with Smith, 2007). Despite these misgivings about the social function of the very “Indigenous researcher,” which is the focus of this book, critical analysis of the relationship between indigenism and the public intellectual provides useful insight into my own status as a hori academic. In his Prison Notebooks, Gramsci (1971, p. 5) asked “Are the intellectuals an autonomous and independent social group, or does every social group have its own particular specialised category of intellectuals?” Political economy’s emphasis on hierarchical social groups (classes) does not fit well with current conceptions of identity formation, but the question of whether distinct causes or social groups must have their own intelligentsia—movement intellectuals—if they are to secure their rights remains pertinent (Lowi, 2010). Later, in his Notebooks, Gramsci (1971) confirmed that a successful activist grouping must first liaise with the traditional intellectuals before surpassing them through “elaborating its own organic intellectuals” (p. 10) or developing its “own stratum of intellectuals” (p. 60). These ideas reflect Gramsci’s emphasis on “intellectual and moral leadership” as opposed to simple domination; in other words, social groups seldom seize power by force but rather “must, already exercise ‘leadership’ before winning governmental power” (p. 57). Notably, Gramsci identified public schools and universities as having a “positive educative function” that upholds the leadership and hegemony of social elites (p. 258). From a Gramscian perspective, therefore, it would seem that Indigenous researchers are necessarily oppositional to the colonial institutions of the education system, even when they are employed formally within them. While contemporary understandings of the public intellectual stress work in unconventional forums—that is, outside the university system (McDavid, 2011)—the university, therefore, remains a crucial site for Indigenous activism. Accordingly, Indigenous academics will typically be scrutinized as a threat to the dominant order, and their work will be perceived as contrary to white social interests, even if that is not intended. Mostly, though, the oppositional character of Indigenous researchers is a function of the reality that, like other public intellectuals, they

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are drawn into causes and conflicts beyond the university. In part, this tendency reflects the emphasis on family obligations in many Indigenous or subaltern cultures. Just as Latina doctoral students have concluded that “Inevitably, academe and family will continue to clash” (Espino, Munoz, & Marquez Kiyama, 2010, p. 808), the importance of whanaungatanga (extended family-ness) pulls Ma-ori scholars into politics that conflict with some academic conventions (Bishop, 2003). The proclivity for activism through the media, in public forums, or within the court system, exposes Indigenous academics to public indignation because “the further you go down the action chain—the closer you shift toward an activist . . . the more you must realize that not everyone will welcome this transition” (Etzioni, 2010, p. 655). It is this combination of scholarship and activism that frames the public intellectual (or the Indigenous researcher) as a keystone threat to elite institutions (Zinn, 2008). Once outside the confines of the university, the appearance of being partisan is inevitable because such social institutions as the media deliberately seek bipolar narratives to sensationalize everyday politics (Etzioni, 2010). Dialectical practices also beset the legal system in which Indigenous researchers are often asked to support land claims or political causes that are an inconvenience to standard jurisprudence (Ray, 2003). In those contexts, Indigenous researchers will most likely find themselves pitted against a conservative counterpart, formalizing their public persona as a hostile and contrary observer. Connecting the literatures on relational identity formation and public intellectuals, Hathaway (2010) suggests that the latter have been crucial in demystifying indigeneity in China, thereby threatening Maoist nationbuilding myths of a singular Han identity. In so many ways, therefore, the practice of Indigenous academics will always be perceived as a challenge to dominant social orders. One of the more conspicuous and, in retrospect, affronting messages in Figure 4.1 is the use of “OURS” and “THEIRS.” Those labels are significant not so much because they are disturbingly political and zealously partisan for a nine year old but more because they seem to refute my earlier critique of absolute conceptions of identity. Their binary logic may also, however, reflect the necessarily oppositional politics of being an Indigenous researcher or activist who wants to sway public opinion. Any individual who has a personal connection to the stories of land loss to which I have alluded in the previous section may at times lapse into viewing such matters in binary terms. However, this tendency to be seen as partisan is not always a deliberate act of resistance or activism. It may simply reflect the primacy of such narratives in the life of an Indigenous scholar. My own response to such matters was always more subtle and inwardly contemplative than it was public or revolutionary.

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Nonetheless, it is my experience—as conveyed in the introduction to this chapter—that one’s connection with such histories inevitably escapes into the public realm when becoming an Indigenous researcher. No matter how balanced my discussion of New Zealand history or its impact on current Ma-ori social relations, my audiences will always anticipate that my views on such matters are bellicose and anti-white. Whether by my choice or through the intent of others, “OURS” and “THEIRS” becomes a filter by which my academic outputs are judged. Despite a general desire to hide my identity beneath an ambiguous appearance and English proper names, the centrality of land loss to the place where I was raised, a familial obligation to be seen as addressing its history in public forums, and a general commitment to family causes conspired to ensure that I became an academic at the public intellectual edge of the spectrum. First, although I will dabble in theoretical debates, my research has been noticeably applied. In part, that corresponds with the court or tribunal forums in which I regularly work. Again, the consequences of such choices conform to the same academic suicide to which I have previously referred. Despite irrational public sentiments that frame the tribunal process as a “gravy train” for lawyers and researchers (Rata, 2004), there is a frequent disparity between the scope of commissioned research projects and the funds available for that purpose. As a result, tribunal research is disregarded in standard approaches to academic evaluation both because its research outputs are uncertain (refer to previous section) and because it will never yield the research revenues that are expected of modern academics. It is important to consider why Indigenous academics persist with such work even though it seldom proves beneficial to their careers. Applied research is appealing for Indigenous communities but it is also attractive for Indigenous researchers. Reading copious archived information to find a few morsels that can support a treaty claim is laborious work, but in my experience it has opened access to other issues and knowledge forms that may be hidden from other researchers. Painstaking historical work in the archives for the Tuhoe and Tuwharetoa claims has been reciprocated with invitations to be involved in other, more rewarding phases of the settlement process. I now find myself studying and commenting on alternative models of collaborative governance that may address the historical illegitimacy of Te Urewera and Tongariro national parks. Those more open-ended discussions and visioning exercises have been amenable to some of the alternative research methodologies that I prefer to utilize. I would not have been able to experiment with such approaches as planning charettes to test the suitability of particular governance models without first completing the rather banal and repetitive work in the archives. As a game-oriented activity, charettes bring

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together various stakeholders and encourage them to role play toward better management scenarios. They fit rather well with some aspects of traditional Ma-ori decision making in which drama is not alien. In-depth historical analysis of the former sewerage outfall at Gisborne—which transported raw sewage onto culturally significant fishing grounds—was received well by the tribunal, but its report did not at first lead to removal of the outfall. However, repurposing my historical work for practical applications in the legal process of contesting resource consents led to significant progress toward more culturally acceptable facilities. I have been retained as an advisor by most iwi with whom I have worked in the settlement process. This has enabled the longer-term research partnerships that are often coveted by researchers who work with Indigenous peoples but that are typically rare. Combined with inherently political subject matter, the applied intent does, however, provoke certain types of conflict. Although the general public typically denies its significance, New Zealand is currently embroiled in certain “postcolonial predicaments and historiographic anxieties,” so academics who engage in the process of truth and reconciliation are targets for public vilification (Coombes, 2006, p. 45). For instance, after I completed some research in the National Park Inquiry District, a prominent politician from the country’s most rightwing political party accessed my expense accounts under the Official Information Act of 1982. Through the media, he questioned the need for every food or beverage item for which I had claimed a reimbursement, even though I had self-catered for the duration of the research. Research to support the resource rights of Tuhoe, Raikaipaaka, and Ngati Tuwharetoa has been met with print media attacks on my academic integrity from environmental groups and with threats of bodily harm from members of the Deerstalkers’ Association. In reality, though, those groups were not targeting me or my methods but were more concerned about the substance of the work and how it might have implications for resource privileges and land reallocation. To repeat, Indigenous researchers are not forever opposed, but the political consequences of their work for an increasingly anxious white population may lead them to be framed that way. Beyond all else, however, the single-most primal determinant of the type of researcher that I have become relates to the emphasis on pedagogy within my extended family. This is not restricted to my own family and seems to be a current within the academic becoming of so many Ma-ori within the university system (refer, e.g., to Mead, 2003; Smith, 2003; Walker, 1996). Figure 4.1 was completed after a long discussion with my grandmother, the start of many such discussions whereby she attempted to entice me into local politics and to convince me of the

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cultural value in teaching and activism. She had long been an advocate for Ma-ori education and had been a teacher in the native schools system many decades before. Indeed, her passion for education was likely the most significant influence on my later decision to pursue an academic career. Having been informed of the cultural importance of the Purakaunui area and of the colonial processes by which land had been lost to Kati Mamoe, it was henceforth my responsibility to convey this to cousins and other local children. The illustration was one of seven sketched so that I could explain these matters to others who should know. In retrospect, use of those illustrations represented the start of my vocation as an academic, and the subject matter likely inspired later research interests in law, history, and environmental studies. In truth, I found few contemporaries who would divert their attention from activities more suited to their age to contemplate my farm-gate presentations or speech-making efforts. Given the relative financial poverty of the wider wha¯ nau (family), however, it is difficult to imagine any other combination of influences that would have led me to the university and my subsequent career. The motivation behind my grandparents’ intervention to secrete me away from the influence of the problematic generation that separated us was to encourage a passion for all things educational. Despite a relatively poor rural setting, money was always forthcoming for educational pursuits and the resources that could contribute positively to them. Because most academics are hybrid teachers-researchers, this emphasis on education inevitably reframes the scope and purpose of research. Research that is more actively connected to learning or didactic purposes is qualitatively and, in all likelihood, quantitatively different from inquiry which views research as an end in itself. My work for Waitangi Tribunal purposes has not always translated well into conventional academic outputs but it has been a basis for teaching awards, opportunities to contribute to debates in the media, and influences on policy processes. The need to relate the stories of place and the histories that I have accounted for in this chapter doubtless influenced the commitment to all things educational for me. Nonetheless, the deep respect for the transformative role of the teacher seems to be something more deeply embedded in the cultural obligations of one generation of Ma¯ori to the next. I do not suggest that the role of education in Ma¯ori culture is an inherited trait, and it, too, is likely to be a relational by-product of a colonial history. Yet, beyond suggesting that respect for education will likely make more public intellectuals out of Ma¯ori academics than not, it is one of the more difficult influences to convey to those who did not grow up at Purakaunui or similar places.

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the conclusIon oF a Hori academIc In keeping with the emphasis on being and becoming, this book is inherently biographical. Because individual histories are deeply personal, it is always difficult to generalize their broader meaning to others. In part because I have agonized over ways to make what appears to me to be trivial musings about my upbringing relevant to a wider audience, I have attempted to connect them to two schools of academic thought. Theories on relationality and its relevance to identity formation remind us that personal traits and inclinations are not isolated from the influence of others, the contexts in which we grow or the primal causes that drive lasting passions. Rather than diminishing the notion of cultural difference, they assist with explaining that difference and with contextualizing our being and becoming as individuals or academics, even hori academics. Equally, I have attempted to show how current and past debates on the public intellectual help explain the tendency for Indigenous academics to become embroiled in very public disputes. I have never desired to be a public intellectual, particularly because my Ma-ori identity is a much troubled and tentative affair. However, today I accept the inevitability of being perceived as a threat whenever I publish or lecture, or routinely commit academic suicide. While a student, I meandered between law, biology, and history before finding a home in geography. To geographers, place is of fundamental importance to their disciplinary outlook. It is probably that emphasis on place that convinced me to stay with geography; it resonated with my understanding of how the politics of Purakaunui has shaped me as an individual. It was, however, only one of several, interrelated influences. Histories of land loss, the need to teach those histories, the importance of whanaungatanga, and an allegiance to a cause all conditioned my educational, vocational, and research choices. Despite others’ protestations, I doubt that I am forever opposed and I am far from overt in my attempts to persuade others about mana motuhake (Ma-ori sovereignty). Just as others affect my identity in a relational process, I subconsciously, and at times deliberately, affect the viewpoints of others, sometimes irritating a collective guilt which stems from being a former colony with an Indigenous minority. This is the inevitable fate of being a hori academic in a postcolonial, settler state.

notes 1. “Hori” is a slang and derogatory term for Ma-ori, the Indigenous population of New Zealand. It was originally used to translate the English proper name George. The idea that all Ma-ori could be nicknamed George/Hori soon become associated

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with the view that all Ma-ori behaved in an ill-mannered, common, sublegal, and, albeit, jocular manner. Today, the phrase has almost become a badge of honor, but at the time of writing, the student’s words were almost certainly designed to be offensive. 2. The Waitangi Tribunal was established in 1975 to hear Ma-ori grievances under the Treaty of Waitangi 1840. In 1985, its capacity to make recommendations was backdated to 1840, and the rate of claims lodged with the tribunal markedly accelerated. Neither the various commissions of enquiry into Ma-ori land loss in the South Island at the end of the 1800s nor the South Island Landless Natives Act 1906 could be applied to the Purakaunui case because local Ma-ori were not considered eligible.

reFerences Bishop, R. (2003). Changing power relations in education: Kaupapa Ma-ori messages for “mainstream” education in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Comparative Education 39, 221–238. Blackburn, C. (2007). Producing legitimacy: Reconciliation and the negotiation of aboriginal rights in Canada. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13, 621–638. Blackburn, C. (2009). Differentiating Indigenous citizenship: Seeking multiplicity in rights, identity, and sovereignty in Canada. American Ethnologist 36, 66–78. Coombes, B. (2003). The historicity of institutional trust and the alienation of Ma¯ori land for catchment control at Mangatu, New Zealand. Environment and History 9, 333–359. Coombes, B. (2006). Postcolonial predicaments and historiographic anxiety: Treaty settlement in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Journal of Historical Geography 32, 444–453. Coombes, B. (2007a). Defending community? Indigeneity, self-determination and institutional ambivalence in the restoration of Lake Whakaki. Geoforum 38, 60–72. Coombes, B. (2007b). Postcolonial conservation and kiekie harvests at Morere New Zealand—Abstracting Indigenous knowledge from Indigenous polities. Geographical Research 45, 186–193. Coombes, B. (2007c). Tourism development and its influence on the establishment and management of Tongariro National Park. Auckland: Auckland UniServices and Crown Forestry Rental Trust. Coombes, B. (In press). Urban Ma¯ori and environmental justice—The case of Lake Otara. In E. J. Peters & C. Anderson (Eds.), Indigenous in the City: Contemporary Identities and Cultural Innovation. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Coombes, B., Gombay, N., Johnson, J. T. et al. (2011). The challenges of and from Indigenous geographies. In R. Panelli (Ed.), The companion to social geography (pp. 472–489). Oxford: Blackwell. Coombes, B. & Hill, S. (2005). Na whenua, na Tuhoe. ko D.o.C. te partner (Prospects for comanagement of Te Urewera National Park). Society and Natural Resources 18, 135–152. Demeritt, D. (2005). The promises of collaborative research. Environment and Planning A 37, 2075–2082. Denzin, N. K., Lincoln, Y. S., & Smith, L. T. (2008). Handbook of critical and Indigenous methodologies. London: Sage. Espino, M. M., Munoz, S. M., & Marquez Kiyama, J. (2010). Transitioning from doctoral study to the academy: Theorising trenzas of identity for Latina sister scholars. Qualitative Inquiry 16, 804–818. Etzioni, A. (2010). Reflections of a sometime-public intellectual. PS: Political Science and Politics 43, 651–655. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

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Hathaway, M. (2010). The emergence of indigeneity: Public intellectuals and an Indigenous space in southwest China. Cultural Anthropology 25, 301–333. Johnson, J. T. (2008). Indigeneity’s challenges to the white settler-state: Creating a thirdspace for dynamic citizenship. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 33, 29–52. Kowal, E. (2008). The politics of the gap: Indigenous Australians, liberal multiculturalism, and the end of the self-determination era. American Anthropologist 110, 338–348. Larsen, S. C. & Johnson, J. T. (2012). Towards an “open” sense of pace: Phenomenology, affinity, and the question of being. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102, 632–646. Laurie, N., Andolina, R., & Radcliffe, S. (2005). Ethnodevelopment: Social movements, creating experts and professionalising Indigenous knowledge in Ecuador. Antipode 37, 470–496. Lowi, T. J. (2010). Public intellectuals and the public interest: Toward a politics of political science as a calling. PS: Political Science and Politics 43, 675–681. McDavid, C. (2011). From “public archaeologist” to “public intellectual”—seeking engagement opportunities outside traditional archaeological arenas. Historical Archaeology 45, 24–32. Mead, H. M. (2003). Tikanga Ma¯ori—Living by Ma¯ori values. Wellington: Huia Publishers. Merlan, F. (2009). Indigeneity—Global and local. Current Anthropology 50, 303–333. Rata, E. (2004). Neotribal capitalism and public policy. Political Science 56, 55–64. Ray, A. J. (2003). Native history on trial: Confessions of an expert witness. Canadian Historical Review 84, 253–273. Smith, G. H. (2003). Kaupapa Ma-ori theory: Theorizing Indigenous transformation of education and schooling. Presentation to the “Kaupapa Ma-ori Symposium” NZARE / AARE Joint Conference. Auckland, October 17, 2003. Smith, L. T. (2007). The native and the neoliberal down under: Neoliberalism and “endangered authenticities.” In M. de la Cadena & O. Starn (Eds.), Indigenous experience today (pp. 333–354). New York: Berg Publishers. Sylvain, R. (2005). Disorderly development: Globalization and the idea of “culture” in the Kalahari. American Ethnologist 32, 354–370. Turner, B. S. (2006). British sociology and public intellectuals: Consumer society and imperial decline. British Journal of Sociology 57, 169–188. Valdivia, G. (2005). On indigeneity, change, and representation in the northeastern Ecuadorian Amazon. Environment and Planning A 37, 285–303. Valdivia, G. (2008). Governing relations between people and things: Citizenship, territory, and the political economy of petroleum in Ecuador. Political Geography 27, 456–477. Walker, R. (1996). Nga pepa a Ranganui: The Walker papers. Auckland: Penguin. Ward, K. (2006). Geography and public policy: Towards public geographies. Progress in Human Geography 30, 495–503. Zinn, H. (2008). The making of a public intellectual. Antipode 40, 488–491.

Chapter 5

Becoming a Kaupapa Ma-ori Researcher Cherryl Smith

I am a grandmother of six and a researcher. I am lucky to live among my own extended family in my tribal area. I work at a Ma-ori research institute that a close friend and academic colleague and I started in 2004. Our work involves researching a range of health and environment issues that impact on our people. My mother’s iwi (tribe[s]) are Ngati Apa and Ngati Kahungunu and my father’s iwi is Ngati Porou. My grandfather came from Ngai Tahu. Our family lives within my mother’s tribal area in the Whanganui region (located on the west coast of the North Island). I am not sure if I was lucky or cursed, but I grew up in a family that asked lots of questions. I have four older brothers and one younger one. Two of my older brothers and I have Ph.D.s. Sometimes I get asked why we as a Ma-ori family have three doctors in the whanau (family). We always attribute that to my mother, who emphasized the importance of schooling and education. She was a single parent who worked hard and long hours. In later life, I came to understand more fully the role my father played in shaping our family. He was an army veteran and had served in the Ma-ori Battalion during World War II. Like many combat veterans, he returned home with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For many families in that era we, especially my mother, bore the brunt of his PTSD rage and drinking. He left a legacy in our family that I saw in other war veteran families when we worked with Ma-ori Vietnam veterans and their families. Many of the children of combat veterans are either high achievers or they can suffer with addictions or mental health problems. I joke with my colleagues that sometimes I don’t know if I am a good researcher or just hyper-vigilant. Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 89–100. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 89

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Growing up with my mother working, we were like our own little army unit; we all knew our role and place and things needed to be orderly. The older ones took care of the younger ones. I don’t remember a whole lot of books in our home, but books were treasured. Reading was my way of getting privacy in a big family. When I read, I could sit in the room with lots of noisy others and in books my world was calm and still. I would read anything as long as I was in that world and I loved words and stories. This translated into a love of writing and a curiosity about people, their lives, and different places. I grew up with pride in my own people at home, but at school and away from home, Ma-ori were either invisible or a problem. We grew up in a time when Ma-ori tended to be quiet and agreeable. That changed in the 1980s, and now we tend to be a lot more vocal. My earliest memories are us as a whanau watching the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on TV and having a discussion about racism and its impact on all brown and black people. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were very few Ma-ori people on TV. But we did watch black people in the United States fighting for their rights. We grew up always asking questions about inequality, racism, and the denial of Ma-ori.

Our Lands As children, we spent a great deal of time with my grandmother. My Ngati Kahungunu grandparents were politically active. They fought against the creeping confiscation of whanau land by neighboring farmers. My grandmother tried to fight for the return of lands through the courts, but she never won. My grandfather did not believe in going to the courts; he regarded it as a waste of time. We grew up with court cases and land as a place that we visited in remembrance. We would spend summers camped out at the beach for weeks at a time, gathering seafood; the whole whanau lived in a big tent. Our food consisted of the seafood that was abundant on the coast at that time. Gathering food was one way that we could keep our connection to our own lands, but today those food sources are no longer there; they have become depleted.

Our Language I don’t think that you can underestimate the teachings that come from grandparents like ours, whose love and passion for all things Ma-ori was shared with us in our daily lives. They shared a strong love of whakapapa (making connections through blood ties). My mother’s experience at the school she attended was one of open hostility to the Ma-ori language. Speaking Ma-ori resulted in physical punishment, a trauma that

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has lasted a lifetime. She has never reclaimed her voice in the language, but she understands Ma-ori perfectly. We were raised as English speakers, although our grandparents and father preferred Ma-ori as their first language. Two of my brothers speak Ma-ori, and I have taken numerous courses to try and reclaim my own language.

My Training as a researcher To me, research means seeking to make the world a better place. In many ways, our grandparents gave us a love of all things Ma-ori and presented to us a strong love of our own people and our own ways of doing things. A seeking for justice has been in our family through the generations. Our grandparents fought the best way they knew to hold on to our traditions, our lands, and our families. Our parents tried to make better lives for us and focused on education. Our generation uses education, but underneath it all, we continue to seek justice. That journey for justice must also be self-reflective and tempered by the knowledge and wisdom of our own people. For me, “self” reflection does not just mean myself only. It is a relational concept, me as a member of my whanau, me as a member of my people, me as a work colleague in a Ma-ori organization.

acadeMic infLuences Fish that swim in schools often become more synchronized in their swimming when a predator comes near. They all start swimming at the same rate and speed and can give the illusion of being a large fish. This will at times fool a would-be predator.1

I started going to the university when my children were small and were in Kohanga Reo (preschool Ma-ori language learning). I was thirtytwo and I quickly gravitated to the other Ma-ori students at university. We moved around the university like a school of fish, sitting together in classes, occupying particular tables in the cafeteria and library, taking the same classes, picking the same tutorials. Close bonds and friendships developed that have lasted a lifetime, even though many of us have moved back to our own iwi (tribal) areas or have taken up key jobs in universities and government. We spoke a lot about what we were learning as we were shaping the basis for our later work lives, shaping our critical analysis skills, shaping our political analysis skills, and shaping our understandings of power relations and how we might intervene for Ma-ori when we left the university. I remember hating the word research. It seems to be so wound up with the idea of exploitation. Research has such horrifying associations

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for our people. “Ma-ori are the most researched people in the world,” I heard at hui (meeting[s]). “We don’t need to know about more problems, we want solutions” are words that are considered commonsense among our people. So how did I become one of them? At the University of Auckland in the 1990s, the Education Department had numerous Ma-ori students who gravitated to the teachings of Graham and Linda Smith. They were key theorists and analysts of kaupapa Ma-ori (Ma-ori worldview) education. Graham is my brother and Linda my sister-in-law. It’s considered rude among our people to extol the virtues of your own family but I, alongside hundreds of Ma-ori students, learned a great deal from their teachings. For those of us who went through the Education Department at that time, kaupapa Ma-ori theory and methodology gave us a way to name and claim space within the academy and outside the university (Pihama, Cram, & Walker, 2002; Smith, G. H., 1995; Smith, L. T., 1995). I began to read the works of other Ma-ori writers: Patricia Grace, Tuakana Nepe, Rangi Walker, and Donna Awatere. I also loved the works of Franz Fanon, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, and Indigenous writers Oren Lyons, Winona La Duke, Haunani Kay Trask, Ward Churchill, and Vine Deloria. Other key works for me included the emergence of writing on the theorizing and development of kaupapa Ma-ori schooling: Ranginui Walker’s (2004) book, Ka Whawhai Tonu: Struggle without End, and Judith Simon’s (1984) article, “Good Intentions but. . . .” When I read Linda Smith’s 1999 book Decolonising Methodologies, I enjoyed the way she so clearly articulated the struggles of being a Ma-ori researcher, the struggles with non-Ma-ori, the inner struggle, the struggles within our own communities. Through it all, she stood strongly for the importance of research as an important site of reclamation, one that we as Ma-ori/Indigenous needed to take up.

MOving Back TO The IwI Later, when I moved back to my own iwi area, I went to work at the Polytechnic (Community College). I had not yet completed my Ph.D. in education. I moved back at a time when the polytechnic was cutting back on most of its Ma-ori programs, and within two years the Ma-ori social work training area that I was working in had been closed down. At that time, my stepfather, who had been in our family from the time we were children, developed cancer and became critically ill. I took a year to help my mother nurse him. Although he eventually passed away, I learned a lot from him over that time. He wanted only to speak Ma-ori in his last few months, the language he grew up with. My Ph.D. study faded into meaninglessness during his illness and after he passed away.

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Friends and relations were aware that I had not finished my Ph.D. and knew that I was likely to be another academic casualty of the iwi. In other words, I would get so bound up in our iwi work that I would not finish my Ph.D. One day, I was traveling with a busload of my relations back from a hui (meeting) among northern tribes when the bus stopped for people to disembark and go to eat. I saw four of the women huddled on the street talking earnestly, and when we got back on the bus they spoke to me. They explained to me that their discussion had been about me finishing my Ph.D. As a result of their discussion, they were imposing a rahui (restricting access) on me and my house. In other words, I was to finish my thesis and everyone would be told to leave me alone until I had finished. People were not to talk to me, come to my house, or ask me to do anything. Their rahui was so effective that life became lonely very quickly as I worked on my thesis in my office. I resorted to ringing friends who lived outside the area just to talk to someone. The rahui worked because my thesis was completed within six months. I graduated on my marae (tribal meeting place) with a niece who also had received a degree.

seTTing up an independenT Ma-Ori insTiTuTe A friend who also has tribal links to the area moved to Whanganui, and we decided to set up a research institute. We had collaborated on some writing when he had been finishing his doctoral studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. We weren’t sure that we could get work, but we decided to just start an organization and name ourselves. We called a meeting with a number of Ma-ori community people, people who work with many Ma-ori and organizations in our community. At that first meeting, we asked them to bring a whakataukii (Ma-ori proverb) that could guide us as an environmental and health research organization and to come up with a name. These proverbs were formed into a document that is the kaupapa document for our organization: It includes our ways of thinking about health and the environment such as: Haere ki mua, haere ki muri: Be deliberate and careful of your actions today for it affects the future.

The organization was given the name Te Atawhai O Te Ao: Independent Ma-ori Institute for Environment and Health (http://teatawhai.maori. nz/). The Ma-ori name means taking care of the world. The whai, or stingray, is the kaitiaki or protector of the institute. We opened with a grand name and no funding but we had a building and we set up offices. On the day we moved in, whales were sighted just off the beach where we set up our offices, and that was a good sign for us. Our academic

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friends from around the country began to hunt out work, and our first real work came in from a Ma-ori sexual health organization that wanted us to do some research for them. We haven’t looked back, and since we began in 2004, we have developed a reputation for community-based Ma-ori research that works with vulnerable Ma-ori communities. In the beginning, we had no legal structure but Te Runanga o Ngati Apa, one of the local tribal councils, provided a legal structure and helped us establish a business. Academic training assumes that you will have a university structure to work within, so we had no skills to run a business. We had to learn new skills, such as employer responsibilities, contracting, financial management systems, governance, and policies. Other Ma-ori organizations in our community were helpful and shared information. In our first year, we employed a young trainee filmmaker. We combined film and research together because we wanted to be able to use film in dissemination for the research work we do (see http://teatawhai. maori.nz/). We have often used media for our work and are able to disseminate research findings through Ma-ori radio, Ma-ori TV, and independent films. I moved back home to live with my own iwi over twelve years ago. It is not always easy to move back to your tribal area. Although we fit well back into the security of living with hundreds of relations, things are not easy for our people. Many of them work tirelessly trying to deal with the issues of poverty, hardship, poor health, and the struggle to keep our marae, our language, and our whanau strong. In the struggle to uphold our responsibilities, we can overlook our traditions of acknowledging the mana (prestige) and tapu (sacredness) of each person and their whanau. I have had to accept that change is a slow gradual process, not necessarily something that I will see in my lifetime.

The iMpOrTance Of indigenOus research Research that strengthens us as a people is invaluable. The gathering of histories, research on our language, identities, and traditions is often research that feeds the thirst many Ma-ori have for knowing ourselves. All of our research projects have as their starting point consideration of how our traditions shape our thinking of any particular area. Whether we are investigating child protection, gardening methods, or infertility among Ma-ori, we always begin with traditional approaches to the topic. What is exciting about our research is that it can be used both to inquire into and to share knowledge. And it is this community engagement, the talking-listening-sharing part of Ma-ori research, that is particularly exciting.

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Another benefit of Ma-ori research has been the way that it can illuminate what we already know but gathers an “evidence base” to document that knowledge. Examples of this are the research into the ways that the education, health, and justice systems are underlain with politics of privilege and power. By illuminating the disparities, inequalities, and racism through research, we can highlight specific areas of change that are needed, and we can argue for resourcing to fix problems. This type of research is usually taken-for-granted knowledge within our communities, but unless we produce the evidence base for disparities, inequalities, and racism, we cannot reflect it back to those with the power to make the changes (Reynolds & Smith, 2012; Robson & Harris, 2007; Robson & Reid, 2001; Smith & Reynolds, 2006). Also important to me is the way that Ma-ori research can bring forward the voices of the vulnerable and marginalized to be heard for all of us to learn. Ideally, people will speak for themselves, and as researchers we are there primarily as facilitators. An example of that is research we have done with takataapui (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender Ma-ori) who live within their tribal area. We have been able to profile stories and advance discussion of our traditional stories and the current experience of takataapui within certain tribal areas. We have also filmed the health testimonies of Ma-ori Vietnam veterans specifically for their families. Until we undertook to gather those stories, many of the veterans had not spoken to partners or children about their combat and toxin exposure. The project allowed the veterans to be given a voice.

deveLOping Our Own MeThOds As Indigenous researchers, we do not have the clear-cut lines that are assumed in so many books on qualitative and quantitative research methods. We are often not only researchers, we are also relations, members of communities, advocates, and sometimes therapists, guidance counselors, and facilitators of change (Smith, C. W., 2006). After studying all the rules and disciplines of the objective researcher, we know as Indigenous researchers that this will not benefit our people. Being objective is impossible. That does not mean to say that we do not have rigor in our research. Rigor comes from the voices and feedback of our own people; it comes from testing the results with our communities; it comes from multiple cross-checks with our colleagues; and it comes from a methodology that requires compulsory self-disclosure of where you are from, whose family you belong to, and what interests you have in the research. Our judgments of appropriate researchers to research a topic are the opposite of objective research; we consider that those who have walked on the path being spoken about are the best people to talk about the issue at hand.

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Kaupapa Ma-ori research is often more complex than other forms of research because we dare to try to consider both the structural and cultural issues. We dare to have a preset agenda of attempting to make positive changes within communities because we believe in the wisdom and strengths of our own people (Pihama, 2001). To me, decolonizing research does two things: It works from a Ma-ori base and an understanding that our identity is always being challenged. In the face of that challenge, our biggest strength is to be ourselves, wholeheartedly and with humor. Our research also tries to put sanctity back into the picture. We have always regarded the gathering of people’s stories and words as something very profound. We use the term “taonga” to describe a treasured gift and, as such, this requires that we treat words and stories with respect. Particular ritual is therefore appropriate, depending on the taonga (Waaka, 2008). Many of those who we interview have been through trauma or have had difficult lives. So, if we are talking with victims of violence or talking to those whose comrades died in war we will often lead with karakia—traditional prayers. We drink and eat afterward, as to do so is a way of lifting tapu or sacredness from the heaviness of the talk and to bring people back to this world. At the institute, we have worked with high numbers of Ma-ori who have had traumatic experiences. As a result, we have developed particular processes to deal with the vicarious trauma that can result from listening to trauma stories. For us, stories are more than data and lessons to be learned. They have a tangibility that is difficult to translate into Western thinking. The processes we put in place to ensure ethical processes include karakia (prayer) where appropriate, debriefing before and after with research teams and transcribers, and talking to kaumatua (elders). Karakia before and after interviews can provide clear beginnings and appropriate endings to such interviews. We Ma-ori believe that karakia provides protection and clearing when going into and out of particular states.

creaTing a kaupapa Ma-Ori OrganizaTiOn Mai i te purapura iti rawa, Ka tupu ko te tino rakau. From the smallest of seeds can grow the biggest of trees.

When we set up our institute, we decided that it would be a kaupapa Ma-ori organization. Therefore, we decided to run the organization based on our principles. First, we knew that we would need to be compliant with funders, but we wanted the heart of the organization and the way it was run to be Ma-ori. There were no previous models for a kaupapa

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Ma-ori research institute, so we had to develop our own. Second, we acknowledged that the health/social/economic crises for Ma-ori are impacting on us through extended whanau and through our tribes. As Ma-ori, we are often called on for advocacy/advice for extended whanau caught up in dealing with agencies/government departments/hospitals/ police/schools, and many other places. All Ma-ori organizations are dealing with these issues. Third, we acknowledged that as a health and environmental research organization, we would need to develop workbased practices that lead by example. Last, we wanted to ensure that the workplace would be able to host elders and children, so we introduced various policies: The institute works for Ma-ori and Indigenous Peoples and therefore will provide an Indigenous friendly environment. 1. Appropriate tikanga (protocols) is important. 2. Manaakitanga (hospitality) is important so we take care of visitors; we all take responsibility for kai (food). 3. Healthy kai is important and the growing, preparation, and sharing of kai is encouraged. 4. This is a whanau-based institute and, as such, supports the involvement of whanau where appropriate. 5. This is a smoke-free, alcohol-free environment.

Because we couldn’t assume that the staff we employed would understand the kaupapa of the organization, especially if they had come from other organizations, we wrote these principles down: 1. Kia piki te ora o nga tangata katoa: Health and well-being is important. Healthy food and encouraging of an active lifestyle is important. 2. Kia ngakau maahaki: Having a respectful heart in our words, actions, and deeds are important. 3. He taonga te whanau: Whanau are important and precious. 4. Me hoki mai ki te hui, ki te korero, tatou ki a tatou: We acknowledge the importance of bringing discussion back to hui or meetings. 5. Kaua e korero ki waho: The importance of confidentiality. 6. Whaia te ara tika: Tikanga or appropriate protocols are important to us as a team and an institute. We respect the traditional people of the land.

Since starting the institute in 2004, we have developed our own specialized area of research. We have worked particularly with Ma-ori who are vulnerable. Our institute is now an approved host organization with the key health and science research funders within the country, and we compete with universities and other research institutes. We have built extensive collaborative relationships and networks with other researchers throughout New Zealand. We know our own region well and work with other community researchers in different regions who are

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key people in their own communities. By building a network of Ma-ori community researchers throughout the country, we are able to support a number of community-based researchers who also live within their tribal areas. We are always learning and we are always being challenged. The joy I get from working as a researcher is in the small and big differences I see for our people. We have been able to assist a range of groups: Ma-ori grandparents raising grandchildren, Ma-ori prisoners, Ma-ori Vietnam veterans, takataapui (Ma-ori gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender families and individuals), Ma-ori youth, hapu- (sub-tribe), and iwi. We have also spent years in our own communities trying to explain our work. To foster understanding of the work we do, we produce a magazine called Te Atawhai o te Ao, we hold public seminars, and we attend numerous community meetings. We have one board, a whanau board, that consists of both youth and elders who not only give us advice but also actively talk about us in our own community. It took us at least three years before our local people really began to come to us for help on particular areas, especially in their work for our people. It took them a long time to understand what we do. However, many of the organizations we have been involved with now talk about research a lot more and seek help from us for mentoring postgraduate students as well as research work.

BuiLding Ma-Ori research He kokonga whare ka kitea, he kokonga nga-kau e kore e kitea. All corners of a room may be seen, but not so the recesses of the heart.

Recently, we have developed a collaborative five-year health research project investigating Ma-ori intergenerational trauma and healing pathways. The project is the culmination of what we have learned through much of our previous projects and enables us to collaborate with leading Ma-ori and Indigenous researchers. The project will make possible not only a study of the impacts of intergenerational trauma but also investigate what well-being means for Ma-ori and identify some of the healing pathways from trauma. A strong component of the research will be building Ma-ori research capacity. The strength of our institute is that it is situated with our own people and that we have enduring friendships among other iwi in the country. All of our research inquiry is guided by our communities; all of our methods are tested by our communities; and the success or otherwise of our research is also determined by them. So far, they approve of what we are doing.

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nOTe 1. Quote by author after reading about researchers in the York Centre for Complex systems analysis who used computer simulation and a study of group behavior and found that fish when under threat will coordinate their movements more frequently. See also Bode et al. (2010).

references Bode, W., Faria, J., Franks, D., Krause, J., & Wood, J. (2010). How perceived threat increases synchronization in collectively moving animal groups. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, October 22, 3065–3070. Cram, F. (2001). Rangahau Ma-ori: Tona Tika, Tona Pono. In M. Tolich (Ed.), Research ethics in Aotearoa (pp. 35–52). Auckland: Longman. Pihama, L. (2001). Tihei Mauri Ora: Honouring our voices: Mana Wahine as a Kaupapa Ma-ori theoretical framework. Ph.D. thesis, University of Auckland. Pihama, L. Cram, F., & Walker, S. (2002). Creating methodological space: A literature review of Kaupapa Ma-ori research. Canadian Journal of Native Education 26, 30–43. Reynolds, P. & Smith, C. (Eds.). (2012). The gift of children: Ma-ori and infertility. Wellington: Huia Publishers. Robson, B. & Harris, R. (Eds.). (2007). Hauora: Ma-ori standards of Health IV: A study of the years 2000–2005. Wellington: Te Ro-pu- Rangahau Hauora a Eru Po-mare. Robson, B. & Reid, P. (2001). Ethnicity matters: Review of the measurement of ethnicity in official statistics—Ma-ori perspectives paper for consultation. Wellington, Te Roopu Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pomare for Statistics, New Zealand. Simon, J. A. (1984). Good intentions, but. . . . National Education 66, 133–139. Smith, C. W. (Ed.). (2006). Tiketia Oku Waewae: Ma-ori community workers of the Rangitikei. Wellingon: Te Runanga O Ngati Apa. Smith, C. W. & Reynolds, P. (2006). To Tatou Hokakatanga: Ma-ori action and intervention in sexual and reproductive health. Research project funded by Health Research Council, Report for Te Puawai Tapu. Smith, G. H. (1995). The development of Kaupapa Ma-ori: Theory and praxis. Ph.D. thesis, School of Education, University of Auckland, Auckland. Smith, L. T. (1995). Kaupapa Ma-ori research. Paper presented at Te Matawhanui Hui, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books. Waaka, P. (2008). Mauri of an inanimate object. Unpublished Master of Indigenous Studies thesis at Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi, Whakatane, New Zealand. Walker, R. (2004). Ka whawhai tonu matou: Struggle without end. Penguin Books, Auckland.

Chapter 6

An African Narrative: The Journey of an Indigenous Social Researcher in South Africa Kholeka Constance Moloi

Introduction and Background I was born in 1948 in Krugersdorp, a town west of Johannesburg in South Africa and the year in which the government legislated for separation of Whites, Blacks, Indians (Asian diaspora), and Coloreds (mixed race), according to settlement areas, and legalized unequal social, economic, and political privileges. During the era of apartheid, or “separate development” (1948–1994), schooling in South Africa was segregated with separate schools for each racial/ethnic group. The education system designed for white children was of high quality with quality resources, while Blacks were subjected to the most dehumanizing, colonizing, inferior education system. The government’s agenda was to legitimize white domination, subjugating Blacks to perpetual mental and ideological inferiority. Even education of the white working class was not as dehumanizing as the one legally imposed on Blacks—an education system that cost the state only one-tenth of that afforded their white counterparts, with inferior facilities, teachers, and textbooks. Endorsing the inferiority of education for black people, the architect of the apartheid ideology, Dr. Hendrik Verwoed, the then minister of Native Affairs, said: “Black Africans should be educated for their opportunities in life and .  .  . there [is] no place for them above the level of certain forms of labour” (Kallaway, 2002). The statement speaks for itself, in no uncertain terms, because for many years in South Africa the Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 101–122. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 101

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only public sector jobs available to Blacks were in teaching, nursing, the police force, and clerical/administrative sectors. In the distorted racial hierarchy, Indians and Coloureds had a better education than Black Africans but not as good as the one for Whites. Under apartheid, non-white political representation was completely abolished in 1970, and Blacks were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of the ten tribally based self-governing homelands called Bantustans. The disenfranchised black majority were mostly poor, while the small white minority who held power were conspicuously rich. The legacy of this after the fall of the apartheid regime in 1994 was a society socioeconomically divided by race (Moloi et al., 2010, p. 475). Due to a combination of lack of medical care and an extremely poor education system for Blacks under apartheid, South Africa today has a number of serious health and schooling problems, including a high rate of HIV and AIDS, with over five million of the population testing positive for the disease (Statistics South Africa, 2011, p. 5); most of the black schools’ performances are below that of their white counterparts in the country. A report by Finweek (2008, p. 1) shows that in 2007 and 2008, the South African education system ejected 535,000 learners from school without any pass certificate and with a very uncertain future. It further shows that of the 564,775 grade twelve learners who wrote examinations in 2007, more than 200,000 failed. Hodgson (2008, p. 1) asserts that in 2007, approximately 278,000 Black learners left school with a matriculation certificate, but only 42,000 of them were functionally literate when tested. He further argues that out of 1.2 million Black learners entering the public school system, only 3.5% emerge functionally literate. Bloch (2011, p. 2) sees the state of education in South Africa as a national concern, with almost 80% of grade five learners being judged to be at serious risk of not learning how to read to measured international benchmarks. Rosen (2011, p. 1) points out that in 2007, 1,801 out of the 24,979 (7.23%) public schools in South Africa had functional libraries, arguing that seventeen years after the end of apartheid, the Department of Education had still not formulated a national policy on school libraries and librarians. Based on these statistics, one can argue that the legacy of the apartheid regime used the state machinery to punish marginalized Blacks rather than, as aptly stated by Giroux (2006, p. xxi) to “invest in eliminating poverty, racism and other factors promoting human suffering.” The struggle against apartheid’s brutal and inhumane laws led to the resistance movement, the struggle for political activism that saw the uprisings of 1976, when black schoolchildren marched through the streets of Soweto (a township designated for Blacks) demanding

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the removal of Afrikaans as a language of teaching in Black schools. This struggle continued through the 1980s, resulting in many casualties, rivalry among Black people of different ethnic groups, and some loss of life. The continued struggles led to the democratic elections of 1994, which brought about a new dispensation (i.e., a new vision for South African society, expressed in the Constitution, its legal and philosophical foundation, based on democracy, equality, non-racialism, and opportunity) (Dryden-Peterson & Siebörger, 2006, p. 394). However, the vestiges of apartheid still shape South African politics and society, and appropriation of many of the levers of power (parts of the economy, the judiciary, and the media) by increasingly moribund ruling African National Congress (ANC) elite has seen an intensified spirit of activism and unending demonstrations for human rights and dignity that continue today. The new dispensation of a democratic, nonsexist, nonracial government looks as isolated from its majority voter base as did its minority predecessors. The question of significance to me as an educator, however, is why, after four general elections and a bloodless coup by supporters of the current president, Jacob Zuma, the electorate continue to vote for the ANC. Is it political loyalty or a chronic lack of education that impedes them from making the elementary democratic step of linking poor service delivery to incompetent government? It was only after the democratic elections of 1994 that schools in South Africa gradually began significant integration. I was thus educated in the most disadvantaged schools in terms of per capita expenditure, educational resources, and teacher qualification. When I qualified as a teacher, I taught in the same schools in which I had been educated. I believe that my historical, political, educational, and social background has shaped and influenced how I see myself as an Indigenous social researcher (Foucault, 1980, p. 117). One of the few career opportunities open to Black women during the apartheid period was teaching. As a result, I became a teacher and then a principal in a black primary school (1987–1997), located in one of the most impoverished informal settlements within the Gauteng Province. Together with the teachers, we started in a school that had minimal resources, furniture, or teaching and learning materials. However, the teachers and parents worked with me to create a culture of mutual reinforcement and support, a good work ethic, shared values, and commitment to a common course that defined our life system. We strove to establish strong relationships that resulted in a seamless integration of school-community life for the benefit of our students. These relationships became our culture, our way of life, our daily conversation, and our transforming and empowering practice, embedded within a shared

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language system of the Indigenous people, their beliefs, rituals, values, wisdom, understanding, and social practices. Our theory of a transformative enterprise was thus created through our lived experiences, our thoughts and ideas, and a common purpose— a shared vision in having liaisons with the parents. We valued, respected, and acknowledged the parents’ ways of knowing, and we privileged their knowledge system by providing space for their voice and fostering a partnership in decision making about school activities, functions, and fund-raising projects. In our schema, we were all co-creators of our future and had a common purpose that made us one holistic body that located a deep commonality among us (Odora Hoppers, 2002, p. 216). Our aim was to concretize the local knowledge system from the rich cultural wisdom, practices, rituals, and experience of the parent community, utilizing their genuine input into the educational process of our students, which came from a very disadvantaged and historically poor context (Zeichner, 2009). Despite working in a very impoverished, informal environment, where the majority of the parents were illiterate and unemployed and where some of our students were under the care of their grandparents while others lived in child-headed families, the school had become a beacon of hope and a source of great pride for the community, in certain instances evoking the envy of other teachers and school principals in the district (Moloi, 2005). On reflection, I think that my experience as principal at this school ignited a deeper understanding and appreciation of the wealth of knowledge found in the parent community, their local Indigenous methods of going about their activities, and admiration of their thoughts about their practices as agents of change (Sillitoe, Dixon, & Barr, 2005, p. 14). I must confess that when I was principal and in the earlier years of my academic career, I had no knowledge of alternative ways of knowing or conducting research, such as the Indigenous knowledge systems. I should point out that the Indigenous knowledge system, as an important area of scholarly discourse, research, and practice, is very recent in many of our academic institutions within South Africa. Many scholars, including me, are novices wrestling with its theories and application in studying and understanding our local cultural contexts and appreciating how Indigenous knowledge is an important component of global knowledge (Adam, 2007). However, I knew intuitively that conducting research with people who knew my culture and who lived and worked in similar conditions under which I was brought up had something to do with my historicity and the psychosocial reality of my situatedness. It is this experience that makes me realize that I could become an Indigenous researcher working with change in schools. I could be part

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of the change agency that strives to resuscitate consciousness of the signification of traditional knowledge and make Indigenous knowledge a reality by incorporating it with scientific knowledge through integrating information collected from urban and rural people. This means “decolonizing” them by paying attention to their voice, values, insights, wisdom, traditions, and actions, with scientific and technological information, so that good knowledge is generated, critically examined, and preserved for future generations (Adam, 2007). Although I received my primary and secondary education in disadvantaged education contexts, I had the privilege of undertaking my tertiary education at the most well-resourced institutions in the country, where I had equal opportunities to compete with the best across cultures. This was because I studied when I was already married and employed and so could not reside in a university. I studied for the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Education through correspondence at the University of South Africa, an open-distance learning institution, where we had equal opportunities to learn despite our racial, financial, and social differences. This was followed by the Bachelors of Education degree at one of the more progressive universities in South Africa, the University of the Witwatersrand. Here I did well and was in the top ten of my class. Then I began a Master’s degree in Education Management at the Rand Afrikaans University, previously the preserve of the white Afrikaansspeaking community. This was when I met Professor Kuzvinetsa Peter Dzvimbo, who had a marked impact on both my academic life and my career as a researcher. My studies were part time and through correspondence, so I had to overcome various challenges. These included paying attention to my work as a teacher, being a mother at home, being involved in community projects and feeding schemes on weekends, and having to spend some weekends with study groups. There was no time for social gathering, except for work—and more work, day in, day out. At the time of my encounter with Prof. Dzvimbo, I was both a Master’s student and a principal of a primary school in my community. Since I was very impressed by Dr. Dzvimbo’s vast knowledge and experience in many fields of education, I invited him to conduct a workshop on strategic management and planning for school principals in my district. The professor was, in turn, very impressed with the work being done at the school. On his return, he persuaded the university to recruit me for the Faculty of Education, where I was offered a contract position as a lecturer. Starting in a temporary contract post, with no special privileges, I gradually rose through the ranks, being appointed as junior and then senior lecturer in the faculty. I became an associate professor and eventually head of the department. I was then seconded as acting executive

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director in the division of Student Affairs in 2007, returning to teach in the faculty at the beginning of 2008. The following narrative is an account of my academic journey and my experiences as a lecturer at a prominent white university in Johannesburg, which was instrumental in shaping my career as an Indigenous social researcher.

the Process that Led Me to BecoMe a researcher When I joined the Rand Afrikaans University in 1997, the students and staff members were predominantly white and Afrikaans speaking. Black lecturers in the institution made up less than 1% of the staff composition. The Faculty of Education, which consisted of fifty-five staff members, had only two black lecturers. Consequently, Prof. Dzvimbo’s departure at the beginning of 1998, to join the Zimbabwe Open University, was a great loss to me and impacted both my personal and academic life. The impersonal and rather austere nature of the academy contrasted sharply with the warm and friendly environment of the school I had managed. My colleagues at the university seemed more concerned about their publications than interpersonal relationships. I missed the companionship of other Black academics with whom I could communicate and who could share my fears and anxieties. This feeling of isolation continued for about two years until the arrival of Professor Joan Squelch, who motivated and encouraged me to publish my first chapter (“The Education Forum”) in a book and my first book The School as a Learning Organisation: Reconceptualising School Practices in South Africa. I continued working with Prof. Squelch until her departure for Australia in 2002. This was not only a loss to the faculty but a blow to my own professional development. Under her mentorship, I had derived considerable benefit from her expertise and good interpersonal relationships with staff members in the faculty. There were many other benefits that I derived from working at this institution, including the opportunity to travel to various national and international conferences, where I was exposed to academics from different parts of the world and from whom I have learned much about conducting research and working in an institution of higher learning. At the beginning of 1998, I registered for a doctoral degree in education. The focus of my research was on transforming schools into learning organizations using a mixed methods approach. (I was then not aware that the use of both quantitative and qualitative paradigms constituted mixed methods.) That same year, I was required to supervise ten Master’s degree students with their research projects as part of a larger departmental project on school effectiveness in Mpumalanga (one

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of the provinces of South Africa). There were several challenges to overcome. First, all the students who I supervised were Black and many were underprepared for postgraduate studies. In South Africa, the majority of students speak English only as an additional language, which adds to their struggle for academic literacy. As a result, they have great difficulty reading and writing academic texts. Also, I noted that the White, Asian and mixed-race students, and the more advanced Black students were supervised by my White colleagues. This subtle issue of racism and discrimination manifested itself in the way students were allocated to different supervisors in my department. In an inverse way, I think this form of discrimination motivated me to undertake research that would allow me to better assist struggling students. I rationalized that no one understood their disadvantaged background better than I did and that I could provide them with the necessary help and motivation to succeed academically. This galvanized me to develop a social epistemology that would address questions related to what sort of knowledge should be produced, by whom, and for whom (Badat, 2006; Fuller, 2006; Weiler, 2006). Further, I would often ask: What is the constitutive role of knowledge in the construction of social life of the subjects of my research? Because most of our students were teachers, their research projects related to their school contexts, looking at issues of leadership, school culture, teacher effectiveness, and transformation in education. Being involved in their projects also gave me the opportunity to work with schools, the school governing bodies, and other parent associations. This made me realize that because of different contexts in our schools, the surrounding communities, and construction of subjectivities, being an Indigenous researcher meant being responsive and sensitive to considerations about the background and culture of those being studied. An ecological approach to my research supported a view that integrated many areas of knowledge about society and the social, political, and ideological contexts in which I did my work. This has led me to argue for a transformative scholarship that both focuses on the relation of power, knowledge, and change in schools and historicizes the problem of knowledge. Such a critical approach improved my engagement with my social world, premised on the view that current social and political discursive practices, power, and dominance (including our racial and gender identities) should never limit our agency for social action, change, and self-transformation (Calhoun, 1995). Because I was unable to contribute to research output, I began to feel inferior and invisible and seriously considered returning to teaching in a school. After careful consideration, however, I decided to take up the challenge of determining the meaning of my role as black lecturer in a

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historically white, separatist university. The context I confronted within the faculty and in the department was what Youniss (2006) regards as subject-subject social construction of knowledge and interpersonal relationships. I made up my mind to learn and master the conventions of academic research and become an Indigenous researcher. This was not an easy task, but it had to be accomplished.

how I overcaMe My chaLLenges as a researcher I set out to read and study research books so that I could understand the various aspects that constitute a research proposal to better equip myself to guide the students under my supervision. In my struggle to grapple with the three primary research questions—the what, why, and how of the research process—I made notes and tried to find the links between these questions. I was determined to crack the academic code and I eventually succeeded. I learned that research involves the experiences that practitioners bring with them from their daily interaction with students, colleagues, parents, communities, and other people and events that they encounter. As noted above, throughout my studies I was exposed to Western imperialist research methods, worldviews, jargon, and discourses. It is only recently that I have been sensitized to the Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and Indigenous research methods, but I remain a relative novice in this area. My belatedness in paying attention to IKS and Indigenous research methods owes much to the South African education system modeled from the West, particularly the British education system, whose imperial apparatus undermined and marginalized the knowledge, culture, and values of Indigenous people. This was not helped by continuous colonial conflict between British and Dutch settlers who largely regarded the country as a mine of resources to be fought over for their own gain, and which to this day leaves the country’s Whites in a schizophrenic state of uneasy truce. Postcolonial discourse is also compromised, as conflicting voices emerge, particularly in tertiary institutions still largely occupied by the European Judeo-Christian diaspora, as to how they can “help the Blacks.” The message has still not gotten across that if Whites wish to see the situation improve, they should stop trying to interfere actively in Black empowerment and knowledge re/creation and stop their meddling and subtle ways of impeding it under the guise of liberal ideology. Embracing the nebulous notion of a “rainbow nation” when it suits them and hailing Mandela as an icon of democracy and freedom is the furthest extent many Whites have gone or will go. Those with nothing more to contribute may join many of their fellow settlers and move on to

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Australia or Canada, where they can at least find solace with soul mates who speak with the same rather buttery forked tongue. Those who stay must learn to integrate their own history and knowledge systems with those of the peoples whose lands their ancestors colonized in a way similar to that which the Blacks have been forced to accommodate, albeit reluctantly, their presence. I therefore engage with the recent fashioning of IKS in the field of scholarship, having over the years been trained in Western ways of knowledge systems and production. My engagement with Indigenous discourses takes into account what Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) theorizes as decolonising methodologies that resist oppression found within research. decolonized methodologies employ defined Indigenous frameworks that privilege our indigenousness, uphold our cultural heritage, and respect our feelings and intuition and the sharing of our experiences and thoughts. Garroutte (2003) argues for the reassertion and rebuilding of traditional knowledge from its roots and its fundamental principles. The Indigenous systems of knowledge production, according to Edwards and Sherwood (2011), recognize that we are on a lifelong journey with cultural obligations and commitment to our communities and that we challenge Western imperialist models of knowing that promote separation and dissection of knowledge, hierarchy, and power struggles. By doing so, we deny our emotional, social, spiritual, and political aspects—our holistic view of the world and relationship with the environment. This said, I explore ways that do not necessarily oppose Western knowledge discourses but rather give meaning and value to integrated and holistic Indigenous ways of knowledge production whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller units (Odora Hoppers, 2002, p. 13). To this end, Odora Hoppers (2002) makes the point that one of the challenges facing scholars who share my situation (a “double consciousness” [Bruce, 1992]), which is a result of our experiences and culture having been colonized by White domination), is to create a relevant interpretation of Euro-centric-based models when working among African people. In this way, my approach is a combination of my training in Western education and my African experience in the South African context. I have learned that Indigenous research contains four dimensions: (1) “what” (research target; i.e., a unique local phenomenon in contrast to a generic global phenomenon); (2) “why” (research rationale; i.e., highlighting the endogenous and divergent natures of a local phenomenon in contrast to its exogenous and convergent natures); (3) “how” (research approach; i.e., adopting a context-specific or context-sensitive approach so as to create locally relevant constructs, methods, and theories in contrast to a globally applicable approach with context-generic

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elements); and (4) “for whom” (research result)—in other words, a contribution in terms of substituting/superseding the + “imported” elements as an “import-substitution” (i.e., a local perspective) and/or as an “export” toward a geocentric (culture-integrative) framework (i.e., a geocentric perspective), in contrast to a contribution based on utilizing or modifying “imported” elements for local applications or adaptations (i.e., a foreign perspective) (Lyles, 2009). Said (1994, p. 9) captures this approach to research and knowledge production succinctly when he writes: “Freedom from domination in the future, emphasizes a progressive and dynamically interacting and inter-determinate ‘together’ balanced with ‘separate,’ that is, embracing participatory shared futures that both redress and progress social justice.” As I grapple with understanding and working as a social Indigenous researcher, I am beginning to clearly understand that research involves construction of meanings about social phenomena and that meanings are socially constructed by individuals and mediated by the tools that they use, be it language, artifacts, or culture. For example, I have discovered that research is about how individuals make sense of the world around them and how, in particular, the philosopher (researcher) should bracket his or her preconceptions in his or her grasp of that world (Bryman, 2004, p. 16). I conveyed this information to my students, which I explained in their native languages to help them understand the vocabulary used in social research. Some students, however, could not grasp concepts such as “context” or understand what was involved in doing research or why it was necessary to provide a literature review. Working with my students required steady patience, empathy, and support. Whenever I heard comments like “research is fun” from my colleagues, it was evident that I had to work even harder to understand the complexities of the research process. From my perspective, the maze that represented academic research was something of a nightmare. What encouraged me to persevere in reading about research was the notion that children and adults learn by doing. I would read sections of research literature and then explain to my students what I had learned. In this way, I developed my own academic writing skills. As a result, when I completed my doctoral degree in 1999, I was invited by the editor of a teachers’ newspaper to publish a monthly series on learning organizations, which I did during the following year. With renewed confidence, I was able to publish my book under the mentorship of Professor Squelch and began writing research papers that came to be recognized nationally and internationally. My understanding of being and becoming an Indigenous researcher entails the co-creation and use of local knowledge by the researcher and

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research participants, who are local people, and the benefit that both the researcher and the researched would reap from the research. This means conducting research in a culturally sensitive manner that embraces the participants as an important part of knowledge construction, use, and dissemination. A case in point is the work my colleague Dr. Dzvimbo and I did in two distant schools in the hills of Mpumalanga—in the northeast of the country—bordering Mozambique. These rural schools are far away from everything, but close to their communities. Mpumalanga means “the place where the sun rises,” and I think that the sun may be rising in schools such as the two with which we worked. We wanted to examine the ways in which the principals, teachers, parents, students, and surrounding community make sense of their lives within a difficult and challenging socioeconomic, historical, educational context. In the schools where we did this work, we saw how students and staff work on Saturdays and during school holidays, how they prayed together on Sundays, and attended to the school during the week. In the two schools, we observed that there were no fixed boundaries between the two activity systems of school and of community and that relationships matter. It is in this liaison—with the community rather than a state machine—that we saw success and commitment and all the other things that set these two schools apart. Despite being in deep rural Mpumalanga, with its harsh socioeconomic conditions, the conjoint activities and relationships between the schools and the surrounding communities provided a unique perspective about how education was valued in this area. In trying to understand how these two remote schools in South Africa can achieve success in a generally hostile and over-administered educational environment and very poor socioeconomic context, we became open to accepting different realities as we learned how the two schools and the local communities worked together in harmony. We noted their ability to localize energy and support traditions, rituals, and ceremonies as part and parcel of school-community life. They have shared rules, a shared community, and shared division of labor, and their tools are not only policy documents. The rural communities’ traditional tools— their rituals and their way of doing things—all contributed to the unique local phenomenon of holistic education for their students. The cultural meanings and interpretations of the school and community seemed to guide the perceptions, thoughts, interactions, and actions of the schoolcommunity, forming a nexus of successful schools. In these schools, the values of collectivism that define the Black African Indigenous cultures were clear. These schools had an option to go the local (culture) route and to attend to relationships more than to policy—so much so that school and community began to blend in the way they had before being compelled to change so much. The two

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schools in distant Mpumalanga have become beacons of hope in an education system characterized by far too much hopelessness and criticism. In working with the two rural schools I was strongly emotionally and spiritually connected to these schools because they reminded me in many ways of the school I had headed before I joined academia. As a result, these schools became visible to me and their visibility enabled me to connect them to the (International Successful School Principals Project [ISSPP], 2007) with the principals invited to share their success stories at a conference held in Nottingham, England, in 2010.

the IMPact of IndIgenous IdentIty on My roLe as researcher From a research perspective, I am informed by a critical, realist epistemology, and post-structuralism, which posits that the study of the social world, such as education, should also be concerned with the identification of the structures that generate that world. In the ontological position of my research methods, I reject the ahistoricism and neutrality of structural functionalism. This does not obscure that I am committed to a research agenda in which I am interested in understanding, exploring, and explaining the processes of schooling and education in general. As a critical realist, my ontological position is committed to a reform agenda in which the purpose of both basic and applied research is to explain and change the current teaching and learning practices, particularly in schools. My special area of focus is school principalship; my general area is education management. Within my individual and collaborative research studies and publications related to being a school principal, I am attracted to a constructivist discourse in my research methodologies because social phenomena and their meanings are continually being accomplished by social actors such as principals, teachers, learners, and parents who have an agency. I see my role as a researcher as being to understand and develop inductively a theory or theories of interpretation of the actions of school principals in their school settings. Thus, epistemologically, I am drawn to phenomenology and interpretivism because these are research positions that require the researcher to grasp the subjective meaning of social action in schools and other educational settings. These research positions also determine how the researchers should bracket their preconceptions concerning their grasp of the world. However, I am also very conversant with positivist (quantitative) research methods that are deductive in that research is conducted with reference to hypotheses and ideas inferred from theory. As such, I also encourage mixed methods in research and in teaching at the graduate level.

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As evidenced in my book, The School as a Learning Organisation, I am interested in pursuing the concept of learning organizations and knowledge management in both my teaching and research. This stems from my intellectual preoccupation with the process of knowledge production, storage, utilization, management, and distribution within organizations such as schools. In my opinion, knowledge generation and management are about the processes in which schools develop strategic frameworks for investing in human capital or intangible organizational assets. I readily admit that knowledge management is the terminology of globalization and neoliberal management systems that support an ideology of neoliberal globalization that is engulfing sub-Saharan Africa and the higher education sector. However, from the position of IKS, knowledge management, which involves the use of information and communication technologies, is an important tool for the storage, dissemination of Indigenous knowledge, and improvement of their availability. Thus, blending IKS with modern scientific and technological knowledge has the propensity to safeguard and transfer Indigenous knowledge and the best practices around the world using IKS for development (Adam, 2007). From this position, I argue that knowledge management is not necessarily neoliberal in content as a concept, even though it may be used in association within the discourse of neoliberalism. The value of knowledge management is that it suggests a structure, system, and process by which knowledge is made visible and accessible. In effect, it can resonate as a liberating contribution. In light of this, I argue that organizational learning involves knowledge management in three key areas. The first is social capital, which, from the IKS framework, is an asset of the poor, to invest in the struggle for survival, to produce food, to provide for shelter, and/or to achieve control of their own lives, or a value of social networking that bonds similar people and builds bridges between diverse people, with norms of reciprocity (Ellen & Harris, 1996). The second is human capital (i.e., the view that it does not reside in the heads of employees and remains with the organization even when they leave). In the context of IKS, this relates to stories that are passed on from generation to generation. The third is structural capital—competitive intelligence, policies, and processes that result from the products or systems the firm has created over time. The question is: How are these Western imperialist terms (social capital, human capital, and structural capital) localized within the South African Indigenous context? Asked differently, are terms such as these, including knowledge management, a reification of Western epistemology in an African context? Apple, Kenway, and Singh (2007, pp. 4–5) have argued that there seem to be three ways of theorizing about these shifts

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and patterns of globalization. These are, the structuralist view (i.e., the relationship of these forces and their associating colonizing imperatives); the dialectical view/structuration theory (i.e., the relationship among global/local, integration/fragmentation, and structure/agency concerns); and complex connectivity (i.e., different modalities of interconnection and interdependence) and simultaneous complexity-related processes in the realms of the economy, politics, culture, and technology that involve contradictions, resistances, and countervailing forces. Ellen and Harris (1996) have pointed out that in the emerging global economy, a country’s ability to build and mobilize capital is as essential for sustainable development as physical and financial capital. In this view, the basic component of any country’s knowledge system is its Indigenous knowledge, which encompasses the skills, experiences, and insights of people applied to maintain or to improve their livelihood (Ellen & Harris, 1996). It should thus be appreciated that significant contributions to global knowledge systems (globalization and internationalization) have originated from Indigenous people in agriculture, pastoral farming, medicine, and veterinary medicine, for example, with their intimate understanding of/and relationship with their environments. The use of information and technology communication systems, which are the drivers of globalization, will promote cost-effective dissemination of Indigenous knowledge, promote integration of Indigenous knowledge into formal and nonformal training and education, and provide a platform for advocating for improved benefit from Indigenous knowledge systems of the poor (Adam, 2007). Thus, the purpose of creating future capital is essential for a complex organization such as a school to function in an ever-changing globalized environment. Knowledge management, according to my schema, therefore, involves a school’s or organization’s deliberate design of processes, tools, structures, strategies, and mental maps, with the objective of increasing, renewing, and sharing this knowledge in the three dimensions alluded to above. Finally, as a Black female academic in a historically White institution, I see my role as being an Indigenous teacher and researcher, working with students, peers, schools, and communities. My aim is to collectively engage the knowledge and experiences through which students and practitioners author their own voices and construct their own social and intellectual identities as future leaders and professionals in economic, civil, and political spheres. From my vantage point, an Indigenous researcher needs to take notice of the tacit knowledge and experiences that constitute the students and practitioners, individual, and collective voices that they utilize to interrogate their lived experiences. I am involved in a continuous and reflexive project of change management within academia,

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both in my research work and in my community engagement. This provides me with a learner-centered pedagogy, focused on the students’ knowledge base, strategic processing of their thoughts, their motivation and development, and a reflective understanding of their educational and social identity within the academy.

acadeMIcs who InfLuenced My career as a socIaL researcher Those who teach can make a lasting impact on those they teach. In my case, a number of academics helped shape my career and provided encouragement and motivation. I would briefly like to acknowledge their contribution. Although Professor Dzvimbo left the university three months after my own appointment, he had the most influence on my academic life and continues to do so. Professor Dzvimbo left an indelible mark on my approach to work and influenced my love for reading and scholarship. He taught me and my fellow students about the power of using theoretical frameworks for understanding the concept of pedagogic content knowledge and for providing a lens for our research projects. While we were studying for the Master’s degree in education management, he introduced us to the works of various theorists, including Foucault (1972, 1980), Freire (1970), and Habermas (1971). He was also influential in developing our critical thinking skills as both teachers and researchers. Professor Dzvimbo continues to be my mentor, teacher, coach, motivator, and a provider of moral support. He is indeed an invaluable lifelong friend. In 2003, Professor David Scott (director in the Faculty of Education at the University of Lincoln, England) and Dr. Marlene Morris (reader) invited me to the University of Lincoln, in the United Kingdom, to give a series of doctoral lectures on the following topics: • learning organizations from a South African perspective; • gender issues in South Africa; and • educational leadership from a South African perspective.

In 2004, I met Professor Tony Bush at an education management conference in Durban, South Africa. He was then research director at the University of Lincoln. He invited me to participate in three commissioned research projects. In 2004, the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership and Governance commissioned a research strategy on leadership and management in South Africa, to establish “what we know” and “what we still need to know.” Desk research was undertaken by Tony Bush (University of Lincoln, the Educational Management Team

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at the University of Johannesburg, and the University of Pretoria). We published a report in 2006, presented two conference papers, one in England and the other in Cyprus, and co-published a journal article (Bush & Moloi, 2007). As a consequence of Tony Bush’s initiative, I was nominated as international associate researcher in 2005, by the National College of School Leadership (NCSL). The research project we undertook was on black ethnic minority leaders in England. Together with one of my B.Ed. students, Geraldine Potgieter (2004–2005), we worked for two months in different locations in England, conducting interviews with twenty educators (including school principals, heads of department, subject heads, and other teachers) in leadership positions in both primary and secondary schools. Two reports were published by the NCSL. We undertook the third project, related to “Cross Boundary Leaders in South Africa,” between 2005 and 2006 in collaboration with Tony Bush. Following the establishment of a nonracist education system in 1996 in South Africa, leaders were appointed to positions in schools from which they had previously been barred. The cross-boundary activity challenged established norms and created tensions for many of the participants. These problems included cultural dissonance, social isolation, and racism. The aims of the research were to examine the experiences of these cross-boundary leaders and assess their impact on schools. Outputs expected included conference papers, seminars, and journal articles. We conducted thirty-nine interviews with school principals, deputy principals, and heads of departments in the Gauteng Province and analyzed the data. Two of us presented conference papers based on our work. We co-published a chapter entitled “Race, Racism in Leadership Development” in the Handbook on the Preparation and Development of School Leaders. Tony Bush has empowered me enormously in terms of research and has given me both national and international exposure. He taught me how to work on a project and to complete it within a specified period. He also taught me that any project that I engage in should be published. What I learned from him has had enormous impact on my academic work back home, and my publications have improved since I started working with him. He gave me confidence to want to write and assisted me in removing the myth that it is impossible to do certain things. I am indebted to him for allowing me space to co-publish with him. In 2006, I attended the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management conference in Cyprus where I met Christopher Day and his research collaborators from more than ten countries, including England, Canada, the United States, China, Germany, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland. I attended the presentation

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of their findings from data collected on the International Successful School Principals (ISSPP) project in those countries. I was enthused by their energy and commitment and decided to join this group of knowledgeable researchers and scholars. The ISSPP project originated in 2001 among a group of experienced education leadership and management researchers (ISSPP, 2007, p. 1). They felt that, notwithstanding a comprehensive body of research data on the qualities of good principalship and successful schools, there was a need to focus more directly on the traits of principals of successful schools, and, more specifically, to establish the extent to which the parameters and perceptions about a successful principal possibly varied from country to country. In essence, the research attempted to find answers to the following questions: • What similarities and differences can be identified in the beliefs and behaviors of successful school principals across national cultures and policy contexts? • Do different countries have different ways of defining success? • How do high-stake assessments and accountability measures influence the practices of successful principals? • Do different socioeconomic contexts in schools affect the ways in which successful principals work? (ISSPP, 2007, p. 9)

I have since worked with this dedicated team of researchers and have presented papers at international conferences in which they took part. I have learned about collaborative partnerships in conducting national and international research and have gained confidence that I can succeed as an Indigenous social researcher.

My MethodoLogIcaL aPProach to teachIng research I have worked in education in South Africa for almost forty years. As earlier stated, I began my career as a primary school teacher but later became qualified to teach at the university level. Given our historical past, I have always regarded teaching at tertiary level as multidimensional. In my opinion, teaching and learning are not only pedagogic but also sociopolitical spaces that reflect the pedagogy, curricula, and mission statements of the dominant culture of an institution and how research privileges certain ways of knowing and silences others. I therefore see myself as a facilitator of Indigenous research-based learning whose key role is to design transformative learning architectures within academia that enable students to construct communities of practice in which they reflect on, and engage with, knowledge, both individually and collectively. They explore opportunities for envisioning possible futures and trajectories and push boundaries of knowledge, incorporating what is authentic, Indigenous (etic), and global (emic).

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I am thus fully committed to the transformation process in my present institution and encourage students to critically challenge the stated and hidden agendas of the institutions and the silencing of Indigenous knowledge systems. Students should continually be engaged in a disciplined questioning of the ways in which power and privilege work through the discursive practices and performances of tertiary education and training. My entire teaching career has been based on a careful consideration of pedagogy—the art and science of teaching, which includes classroom instruction, interaction, and the type of tasks and assignments I set for my students in keeping with current andragogical methods (i.e., methods used to help adults learn) (McKee & Bilman, 2011, p. 2). My initial philosophical base is that how one teaches is part and parcel of what one teaches—a social construction of meaning. Thus, my teaching motivation stems from a belief that I need to develop teaching and research repertoires that integrate my knowledge with that of my students—a relational way of knowing. Such a teaching repertoire is predicated on a critical theoretical base. In this schema, I am heavily influenced by the pioneering work of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Following Freire (1970), I am committed to, and practice a discourse of teaching research that problematizes learning so as to critically analyze educational phenomena and change in schools. In the process, students get an opportunity to engage first with concrete contexts that provide objective facts about their work and the social reality of their situatedness and then move on to the theoretical contexts where these facts are examined in depth and then back to the concrete practice where they can experiment with new forms of praxis. My role is to propose problems so that my students as knowing and active agents can achieve a synthesis in dialogue in the process of undertaking research projects. As I engage with my research in the schools and communities with which I work, I am aware that my teaching philosophy is born out of the struggles and contestations of our people in black townships, schools, and classrooms during the 1970s, stemming from the atrocities of a racialized and racializing regime of the past. Consequently, my gender, race, and class have had significant influences on my identity as a social Indigenous researcher and on my teaching philosophy. As I strive to extend the boundaries of excellence in engaging in research, my philosophical and epistemological positions are rooted in my interpretation and localization of cognitive, Gestalten, and constructivist theories of psychology and learning, especially those based on the classical works of Bruner (1996), and Vygotsky (1978), alongside IKS, methodologies,

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and philosophies. This philosophical perspective grounds and clarifies the nature of my goals of teaching and guides my behavior as a teacher and researcher. It also determines how I engage in scholarly dialogue with my students, peers, and the local community and how I organize the nature, form, and orientation of my assessment of research projects. My grounding in a critical theoretical perspective also informs: (1) my teaching and research behaviors, such as teaching skills, explanations, planning, management, assessment, and evaluation; (2) my judgments and decisions in lecture rooms about goals, instructional methods, and students’ analytical intellectual skills, including synthesis, observation, and interpretation; and (3) my knowledge, beliefs, values, rituals, and attitudes about educational contexts and purposes, learners and learning, and the university curriculum, teaching, and research.

concLusIon The biography or life-story methodology enables us to document the inner experience of how we interact with the world and interpret, understand, and define it (Bryman, 2004). My experience as a teacher in higher education has impacted on my own practice today. As an Indigenous researcher, I am acutely aware how difference is constructed in the university through various representations and practices that name, legitimize, marginalize, and exclude the cultural capital and voices of subordinate groups (Giroux, 2006). This involves a critical and postmodern approach that questions how networks of power relations are intertwined with knowledge, subjectivity, and ideology through teaching and research. These questions point to the need for a transformative and empowering approach to research and a social epistemology of learning. Although the chapter may seem to be very backward looking, at the present I see myself as an Indigenous researcher in my current working environment where the student population is almost exclusively black. Affirmative action policies mean that in approximately five years, it is very likely that white researchers will suffer as we had to. Now that South Africa is slowly undergoing transition within the education system, it is important for policy makers and those tasked with carrying out the reforms (i.e., school stakeholders, teachers, principals, school governing bodies, parents, and learners) to learn from past mistakes and injustices. They need to clearly realize that the country will benefit most from a system in which all are treated equally, afforded equal opportunities, and willingly embrace each other’s differences. My role in this institution is to be inclusive in terms of working with colleagues while promoting Indigenous research through the study of Indigenous literature and methods of research.

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references Adam, L. (2007). Information and communication technologies, knowledge management and Indigenous knowledge: Implications to livelihood of communities in Ethopia. ICT in Development Researcher. http:www.webpages.uidaho-edu/…/anyira-onoriodenwabueze.thm (accessed May 24, 2011). Apple, M. W., Kenway, J., & Singh, M. (Eds.). (2007). Globalizing education: Policies, pedagogies & politics. New York: Peter Lang. Badat, S. (2006). From innocence to critical reflexivity: Critical researchers, research and writing, and higher education policy making. In G. Neave (Ed.), Knowledge, power and dissent: Critical perspectives on higher education and research in knowledge society (pp. 89–116). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Bloch, G. (2011). Bridging the gap in South African education. http://books.publishing. monash.edu/apps/bookworm/view/Closing + the Gap + in + Education (accessed July 18, 2011). Bruce, Jr., D. D. (1992). W. E. B. Du Bois and the idea of double consciousness. American Literature 64, 299–309. Bruner, J. S. (1996). Towards a theory of instruction. London: Harvard University Press. Bryman, A. (2004). Social research methods. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bush, T., & Moloi, K. C. (2007). Race, racism and discrimination in school leadership: Evidence from England and South Africa. International Studies in Educational Administration 35, 41–59. Bush, T., & Moloi, K. C. (2008). Race, racism in leadership development. In J. Lumby, P. Pashiardis, & G. Crow (Eds.), Handbook on the preparation and development of school leaders (pp. 104–118). London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Calhoun, C. (1995). Critical social theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dryden-Peterson, S., & Siebörger, R. (2006). Teachers as memory makers: Testimony in the making of a new history in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development 26, 394–403. Edwards, T., & Sherwood, J. (2011). Decolonisation: A critical step for improving Aboriginal health. Contemporary Nurse. http:www.contemporarynurse.com/archives/ vol/22issue/2article/732/decolonisation (accessed May 24, 2011). Ellen, R., & Harris, H. (1996). Concepts of Indigenous environmental knowledge in scientific and development studies literature—A critical assessment. Draft paper East-West Environmental Linkages Network Workshop 3, Canterbury, England, May 8–10. Finweek. (2008). Education crisis mode. Fin 24: Economy. http://www.fin24.com/ Economy/Education-in-crisis-mode-20080203 (accessed June 6, 2010). Foucault, M. (1972). The archeology of knowledge. New York: Pantheon. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977. C. Gordon (Ed. and Trans.). New York: Pantheon. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder. Fuller, S. (2006). Universities and the future of knowledge governance from the standpoint of social epistemology. In G. Neave (Ed.), Knowledge, power and dissent: Critical perspectives on higher education and research in knowledge society (pp. 345–370). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Garroutte, E. M. (2003). Real Indians: Identity and the survival of Native Americans. Berkeley: University of California Press. Giroux, H. A. (2006). The Giroux reader. C. Robbins (Ed.). Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and human interests. J. Shapiro (Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press.

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Hodgson, T. (2008). South Africa’s education crisis and the Biblical solution. http:www. christianaction.org.za/articles/South%20Africas%20Education%20Crisis%20a (accessed October 30, 2010). International Successful School Principals Project (ISSPP). (2007). Comparison of case studies. Nottingham, UK: University of Nottingham Press. Kallaway, P. (Ed.). (2002). The history of education under apartheid 1948–1994. Soweto. The doors of learning and culture shall be opened. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman (Pty), Ltd. Lyles, M. (2009). Indigenous management research in China. Hart Indigenous worldviews, knowledge, and research 6. Journal of Indigenous Voices in Social Work 1, 1–15. McKee, S. E., & Bilman, C. (2011). Andragogical methods applied to nursing education: Adult educators for adult students. Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference on adult, continuing, community and extension education, Lindmond University, St. Charles, Missouri, September 21–23. Moloi, K. C. (2005). The school as a learning organisation: Reconceptualising school practices in South Africa. 2nd ed. Pretoria, South Africa: Van Schaik Publishers. Moloi, K. C., Dzvimbo, K. P., Potgieter, F. J., Wolhuter, C. C., & Van der Walt, J. L. (2010). Learners’ perceptions as to what contributes to their school success: A case study. South African Journal of Education 30, 475–490. Odora Hoppers, C. (Ed.). (2002). Indigenous knowledge and the integration of knowledge systems: Towards a philosophy of articulation. Claremont, South Africa: New Africa Books (Pty). Rosen, J. (2011). Education crisis in South Africa. http:www.upiu.com/cultureociety/2011/03/18/Education–crisis-in-South-Africa.UPIU-5 (accessed April 20, 2011). Said, E. W. (1994). Culture, imperialism. Vintage edition. London: Random. Sillitoe, P., Dixon, P., & Barr, J. (2005). Indigenous knowledge inquiries: A methodologies manual for development. London: ITDG Publishing. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books, Ltd. Statistics South Africa. (2011). Mid-year population estimates: Statistical release P0302. Pretoria, South Africa. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weiler, H. (2006). Challenging the orthodoxies of knowledge: Epistemological, structural and political implications for higher education. In G. Neave (Ed.), Knowledge, power and dissent: Critical perspectives on higher education and research in knowledge society (pp. 61–87). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Youniss, J. (2006). Situating ourselves and our inquiry: A first-person account. In F. C. Conrad & R. C. Serlin (Eds.), The Sage handbook for qualitative research in education: Engaging ideas and enriching inquiry (pp. 303–314). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zeichner, K. M. (2009). Teacher education and the struggle for social justice. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Chapter 7

Drawn from the Traditions of Cameroon: Lessons from Twenty-One Years of Practice Debazou Yantio Yantio

Initiation in a Career in Social Research The influence of academic role models, the willingness to be part of the scientific community, and the desire to make a significant contribution to development thinking motivated me to engage in research. I grew up in Douala, Cameroon, in a family with a strong authoritative father. He had two wives and nine kids, not a big family by customary standards and he valued extreme hard work and loyalty. This environment gave me the opportunity to discover that everybody has his or her own story of the same reality, that reality can differ from one individual to another, and that the true or accepted reality depends on the dominant perspective. That is a bit of the half-empty or half-full glass anecdote commonly referred to in development discourse. To develop an objective picture of reality requires listening to each stakeholder and using his or her lens to interpret what is going on. My academic role models also had great influence on me. My journey as a researcher started in 1987 with Professor François Tchala Abina’s lecture in research methodology at the University of Dschang in Cameroon. His lectures motivated me to seek active involvement in social research for development. He used examples of how scientific investigation was applied in solving day-to-day problems of rural development relevant to our country. Prof. Tchala helped me develop an interest in social research and explicitly interrogate relevance and context sensitivity in designing social research. Reading a book related to the nature of knowledge by Doyle Conan improved my understanding of the nature Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 123–132. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 123

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of knowledge and its sources and increased my willingness to engage in scientific research. As an academic requirement to the diploma of Ingénieur agronome, I was assigned to study my native village of Bazou in the western highlands of Cameroon. The study entailed observing, analyzing, and reporting back in a monograph on social, political, economic, and cultural factors that shape the organization and social life of the village community. I found that many social practices with no scientific foundations— meaning “properly” established and documented-were justified by the community’s lived experiences (Yantio, 1987). For example, keeping part of the village forests in the custody of the king—called sacred forests, where no one can harvest wood or engage in any agricultural activity—was an effective strategy to sustainably manage natural resources under a foreseen environment of ever-increasing human pressure and resource scarcity. Marital practices are another example of time-honored social behavior. Marriage between a young man and woman is an arrangement concerning not only the individuals involved but their two families. Before considering any wedding, both families carry out investigations searching for evidence of close genealogical relationships or congenital abnormalities and checking the social reputation of the respective family. It is widely accepted that these customs decrease the likelihood of birth difficulties for the new couple’s offspring. When such relationships or congenital illnesses are found or a bad reputation is established, no marriage can take place. The people don’t have any formal education in genetics, but discussion with villagers clearly shows knowledge of health complications related to inbreeding. Can this knowledge be recognized according to mainstream standards of scientific knowledge, as the village community traditionally used it to inform key decisions in their lives? In 1989, my thesis supervisor, Prof. Max R. Langham, further enriched my critical thinking ability and brought his recognized editorial expertise and simplicity to my scientific investigation and reporting. When I was appointed lecturer at the Cooperative College of the Ministry of Agriculture in October 1990, I had to develop my social research practice using up-to-date references provided by the Economic Development Institute (EDI) of the World Bank. I developed numerous research proposals to investigate rural development issues relevant to agricultural cooperatives and rural development of neighboring localities but only a few got funding. Research practice informed my lectures and the advice I provided to national and local stakeholders. When preparing for my contribution to the Agricultural Policy Symposium organized in 1991 by the United States Agency for International Development at the University of Dschang, I found that the focus was on the external shock

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of declining agricultural commodity prices and the large and growing public deficit driven by large subsidies to agricultural parastatals (stateowned businesses) (Yantio, 1991a). Confronted with the rapid decline of the agricultural economy that began in 1984, the government and donors engaged in the privatization of parastatals that directly supported production and marketing in the agricultural sector. The privatization option was a logical result of this understanding of the crisis in the agricultural sector and the national economy at large by donor agencies and international financial institutions. This public choice disrupted subsidies and the infrastructure of agricultural production on which rural farmers were relying. Despite the high risk associated with trading the main traditional products (cocoa and coffee) on international markets, farmers were encouraged to continue production. Whole parts of rural areas collapsed, and poverty became generalized across Cameroon. State interests were privileged over the collective and individual interests of rural farmers who contributed more than 75% of the domestic agricultural production. My proposal to promote the diversification of the agricultural production base and strengthening of farmer’s management capacity was not of interest to the government (Yantio, 1991b). That is why my topical interests shifted to accommodate the priorities for rural development of my country. I realized that weakness in the agricultural sector was not due to poor technical skills in agricultural production among peasant farmers. Rather, one of the most constraining technological factors was the lack of farmers’ input into agricultural policy and inadequate consideration of local contexts in agriculture sector development. To support this empirical observation, in 2003, I participated in the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, to sharpen my skills in program evaluation. I was introduced to advanced methodologies in evaluating the merit of development programs and increased my knowledge of social research and researcher status. After being connected to the global community through participation with the IPDET, Lise Kriel, then secretary of the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA), suggested that I consider taking an increased role in the community. This prompted me to set up the listserv of the Cameroon Development Evaluation Association, a national association affiliated with AfrEA. Networking added to my effectiveness as a social researcher by opening up opportunities to engage with colleagues from across the globe and to learn cutting-edge evaluation techniques for assessing development effectiveness. Being a researcher also means participating actively in professional networks. I am now affiliated with more than ten prominent professional evaluation associations and networks in Cameroon, Africa, and

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elsewhere. Networking has increased my access to funding so I can participate in professional meetings where new and critical ideas are shared among peers and influential policy makers at regional and global levels.

My PraCtICe of SoCIal reSearCh I am now a seasoned social researcher working within the national community and abroad on topics related to program evaluation and development policy. According to Evans et al. (2009, p. 894), “indigenous methodologies can be summarized as research by and for indigenous peoples, using techniques and methods drawn from the traditions of those peoples.” Being Indigenous to Cameroon and Africa, I don’t feel that what I do as a researcher is any different from what researchers in other settings in the developed and developing world do. Scientific research is scientific research! I believe that it is a false idea to use a specific name to characterize the research that Indigenous researchers carry out, except to say that their research is contextualized. I apply the methodology that is internally valid and explicitly consider the factors at play in local contexts so as to maintain their relevancy and guarantee the potential applicability of the results (external validity). Thus, the most appropriate methodology is one that is internally valid and accommodates the values and perspectives of the local people that it aims to serve. It is achieved through the participation of local people in all stages of the research, from start to finish. However, it should be acknowledged that ethical standards in Cameroon differ from Western ones. In particular, informed consent is usually overlooked because respondents seldom complain when submitted to an unwanted survey. More often, they will provide convenient answers to the investigator when they find the questions intrusive or when the purpose of the inquiry does not accommodate their interests (e.g., data sought in the inquiry might put their interests in jeopardy as in the case of their potential use by state bodies like customs, tax administration, etc.). Therefore, being an Indigenous researcher simply means to be more conversant in local contexts, capable of identifying development problems relevant to local peoples and hypothesizing about their dynamics in local contexts. An Indigenous researcher contributes to the formulation of the problems in the scientific tradition, given the local contexts, and finds solutions that are economically and environmentally effective, efficient, and acceptable to the society in which they live. Most of local knowledge is oral. Accessing it and using it happens through the various forms of unstructured interviews and direct observation as ways to capture the values and Indigenous knowledge and integrate them into scientific research. Many researchers overlook Indigenous

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knowledge because it is seldom in written and referenced published materials. Therefore, these outsiders miss relevant knowledge and end up with solutions that are not feasible or relevant to local people or in local contexts. This condition presupposes that decision makers demand such context-sensitive solutions, which does not hold true. Demand for valid evidence from social research, especially program evaluation, is still weak in Cameroon. Making development policy decisions based on evidence is not yet common practice. Because top government officials seldom base their action on scientific evidence, researchers receive less attention and recognition in the society, removing incentives for a research career. Hence, I believe that Indigenous researchers lack support from the national community. Researchers are often isolated from the society. They are seen as strangers, especially because their research is usually disconnected from the social demand both at the grassroots level and among policy makers. In most cases, research is driven by an external agenda, as discussed earlier. Donors and international multilateral organizations usually dominate the development decision-making process in our country. Their expectations are factored into the design of development policy by national policy makers (Carden, 2009). Problems articulated and solutions suggested in public development discourse do not always consider Indigenous knowledge and values. Although my research and further training are articulated with the needs, expectations, and problem faced by rural farmers who are a significant part of the population (and are declining in terms of numbers but increasing in terms of poverty incidence), it is paradoxical that the society does not seem to be willing to reap the full benefit of its investment, especially because my university studies and professional training were supported by public scholarships from taxpayers’ money.

ContrIbutIon to the reSearCh and evaluatIon CoMMunItIeS I contribute scientific knowledge by engaging in innovative and creative social research. I have not yet been able to develop a new method in program evaluation research even though I have added innovative ways of mixing existing approaches and methods to accommodate local contexts, values, and needs. Indeed, I design my research to meet acceptable internal scientific validity standards but in a way that explicitly considers local knowledge and contexts. International perspectives only bring an additional lens to identify similarities and dissimilarities, especially in program evaluation.

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It is possible to scrutinize a development program by finding what is similar and dissimilar compared to the same sort of programs in other countries across the developing and developed world. I seek to promote learning by design in program evaluation research. The utility of program evaluation lies in the use of its findings as well as the process use by all stakeholders involved—policy makers, development practitioners, implementing teams, beneficiaries, and all other interested parties. I am not successful enough in promoting the explicit consideration of peasant farmers’ expectations and strategies in the design of agricultural and environmental policies in my country (i.e., bridging the gap between research and policy through utilization of the findings and associated lessons for action). But I believe I have made significant contributions to spreading the idea among development program evaluators that (process and impact) evaluations are not ends in themselves but means to achieve enhanced development effectiveness. I have actively participated in the endorsement of the recommendations of the Evaluation Gap Commission of the Center for Global Development and to giving momentum to the Network of Networks on Impact Evaluation (NONIE). The consultation organized in the NONIE has led to the creation of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation. This is an international nongovernmental organization that has contributed to building the now well-established consensus that demand for evaluative evidence should be built in developing countries and that more quality program evaluations are still needed. I am especially proud of this achievement, which is of paramount importance to development effectiveness and to development itself. There is a growing interest in investigating when impact evaluations are beneficial to a society. This is felt more at the international level than locally. Although the societal benefits of research are well studied now, ex ante appraisal of the benefits of impact evaluation of development interventions is relatively new in the evaluation community. Because impact evaluations are expensive and represent only one of possible uses of development funds, it therefore requires a careful cost-benefit analysis as is done for any other development action. It is a promising line of investigation for the development effectiveness research agenda.

ChallengeS to beIng an IndIgenouS reSearCher and CarryIng out reSearCh Being Indigenous poses numerous challenges to becoming a productive and respected researcher. Paramount among them are the weak national

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research infrastructure and collaboration networks and the lack of self-confidence of Indigenous researchers in their ability to compete with more resource-endowed fellows in developed countries. It was true for me, just as it remains for some other colleagues I have discussed this with. The challenges translate into the following specific hurdles: (1) limited access to up-to-date scientific literature; (2) dysfunctional research support services; and (3) insufficient to nonexistent funding for social research. In my experience, overcoming the obstacle of limited access to up-to-date scientific literature is a product of luck and resolve. I had the luck to make contact with World Bank staffers who provided me with open access to the rich documentation and research papers of the then Economic Development Institute, the ancestor of the current World Bank Institute. They circulated complimentary copies of all available teaching materials that I used for self-instruction. In addition, I invested part of my earnings in newspapers and scientific journal subscriptions. Resources available free of charge on the Internet are a great opportunity for Indigenous researchers with limited access to more formal scientific literature. Insufficient institutional funding also constrains Indigenous research. Funding is usually available for topics or subjects that are of less significance to Indigenous people. Funding is usually restricted to some geographic or geopolitical areas. Some funders have fashionable topics and methodologies that they promote or encourage researchers to apply in their proposals. Therefore, there are limited funds available in Indigenous research to investigate local problems or issues in innovative ways. I hypothesize that topics and questions of interest to local populations are overlooked by Indigenous researchers in favor of those promoted by external players (former colonial powers, multilateral institutions, etc.). Investigating what Indigenous researchers work on and their connection to Indigenous community problems can be very informative. As a consequence of constraints on research funding, the possibility of Indigenous researchers to professionally interact with their peers is restricted. They live in a world of digital divide and experience erratic connection to the Internet, thus they cannot exchange materials and professional advice on a daily basis. They seldom attend professional meetings where methods and findings are discussed, and international professional teams are formed to conduct research in their home country. As a consequence, local researchers are underrepresented in such teams. When they are included, they are confined to roles in field-trip organization and data collection without any responsibility for methodological design.

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WInnIng a ContraCt The practice of program evaluation research as a private consultant poses the problem of winning a contract in competitive bidding processes. Indigenous researchers are almost systematically disfavored against their competitors based in donor countries because there are clauses of ineligibility for consultants who are not nationals of the donor country. One major Western consulting firm in North America referred to below by X issued the following vacant position advertisement on June 18, 2012: “X and partners are seeking an expat Monitoring & Evaluation Director for our program in West Africa. Please share and disseminate to interested persons.” In other words, only nationals of the donor country (or Non-Africans for the above mentioned case) can bid for contracts concerning the implementation and evaluation of programs funded in the recipient country. Often, Indigenous researchers cannot apply for evaluation contracts in their own country because of clauses that nationals of the donor country are the only one eligible to bid as principal. In the best case scenarios, Indigenous researchers are left with the options of partnering with these favored firms or individuals recruited in the donor country. In many cases, international counterparts of Indigenous researchers use the latter as field appointment organizers and data collectors, with little or no contribution to research design and reporting. Their contribution is seldom acknowledged in final reports. For comparable qualifications, honorariums of local experts represent only a small proportion of what international consultants normally earn under the same contract. The political regime and power relationships with donor countries can explain this unfavorable bias to local researchers.

ConCluSIonS and leSSonS learned Beyond the Indigenous community, I and other African colleagues have been calling attention to the need to carefully consider the factors at play in local contexts that affect the applicability of tested program evaluation methodologies and their relevance. These factors include cultural values, local knowledge, and social infrastructure (AfrEA, 2001). When planning evaluations and analyzing problems in Indigenous communities, one should consider all the available methodologies and select the one suited to the local context and needs, particularly the need to get local people involved or their views considered explicitly. Finally, what I have learnt from my own experience is that success comes with setting clear career objectives based on a thoughtful analysis of the job market and my own capabilities, tireless effort at work, and a bit of luck to meet the right champions and inspiring colleagues.

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referenCeS African Evaluation Association (AfrEA). (2001). African evaluation guidelines 2000: A checklist to assist evaluators. Nairobi: AfrEA. Carden, F. (2009). Knowledge to policy: Making the most of development research. New Delhi: Sage Publications & International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Evans, M., Hole, R., Berg, L. D., Hutchinson, P., & Sookraj, D. (2009). Indigenous methodologies, participatory action research, and white studies in an urban Aboriginal research agenda. Qualitative Inquiry 15, 893–910. Sage, DOI: 10.1177/1077800409333392. Yantio, Y. D. (1987). Rapport d’étude monographique du village Bazou. Unpublished report, Dschang, Cameroon : École nationale supérieure agronomique (ENSA). Yantio, Y. D. (1991a). L’agriculture camerounaise: Problèmes et perspectives de solution. Unpublished paper submitted to the Agricultural Policy Symposium, Dschang, Cameroon: University Center of Dschang. Yantio, Y. D. (1991b). La diversification de la production et des exportations de l’agriculture camerounaise: Un dilemme dépassé. Unpublished inaugural lecture at the National Cooperative College of the Ministry of Agriculture, Ebolowa, Cameroon.

Chapter 8

Indigenous Research with a Cultural Context Fiona Hornung

Acknowledgment by the Researcher Before embarking on my story about research, I would like to acknowledge the Aboriginal lands from which I descend, the Yidingi and Bidjera peoples of Queensland, Australia. I also pay my respects to elders, both past and present. The spirits of my ancestors have enabled me to become the person I am today: an Indigenous female who is a mother, wife, educator, writer, academic, researcher, and consultant—to name a few of my titles. In particular, I acknowledge the connections that my grandmother and father fostered in my soul—in relation to being confident in who I am, where I have come from, and where I am going. For people who are unfamiliar with the protocols of Australian Aboriginal people, acknowledging or welcoming people to country provides an awareness of the past and ongoing connection to place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

What Is This Place: Australia? Indigenous Australia is made up of two ethnically and culturally distinct Indigenous peoples who have shared extreme struggles: Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders.1 The history of these two groups of people traces back to the time of creation, particularly in tales from the Aboriginal peoples of the Rainbow Serpent. It has been estimated by anthropologists that the Australian Aboriginal people have been in Australia for between 50,000 and 150,000 years. Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 133–152. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 133

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We were a hunter-gatherer people living off the land and adapting to our environment. There were at least 750,000 Aboriginal people living in Australia when the British arrived in 1788 (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, 1999), compared with 409,729 counted in the 2006 Census (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2012). In the late eighteenth century, there were between 350 and 750 distinct Aboriginal social groupings and a similar number of languages or dialects (Walsh, 2004). At the start of the twenty-first century, fewer than 150 Indigenous languages remain in daily use; all except roughly twenty are highly endangered (Dalby, 1998). The Torres Strait Islanders are the Indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands, located between Papua New Guinea and the tip of Cape York in Queensland (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, 1999). In the 2006 Census, there were just under 30,000 Torres Strait Islander people, and an additional 19,552 people who identified themselves as both Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2012). People identifying themselves as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in the 2006 Census comprised 2.3% of the total population (although an undercount of Indigenous peoples is suspected) (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2012). The arrival of the British in Australia toward the end of the eighteenth century led to a serious breakdown in traditional Indigenous lifestyles and well-being. In the early 1900s, my maternal grandmother was taken from her traditional lands of the Bidjera people and moved to Barrambah Mission—now called Cherbourg. The result was the loss of her language and culture. This happened many times to Indigenous Australians throughout this country. In all but the more remote areas of Australia, Aboriginal groups were dispossessed of their land piece by piece. The Torres Strait was annexed by Queensland in 1879, and, other than in the establishment of settlements such as Thursday Island, the Islanders were not dispersed from their homelands. Until the modern era, however, the people of the Torres Strait were, like Aboriginal people, subject to restrictive and paternalistic legislation that denied them their citizenship rights. Today the social indicators for Torres Strait Islanders—in education, health, employment—are similar to those for Aboriginal people. (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, 1999, p. 4)

The history of colonization within Australia is one of the deliberate destruction of Indigenous Australians’ cultural practices. The “stolen generations” is a term used by Indigenous Australians for one of the harshest acts of colonization. Between the 1890s and the 1970s, more than 100,000 Indigenous babies and children were systematically

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removed from their families and placed into church and government institutions or foster homes because it was “better” for them to be brought up in white society (Central Australian Stolen Generation & Aboriginal Corporation, 2012). Against this backdrop of colonization is an Indigenous Australian story of resilience and struggle to reclaim equality and cultural recognition. Our language, art, customs, spiritual connections, and knowledge of our Aboriginal lands are being reinvigorated and restored among our people. The resurgence of Australian Indigenous culture is summed up best in the following statement: “In the recent decades there has been a strong renaissance of Indigenous culture and forms of creative expression, and a reconnection and reclaiming of cultural life. Aboriginal culture has roots deep in the past. Australia’s Indigenous cultural traditions have a history and continuity unrivalled in the world” (Dudgeon et al., 2010, pp. 25–26). Through education and reconciliation, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are slowly becoming acknowledged and recognized within Australian society. In February 2008, the prime minister of Australia apologized to Aboriginal people, saying he was “sorry” for taking Aboriginal children from their families (McSmith & Finn, 2008). The Queensland government, for example, now recognizes that “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Queenslanders have, as first peoples, long histories of strong kinship, strength and pride in culture. They have a special relationship with place, land, waters and sea which has endured for thousands of years” (Queensland Government, 2010, p. 64). This context, of colonization and struggles to retain identity and culture, needs to be understood by researchers as it impacts on the questions asked, the methods chosen, and the outcomes of research.

beIng An AustRAlIAn IndIgenous ReseARcheR I am married, have two children, and currently live in Brisbane, Australia. My ethnicity is based on Malaysian, South Sea Islander, Danish, and Scottish and Aboriginal heritage. My Aboriginal heritage on my father’s side includes Aboriginal lands of the Yidingi people from the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland. My mother’s Aboriginal lands are located further southwest and are known as the Bidjera people from the South East region west of Brisbane. I am currently a principal policy officer for the Queensland Department of Education and Training in Brisbane. I am a qualified primary school teacher with a Bachelor of Education—Primary and a Master of Educational Leadership. I plan to return to postgraduate studies to finish a Doctorate of Education. In my role as a principal policy officer,

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I review policy, provide advice on strategic research proposals, manage million dollar projects, participate as a member of the department’s Indigenous evaluation working group as well as working groups that progress the agenda of achievement of Indigenous peoples in education. The field of education has been a solid platform on which I have built my approach to research. I have been fortunate to be able to work as a teacher in state schools. I have also held positions in universities teaching education-based subjects and Indigenous studies and I have been a senior education officer within a policy, curriculum, and project context with the Queensland Department of Education and Training. The qualifications I have obtained are used in conjunction with my cultural background to inform my work and enable me to view how Western-based ideologies impact on cultural groups, particularly Indigenous Australians. Through my work and ability to construct a cultural lens in my role as a researcher, I believe that I am facilitating a two-way process that enables Indigenous peoples to take ownership of their education and their learning without compromising their cultural identities. Recently, I established a small consulting business with my husband, Peter. The consulting business, although new, has conducted two evaluations for Indigenous organizations within Brisbane of programs to increase community capacity, increase leadership and political aspirations of young people, and improve education and training opportunities for Indigenous peoples. I would like to continue to build my business to ensure that organizations have an opportunity to guarantee ongoing success in the services provided to Indigenous peoples. Additionally, I am continuing to research and complete my family tree that I have been working on for the past decade. Below is my story about the journey I have embarked on as an Australian Aboriginal researcher. I have a passion for learning and believe that many questions can be asked in the field of research, particularly in relation to Indigenous Australians. I believe questions enable people, particularly researchers, to become better equipped to understand the worldviews of others, particularly those who possess a different cultural background. I respect that I have an important role as an Indigenous researcher based on my experiences in relation to my cultural background, family structure, cultural and spiritual connections to land, and life in a predominantly Western mainstream society. I take on a high level of responsibility as an Indigenous Australian researcher, based on acknowledging who I am, where I have come from, and why I am involved in research. This plays an extremely important role in the way I conduct research.

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The Process that Led to Becoming a Researcher Everyone has a moment in time when they can say that they had an epiphany and knew they wanted to be something or do something important. For me, the earliest memories of wanting to be a researcher were when I was five years old and my family lived with my paternal grandmother and grandfather and extended family. My grandmother (now deceased) always said that I had a passion for learning and wanting to know more. This was based on my earliest experiences with the arrival of the Blue Nurses (a mobile medical service) who regularly visited my grandmother. My grandmother had been newly diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes and required nursing sisters to educate her about the process of administering insulin and dietary planning. As I was extremely shy, I would watch from behind the skirts of my grandmother as the nurse drew up the insulin and my grandmother would then inject herself. I was horrified, and after the nurses had left, I immediately started to question my grandmother. These are the questions that I asked: • Who was that lady and why did she come here to see you? • What was her name and why did she give you that needle? • Did that needle hurt you? What is wrong with you? Are you sick?

My grandmother responded to my questions; when I was older, she said that I would ask many questions and wasn’t satisfied until I knew all the answers. By the time I was six, my grandmother said that I knew more about her diabetes then she did. Her advice to me as I was growing up was to continue to ask questions, especially in relation to why and how things happened. This is the attitude that I have used as the premise to conducting and applying research and evaluation. Gabbard and Rodrigues (n.d.) claim that “research is now supporting what we in early childhood education have been saying for years. That is, positive early experiences forge the foundations for lifelong learning and behavior.” At an early age, my grandmother was my inspiration and the most influential person who encouraged my passion for research. In my early teenage years, she entrusted me to take on the responsibility of researching and recording our large family tree. This process has been eighteen years in the making as a number of challenges have impeded this process. However, I am now at the point where I have started to finalize the family tree and consult with extended family members to confirm the information. Another experience that I had when I was eight years old was what I call the HAIR COMB EXPERIMENT. I remember visiting my grandmother, who lived around the corner from my family home, and out of the blue asked her why our hair was so frizzy. She said that it was

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because we had South Sea Islander heritage and that the hair of our ancestors was frizzy in nature. My grandmother then proceeded to demonstrate that we should use the fluff brush, a round brush best suited to the fuzziness of our hair. At this point, I picked up my grandfather’s comb and asked why granddad didn’t have frizzy hair and why he used a hair comb. As I said this, I rolled my grandfather’s comb into the front part of my hair. The hair comb was stuck in a rolled effect at the front top of my scalp. It did not budge! My grandmother tried to extract the comb but it only became tighter. She asked my aunt to take me home so that my mother could attend to it. I remember sitting on the port rack on the back of my aunt’s bike and covering the comb that was stuck in my hair. When I got home, my mother had to cut my hair, and a fringe emerged as a result of my experiment. Needless to say, I learned a lot about my hair and the reason why I should never use a hair comb. It was at this point that I realized I had a yearning to understand more about who I was and how certain experiences influenced me as a person. Alfred Adler (1925) once said that we develop our desires and drives during our childhood and our whole adulthood becomes affected by these childhood experiences, as we keep striving to fulfill desires developed during childhood. At this early stage in my childhood, I was exhibiting action research based on self-reflection. Jean McNiff (McNiff & Whitehead, 2002) suggests that action research is based on self-reflection. In traditional forms of research—empirical research—researchers do research on other people. In action research, researchers do research on themselves. Empirical researchers enquire into other people’s lives. Action researchers enquire into their life. Action research is an enquiry conducted by the self into the self. Ferguson (2011, p. 9) further explains: Think about any event when you had no idea how to do something, yet you found out through tackling it in a systematic way. For example, how many tries did it take before you stopped falling off your bike and actually rode it? You probably did not stop after each fall and rationalise why you were falling off. The chances are you just tried out new strategies until you were successful. This is the basic action principle underpinning action research. It involves identifying a problematic issue, imagining a possible solution, trying it out, evaluating it (did it work?), and changing practice in the light of the evaluation. This is what many people do in numerous life situations.

The experiments, the questions I asked, and the curiosity I had in my childhood and teenage years—inspired me to go on to the university and to learn about the education of children, the importance of schooling,

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and, of course, the studies that prevalent theorists had discovered about learning processes (e.g., the importance of play and social development behaviors). During my studies in the early 1990s, I noted that there was a limited amount of research in relation to different cultural groups and the differences that these learners had in relation to other cultural groups. Given my background, my Aboriginal heritage, and my qualifications as a teacher, I found that I began to question whether Australian Indigenous children had the same learning needs and priorities as nonIndigenous children. For example, I knew that my experiences of living in a large extended Indigenous family required older Indigenous children to be responsible for looking after and teaching younger ones. This was in addition to assisting the adults complete their work. Parents would entrust the younger children, as young as babies, into our care while they performed their work duties. The younger children learned and were taught by the older children, practical components of life. This included things such as learning to ride a bike, cooking sausages, making fires, making damper (a type of bread made by Aboriginal people), and identifying plant and animal species. Teaching mathematics, reading, language skills, and nursery rhymes were never as high in priority as in Western-based culture. This was one of the anomalies I quickly started to assess during my early tertiary years.

Challenges I Encountered in Becoming a Researcher During my tertiary years and subsequently as an Indigenous teacher in a Western school system, I encountered many challenges in my journey to becoming a researcher. These challenges presented in many forms and included: • moving from my community to the city to access and attend tertiary institutions; • ensuring that I had the support of my family to further my knowledge of a Western-based education to enable me to provide assistance to my family and community; and • moving away from my family and losing out on the cultural education that was reemerging from the elders.

The current challenges that still impact on my skills as an Indigenous researcher include: • time required to conduct research in conjunction with having a young family and the demands and commitments of work; • costs associated with conducting research that involves travel, accommodation, equipment, and time off work; • ensuring that the participants in the research are available and have completed all the necessary paperwork;

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• knowledge of key people in the community to connect with in order to build relationships; and • realizing that the intended participants may also have constraints. These would need to be explored and identified by the researcher prior to conducting research.

ReseARchIng wIth IndIgenous AustRAlIAn communItIes One of the most common misconceptions of Western-based researchers is their belief that they have the necessary skills and tools to research Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their communities. This is not always the case. In my job, I assess research applications by non-Indigenous researchers seeking to do research within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. At least 90% of these applicants do not understand the cultural sensitivities, have limited understanding of how to consult and negotiate with Australian Indigenous peoples, and often do not have culturally relevant or appropriate tools to collect data. My role is to provide feedback and ask the research applicants to provide further information on how they will amend their methodologies and communication processes before approval is granted for them to conduct their study within an Australian Indigenous community. My advice to anyone with an interest or desire to undertake research with Indigenous Australians is first to learn about the importance of recognizing the cultural, environmental, and scientific significance of the region. There are important cultural protocols that must be observed, including gaining permission to “go on country,” and traditional owners will make sure this is done the right way. By making contact with traditional owners, researchers can also learn more about the special values of the cultural space that will enhance their understanding and experience of the area. Each Indigenous Aboriginal group in Australia has its own cultural protocols. However, there are some commonalities researchers should be aware of. In every academic discipline, it should be acknowledged that “research involving Indigenous knowledge’s and people’s, needs to be conducted in culturally appropriate ways that fit the cultural preferences, practices and aspirations of Indigenous peoples” (Rigney, 2006, p. 46). I understand the cultural protocols required when entering into an Indigenous community and the processes in seeking permission to conduct research. At every stage, research with and about Indigenous peoples must be founded on a process of meaningful engagement and reciprocity between the researcher and the Indigenous people (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2012). Figure 8.1 below identifies the basic elements I believe a researcher should use when

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Figure 8.1 Basic Elements for a Researcher of Indigenous Peoples and Communities.

working with Indigenous groups. This model contains elements from the “Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies” (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2011).

Consultation, Negotiation, and Mutual Understanding Consultation, negotiation, and mutual understanding are major components of research with Australian Indigenous peoples and should be on-going in nature. Open lines of communication are essential to ensure that all involved in the research have a shared understanding of the outcomes of the research. For example, if a researcher enters an Indigenous community without consulting the community or identifying why they are conducting research, the Indigenous community will quite often form a code of silence, with the more prominent community members requesting an explanation. This example is based on a personal experience, where an anthropologist had entered an Indigenous community in Far North Queensland to ascertain cultural heritage links for a Native title claim. As the members of the Indigenous community knew nothing about the anthropologist, this person was called before the Indigenous peoples in the community to explain the work he would be conducting without consultation and negotiation or necessary approval from the local community. The

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anthropologist was given the third degree and told by Indigenous leaders in the community that cultural protocol required him to write to the Indigenous community group seeking permission to enter the community and identify his purpose. The anthropologist was also told that he needed to provide updates to the community at community forums and at the Indigenous community group monthly meetings. A mutual understanding was established, and the anthropologist and his work has been widely received by the Indigenous peoples within the Far North Queensland community.

Respect for Land, People, and Culture Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a unique relationship to the land and waters of their particular country. This association requires Indigenous peoples to be responsible in protecting the spiritual and environmental well-being of their country, which includes acknowledging and paying respect to spirit ancestors who created the land and introduced customs and languages. Aboriginal peoples’ creation beliefs and customary practices vary greatly across Australia. This is often based on the journeys of ancestral beings and events that took place during the creation period—known by Aboriginal people as the “Dreaming.” Many Aboriginal groups within a community have their own customs and protocols about welcoming visitors to their land (country). Welcoming people is a traditional practice of special significance. When an Aboriginal person visits places in their country, they may talk to the spirit ancestors of that place to identify who they are and who is accompanying them. In some areas, welcoming visitors may be a formal or informal welcome address or another type of ceremony, which may involve the use of fire, smoke, or water. The “acknowledgment” of traditional lands or a welcome from a representative of the local Indigenous group is often initiated at the start of a major event or conference. If a researcher is invited onto Australian Aboriginal lands or into an Aboriginal community, a personal welcome may be extended by traditional owners. As a visitor, being welcomed enables a researcher to acknowledge and reflect about the particular community on whose ancestral lands they stand.

Agreed Outcomes and Benefits When involved in research within an Australian Indigenous community, there should be an understanding between the researcher and participants that the results of a particular study should be transparent and that the participants will benefit in a positive manner from the study.

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Too often, researchers entering Australian Indigenous communities exploit the participants and portray them in a negative view. The participants are the people that make the research possible and, in terms of Australian Indigenous peoples, the information that they are sharing with a researcher is given in good faith that the researcher will honor the information and positively share it with the intended audience. Respecting Indigenous Australian people and their country requires people to act with courtesy. As a researcher, respect of land, people, and culture is important. There are now good guides that can help researchers acquire knowledge and act appropriately (e.g., Queensland Department of Communities, 2011).

AustRAlIAn IndIgenous ReseARcheRs The emergence of Australian Indigenous researchers identifies the cultural capabilities, knowledge, and experiences of Australian Indigenous peoples in relation to research and evaluation processes within a Western context. A number of Australian Indigenous researchers and centers are evolving in Australia. Centers such as the Lowitja Institute, University Indigenous Academic Research Studies Networks, and individual Indigenous researchers are fast becoming recognized for their Indigenous knowledge, qualifications, and experiences within Australian Indigenous research. An example of key Australian Indigenous researchers is evidenced at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), where they have a network of Australian Indigenous researchers listed from a national pool (QUT, 2012). These groups and individuals facilitate the communication between universities, governments, and Australian Indigenous communities and people in relation to agreed outcomes of research.

What Does Being an Australian Indigenous Researcher Mean to Me? As an Australian Indigenous researcher, I believe that I have a responsibility to my community and ancestors to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to assist them in understanding Westernized elements of society. By this, I mean the way in which I use research skills as a tool to collect data and the interpretation of this data to showcase elements of Australian Indigenous society. For example, as part of an evaluation, I conducted focus group meetings with Australian Indigenous youth eighteen to twenty-five years old to ascertain their involvement in a government initiative to encourage their participation in the Australian youth parliament.

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The government initiative was no longer going to be funded by the Australian commonwealth government. I had to provide evidence to determine if the initiative was successful and offer recommendations about the outcomes of the initiative in its entirety. I was able to capture the information from the Indigenous youth group, talk to them from a cultural point of view, and discuss why it was important to capture this information. A number of the Indigenous participants selected for the youth initiative indicated that they participated because they saw it as a step toward giving their local Indigenous communities a chance to voice their concerns relating to social and economic disadvantage and education disadvantage. The report highlighted that the initiative was very successful, and the participants who had been involved in the initiative over the four years had begun to work within their local communities to bring forward change. The outcome of the research indicated to the sponsors of the government initiative the need to continue the program for future Australian Indigenous people. The initiative is being funded for another four years. The long-term outcome will be that a number of Australian Indigenous youth will enter into parliament roles or become involved in their own local communities to continue to forward the agenda of Australian Indigenous peoples. However, in terms of the good, the bad, and the ugly, there have been circumstances where being an Indigenous researcher can be seen as a negative to your own Indigenous community. As in any community, there are those within the group who are quick to cut you off at the knees, so to speak. For instance, in research to evaluate a community project in an Indigenous community, the board of management, all Australian Indigenous peoples, queried the report recommendations. They believed that they could expend their commonwealth funds, which were tied to government performance indicators, in any way, regardless of contractual agreements. This mindset was challenged, and I had to explain the performance/funding requirements that they had agreed to. The situation was noted by a majority of the board; however, some commented that I was bending over backward to accommodate the government. These are only a couple of the challenges I have encountered from my own people in relation to research. At times, this can be confrontational and frustrating. When these blockages occurred, I always managed to find others in the group who were willing to understand the process required to deliver and achieve project outcomes. Often, I had to talk to the organization’s management team to ensure they understood that compliance with contracts and negotiating project deliverables with the government funding body is critical in ensuring that the project achieves

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quality outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the community.

Advantages and Disadvantages In light of my experiences, I have identified a number of advantages and disadvantages in the research cycle for Indigenous researchers (Table 8.1). This may not be the same for all Australian Indigenous researchers and this would depend on individual personal experiences. The information contained in the table below is based on my own personal savvy in terms of my experiences as an Australian Aboriginal researcher. The list of advantages and disadvantages offers thoughts based on a unique cultural perspective and knowledge base. I believe that at times, Australian Indigenous researchers can sometimes be in a better position to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their communities, given some of the advantages listed in the table. Table 8.1 Self-Identified Advantages and Disadvantages of an Australian Aboriginal Researcher. Advantages

Disadvantages

My awareness of cultural protocols and practices within my own local Indigenous community has been developed.

If visiting another Australian state or territory, the cultural protocols and practices of Australian Indigenous peoples in that community may be different and may require clarification.

My knowledge of the local Indigenous community and the key people within that community is already established.

Entering a different Indigenous community within Australia requires establishing relationships with people within that community, which is required to build a knowledge base.

I have an understanding of historical issues that have impacted on Australian Indigenous peoples and its impact on and loss of aspects of the Indigenous culture.

Offering alternative solutions to assist Australian Indigenous peoples to move forward and to maintain what is left of the Indigenous culture is not always achievable.

Having a Western-based education allows me to write about the issues that are impacting on Australian Indigenous peoples and our culture.

A Western-based education can sometimes alienate or threaten Australian Indigenous people, and blockages may arise.

Researching my own people (Australian Indigenous peoples) provides a platform for identifying problems and offering solutions to assist them in becoming successful.

Researching my own people also heightens the negative issues that impact on children, elders, families, uncles, and aunties in Indigenous communities. This is not always easy to identify.

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There is strong commonality between Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples arising from a shared yet diverse culture and heritage. Australian Indigenous peoples and communities have a wide range of backgrounds, needs, and aspirations. The ways in which they interconnect with a Western mainstream society are very different and can sometimes be viewed as interdependent. By this, I mean that, although the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are different from mainstream society, they still rely on mutual assistance, support, cooperation, and interactions with members from a mainstream society. In summation, my role as an Australian Aboriginal researcher is based on the following: • The experiences and the cultural practices I have grown up with have enabled me to be two-way strong when involved in research. I have studied and understand the Western theories and methodologies of research and evaluation, but I also possess the elements of my culture and the connection that I have to it. • The ability I have as a researcher enables me to provide opportunities to my people, as I can effect change by working within communities to understand future changes required to positively impact on the future of my people by using cultural integrity and sensitivities. • Research provides an opportunity whereby I can support my people to propel them into thinking about the future of our culture and the maintenance of our practices for future generations.

In essence, I believe that my experiences from early in my childhood, particularly the hair comb experiment, have enabled me to continue to ask questions that will benefit and impact on my culture. It has provided me with an enquiring mind that consistently reflects on how to positively impact on change necessary to improve and maintain my culture for the future. What sets me apart from Western-based researchers is that my research abilities have been shaped by both Western and Australian Aboriginal cultural practices.

FRAmIng And nAmIng my ReseARch The research that I am involved in is based on an action research model with cultural research elements. Action research can be explained as: a flexible spiral process which allows action (change, improvement) and research (understanding, knowledge) to be achieved at the same time. The understanding allows more informed change and at the same time is informed by that change. People affected by the change are usually involved in the action research. This allows the understanding to be widely shared and the change to be pursued with commitment. (Dick, 2002)

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Generally, the way in which we do something always requires us to check and analyze what occurred and what might be done differently next time. Action research could be described as a cycle in which we act, review, act, and review. In my role as an Indigenous researcher, I consider the cultural context in which I use the process of action research and have expanded on this to create my own research model that I call cultural connectivity. For me, cultural connectivity refers to providing quality research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by establishing a common and shared understanding through building relationships and connecting with people by valuing cultural processes and standards with ethical integrity. Australian Indigenous researchers note that methodologies should include Indigenous peoples’ interests, knowledge, and experiences, and they must have at the center research methodologies and construction of knowledge about Indigenous peoples (Rigney, 2006). Cultural connectivity, for me, has emerged from the connections that Australian Aboriginal people have to the land, their practices, art, and spirituality. It is a way of connecting to aspects of knowledge bases that enables an understanding of the world for Australian Aboriginal people. For example, in our art work, there is always a story that is the basis on which the art is designed. Our stories are generally connected to a piece of land or waterway that describes our beginning or represents a spiritual element of our culture. It is on this basis that I have developed the cultural connectivity model and framework, which I have represented in Figure 8.2. The cultural connectivity framework contains the elements of acting and reviewing. However, the concept is based on a cultural connection with the participants and ensuring that the elements of the model are interrelated to strengthen the process. The elements of this process are further identified below.

Consultation and Negotiation In my experiences, the objectivity of the research should be clear, as many people generally have different perspectives of outcomes and aims. Participants are sometimes uncertain about the research and do not fully understand its purpose or the role of the researcher. With Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, it is important to clearly state the purpose of the research and to involve the respective leaders of that community in the consultation and negotiation phase of the research.

Engagement The next connector is to that of engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples/communities. It is imperative to identify the key people within an Australian Indigenous community and establish

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Figure  8.2  Cultural Connectivity.

­ rofessional relationships with them. In these communities, if you don’t p approach the right people, participation from a large group of key people may be very limited and sufficient data may not be gathered.

Cultural Sensitivities Establishing cultural sensitivities is an important element of the framework. For example a well-informed researcher would understand and know not to conduct research in an Aboriginal community that was mourning the death of an Indigenous person. This is based on understanding the cultural practices of that community. This also involves maintaining and following cultural protocols of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples/communities being researched.

Cultural Integrity Historically, Australian Indigenous peoples have been told what is best for them and have been forced to be participants in foreign processes that far remove them from their cultural practices, values, and beliefs.

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The essence of ensuring that Australian Indigenous peoples become self-determined and governed is to guarantee that they are provided with the concepts and knowledge of how to improve and create quality systems to empower and support future generations.

Reflection and Evaluation Reflection and evaluation requires that the researcher asks questions about the way in which the research was conducted. It enables the researcher to reflect on the process and evaluate the outcomes that were achieved. Researchers should use this connector to validate the tools and processes they have used throughout their research. Quite often, this element is missing in a majority of researchers’ work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples and their communities.

Cultural Approval Cultural approval requires that the researcher provide information from the research in a clear and articulate manner to the participants to enable forward planning. This process is often neglected. Seeking approval from the relevant elders or key Indigenous peoples/groups within the community is an essential connector when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants/communities. This process is also usually neglected.

conclusIon In closing, I reiterate some of the main points from this chapter. This includes the following concepts for researchers interested in conducting studies with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. • Understanding the participants of the study and the historical and contemporary contexts that have shaped their practices, values, and beliefs. • Respecting cultural difference and diversity and the cultural perspectives of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. • Acknowledging cultural protocols of the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. • Ensuring that the cultural connectivity model is understood prior to conducting research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. • Prior to planning to work with an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander community, identify and include the key persons in the research planning process. • Where possible, use Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who are researchers and who can provide assistance to the researcher and the study. • Western-based researchers need be culturally aware of the practices, processes, and historical and political contexts of Australian Indigenous peoples and their communities.

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These are elements that can assist researchers embarking on a research study with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This advice is based on my own experience and may be described differently by individual Australian Indigenous peoples.

note 1. The term “Indigenous Australians” is used in this chapter to collectively describe the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

ReFeRences Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. (1999). As a matter of fact: Answering the myths and misconceptions about Indigenous Australians (2nd ed.). Woden, ACT, Australia: Office of Public Affairs, ATSIC. Adler, A. (1925). The practice and theory of individual psychology. London: Routledge. Australian Human Rights Commission. (2012). A statistical overview of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia—2008. www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/statistics/index.html#Heading34 (accessed June 30, 2012). Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. (2011). Guidelines for ethical research in Australian Indigenous Studies. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. (2012). http://www. nursing.health.wa.gov.au/docs/scholarships/ATSI_Guidelines_Ethical_Research.pdf (accessed October 8, 2012). Central Australian Stolen Generation & Aboriginal Corporation. (2012). Who are the stolen generation? http://centralstolengens.org.au/ (accessed June 30, 2012). Dalby, A. (1998). Dictionary of languages: The definitive reference to more than 400 languages. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Dick, B. (2002). Action research: Action and research. www.aral.com.au/resources/aandr. html (accessed June 30, 2012). Dudgeon, P., Wright, M., Paradies, Y., Garvey, D., & Walker, I. (2010). The social, cultural and historical context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. In N. Purdie, P. Dudgeon, & R. Walker (Eds.), Working together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice (pp. 25–42). Canberra: Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Department of Ageing. Ferguson, P. B. (2011). Action research for professional development: Concise advice for new action researchers. Hamilton, New Zealand: The University of Waikato. Gabbard, C. & Rodrigues, L. (n.d.). Optimizing early brain and motor development through movement. www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view. aspx?ArticleID = 360 (accessed May 7, 2011). McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J. (2002). Action research: Principles and practice (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. McSmith, A. & Finn, C. (2008, February 13). Australia’s stolen generation: “To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, we say sorry.” The Independent. http:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australias-stolen-generation-to-themothers-and-the-fathers-the-brothers-and-the-sisters-we-say-sorry-781543.html (accessed September 13, 2012). Queensland Department of Communities. (2011). Protocols for consultation and negotiation with Aboriginal people. Brisbane, Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services.

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Queensland Government. (2010). Queensland closing the gap report: 2008/09 indicators and initiatives for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Brisbane, Australia: Queensland Government. QUT. (2012). Indigenous researchers. www.isrn.qut.edu.au/about/isrnmembers/indigenresearchers.jsp (accessed June 30, 2012). Rigney, L.-I. (2006). Indigenist research and Aboriginal Australia. In J. E. Kunnie & N. I. Goduka (Eds.), Indigenous people’s wisdom and power: Affirming our knowledge through narratives (pp. 32–48). Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing. Walsh, M. (2004). Overview of the Indigenous languages of Australia. In S. Romaine (Ed.), Language in Australia (2nd ed., pp. 27–48). Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 9

Being and Becoming an Indigenous Social Researcher Gabriel Cruz Ignacio

In memory of Isabel Lozano Montor, Indigenous Chinanteca (1917–2011), my most heart-felt acknowledgments. —September 2011

My name is Gabriel Cruz Ignacio, and my intention in this space of self-reflexivity is to tell about the vicissitudes of an ordinary contemporary person, an elementary school teacher, and student-researcher of Indigenous origin, who has recently become interested in the higher education offered to “ethnolinguistic” young people. I was born February 28, 1979 in the city of Oaxaca, Mexico, the son of a Mixtec father, a “regular” primary school teacher,1 and a Chinanteca mother and homemaker. I grew up and lived throughout my childhood in Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán, Oaxaca, originally a Zapotec village, later populated by Mixtec people, situated on the edge of the central valleys of Oaxaca. I have also visited and lived intermittently in the village of San Lucas Ojitlán, Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, the birthplace of my mother. According to my parents, from the time I was small I was humildito, which means peaceful, calm, or innocent.

Educational Experiences I retain only images of certain teachers about kindergarten (1983–1985), from the friendly way in which they treated me; in general, I recall little. Looking back now, years later, I sometimes see myself reflected in the little ones who come to kindergarten, and in the pedagogical practices of the Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 153–170. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 153

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teachers, which differ little from those I experienced long ago. For example, it is normal for children in urban settings who come from Indigenous communities to attend schools where their maternal language, much less their cultural practices, is not acknowledged. It is commonly said that in castellanización (the teaching of oral Spanish), Indigenous languages have only played the role of a “bridge” or “crutch,” and this has been the case for more than thirty years in Mexican educational practice (see Hamel et al., 2004). I remember my primary education (1985–1991) as the stage at which I began to realize that people learn in different ways and at different rates. I single out this time in particular because my father was very angry when he realized that I was not learning to read after more than half the school year had gone by. Likewise, I can see clearly the reading primers based on syllabic and phonetic methods, the endless copying of syllable charts, and the dictations of isolated words used to teach writing. These practices survive today, revealing failed attempts to connect Indigenous knowledge and cultural models with school processes (Muñoz, 2006a). I also remember my fourth-grade teacher for his friendliness and cordial way of treating me. In junior high school (1991–1994), my memory of my primary school teachers, one per grade, vanished when I encountered a curriculum that assigned different teachers to each subject for the three school years. In that setting, I summarized, answered workbook questions, and solved problems. I recall fondly my math teacher from the first year, a great friend in the classroom because he always tried to help us solve problems, recognizing that not all of us learn in the same way. I also remember my Spanish teacher in the third year for his teachings, his disposition, and the human quality he projected. I appreciated many teachers because of their friendship, such as my social studies teacher the first year, the math teacher the second year, and the teacher in the technical drawing workshop. Although by then I had adapted to a school context unrelated to the practices I knew at home, I realized that it was difficult to identify myself as Indigenous, given that there were neither recognized social spaces, informal networks of Indigenous students, nor any possibility that the school would concern itself with identifying us and reclaiming language and culture as human rights. It was at this level that I saw a profession that attracted me right away: architecture. My love of architecture dates to that time because of the importance my junior high school teacher attributed to the details of the things we were planning to build. I remember that we were not only planning projects to make buildings but also trying to design or represent unusual forms that were closer to the things around us. I think the aesthetics and

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attention to certain qualities of things awakened in me the feeling that architecture would be my chosen field of study. When I entered high school (1994–1997), I didn’t have many options since the lack of orientation by teachers and my family and my scant economic resources forced me to choose High School No. 6 and work toward the general diploma in social sciences and humanities offered by the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO).2 Things changed drastically at this level: Teachers’ demands decreased markedly and my parents didn’t ask for details of what I was doing in high school. These factors, including my parents’ seemingly excess confidence in me, had consequences for my academic performance. I became overconfident. I didn’t do well in my subjects; I didn’t have the best averages; and I didn’t participate in class. At the same time, however, I wanted to escape my poverty and had decided to become an architect. With my organizational abilities and my mother’s strong emotional support, I managed to graduate from high school. Just as in my earlier schooling, I remember various professors. I recall the professor of Greco-Latin etymology in the first year who helped me understand certain words when I did not have a definition at hand. I remember my second-year math professor who taught me the various possibilities for solving an arithmetic or geometry problem. And I recall, from the third year, the range of methodologies taught by my professor of analytical geometry and the enthusiasm of my professor of anatomy. When I left high school, my lack of economic resources (faced by many young Indigenous people today)3 and the possibility of entering the teaching profession by taking my father’s place4 obliged me to give up the profession that I had originally wanted to study and, after various difficulties, begin my career as a primary school teacher (1998).

My tEaching yEars In Mexico, the sub-system of higher education provides offerings such as those of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN), directed at teachers already in service but without a university diploma or Bachelor’s degree (also known as “professionalization”). Studying at UPN and working in Indigenous, bilingual contexts made me think about how to attend to children who speak an Indigenous maternal language and are just beginning to use Spanish. It was at this stage that I rediscovered my identity in my own roots and sensed the discrimination, inequity, and nonrecognition of linguistic and cultural diversity on the part of the socalled mestizo society. But let us keep in sequence. When I began as a teacher,5 I was happy to have a job but I also knew that I had a great responsibility. The practices

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of my various colleagues and the social context of the school consumed me almost completely,6 leaving me carried away by the (paternalistic) perception I had of the students’ rates of learning, the insufficient commitment of teachers in bilingual Indigenous settings, and my own limited experience as a teacher, which often caused me to do things I had hated when my teachers did them when I was a student (e.g., the endless copying of lines and lessons, and the teacher’s almost exclusive use of exposition and explication as pedagogical strategies). During this period, I began my studies at UPN7 (1998–2002), promising myself that I would leave at the end of the first semester if I did not do well in the courses because I still had my chosen profession in mind. But effort, the desire to get ahead, and love of my profession allowed me to finish the first term with good grades. This story repeated itself until I finished my bachelor’s studies and acquired a commitment to myself, to the children, to the people, and to my work. In contrast to my previous schooling, at the university I met various advisors who had a strong influence on me. From the professor who taught school, community, and culture, I brought away knowledge and procedures that help me describe the contexts in which I have worked. I took courses on research methodology (el eje metodológico), and still remember the contributions of two advisors, one of them an important figure and great friend whom I admire for his intellectual acuity (Saúl Vázquez Rodríguez), and the observations and suggestions of my thesis readers. I cannot close this paragraph without noting that even those teachers who were lazy or bad tempered taught me something, for I learned to identify the good and the bad in my teaching practice, my successes, and failures so that I could better pass on to my students my own passion for learning. After receiving my Bachelor’s degree in primary education (2005), a process that took me three more years, my participation in educational activities was more sustained. I recognized the difficulties that students confront in monolingual Spanish schools and I tried to make learning in a second language and the school subjects8 themselves less difficult,9 for, although there exists a sub-system of Indigenous education (the largest in Latin America) throughout Mexico, these schools are not always located where they should be. We could say the same thing about the regular schools (those taught in Spanish only) found in communities with an obvious Indigenous presence. These strategies, initiated by the Mexican educational system, stem principally from two historic causes. First, following the 1910 revolution, unity provided by one language, one flag, and a national anthem was urgently needed (Heath, 1972, pp. 94–150). Second, Indigenous education had taken on three forms, reflecting its yet incipient development: bilingual education (diversity as a problem),

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bilingual-bicultural education (diversity as a resource), and intercultural bilingual education (diversity as a right) (Muñoz, 1998, 2004, 2010).

BEcoMing a rEsEarchEr Although I had been aware of what my work implied, I still had not undertaken real research activities. I kept coming up with practical solutions to problems in teaching and resisted thinking that knowing and understanding educational phenomena is just as important as pedagogical intervention. I also marveled at the work of those teachers who, with few didactic resources, or using commonly criticized practices,10 obtained satisfactory results. An evaluation of the results I obtained at that time shows some success in teaching Spanish and reducing the use of the Indigenous language as a bridge or medium to achieve the curriculum objectives. Perhaps some of the first things I learned were that these students spoke a first language, that they were competent in it, and that I could create better conditions for beginning to learn Spanish in a classroom that demanded work in the dominant language. These attempts and successes are as difficult for beginning teachers to assimilate as they are for teachers with many years of experience. With my entry into the postgraduate program for a Master’s degree in the sociolinguistics of bilingual elementary education at UPN (2006–2009), I took up the path of research, inspired principally by my own origins, my work with children of ethnolinguistic origin, and by the search for a professional identity that, up to then, had remained undefined. I believe that the difficulties I had encountered in my work, the quasi-explanations that I had received from colleagues at work, and the disconnect between teacher and theory all kindled my desire to learn. The inequality, discrimination, and inequity (Muñoz, 2010) I have perceived in the contexts in which I have worked, the “miserabilist” logic (Jordan, 1998, p. 6) with which some teachers look at students, and the continuous separation between pedagogical action and reflection I have witnessed are elements that allow me to see reality in a new light. Things went well at first with my studies. My previous knowledge allowed me to advance through the qualifying term and first semester. However, the professors’ way of presenting the courses and the logic by which knowledge was constructed were very different from what I was used to. Although the professors tried to mediate the teaching-learning process, I felt confused by many of them and overwhelmed. I did not comprehend why it cost me so much to understand, and I regularly criticized their inability to mediate knowledge as I had tried to do it with my primary school students or the way my earlier teachers had.11

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Finally, I understood that the dynamic of the postgraduate degree itself and the teaching styles of the professors, among other factors, affected the development of the courses to a great extent. Professors and advisors assume that the burden is entirely, or almost entirely, on graduate students to adjust to university teaching and learning. I believe that there needs to be dialogue between teachers and learners. We need to consider that these graduate students will return to Indigenous schools and communities, where they will need to negotiate culturally appropriate ways of teaching and working with parents and other community members. My most important experience at this level was writing my thesis. I still remember that the third semester12 was almost finished and I still had no defined research topic. I felt desperate, but with great effort I managed to overcome this uncertainty, and in the end I was able to develop my thesis topic. It focused on capturing the vicissitudes lived by bilingual Indigenous teachers in relation to their linguistic, cultural, and identity development during their schooling and up until their present stage of life (Cruz, 2009a). My research uses the focus that authors such as Héctor Muñoz term “sociolinguistic reflexivity” (Muñoz, 1990, 2006a, 2006b, 2010) in autobiographical narratives. The principal findings reveal a temporalnarrative sequence of reflexive discourse according to the following stages or phases: (1) family and community origins; (2) socialization in primary school; (3) new community, regional, and/or urban contexts in middle and high school; and (4) employment and/or higher education in urban settings. The events, explanations, and evaluations occurring most frequently in the reflections of Indigenous-language speakers recall experiences of institutional violence and linguistic assimilation, discrimination, and abuse for not using Spanish correctly in the urban environment. An additional finding from the narratives relates to the interethnic relations between bilingual speakers in urban and regional contexts and their use of pan-ethnic codes and strategies; for example, a Mixe and a Zapotec will use Spanish to communicate with each other. These types of statements by Indigenous speakers reveal multiple threads of meaning as they report and question the beliefs, prejudices, and stereotypes that the mestizo society (specifically in Oaxaca) has historically held. In bringing their experiences to consciousness, speakers mention repeatedly the need for recognition, respect for differences, openness to a diversity of ideas, and the use of Indigenous languages in all social domains. Although I did not initially think of investigating the discourse of Indigenous bilingual speakers, nor of conducting sociolinguistic research, the sensitivity I developed during my long service as a teacher

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in Indigenous settings, the rediscovery of my identity, and the friendships I have with the participants (bilingual teachers) have allowed me to see these phenomena from within and, at the same time, reflexively from without. I completed my Master’s degree three months after I finished my coursework. This experience constituted my formal initiation as a social researcher of sociolinguistic phenomena in education. People who influenced me were unquestionably my professor from Fredericton, Canada, who taught reading and editing of academic texts in the qualifying term course; Robert M. Leavitt, with whom I maintain a great friendship; and my professor from Chile, Héctor Muñoz Cruz, who taught educational sociolinguistics.

rEsEarching BilingualisM and indigEnEity Currently, I am studying for a doctorate in linguistics at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), Unidad Iztapalapa, in Mexico City. Along with my studies, I am collaborating on the research project called Linguistic and Academic Proficiency of Bilingual Indigenous Students in Mexican Universities: Communicative and Academic Abilities, Sociolinguistic Reflexivity, and Intercultural Language Policies (Project UAM-CONACYT 99274). This project assumes that postsecondary educational experiences with a multicultural and multilinguistic orientation are changing in two ways. On the one hand, they are tending toward a greater and broader field of specialization. On the other, they are trying to include in teacher preparation new workplace competencies to introduce changes that will have an impact in intercultural communities. The most important aspects of this incipient educational development involve the following: (1) Indigenous institutions of higher learning; (2) programs or institutes within public and private universities; (3) proposals to create programs or institutions in regions of diversity; and (4) locally and internationally supported scholarships for higher education. As a research team, we believe that the interculturality proposed by some of the emergent programs is not for Indigenous people only, nor is it for the purpose of helping non-Indigenous people understand Indigenous people and cultures. Interculturality is taken to be a basis for modern democracies, a guarantee of peace, and a better quality of life. The implementation of a multifaceted sector of Indigenous higher education will open new perspectives and challenges for teacher preparation and schooling in general and will increase understanding of the social and cultural composition of Latin American universities.

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indigEnous rEsEarch ModEl The general model of access to the contexts of the research has been developed according to a model of university ethnography inspired by the trilogy dominios, eventos, y reflexividad (domains, events, and reflexivity) (Fishman, 1972; Muñoz, 2010; Muñoz, 2008–2012). This model consists of three lines of investigation with their respective specific studies. The first proposes an ethnographic model of academic communication within and without university classrooms through identification of genres of oral communication, identification of strategies for revising and editing written texts, identification of sociolinguistic (attitudinal) insecurities in Indigenous students, and application of strategies and reflexivity in teaching and learning second languages. The second line (which constitutes my own research) has as its objective the exploration of these students’ reasoning and of their values with respect to higher education in public universities in the state of Oaxaca. In particular, I will attempt to identify reflexive textual genres, discourse about and practice of multicultural and plurilingual education, reflexive practices in specific interactional domains, and thematic characteristics of students’ representations of: (1) their demands and conflicts with respect to higher education; (2) the phenomena that affect Indigenous languages and cultures on campus; and (3) socially based methods of protecting and promoting these languages and cultures. The third line of investigation looks at the numerous meanings produced by the institutions that develop and administer the policies that shape the components of a multilateral and institutional “space of knowledge,” which functions as a point of reference and a storehouse of legal standards, public communication practices, and government programs. These meanings make up the institutional documents that operate as second- or third-level artifacts and mediate the recognition, protection, and promotion of Indigenous language and culture. The processes of sociolinguistic theorization that we call thematization and argumentation enter a culminating phase when the principal convergent interchange occurs between language policy institutions and Indigenous language speakers. Participation in this collective project has allowed me to understand the debates over higher education for students of ethnolinguistic origin and the research projects that have been developed on these themes. In this regard, research projects come together in the study of the recently established intercultural universities directed principally at Indigenous students. This is distinct from our project, which looks at what happens in institutions of higher education that have traditionally functioned according to a monolingual and monocultural model.

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sharing What i KnoW I recently began working at UPN, Unidad Oaxaca, in the Bachelor of Education degree, Plan 1994, and in the Bachelor of Preschool and Primary Education for Indigenous Contexts, Plan 1990. In these teaching environments, I am able to share what I have learned in my studies and professional experiences. Part of this knowledge is based on the study of ideologies and attitudes about languages, identity, and teaching in bilingual contexts, and educational development in Indigenous regions (Muñoz, 1983, 1998, 2002; Muñoz, 2001) and on classroom discourse as improvization (Erickson, 1993). I have also studied conflict between languages, discourse, and cultures (Hamel, 1996; Hamel et al., 2004); at the level of pedagogical intervention, I have initiated the use of the educational documentary as a medium for reflecting on language, culture, and identity practices (Leavitt & Levine, 2011). Finally, I’ve incorporated some studies on the needs and difficulties of primary school teachers to teach history (Vázquez, 2006, 2011).

Facing challEngEs Now I will describe some of the challenges that I have encountered on my path to becoming a social researcher in education. First, the context in which I involved myself was not the best. The lack of support or orientation from most of my teachers at different levels of education caused me to see teachers’ work as an end in itself. I didn’t set high academic goals for myself or think of following the path of social or educational research. Second, my academic history, which was not the best, gradually caught up with me. Especially at the postgraduate level, I realized that I was not taking full advantage of my professors’ teaching. Of course, a great part of all this stems from the monocultural and monolingual policies of Mexican universities, the intercultural and linguistic conflict at all levels of education, and the potential cognitive barriers caused by ethnolinguistic factors. Along this same line, one of the voids in my studies that I had to fill was my lack of experience in research itself. Nevertheless, my participation in academic settings such as technical seminars, congresses, colloquia, and forums has permitted me to learn from others and feel more secure in what I do. In this self-reflection exercise, I cannot fail to mention that on more than one occasion, lack of economic resources caused me to postpone certain activities. For example, today it is essential to master two or more languages, and in my country one learns to do this by attending a public school with programs in such languages or a private academy with

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reasonable fees. I have not yet been able to achieve fluency in another language, so I had to have this manuscript translated into English. As another example, in Mexico it is unlikely that someone without financial support or a scholarship would be able to study for a Master’s degree or doctorate without worrying about basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. In the same way, the cost of travel from my home to the national capital, the purchase of bibliographic resources, tuition fees, and other expenses determine greatly the possibility of my continuing to study at this level.

signiFicancE oF BEing an indigEnous rEsEarchEr The motivations for my research in education, specifically in education directed at Indigenous students, are without doubt my own Indigenous origins,13 my hope for the recognition of and respect for the linguistic and cultural diversity of the Indigenous peoples of the world, and the possibility of contributing to the scientific explication of the sociolinguistic phenomena experienced by these people. Those who are Indigenous by origin and by self-identification have committed me deeply to the roles that I play as an Indigenous person, student, teacher, and researcher, for it is necessary to leave aside prejudices and paternalistic exclusive attitudes that are of little benefit to Indigenous peoples and to society as a whole. Today, being an Indigenous researcher has a special significance for me because in my family—that is, my paternal and maternal grandparents, my father and mother, uncles, aunts, and cousins—I am the second one to study at the university level,14 and the first to dedicate myself to social research in education focusing on sociolinguistic phenomena. Being a social researcher has its problems. When I began my doctoral research, I had no idea how difficult it would be to obtain information from people, especially if they don’t perceive it as being of any particular interest or importance to them. For example, in a department attending to Indigenous students in an institution of higher learning, the students provided me with information (work plans, activity reports, etc.) only after a year of my visiting frequently and gaining their friendship. Thus, being Indigenous oneself does not guarantee that informants or other people will provide necessary support because to some degree you are an intruder, regardless of the relationships you establish. Disinterested support and perseverance are doubtless the best allies. To cite one example, at first I dedicated myself to observing events in specific domains, the gathering of statistics, and so on, but as time passed, I have increasingly involved myself with academics, students, and other actors in the universities. Now they share their accomplishments, ask my opinions,

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and participate in the design and development of some of the learning activities such as reflection on actions that promote linguistic and cultural diversity in the university by students’ ethnolinguistic origin. Another difficulty that I have perceived relates to contacts with other professionals or researchers who have been in the field for a longer time than I have. It is common to hear them say that I am a novice and that I should not call myself Indigenous since I don’t speak the language of my parents. However, growing up in my family and living with persons from other ethnic groups have helped me share with those around me the little that I have learned. It is an ethical and professional commitment to support researchers who, like me, are just beginning. I think that this is the principal characteristic that defines me and distinguishes me from others.

ovErcoMing challEngEs As I have noted earlier, a common element in families with few economic resources is that little money goes to education. In my case, due to the work I have done academically, professionally, and as a member of a union, I have received scholarships for my Master’s degree (from SEP-IEEPO Section XXII) and doctorate (from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología [CONACYT] for the latter). These have supported me in great measure and helped me meet the expenses generated by my research. Additionally, by participating in a collective project of theoretical research sponsored by the CONACYT of Mexico, I have the opportunity to conduct research with a broad scope, participating in various academic settings, and I can rely on support in the acquisition of bibliographical sources and diverse other materials. Although the support is not sufficient for me to dedicate myself full-time to research work, it permits me to live modestly. In writing this, I have tried to tell a part of my life story as related to my schooling and the processes that have led me to become interested in research, with attention to two conceptual propositions: (1) to establish that, without exception, in autobiographical narratives, argumentation, evaluation, and information tend toward parameters of historicity, the appraisal of one’s origins, and the formulation of expectations for a desirable future; and (2) to demonstrate that reference to oneself, to languages, cultures, and identities permits one to accede to deeper levels of reflexivity. In other words, the line of research that I am developing intends to demonstrate, from the public discourse of persons and from different kinds of texts and different pragmatic or discursive strategies, the existence of a certain pre-theoretical rationality or knowledge of common sense, called “sociolinguistic reflexivity.”

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contriButions i havE MadE I will say that I have worked for eleven years as a primary school teacher in bilingual Indigenous settings (1998–2009). During this time, I have been a commissioned director (director comisionado) with a group (2001–2002). Since 2009, I have been an academic advisor at UPN Oaxaca. My academic contributions include the following: three notes derived from my work on my Bachelor’s degree and Master’s thesis, which I share freely on a blog15; a book based on my Master’s thesis (Cruz, 2012), one note on a specific technique used to measure attitudes (Cruz, 2009b), two articles in books related to my Master’s thesis (Cruz, 2009c, 2010a); and collaboration in an evaluation report on a Bachelor’s degree program at UPN Oaxaca (Herrera & Guzmán, 2010). I have also vetted two articles for a journal specializing in language themes and have been a commentator in an academic forum. Further, I am a reader for three Master’s thesis manuscripts. In addition, I have given one seminar and three courses related to the production of academic texts (Cruz, 2011a) and the development of verbal reasoning (Cruz, 2011b) and organized a technical seminar on Sociolinguist Research on Plurilingualism and Intercultural Education in Higher Learning (Cruz, 2010b) as part of the collective project in which I participate. I have also collaborated as an assistant in a project on the documentation of an Indigenous language in the state of Oaxaca (2010).16 Language Keepers (Leavitt & Levine, 2011) is an innovative approach combining descriptive linguistics, documentary video, and community outreach to revive speaker groups to use heritage language in traditional and contemporary activities while recording it for language learning, dictionary development, research, cultural transmission, and revival.17 The relevance of this work lies in the possibility that speakers recognize and value their language from a variety of daily linguistic and cultural practices. The project was developed in the municipality of San Sebastian Totontepec Villa de Morelos, video-recording activities such as the clearing of brush to prepare a field for sowing, the making of panela from cane juice, the removal of kernels from ears of dried corn, and so on. I have also participated in field activities related to ethnographic studies of bilingual primary schools (Cruz, 2009d, 2009e, 2009f, 2010c) and as a presenter in and out of the state of Oaxaca (Cruz, 2009g, 2010c, 2011c, 2011d, 2011e, 2011f). My expectations for the future are to make myself a social actor who understands the dynamics of sociolinguistic and reflexive phenomena in

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the field of the education offered to Indigenous communities and to be a better person who socializes with and learns from others. I hope that through qualitative research on languages, identities, and cultures I can affect the design of public education, language, and culture policies for Indigenous localities in the state and in the nation. I cannot state too strongly that my perspective as a researcher of Indigenous origin has gradually developed within the context of my actions. My way of seeing the world and my ways of thinking and acting depend on a process of constant reflection and renewal within the continuous flow of my life experience. This reflexive process is a recursive intellectual exercise that examines my reasoning and assessment. My underlying premise is that this “narrative” is part of both the genesis and the constitution of myself in relation to the social world in which I live. In other words, the rediscovery of my Indian identity and its impact on my personal and professional life suggests that over time, because of my family ties, the contexts in which I worked, my studies, my friends, and others, I understood what it means to be a teacher and researcher of Indian origin. Finally, though not of least importance but as the beginning of another story, I celebrate the support of my family, my wife, my children, and my friends because they are the chief reasons for the things I do.

notEs Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Professor Emeritus Robert M. Leavitt (University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, ) for the translation of this text from Spanish into English. I can be contacted at [email protected]. 1. This is a teacher at the level of ordinary primary education (as opposed to primary education for Indigenous children); that is, teaching in Spanish only. 2. The high schools of UABJO do not have a good reputation, in contrast to those of the Centro de Bachillerato Industrial y de Servicios or the Colegio de Bachilleres de Oaxaca. 3. The minimal presence of members of these communities is noticeable in higher education. The sub-secretary of the branch estimates that today there are about 60 thousand Indigenous students at this level, who represent 2 percent of the total enrolment of more than 3 million students (Avilés, 2011; my translation). Of every 100 Indigenous students, only two reach the level of higher education (La Jornada, Mexico). http://anuario.upn.mx/index.php/noticias-educativas/2011/641la-jornada/51883-de-cada-100-indigenas-2-llegan-a-la-educacion-superior-expertos. html (accessed April 20, 2012). 4. In the state of Oaxaca, according to a policy agreement between Section XXII of Oaxacan teachers and the state Department of Public Education, teachers have the right, on retirement, to hand down their position to one of their children. 5. Paradoxically, or rather because of my training and the field in which my father had worked, I entered as a teacher in a regular primary school instead of as a teacher in an Indigenous primary school.

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6. I refer here to practices and activities characteristic of young people and adults, some of which still persist in me. For example, I spend a lot of time on leisure activities, which subtracts time from my teaching. 7. Bachelor’s degree in primary education, Plan 1994, of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Unidad 201, Oaxaca, Mexico. 8. A fundamental concept to keep in mind when working in schools located in bilingual Indigenous settings is to know whether Spanish will be treated as a school subject or as a second language. 9. As mentioned earlier, my introduction to basic education was in the regular primary system (monolingual in Spanish); this meant that my encounter with academic models designed explicitly for Indigenous children was postponed until recently. 10. Here I refer to teachers who speak the language of their students and use it to teach Spanish as a second language and school content, using such methods as copying lines, dictation, and so on. Criticism of these teachers (by teachers who speak only Spanish) is based on these practices. 11. The reflection derived from this idea is that in my work as a teacher, I have tried to respond to the students’ needs considering what, how, when, and by what means they learn. 12. The postgraduate degree is two-and-one-half years in length: one qualifying trimester (selection of candidates), four academic semesters, and four months to complete the written work and write the professional examination. 13. On September 25, 2011, my maternal grandmother, Isabel Lozano Montor, a Chinanteca woman and self-sacrificing homemaker, died at the age of 94. I dedicate this work to her. 14. My father studied at the normal school level, and my sister obtained a Bachelor’s degree in primary education and works as an educator. 15. See the blog Paulo Freire—Espacio de reflexión, opinión y difusión. Oaxaca-México. http://unserylanada.skyrock.com/ (accessed September 28, 2011). 16. This project is situated within a broader effort first undertaken more than three decades ago by Robert M. Leavitt, David A. Francis, Ben Levine et al. (2008–2012), Language Keepers: Documenting Endangered Language for Education, Research and Revival. http://www.languagekeepers.org/background.php (accessed May 24, 2012). 17. See Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Language Portal (http://pmportal.org).

rEFErEncEs Avilés, K. (2011). De cada 100 indígenas 2 llegan a la educación superior: Expertos. La Jornada, Mexico. http://anuario.upn.mx/index.php/noticias-educativas/2011/641-lajornada/51883-de-cada-100-indigenas-2-llegan-a-la-educacion-superior-expertos.html (accessed April 20, 2012). Cruz, G. (2009a). El diseño ético de la intencionalidad en narrativas autobiográficas: Un acercamiento desde la reflexividad sociolingüística. Master’s thesis, Sociolinguistics of Basic Education and Bilingual, National Pedagogical University, Oaxaca. Cruz, G. (2009b). El diferencial semántico: Un espacio universal de orden psicológico. Signos Lingüísticos 5, 111–122. Department of Philosophy, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City. Cruz, G. (2009c). Reflexividad sociolingüística y metacognición: Encuentros y desencuentros. In H. Muñoz & E. Santana (Eds.), Configuraciones y reconfiguraciones. Impactos de la reflexividad sociolingüística, de las políticas del lenguaje y de la varia1bilidad fónica en las lenguas históricas (pp. 233–283). Mexico City: Department of Philosophy, UAM-Iztapalapa.

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Cruz, G. (2009d). Fieldwork in elementary school “Generación Futura.” Tamazulápam del Espíritu Santo, Mixe, Oaxaca, November 17. Organized by the Master’s Program in Sociolinguistics of Basic Education and Bilingual, National Pedagogical University 201, Oaxaca, Mexico. Cruz, G. (2009e). Fieldwork in elementary school “Ignacio Zaragoza.” Tierra Blanca, Tamazulápam del Espíritu Santo, Mixe, Oaxaca, November 16. Organized by the Master’s Program in Sociolinguistics of Basic and Bilingual Education. National Pedagogical University 201, Oaxaca, Mexico. Cruz, G. (2009f). Fieldwork video project: “Documentación del Mixe de Totontepec, Villa de Morelos, Oaxaca,” March 9–13. Coordinated by R. Leavitt & B. Levine, University of New Brunswick, Canada and Watching Place Productions, Rockland, Maine. Cruz, G. (2009g). Procesos identitarios desde narrativas autobiográfícas de hablantes de lenguas indígenas. Presented at the 7th Central American Congress of Anthropology, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, February 16–20. Cruz, G. (2010a). El diseño ético de la intencionalidad en narrativas autobiográficas: Un acercamiento desde la reflexividad sociolingüística. In M. Coronado & P. Mena (Coords.), Lengua y cultura en procesos educativos: Investigaciones en Oaxaca (pp. 133–150). Oaxaca, Mexico: National Pedagogical University. Cruz, G. (2010b). Organizing Committee seminar: Reflexividad sociolingüística sobre plurilingüismo y comunicación intercultural en la educación superior. National Pedagogical University, Oaxaca, Mexico, November 19–20. Cruz, G. (2010c). Fieldwork in the Intercultural University of Chiapas. San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México, May 17–18. Cruz, G. (2010d). La orientación ética del discurso autobiográfico de hablantes bilingües indígenas: una mirada desde la reflexividad sociolingüística. Presented at the 8th Colloquium of Linguistics at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), Mexico City, April 21–23. Cruz, G. (2011a). Course redacción de textos académicos. Unidad de Atención Académica a Estudiantes Indígenas (UAAEI). Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca. Oaxaca, Mexico, May 22–30. Cruz, G. (2011b). Curso propedéutico razonamiento verbal. Unidad de Atención Académica a Estudiantes Indígenas (UAAEI). Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca. Oaxaca, Mexico, April 6, 7, 13, 14, May 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, 19. Cruz, G. (2011c). Introducción a los mecanismo de consulta para la reforma a la ley General de Educación. Intercultural 3rd meeting of university students. Academic Support Unit Indigenous Students. Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez Oaxaca. San Andrés Huayapam, Oaxaca, Mexico, December 10. Cruz, G. (2011d). Educación y actores indígenas en México: Un acercamiento desde la reflexividad sociolingüística. Celebración de los 75 años de vida de la Escuela Primaria General “Pablo L. Sidar,” durante los días 30 de noviembre. Santa María Tlahuitoltepec Mixe, Oaxaca, Mexico, December 1. Cruz, G. (2011e). Conmemoración del día Internacional de los Pueblos Indígenas. Intercultural 2nd meeting of university students. Academic Support Unit Indigenous Students. Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, Mexico. July. Cruz, G. (2011f). Reflexividad sociolingüística de hablantes bilingües indígenas: Subjetividad y valoración en experiencias educativas interculturales. Seminar on Investigación Educativa “La formación de sujetos en el campo de la educación en las sociedades contemporáneas de la región sur-sureste de México.” Regional Forums Mexican Council of Educational Research (COMIE). Oaxaca, Mexico, June 3. Cruz, G. (2012). El diseño ético de la intencionalidad de hablantes bilingües indígenas. Reflexividad sociolingüística desde narrativas autobiográficas. Sarbrücken, Germany: Academic Publishing GmbH & Co.

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Erickson, F. (1993). El discurso en el aula como improvisación: Las relaciones entre la estructura de la tarea académica y la estructura de la participación social en clase. In V. M. Honorio, G. C. F. Javier, & D. R. Ángel (Eds.), Lecturas de antropología para educadores: El ámbito de la antropología de la educación y de la etnografía escolar (pp. 325–353). Madrid: Trotta. Fishman, J. (1972). Domains and the relationship between micro- and macro-sociolinguistics. In J. J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication (pp. 435–453). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hamel, R. (1996). Conflicto entre lenguas, discursos y culturas en el México indígena: ¿La apropiación de lo ajeno y la enajenación de lo propio? In U. Klesing-Rempel Ursula (Ed.), Lo propio y lo ajeno. Interculturalidad en sociedades multiculturales (pp. 149–189). Mexico City: Plaza & Valdés. Hamel, R., Carrillo, A., Loncon, E., Brumm, M., & Nieto, R. (2004). ¿Qué hacemos con la castilla?: La enseñanza del español como segunda lengua en un currículo intercultural bilingüe de educación indígena. Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa 9, 83–107. Heath, B. (1972). La política del lenguaje en México: De la colonia a la nación. Social Anthropology Collection. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista. Herrera, L. & Guzmán, C. (Eds.). (2010). Informe de evaluación interna y externa del proyecto de evaluación, rediseño y mejora académica administrativa de la LE’94. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Unidad 201, Oaxaca. Mexico City: National Pedagogical University. Jordan, J. A. (1998). La escuela multicultural. Un reto para el profesorado. Barcelona: Paidós. Leavitt, R. M., Francis, D. A., Levine, B., Weiss, D., & Schulz, J. (2008–2012). Language keepers: Documenting endangered language for education, research, and revival. http:// www.languagekeepers.org/background.php (accessed May 24, 2012). Leavitt, R. M. & Levine, B. (2011). Language keepers: A documentary film process for stimulating Passamaquoddy-Maliseet language documentation and revival. http:// www.languagekeepers.org/assets/LevineLeavitt%20final%20.pdf (accessed May 24, 2012). Muñoz, H. (1983). ¿Asimilación o igualdad lingüística en el Valle del Mezquital? Nueva Antropología 22, 25–64. Muñoz, H. (1990). El discurso indígena del conflicto lingüístico: Una aproximación desde la reflexividad sociolingüística. Acciones Textuales 1, 143–162. Muñoz, H. (1998). Los objetivos políticos y socioeconómicos de la educación intercultural bilingüe y los cambios que se necesitan en el currículo, en la enseñanza y en las escuelas indígenas. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación (Madrid), 17, 31–50. Muñoz, H. (Ed.). (2001). De prácticas y ficciones comunicativas y cognitivas en educación básica. Oaxaca, Mexico: SEP-Conacyt/UAM-I/UPN/Unidad. Muñoz, H. (2002). Evaluación e investigación de procesos escolares indígenas. In H. Muñoz (Ed.), Rumbo a la interculturalidad en educación (pp. 199–248). Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Muñoz, H. (2004). Educación escolar Indígena en México: La vía oficial de la interculturalidad. Escritos 29, 9–49 (Journal of the Language Sciences Centre, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico City). Muñoz, H. (2006a). Cambio sociolingüístico y experiencias interculturales desde discurso autobiográfico de hablantes de lenguas indígenas. Cuadernos Interculturales (Chile) 7, 23–48. Muñoz, H. (2006b). Niveles y tópicos de reflexividad sociolingüística a través de autobiografías. Signos Lingüísticos 3, 69–94 (Department of Philosophy, UAM-Iztapalapa, Mexico City).

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Muñoz, H. (2010). Reflexividad sociolingüística de hablantes de lenguas indígena: Concepciones y cambio sociocultural. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa. Biblioteca de Signos-Ediciones del Lirio. Muñoz, H. (2008–2012). Proyecto CONACYT 99274 Dominio lingüístico y académico de estudiantes bilingües indígenas en algunas universidades de México: Habilidades comunicativas y académicas, reflexividad sociolingüística y políticas interculturales del lenguaje. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa. Muñoz, H. (Ed.). (In press). Educación intercultural: Ética y estética de cambios necesarios. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa y Universidad de La Ciénega, Sahuayo, Michoacán, Mexico. Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Language Portal. (s.f.). http://www.pmportal.org (accessed May 24, 2012). Vázquez, S. (2006). Necesidades y dificultades en la enseñanza de la historia. Los maestros de 5º y 6º grados de la escuela primaria. Una reconstrucción desde la visión de los profesores. Master’s thesis, DIE-CINVESTAV, Mexico City. Vázquez, S. (2011). La apropiación de formas para enseñar historia como proceso de enriquecimiento de prácticas, sentidos y significados en la docencia (electronically recorded). Eleventh National Congress of Educational Research (COMIE), Mexico City, November 8–11.

Chapter 10

Indigenous Researcher’s Thoughts: An Experience from Research with Communities in Burkina Faso Using Participatory Methods Issaka Herman Traore

In the Gulmanceba community in eastern Burkina Faso in Africa, a researcher is called O liingdo, O Baando, or Djaaba, terms that are used interchangeably. These three names given to a researcher have different meanings that are overlapping in some cases. The definitions of these concepts are as follows: O liigndo is a person who does research on a specific topic or on several topics; this person is continuously doing research to increase his or her knowledge to be useful to his or her community. O liingdo in the Gulmanceba community uses the oral tradition as the main tool of research, with memory as the database in which to deposit the results of the research. O Baando is a person who is a master of a science or different sciences. It can be traditional healing or it can be what the modern sciences called psychosociology, as O Baando deals with people’s social problems to assist them to find solutions. Djaaba is a person who has specific given powers that help him or her “tell” the future of other people. Djaaba is also continuously in the process of research to increase and better master his or her science. All these different researchers in the Gulmanceba community play important roles in the well-being of their communities. Quite frequently, development agencies in the field in the eastern region of Burkina Faso find out that, whatever policy, program, project, or strategy one Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 171–188. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 171

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implements or applies, the community will need or seek the advice of one of the above-mentioned people before really getting involved and committed to a program’s implementation. This demonstrates that, in this community, people’s lives are based on research and evidence from those who have these skills.

The Process of Becoming a researcher When I was in high school, I had only one goal in my life: becoming a pharmacist. Based on my community’s cultural background, I wanted to use its traditional healing know-how to modernize medicines and make them more useful for the community and the people of Burkina Faso. For different reasons, I have not completed my degree in pharmacy. Instead, I started working as a development worker with communities in the eastern region of Burkina Faso known as the Gulmu Region. When I was working in the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation for a food security, nutrition, and micro-finance program, I did social research to document the performance and results of our program implementation, thereby highlighting what works, what does not work, and what the impacts of the program are. After two and half years of using participatory methods, I discovered that there is a lot to learn from the rural communities that urban citizens generally label as “illiterate.” This experience convinced me that I should keep using participatory methods as a powerful tool for social research within rural, remote, and illiterate communities.

DescriPTion of The Process To fully become a researcher, I decided to combine two different worldviews on research: my community way of understanding and practicing research and the Western academic way. Therefore, I decided to increase my knowledge, skills, and understandings of the paradigms and concepts of research from these two different worlds. Hence, in my community I spoke more with the elderly persons (liingdo, baando, djaabo) to learn the techniques of research and usability of research results and ethics of research from the traditional perspective. Toward this end, I identified people in the region who were recognized within their communities as knowledge owners/researchers. Then I went back to the field in the villages and remote areas on several weekends to talk to them and learn more from them. Every time I visited such a person, we spent the day or the weekend discussing several topics. When I returned home, I wrote down what I learned from that

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person and cross-checked it with another person to determine the extent to which information from different sources gathered on the topic was more or less the same thing. At the academic level, I decided to further my studies to increase my knowledge, skills, and understanding of the paradigms and concepts of international development theories, thereby enhancing my skills and understanding of research. This goal led me to do further studies in Ireland at Holy Ghost College, Development Studies Centre, Kimmage Manor in Dublin. My time and study at the Development Studies Centre enhanced my understanding of social sciences and social research (sociology, anthropology, and monitoring and evaluation). After completing my studies at Kimmage where, I graduated with the Award of National Diploma (equivalent to a B.A.), I wanted to go on to the Master’s level. Unfortunately, after being accepted by different universities in the United Kingdom (East Anglia, Swansea, LSE), I never had the necessary funding or scholarship to make it happen. Therefore, I continued to enhance my knowledge from practice and using the new information technology tools to further my understanding of research and evaluation.

an influenTial Person The person who really influenced me to become a researcher is Bernard Ledea Ouedraogo, former co-director of Six S and founder of the Federation des Groupements Naam, a federation of farmers’ organizations based on a traditional way of youth organizations in northern Burkina Faso. The federation works on rural communities’ empowerment and well-being through several development activities. As a development professional, he discovered in the northern region of Burkina Faso that there was an Indigenous technique of soil and water conservation called zai that the farmers in this region used in the ancient time to cope with droughts and rainfall shortage. This technique has been very successful in soil restoration, highlighting the fact that Indigenous communities often have certain know-how that can yield high unexpected outcomes. That led me to ask: “How many Indigenous techniques, skills and knowledge are still undiscovered or not valued, but that can be useful to rural communities and developing countries such as Burkina Faso for the well-being of its people?” It was obvious to me that if Mr. Ouedraogo has revitalized the zai, it meant there are many Indigenous techniques to discover. I believed the best way to do it was to undertake research that can help us discover more Indigenous research techniques or innovations that can be used either at the national or international level.

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The challenges in Becoming a researcher Those who want to become a researcher face several challenges, depending on which school of research they choose. The Western view of research, based on academic knowledge and capacities acquisition through a formal education awarded by degrees, is quite different than the African school of research, which is based on orality. In the Gulmanceba community where I am from, there are several kinds and ways of doing research that encompass oral training and investigation techniques. Thus, with regard to Western-based research, the first challenge an Indigenous researcher from Burkina Faso faces is the difficulty of undertaking social research studies. Universities and training institutes across the continent have a variety of curricula and some are not really focused on research; further, when one wants to get involved in research, he or she will need to undertake additional studies in another country in Africa or overseas. With the scarcity of financial resources at the individual level, most potential Indigenous researchers in Africa give up and work on other things. Although there are scholarships for further education, the competition is very high, and in some countries the selection process is not as transparent as it should be. From this perspective, there are two main challenges: the lack of the availability of training institutes within the home countries led by senior Indigenous researchers who are teaching Indigenous skills and techniques and the lack of funds to support, motivate, and sustain research. On the other hand, the Gulmanceba school of research, like most of the sub-Saharan African countries that support the use of the Indigenous research system, is based on orality and the existence of a strong and robust social capital on which the researcher can base himself or herself to learn how to conduct and undertake research. Given that, the challenges a researcher can face are: gaining the necessary contacts/social capital of mentors from whom to learn the Indigenous research techniques and the memory problem. The last one is quite important because some mentors become reluctant to transmit what they know when the student starts writing down or recording what they say. Therefore, the learner or researcher has to have a good memory to rely on and to capitalize what he or she learns during a teaching or learning session. In addition to these two challenges, money is needed to travel to reach one’s mentors. When I first became interested in Indigenous researchers’ knowledge and skills, what really impressed me was how they manage to remember all these things while not writing them down anywhere.

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I asked one expert how he deals with the memory problem. His response was: “We use the same science that the griots do.” I pushed him further and asked what he meant by that. He then explained that there are some traditional drugs and medicine that they take, and these drugs have the capacities and properties to increase one’s capacity to remember and not forget what you learn from your mentors and masters. He concluded by saying, “How do you guys think that the griots manage to know the entire history of a royal or noblest family for centuries? It is this special something that they take since their childhoods that develop their memory capacities and keep it even during adulthood.” I then had to look for such a recipe to enhance my capacities to listen to experts without being obliged to record or take notes. Writing things down makes the experts feel uncomfortable with me, but they also know that through this process, I am heading step by step to their level.

overcoming challenges To overcome a challenge, there is a need to deeply analyze the causes of the challenge, its consequences, and the means to overcome it. I quickly identified the causes of my challenges as weak academic skills and capacities in research, lack of literature on Indigenous research, and the need to identify Indigenous mentors who could help me increase and understand ancient methods of doing research from my community perspective. I knew that without these skills and knowledge, I could not be a researcher with either a Western academic perspective or an African, Indigenous point of view. Therefore, I had to identify the means to overcome these obstacles. First, I had to make contacts and liaisons with mentors or Indigenous illiterate researchers who could help me understand what it means within my community to do research, what the role of the researcher is, and what the ethics of research within my community are. I also had to learn the process by which a mentor would accept me and teach me what he or she knows. From my work as a development worker within rural communities, it has been easy for me to identify people from whom I learn a lot by listening to them and observing their practices and asking questions. At the academic level, I decided to do my best using all the opportunities that arise to further my understanding of research concepts and paradigms. I combined information from courses as well as autodidactic and self-learning to increase my knowledge. I used the Internet, books of all kinds, and a community of practice to build my capacities in research.

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rememBrance of WanTing To Become a researcher When I worked in Gnagna Province, I discovered one day that some extension workers (agriculture and animal husbandry), as well as NGO staff, were giving false data and information to their hierarchy, who, in turn, were using it to formulate government or NGO policies for development. I wondered how our country could achieve sustainable development if our policies were not based on true evidence. I dreamed of writing a book about the skills and criteria to have and develop to be a true development worker. During the same period, I realized that most development workers in rural communities have a condescending approach vis-à-vis the beneficiaries; they assume that recipient communities know nothing and are backward people who need to be modernized. However, the reality, which can be revealed through using another approach and strategy, is that people in rural communities have a lot of knowledge, skills, and know-how that are not valued. I gained this perspective through the participatory action research (PAR) techniques that our program at Holy Ghost College applied with communities and that helped us understand that we have a lot to learn from these communities and persons who most degree holders and development professionals consider ignorant. I decided that a reversal could only happen by putting the last first, according to Robert Chambers (1983, p. 168). In other words, development professionals or researchers need to listen more to communities and learn from what they know, instead of continuing to view themselves as knowledge bearers who come to save the poor, ignorant, illiterate, and backward communities living in remote areas in the middle of nowhere. To make that happen, I had to develop trust and confidence between villagers and me by valuing their know-how and skills and letting them express what they really know and how they think changes can happen in their communities, what changes they would like to see, and how they intend to measure and document that things are changing. I began by combining the Indigenous skills of listening more to people, talking more to them, and delegating responsibilities to them. I also used participatory techniques and some social research techniques such as observation to better understand the context and environment in which I am working.

moTivaTion To Do research For centuries, African communities have been portrayed as illiterate or societies without written history or background. Then scientists, such as Cheick Anta Diop (1962), discovered that ancient Egypt was populated by “Black Africans,” thereby demonstrating that writing hieroglyphics

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and other ancient Egyptians documents and science were fruits of the reflections of Negro Africans. I was born and grew up in a community where the only way to dispense knowledge and know-how is oral communication. I was passionate about sharing with the rest of the world that, despite the lack of written documents, Indigenous communities have mastered several sciences and have a school of thought about research.

ParT of Being an inDigenous researcher is my Desire To Be a researcher The Gulmu Kingdom encompasses eastern Burkina Faso, northern Benin, northern Togo, part of northern Ghana, and the Sahel region of Burkina Faso. With the capital of the kingdom in Fada N’gourma, which is very far from most of the other main cities of the kingdom, I wondered how a king during the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries could efficiently run a kingdom so vast. I started asking people around me about this, mostly elders and people close to the royalty. I discovered that there was a policy of decentralization that was set up by the kingdom based on the system of diema, meaning “terroir’’ or “land’’, or what the French colonial masters called “canton”; in fact, the French colonial masters relied on the existing decentralization system to effectively run and govern the new colonized population. This case of the political organization of the Gulmu Kingdom convinced me that Indigenous communities have a lot of information that was dismissed or disregarded for different reasons by the former colonial powers. I became more motivated than ever to increase my knowledge and skills in research so that I could undertake research on another topic using science that my community has mastered for centuries but which in today’s world is unknown. My passion about doing such research is also motivated by the fact that with a community where orality is the main tool of communication and knowledge transmission from one generation to another, there is a risk that at some future time we could lose all the valuable information and knowledge that we have, as elders are passing away one by one and the new generation is becoming more and more modernized, with no interest in the science of our ancestors.

resPonsiBiliTies i feel as a researcher Research is original creative intellectual activity leading to the generation of new knowledge. (Hansen, 2006, p. 2)

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In light of this definition of research, I feel various responsibilities as a researcher, including: 1. I have to use evidence and findings with communities and beyond at a broader level so that these findings are used in the future by other people as new knowledge. 2. I am always in a situation of research as an evaluator, using mostly qualitative and participatory methods. So, wherever I am or whatever I am doing at a given time, I have to continuously remember that I can discover new knowledge that can be useful to the field of my profession as well as to my community, my country, and the rest of the world. 3. I have the responsibility of valuing communities’ know-how, skills, and knowledge, thereby acknowledging the context and community within which I have found a particular science or knowledge. 4. As a social researcher and evaluator, I must do research with people in their communities or living place. In this regard, every society or organized community of human beings has social rules and norms. I have to respect people’s rights according to their communities’ norms as well as according to the universal human and people’s rights. 5. As a researcher and evaluator, I have to conduct my research in the field in compliance with the norms and code of ethics of my profession so that my research results can be screened through a peer-review mechanism that can be validated by any other researcher or evaluator and transferable to others. 6. Finally, as a researcher and evaluator, I have to ensure that the results and findings of my research will contribute to people’s well-being.

sense of resPonsiBiliTy as an inDigenous researcher The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (CALD, 2003, p. 639) defined Indigenous as naturally existing in a place or country rather than arriving from another place. By this definition, I am Indigenous of Burkina Faso and Indigenous of the African continent since my ancestors were born there. My parents and I were born and grew up in Burkina Faso and Africa. Therefore, I have been socialized through the values, customs, and norms of my community, country, and continent. This socialization has created in me a certain sense of responsibility vis-à-vis my community, my fellows, and my country and Negro African descendants. Therefore, as an Indigenous person working in research and evaluation I have the responsibility of discovering my community’s knowledge and science. I also have the responsibility of valuing and promoting my community knowledge and know-how so that our skills and expertise can be shared with others and be used by our communities’ members and people around the world.

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As an Indigenous person living in today’s globalized and modernized world, I have the responsibility of creating a bridge between my community’s science and skills with those of the modern world for the benefit of both sides. My ultimate responsibility as an Indigenous person is to contribute to the creation of an Indigenous African school of thought of research and evaluation so that African communities, researchers, evaluators, and experts can transmit their knowledge, skills, and know-how to the new generation of Indigenous Africans and the rest of the world. I believe that such a school of thought will be useful as now a lot of social research is conducted in Africa with outside mainstream tools, leading in some cases to false results that are used as evidence for policy making. The reversal, I believe, will contribute to a new way of designing public policies in Africa that will be implemented by taking into account Indigenous African communities’ know-how and will, in turn, improve their well-being.

WhaT Does Being an inDigenous researcher mean To me? Being an Indigenous researcher, for me, is first of all doing research or evaluation in my community as a social member of this community. This means, on the one hand, that I am using my knowledge of the community rules and social norms to positively interact and work with the members of the community to yield results that can contribute to the well-being of the community. On the other hand, it means that I am using my community research skills, tools, and know-how to creatively work with community members so that they understand the goals and results of pursuing the research. As an Indigenous researcher, I believe that my research findings should empower my community in terms of skills production and knowledge generation that can be disseminated within the community. Therefore, working with my community, speaking the language, and using the concepts my community understands contributes to the capacity building of those who are participating in the research I am undertaking. Later in this chapter, I discuss a case of participatory methods on social accountability of local governments, as well as food security, that illustrate the use of the content of the granary. Finally, to me, the basic and fundamental meaning of being an Indigenous researcher means contributing to my community’s well-being based on evidence from my research results. Such results can influence both policy makers and community members to the extent that they can use them to implement public policies or undergo a behavioral change vis-à-vis certain concepts or practices.

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communiTy suPPorT of my career as a researcher According to the Cambridge dictionary definition of Indigenous, I belong to three communities. These are: the Gulmanceba community within which I was born and grew up, the Burkina Faso community as a single and unique nation made of several communities, and the broader African community made of several nations and thousands of specific ethnic communities. Every one of these communities plays a particular supportive role in my researcher life and career. I will call the Gulmanceba community or ethnic group my blood-related community. As explained earlier in this chapter, my community lives in a vast region between Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, Togo, and Ghana. Therefore, some community members do not even know what I am doing as a researcher or evaluator because I have been working for the last decade throughout the whole country evaluating development programs. Unfortunately, the results of this research are only known by a few development professionals or evaluators. Thus, it doesn’t seem realistic to say that my community is supportive or not of my research life and career. But some of the knowledge owners and traditional researchers of my community are very supportive and keep encouraging me to further my understanding of my community know-how. They say that when a literate and educated person masters these things nowadays, they can be sure that the traditions and their know-how will remain and survive after they pass away. Burkina Faso, a nation concerned with modernization and a Western way of life and thinking, is a community within which Indigenous research is not mainstreamed. This goes back to the ways that the former colonial master transformed people’s way of thinking and behaving toward their own culture, values, and know-how. The brainwashing has produced a school of thought based only on the Western view and thinking of intellectual values about research. Neither the government nor the research and training institutes in Burkina Faso are focused on Indigenous research or revisiting our ascendants and ancestors’ capacities, skills, and know-how to use them in our contemporary world. Anyone interested in discovering, using, and empowering our Indigenous research skills and techniques has to struggle on their own unless they become famous and have recognition and support at the national community level. At the continental community level, I have to acknowledge that I have received support mainly among the community of African evaluators. This support came from experience sharing, encouragement, and, in some cases, mentorship from the elders in the field.

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conflicT BeTWeen my role in my communiTy anD my role as a researcher A conflict is, literally, an active disagreement between people with opposing opinions or principles. In this regard, I have to say that there is no conflict between my role in my community and my role as a researcher. I only have to remember continuously that I have to live my social life according to my community social norms. For instance, as a young male adult of a certain age, I am not entitled to a status within my community, regardless of my evaluator skills or capacities. But as an Indigenous researcher with certain skills and knowledge of my community such as those of a liingdo, o baando, or o ciamo, I am allowed to participate in certain meetings when there is a specific problem within the community that the council of elders thinks is relevant to my point of view. Even then, I have to carefully respect the elders’ status by letting them first give me the authorization to speak, not interrupting one of them or openly disagreeing with one of them, even if the point raised is relevant. If that is the case, one person among them will ask the others to listen and take into consideration what the young person is saying because it makes sense.

inDigenous meThoDs i Bring To research scholarshiP As an evaluator of international development programs and projects, I am more an evaluation research practitioner than a scholar who works within a teaching or research institute. As such, my contribution to the research scholarship in terms of methods of knowledge and skills is very limited. Nevertheless, I am able to use methods I have learned from my Indigenous community in my evaluation work. One of these methods is community talk to reach an agreement on a specific topic or issue. This consists of valuing everyone’s ideas and points of view and discussing and talking as long as it can take to reach an agreement through a collective consensus before moving ahead. There are several ways to reach a consensus during community talks, among which the most important are: • The palabre system, through palabre or talks at several meetings during which knowledge owners, the population, and the researcher develop their viewpoints regarding a specific subject. Generally, the Indigenous experts will let members of the community elaborate their views one after another. Then the population will request that the Indigenous experts or knowledge owners give their final judgment regarding the different views that have been developed. At this point, if the Indigenous experts have the same views regarding an issue, a consensus can be reached. But if these experts have different views

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or understanding or disagree on a specific technique or skill, the meeting can be scheduled for another time. In these cases, often the views of other experts in the nearby villages can be of help. Then a messenger is sent to a specific village to ask other Indigenous researchers’ viewpoints. In this case, if two or three outside Indigenous experts’ views are similar to those of the community’s experts, a consensus is reached. • Another way of reaching consensus is by asking the views of Indigenous experts’ fellows. These fellows are those who had the same “master” (mentor) as the researchers, meaning that they went to the same school where they learned from the same persons all the skills and techniques that they know. In this regard, their fellows can confirm the views of their fellows regarding the thoughts of their mentor. • Finally, in the Dogon country that I visited twice between 2000 and 2002, I discovered another palabre system based on a public discussion shed called toguna. The toguna is a small shed in which one cannot rise sharply in anger during discussion on sensible topics. This system helps lead to a consensus during public talks. • The difference between this way of reaching consensus with the other methods lies in the time spent to reach the consensus and the moral integrity of the Indigenous experts. It’s a consensus based on the social credibility of the Indigenous experts.

In addition to the above-mentioned Indigenous techniques, I also discovered during a PAR assessment on a food security program evaluation a system of analysis on the use of harvested crops. During a group interview with populations in a remote village of Gnagna Province, I wanted to know what the basic uses of the harvest were within the households and the interrelations between farming and animal husbandry. The method we agreed on as a team was the use of a checklist of different questions so that everyone within the group could speak his mind from his or her own experience. One farmer within the group decided to draw a diagram on the soil to explain how he used the crops of his farming and the interrelations between farming and animal husbandry within his household. To make it very clear for other farmers, this farmer asked his colleagues to bring the roof of a granary, which he put in the middle of the circle, and asked them what they do with the content of granary after the harvest. From this simple example, they started bringing all kinds of objects similar to what they use. For instance, to illustrate that they use the harvest for household food consumption, to sell, to buy animals for plowing, and so on, they brought things that are more or less similar to the objects that were around us. From this design on the ground, the group started discussing the diagram system the farmer drew, adding some elements and dismissing others. They kept discussing this and finally came up with a figure that they said depicted the situation that most of households of the village used

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with their crops and interrelated farming and animal husbandry. From these objects, we decided to dig deeper to see the different relationships and their degrees of complementarities. After this fieldwork, I developed what I called the food security diagram system, which I teach easily to farmers who had problems explaining themselves properly through a focus group. For PAR assessments on food security programs since then, I utilized the food security diagram as a tool to find out how rural households cope with starvation as well as how they use their harvest throughout the year and the relationship between farming and animal husbandry. This use of a household harvest diagram system highlights how rural households use their crops and how farming contributes to animal husbandry and vice-versa. During a baseline assessment with local council women and non-elected women in rural and urban communes in Burkina Faso, I used a social accountability matrix with nonelected women to analyze their perception of social accountability and actions experienced in the past to request accountability to their local governments or officials of government service delivery institutions at the local level. The women used the following scale as the basis for their weightings: 10 stones: Very satisfied 8 stones: Satisfied 6 stones: Moderately satisfied 4 stones: Not satisfied 0 stones: Not at all satisfied/Dissatisfied completely

Through this matrix, nonelected women explained how they perceived their satisfaction with a particular social service. For this purpose, a weighting system was adopted that helped them appreciate the service delivered to them. The women were able to explain why they thought that a social service delivery system was good for them or not, the specific action they undertook to have their voices heard, the extent to which the action was successful or not, future actions they could undertake despite the actions already initiated and the potential obstacles for future actions to undertake (social accountability request) and the responsibility for these actions. The initial matrix was redesigned, as the women wanted it to follow a logic they understood better. At the end of this exercise with all the groups of women within twenty-one communes, they all said that this exercise and the tool had empowered them so that in the future they would know how to better organize themselves to request accountability from the federal government representatives in social services as well as to local governments in the communes (see Table 10.1). For these techniques to become mainstreamed in the world of scholars, I will need to act as a scholar to share this within the scholar’s world

Poor reception Statement of the problem by women at a monthly meeting with health workers. (At the monthly meetings of health workers per village, a representative is invited.)

Health

Actions Undertaken

Explanation of the Gap

Social Degree of Gap Service Satisfaction

Obstacles to Implement Future Actions

Individuals Responsible for Future Action Implementation

Challenge of No difficulties Women of the chief medical community officer

Degree of Future Actions Success of the Actions Implemented

Table 10.1 Participatory Methods and Women’s Satisfaction with Services Social Accountability Matrix.

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and the rest of world. But with my status as an evaluation practitioner, only those who will read these PAR assessment reports can test the technique and possibly disseminate it in other social contexts.

research funDing In 2007, with other African evaluators’ colleagues, we had an ambitious project of research on African Indigenous evaluation methods. The overall idea of the research was to demonstrate evidence that there was evaluation know-how within African communities. To do this, we decided to investigate the following domains: African evaluation language, Indigenous evaluation skills, Indigenous public policies, and how Indigenous African communities evaluate their public policies effectiveness. The team was composed of one scholar from Botswana, one from Kenya, one from South Africa, and me, a practitioner from Burkina Faso (at that time, I was working for an institute at the University of Ouagadougou). We found that there were very few, if any, funding schemes to support this Indigenous research. The lack of financial support to undertake this type of research has a negative effect on our respective work and passion for Indigenous research and evaluation. This experience highlights the difficulties Indigenous researchers in Africa encounter in moving ahead with their ideas of research projects in a context where governments have several competing priorities. The result is that Indigenous research is given very little attention and less funding. Hence, African scholars, researchers, and practitioners are left alone most of the time to search for their own funding, becoming consumers of other’s research findings.

Program evaluaTion is WhaT i Do Emily Hansen (2006, p. 2) defines research as a public activity available for scrutiny by peers. According to this definition, I see the link with the evaluation field where there are international standards and criteria against which our peers can review our work. Thus, evaluation results are available for peer review. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development/Development Assistance Committee defined evaluation as follows: “Evaluation refers to the process of determining the worth or significance of an activity, policy, or program. It is as systematic and objective as possible, of a planned, on-going, or completed intervention” (Imas & Rist, 2009, p. 9). In light of the above two definitions, I call the research I am doing evaluation because most of my work is related to assessing the worth or significance of international development policies, programs, and

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projects. The results of these assessments are a public good that can be reviewed by peer evaluators, thereby being potentially disseminated for a public use. By using mostly participatory evaluation methods, I also call this research empowering evaluation, as through the methods and techniques used I contribute to the capacity building and empowerment of the communities that participate in the different evaluation exercises. For example, after a PAR with communities at the end of the stay of our research/ evaluation team, one usually can hear the community saying that we have learned a lot of things, particularly planning.

The research agenDa Discourse Agreeing that evaluation overlaps with research, then, I can say that my contribution to the research discourse is focused on evaluation discourse. In the field and discourse of evaluation, I wrote and presented a couple of papers that were published online by the Evidence Based Policy Development Network (Traore, 2007a, 2007b). The first paper was presented at an international evaluation conference in 2007, reaching evaluation practitioners and scholars who raised critical questions related to the contribution of African scholars in public policy design. This led to a discussion of how public policies should be evaluated in Africa for more effectiveness. This paper examined the work and role of social scientists of African universities in terms of public and social policy formulation and how these social scientists transmit their knowledge and beliefs to their students in the universities. I paid particular attention to the contribution of how the African universities, through their social scientists, contribute to a renewal of public and social policies, both through research, formulation, teaching, and evaluation of these policies in the field. Furthermore, the paper explored how university lecturers and their former graduates in social science programs have contributed to or challenged public and social policies designed from inside and outside their countries. What have they contributed to a new thinking on public policy formulation and evaluation in African countries? The second paper on accountability was written for another evaluation conference but was not presented due to time constraints. The question I raised in this paper is: What have we learned from more than five decades of development aid to make aid more effective for the well-being of the recipient communities? Some scholars and development practitioners thought that participation was the cornerstone of aid efficiency and effectiveness. In this

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paper, I outlined how beyond participation, accountability can lead to more aid effectiveness. Accountability through evaluation can become a powerful tool for learning from our past and current mistakes to assure more effective and democratic aid mechanisms. Accountability is about explaining to the public or a specific group actions undertaken on their behalf or with their funding. Thus, evaluation should be in the frontline of ensuring greater accountability. But evaluators alone cannot make it happen if the other stakeholders overseas are not willing to learn from evaluation reports and use evaluation as an accountability tool. If evaluation is done before, during, and post-implementation, then accountability should also be before, during, and post-intervention. The paper looked at three ways of accountability, which are: 1. Accountability of donor countries/agencies vis-à-vis their tax payers/ philanthropists. 2. Accountability of recipient NGOs/countries vis-à-vis the beneficiary communities. 3. And the joint accountability of tax payers/philanthropists and the recipient/ beneficiary communities.

After the online publication of the two papers, I have received feedback from readers, clearly showing that I am contributing to the discourse on evaluation. I received several emails from people who found the papers on the website of Evidence Based-Policy in Development Network (http://www.ebpdn.org). Usually, these were emails of encouragement or from people seeking more information on the topic. Most of the emails were were from monitoring and evaluation professionals who thanked me for having raised interesting debates. Others asked permission to use the PDF presentation or to quote me in their work.

a role in The WiDer conTexT of research, BeyonD The inDigenous communiTy Since 2007, I have been involved at the wider level in the evaluation community through the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) as a member and a resource person. I have dedicated my time as a volunteer by contributing to several projects and activities of AfrEA (e.g., assisting as a facilitator at the French regional training program in participatory planning monitoring and evaluation-managing for impact). In 2009, I was elected to the board of AfrEA, where I work as a volunteer for the development of the practice and use of evaluation on the continent and for experience sharing between African evaluators themselves and between African evaluators and evaluators of the rest of the world. In this position, I am contributing to the development of an African school of

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thought on evaluation by the different projects the current AfrEA board is developing and implementing. Part of my role on this board is partnership and institutional collaboration development with other evaluation organizations and development agencies that have an interest in doing or commissioning evaluation in Africa. In this regard, I drafted a partnership policy document on behalf of AfrEA in which we elaborate how we see our collaboration with sister evaluation organization as well as how we see our collaboration with development agencies that are operating in Africa. At the more global level, in August 2009, I was elected as a member of the board of the International Organization for Co-operation in Evaluation. Within this board, I am co-representing AfrEA at the international level to bring AfrEA’s views and thoughts in our evaluation field. In this capacity, I have conducted an international workshop in Sri Lanka in June 2011 on “How to Develop an Effective M&E Operating Manual.” I believe that through these positions and the activities I am involved in, I am making a modest contribution to the development of the field of evaluation in terms of experience sharing, partnership, and capacity building, which, in turn, contribute significantly to the broader research field.

references Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (CALD). (2003). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chambers, R. (1983). Rural development, putting the last first. London: Longman. Diop, C. A. (1962). Pigmentation des anciens Égyptiens. Bulletin de l’IFAN 24, 449–450. Hansen, E. C. (2006). Successful qualitative research. Berkshire, England: Open University Press. Imas, L. G. & Rist, R. C. (2009). The road to results. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Traore, I. H. (2007a). Evaluate African public policies, from design, implementation, to impacts: Why the bridge is so long. Paper presented at the Fourth African Evaluation Association Conference, Niamey, Niger, January 15–20. http://www.ebpdn.org/ resource/resource.php?lang = en&id = 423 (accessed January 23, 2012). Traore, I. H. (2007b). Who is accountable to whom, learning from whom? Paper prepared for the ReLac Conference in Bogota, Colombia, July 17–21. http://www.ebpdn.org/ resource/resource.php?id = 424 (accessed January 23, 2012).

Chapter 11

Becoming an Indigenous Researcher in Interior Alaska: Sharing the Transformative Journey James Johnson, III

I currently hold a certification for Rural Human Services (RHS) from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) obtained in spring 2009. This program taught me skills and approaches to deal with mental health and substance abuse issues in rural Alaska. I am inspired to work in the field of counseling after my own healing journey that transpired before entering RHS. After graduating with my certification, I continued my educational pathway at UAF, entering the sociology undergraduate program in fall 2009. My choice of sociology had to do with my interest in program evaluation where I currently work. I found that in many ways, program evaluation parallels the discipline of sociology, and I chose this degree to learn about research and how to conduct it in an institutionalized manner. My work in program evaluation began in the summer of 2009 after I accepted a job as a research assistant with Evaluation Research Associates (ERA). At the time, I discovered there were very few Alaska Native people working in evaluation. This limitation ultimately set the stage for my own work, which allows me to draw heavily on my Koyukon heritage (Alaska Native), while working closely with my mentor, kas aruskevich, a non-Indigenous evaluator. I have traveled extensively in Alaska and have worked with programs in Bethel, Fort Yukon, Tanana, Nulato, Tok, and Fairbanks. My vision for evaluation is that it will help build stronger, healthier programs that better serve Alaska Native people and Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 189–202. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 189

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encourage their way of life. Additionally, I hope to create more effective evaluative approaches that better reflect Indigenous values. In the past year, I have taken action in several projects related to Indigenous evaluation where I continue to build capacity as an Indigenous evaluator and researcher. I grew up somewhat isolated from my own Native culture living in the city Fairbanks, but I have come to know the importance of Native culture and its survival. I am committed to keeping it alive through working with Indigenous projects that want to decolonize the evaluation process of Alaska Native programs. I hope that my work answers this call for cultural preservation and the protection of our people through “ownership” of our processes. My home life includes raising two sons with my partner Princess Peter-Raboff, who also has a busy career as an activist and actress. Our lives are very full, and I would like to take this opportunity to share a portion of my journey with you. The following story represents my path in becoming an Indigenous researcher and the ongoing effort taking place in Alaska Native evaluation.

The STory The term “Indigenous evaluation” is so new to the Alaskan program evaluation landscape that most people have never heard of it. I am constantly working to define what Indigenous evaluation is, and the following is what I have come to know: (1) evaluation is a skill used to measure success in Alaskan programs; and (2) the Indigenous component ensures that traditional knowledge and values are applied and utilized at every level of the work. The combination of these two components allows the evaluator to adapt his or her perspective to the Indigenous community. In my experience, even after this explanation is given, people still don’t really know what I am talking about. I was in this same mystified state when I first heard the concept of Indigenous evaluation back in 2009.

how IT All BegAn Growing up, my father, James Johnson, Jr. took me out moose hunting every fall. We would camp south of Fairbanks, up the Wood River off the Tanana. Sometimes our hunts would end without any success, but it was his storytelling I remember most. He used to tell me about the social distress he experienced while growing up along the banks of the Yukon River around the Old Kokrines and Ruby area. There were two villages located about 30 miles apart,

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close to the Nowitna River in central Alaska where his family made their summer and winter camps. In the 1950s, the village of Kokrines became deserted after several alcohol-related tragedies, and my father said that most of its residents relocated to nearby Ruby, a white mining town. He said the Kokrine people used to say the village became cursed after alcohol became prevalent in the community. The epidemic affected many Native families in the area, including my grandparents and their children. This struggle eventually reached me, with my addiction lasting close to ten years.

The need for heAlIng After reaching what felt like rock bottom and denying help for so long, my alcohol abuse peaked in 2007. I recall thinking how stuck and how powerless I was against this dependency. I wanted a way out and knew it would be a serious commitment, but with the aid of my family, I reached out for help in a treatment program. I left Alaska for nearly a month, completing a program in Washington State. Following my return, I carefully began putting the pieces back together—mentally, physically, and emotionally. Fresh in my mind were the memories of humility and waking up sick, wondering what happened the night before; but as a result of my recovery, I began to recognize myself again, and as my own healing progressed, I felt a strong desire to reach out and help others. As my craving for alcohol faded, every day seemed clearer and more hopeful than the one before, and the farther I distanced myself from the last drink, the more intoxicating life felt without it. I began my return to a steady and secure mind and felt a strong sense of inspiration in my recovery. This urge to reach out and help others grew and realized I could use my experience as an approach to healing.

BecomIng A heAler I entered the RHS program at UAF Interior-Aleutians campus (I-AC) after telling its then director about my ambition to become a substance abuse counselor. RHS is a two-year certification program created to educate rural counselors with skills to approach substance abuse and mental health issues in Alaska Native communities. The program uniquely blends Alaska Native values, principles, and learning styles with Western knowledge in its curriculum and delivery. I joined other Alaska Native students in a program that emphasized group support and educational encouragement. This setting is critical, as most of the students who come from a rural community are adult

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learners who have to overcome the anxieties of entering an urban college environment. To encourage our learning, we interacted through intensive group trainings, where we would practice and develop our counseling skills in role-playing activities supplemented with instructional lectures and demonstrations. Our lectures also featured cultural storytelling with elders as a component. In this learning model, I was able to feel comfortable talking about my alcohol abuse and became connected socially with other healthy Alaska Native students. The program motivated me to expand on my own education and ultimately led me to evaluation.

The Journey InTo evAluATIon My mother, Clara Anderson, was a primary figure in the development of I-AC, a community campus that is part of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Out of her desire to address the lack of higher education available to Alaska Native students, she sought out grants and developed new programs. The grants and funding sources required an evaluation, and she became determined to find local evaluators for her campus. I-AC became interested in exploring Indigenous evaluation when my current mentor, kas, was introduced to the concept as part of her Ph.D. work conducted in four post-settler states. kas completed her degree in 2010 and is now dedicated to the evaluation company full time (starting ERA in 2008). She wanted to hire an Alaska Native research assistant; I went through the application process and was hired. At this stage, I was in my final semester of RHS, which meant I had to complete a final practicum project to demonstrate and apply skills learned from the training. Clara and kas seized the opportunity for me to complete a practicum project working on evaluation of RHS. When approached about doing this project, I had no concept of what evaluation was. I was asked to hold focus groups with RHS students, and, for some reason, this felt like a calling for me. I remember Clara saying, “There is no one (Alaska Native) doing evaluation,” and her words ignited my interest. This was one of the first steps taken in building Alaska Native evaluation capacity.

leArnIng evAluATIon From what I have heard, most Ma-ori researchers begin their careers simply by “falling into evaluation.” In many ways, I was led into evaluation in this same way. My experience started with learning basic research approaches and methods. kas started me with tasks that included reading articles and specifics to become familiar with the research. I was

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given a digital recorder, told to develop questions to ask students that we revised together, and then carried out my first focus groups. I quickly grasped that evaluation is not an easy practice. It requires that you think critically about your role and what the agenda or goal of the evaluation is. I found relationship building is important (because it makes communication easier for the evaluator, program staff, and project beneficiaries). I began to see that relationship and trust building is just as important in evaluation as it is in counseling. My responsibility included talking with Alaska Native students; to my surprise, students were forthcoming with their heart-felt stories concerning hardships in their communities where substance abuse and violence run high. Some students were seeking strategies to keep their traditions alive and vibrant, safe from urban habits. One elder in the focus group said he took youth out onto the land to go moose hunting every fall to keep them active in their subsistence lifestyle. These discussions, which made me concerned about what is happening in Alaska Native communities, were the beginning of my practice in evaluation.

my Journey BAck To The vIllAge My evaluation work started taking me to remote Alaska Native communities, where the only access is by small airplane. These trips reminded me of when I was growing up; my sister Maxine Dibert and I would fly to the village of Tanana to see my grandparents, James and Cecelia Johnson. My grandparents settled in Tanana in the early 1970s after living many “hard years” off the land around Nowitna River, close to Ruby and Kokrines. In those now-distant memories, my grandparents taught their children how to hunt, fish, trap, sew, make tools, build structures from birch and spruce trees, and gather from the land. They provided a uniquely amazing Koyukon life experience. My father, James Jr., had a traditional education in Alaska Native culture, raised in the old Koyukon way, living at camp. He did not have a mattress to sleep on until he was sixteen, bedding down on moose hides on hay, laid on the floor of the cabin. My grandparents built several cabins near the mouth of the Nowitna River during my father’s youth. Drying the logs is key to the woods durability, so my family would lay spruce logs along the sandbar of the Yukon River to dry for the summer and then build their cabin in the fall, just before moose-hunting season. Moose would be hunted in the fall, when their meat is fattest and the air is cool enough to keep the meat from spoiling. One moose could yield up to 500 pounds of meat and feed a family for months, essential for the harsh frigid Arctic winter. My dad used to tell me that James Sr. would be out of the cabin by 4 a.m. daily

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and not return until 11 p.m. in search of game and to check the trap-line. James Sr. would sometimes return with a beaver or several ptarmigan, and this was considered a feast for the family. This subsistence lifestyle is something my dad says he misses when he thinks about those invaluable years living off the land. Both grandparents have now passed, but these experiences in the village have given me a great advantage in my evaluation practice. I learned early on values and protocols concerning how to engage with Alaska Native communities. Many protocols were not taught verbally but learned through observation. My father taught me to hunt and fish and other traditional skills through his mentoring. From my grandparents, I also learned to take care of our elders, to be a good listener, and not to talk back. I learned to give people time to answer questions; for example, elders may not respond immediately and someone unfamiliar with the culture might think they were being ignored, yet an answer may come a day, a week, or a month later. The American Evaluation Association (2011) Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation says: Those who engage in evaluation do so from perspectives that reflect their values, their ways of viewing the world, and their culture. Culture shapes the ways in which evaluation questions are conceptualized, which in turn influence what data are collected, how the data will be collected and analyzed, and how data are interpreted.

Having the opportunity to live my culture and observe exchanges in knowledge through my relationships have assisted me in my work as an evaluator. These interactions helped construct my own understanding of Alaska Native life where communication can sometimes be very subtle and not well understood.

TruTh Through reSeArch One way of looking at evaluation is its search for truth. In my work, truth is spoken through interviews and focus groups. I found there are many different techniques available to aid in this search, but Glaser and Strauss (1967, p. 65) state: “In theoretical sampling, no one kind of data on a category nor technique for data collection is necessarily appropriate. Different kinds of data give the analyst different views or vantage points from which to understand a category and to develop its properties.” This approach allows me to draw themes and conclusions from respondent data rather than starting from any predetermined viewpoint. I often work with data in the form of video or written material and it is normal for me to examine and reexamine to discover themes.

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When reading transcripts, it is important to know this part of the process reflects the value system of the researcher. Information valued by one individual may not be as valued by another. This is the difference that can occur when themes (or codes) are identified based on the value system applied by the coder when reading the transcript. Additionally, when designing evaluation questions, this also reflects the value system being applied. For example, it has been respectful practice for me to always ask if the project staff or beneficiaries want specific information from the evaluation to ensure their values are included in the data collection process. In my work, it is normal practice to gear questions toward Alaska Native life when working with the Native community in Alaska. Thus, I might ask respondents if they could share their experience and how the project fits in their Native community. Or I might ask if they could share their values, traditions, and way of life and how this gives life to the project. Also, what strategies and strengths have they utilized to stay successful in their education? After my interviewing, I’m tasked with sorting through paperwork manually or using “Hyperresearch,” a coding software used to label and group data. This process of open coding (see Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 57) “represents the operations by which data are broken down, conceptualized, and put back together in new ways. It is the central process by which theories are built from data.” The guiding objective is that respondent feedback remains central to our evaluation and finding relevant data is directly connected to the relationship building that must take place before any data collection begins.

chAllengeS Along The wAy One logistical challenge for evaluation in Alaska is that most rural communities are not connected to the road system and it is costly to visit them. Evaluation funding sometimes does not allow for site visits that are required to build good relationships and overcome some of the fear and suspicion of evaluation procedures. The funding is often attached to prescribed outcome measures that usually do not take Native values or definitions of success into account. Sometimes the required outcomes actually cause clashes with Native value systems. The following project highlights the challenges that can occur while conducting research in Alaska Native communities.

nATIve vAlue for SeASonAl fIShIng In this evaluation, I was conducting a site visit on a training program in July. For Alaska Natives, July is a month dedicated to seasonal salmon

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fishing. The training had low participation numbers, which meant that most of the participants had to make a choice: Go fishing or stay for training. Most of the participants chose to go fishing because July is one of the few opportunities for families that do not come from cash economies to fill their food supplies for the coming winter. The cost of food from the store is high; for example, a gallon of fresh milk is $12 and gas is $10 per gallon. For these families, fishing is absolutely essential to their physical, spiritual, and cultural well-being. It is at these times when people gather to harvest food together that the customs, traditions, wisdom, and stories of the people are passed on. When the evaluation brought this timetable clash to the program staff (who were non-Native), the evaluators were told that local people would forgo their fishing to be available for training if they were truly committed to learning and working in these trades. Indigenous evaluation is able to highlight these wider issues in Alaskan Native contexts such as this example illustrates. Prescribed and narrow outcome measures, such as student enrollment and completion rates for education programs, usually fail to take into account the values and ways of life of Native people, including subsistence activities. Further, the process of learning to learn, an increase in self-esteem, and wellness are not often considered important outcomes. Flexibility is needed to allow both the school and the community priorities to be met, including delaying enrollment or extending it past the time when hunting and fishing are over. Information about a community involves building relationships with people and caring about their worldview and way of life. Establishing relationships takes time, and taking time costs money. The time required for truly collaborative relationships with Indigenous communities is rarely budgeted in program evaluations. When no time is taken to work with Native communities to develop indicators and definitions of success that are important to the community, evaluations continue to be something that is done to us—an extension of colonization. This is not the decolonizing type of evaluation that has the potential to bring real healing to our communities, and unfortunately much evaluation is still within a model that does not value Native ways of knowing or Native values. Alaska’s context is unique and shows the need for Indigenous evaluation as a model for tailoring evaluation standards to Alaska Native programs. The values of Indigenous communities are critically important in the evaluation of programs that aim to serve them; that is why I want to be an Indigenous evaluator—to help spread and share this opportunity as widely as possible—and more widely than is currently occurring.

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ShArIng The Journey of IndIgenouS evAluATIon In 2008, kas was working on her dissertation, “Telling a Story about Indigenous Evaluation: Insights of Practitioners from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States” (see aruskevich, 2010). Clara, who was then UAF Interior-Aleutians campus (I-AC) director, and kas, attended the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association (ANZEA) evaluation conference in New Zealand where they met Sandy Kerr, a Ma-ori researcher from Te Ropu Whariki, Massey University. The meeting opened up discussion that eventually brought Indigenous evaluation to Alaska, virtually unheard of at the time. The IA-C campus was able to secure funding for Whariki to come to Fairbanks to conduct an evaluation of the campus and hold two Indigenous evaluation workshops. Four colleagues from Whariki presented the workshops in Fairbanks, Alaska, to a diverse group of professionals, educators, and students, me included.1 Our Ma-ori presenters shared their advanced knowledge, which also raised questions about our own involvement in evaluation. We were introduced to the concept of hikoi, through a resource called, “The evaluation hikoi: A Ma-ori overview of programme evaluation” (Barnes, 2009).2 The hikoi model is an approach that represents the Ma-ori vision of evaluation as a journey taken together. Barnes (2009, p. 6) states: “This reflects our vision of evaluation as walking alongside others in a respectful relationship, each bringing different skills and perspectives, but undertaking the same journey in the same direction.” Most attendees, including me, felt moved by hikoi. The process offered new life for local projects and gave relevant meaning to the evaluation, which elevated the groups’ understanding that the evaluation process belongs to the people who walk together in its path.

AnAheIm evAluATIon conference, 2011 As my own evaluation practice evolved, I attended my first evaluation conference in Anaheim California in November 20113 and presented with a team that included: my mentor kas, our videographer Odin PeterRaboff, my mother Clara, Ma-ori researcher Sandy, my partner Princess, and our two sons Delnor and K’edzaaye’ Johnson. The team members who developed the story were kas, Sandy, Odin, and me. We presented a video on the status of evaluation and how value is attached to the evaluation process. We used the metaphor “success is giving a fish” to help develop our story. The intent was to challenge evaluators and researchers with the idea that success is defined in different

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ways in different cultures; thus, evaluation should be inclusive of the context it is taking place in and the value attached to that particular place and time. The video emphasized our support for this relevant topic, and the conference was an opportunity for exposure on an international level of what is happening in the field of Indigenous evaluation. This event was significant because it offered a unique digital story and further validated our work and contributions in the overall field. This undertaking by Alaskans with the help of our Ma-ori friends was a collective effort and strongly reflected the healing process and rebirth of evaluation in Alaska Native and Ma-ori culture.

ukk’AA fellowShIp In addition to my own evaluation work, a small, but dedicated group of eight Indigenous professionals, educators, and students have formed a fellowship, mostly those who attended the Whariki workshop in 2009. This group began with an idea to craft a written document to tell the story of Alaskan Native evaluation. However, the story ran deeper than just evaluation. The group represented people of Tsimshian, Athabascans from the Deg Hit’, Gwich’in, and Koyukon regions, Inupiaq, and Tlingit tribes. Their combined cultural histories and tribal and Indigenous rights issues were brought to the forefront of the discussion. Our paper, “Indigenous Evaluation—It’s Only New Because It’s Been Missing so Long” (Anderson et al., 2012) is a strategic move on the part of the fellowship to help legitimize the need for Indigenous evaluation and create a resource that can be quoted by other practitioners. It was important to give the fellowship a name that represented Indigenous evaluation in an Alaskan context. Ukk’aa, Koyukon Athabascan for eddy, is a quiet place in the river from which both upstream and downstream can be viewed. Ukk’aa is a resting place and vantage point for reflection, a fitting metaphor for evaluation in a region where life is so dominated by the rivers. The fellowship should be noted for the importance it shares in spreading Indigenous evaluation and in developing Alaska Native evaluation capacity. Most of its members are currently active and working toward establishing skills capable of taking on evaluation projects, together.

prIncIpleS of IndIgenouS evAluATIon To further develop Indigenous evaluation capacity, Sandy Kerr just completed a Fulbright award in Alaska for the 2011/2012 academic year.

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She taught an Indigenous evaluation graduate course through I-AC in Fairbanks. The group was honored with six guest speakers over the length of the course, five by live video, and all experts in different areas of evaluation.4 Each guest speaker gave a personal account on evaluation and their reflections exposed the class to diverse aspects of evaluation. At the beginning of the course, the class was asked to read “Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association (ANZEA) Evaluator Competencies 2011.” This model “emerged from work undertaken by ANZEA from 2009 to 2011.” Its “development of evaluator competencies is part of ANZEA’s strategy to promote and facilitate the development of quality evaluation practice in Aotearoa New Zealand, underpinned by the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.” (see ANZEA, 2011, p. 4). The competencies are, “intended to be inclusive of the range of skills and knowledge evaluators bring, those with ‘life’ knowledge and experience, and those with academic knowledge and experience” (ANZEA, 2011, p. 6). The model can be used by, “evaluators, commissioners of evaluation, employers, and trainers, teachers of evaluation and tertiary institutions” (ANZEA, 2011, p. 7). The class was then asked to complete a self-assessment table, reflecting on our own background, academic studies, and experiences in relation to the four competency domains and the skills within each domain (see ANZEA, 2011, pp. 11–14). This provided students with a selfassessment baseline for competency development within the course. Aside from our competency development, we examined articles and publications by well-known Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors, including a book written by one of our guest speakers, Joan Lafrance. Students were encouraged to read her coauthored book (LaFrance & Nichols, 2009). The class initially asked AIHEC if we could buy copies of the book for our course, but were told they were out of print. After Sandy wrote to Joan, Joan said AIHEC had found a box of books and suggested we ask again. This time, they said they would happily send them for free because they were very glad that we would be using them. Everyone was honored to have this book because it remains such a helpful tool in putting Indigenous evaluation in an applicable framework. We also discussed several broad areas of evaluation. We looked at culture and context and compared New Zealand and Alaskan issues, past and present. We discussed the concept of credibility in evaluation. For this, we examined ideas surrounding “evidence” such as, rigor, validity, and how credibility relates to Indigenous evaluation. One particular presentation was “Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” The guest speaker, Steven Becker, talked

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about “cultural property” and how it is identified, used, and protected. He briefly covered tribal laws in America and research pitfalls [concerning assumptions that consent agreements are enough and that Indigenous people are willing to freely share knowledge “for the greater good of humanity”]. What stood out for me as helpful in this discussion, were the “Five R’s of Indigenous Research: Respect, Relationship, Responsibility, Reasoning, and Reciprocity.”5 These values challenge the researcher to take into account the cultural property rights of people when working in Indigenous communities. This value system is helpful because it reminds me about my own values in research and how I treat knowledge that is conveyed to me. The course also included a requirement to complete a practical evaluation project relevant to each student’s job or profession. This has been key to encourage the Ukk’aa fellowship to apply their evaluation knowledge to practice. As a final assessment of the impact of this course on students, we were asked again to reflect on experiences during the course in relation to the four competency domains and the skills within each domain. This exercise provided a self-assessment of competency development gained within the course. Although the competencies were designed to be used in Aotearoa New Zealand, the class was asked to reflect on their own ability in evaluation here in Alaska; we were warned that some competencies will not directly fit Alaska but to take note of what might be more applicable in Alaskan context.

IndIgenouS evAluATIon gATherIng After multiple strategic efforts to gain momentum, Indigenous evaluation is on the rise. Our next challenge is to showcase our practice and make Indigenous evaluation a central component for Alaska Native programs. To aid this effort, Ukk’aa and students from the course held an Indigenous evaluation gathering in Fairbanks in May 2012. The gathering drew together key Alaska Native people and other Indigenous evaluators, including Joan Lafrance and Peter Mataira, guest lecturers from the course. Non-Native Alaskan evaluator practitioners who have been identified as critical to furthering the cause of Indigenous evaluation in Alaska were also invited to attend. It was good to gather and take that reflective time to look upstream and downstream at the Indigenous evaluation journey to ensure that it continues its momentum.

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my TrAIl forwArd Through this transformative journey, my spirit became renewed and my effort guided into Alaska Native culture, where my energy is nourished. I will always have my story of alcohol abuse and the healing process that followed. To me, that part of the story remains a poignant but necessary experience that led me to my work in evaluation. This recovery eventually compelled me to use this journey as a story to help others, especially those in need of healing. Howard Luke, a Dena elder, once explained his concept of living in a “good way” in his Native culture: Gaalee’ya, it’s a luck that you get by learning to live right with the land and the animals, including people, and everything around you, you respect everything. It gives you the power to know the things that help you survive in a good way. You got to protect this luck with respect. All these things are going to come back again, so you got to listen and learn from the elders.6

Howard’s concept is a Koyukon belief in reciprocity, which remains a central value in Native culture. This “luck” he speaks of rests in the Koyukon principle of giving back to the land and never using more than you need. Koyukon people knew that this is how life maintains an ecological balance and it was through our collective and evaluative efforts that we maintained this survival through the centuries. As I have grown in my time and place, research has become a powerful way for me to relay a message and, in this case, provides an important vessel by which to tell Indigenous stories. It is my opinion that Indigenous evaluation can play an important and integral part in a long process of decolonization and healing of Indigenous people. I believe that our own perspectives and outlooks in evaluation can provide a positive component for what lies ahead. My role as a young researcher must be shared with the community, and giving back to my community has made me closer to my Koyukon heritage. It is an honor to have this opportunity to work along with my Indigenous people in an effort to build stronger and healthier programs that encourage our way of life. In closing, Howard said this about giving back in times of great need: “These things were given to me a long time ago, and now, it is time for me to return it back to the people.”

noTeS Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Sandy Kerr, Clara Anderson, kas aruskevich, and the Ukk’aa Fellowship for their help and guidance in creating this chapter. With their help

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and energy, I was able to get this chapter started and ultimately finished. Thank you for your friendship and support! 1. The first workshop was taught by Te Ropu Whariki evaluators Suaree Borell (Ma-ori/ Samoan), Victoria Jensen (Samoan), Sandy Kerr (Ma-ori), and Verne McManus (Ma-ori). The second workshop included a Ma-ori elder Isabella Urlich along with Victoria Jensen, Sandy Kerr, and Verne McManus. 2. Hikoi was created as an online resource and was only in draft form in 2009 when the workshop took place. 3. AEA Evaluation 2011, session 655, Success Is Giving a Fish: Valuing Indigenous Values, was one of two winners chosen for the presidential competition. 4. Guest lecturers were kas aruskevich, Lexi Hill, Diane Hirshburg, Joan LaFrance, Peter Mataira, and Robin Peace. We also acknowledge Helen Moewaka Barnes, Mary Moriaty, Michael Quinn Patton, and Nan Wehipeihana, who graciously accepted the invitation to guest lecture but were unable to join the class for various reasons. 5. Taken from a lecture by Steven R. Becker. Becker is assistant professor of Tribal Management at Interior-Aleutians Campuses, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. 6. Howard Luke’s concept of “Gaalee’ya” taken from his book: My Own Trail, Alaska Native Knowledge Network, 1998. Edited by Jan Steinbright Jackson.

referenceS American Evaluation Association. (2011). Public statement on cultural competence in evaluation. Fairhaven, MA: Author. www.eval.org. Adopted May 17, 2011 (accessed September 10, 2012). Anderson, C., Chase, M., Johnson, J., Mekiana, D., McIntyre, D., Ruerup, A., & Kerr, S. (2012). Indigenous evaluation: It’s only new because it’s been missing for so long. American Journal of Evaluation, 33(4), 566–582. Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association (ANZEA). (2011). Evaluation competencies 2011. www.azea.org.nz. February 2011 (accessed September 10, 2012). aruskevich, k. (2010). Telling a story about Indigenous evaluation: Insights of practitioners from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. Dissertation submitted to the graduate division of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, Oahu. Barnes, H. M. (2009). The evaluation hikoi: A Mäori overview of programme evaluation. Draft, Te Ropu Whariki, Massey University, Palmerston, New Zealand. Becker, S. R. (2012). Cultural & intellectual property rights. PowerPoint lecture, January 31, Lecture given at Interior-Aleutians campuses of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine. Lafrance, J. & Nichols, R. (2009). Indigenous evaluation framework: Telling our story in our place and time. Published by American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). Luke, H. (1998). My Own Trail. Published by Alaska Native Knowledge Network. Edited by Jan Steinbright Jackson. Printing, November 2000. Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. London: Sage.

Chapter 12

An Aboriginal Health Worker’s Research Story Juanita Sherwood

Introduction My name is Juanita Sherwood. I am an Aboriginal woman, a descendant of the Wiradjuri Nation,1 a daughter, a mother, a sister, and an aunt and have worked and lived in Aboriginal health and education for over twenty-five years. My experiences, responsibilities, and varied environments have shaped my worldview and my ways of knowing, being, and doing. I would like to establish the context for my research story within the contested space of Indigenous health research in Australia. For some 150 years, research in Australia has been focused on knowing Aboriginal Australians, rather than restituting our people’s circumstances, which were shaped through colonial policy and doctrine. The results of health research also failed to deliver improvements in Aboriginal health status, which had shifted from good at the start of colonial contact to appalling in the twenty-first century, as acknowledged by international aid agency Oxfam in 2007—a national scandal for a First World country. Importantly, poor research of the past has influenced how Aboriginal peoples today are viewed within the health service arena, mainstream media, and the general Australian population. These ill-informed ways of knowing about Aboriginal Australians have affected how Aboriginal health is dealt with. Most Australians have not had access to balanced and unbiased information about Indigenous Australia.

Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 203–218. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 203

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A reseArch Journey This story is also my personal reflection on a research journey that started some twenty years ago, when research was still a dirty word in Aboriginal communities. I took on this journey as a health worker who wanted to make a difference in Aboriginal communities, where we knew that our health was in crisis yet was not being addressed. I did not actively pursue a career in research. Research was simply the tool we needed to use to get action. As Aboriginal people, we learned that we needed to provide evidence of health issues that we believed needed to be improved. Our research was fundamentally about making change happen and not simply undertaken just for publication or academic development. We explored and developed a process that was different, and it delivered positive outcomes. Our methods for research have grown to address the needs of our communities and are part of our process of self-determining our ways forward. I have used the term “journey” to signify my passage of learning through my processing of knowledges, experiences, and critical reflections. These dimensions have framed my method of learning about important strategies and issues that need to be addressed in undertaking culturally safe and ethical research with Indigenous peoples. This is because research has not always been ethically undertaken in Aboriginal communities. Instead, it has often been done without consultation and consent and has created serious misrepresentations and deficit constructions of Aboriginal people. We have had to fight to have our worldviews, protocols, and ethical considerations recognized, and we have succeeded.

communIty collAborAtIve reseArch My first research experience started a long time ago, in 1988, when I was employed as a school health nurse in Redfern, within central Sydney. This area included The Block,2 which is known as the Black Capital of Australia. I had just completed my primary teaching diploma and was also a registered nurse, so I thought I was equipped professionally for my new role. However, I found out that I was ill prepared to work with the catastrophe of Aboriginal health and education issues that communities were trying to cope with and manage. My schooling, as for most people living in Australia, failed to acknowledge the experiences and crises of our First Peoples as a result of ongoing colonization. It was not until the mid-1990s that Aboriginal people’s histories, stories, and positions entered the educational arena, both within the tertiary health and education sector and the general schooling system.

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I found out a lot about myself working on The Block. It was here that I discovered the wealth of knowledge, love, and support that is the essence of a very strong and effective Aboriginal community. It was in this community that I was grown, held, and nurtured and shown how to work collectively with community and support initiatives that were community driven. It was also a site where I observed serious injustice meted out by the local police and successions of governments. Importantly, The Block was the place where I realized I had to get smart about how to effect change, as the good news stories from The Block never hit the media, only the bad ones did. This is a phenomenon that every Indigenous community I went to work in since has suffered from. Working as a child health/school nurse, I screened children in their first year of school in the areas of hearing, vision, and speech. I quickly observed an extremely high incidence of conductive hearing loss among Aboriginal students in all primary school years. The situation was concerning educationally as I was aware that children with a hearing loss had great difficulties trying to listen in the classroom. Raising this issue with my medical-child health team and a number of specialists working in this area, I learned that the learning consequences of conductive hearing loss were not well appreciated or acknowledged as an important health issue for intervention. Consequently, parents and schools staff had not been previously advised of its incidence. I talked with parents, teachers, Aboriginal education assistants, and principals about the educational implications of this ear infection. They quickly appreciated that action was required. Once they were all informed, the teaching staff was particularly worried about the large numbers of their students with a significant educational hearing loss. Before understanding the hearing test results, parents and teaching staff had assumed that children’s inattentive behaviors meant that the children were purposely not listening. When I provided the results and explained what they actually meant, parents and teachers instantly realized that these children could not hear. They wanted something to be done about it immediately. The community of parents, teachers, and other educational staff presented their concerns about the high rates of hearing loss among their children to an Indigenous interagency meeting, and support grew quickly to act to improve the educational opportunities for these students. A community meeting was held at the Aboriginal Education Program Unit at Sydney University. In attendance was an educational specialist from Menzies School of Health Research, who recommended that a small research project be undertaken to chart the incidence of students in the inner city area who had conductive hearing loss. In 1989, the screening survey was undertaken with the support of the community and three local schools. The New South Wales (NSW)

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Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG) advised the education minister, who responded immediately and positively. The minister provided funding and training for specialist teachers as resources to support students with a conductive hearing loss in the classroom and supported further research to review successful educational and health strategies for these students. The research informed policy and strategic directions in the areas of health and education within NSW. This was a major victory. Aboriginal people were determining child health and education policy. This research experience was unique and spanned some ten years. Importantly, it was not just a one off. It was a process that entailed communication, sharing sessions, conferences, and community meetings where talking, listening, and story sharing were vital to the next steps that were taken. This process was very important as community people’s issues and stories provided the vital data of what was happening on the ground, what the problems were, and how we could go about addressing these issues. It was the process of listening, sharing, and acting that informed where and what would be researched. Our research findings were tools to give to governments so that they could advise their policy officers to make the important changes to improve service delivery to children with conductive hearing loss. It was our process of working together that was the key to our success. Despite the positive outcomes associated with the school health community-based research, many members of Aboriginal society have not yet had their health needs addressed. Policy improvement has been piecemeal and only funded through political motivation that waxes and wanes. As an example, I was recently (June 2011) informed at a conference in Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory,3 that the level of hearing loss within the adult Aboriginal prisoners in Alice Springs was 95%. This extremely high prevalence in the light of health and education evidence is highly problematic in a First World country. Undiagnosed and untreated hearing loss impacts people’s lives on many levels.

reflectIon My initial experiences of research driven from a consultative community participatory approach were positive. However, these were only the first steps on my research journey. I learned very quickly—by reading the scholarly literature, reviewing testimonials of evidence for the development of Indigenous Ethics Guidelines, listening to memories and stories of community people, reflecting on experiences told by Indigenous researcher peers, and working as an Indigenous researcher—that research did not always have positive outcomes for the communities under study.

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What I came to appreciate about this experience was what was different about Indigenous research compared to Western research practices. The key difference was that praxis in Indigenous research grew from issues that were of concern for the Aboriginal community that needed to be acted on and changed. As the researcher, I was enmeshed in a community consultative process built within a framework of respect and reciprocity. The communities were at the center of this process at all times. Their views and perspectives counted; their knowledge about the ongoing impact of not hearing was important; and their concerns about what was going to be put in place for their children to succeed were vital. Sharing this knowledge with other communities was a priority and pushed by community organizations, and the outcomes were always shared with the communities. Many years later, I came to appreciate that this is what is critical to good outcomes in Indigenous research. It needs the Aboriginal community identifying the issues that impact on them and deciding how to deal with them. They are the experts about themselves, their children, and their communities. They are not the health experts. This is very different than the research that has been undertaken in the past by supposed experts in Aboriginal health who have written a lot about Aboriginal people and their health issues. However, those experts did not listen to Aboriginal people or dismissed what they said. The outcomes of such research are often just another bad health story; scenarios that I have witnessed during my years of working in Aboriginal health. This has been a critical issue for Indigenous heath researchers in Australia, as Laycock et al. write: Good knowledge exchange in the Indigenous health research environment can be challenging. This is mainly because it asks researchers, funders and policy makers to change the way some things have traditionally been done. Success is more likely when you are aware of these challenges, open to new ways of doing things and prepared to advocate for change. (2011, p. 121)

Research is and can be a practical tool for solution development for Aboriginal communities but it requires that Aboriginal people collaboratively steer the process to ensure that the outcomes of such research are in line with community needs. We have been working very long and hard to be heard within the academy and by the funding bodies to improve how research is undertaken with our people. We are succeeding and have affected change and we need to continue promoting the importance of communities being heard about their own issues, as they are very different than how they are presented through another worldview’s lens.

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reseArch hAs hAd A bAd nAme for mAny Good reAsons I moved from my child health role into health policy and then into a health education role within the tertiary sector. The tertiary setting gave me the time to read and review the literature in Aboriginal health, education, and research. The book Decolonising Methodologies, by Ma-ori academic Linda Tuhiwai Smith, greatly influenced and inspired me (1999). A significant turning point for me was reading her poetic and evocative discourse. Smith’s writing resonated with my soul, and she prompted me to reclaim my stories, history, and identity. Her text, as described by Jelena Porsanger (2004), is an essential read for all researchers working in the area of Indigenous peoples. Smith’s Indigenous lens critiqued the Western academy. Her examination of the West’s obsession to study, describe inaccurately, and further problematize the Indigenous Other resonated strongly with what appeared to be the experience of Indigenous Australians. Research had been used as a colonial tool by the colonizers to better manage the “Natives” in Australia. It was a useful strategy and became a problematizing discourse often used to instill terror and murderous reactions from the new settlers and the military toward the many nations of Aboriginal peoples throughout Australia (Sherwood, 2010). Smith reminds us that the dehumanizing discourse of the past exploitative research has not been completely abandoned. Rather, it continues to inform those who have not had the opportunity to gain an informed insight from a balanced educational experience (Smith, 1999). This is why research has had such a bad name for Indigenous Australians: It supposedly provided the evidence required to justify the eradication of Aboriginal peoples through the constructions of “primitive, savage natives” (Wolfe, 1999, p. 11). The research also aimed to promote the “doomed race theory” espoused by medical researchers (Thomas, 2004), to justify inhumane polices such as enforced protection on missions and reserves and removal of children from their families (Ella et al., 1998; Gray, Trompf, & Houston, 1991; Haebich, 1988). The policies informed by such research also created great loss of much Aboriginal intellectual, linguistic, and cultural knowledges. Indigenous knowledge systems were not respected or appreciated.

connectInG wIth the KnowledGe holders Elders are scholars in their own right within the First Nations knowledge system. —Ermine, Sinclair, & Browne (2005, p. 14)

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The original inner-city Community Research Project grew to encompass almost all the towns in NSW. It was a direct result of the education process delivered by the NSW AECG,4 who drove the community-awareness raising for all Aboriginal communities throughout the state. I was requested to participate in much of the outreach education, and it was through this process that I met and worked with a number of female elders. These women were the highly respected power brokers of their communities as well as esteemed knowledge holders. It was a considerable honor to work with them. Developing strong relationships was an essential feature of genuine knowledge transfer, along with my gains in vital knowledge and ethical protocols. Over the years we worked together, these elders encouraged me to learn more about research and to get involved in research that would make a difference for our communities. I accepted this push and moved to western NSW for a year in 1999 to work with a particular elder, as advised by the elders from Sydney. The elders wanted my knowledge to be balanced with Aboriginal ways of knowing, being, and doing and not just focused on the academic stuff. This was a vital opportunity that I considered a gift, and the time I spent out west deeply influenced how I would view the academy and research in the future. The elder I had come to learn from out west had attended a university health information session for new health staff. At this event, she was told by a senior Western health professional/academic that her knowledge and stories were irrelevant to the health of our people. This experience devastated her and infuriated me. I resolved that this kind of disrespect would never happen again. I knew the gift the elder had offered to share was significant and fundamental to making a difference to the health and well-being of our people. The rejection of this gift of empirical and evidenced-based knowledge was truly disrespectful and caused this elder and others great injury. The injury is caused by the continuing dismissal of Indigenous knowledge, resulting in internalized self-deprecation. My Sisters I rage with pain, unspoken My heart heavy and constricted My sister’s death unwanted I am fed up with this ridiculous loss Numbed by its persistence My other sisters are consumed by grief That they are unable to articulate Their pain is heavy and wearing, draining their life force and optimism How can we go on? Heavy hearted, strangled by this oppression

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| Juanita Sherwood The negativity of our context, is extended by our environment We are the people who cared and nourished the land our sisters and brothers Today we witness their demise, as a result of ongoing violence that affects our very psyche Our will to survive is strong, however our will to remain reminded of our loss in every way is unnerving When will we hear the words that need to be said to heal our hearts, souls and peoples? When will we see our land being healed and our knowledge and philosophy respected? Stop killing my sisters with your hate Stop this ongoing litany of lies and dread for my people! I worry intensely regarding the impact this death will have upon my sisters The ripple of pain, unleashes an erosive action upon a symbolic, esoteric heart, a heart that has been described for so long as non-human This heart wears scars of generations of dehumanisation, torture, trauma and denial Its ability as an esoteric organ to soak in and absorb the pain—in the end breaks, crumbles and the wash of pain is continued. It never ends. (Sherwood, 2000, p. 6)

I wrote this poem about my time out west and the death of a sister. I was angry about my time out west, as I watched too often the injury caused to our people by the way they were treated in research and by health services. I left the west questioning the ethics of Western research.

A shIftInG AwAreness I returned to Sydney to take up academic work at the Koori Centre at Sydney University. This environment fostered the importance of Indigenouscontrolled research and encouraged me to shift my research focus. Further reading and a commitment to undertake a Ph.D. ensured that I searched high and low for writings from Indigenous authors and researchers. I was very fortunate to be under the direct supervision of Aboriginal Australian scholar Dr. Wendy Brady, who introduced me to many important scholars and researchers in print. Wendy also provided some very sound guidance about what to expect in the research field. It was a hard place for an Aboriginal person to be, and although it was the year 2000, many non-Indigenous researchers still believed we were incapable of undertaking sound research. For example, at a conference at Sydney University, we encountered two non-Indigenous “experts,” who had written a great

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deal about Aboriginal Australians. They told the conference organizers that they did not want Indigenous people presenting at the conference because being Indigenous made us emotional and less able to be objective in the field. Our response was to ensure that we did present at the conference. Elders, communities, supervisors, and postmodern literature maintain that objectivity is a myth in social science and has allowed many ill-informed research methods to be used, creating problematic policy that hurt Indigenous peoples worldwide. It is important to acknowledge one’s personal subjectivity in the research one is undertaking and not hide behind a veneer of claiming objectivity. Through the acknowledgment of one’s bias, we are ensuring that our perspectives are not hidden. Australian scholar Lester Irabinna Rigney’s anti-colonial critique has also strongly influenced me. He articulated clearly what we wanted and needed from research: “Indigenous people now want research and its design to contribute to the self-determination and liberation struggle as defined and controlled by their communities” (Rigney, 1997, p. 114). Rigney drew significant attention to the maintenance of colonization by the Australian research academy and its Western fixation of oppressing Indigenous people by its “dominant epistemologies” (Rigney, 1997, p. 116). These concepts were very new to me but they explained why we continued to be misrepresented and constructed as problematic, as this was how the West continued to falsely assert its own cultural superiority. I wanted to undertake research in a manner that was safe and relevant to our people to ensure that my research would be conducted in a way “which gives voices to Indigenous peoples” (Rigney, 1997, p. 179). In August 2000, I attended my first Indigenous research conference and had the great opportunity to listen to and meet both Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Lester Irabinna Rigney. It was at this conference that I was inspired to write the poem above, reflecting again on my time out west and the issues that were impacting on our communities.

movInG on The impact of the conference and my loss of a vital supervisor in 2001 due to illness made me rethink where I was going with my studies. It was difficult to find another supervisor who had knowledge or experience in the area of Indigenous research at the university in which I was enrolled. I approached the elders about my situation, and they suggested that I go somewhere I could get hands-on experience to inform my study. So I took a break from my studies while I looked for new supervisors and accepted a position as an Indigenous research fellow at the Centre for Remote Health, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, hoping that this move would increase my research experiences.

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I worked in Central Australia for approximately five years in an academic and research position. I connected with new supervisors and continued to relate to and learn from the elders, to ensure the work I was doing in research for my thesis was safe and relevant to Aboriginal Australian communities. My circle of elders worked with me as cultural supervisors throughout my study to complete my Ph.D. The elders are experts in Indigenous knowledge and law. They are not academics but they provided the critical emotional and spiritual support when things got tough. They provided the balance between the Western academic world and our world. These women were and are central to my learning and development as an Indigenous researcher. They promoted the importance of respect, reciprocity, and listening and the importance of acknowledging that there are many ways of knowing, being, and doing in this country and all over the world, and hence there are many truths. The process became a two-way learning experience for me, as I had to become conversant in and able to accommodate a Western education process (undertaking a Ph.D. program within an Australian Western academic institution) “alongside an equally important Aboriginal pedagogical approach to learning” (Sherwood, 2010, p. 148). This two-way approach is important, as I wanted to demonstrate that two very different ways of knowing, being, and doing can come together effectively and balance each other to provide a safer model for undertaking research with Indigenous Australians. Figure 12.1 illustrates how important the elders were in this process of affirming my ways of learning. The elders taught me that my role of researching and storytelling came with considerable responsibilities that were embedded within from my worldview and culture. Welcoming and accommodating these responsibilities and working within a mainstream research field created conflict. Mainstream researchers were ill prepared for undertaking research respectfully in Aboriginal communities, as this was not part of their training and was simply not taught at universities. Elders hold authority related to ethical and moral matters that relate to their law and communities. As such, their expert advice and teachings in the area of ethics provided a solid framework to explore the divergences of ethical practice of past and present Indigenous health research. I learned through my working experiences, and then explored with the elders, the dilemmas that occurred when I attempted to raise these responsibilities with Western researchers when they had breached protocols or were disrespectful. The elders were concerned when they heard that these encounters were continuing in the country/Australia they had worked so hard to educate. They were in disbelief about some of the encounters I shared with them, involving supposedly well-informed and educated professionals and the way they dealt with our communities.

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Figure 12.1 The Model: A Living Method, Illustrated by Willurei KirkbrightBurney 2010.

As a lone Indigenous researcher, I held very little power within a mainstream research environment, and when I challenged my role or the research practice of others I was ignored or dismissed. This was a major problem because I knew I was responsible for doing no harm or allowing any harm to come to our communities. The elders were adamant that this was how research should be. Safe. My employers understood that my role was to ensure there was Aboriginal involvement in the project commencement so that it was funded. I was necessary for the research to go ahead, and I was used to establish connections with communities, undertake interviews, and do the running around. Often, I was excluded from being part of preparing funding submissions and analyzing and reporting data. My capacity to grow as a principal investigator was not developed as I remained positioned as a research assistant. Many of my peers around the country also experienced this token status and the lack of being heard and were frustrated about our inability to stop problematic research. Most of us were solo Indigenous academics/ researchers attempting to educate our students and staff and to support our communities. While we had the support of our elders to encourage and inspire us, they are not a part of the academy. In our various institutions, we were working in cultural isolation, with few colleagues who appreciated or comprehended our concerns.

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shIftInG the bAlAnce To shift this balance and prevent further injury, we collectively created and established an Indigenous Staff Network (ISN). This network was supported by our work place organizations and enabled vital collegial support for each other. Our aim was to ensure that the research and work we were involved in made a difference to our communities and that we would implement Indigenous research approaches into the existing research environment to make sure that culturally secure research was undertaken and that research no longer caused harm. ISN was set up to guarantee that we, as Indigenous researchers, survived within the academy. We knew what our token role within our institutions meant. But within our communities, our role as researchers was in no way token. Our role as cultural brokers was fundamental to our premise of doing no harm through research, and ISN provided the community and our ISN members with a sense of strength of being heard and an acknowledged position from our workplaces that they were prepared to recognize our initiatives and protocols.

conclusIon: we hAve mAde A dIfference Indigenous participation and the growing of Indigenous researchers in health and other fields of research have made a significant shift in how research is undertaken in our communities today. We are being heard and published, developing vital research agendas that have the opportunity to bring about health improvements for our communities. The building of our capacity in the area of research continues to be an important academic space. Our collective voices are vital in continuing to inform state and national health research agendas. Importantly, we are working together to grow and support each other as the elders have. They have taught us to continue this journey. Our communities are responding to research that is safe and relevant; to being involved all the way; to being respected for their expert knowledge; to having their involvement and time participating in the research being valued financially; and to knowing they can say “No” to research if it does not feel right.

A reflectIve model for decolonIzAtIon The model shown below has been “developed through the analysis of literature, interviews with participants and deep critical reflection of my own research journey” (Sherwood, 2010, p. 262). The ideology behind this model is of “doing no harm and reducing the risk of injury

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to Indigenous Australians that now accompanies Indigenous health research praxis” (Sherwood, 2010, p. 262). It is from my thesis, “Do No Harm: Decolonising Aboriginal Health Research,” and it is a culmination of many things I have learned on my research journey. It has been generated to prepare researchers, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to be respectful of other ways of knowing, being, and doing. 1. Respect. This requires a deep acknowledgment that you do not know it all, comprehending this point is about respecting yourself, allowing you to not fear what you don’t know. Once that fear has left you, you can be respectful of others. 2. Being respectful gives you an openness that enables you to listen; you have to listen deeply so you can hear. Not knowing can be a fearful space, and many want to cover that not knowing by pretending to know, and they can appear aloof in maintaining this pretense. This stance is immediately recognized by community people, who question the value of providing answers to the researcher’s questions, as already they recognize that the researcher will not listen deeply and hear what is being explained to them. On the other hand, if the researcher is respectful and acknowledges that he or she doesn’t know, this act is observed as openness. There can be recognition by community people that this person is open to know and knowledge will be shared. It is up to the person/researcher to sit quietly and listen, not interrupt the flow of knowledge being shared. If your mind is busy thinking of the next question to ask, you are not listening deeply. You have to listen deeply to really hear what is being shared with you, the gift that you are being given. 3. once you comprehend what you are being told, you are connected to the person speaking to you; this creates a space for mutuality and inclusion. Comprehending what you are told does not occur immediately. It requires thoughtful reflection and later discussion with the person who shared this information with you to clarify that you got the story right. This means that research is not a process that occurs over an hour and is then finished. It means establishing a communicative connection with your informant: “Research that seeks objectivity by maintaining distance between the investigator and informants violates Aboriginal ethics of reciprocal relationship and collective validation” (Castellano, 2004, p. 105). Connecting to the person who is sharing with you is an ethical practice; you are establishing a space in which people’s truths can be shared without fear of being put down. 4. once in this space, you can collaborate effectively, work together. This is a mutual space that honors the spirit of both persons’ integrity, or as Ermine et al. explain, “through this collaborative process there is an opportunity to honor all worldviews” (Ermine et al., 2005, p. 11). In every sense, this is what we are all working toward, honoring everyone’s worldview.

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5. Working together can facilitate a relationship. Working together can only occur when the circumstances ensure there is a level playing ground. In relation to research, this requires that the community has control of the process, otherwise their circumstances remain subservient to the powerful researcher. The building of relationships requires a shift from the colonizer and the colonized, to a more balanced equation of knowledge seeker and knowledge holder/expert. This relationship is achievable and has been documented by researchers such as Deborah Bird Rose (2000) and Fred Myers (1986). 6. Relationships come with responsibilities that are complex and multifaceted. Law within country has established the framework for these protocols. A key doctrine of the law is to do no harm to any person, being, or place. These responsibilities are what are known as reciprocity, the obligation that comes with relatedness. Relationships and responsibilities fit within the research language of transparency and accountability. This notion attempts to ensure that relationships developed through the process are not extinguished once data collection is completed. Accountability and responsibility to communities remains a priority in the transfer of this data and its publication and benefits (Ermine et al., 2005, p. 36).

My Research Journey I cringe at the texts that disregard and misrepresent my identity I’m embittered by the data that confounds my notion of social justice I weep at the reckless abuse of ignorance and power I reject the consciousness of superiority and prejudice I reflect on the despair of my brothers and sisters I rejoice in the empowerment of my people’s voices I dance on the mother as she responds to our growth I claim my inheritance of resisting oppression I write my story to counter misbeliefs and encourage understanding And I will my story to nurture a place for safety and respect of our cultures and our peoples Has moved on. (Sherwood, 2001, p. 28)

notes 1. There are over 300 Aboriginal nations within Australia. The Wiradjuri nation is the largest in NSW. 2. The Block is similar to the Bronx in New York City. 3. The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in which Aboriginal people make up 31.6% of the population (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2008, p. 3). 4. The New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (NSW AECG) is a highly successful and necessary Aboriginal community–controlled education organization established by NSW Aboriginal elders and community people working in education. It is forty-one years old.

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references Australian Human Rights Commission. (2008). Face the facts. Sydney: Australian Human Rights Commission. Bird Rose, D. (2000). Dingo makes us human. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Castellano, B. M. (2004). Ethics of Aboriginal research. Journal of Aboriginal Health January, 98–114. Ella, R., Smith, P., Kellaher, M., Bord, S., & Hill, T. (1998). Securing the truth: NSW government submission to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. Sydney: Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Ermine, W., Sinclair, R., & Browne, M. (2005). Kwayask itotamowin: Indigenous research ethics: Report of the Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre to the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Saskatoon, Canada: Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre. Gray, A., Trompf, P., & Houston, S. (1991). The decline and rise of Aboriginal families. In J. Reid & P. Trompf (Eds.), The health of Aboriginal Australia (pp. 80–122). Sydney: Harcourt. Haebich, A. (1988). For their own good. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press. Laycock, A., Walker, D., Harrison, N., & Brands, J. (2011). Researching Indigenous health: A practical guide for researchers. Darwin, Australia: Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health. Myers, F. R. (1986). Pintupi country, Pintupi self: Sentiment, place, and politics among western desert Aborigines. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Porsanger, J. (2004). An essay about Indigenous methodology. http//www.ub.uit.no/ munin/handle/10037/906 (accessed February 17, 2006). Rigney, L. (1997). Internationalisation of an Indigenous anti-colonial cultural critique of research methodologies. HERDSA annual international conference proceeding. Advancing International Perspectives, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. http:// www.herdsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/conference/1997/rigney01.pdf (accessed July 22, 2000). Sherwood, J. (2000). Community solutions to Aboriginal family violence: Final report and model of best practice 1999–2000. Sydney: New South Wales Department for Women, Broken Hill and Menindee Rural Crisis Intervention Projects. Sherwood, J. (2001). My research journey. Kaurna Higher Education Journal 7, 62. Sherwood, J. (2010). Do no harm: Decolonising Aboriginal health research. Ph.D. dissertation, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago Press. Thomas, D. P. (2004). Reading doctors’ writing: Race, politics and power in Indigenous health research 1870–1969. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Wolfe, P. (1999). Settler colonialism and the transformation of anthropology. London: Cassell.

Chapter 13

Nurturing the Gift of Understanding Different Realities Keiko Kuji-Shikatani

When Donna Mertens approached me about sharing my experience of how an Indigenous person becomes a researcher, my first reaction was I don’t think I fit in. As I have lived in countries other than my birthplace for most of my life, I have learned that the country of my residence could refer to me as (in alphabetical order) an alien, an expatriate, a foreigner, an immigrant, a visible minority, you name it. I thought about whether as a Japanese, I would qualify as Indigenous (UNHCR, 2012; United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 2012). The Japanese have lived on the island of Japan for at least 3,000 years, so I could claim to be Indigenous to the land I was born in. I could not help but look up the definition of Indigenous. I learned that there was no universally agreed on definition for the term and that many of the expressions used are similar to my own experience (i.e., someone whose family has been Indigenous to where I was born but is now working in another culture). Because of privacy issues, I was not sure about sharing my personal stories. However, I concluded that if my story can help someone begin the journey in search of an answer to the question, then it is worth taking this chance and embarking on this phenomenological inquiry. Having an identity crisis as to whether I fit in the Indigenous category was not my only concern. I was also concerned about being labeled as a researcher. I intentionally chose to study and train to be an evaluator, hence I consider myself an evaluator who uses research skills; in this chapter, I share with you about how I became an evaluator. I should add that this phenomenological inquiry led me to understand that I, too, am Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 219–238. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 219

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a researcher after all. I am an evaluation researcher pursuing how we can utilize evaluation for the betterment of society. Jumping to conclusions is not the kind of thing an evaluator should be doing, yet not fitting in has been the story of my life. Therefore, I decided to explore how I decided to do what I do today. Through writing my story, I realized that I have always been the only Asian person in the majority of the spaces I have occupied, and my interest in facilitating evaluation use in organizations is a research focus that I have always pursued. My story is about how seemingly unrelated experiences in my life are nuggets of treasures that uniquely prepared me as an evaluator and an evaluation researcher. I hope readers will find similar experiences from their own history and see that when they look back, those experiences all helped them in becoming and being a researcher. Learning is never wasted, experience is golden, and the world is your teacher. What do I do? I help organizations and programs embed evaluation use into their system to inform their adaptation and innovation in providing services to the changing realities of society. I am a credentialed evaluator working as an education officer on the Research Monitoring and Evaluation Team in the Student Achievement Division for the Ontario Ministry of Education. As an internal evaluator, my main responsibility is to infuse evaluative thinking in collaborative teams, elucidate team discussions with evaluative questions, data and logic, and facilitate databased decision making in the developmental process (Patton, 2011) to reach every student.

Why I Do What I Do—the BegInnIng of a Journey I am going to start off with the story of my childhood because I have things in common with people who go through life as outsiders trying to live in a Western society. My childhood was like living in a time machine where you travel to a totally different place with no obvious connections between people, language, customs, or daily routines from one place to another. I learned very early to be observant and be respectful of others’ ways of life. Let me explain. Tokyo today is a huge cosmopolitan city with a population of over 35 million and all the trappings of a modern technologically advanced metropolis. The earliest memories I have of my surroundings will surprise most people’s image of Tokyo. Until I was six, I lived in one of the most coveted residential areas in the city. As a young girl, I tagged along with my older brother wherever he went—hunting crayfish in creeks and going through fields of tall grass, dirt roads that get squishy when it rains, a forest full of insects, cabbage patches with legends of finding a girl (me, as told by my dad) in it, and construction sites. Later, I realized

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that all those sites were actually postwar reconstruction and preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. My father had a fairly strict code of behavior, and even when I was very young I knew he followed some customs of a samurai family—it was expected of me to know my manners (like seriously). What I did not know then was that the samurai period ended less than 100 years ago, most Japanese lived a very traditional existence adopting Western-style clothes only decades ago, and most have never seen or heard a foreigner. Around the time I was born, Japan was just coming out from a Twilight Zone existence with feudalism ending with the beginning of the Meiji period starting in 1868. Prior to the Meiji period the country had been closed to the rest of the world for centuries. The average person there had never seen what exists beyond the beaches that surrounded Japan. For example, my grandfather was a public health doctor who continued his medical research past his eighties and understood a number of languages. His curiosity was boundless, born in the beginning of the twentieth century, he grew up when Japan was moving quickly to modernize, but he had never visited the countries that spoke the language he used to do his research. Grandpa was respected and loved by his colleagues and patients alike—he often looked after his patients pro bono. Whenever we visited him in his seaside city, there would be fruits and vegetables in the hallway in the back, gifts from his patients because they did not have enough money to pay for his services. Grandpa was also a zoologist who kept an ecologically balanced garden with little creatures and insects—so ahead of his time. He modeled how to live respecting and in harmony with nature. We adored him. When I started kindergarten, I remember telling my mother that this school thing was not for me. I quickly realized that I was different—girls were supposed to be petite and boys were always outdoing each other— and I was taller and stronger than all the kids around me, including the boys. (My father jokes about my height, wondering why I am so tall, but both my parents come from families with men over 6 feet tall, very unusual for Japanese.) I persevered, tried to fit in, and by Grade 1, I learned to read and write Hiragana and Katakana (two sets of syllabary consisting of forty-eight written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words). Then my world turned upside-down: My businessman father was transferred to New York, we were moving there, and I had to learn the whole new writing system of English. On a December day before I started in a new school, I remember my father’s speech to my brother and me that people would form their opinion of the Japanese from their impressions of us. He stressed that we were to be respectful and be aware of our surroundings—this meant that we were not to speak in Japanese if there are people around who

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do not understand it. Being considerate of others was expected from us, rudeness was not going to be tolerated by him, and I knew he meant it. I have never forgotten his speech: Being respectful to others and looking at issues from their perspective was ingrained in me. This, of course, helped me tremendously as a researcher gathering information and working with people from diverse backgrounds. With the instructions that I was to copy everything on the blackboard, I went to P.S. 117. I followed my parents’ instructions and copied every funny shape on the board. What they forgot to tell me was that I was to leave a space between the words, very different from the Japanese language system. That evening, my parents tried to decipher what I wrote—then finally they realized what was written on the blackboard was “Remember Pearl Harbor Day.” I did not understand why they were so astonished until years later when I was able to understand what World War II meant to the two countries that raised me. The first three months in a New York City school were lonely and quiet for me since I did not understand anything that went on around me; I was an alien. My parents taught us to say “May I go to the bathroom?” which was all I could say for months so I went to the bathroom a lot just so that I could talk once in a while. I remember climbing up on a bar in the bathroom to peer outside the window and watch the leaves on the trees dance in the wind. It was a very lonely existence at school, but at home my mother would always be there to listen to my stories. There was some kind of hope for me. A girl in my class had the same features as I do, dark hair and brown eyes, so I would whisper to her in Japanese whenever I had the chance. However, I thought she was kind of cold and rude since she never responded to me. After three months, I began to understand what people were saying. That is when I learned my lesson to never judge based on limited information. The girl I kept on whispering to in Japanese was not rude; she simply did not understand me, as she was Chinese. We became friends. By June, I was able to carry on a conversation and made lots of friends from diverse backgrounds. I was lonely no more! Life in New York City was quite different from the familiar surroundings of my early childhood. We lived in a townhouse complex built originally for UN staff families, so it was nicely laid out with manicured garden spaces in-between the buildings. There was an annex school for early grades in the complex, but from Grade 3 we had to walk through the normal hustle and bustle of the boroughs that surround Manhattan to get to the main school. We walked through highways over paths, in-between tall apartment buildings, handsome old homes, and brick commercial buildings. Every week, we pledged allegiance to the flag of the United State of America in the big assembly

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halls wearing the school uniform, which in my case was a white top and a dark skirt. By then, I had lots of friends from very different backgrounds. I attended Japanese school on Saturdays and participated in Japanese seasonal functions with my parents. I was living a happy elementary school girl existence in New York, going to ballet lessons, riding horses in summer camps, trick-or-treating for UNICEF at Halloween, looking up at Christmas decorations in Manhattan, venturing out with a permission slip from home to have pizza for lunch, and bringing back rolls of Bazooka gum to share with friends. There were setbacks, like finding out that I wasn’t cut out to be a ballerina, but all in all, growing up I was embraced in the love of my parents. Every day was full of mischief and fun with friends. One day, I realized that my reality was not everyone’s reality. On a school trip, I went to the United Nations and learned about children living in war-torn countries, in poverty, and separated from their families. I learned about UNICEF and that people were in conflict because of years of hatred toward each other because of race, religion, and any other reasons that they could find. The realization that there were many unhappy children in this world came as a huge shock. I began to think that what I wanted to do was work for UNICEF so that all the world’s children can have a happy childhood.

Mary’s house Toward the end of elementary school I returned to Japan. Tokyo was changing; my old neighborhood had highways, trains, and stores everywhere. There were houses where the tall grasses used to invite us to play every day when I was little. As an elementary school pupil in Tokyo, I had to carry an ID card since the train and bus operators could not believe that I was still eligible to pay the children’s fare because I was much taller than normal. I learned that my house in Tokyo was known as Mary’s house among the neighborhood children since that was the only English name they knew, thanks to the song Mary Had a Little Lamb. Teachers at my school were talking about the Osaka World Exposition and how Japan was trying to become a modern nation. Modern somehow meant a Westernized way of living. I can now see that the teacher was excited because he had lived the experience of seeing the transformation of the country from a time when free speech was forbidden under a military government and a segregated society in which the ruling class determined the fate of the powerless people. My teacher spoke about how the government had to work to teach people to use the Western-style toilets

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so that foreigners would not think that Japanese are not sophisticated. Many years later, while working for UNICEF, I learned a lot more about latrines, sanitation, and their significance as indicators for the health of a community. People were curious and wanted to have different experiences through me since I was the closest route to finding out more about the world outside Japan. Whenever I did or said something out of the norm, some teachers would tell me that this is not America, or my friends would tell me how different I was. To me, different was just that, different. Having to live a childhood where I was always different helps me today to not prematurely judge or hold a bias but stay in the data-collection mode until I have enough information to begin triangulating and sorting. People who don’t know me think that I am very quiet and passive. Work colleagues close to me know I am just in the data-collection mode. It really is not a bad skill to have as a researcher. My father was an international businessman working for a large company in the competitive global economy. He was always up to date on world issues, the weather, scientific discoveries—you name it. We were not to share with our classmates what country or city he was visiting because a competitor might be able to put these data together and figure out the company’s next move. Whenever my father was home for a rare dinner together (he usually worked late), he would challenge us with his logical questions. Now, through the eyes of an evaluation researcher, I can see how the businessmen were triangulating their data all the time to get that edge. When I was in graduate school and began to understand how systematic and logical my businessman-father’s mind operated, I was in awe of his meticulous thoroughness. When my father was transferred to Toronto, Canada, another phase of my alien existence began. During the eight years I was back in Tokyo, my parents and I made efforts for me to retain my English. This paid off, and I was still able to carry on a conversation when I moved to Toronto. As soon as we arrived, my father gave me a map of the city and asked me to enroll my siblings into the appropriate schools and register myself at the university. This was the first time in my life I had to navigate the world without my parents or my brother. My mother was not confident in negotiating with the schools in English to enroll the children. She was rather ashamed to admit that she had been an English literature major in the university—her thesis was on Wuthering Heights, so she can read and write in English but following a conversation was very challenging for her. Like many children from families who do not speak the dominant language in the home, I didn’t have a choice—I was the interpreter in the family. The experience forced me to quickly learn how to navigate

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in unfamiliar grounds, which serves me wonderfully in dealing with logistics wherever I go. Ontario in those days had a Grade 13, and my high school diploma from Japan was for Grade 12. However, I had enough credits for Grade 13 and had good marks, so one of the universities in the city allowed me to take the English Proficiency Test and admitted me into their Political Science Department to study international relations. I had two wonderful teachers in English as a Second Language, one in Seneca College, where I studied during the summer, and another at York University, where I did my undergraduate degrees. They both introduced me to the many facets of Canadian cultural life that prepared me to continue with my studies. Having these two caring adults made the transition from an all girls’ school in Japan much easier. It was also an opportunity for me to meet other foreign students and be introduced to their cultures. The families I met seemed different on the surface, eating different but delicious meals and practicing diverse customs, but what was clear to me was that the parents hoped for a happy life for their children. Day-to-day conversation was fine, but academic language was a different story. The first year at the university, I hardly ever went out except to go to classes because I did not understand what the professor was saying so I used to tape-record the lectures; after listening to it four times, I finally laughed at the jokes alone in my room. Sometimes I had to look up words in the dictionary forty times to read one page of a 260-page book. In my Introduction to International Relations class, we had to read at least a dozen books. I still have most of these books, which I show to my kids from time to time. For example, I can see the assignment written on the first page of one of these texts. It says: “In his book Man, the State and War, Kenneth Waltz has reviewed the three ‘images’ of political conflict (Waltz, 1954). Your task is to assess the argument that Waltz has advanced in each of these themes.” Challenging as it was to have to systematically decipher each word and make sense enough to write an essay, I learned and remembered them. Not only that, I developed the skills to take extensive notes during interviews/meetings and to hang on to every word, combing through documents—all these research skills serve me very well today. By the end of the first year at the university, my grades were firmly in the B+ range and thus met the standard to apply for admission to the Faculty of Education so I could learn about the children in challenging situations. Being admitted to the Faculty of Education as a concurrent student was not easy, perhaps because I was a foreign student or maybe because of my political science major. The world was still in the cold war

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mode—during a Strategic Studies class, we talked about the arms race, first strike capabilities, and zero sum games. Political discussions were difficult for me because debating was not part of the high school curriculum in a small densely populated country where harmony and building consensus are valued. A practicum was part of my university program and I asked to do mine in a socially challenged neighborhood in the city. This is where I learned that if I wanted to help, I needed to have my emotional reactions in check. In my first year of the practicum, I was working in a kindergarten classroom once a week where I met a five-year-old girl. Her mom was often late coming in to pick her up. One day, the mom came in late again, intoxicated and upset. As soon as she saw her daughter, she grabbed her and begged my little student to be strong for her mom and the baby. I would not forget the sad big eyes the little girl had. Unfortunately, this was not the only time such encounters occurred. The three years of working in different schools with students of various ages and abilities allowed me to meet children and families from diverse communities and situations. I learned to use various sources of information to prepare lessons so that I could differentiate the teaching based on the needs of the learners in the class. It was a great training ground for a future evaluation researcher, as I had to collect data, monitor, dig deeper, and evaluate, all the while considering the possible next steps. At the university, I was often asked to work as a media coordinator for Japanese media coming to film on location in Toronto. Canadian and Japanese broadcast journalists both tried to persuade me to consider a career in broadcasting, commenting on my skills as an interviewer. Determined to be an international development worker, there was no way I was going to alter my path. Growing up having to find out information to understand the different environment I was in, I had to ask questions to get the answers I needed, so perhaps that had helped me. The broadcasters saw my ability to facilitate conversations and ask the appropriate focused questions, which now helps me as an evaluator. Throughout my undergraduate years, I also volunteered with UNICEF Ontario and became more convinced that that is what I wanted to do. I was fortunate and was offered a position in the Junior Professional Officer Program—a training ground for future UNICEF staff. There was one catch, as the interviewer put it: I had to either mature quickly and become forty in a year or go to graduate school. I applied to and was admitted to the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto to study comparative, international, and development education. As a graduate student, I was introduced to various

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research methods—somehow it all made sense and almost seemed like common sense.

the IDealIstIc InternatIonal DevelopMent Worker Fresh out of school with a Master’s in education, the idealistic international development worker began her dream career to work for the world’s most vulnerable population—children. I began working with UNICEF East Asia and Pakistan Regional Office in Bangkok as an assistant information officer. One of my first assignments was to help the UNICEF Japan Office produce a development education film about UNICEF’s work in Thailand. First, we went around with the crew conducting key informant interviews in different cities and offices, collecting information to develop a case study that would be the basis of the story development. The research skills that I learned for my Master’s degree were paying off. Logistical support was also part of my responsibilities, including negotiating the use of a light aircraft and a helicopter for free. My work involved traveling to different countries, often accompanying funding groups or media personnel to advocate for the world’s children through public information work for UNICEF. A question began forming in my mind as I visited programs in the region on many missions. For example, I met a community health nurse with a daughter who had polio who serves several villages alone and promotes immunization. To this day, I sometimes think of the nurse’s anguish over her daughter’s plight and the irony of it all. I knew that what was referred to as the “cold chain”—the logistics involved in properly transporting temperature-sensitive vaccine—was challenging. The community health nurse was definitely part of the logistical chain that supported the health of the neighboring communities. In another very remote village, I would see a community health nurse struggle alone to help a child who was lethargic from pneumonia. Then, on the same trip, I would see a room full of community health nurses sitting around a big desk holding a long ruler filling in the statistics for the week to report back to the central office. On one such trip, I was sent to learn about a possible project site in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. To get to the island from the capital city required two planes (I think one of them had been in operation since the invention of aircraft) and then a jeep ride through the hills; at times, I was hanging on to the roll bars because the jeep seemed to be tilted on a 90-degree angle. The village had trouble securing its water supply. The villagers made water collection tubes from huge palm leaves used as crude funnels attached to the top opening of bamboo sticks to collect morning dew.

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This palm-leaf-bamboo-stick method was nowhere near adequate. They also had to walk two miles through the hills to a creek for more water. The village next to them (fifteen minutes by jeep) was crammed with every water project conceivable, including water tanks of all designs and wells of all depths, many of them left unused because nobody knew how to service them. It was as though someone had descended on them, gave them hope, and took it away with them. Then someone else heard about the plight of these villagers, did something else, and then unwittingly repeated the vicious cycle again. Did the aid workers want to help? The first and most important assumption of my question that formed the basis of my doctoral research was that the intentions of those involved in international development in both the recipient and donor countries are genuine, humane, and good. But something was definitely amiss in this village, as though the aid workers just did not know what had happened to all the good intentions. It was the same with aid workers who had come before I landed in this isolated village. None had really been able to communicate to me why these people were trapped in this vicious cycle. Obviously, there was a breakdown somewhere in the development effort (Kuji-Shikatani, 1995). Ces Adorna, my UNICEF colleague, neighbor, and mentor, together with his wife, treated me like their sister and talked with me every day during the commute, on holidays, and when we ate together. As I talked about the experiences from my missions, Ces introduced me to the world of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and explained that in many ways, the integration of monitoring and evaluation exists more in theory than in practice. He said that what Cottrell Jr. said in 1967 was still true twenty years later: Those who seek to select for support the more promising plans and projects submitted to funding agencies have become habituated to the ritualistic inclusion in the proposal of a final section on Evaluation. In most cases, this section consists of sometimes grandiose but usually vague statements of intent and procedure for assessing impact of the proposed action. In some cases there is an elegant, highly academic and impractical scheme worked out in meticulous detail by an obviously talented research consultant. In a few treasured instances there is a well-considered, realistic and workmanlike plan for getting some fairly reliable answers to the questions of what worked and why. Out of all this, one gets the impression that what passes for evaluation research is indeed a mixed bag at best and chaos at worst. (Cottrell, 1967, as cited in Adorna, 1984, p. 3)

Ces further explained that there is a perception among policy makers that there is a “packaged” set of tools and methods of M&E that, unfortunately, does not exist. He said that:

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The constraint . . . towards the advance in the development of monitoring and evaluation systems and their utilization is not on the conceptual side. The major constraint is the scarcity of systematic applications of the M&E concepts and principles in a way that generalizations on approaches could be made for particular types of settings, and enable further specification of the broad ME principles developed earlier. (Cottrell, 1967, as cited in Adorna, 1984, p. 3)

Ces introduced me to another senior officer colleague at UNICEF EAPRO, Dr. Lay Muang—a medical doctor—who described the advantage of having an effective system of qualitative M&E in place from an early stage of implementation when the foundation is being constructed: Monitoring during the implementation stage of the programming cycle is perhaps the most important part of the evaluative framework and in some respects, the most difficult. Implementation of development activities rarely proceeds strictly according to plan. The reality of the unexpected gives monitoring special importance. . . . Modification of the initial intervention over time usually enables a move towards the most effective action or set of actions. There are two aspects of monitoring: monitoring the utilization of inputs and monitoring overall implementation progress. Both are continuous activities, the results of which must be periodically reported. (Muang, 1984, p. 11)

Looking back, I am intrigued by the similarities of this comment to that of another medical doctor, my uncle, when he was asked how he uses qualitative data to assess the conditions of his patients. He told me that through talking about the patients’ daily life, he can decipher what is out of the norm for that particular patient and get a clue to what warrants further investigation. I was fortunate to have many senior colleagues who took me under their wings and mentored me. I was always inspired by the wisdom that Dr. Jane Haile, a Cambridge-trained anthropologist working as a regional program support communication officer, shared with me. I learned that program support communication was not just about media production; the more important role was to conduct audience analysis into the programming process. Jane wrote in a briefing note: to get information from and about the intended “beneficiaries” to the program officers and technical specialists with whom they co-operate in designing the program. It is generally recognized that simple provision of services . . . will not result in behavioral change . . . simple top-down provision of bits of information about those services will not affect audience response unless the services in question clearly meet community needs and interests. “Audience analysis” or “consumer survey” . . . should uncover these needs and interests, as well as analyzing the community in terms of

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the channels through which it can be reached, and through which it can respond in terms of program feedback. (Bunnag, 1983, p. 3)

The researcher in me can now recognize that because I had the privilege of talking with this accomplished anthropologist specializing in communication, I was able to learn how to conduct needs assessments, paying the upmost attention to the contextual realities of each stakeholder and formulating our communication according to their needs and interests to facilitate buy-in and implementation. These conversations taught me how to think and conduct situational analysis with great sensitivity and attention to meticulous details (one wrong move can always mean persona non grata status), yet not lose sight of the big picture—all within the framework of moving the UNICEF agenda forward diplomatically and in a sophisticated manner. We wanted to help the children, and I wanted to be more helpful, like Jane and Ces.

the QuestIon eMerges As I wrote in the introduction of my thesis: Development hardly ever takes giant steps. Like learning, the accumulation of knowledge and experience ultimately leads to bigger gains. Given today’s reality of the “limited” availability of funds for international development aid, more than ever, the world cannot afford to lose the precious experience and knowledge that is being accumulated however slowly. (Kuji-Shikatani, 1995, p. 1)

As I realized that there was so much for me to learn to be useful in helping the world’s vulnerable populations, I began to ask myself: “How can good intentions improve the standard of living for many of the world’s poorest of the poor? Why have so many international development projects failed to be as effective as planned?” (Kuji-Shikatani, 1995, p. 1). With these questions in mind, I returned to the Department of Sociology in Education with a focus on international, development, and comparative education at the OISE/University of Toronto—with my Canadian husband, my strongest ally, and our first child. I studied program monitoring and evaluation methodologies, curriculum evaluation, sociological research methodologies, qualitative evaluation, participatory research methodologies, program planning, comparative, international, and development education, education and self-learning process, and community development. Surprisingly, I was quite equipped to conduct research. My doctoral thesis, Evaluation as an Integrated Component in International Development Projects—A Case Study, examined

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how in-house ongoing monitoring and evaluation systems can be developed and utilized to allow better communication to take place among the various participants throughout a whole program process (Kuji-Shikatani, 1995). Conducted in Chile and India, the evaluation research was aimed to increase the chances of best serving the target population and optimizing the use of limited resources available to development programs through development of a monitoring and evaluation system. The participatory research included needs assessment and literature search involving surveying and collecting M&E policy documents and guides from international organizations. Two pilot studies were conducted with the collaboration of the stakeholders following development of an M&E system that were each followed by reporting to stakeholders and making revisions to the M&E system based on findings. Following the analysis of the findings from the second study, the final draft of the M&E system was presented to the case study organization. In addition, I conducted a meta-evaluation using the standards for evaluations of educational programs, projects, and materials developed by a profession-wide Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (Worthen & Sanders, 1987). My final analysis allowed me to test the whole process of the case study to determine whether the case study: (1) had been effective in improving the organization’s M&E system; and (2) had contributed to further the understanding of how evaluation approaches can be practically applied and integrated as an ongoing M&E system to serve as a useful communication component in an international development project process. When I was formally introduced to the various advanced research methods (e.g., Mertens, 2010), it came very naturally to me. Now I realize it is what I had practiced all my life as an outsider, through preservice teaching education and as an international development worker conducting situational analysis on a daily basis. Years of living in different situations sensitized me to be respectful and first seek to understand the local protocol—the way people like to relate to each other. Not the Golden rule but the Platinum rule—treat people as they would like to be treated. What became clear to me is that people see me as a familiar face. Years of having to understand my surroundings so I could function effectively helped me find something in common with research participants to engage in a conversation. When we are carrying on a conversation, people would start talking as though I am one of them and continue as though I have known them for decades. Of course, when I became a mother, more women seemed to approach me as part of the international club of mothers and care-givers. These are great traits to have if your job

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is to find out information from people; it enabled me to be more effective in supporting the beneficiaries of my research. My thesis supervisor, David Wilson, introduced me to Donald Stufflebeam’s CIPP (context, input, process, product) model, which is based on the view that: [T]he most important purpose of evaluation is not to prove but to improve. It is a move against the view that evaluation should be “witch hunts” or only instruments of accountability. Instead it sees evaluation as a tool by which to help make programs work better for the people they are intended to serve. . . . Fundamentally, the use of the CIPP Model is intended to promote growth and to help the responsible leadership and staff of an institution systematically to obtain and use feedback so as to excel in meeting important needs, or, at least, to do the best they can with the available resources. (Madaus, Scriven, & Stufflebeam, 1983, p. 117)

Among other characteristics, CIPP generates questions that make the evaluation easy to explain to lay audiences. The CIPP model goes beyond the simple practice of numerical reporting and attempts to find out what is really taking place for the participants as well as the whole project process. The CIPP model allows for clear categorization of data collection and analysis. The CIPP model contains four types of evaluation that enables this. 1. Context Evaluation, which aims to: define the institutional context; identify target population and assess their needs; identify opportunities for addressing the needs; diagnose problems underlying the needs; and judge whether proposed objectives are sufficiently responsive to the assessed needs. 2. Input Evaluation, which aims to: identify and assess system capabilities; alternative program strategies; and procedural designs for implementing the strategies, budgets, and schedules. 3. Process Evaluation, which aims to: identify or predict defects in the procedural design or its implementation; provide information for the pre-programmed decisions; and record and judge procedural events and activities. 4. Product Evaluation, which aims to: collect descriptions and judgments of outcomes; relate them to objectives, context, input, and process information; and interpret their worth and merit. (Stufflebeam, cited in Kuji-Shikatani, 1995, pp. 26–27)

CIPP became the framework for my doctoral research together with qualitative methods in evaluation (Patton, 1987). While studying at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, I met the most influential evaluator in my career, Michael Quinn Patton, among the dark stacks of books in the University of Toronto library when I picked up a copy of his book. Later, I’ll write a bit more about why Patton is the most influential evaluator in my career.

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BecoMIng, BelongIng, anD BeIng an evaluator I lost my mother just when I started graduate school. That meant my personal cheerleader was gone. I was a mother by then and I still needed my mother, but I had to be a mother for my son. My mother was like her father, very compassionate and kind. She generously offered a helping hand to anyone in need. As a little girl, I remember my neighbor telling me how courageous my mother was, helping a badly injured delivery person when there was a car accident in front of our house. When my mother graduated from the university, she had a job offer from the Red Cross but was prohibited from working outside the home by her parents. She was always supportive and spoke to us in a nonjudgmental way that I know helps position the way I relate with others. Whenever I meet women from traditional cultures or someone who may not work outside the home, I think of my mother and the intellect that helped form us. My mother raised her children partly in a foreign country, so I knew that it was possible to raise a child to be bilingual and bicultural. Not having support or a role model close by while going to graduate school, doing research, and balancing that with a growing family was a challenge. Neither my mother, my grandmother, nor any of the women in my family ever worked outside the home. I did not know how I could send my young children to be cared by someone else. Once I received my doctorate, I began working from home as an independent consultant. One of the best career moves I made was to join and volunteer with the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES), where I could be among fellow evaluators. I often worked both in teams with other evaluators like Rochelle Zorzi, Martha McGuire, and Susan Scott, or by myself for smaller contracts. The period I spent working as an external evaluation consultant helped me learn to work in different contexts, be very precise about the needs of the primary users of the evaluation, and pay meticulous attention to every detail of the evaluation. At the same time, while developing monitoring and evaluation processes with teams in smaller organizations, I began to realize the potential of developmental evaluation (Patton, 2010). A bit of an explanation of why this approach had potential for me is presented next. I first met Arnold Love while I was a CES Ontario Chapter’s Professional Designations Committee chair, organizing the Essential Skills Series (foundational introductory program evaluation workshops) and other evaluation workshops. I have been fortunate to have him mentor me for close to a decade now, sharing his vast knowledge and experience in evaluation and organizations. Whenever I have a question I need an expert opinion on, I call on Arnold and he will talk with me until I really understand the topic and give me really practical considered advice.

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Years after I first encountered Michael Patton through his writings, I finally met him while working together in preparation for the 2005 CES/ AEA (American Evaluation Association) Joint Conference. Michael was a co-program chair with Arnold, and I was the local committee chair. Of course, I had to tell him that for a former graduate student who referred to him a couple of dozen times a day working on my thesis, the experience of meeting him in person could be likened to a teenager meeting a rock star. His work continues to inspire and encourage me—I use his books during the course of the week whenever I need to articulate an evaluation-related concept in my work. Michael and Arnold both insisted that I had to help the Japanese Evaluation Society develop their first evaluator training program because there was a shortage of expertise in this area in Japan. What evaluator in her right mind would decline such a request from Michael Quinn Patton and Arnold Love? I am fortunate to have both as my very important evaluation mentors now. They introduced me to another wonderful evaluation colleague and mentor, Prof. Masafumi Nagao, a research professor for the Hiroshima University’s Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education (CICE) and the Japanese Evaluation Society’s Professional Development chair. I became the Quality Assurance Advisor/Course developer for the Japanese Evaluation Society Professional Development Accreditation Project—Pilot School Evaluator Training Program (2003–2008). As I was familiar with the content and delivery of the CES Essential Skills Series through working with Arnold and Paul Favaro who developed the curriculum, I provided content, training, and curriculum-writing expertise to the collaborative project of Hiroshima University’s CICE, Hiroshima Prefectural Education Center, Japanese Evaluation Society, and the CES (Kuji-Shikatani, Love, & Nagao, 2005). We pilot tested the first school evaluator training program that trained in-service teachers to become evaluation facilitators in their schools in Hiroshima, Japan. This provided an opportunity to gain leadership experience in large-scale educational change projects and school/system improvement by encouraging successful partnerships within the education sector through utilizing evaluation capacity building knowledge and effective communicating skills (Kuji-Shikatani & Nagao, 2007). As a researcher with a comparative, international and development education background, working in Japan was really fascinating. While collecting data, I was able to understand the nuances of every conversation that took place. Situational, interpersonal, technical competencies as an evaluator and the ability to differentiate instruction as an educator all came through for me.

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Around the same time, Brad Cousins invited me into the world of evaluation capacity building and evaluation use through developing the Ontario Trillium Foundation Case Profile Report—University of Ottawa Evaluation Capacity Building Research Project (2007–2009) with Catherine Elliot. The evaluation research was part of a larger multi-phase research project of the University of Ottawa funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The objectives were to develop a deeper understanding of how organizations build evaluation capacity and the organizational conditions that facilitate the integration of evaluative inquiry into the organizational culture. More specifically, the case study research hoped to: clarify the nature of the capacity to do and use evaluation; evaluate the potency of evaluation capacity–building initiatives in enhancing the capacity to do evaluative inquiry and to use evaluation; and understand the factors and conditions influencing the integration of evaluation into the organizational culture. This experience is helping me be intentional about building capacity to use evaluation through infusing evaluative thinking as the organization’s learning as we go stance. For evaluation to be useful for the betterment of society, evaluation users should experience useful and high quality evaluation. In May 2010, CES launched the CES Credentialed Evaluator (CE) designation, designed to define, recognize, and promote the practice of ethical, highquality, and competent evaluation in Canada through a program for professional designations (Kuji-Shikatani et al., In press). The designation means that the holder has provided evidence of the education and experience required by the CES to be a competent evaluator. The designation is a service provided by CES to its members, who may elect to become credentialed on a voluntary basis. It recognizes those with the education and experience to provide evaluation services; through its maintenance and renewal requirements, it promotes continuous learning within our evaluation community. As a National Council member, I became one of the core committee members with Heather Buchanan and Brigitte Maicher, reporting to its president, François Dumain, and the council, and working with a group of roughly twenty-one volunteers from across Canada. Later, as the vicepresident of the CES Professional Designation Program, I led the implementation of the CE application and review process. I realized through working with the CES Credentialing Board that the dedicated evaluators and evaluation researchers care very much about the value of evaluation for the betterment of society. We are sharing the CES experience in various conferences with Jean King, James Altchuld, Jim McDavid, and Donna Podem. Helping programs and organization utilize M&E to better serve their target population to best use their limited resources has been my core

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interest since I returned to graduate school, after facing reality as an idealistic international development worker with UNICEF. For the past few years, working in the public sector, I have been most interested in developmental evaluation that supports innovation development to guide adaptation to emergent and dynamic realities in complex environments (Patton, 2010). Realization of vision-and-values-driven social innovation typifies the ideal of the public sector—the democratic governments of today. I continue to pursue my question with my colleague, Megan Borner, as an evaluator and an evaluation researcher, working as part of the team in reaching every student: For vision-and values-driven social innovators, the highest form of accountability is internal. Seriousness of inquiry and resulting learning constitutes accountability: Are we walking the talk? Are we being true to our vision? Are we dealing with reality? Are we connecting the dots between here-and-now reality and our vision? And how do we know? What are we observing that’s different, that’s emerging? (Patton, 2010, cited in Kuji-Shikatani, 2010, emphasis added)

Every day when I work, I realize that my systematic and logical thinking comes from years of being challenged by my businessman father with his self-discipline of the samurai tradition to strive for an internal sense of accountability. The researcher in me was trained by many people who cared to help me process my thoughts—long before formal training began. Childhood experience, years of schooling, professional experiences, and living and working in different countries—no experience was ever wasted. In my conversations with various people, I developed these skills to engage people to collaborate and work toward the common goal, since no one person has the answer. We are in this together.

references Adorna, C. L. (1984). Understanding the monitoring maze. Bangkok: UNICEF. Buchanan, H., Maicher, B., & Kuji-Shikatani, K. (2009). Canadian Evaluation Society professional designations program. Paper presented at the 2008 Canadian Evaluation Society, Ottawa National Conference, June 2. http://www.evaluationcanada.ca/ txt/20090602_designations.pdf (accessed November 26, 2011). Bunnag, J. (1983). Trends and issues in PSC: A perspective from the field. Bangkok: UNICEF. Kuji-Shikatani, K. (1995). Evaluation as an integrated component in international development projects—a case study. Ed.D. thesis, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Kuji-Shikatani, K. (2010). Embedding developmental evaluation in innovative complex systems. Presentation at the workshop for South Africa Monitoring and Evaluation Association Conference, Cape Town, August 24. Kuji-Shikatani, K., Buchanan, H., Cousins, B., & MacDavid, J. (In press). Evaluation education in Canada. Japanese Evaluation Society Journal.

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Kuji-Shikatani, K., Love, A., & Nagao, M. (2005). Preparing school evaluators: Hiroshima pilot test of the Japan Evaluation Society’s accreditation project. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation Fall, 125–155. Kuji-Shikatani, K. & Nagao, M. (2007). School evaluation manual. Hiroshima, Japan: Hiroshima Educational Research Centre. Madaus, G., Scriven, M., & Stufflebeam, D. (1983). Evaluation models. Boston: Kluwer Nijhoff. Mertens, D. (2010). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Muang, L. (1984). An overview of planning-implementation-evaluation process at country level. Bangkok: UNICEF. Patton, M. Q. (1987). How to use qualitative methods in evaluation. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Patton, M. Q. (2010). Developmental evaluation—Applying complexity concepts to enhance innovation and use. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Patton, M. Q. (2011). Essentials of utilization-focused evaluation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Stufflebeam, D. L. (1971). Educational evaluation and decision making. Itaska, IL: F. E. Peacock. Stufflebeam, D. L. (1984). Systematic evaluation. Boston: Kluwer Nijhoff. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR). (2012). http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IPeoples/SRIndigenousPeoples/Pages/Mandate.aspx (accessed March 24, 2012). United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. (2012). http://social.un.org/index/ IndigenousPeoples.aspx (accessed March 24, 2012). Waltz, K. (1954). Man, the state, and war: A theoretical analysis. New York: Columbia University Press. Worthen, B. R. & Sanders, J. R. (1987). Educational evaluation: Alternative approaches and practical guidelines. New York: Longman Inc.

Chapter 14

Inuujunga: The Intricacy of Indigenous and Western Epistemologies in the Arctic Looee Okalik

I am the granddaughter of Okalik and Saviqqut on my paternal side of Uummanarjuaq in Nunavut, and of Evik and Qattuuq on my maternal side of Illungajuq, Nunavut. Those had been their true names, for it was as recent as the 1960s when we finally gained surnames. The Surname Project had given us our patriarchal name, hence Okalik for our family, meaning Arctic Hare. It is fitting that I write this chapter for we, the Inuit, claim to be from the crown of the Earth, and Fiona Cram, the coeditor of this book who invited me to write a chapter for it, is from the heel of the Earth of which we both encompass all peoples, game, rivers, and skies. Research has always been around from time immemorial, whether it was known as research or not. Qaujisarniq is the term we use for research in the Inuit approach. The Indigenous peoples believe that the land and the environment are one in nature with the people. The same holds true for Inuit; if we tend to the land as we should, it’ll give back in plenty in food, with us always adapting to the changing weather and remaining in unity with all. Our ancestors had anchored our culture with riches of teachings, experiences, and blessings of which we are fortunate to carry forward for our descendants’ foundation in their day and time. One example is of a midwife who had welcomed a newborn to the Earth at birth. Upon the child catching his or her first game, he or she grants the first catch of the game to honor the midwife’s presence at birth. An Arnaliaq plays a critical role in encouraging her angusiaq (boy) or Arnaliaq (girl) to live prosperously. As time passes, the child provides the midwife with less and less meat, as her diet diminishes with age. Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 239–248. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 239

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Inuit have many inspirational teachers. For example, Elder Mariano Aupilardjuk of Rankin Inlet in Nunavut reminded Inuit youth to turn over bones while out on the land. Tunu Napartuk, then president of the National Inuit Youth Council (NIYC), asked why that would be practiced. Mariano responded that while we sleep on one side of our body, we tire. We need to balance ourselves in sleep, with nature and ourselves. The same holds true for spirits out on the land. Mariano also shared that he had drum danced on the roof of one of the Twin Towers prior to the 9/11 attack. He exclaimed that his footsteps were gone, but his teachings live on. Mariano is just one of many Inuit elders who keep the embers of our journey in full force during our journey on Nunarjuaq (Earth).

My ReseaRch JouRney The influential people in my life have been on my matriarchal side of the family, starting with my mother, Ani, and her grandmother, Aasivak. My mother had been the eldest of her family, hence Ani, a name that means a calling for a brother, as sons were prized in supporting the fathers for hunting in the survival stages of the Inuit era. Ani means a brother to a sister. Her brother Jaco was born three years later. Great-grandmother Aasivak was mom’s role model; she had been one of the leaders at the whaling station at Kekerten. When the surrounding camps around Cumberland Sound were moved to the settlement of Pangnirtung, ningiuqpaaz (my matriarchal great-grandmother) turned down the proposed governance structure. Keith Tulugaq Crowe, the first northern service officer at that time, was surprised by my grandmother’s actions, who felt that the governance structure needed to more strongly consider the Inuit approaches. Keith told me that he hadn’t expected anyone to decline the ideas in the times of change. Aasivak’s way of calling to me was based from her dream that she had prior to my birth, Sheep-qutiga (my precious sheep). Drawing from the edge of the bedding trimmed with rocks, the sheep shuddered to shake itself dry. My Elder advisor, Alicee Joamie, shared at a working group meeting that Aasivak had practiced traditional healing methods at rivers right up until her final days. Unbeknown to me, mom had prepared me in sharing her life experiences in preparation of my own journey. When they were moving from one camp to the next prior to the ice break-up, she experienced labor pains in pregnancy. The camp supplies were pulled by dogs on the qamuti (sled). and the family was walking alongside the dog team, stopping only when mom gave birth to one of her older daughters. Thereafter they continued trudging onward again after her delivery. Peace be with our relations and thank you to the determination of our ancestors.

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Mom had selected me to carry on the knowledge of our ancestors; therefore, she had equipped me with teachings of their practices, and I went on to consult with elders designated with specific knowledge for guidance, support, and inclusion of details to strengthen presentations, practices, and writings. When I first heard the word research in my teenage years, it resonated with me. I had always had the desire to learn new things, having grown up with elders from the time I was a teenager setting out to our caribou hunting grounds until I left for high school at age sixteen. Being the second youngest of ten siblings and the seventh and youngest daughter, older siblings had piqued my interest in learning, and our parents permitted us to ask questions. By the time I came along, our parents were seasoned in parenting, having more leniency with us younger children. It took me a couple of decades to enter the specific field of journalism in Frobisher Bay, Northwest Territories (of which is now Iqaluit, Nunavut). Research is a requirement in writing articles, reporting, and broadcasting, and I wanted to share stories and facts with fellow Inuit and non-Inuit alike. Opportunities for learning research and journalism were limited in my region because of the cost of these programs. The program I entered was the first and last journalism training in Iqaluit, for it had been too expensive to continue it by the time our graduation date approached. I had majored in radio broadcast, having had the announcer/operator experience in my hometown of Pangnirtung, Nunavut. Our instructor, Candice Kerr, was totally knowledgeable in her career and teachings, encouraging us as a family. Current senior editor Jim Bell of Nunatsiaq News was instrumental in teaching daily parliamentary activities nationally. To write stories about parliamentary developments, we had to learn the governmental processes of bills. If we wanted to impact change, we had to investigate the facts and engage the appropriate people, whether policy makers or politicians, and move onward equipped with advocacy and negotiation skills. With celebrations being a key part of Inuit practices, we rejoice in achievements and validation of learnings and teachings. More recently, in the latter part of the last decade, I was fortunate in gaining Inuit-specific health research and planning training through the University of Ottawa, Community Information and Epidemiological Technology Canada (CIET CAN) under the direction of Dr. Neil Andersson. Along with that, we Indigenous fellows participated in Indigenous health research training with the University of Alberta and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Both proved extremely educational and interesting as participants had so many diverse backgrounds, interests, and experiences. It was difficult at first to gain the concept of confidence intervals in research, which involved wording as the key to

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accessing knowledge, gaining data from the community members, and reporting back the holistic results to the constituents signifying success with the research project(s). We were enthused to present about our Indigenous health training at the 2010 Healing Our Spirit Worldwide gathering in Honolulu, Hawaii, September 2010. We gave presentations on our various approaches to research with the guidance of our professors from the University of Alberta and the School of Public Health at Harvard University. From 2005 to 2010, I had the pleasure of being the advisor of health promotions on Baffin Island (Egeland, 2005–2010), an island across from Greenland in the Circumpolar Arctic Project led by Dr. Grace Egeland of McGill University, Centre for Indigenous Peoples Nutrition and Environment (CINE). It was scientifically driven initially; the local steering committee later recommended that we include Inuit traditional knowledge due to interest at the community and national levels. The elders affirmed how sixty years ago they were able to eat frozen polar bear meat and that today the meat has to be cooked for hours to rid it of toxins. We also learned that specific parts of the seal meat and the caribou meat were designated specifically for men and for women and that men were seated in a specific area of a dwelling, while the women were privileged in padded areas of the dwelling. Climate change has been observed to be affecting animals for some time now, and the elders validated this. With this knowledge being shared at conferences and forums, university students would approach us and indicate that they would love to work with Inuit. In turn, we encouraged them to seek the research practices in Inuit communities by visiting our website (www.itk.ca) to consider proceeding with their interests. In First Nations communities, as Inuit are entrenched in their storytelling practices, their feedback was like seeing Inuit in action in a movie with the sharing of the research knowledge. I found the feedback from various inhabitants of the Earth interesting, with this knowledge having been shared in Canada, Italy, Ireland, Germany, and Thailand. The community project was a part of a global project led by Dr. Harriet Kuhnlein, Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems for Health focusing on traditional foods. Eleven Indigenous people from Africa, India, Thailand, Japan, Canadian First Nations, Canadian Inuit, Columbia, and Peru shared their projects annually in Canada, Italy, and Thailand. It was amazing how much commonality we shared in the vast regions of the globe. It was interesting how our Indigenous foods sustained each of our people from time immemorial to today. Indigenous research has always been among us; it is up to us to preserve it, promote it, and identify how to apply it alongside Western

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research. Going back to the health promotions on Baffin Island project, we learned that climate change is now evident among the Inuit communities: Our diet is at risk, with seal pups being born between the ice and the snow, and the ice melting faster than yesteryear; the seals have less basking time in the sun, therefore their furs are browner, when they used to be black. We knew that plants without fur are edible, and the furry ones are not edible, and the bigger parts of the ribs were eaten by men while the smaller ribs were eaten by the women. Indigenous knowledge is holistic in nature and gives credibility in science today. Marrying both perspectives brings about success and value to collaborative approaches with Indigenous researchers and Western scientists.

Responsibilities and challenges As a researcher, I recognize that I have many responsibilities. I serve on boards and speak on behalf of fellow Inuit. My responsibilities are many and are intertwined with facts, researching, and patience. It is interesting to share research findings in my own language of Inuktitut, as it can be hard to conceptualize research findings in another language. The feedback I have gained from my own peers with whom I have grown up has been encouraging and rewarding; they indicate that I have conveyed the messages in the true sense of factuality. It is that kind of feedback that assures me of being in the right field of my work and focus. I have always wanted to bridge the work of my ancestors shared through the line of storytellers and dwellers of the Arctic with the work of our fellow colleagues, whether they be researchers, teachers, policy makers, decision makers, lawmakers, and so on. By doing research in my own hometown, I have been accused of selecting my home community as a project site by past colleagues in our office department. To address this, I had sent an email to the community advocate who had directed McGill, CINE, to host the research in the community of Pangnirtung, Nunavut, and cced my colleagues, hence providing clarity and respect. Originally, Grace Egeland, the principle investigator, had considered doing the research in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, but the Inuk advocate for diabetes had persuaded her to do the research in Pangnirtung. I had kept extremely quiet during the negotiations, providing no insight or any feedback as to where the research should take place, as we believe that the communities should decide where the research should be held. Therefore, the health screening on Baffin Island research took place in Pangnirtung for five years.

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Presenting the project at forums is a good outreach tool to secure future projects and to advance leadership for collaborative opportunities. I credit my team throughout the life of the project, as it bolsters the teamwork, commitment, and support at all levels. Identifying a name of the research can be challenging, since we are trying to capture the essence of the project from inception, duration, and completion. The injury prevention project with First Nations and Inuit exemplifies the importance of a project’s title and of working collaboratively. The institute staff brainstormed about this project with members of the University of British Columbia, Injury Prevention Unit, Dr. Ian Pike, and with Dr. Alison MacDonald of York University. The title of the project became Weaving the Tools Together: Building Community Capacity and Readiness for Injury Prevention, and the Voices of First Nations and Inuit Children and Youth: Community Injury Prevention through Information Gathering and Intervention. Naming has always been at the helm of Inuit culture and tradition, as it is a life-long journey for all of us. My name, Looee, derives from bringing about fairness into the world and is based on a legend of a mother who had favored her daughter over her son. This process of naming emphasizes the importance of giving the name of the research depth, since it brings about change and pro-activeness for all groups involved, including the funders and those observing the project for outcomes or those in search of partners in the future. Partnerships make their way fully in contributing to all facets of life, developments, and glimpses into the future. When colleagues and communities acknowledge our efforts, it’s reassuring to know we are on the right path toward wellness; opportunities to effect policy and programming open doors to leadership and community ownership in enhancing current activities. There will always be criticism now and in the future. Acceptance of criticism is a key building block within our society for the development of generations for a stronger tomorrow that our ancestors had envisioned for us. This is illustrated by the Seven Generations teachings by our fellow First Nations in Canada in paving a secure path for the next seven generations. Securing funding may be challenging at times, but with persistence and commitment, gaining funding is more than do-able within Canada through the Canadian Institute for Health Research, various charities, and foundations and in partnerships with our respective government departments at all levels. International Polar Year is a classic example, as are the research centers in the respective Inuit Nunangat regions where they have built-in criteria to incorporate traditional knowledge into the research taking place in and around the Inuit communities.

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ReseaRch pRactice Many prior researchers faced Inuit criticism, especially when they did not report back the results to Inuit. Today, Inuit ensure that participants, land claimant organizations, municipalities, and respective governments are informed of outcomes for their roles in interpreting the data, sourcing the policies, securing additional funds for appropriate programs and/ or projects, and collaborating on opportunities, either with institutions and/or community, regional, and/or national relations. Inuit have felt the lack of engagement, involvement, and data sharing when learning of results of research on Inuit. Therefore, a guide for research in Inuit communities was developed (Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami & Nunavut Research Institute, 2007). This presented information on who to approach if there is interest in doing research in the four Inuit Nunangat regions, which agency to submit the research proposal(s) to, who to approach in the Inuit community for partnership, and so on. Research paves the way to new opportunities, such as achieving Inuitspecific policies and programming, understanding, and cleansing of social and justice issues we are faced with currently. One marked improvement in research is that researchers now share their results with the respective participants. Prior to the early 1980s, we did not learn of the results of research that had been done about us. Then Dr. Harriet Kuhnlein (1989) did a study on the link of breastfeeding to traditional foods, unveiling the harm of pollutants from foods that are transferred to the baby with the mother breastfeeding. The results were alarming to hear, at first resulting in a slight decline of women breastfeeding. But the benefits of breastfeeding outweighed bottle feeding, so soon after, more women breastfed their babies again. Dr. Kuhnlein shared the results of this research with Inuit and that led to other researchers sharing their research with the communities and, later, engaging Inuit more as research assistants using a more participatory approach. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) Environment and Wildlife claims that the benefits of eating such foods outweigh the risks of pollutants in traditional foods because omega 3 acids are abundant in fish oils,1 a cube of mattaaq (whale skin) has more vitamin C than an orange,2 seal broth increases milk production in an instant with a breastfeeding mother,3 and the like. Community support is key to advancing the goals of the research because the community will knit the scope of the project to our daily lives or future aspirations. Ensuring that the community is aware of the scope of the research is important for success. Language is also key, as the majority of Inuit communities speak the Inuit language. Internet accessibility is easier today, too, so we can upload information to the rest of the world at a press of a button, utilize a reference, or fulfill other research needs accordingly.

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Another promising practice is to engage local steering committees to reflect the role of various representatives: community, health, government, institution, and/or national body, since everyone has valuable input to contribute. Youth inclusion is also viable, as more than half of the Inuit population is between the ages of thirteen and twenty-nine. Having the National Inuit Youth Council exemplifies the partnership required to engage the youth, hearing their voices and their perspectives, and implementing their priorities. It’s valid that the ITK has a youth seat on the board, even though they currently have only observer status. Conflict could easily be knocking at the doorstep, but addressing it ahead of its arrival avoids confusion, especially with the small population of Inuit. We have an international body, Inuit Circumpolar Council and the population rate goes up by 100,000 counting Inuit in Russia (Chukotka), United States (Alaska), and Greenland. Numbers are powerful, as are education, Indigenous epistemologies, culture, language, and family. Education about Inuit is most needed within our nation; therefore, direct education from Indigenous researchers is valuable, accountable, and increasing at a gradual pace. In this modern day with advanced technology and communication, we still receive questions as to whether we reside in igloos (past winter dwellings) and where our territory is. Do we reside in Canada or are we immigrants? Education is empowering.

indigenous ReseaRch Western research is more of a fact-finding approach, whereas to Indigenous researchers, it is key to preserve and include cultural and traditional knowledge. For example, an expedition to the North Pole might require the necessities of food, warm clothing, emergency supplies, satellite phone, journal submissions, and/or media coverage. Bernadette Uttak, a traditional Inuk (singular for Inuit), has shared her teachings that all that was needed for survival in the Arctic was: a pana, qisik, and a kukissaq. • A pana (snow knife) to build a snow dwelling called illuvigaq (igloo), to slice meat, to cut thread, or to catch game. • A qisik (seal skin) for clothing as a parka, pants, kamiik (seal-skin boots), mittens, hat, or headband. Also used as shelter or a tent for more temperate weather and for a bucket to hold water, essential for body’s health. • Last, the kukissaq (flintstone) for lighting a fire, for heat, cooking, drying clothes, lighting, changing the old flame of the qulliq (oil lamp) upon the return of the sun in the winter.

Teachings such as these remain among the elders, the cultural holders, and it’s our obligation to carry the flame forward for our children’s

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knowledge, identity, and survival of culture and traditions. Googling “Inuit Legends, Inuit Stories” on the Internet will bring you to teachings of yesteryear. There were stories I found enriching that we learned during the seemingly endless power outages, with parents telling of their days and times surviving off the land, the water, and the sky. A generation once unified harmoniously and healthily with nature and surroundings. Engaging elders in extending the knowledge of Inuit is truly credible, for they hold the link to our cultural and traditional roots. And ensuring that youth gain the knowledge is important, for they will be the torch-bearers of our knowledge to/for their children, grandchildren, and our descendants. Indigenous research has only scratched the surface of the Earth, with more and more events taking place among Indigenous peoples. We shall see more commonalities and some diversity in our respective corners of the world when we congregate and share. Indigenous gatherings such as Healing Our Spirit Worldwide is a great venue to further share our approaches, to network in advancing the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples passed in March 2008 (UN, 2008), and for setting priorities suitable to specific nations. As the late elder Elisapee Tunnuq once shared at a youth camp in Pikiuliarjuk, Nunavut: Inuit qulittat (winter parkas) had fringes to protect the garment from wear. The unity among the Canadian Aboriginal Peoples is evidenced by the First Nations wearing of regalia to their pow-wows or events and the Me¯ tis wearing their sashes with fringes. We wear them to outlast the seasons that provide us with food, water, shelter, and clothing. As vast as the Circumpolar Inuit are in Chukotka, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, whenever the hunter caught a seal, a ritual always took place by placing snow into the hunter’s mouth first, then allowing it to melt on its own, secondly transferring it into the mouth of the seal to release its spirit before enjoying the meal at the dome, sod house, or tent. However, the catch was not always guaranteed. Therefore, you will always find the elders grateful for catching game, for there were times when game was limited and the people had to resort to seaweed, clams, seasonal berries, puja (oil resin), until game was abundant. Gratitude brings one afar in life. To give back is even more humbling . . . Inuujunga ∼ I am Inuk, I am Human, I am Alive.

notes 1. See www.ajcn.org/content/74/4/464.full. 2. Vitamin C in Inuit traditional food and women’s diets. 3. Inuit Traditional Knowledge ~ undocumented knowledge passed down from generation to generation for survival or strength and/or unity of Inuit.

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RefeRences Dewailly, E. et al. n-3 Fatty acids and cardiovascular disease risk factors among the Inuit of Nunavik. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. October 2001 vol. 74 no. 4, 464–473. Egeland, G. (2005–2010). Health promotions on Baffin Island. Feduika, K., Hidirogloub, N., Kuhnleuna, K., Madèreb, R. “Vitamin C in Inuit Traditional Food and Women's Diets”. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis. Volume 15, Issue 3, June 2002. Pages 221–235. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami & Nunavut Research Institute. (2007). Negotiating research relationships with Inuit communities: A guide for researchers. S. Nickels, J. Shirley, & G. Laidler (Eds.), Ottawa and Iqaluit Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Nunavut Research Institute. http://www.itk.ca/sites/default/files/Negotiating-Research-Relationships-ResearchersGuide.pdf (accessed September 14, 2012). Kuhnlein, H. V. (1989). Nutritional and toxicological components of Inuit diets in Broughton Island, Northwest Territories. Ph.D. dissertation, School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, McGill University. UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2008). http://www.un.org/esa/ socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf (accessed September 14, 2012).

Chapter 15

The Context within: My Journey into Research Manulani Aluli Meyer

Context is within. Content is external. —Roxanne Kala, Native Hawaiian

I am not an Indigenous social researcher! It was never a calling, not an idea, not even a blip on some career horizon. I’m not sure I am now. I can say that education was almost completely irrelevant to me and that my life has been one long search for relevance, joy, and meaning. To find it all in the beauty of reflection, purpose, and practice is the story. So, let’s go into this idea meaningfully, shall we? How does one become an Indigenous social researcher? In this way, my work as an Indigenous epistemologist stays coherent, useful, and at the cutting edge of my own praxis, i.e., how I enact, practice, embody and realize the theories, lessons, and skills associated with Indigenous ways of knowing.

Anti-Intellectual When a Harvard professor of philosophy called me anti-intellectual, I thought she was calling me and all the kupuna (elders) stupid. At thirtyfour years, I was not yet aware of the Platonic method of dialogue, where students rip into a teacher’s ideas, despite giddy exploration of them through constant verbosity. We don’t do that at home. I simply thought the teacher was calling the idea of teaching oceanography via Hawaiian names of tides, seasons, winds, spawning fish, Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 249–260. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 249

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and moon cycles naïve. It was a discussion on René Descartes and his spectacular and enduring influence on science. I disagreed. I now know it was a set-up for some kind of provocative thinking process. As much as I wish to fight against its efficacy, the darn method put me on my path in life. I just had to answer the question: Are Hawaiians anti-intellectuals? The answer gave my life focus and surprised everyone. Tensions become doorways for our biggest lessons, don’t they? Being anti-anything fueled a false duality that would come to define my time in graduate school. The world is not black and white, we just think it is. Coming to that understanding is another story. Thus, my final paper for that philosophy class, “Hawaiian Ways of Knowing: A Case Study in Other-Intellectualism,” blew some kind of whistle for me. The game was on, and I truly enjoyed asking family members, friends, and mentors the questions: What is knowing, in a Hawaiian sense? How do we know we know? What is the difference between knowledge, knowing, and understanding? I had never ever asked these questions before, and it was during this research that I awoke. I was learning how to become an Indigenous social researcher. I was learning how to become an Indigenous epistemologist.

EpistEmology Ma ka hana ka ’ike. (Knowing comes from experience.)

I don’t care how many times I ran into the word “epistemology” in the past. I would skim its long clunky terrain and think meaning sat on the text surface, with my own understanding a sentence away. Wrong. What I know now is that my own interpretation gives me understanding, and it always has to pass through my own experience. I mean, really, what exactly is the philosophy of knowledge all about? Here are five suggestions you may wish to consider; they have come from a life-time of experience, study, choice, and challenge.

Idea#1 Answer with your life the questions that give it meaning. Epistemology was the knock on the door I had to answer myself. It seemed the hidden matrix of all the turmoil we were experiencing in occupied-Hawai’i. Our schools were depression pits and void of any critical stance on standardized tests and its role in dumbing us all down. Nothing Native anywhere. My people were not improving with American priorities in the world. There was no truth and awareness of capitalism and its well-intentioned role in shaping how we viewed intelligence, qualifications, and curriculum. Millions and millions wasted. Teachers, students,

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parents, administrators, and society—everyone was affected. We all just walked off the cliff of uniformity, and creativity died a horrible death. Everything seemed to boil down to this one idea, epistemology, which no one could really pronounce, let alone understand. We are each differently intelligent. The nuance of knowledge, knowing, and understanding has shaped all that I am today. My clarity on the topic is now the focus of my life. It is also the effulgent coherence in all that I do, write, teach, and design. No one gave this task to me. It became my koho’ia, the choice/no-choice of my life. Maybe this is a vital idea for enduring patterns of knowing, that we take up the challenge because it is what we are called to do. It is exactly as Bodhi Searles, friend and farmer in the food sovereignty movement in Hawaii, taught me: “This is how change occurs . . . through ordinary people becoming activated about the love of their own lives” (Searles, 2009, p. 34). It is true that when you are activated about the love of your life there is change. That is an epistemological idea! It seemed everything, and I mean everything, could be contextualized within this philosophical matrix. Thinking in these terms has helped me see many ideas I would have missed if not for this discipline, which I shaped and explored via my own culture. Thus, reflection is the dynamic process of our own evolution. I know this now because a philosophy professor called my people anti-intellectual and the response was instant, guttural, and transforming. The axiom thus is true: Those who are not from the field will change the field. That about sums up all Indigenous minds in every academic location. We simply walk in and the room changes.

indigEnous Hahai no ka ua i ka ulu la’au. (Plant trees, the rain will follow.)

What does “native to a region” really mean? How does that influence our work as scholar-practitioners focusing on planetary awakening? What does it mean with regard to knowledge? How are you Indigenous? How am I Hawaiian? I now use Indigenous as a synonym for “enduring patterns” with regard to philosophy. It helps bring forth (k)new1 ideas that have made sense because of the ecology of these times. Indigenous is really about culture: best practices of a group of people specific to a place, over time. Old/(K)new. I didn’t view myself as a true Indigenous person in my youth growing up in Hawaii. Where was my ethnic dress, rituals of healing, language, burying customs? They were indeed all around me, but dismissed as “things from another time.” The word Indigenous felt suspect for the likes of a hapa haole (half-white) who grew up walking to Catholic

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school via the beach and who sold plumeria leis to tourists in her father’s Waikiki family-style hotel. Then came my own awakening and interest in na mea waiwai, in the cultural wealth of our own people. Leroy Little Bear was right: Research is renewal, and maybe the research that will be asked from you will come from ancient sources that are now ready to be known. This was the case for my own work. Learning and practicing my Hawaiian culture changed everything. Research then becomes a ritual of purpose so we recognize enduring patterns of behavior, values, and ideas that have been present before desks and chalk. Ideas will have fertile ground, and we can grow tangible meaning within them. Then knowledge will have function, and abstraction and metaphor will again be the game of orators and the thrill of audiences.

Idea#2 Find the truth of your people and bring it forward. Whether it is about ecology, learning, water conservation, planting food, medicine, beauty, taking care of children, moon lore, or mediating disputes. It doesn’t matter. Every idea that springs from enduring patterns is part of the weave we must bring forth to strengthen the knowledge that literacy has made flaccid and capitalism has corrupted. A practiced knowing must reenter the planet, a knowledge that keeps pace with the tides, moon, and stars. Bringing this kind of knowing forward is the (k)new rigor of our times.

HEaling Ho’okahi la’au he mihi. (The first medicine is forgiveness.)

I now evaluate Indigenous Ph.D.s from many islands and continents across the planet. What I have come to know is that regardless of the topic, Indigenous research is about some kind of recovery, renewal, and reawakening. I love that. When we heal, we get clear and we heal with the work that is before us. When we do this kind of work within emancipatory rationality, we heal ourselves and that heals others. Our clarity then heals the world. Do you recognize the truth in this sequence?

Idea#3 Heal yourself because our healing helps others heal. Knowledge is thus not a static idea or simply an accumulation of facts. It is an expression of ritual, renewal, insight, relationship, and life. It is and always has been a verb. We heal with this kind of knowing. Why? Because truth is

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recognized (Hawkins, 2002), valued, and practiced. What we discovered in our revival of oracy and the (k new rigor found in contextual understanding is the role literacy has played in this detachment. It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. —Krishnamurti (1954)

Do you see how this kind of truth helps us awaken? I recall how it helped me understand my life and work in mainstream higher education. Everywhere, Hawaiians were “failing,” and after twenty years in the business, I realized it was not the true story, it was just the factual one based on tacit assumptions we did not all agree to. It was vital to see the society I was enmeshed in (America) as something not only polemic to Hawaiian values and practices but as actually youthful and in need of a different kind of care. Finally, here was a way to summarize what I was just beginning to tease out of my own understanding and experiences. Why again do we not critically engage in the quality of this society we feel so alienated in? This is one aspect of how we heal, with our own interpretations of all hidden ideas brought forward by our own inscrutability.

CoHErEnCE Ulu a’e ke welina a ke aloha. (Loving is the practice of an awake mind.)

I love when people ask me what I do. My response, changing the views of knowledge and intelligence, is mostly met with disbelief and doubt. Those who respond positively are most always Indigenous or just slightly crazy. We seem to be on the same team. We who thrill to nonuniform patterns in nature. We who value what is distinct. We who know that beauty and inspiration comes also from dreams, smells, and mountain vistas. We who are healing with trust in each other and with strength found in our elders and in ideas shaped within ancient languages. We who know that research is renewal (Little Bear, 2007), science is contextual (Cajete, 2000), and life is whole in all parts (Wilber, 2000). We who are Weltanschauung2 warriors nourishing each other for the constant battles in all facets of society. This is why epistemology for me has become a site for the practice of coherence, simplicity, and purpose. Simplicity is a unification around a purpose. —De Bono (1999, p. 43)

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So, if the purpose of my life is to be of service to worldwide awakening, then understanding epistemology is a must. Here is where coherence enters: Are the ideas learned by doing research something I practiced today? Truly, why do research if it doesn’t guide us into enlightened action? Is the vision I hold in my heart something I extend in all directions?

Idea#4 Understand coherence and its role in your thinking/doing. Coherence isn’t just the idea that your summary matches your introduction which reflects your findings, which folds out from your methods. It’s more than that! Coherence is the integrity of your life expressing itself in all facets of it. It is found in your work, writing, speaking, dreaming, pedagogy, assessment practices, vision, and everything that your mind/body touches. Everything! So, why is this important? The practice of coherence heralds a meta-consciousness that brings forward a changed society. What are the ideas you are learning? How do they shape your pedagogy? How does the influence of enduring patterns of knowing something change how you speak at conferences or to your mailman? Here is what a beloved kupuna, Hale Makua, believed: We reread our own writings a few years down the road to see if we have embodied the ideas into our own knowing and life practice. Why? Because function is the pivot of all Indigenous knowledge systems. Function was not separate from beauty, it is the same idea. Beauty is an act, not just a painting. John Dewey was correct: Art as experience is the idea that endures. It is an Indigenous aesthetic that got relegated to craft and put on museum shelves. Dusting this idea off for our own understanding has liberated my thinking and brought Indigenous relevance to my modern-day life because I have always been educated by beauty.

our HolograpHiC univErsE Makawalu: the process of recognizing the dynamic interdependence of all things

There was always something missing in social research. It felt dry. Quantitative data seemed two-dimensional without qualitative data. Remember those days? They are still here haunting us unless we can accurately describe the rigor found in what is subjective to life, what is the inside of all outside reality. It is impossible to deny that, deep within ourselves, an “interior” appears at the heart of beings. .  .  . This is enough to ensure that, in one degree or another, this “interior” should obtrude itself as existing everywhere in

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nature from all time. Since the stuff of the universe has an inner aspect at one point of itself, there is necessarily a double aspect to its structure, that is to say in every region of space and time—in the same way, for instance, as it is granular: co-extensive with their Without, there is a Within to things. (de Chardin, 1959, p. 56; emphasis in the original)

Do you understand this idea? There is an outside and there is an inside to life and they are intimately connected. The body/mind is not dual, but we can speak of them separately to describe their qualities. The outside is the empirical, physical, objective, classical physics side. The inside is the hermeneutic, mental, subjective, and quantum side. Both aspects end up being two parts of what Ken Wilber (2000) calls The Big Three: body, mind, and spirit. Here is where we heal with our mind/body connection via all our Indigenous descriptors, values and practices, and here is where we introduce the (k)new rigor our planet has been waiting for.3 History is not just the evolution of technology; it is the evolution of thought. —James Redfield (1993, p. 20)

Indigenous scholarship is about naming and bringing forth the spiritual aspects of life. It is an epistemological hologram and has been the inspiring rallying point of all my current understanding. The following describes exactly what a hologram is: A hologram is a three dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams co-mingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a threedimensional image of the original object appears. The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. (Talbot, 1991)

It shapes how I evaluate students’ work and informs how to design new projects founded on enduring, Indigenous and cutting-edge quantum science theories (non-locality, coherence theory, complementarity, self-organizing systems, etc.) (see Nadeau & Kafatos, 1999). Robert

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Nawahine named this epistemological hologram in a beloved song Ekolu Mea Nui in 1925. The Three Important Things4 are: mana’olana: knowledge that floats outside us as ideas (laser beam 1) mana’o ’o: knowing because of direct experience (laser beam 2) aloha: understanding that clarifies thought/action (laser beam 3)

Virtually every culture I have come across has a similar framework that defines the difference between knowledge, knowing, and understanding. In Hawai’i, this third laser that illuminates an object/idea is aloha. Here is where research goes from two and three dimensions to holographic. It is the single most exciting implication of Indigenous epistemology. It is the clearest and simplest way to summarize what is universal. We begin with what is distinct.

Idea#5 Bring forward the wholeness of knowledge, not just its parts. This practice can be found in bringing forth all three aspects of life found in every Indigenous culture and in the new sciences that recognize wholeness in all parts. All three points act as a hologram, making facets of knowledge a simultaneous whole event, not a separate singular one we think it is. Enjoy Table 15.1 as it expresses The Big Three found in life, science, and knowledge. Table 15.1 summarizes the simultaneity of all three aspects of life and research. They are presented here linearly because of the medium of paper and text. They are not sequenced in this manner. Think of the idea of dynamic-interdependence and you will be closer to how these three exist within and because of each other. Hirini Moko Mead (2003) describes this hologram via Ma-ori culture as: Te Wha-nuitanga: an in expanding knowledge outward Te Ho-honutanga: an in-depth knowledge Te Ma-ramatanga: an enlightening of knowledge

The following is a quick summary of all three “laser beams” of this holographic epistemology. Remember, this is not a new idea, it is old. Body: Here is the empirical, objective, and quantifiable science part of life. It is the outside, tangible, seen, experienced, hard data. It is expanding knowledge outward. It is the physical portion of an idea and the tangible part of knowledge that gets explored. It is what is observed, counted, weighed, graphed, measured. It is only one facet of the hologram and yet contains all aspects of the whole image. Mind: Here is the interpretive, subjective, and qualitative science part of life. It is the inside, thinking, ideas, and soft part of data. It is

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Table 15.1 Holographic Summary of Indigenous/Quantum/Enduring Epistemology.1 Body

Mind

Spirit

Source

Mana’oi’o Techne Objective Outside Perception Mohio Instinct Empiricism Facts Gross Seeing Technical Rationality Consumer Intelligence Hearing Life Tinana Force Knowing Coarse Vuku Sensing Ways of Knowing Voice Classic Dense Tamas Interpretation Measuring

Mana’olana Episteme Subjective Inside Conceptualization Matauranga Intelligence Rationalism Logic Subtle Hominization Hermeneutic Rationality Re-Creative Intelligence Thought Mind Hinengaro Power Knowledge Subtle Kilaka Presencing Ways of Being Thought Relativistic Dynamic Rajas Mythic Maturation Reflecting

Aloha Phronesis Cultural Transpatial Remembering Maramatanga Intuition Mysticism Metaphor Causal Convergence Emancipatory Rationality Creative Intelligence Meditation Joy Wairua Liberation Understanding Secret Yalomatua Realizing Ways of Doing Silence Unified Still Sattva Gnostic Revival Witnessing

Hawaiian Aristotle Karl Popper Ken Wilber Yoga Sutra Ma-ori Hale Makua Ken Wilber Mike McCloskey Ken Wilber Teilhard de Chardin Henry Giroux Molefi Asante Buddhist Upanishads Ma-ori David Hawkins Manu Aluli Meyer Buddha Una Nabobo-Baba C.O. Scharmer Veronica Arbon Rumi Brian Greene Nityananda Upanishads Taupouri Tangaro Manu Aluli Meyer

Unless noted specifically in the reference section at the end of this chapter, all descriptors in this list have been collected during a lifetime of experiences and kept as journal entries without citation. Students and friends have also given me their renditions and I have kept them to add when appropriate. The work of the Dalai Lama (2005) also influenced my development of this list. The list itself is self-evident of its own function and efficacy and is made coherent through this collective display. The quantity shown here is meant to clarify the quality of the idea—that enduring knowledge is holographic. It purposefully crosses disciplines and brings us into whole-thinking and to simple ways by which to access complexity.

1

the mental part that keeps itself thinking, reflecting, and changing. It is in-depth knowledge. This table outlines The Big Three as a hologram for Indigenous social researchers. Your mind is needed to recognize, understand, and add to this list. It will be mind that recognizes these ideas as common sense and something viable and useful for your own research.

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Spirit: Here is the event-horizon of science. Here is when the door opens and a breeze enters. Spirit is not religion here. It is the remembering of knowledge, the causal property of life, the liberation found in action, the beauty of music, the joy of children exploring their limits, the efficacy of wisdom. It is an enlightening of knowledge. It is the Akashic field that has never not been present everywhere. It is not something predictably measurable, yet it can be experienced. Here is the William James idea of radical empiricism. Here is the Buddhist idea of paticca samuppada. Here is our Hawaiian idea of auamo kuleana. Here is the quantum physics idea of coherence as non-locality.5 Are we having fun yet? Look at the holographic table again. Take your time. It is meant to nourish you. Digest the ideas and give them your own interpretation. As Krishnamurti (1996) has taught us: Talk to family and see how this simple idea is the substructure for all others. A holographic matrix that notices, sustains, and develops all other ideas. Why not make it obvious? Why not make it rigorous? Why not describe it through your scholarship? Ha’ina mai ka puana: Thus ends my story. Truth is the highest goal, and aloha is the greatest truth. —Hale Makua

It was effortless to write about my journey into becoming an Indigenous social researcher. Really, it is not how I would describe myself. It is what I do but it is not who I am. I am the fifth daughter of Emma Aluli and Harry Meyer and I grew up on the beach of a great shore-break wave. The malanai (soft breeze) kissed us on hot days and the moa’e (tradewinds kept our sailboat clipping toward moku manu (island off Kailua Bay) in those bright blue sky waters. I am a wahine kalai pohaku (a female stone carver), who has walked the shorelines and streams of Hilo pali ku and found clarity in the healing practice of ho’oponopono (restorative justice). I am a Hilo girl who experienced beauty over and over in natural systems and in the sound of water flowing on rock. I have changed in quiet candle-lit nights and in the stillness of pre-dawn mornings. I have been gifted with a night rainbow and transformed under a bodhi tree. Five is my favorite number. It also represents healing for many cultures. It is how I organize thoughts and ideas. Here are the five ways I came to know myself and thus my kuleana, my responsibility, in the world. Idea #1: Answer with your life the questions that give it meaning. Idea #2: Find the truth of your people and bring it forward. Idea #3: Heal yourself because our healing helps others heal.

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Idea #4: Understand coherence and its role in your thinking/doing. Idea #5: Bring forward the wholeness of knowledge, not just its parts.

Please, let us look again at the synonyms and instructions within our spiritual column in the holographic summary in Table 15.1. It is how I’d like to close this discussion of one journey, which in itself is an example of all journeys. It is a way to mihi (summarize) and contextualize this discussion of Indigenous epistemology within the infinite interconnection of life. A spiritual acumen that our world is looking for can be found in social research findings as enduring as your kupuna (wisdom). It will be realized in understanding, aloha, contemplation, joy, stillness, and through your intuition. Ideas are remembered using the convergence of creative intelligence and emancipatory rationality. Finally, it is culture—something we all are creating together. That’s if we see it, understand it, and can bear witness to what has always sustained us. There, again, the holographic universe! Here is why Indigenous minds are vital. We simply hold a relationship to enduring patterns and languages that must be brought forward to be of service, again, to what is before us. This is our time to find each other and to affirm the qualities inherent in earth, sky, and water, so we can once again regain a place of purpose and relationship with our natural world. Your research will make a difference because all scholarship heals. All relationships matter. Here is our work. Here are spaces for the practice of courage and consciousness. Kia eke ki tona taumata. (That it may attain to the excellence of its being.) —Ma-ori proverb

Ea honua! (Let Earth thrive!) Mahalo (thanks) for taking the time to read these five ideas and digest them into your own understanding. The consistency of this kind of thinking nourishes and keeps me at the center of my own truth-telling. I trust it will be helpful for you in your own journey in life. Remember: Keep it clear and keep it simple and share your purpose with the world. We wait in readiness! Amama ua noa.

notEs 1. Shane Edwards (2009) referred to knowledge that was simultaneously old/new with the idea that it was (k)new. I appreciate its play in sound, truth, and function. 2. Weltanschauung is a philosophical synonym for one’s worldview; a product of culture shaped in language. 3. This trilogy in prior writings has been called the triangulation of meaning. I have since changed my mind, so it is no longer our task to triangulate back to meaning because

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meaning is inherent. It is a hologram where all parts are by themselves a simultaneous representation of the whole. Quantum science practitioners call this “whole/parts” or holons. It is expressed as non-locality. 4. Mahalo to Pulama Collier for this idea, brought out during one weekend on the shoreline of Kapoho, Hawaii. 5. Akashic field has been referred to as the mystical, cosmic field at the root of all reality; Paticca samuppada is the Buddhist version of this dynamic idea of transpatial interdependence; auamo kuleana is a Hawaiian term that literally means “to carry your responsibility” and it, too, infers this sense of dynamic interdependence. Non-locality in quantum mechanics describes the immediate effect two particles have on each other even though they are separated by large distances.

rEfErEnCEs Cajete, G. (2000). Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers. Dalai Lama. (2005). The universe in a single atom: The convergence of science and spirituality. New York: Broadway Books. de Bono, E. (1999). Simplicity. New York: Penguin Books. de Chardin, T. (1959). The phenomenon of man. New York: Harper Perennial Publishing. Edwards, S. (2009). Titiro whakamuri kia marama ai te wao nei: Whakapapa epistemologies and Maniapoto Ma-ori cultural identities. Ph.D. thesis, Massey University, New Zealand. Hawkins, D. (2002). Power vs. force: The hidden determinants of human behavior. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House. Krishnamurti, J. (1954). The first and last freedom. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers. Krishnamurti, J. (1996). Total freedom: The essential Krishnamurti. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers. Little Bear, L. (2007). Conversation with educator and elder Leroy Little Bear. Mead, H. (2003). Tikanga Ma-ori: Living by Ma-ori values. Wellington, New Zealand: Huia Publishing. Nadeau, R. & Kafatos, M. (1999). The non-local universe: The new physics and matters of the mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Redfield, J. (1993). The celestine prophecy. New York: Warner Books. Searles, B. (2009). The dharma of community. Unpublished M.Ed. thesis, Hilo Education Department, University of Hawaii. Talbot, M. (1991). The holographic universe. New York: Harper Perennial Publishing. www.tobyjohnson.com/michaeltalbot (accessed October 4, 2012). Wilber, K. (2000). Sex, ecology, spirituality: The spirit of evolution. Boston: Shambhala.

Chapter 16

Prospects and Challenges of Becoming an Indigenous Researcher Motheo Koitsiwe

There is growing awareness in Africa and the world about the importance of Indigenous knowledge research and the pivotal roles played by Indigenous researchers. Doing research in Indigenous communities can present both challenges and opportunities for Indigenous peoples who aspire to become Indigenous researchers. These challenges and prospects are complex and need to be explored and analyzed. This chapter is about the experiences I had on my journey to becoming an Indigenous researcher. The experiences I describe are drawn from previous work and engagement with Indigenous communities and Indigenous knowledge holders (IKHs) and practitioners in the North-West Province, South Africa. I discuss my research background and how I developed passion for conducting research in Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). Then I write about the motivation, prospects, and challenges of being an Indigenous researcher. I conclude by speaking of the importance of empowering and capacity building for Indigenous researchers. I was born in a village called Tlhakong/Mabeskraal, 80 kilometers from Rustenburg town, North-West Province, South Africa. The tribal totem of the Batlhako in the village of Mabeskraal is the elephant (Tlou), and the traditional leader is Mr. Molopyane Mabe. The Batlhako tribe is of Nzunza-Ndebele origin, and its praise name was Mahlangu and Matlhako in Setswana (Breutz, 1989). I graduated from Rakoko High School (Mabeskraal village) in 1995 and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) from 1996 to 1997, later continuing my professional studies at the NorthWest University, Mafikeng campus, South Africa. I have studied and Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 261–276. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 261

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taught IKS in the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences at the NorthWest University. I have also done research on African cultural astronomy, heritage, and IKS and have gained experience and developed interest in doing Indigenous research among Indigenous communities. Hopkins (2002) posits that research is all about addressing an issue or asking and answering a question or solving a problem. Emory (1980) agrees, saying that research is a systematic inquiry aimed at providing information to solve problems. Therefore, I argue that lack of proper introduction of basic research, mathematics, and science at an early age in secondary schools contributes to the poor quality of research and lack of qualified and professional researchers, including mathematics and science experts, in South Africa. During apartheid, the black population was forced to accept the inferior Bantu Education System. South Africa’s apartheid government used education as a tool to create an unequal and completely divided society. During apartheid, Whites were provided with quality education. Blacks were not. According to Nancy and Worger (2004), Hendrick Verwoerd, the minister of Native Affairs at the time, stated that: “There is no place for the Bantu in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour. What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? That is quite absurd. Education must train people in accordance with their opportunities in life, according to the sphere in which they live” (pp. 48–52). Before being appointed as a lecturer in the IKS program at the North-West University, I was doing community-based research, working with traditional health practitioners, IKHs, and practitioners. I also gained research experience while doing research for the Commission for the Protection, Promotion of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities in South Africa. Over the years, I have been actively involved in the development of the Bachelor of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, which is registered with the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA). I am currently working with IKHs and practitioners with an objective of establishing a statutory body for IKHs and practitioners. One of the objectives of the project is to identify communities of practice and develop norms and standards that will assist in the process of certification and accreditation of IKHs and practitioners in South Africa. During my childhood, I discovered that in Mabeskraal village, most of the community members, especially the elders (botlhogo putswa), had a lot of knowledge about IKS (Kitso ya setso), including information about stars and other heavenly bodies. During apartheid, this knowledge had not been adequately documented, especially from the perspectives of the community members themselves. This knowledge

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was marginalized from the mainstream education system. It was orally transmitted from one generation to another and could be lost in process if not well researched, documented, and disseminated. For instance, community elders, including my grandmother, the late Mmamodiagane Tladinyane, used to narrate stories, proverbs, songs, and myths to the youth around the fire on how they used to understand, predict seasonal weather changes, and track time using their Indigenous knowledge of the sky. As one of the youths in the community, I developed great enthusiasm to explore and write about this undocumented community knowledge so that it could be integrated into the formal educational system in South Africa. Historically, there has been no single way to define the term “Indigenous.” Anaya (2004) says Indigenous refers broadly to the living descendants of preinvasion inhabitants of lands now dominated by others. Maurial (1999) defines Indigenous knowledge as the people’s cognitive and wise legacy as a result of their interaction with nature in a common territory. The above definition is further defined by De La Torre (2004) as the established knowledge of Indigenous nations, their worldviews, customs, and traditions. In this chapter, “Indigenous research” is defined as any study about a uniquely local phenomenon that examines its local implications and/or its global implications (International Association for Chinese Management Research, 2009). I define an Indigenous researcher as one who is Indigenous and conducts Indigenous research underpinned by Indigenous worldviews. An Indigenous researcher is a researcher who uses Indigenous research methodologies and theoretical frameworks. The above definition of Indigenous researcher does not suggest that Indigenous researchers are confined to the local environment. Olsen, Lodwick, and Dunlap (1992) state that the concept of worldviews has been described as mental lenses that are entrenched ways of perceiving the world. McKenzie and Morrissette (2003) explained that Indigenous worldviews emerged as a result of the people’s close relationship with the environment. Weber-Pillwax (2001) defines Indigenous methodologies as those that permit and enable Indigenous researchers to be who they are while actively engaged as participants in the research processes. Wilson (2001) supports the above view that an Indigenous methodology implies talking about relational accountability, meaning that the researcher is fulfilling his or her relationship with the world around him or her. My observations and research experience have shown that it is fundamental to consider Indigenous theoretical frameworks, Indigenous methodologies, building research capacity, empowering young Indigenous researchers, and leveraging research funds to conduct Indigenous research

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in collaboration with IKHs and practitioners, communities, mainstream research institutions, academia, and other relevant stakeholders. IKHs and practitioners (batswara ba kitso ya setso) are local elders who have obtained their knowledge and experience through years of experience. Although the identification of IKHs is usually associated with local community elders, it is not simply a matter of chronological age but a function of the respect accorded to individuals in the local community who exemplify the accumulated knowledge, values, and life-ways of the local culture. Indigenous knowledge practitioners are individuals and groups involved in the social practice of Indigenous knowledge systems (e.g., traditional health practitioners, traditional leaders, farmers, local artists, etc.).

Motivation to Do ReseaRch Today, there is a growing awareness of the importance of Indigenous knowledge research and the pivotal role of Indigenous researchers in shifting the methodological paradigms and decolonizing research (Masoga, 2001). To spread public awareness about the value of Indigenous research, Indigenous researchers, IKHs, and practitioners must be identified, nurtured, and promoted. The value of Indigenous researchers needs to be recognized as an intrinsic part of the African culture and ways of knowing. As a young researcher, I discovered that most of the community members, especially IKHs and practitioners, were elders who have acquired a wealth of Indigenous knowledge over the years for sustainable livelihood. This knowledge has been orally transmitted from one generation to another. Indigenous knowledge is locally available, cost effective, based on people’s cultures and belief systems, and can be used to solve local challenges on issues such as climate change, food security, moral degeneration, conflict resolution, and the like. Therefore, the participation and value of Indigenous researchers in the mainstream of knowledge acquisition and creation cannot be ignored. Higher institutions of learning and research institutions must play a leading role in recognizing and esteeming Indigenous researchers. The lack of systematic research on Indigenous knowledge, poor recognition given to Indigenous researchers, limited numbers of active and professional Indigenous researchers, and marginalization of Indigenous researchers, worldviews, and methodologies in the mainstream research, development, and innovation agenda are some reasons why I wanted to become an Indigenous researcher. African Indigenous knowledge systems is a new field that needs to be explored, recognized, documented, and integrated into the formal education system of Africa, particularly

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South Africa. This is one of the fundamental reasons that inspired me to be an Indigenous researcher. To become an Indigenous researcher means clear research and ethical guidelines have to be developed for conducting Indigenous research. The role of IKHs and practitioners is fundamental in Indigenous research because they are the custodians and sources of Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous research must be a tool to empower IKHs and practitioners, including enabling Indigenous researchers to be able to engage, collaborate, and network with other Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers from elsewhere.

PRosPects of BecoMing an inDigenous ReseaRcheR Becoming an Indigenous researcher is fundamental, especially for the promotion and development of Indigenous research. IKHs and practitioners, including Indigenous peoples, have the right to benefit (monetary, nonmonetary), disclose or not disclose, participate or not participate in any research project that undermines them as subjects rather active participants. Dunbar and Scrimgeour (2006) state that research reform advocates have argued for a fundamental repositioning of Indigenous peoples from that of research subjects to active participants in all aspects of research activity. Underpinning this position is the argument that historically, research that has positioned non-Indigenous researchers as “experts” has not always been of significant benefit to Indigenous peoples and that, in some circumstances, research activity has been seriously damaging, insensitive, intrusive, and exploitative (Dodson, 2000; Maddocks, 1992; Thomas, 2004). Indigenous research is fundamental because it promotes a more effective working relationship between Indigenous researchers, Indigenous communities, and other relevant stakeholders such as academia. In my view, becoming an Indigenous researcher is important based on the following: 1. The pool of Indigenous researchers will increase, and this will promote, strengthen, and enhance Indigenous research for sustainable development. 2. Indigenous researchers can challenge dominant Western research methodologists to consider the importance of Indigenous methodologies in Indigenous research as a means to decolonizing research methodologies. 3. Indigenous researchers will have an opportunity to ensure the continual Indigenous input into the research, development, and innovation agenda. Indigenous researchers will be able to use Indigenous knowledge, which is cost effective, culturally appropriate, and could lead to sustainable development through community-based innovations. 4. Indigenous researchers can develop strategies, partnerships, and networks with academia and research institutions and create a database of existing Indigenous researchers.

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the PRocess of BecoMing an inDigenous ReseaRcheR As a young Indigenous researcher working with traditional intellectuals or IKHs and practitioners, I discovered that most of these people have intimate knowledge on food security strategies, conflict resolution, and peace-building approaches and knowledge about the sun, moon, stars and other heavenly bodies, medicinal plants, and the like. According to Gramsci (1971), traditional intellectuals are people who regard themselves as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group and are regarded as such by the population at large. They seem autonomous and independent. The most serious consideration for me as a young researcher was that most IKHs and practitioners in various tribal communities were not well organized as communities of practice. They remained unrecognized, unaccredited, and uncertified by relevant government institution such as SAQA. During apartheid, there were no existing opportunities within the national qualifications framework for accreditation and certification of IKHs and practitioners. Their knowledge was regarded by formal research institutions and scientific councils as being primitive and unscientific. IKHs and practitioners also faced marginalization within their communities, especially among the young generation who regarded their knowledge as irrelevant. Currently, the SAQA, in collaboration with the National Indigenous Knowledge Systems Office at the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the IKS Centre of Excellence (North-West University), are working jointly on a pilot project to develop norms and standards for the accreditation and certification of IKHs and practitioners. I observed that most of the IKHs and practitioners did not know how to write and read. As noted above, their knowledge was transmitted orally. They developed local knowledge using local language to preserve and share this knowledge with the community, especially the younger generation. I also discovered that there was no systematic documentation or any database on IKS that can be accessed in local institutions or the community in general for current and future research. The ability to read and write was and continues to be a critical challenge, especially among poor rural women and the elderly in villages. Illiteracy of IKHs and practitioners in South Africa is closely bound up with the dynamics of colonial conquest and missionary work, from the seventeenth century to the twentieth (Prinsloo, 1999). The perception of illiteracy as a problem that affects only black South Africans is tied up with this earlier colonial history as well as with the more recent history of institutionalized racism (Prinsloo, 1999). In the eighteenth century, but particularly in the nineteenth, Christian missionaries came to South

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Africa from all parts of the world as part of the scramble for colonizing Africa. As part of proselytization of the Indigenous peoples, the missionaries ensured that the slaves and the Indigenous Khoi people were taught reading and writing; this was in the context of learning the language and religion of their settler masters. There is an old African saying that “every time an elder dies is like a library has burnt down.” Despite the systematic lack of documentation of this valuable knowledge, I observed that most of the community elders who were the sources and custodians of this knowledge were not taken into cognizance either by their families, communities, or especially the younger generation. The perception in our local community that elders are witches is still prevalent even today. This lack of recognition was based on the fact that IKHs and practitioners did not obtain their knowledge from formal education institutions. Furthermore, the influence and dominance of modern scientific knowledge makes it difficult for their knowledge to be recognized. So, this knowledge is facing extinction because it is not properly researched, documented, or incorporated into the mainstream education system or knowledge economy. The structured and systematic approach toward the documentation and dissemination of this wealth of knowledge should also take into consideration traditional ways of learning, such as oral arts. However, most research on Indigenous knowledge was done by either mainstream research institutions such as science councils, academia, and foreign researchers using foreign languages and research methodologies. In 2005, I was appointed by the DST and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), based in Pretoria, South Africa, as an Indigenous researcher. CSIR and DST, in collaboration with the NorthWest University, came up with a one-year project called Motheo-IKS project. This project was the first of its kind in South Africa and was an attempt to implement the IKS policy that was developed to protect, promote, and develop IKS. The IKS policy was launched by the South African cabinet; it articulates the fact that there is a wealth of Indigenous knowledge and related technologies that can be eroded by modern phenomena such as globalization. The Motheo-IKS project was an attempt to create public awareness of the substantial contribution of modern science and technology to the development of IKS; link schools with local communities including IKHs and practitioners; develop capacity of learners and out of school youths; and interface IKS with subjects in schools, thus raising awareness among the broader community about the role of IKS in the education and wealth creation.

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The project was piloted in the North-West Province because this is the only province in South Africa that has a university with an accredited teaching, learning, and research program on IKS. The project was also based on the rationale that the previous apartheid dispensation and its education system did not acknowledge IKS, utilizing religion as an instrument to degrade African ingenuity. Indigenous knowledge was, as a result, demonized and presented as unethical and primitive. On the contrary, most scientific innovations integrated by Western thought in medicine and arts originated from African IKS. Taking advantage of its defect of not being acknowledged by copyright and intellectual property laws, lack of written documentaries on IKS, and the application of social research created substantial ground for its exploitation for commercial purpose by others without due compensation to the originators—Indigenous people themselves. It is against this backdrop of the project that fifteen Indigenous researchers were appointed to cover all the schools and communities selected by the North-West Provincial Department of Education. The Indigenous researchers were selected from the North-West University (Indigenous Knowledge Systems Programme) and other universities in the country. Since 2001, the North-West University (Mafikeng Campus) in South Africa has established an SAQA Accredited Learning and Research Programme on Indigenous Knowledge Systems Programme, hosted by the School of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences. The university has also established a virtual Indigenous Knowledge Systems Centre of Excellence with a partnership between the University of Venda, University of Limpopo, and the National Indigenous Knowledge Systems Office. One of the main objectives of both the IKS program and the IKS Centre is to promote teaching, learning, research, and training relations among people of African origin within the continent and in the Diaspora. This is in line with the aspirations and implementation of the philosophy of African renaissance and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. (The New Partnership for Africa’s Development is a pledge by African leaders to collectively ensure the sustainable socioeconomic development of the African continent and, at the same time, to make an active contribution to the global economy.) African renaissance is a concept first articulated by Cheik Anti Diop in a series of essays beginning in 1946. They are collected in his book Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in Culture and Development, 1946–1960 (see Makgoba, 1999). In South Africa, this concept was popularized by the former president Thabo Mbeki. In my own view, African renaissance needs to be a philosophical, political, and social movement

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driven by grassroots organization in partnership and collaboration with government and other stakeholders with a vision of addressing the continent’s cultural, economic, political, social, and scientific challenges. One of the main objectives of the IKS program is to compare Indigenous and modern concepts and practices for better scientific understanding in general and for a new paradigm of sustainable development. Through an interdisciplinary and multidimensional approach, the IKS programs at North-West University are aimed at opening new approaches for Indigenous researchers as well as applied Indigenous research. This is based on the vision of developing future ambassadors of Indigenous knowledge. As an up-and-coming Indigenous researcher, I was selected to work with Rakoko High School in Mabeskraal village, Moses Kotane District, North-West Province, South Africa. This was also based on the fact that I have also studied and completed the Bachelor of Social Sciences, had theoretical experiences of social science research methods, and had completed a Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Knowledge Systems (B.A. IKS). Furthermore, I originated from the North-West Province and understand the language, heritage, and the culture of the people. One of the objectives of the project was to close the gap between the schools and the community and reduce the risks of extinction facing IKS by integrating it into the education system. To accomplish this, thirty schools were selected from all four districts (Bojanala, Central, Southern, and Bophirima) by the North-West Province Department of Education. Most of the schools and communities that were selected were amenable to the idea of introducing IKS in schools, especially for grades 10, 11, and 12. There was a lot of enthusiasm from the head master, educators, students, traditional health practitioners, IKHs and practitioners, traditional leaders, and the community at large. This excitement confirmed that there was a need to integrate IKS into the education system. The people who participated in the research project were very influential and supportive. At first, though, excitement had to be instilled in educators, learners, traditional health practitioners, IKHs and practitioners, traditional leaders, and so on because most of them, especially the learners and educators, did not understand what IKS is. They also were not sure that IKS should be integrated into the education system or how to do so. Lack of reference materials such as books contributed to the lack of understanding of IKS. As an Indigenous researcher, I had to be innovative and creative by drawing up practical examples (i.e., using Indigenous games to teach mathematics, using IKHs to teach about the importance of Indigenous foods and their medicinal and nutritional value, visiting heritage sites,

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and organizing educational field trips). Using socio-cultural activities in their local environment to simplify the concept of IKS was exciting and interesting to them because this was a paradigm shift. The highlight of the project was that, as part of the promotion of IKS, I also organized a documentary that featured educators, learners, IKHs and practitioners, and the like. The documentary was broadcast on national television. The DST, together with CSIR and the North-West Department of Education and the North-West University, organized research workshops for all the appointed Indigenous researchers. Researchers were trained to use the tools of research as well as how to use the manual provided to assist both researchers and educators. Teaching of Indigenous Knowledge: An Educational Manual for IKS was compiled by a team of researchers and was used as reference material for teaching IKS (Ntsoane, 2005). The manual was based on a variety of topics such as the effect of colonial education, doing research in African local communities, African IKS, opportunities for outcomebased education and beyond, African mathematical exploration and Indigenous technology, and so on. As a graduate of IKS, I was one of the team members who worked very hard to put the manual together. The manual was especially relevant for Indigenous researchers, educators, students, and youth, who previously had no idea what IKS was all about. Researchers were also capacitated on various methods of doing research in local communities and allocation of duties and responsibilities. Traditional methods such as lekgotla (traditional council) were used because these methods ensure that research participants are actively involved and using their own Indigenous languages. These traditional methods were cost and time effective, used Indigenous language of the people, and were culturally appropriate and sensitive to the traditions and customs of the community, as contrary to mainstream methods.

challenges of BecoMing an inDigenous ReseaRcheR Doing Indigenous research and becoming an Indigenous researcher has challenges. Ntsoane (2005) says that the existing research methodologies are often inadequate for conducting research in local communities. As an Indigenous researcher, I have encountered a number of challenges in doing research among local communities. First, I was not introduced properly to the school and the community that I was supposed to work with, so there was lack of cooperation and support from some of the learners, educators, and IKHs and practitioners.

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Second, I had to raise awareness among the educators and the learners about the concept of IKS. As a researcher, I observed that the education system is dominated by Western religion, such as Christianity, and a Western knowledge system. Therefore, some educators and learners, based on their Christian religious background, were reluctant to engage in activities that were related to the teaching, learning, and research on IKS. Third, the concept of research is alien and scary in Indigenous communities. In the past, research was used as a tool to exploit local knowledge and resources for profit, without any benefit to the communities and custodians of the knowledge. Most of the IKHs, especially traditional health practitioners, were reluctant to participate and share their knowledge because in the past research had been used as a disempowering tool. Battiste (2000) states that, over the years, Eurocentric researchers’ expended considerable time and effort examining and dissecting Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples were subjected to Western research that did not acknowledge them as sources and custodians of knowledge and did not protect their rights. They were treated as mere research objects or subjects. Fourth, the research tools and theories were initially written in English, and as a researcher, I had to translate them into the local language, Setswana, and then back into English. Some of the knowledge was thus incorrectly translated and lost its original meaning. Ntsoane (2005) points out that language can be a roadblock to interfacing with respondent community members. Nabudere (2011) adds that language plays a fundamental role in the creation of knowledge. Fifth, there was lack of support materials or manuals for learners, educators, and researchers to enhance and facilitate the research process. In consultation with the project manager and to address the above-mentioned challenges, resources and funds were allocated and I organized the following activities: 1. Planned mini-research workshops to familiarize learners, educators, IKHs and practitioners, and community members on the purpose, objectives, and significance of the research. 2. Engaged learners in community-based IKS research by engaging knowledge holders, practitioners, and the community in collecting data. Learners were introduced into the dos and don’ts of conducting community-based research. 3. Arranged visits for learners and educators to heritage sites and traditional health practitioners’ surgeries as ways of demystifying African traditional medicine and heritage. 4. Engaged learners in Indigenous games such as malepa (string figure gates). Drawing on knowledge and examples of how Indigenous games can be analyzed to reveal a variety of mathematical concepts and how they can be used in the teaching and learning of mathematics.

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As a young Indigenous researcher, I discovered that doing research in local communities is not a simple process, but the complexity of the process is often overlooked by those who are in charge of research. I also learned that it is fundamental to involve the IKHs and practitioners at the beginning of the research, rather than toward the end, to instill a sense of ownership and control. Furthermore, language is very important when conducting research in local communities because sometimes it can be a barrier. Battiste and Henderson (2000), Macedo (1999), and Chilisa (2012) argue that because of European colonization, IKS and associated language systems and other Indigenous forms of meaning construction have not been validated or legitimized by the Western academy or its formal schooling system. This is based on the fact that systems of knowing cannot be separated from language as the medium of communicating ideas and belief systems. Language expresses the uniqueness of a group’s worldview.

inDigenous ReseaRch MethoDs Some Western-developed methods are based on a positivist approach, often inappropriate and irrelevant, and do not take into consideration the rights of Indigenous communities. Communities and Indigenous activists have challenged the Western research approaches about issues such as racist practices and attitudes and exploitative research, sounding warning bells that research can no longer be conducted with Indigenous communities as if their views did not count or their lives were of no significance (Smith, 1999). In Indigenous research, methods that are comprehensive, appropriate, and relevant are imperative as part of decolonization (Chilisa, 2012; Smith, 1999). I will describe four community-based research methods that demonstrate how knowledge can be acquired and created with Indigenous research. 1. The lekgotla concept: In some communities the concept of lekgotla is regarded as one of the fundamental local institutions and should be treated with high status and respect, just like Western parliaments. In the lekgotla, community members discuss sensitive issues that are related to them on a daily basis such as conflict resolutions, developing rules to be followed by the community members, and resolving critical issues such as control of natural resources. Certain aspects of the community are not discussed anytime, anywhere, with anyone because of gender, marital status, age group, and so on. I believe that lekgotla could be used as an Indigenous method of collecting data by Indigenous researchers. This is based on the idea that Indigenous knowledge is culture specific, special knowledge that is also based on gender, marital status, age group, and so on. Therefore, Indigenous researchers doing

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research on IKS can organize lekgotla with the identified respondent community members to share knowledge on certain aspects of the research problem. 2. The sethoboloko concept: For many centuries, Indigenous communities have developed and believed in myths that were related to the 12 o’clock midday or midnight stoppage of work or any community activities. Ntsoane (2005) says sethoboloko is associated with the ancestors among the Batswana tribal groups in South Africa and elsewhere. Batswana tribal groups share the view that there should be no community activities during midday or midnight. For instance, one is not permitted to walk in the village, visit burial or sacred heritage sites, or consult traditional health practitioners during midday or midnight. I argue that Indigenous researchers should not conduct research among Batswana communities around midnight or midday since these might be perceived as an offense to the ancestors, community, and IKHs and practitioners. 3. The morufo or pula molomo concept: According to Ntsoane (2005), in African Indigenous communities, IKHs and practitioners are not obliged to divulge their knowledge to anybody, especially strangers or outsiders. This is based on the belief that their knowledge is sacred. Knowledge among Indigenous communities is not treated as a commodity; however, it is a wellknown traditional practice to offer what is called morufo or pula molomo to the tribal leader or traditional health practitioner. Morufo or pula molomo is a small amount of money or cash or presents that are offered to respondents by researchers. This practice must not be interpreted as bribery but a token of appreciation. According to IKHs and practitioners such as traditional health practitioners, this small cash is for the ancestors. However, researchers are advised not to go around distributing money to everybody in the community. The researcher must be able to identify legitimate beneficiaries and decide how much he or she pays the respondents. 4. Dress codes: In African tribal groups in South Africa and Africa in general, the issue of dress codes is very sensitive (Ntsoane, 2005). For instance, certain dress codes are not allowed in local institutions such as lekgotla.

Tradition and custom dictates that only men wear trousers, and women wearing trousers with their head uncovered may not be allowed to attend meetings at the kgotla (tribal court). It is therefore advisable for Indigenous researcher to take into account such socio-cultural protocols such as culturally appropriate dress codes and conduct.

ReseaRch funDing Indigenous researchers have a fundamental challenge of obtaining funds for doing research among local communities. I have limited research funds, and this affects research outcomes with regard to issues related to traveling, communication, printing research materials, stipends for assistant researchers, organizing workshop, and so forth. The challenges are related to identifying relevant funding institutions for funding Indigenous research. Further, most funding institutions will not fund any research project if they are not clear as to how they will benefit from the research itself.

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conclusion The most fundamental observation I noted while becoming an Indigenous researcher among local communities in the North-West Province, South Africa, was that there is a need to create a new pool of Indigenous researchers who will introduce new approaches to methods of doing research. A new paradigm and epistemology in research is important because the global knowledge economy is based on new and diverse ways of generating and developing knowledge for sustainable livelihoods. Because of my experiences, I have gained an understanding of the challenges and prospects of being an Indigenous researcher. Indigenous researchers need to challenge the mainstream research protocols and argue for the recognition of socio-cultural protocols when conducting research among local communities. Indigenous researchers need to develop and create community-based institutions that will conduct research that will lead to development and innovation in their communities.

RefeRences Anaya, S. J. (2004). Indigenous peoples in international law. New York: Oxford University Press. Battiste, M. (2000). Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Battiste, M. & Henderson, J. S. Y. (2000). Protecting Indigenous knowledge and heritage. Saskatoon, Canada: Purich. Breutz, P. L. (1989). A history of the Batswana and origin of Bophuthatswana: A handbook of a survey of the tribes of the Batswana, S-Ndebele, Qwa-Qwa and Botswana. Margate, South Africa: Ramsgate. Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. De La Torre, J. (2004). In the trenches: A critical look at the isolation of American Indian political practices in the nonempirical social science of political science. In D. A. Mihesuah & A. C. Wilson (Eds.), Indigenizing the academy: Transforming scholarship and transforming communities (pp. 174–190). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Dodson, M. (2000). Human genetics: Control of research and sharing of benefits. Australian Aboriginal Studies Spring-Fall, 56–71. Dunbar, T. & Scrimgeour, M. (2006). Ethics in Indigenous research—Connecting with community. London: Springer. Emory, C. W. (1980). Business research methods. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Hopkins, W. G. (2002). Dimensions of research. Sportscience 6, sportsci.org/2002 (accessed December 1, 2011). International Association for Chinese Management Research. (2009). Research dissertation grant and workshop topic: Indigenous management research in China. http://www.iacmr.org/Publications/MOR/IndigenousResearch/Definition%20of%20 Indigenous%20Research%20MOR.pdf (accessed December 4, 2011). Macedo, D. (1999). Decolonizing Indigenous knowledge. In L. M. Semali & J. L. Kincheloe (Eds.), What is Indigenous knowledge? Voices from the academy (pp. xi–xvi). New York: Fulmer Press.

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Maddocks, I. (1992). Ethics in Aboriginal health: A model for minorities or for all? Medical Journal of Australia 157, 553–555. Makgoba, M. W. (1999). African renaissance. Sandton and Cape Town: Mafube and Tafelberg. Masoga, M. (2001). Indigenous knowledge research: A challenge. In Building on the Indigenous—An African perspective. Proceedings on International Conference on IKS held at University of Venda for Science and Technology, Thohoyandou, South Africa. National Research Foundation & University of Venda: South Africa (March 20–23). Maurial, M. (1999). Indigenous knowledge and schooling: A continuum between conflict and dialogue. In L. M. Semali & J. L. Kincheloe (Eds.), What is Indigenous knowledge? Voices from the academy (pp. 59–77). New York: Fulmer Press. McKenzie, B. & Morrissette, V. (2003). Social work practice with Canadians of Aboriginal background: Guidelines for respectful social work. In A. Al-Krenawi & J. R. Graham (Eds.), Multicultural social work in Canada: Working with diverse ethno-racial communities (pp. 251–282). Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. Nabudere, D. W. (2011). Afrikology, philosophy and wholeness: An epistemology. Pretoria, South Africa: AISA. Nancy, L. C. & Worger, W. H. (2004). South Africa—The rise and fall of apartheid. Seminar Studies in History. New York: Pearson Longman. Ntsoane, O. (2005). The teaching of Indigenous knowledge: An educational manual for IKS facilitators. Johannesburg: Fire Drum Communications. Olsen, M. E., Lodwick, D. G., & Dunlap, R. E. (1992). Viewing the world ecologically. San Francisco: Westview. Prinsloo, M. (1999). Literacy in South Africa. In D. Wagner, B. Street, & R. Venezky (Eds.), Literacy: An international handbook (pp. 418–423). Boulder, CO: Westview. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books. Thomas, D. (2004). Reading doctors’ writing: Race, politics and power in Indigenous health research. Australian Journal of Physiotherapy. Vol. 51. Canberra, Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press. Weber-Pillwax, C. (2001). Orality in northern Cree Indigenous worlds. Canadian Journal of Native Education 25, 149–165. Wilson, S. (2001). What is Indigenous research methodology? Canadian Journal of Native Education 25, 175.

Chapter 17

Hinerauwha-riki1: Tapestries of Life for Four Ma-ori Women in Evaluation Nan Wehipeihana, Kataraina Pipi, Vivienne Kennedy, and Kirimatao Paipa

Four Ma-ori women from Aotearoa New Zealand—Nan Wehipeihana, Kataraina Pipi, Vivienne Kennedy, and Kirimatao Paipa—share personal stories and reflections about their research journey to date. Their journeys are a rich tapestry of interconnections. They are research colleagues and share tribal affiliations, familial connection (Vivienne and Kataraina are sisters), and academic study experiences, having supported each other to complete postgraduate diplomas in 2009 and 2010. As well as their shared experiences, this is also a story that weaves together the unique strands of their individual research journey interlaced with personal reflections. But some context first. Ma-ori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, are 15% of the population and a minority in their homeland. The Treaty of Waitangi, the founding constitutional document of New Zealand was signed in 1840 between the British crown and Ma-ori and provides for the protection of Ma-ori rights, land, and sovereignty. There were several versions of the Treaty of Waitangi; Ma-ori signed the version that was in the Ma-ori language. The version that Ma-ori signed protected Indigenous rights, land, and sovereignty, however the treaty was not honored by the settler governments. As a result, Ma-ori have experienced significant losses of land, language, and culture through deceit, warfare, and colonization. Through protest, political representation, and legal redress, Ma-ori have sought for the treaty to be honored. The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 established the Waitangi Tribunal and a judicial process that allowed for hearing claims from Ma-ori and Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 277–298. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 277

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determining whether the actions or inaction of the crown (government) were inconsistent with the principles of the treaty. Over the past thirty years, there has been a resurgence of proIndigenous activity as the treaty claims process has brought to the fore practices and injustices that have contributed to a loss of language, culture, and well-being among the Indigenous population. Some tribes have completed treaty negotiations with the crown and received primarily financial settlements for longstanding grievances; the process of negotiating historical claims continues today. These tribes are developing a strong economic asset base that provides a platform for them to meet the social, cultural, and well-being aspirations of their people. Social, economic, environmental, and political factors continue to play leading roles in the disparities experienced by Ma-ori in health, education, employment, justice, and housing. Under this environment, there has been a growing Indigenous research and evaluation sector, intent on influencing government policy, developing pro-Indigenous programming in social, education, and justice sectors, and sharing with Indigenous researchers worldwide to ensure positive outcomes for Ma-ori. The stories presented are of four Ma-ori women who provide a glimpse of this world as part of their personal and professional research journey. We start off with Nan, whose journey is about searching for Ma-ori colleagues and supporting the development of a Ma-ori research network to grow the space for Ma-ori cultural values and practices to inform and guide research. Kataraina and Vivienne signal the importance of wha-nau (extended family) and friends in supporting and guiding their steps and different pathways into the world of research. And in a richly personal reflection, Kirimatao affirms the value of upbringing and life experience as excellent preparation for becoming a researcher and providing one with the knowledge, understanding, and competency to work in our own Indigenous communities.

NaN WehipeihaNa Kia ora [greetings]. I’m Nan Wehipeihana from Aotearoa New Zealand. My tribal links are to Nga-ti Tukorehe and Nga-ti Raukawa, just north of Wellington, and to Nga-ti Porou and Te Wha-nau-a-Apanui on the east coast of the North Island. I live with my partner Bill in Wellington and have two daughters, Kahiwa and Teia. I’ve been doing research and evaluation for nearly twenty years. Does anyone start out wanting to be a researcher? Well, no one I know. I think you grow up mostly wanting to be like the people or the

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role models you saw around you, teachers or nurses, but not researchers. As one of the first in my family to attend a university, I went there not really knowing what I wanted to do and what my options were. I’d been good at history at school, so I completed a history degree and made a start on a commerce degree. My first job after I graduated was as a retail management trainee; I then worked as a program advisor for a loan assistance program for Ma-ori businesses. After that, I went to work for Television New Zealand as an intern and trainee researcher for news and current affairs. Following my stint in television, I did a whole range of other jobs: I managed a ten-pin bowling complex; I did research interviews and cadastral mapping for Treaty of Waitangi claims; and I was the corporate services manager for a local council. When I was in my early thirties, I saw a job advertisement that went something like this: “Do you like asking questions; do you like talking to people; do you like puzzling things out; are you confident working with numbers?” It was a job for a trainee research position with a market research company, and it sounded like me. I applied, got the job, and, as they say, the rest is history. My first formal research position was working in the social research division of a market research company. It was a small team within a sizable company that provided extensive on-the-job training, well-developed company-delivered professional development, and generous funding to attend a wide range of research short courses. I enjoyed working with and learning from highly skilled and experienced researchers, statisticians, mathematicians, and economists, and having exposure to a wide range of research methods. There were no other Ma-ori working for the company, so all of my training was in Western methodologies and approaches, and I learned by doing and observing and later added to my knowledge of research with postgraduate studies. I had a voracious appetite to learn about this new mahi (work) research. So, in the beginning, it was just about doing what was I told, not questioning the processes or the ways of making sense of things because I was new; others knew more and they were the experts. While I enjoyed the learning, I was also lonely as the sole Ma-ori person there. Despite having some non-Ma-ori colleagues who had a genuine desire to support Ma-ori ways of working and to understand Ma-ori perspectives, the organization itself was not really set up to support a Ma-ori researcher, and I relied on my mother and other wha-nau and friends for support and guidance. I remember talking to my mother about my discomfort about a direct questioning approach proposed for use with kaumatua (elders) and how it felt disrespectful to elicit information in this way. She advised me to first make my tribal affiliations known in the

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interview and to take a respectful elicitation and less direct inquisitive approach to draw out the information being sought. I remember feeling frustrated at not being able to find the words to explain to non-Ma-ori the diversity and richness of what it meant to be Ma-ori and to convey Ma-ori concepts, principles, or perspectives that I saw in the research data. For instance, some Ma-ori words have come into common usage in Aotearoa New Zealand (e.g., mana [prestige] and aroha [love]). When using these terms in an explanatory sense, the fuller and diverse meanings that apply to these terms is not easily conveyed because people find it difficult to move beyond the known, common usage, single explanation of the word. Similarly, Ma-ori will often talk about a feeling of wairua, typically translated as spirit or spirituality. However, this word can also be described as an unexplained phenomenon or spirit that causes participants and/or their surrounding environments to move and behave in a way that “feels right” to the person (Wehipeihana & Porima, 2003). These types of responses can struggle for traction and credibility in a worldview that favors secularism and more “rational” explanations. I think it was this “loss of voice” that drove my later commitment to a focus on language that builds understanding of Ma-ori and offers access and insight into Ma-ori views and values for use in government, business, and community contexts. It was also a difficult time for me because, on the one hand, the organization wanted me as a Ma-ori researcher because of what I had to offer, what I brought in terms of access to Ma-ori and Ma-ori communities, and my understanding of things Ma-ori. For example, non-Ma-ori researchers had difficulty securing Ma-ori participation in research and my extensive wha-nau and personal networks were invaluable in that I could just make a couple of calls and have an abundance of potential Ma-ori research participants. On the other hand, I didn’t have the academic or research experience and/or seniority to articulate or argue for processes that I thought were more appropriate. My suggestions about the value of using local people who had strong community knowledge and networks to guide researcher entry and engagement in communities or with iwi (tribes) were often ignored. I looked for other Ma-ori in the field of evaluation research. However, at that time, in my hometown of Wellington Aotearoa New Zealand, you could count on one hand the number of Ma-ori evaluators. So, in the early years of my research career, it was my non-Ma-ori colleagues who provided me with much of my professional support. While this was a time of great learning, it also became clear to me that the organization wasn’t a natural fit for me personally and professionally

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as Ma-ori. I looked for other contexts that would be more supportive of the cultural values and principles that were important to me. I moved into roles where I commissioned or managed research projects, giving me some ability to influence the research design and how it was carried out with and in Ma-ori communities. After a couple of years of research management, I set up my own research consultancy. This appeared to offer more scope to practice research in a way that better fit with my values and principles. Relationships matter in Ma-ori contexts; they are a critical entrée mechanism, a lubricant that facilitates and underpins on-going engagement, and the glue that binds people, processes, and projects together. I was able to invest time in the development and maintenance of relationships, particularly at the outset of the research, knowing that relationships are the business and not just a process for Ma-ori. I was also able to consult with Ma-ori communities or organizations about the design and conduct of the research, seek community or iwi views about what would work well in their contexts, and utilize local people in the research as advisors or researchers. When I first started out as an independent researcher, I was often invited to be part of research teams that had a requirement to include Ma-ori (and sometimes a Ma-ori researcher) as part of the study. One of the reasons for including Ma-ori researchers like me on the team was our ability through whakapapa (kinship connections), whanaungatanga (relationships), and tikanga (cultural practices) to facilitate and secure Ma-ori engagement and participation in the research. Sometimes the research leader sought my input into the research design. Often, though, I found little space for doing things differently beyond engagement and interviewing. I was given various reasons for this, including: Ma-ori were only 15% of the population; the use of Kaupapa Ma-ori approaches didn’t fit the overall research design; alternate approaches weren’t possible within the budget or research timeframe; and on and on. I often had to lobby for more culturally responsive approaches, the valuing of Ma-ori perspectives within an overall analysis framework, and/ or alternate non-deficit approaches to the analysis of Ma-ori data. But as the lone Ma-ori researcher, non-Ma-ori perspectives invariably held sway. In these situations, I was almost always in a position of compromise because I didn’t hold the pen, I didn’t steer the ship, and I didn’t get to decide on what matters for the quality and authenticity of Ma-ori experiences and perspectives in research. So I think I was more conscious of the value of building a community of like-minded practitioners around me to address the feelings of cultural and professional isolation; I was more purposeful in strengthening and developing my relationships with other Ma-ori researchers as part of research teams or in the development of Ma-ori

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support networks; and I was more deliberate in seeking out, nurturing, and supporting professional relationships and friendships with non-Ma-ori researchers who were sympathetic and open to different ways of working. Despite developing stronger support networks for research with and in Ma-ori communities, I came to the realization that to be able to do research that felt right, where I’m not a “bit on the side,” I had to hold the pen, I had to hold a position of influence in the research, and ideally I needed to be in control of that research. In addition, I needed to not work in isolation from other Ma-ori researchers and wha-nau. I’ve been fortunate that the changing socio-political climate in Aotearoa New Zealand and iwi and Ma-ori development aspirations have opened up the space for me and other Ma-ori colleagues to take on leadership roles in research projects. My motivation to do research comes from the examples of manaakitanga (an ethic of care) and whanaungatanga set by my parents. Even though we lived in the city some distances from our tribal areas, my parents modeled an ethic of service to wha-nau, to community, to the church, to iwi, and to Ma-ori. My parents were on church committees, tutored kapa haka (cultural dance and performance), supported the establishment of urban marae (meeting places) and te kohanga reo (early childhood language centers), were involved in marae and iwi activities, and provided temporary foster care for children. For me, part of what it means to be Ma-ori is an ethic of service and using whatever skills or talents I have to contribute to wha-nau, community, iwi, and Ma-ori well-being, albeit in ways that are different from the examples set by my parents. So I’m motivated to do research that makes a positive difference for Ma-ori. At one level, it is about providing an understanding of what it means to be Ma-ori as well as surfacing Ma-ori aspirations; and it is about the potential to influence policy, program development, and service delivery so Ma-ori views, perspectives, and interests are elevated in decision making. At another level, I want to conduct, support, and advocate for a research experience that is culturally grounded, enabling, and affirming for Ma-ori. I also look for research opportunities that offer the potential to grow Ma-ori understanding of government processes and support and facilitate Ma-ori participation in decision making. I see one of my roles/responsibilities as supporting evaluation research in Aotearoa New Zealand, and over the years I’ve been very active and committed to building the Ma-ori evaluation research community, partially in response to my own professional needs but also to support the achievement of a critical mass of Ma-ori practitioners to lobby and advocate for Ma-ori-centred approaches and ways of working. The sharing and dissemination of Ma-ori approaches to research was not initially a priority for me. Until recently, I didn’t really see the value of talking or writing about what I did, why I did it and why I thought it

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was important. Naively perhaps, I didn’t see why anyone would think what I did, or what we did as Ma-ori, might be useful, valuable, or helpful in other contexts. At the same time, I was busy earning a living and was focused on doing research. Because I didn’t come from a strongly academic tradition, there was no publish-or-perish imperative. However, the more I attended local and international conferences, participated in Indigenous forums, and was exposed to research with and in Indigenous communities, the more I saw that we, as Ma- ori researchers, have much to share and much to learn. Much of the sharing that has emanated from the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand has been spearheaded by the writing of Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999, 2005) and Russell Bishop (1996, 1999; Bishop & Berryman, 2007); and in my own field of evaluation research, Fiona Cram (1997, 2006, 2009) has been a key influence, critical friend, and colleague. Ka-ore te ku-mara e ko-rero mo- to-na ake reka. (The kumara does not say how sweet it is.)

The essence of this saying is about humility and modesty. So while I feel a sense of responsibility to share with others—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers—what I have been privileged to share in, I’ll never be a fan of writing about or talking about my research experience because, despite the rational arguments, it still feels very whakahihi (conceited). My connection to wha-nau, iwi, whenua (the land and environs), and tikanga (Ma-ori cultural knowledge and practice) is the foundation from which I view and make sense of the world and the practice of research. Indigenous (or in my case) Ma-ori ways of knowing and being provide the culture, practice, and much of the theoretical basis for the way I think about and do evaluation research, not only in Ma-ori communities but for all peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. I conclude with this saying from Sir Apirana Ngata as a metaphor for life and a metaphor for the practice of research as Ma-ori. E tipu, e rea, mo- nga- ra- o to- ao; Grow and flourish in the days of your world; Ko to ringaringa ki ngaTurn your hands to the tools ra-kau a te Pa-keha-hei of the pa- keha- for your oranga mo to tinana; physical well-being; Ko to- nga-kau ki nga- taonga Turn your heart to the o o- tipuna hei tikitiki treasures of your ancestors as a plume mo- to- ma-hunga; for your head; Ko to wairua ki to Atua, nana And your soul to God, the creator of nei nga- mea katoa. all things.

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KataraiNa pipi Kia ora, I am Kataraina Pipi from Aotearoa, New Zealand. My tribal links are to Nga-ti Porou (on the east coast of the North Island) and Nga-ti Hine (in the north of the North Island). I am a mother of two teenage girls, Maraea and Mere Arihi. I have been involved in research/evaluation for approximately fifteen years. The process that led me to becoming a researcher was very opportunistic. I was in the right place at the right time. Someone needed a piece of work done; I turned up at the right moment and was asked if I was available. The first piece of research I did was a community-based evaluation, which required me to conduct interviews within two of my tribal communities. Prior to this, I had been working in the youth and community development area and had managed a tribally based outdoor pursuits program within the area where this evaluation was to be conducted. A key contact in the University of Auckland identified me as a potential evaluator for this project. Although I was new to the formal practice of research, I knew that I had good connections in these communities; I could have the necessary conversations with ease; and I was interested in the subject matter. What also helped was having a very supportive project manager who encouraged me in the way in which I wanted to undertake the work. So I had confidence and felt supported enough to give it a go. This first piece of work and my relationship with the project manager led to my second piece of work, and the momentum for this line of work grew from there. In my early years, I responded as an individual to opportunities that came my way from market research companies that were looking for Ma-ori researchers to add to their teams. I worked in a context that was a good grounding for learning the Western approaches to research, and I also worked in multi-ethnic teams comprised of Ma-ori, Pacific, and Pa-keha- (white people). After a while, I became aware that I was not in full control of the research process as it affected Ma-ori. I would undertake fieldwork, write up notes, and participate in an analysis session, then someone else would write up the report and sometimes I would not see the final outcome. Other times, I would read what others had written, usually non-Ma-ori, which missed the subtle, nuanced, or cultural sub-text or was just plain wrong. I came to realize that I needed to have more say about the way data were analyzed and Ma-ori views were represented. I had the great fortune to work alongside Fiona Cram on the Iwi and Ma-ori Provider Success research project from 2000 to 2002. Fiona was a great influence in my early days as a researcher. She mentored

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and supported me to ensure that we got the best result that we could from the research we were assigned to complete. She gave me permission to develop an approach to the project that was not originally envisaged, to bring on board other Ma-ori community-based researchers, and to share in a process of reciprocity with the communities we worked with to guarantee that they got something of value from the research. In recent years, I have enjoyed building collegial and personal relationships with other practitioners in the research and evaluation sector in Aotearoa New Zealand and I have learned something from them all. Fiona Cram has continued to consistently provide advice and encouragement on any project I put my hand to. Linda Smith opened my eyes to decolonizing methodologies (Smith, 1999), which I continue to ponder on. Nancy Sheehan highlighted for me the beauty and power of the Pasifika way2 to influence change. Maggie Jakob-Hoff demonstrated the value of quality and caring in evaluation. Laurie Porima has always been an advocate for tikanga (Ma-ori cultural principles) guiding our practice. My sister Vivienne Kennedy has continually showed the value of rigor and attention to detail. And my dear friend Kirimatao has blessed us with a raw energy and passion for “telling it like it is.” Kellie Spee has a gift of knowing, seeing, interpreting, and communicating in affirming and positive ways. I have enjoyed the chance to bring music and fine facilitation into evaluation alongside Pale Sauni who composes, engages, and delights in sharing the Pasifika way. Nan Wehipeihana has provided valuable opportunities to work on a range of Ma-ori specific programs; shared sound advice in designing, leading, and managing evaluation projects; and was a key person in encouraging me to undertake academic studies in evaluation. Jane Davidson has come home to Aotearoa with her “nuts and bolts” approach to evaluation, and many of us have joined the rubric revolution, meaning that we have come to learn the value of the use of rubrics as a tool for engagement and as the filter by which evaluative judgments are made. I have learned much from Kate McKegg, a teacher of evaluation, particularly in the area of building evaluative thinking within organizations. I have worked alongside Julian King for the past eight years in health research and evaluation, and he skillfully articulates the key messages in clear and concise ways. I have enjoyed working with Judy Oakden, Robyn Bailey, and Rae Torrie, as non-Ma-ori, who make conscious efforts to ensure that non-Ma-ori involved in evaluation that impacts on Ma-ori seek to understand their role and contribution to supporting Ma-ori evaluation endeavors. For example, my colleagues place value on our ability, as Ma-ori, to engage with and gather culturally specific data within our communities, and they know when the transmission of these

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ideas requires a Ma-ori lens. They clearly indicate when they believe they have limited knowledge and understanding rather than assuming they can interpret cultural data. I appreciate all of my colleagues and what they offer me. I have grown in my knowledge of research and evaluation. I have consciously given to each of them a piece of me that I hope has added something to their baskets of knowledge while providing a sense of who they are and the contribution they make to research and evaluation. I was mentored and supported into a research pathway and now I mentor and support other Ma-ori and non-Ma-ori researchers. I support other Ma-ori researchers by encouraging them to make explicit the cultural dimensions of a program and by providing them with tools to do so. I support non-Ma-ori researchers by giving them high-quality feedback about their practice as non-Ma-ori working in cultural spaces. Sometimes this means supporting them to make sure that they understand the cultural context of a program, or helping them to pronounce Ma-ori words correctly. Along the way to becoming a researcher, highlights have included working alongside some very sharp and clever people who know what works and doesn’t work in facilitating the telling of stories within our communities. It has been great to be supported, encouraged, and mentored by people whom I consider to be the best in the business of research and evaluation in Aotearoa. It has been a privilege to work on the many projects I have worked on and to bring others on the journey and in so doing, to broaden the way in which we approach research and evaluation. For example, as Ma-ori, we place value on building relationships and making connections prior to getting on with the business of evaluation; this is always planned and budgeted for in projects. When we need to have the advice and participation of elders on an evaluation, we ensure that this happens and that they are compensated for their time and looked after really well in the course of their involvement. I have been a servant of anzea (Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association) as a board member for over two years now and I have particularly relished the opportunity to be part of considering Ma-ori evaluation development endeavors and supporting the evaluator competency development project. In addition, it has been great to be exposed to international giants in the field of evaluation, the grandfathers and grandmothers of evaluation; the pioneers of different theories, principles, and approaches through academic study; and through attendance at various international conferences. The Australasian Evaluation Society and the American Evaluation Association have opened my eyes to global developments in the field of evaluation.

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The key challenges for me have been in growing and developing my confidence in this discipline and working to ensure that the approaches we use in our Indigenous communities result in a validation and affirmation of Indigenous ways of knowing and being. For example, by making sure that in the development of rubrics we ensure that culturally specific criteria are included, explained well, and are supported by credible evidence. I have overcome these challenges by a combination of seeking the appropriate support of friends and colleagues, making sure that I am accountable for my work to others, and putting myself on the academic pathway to increase my skills in evaluation theory, principles, and practice. I have also taken the plunge into the writing arena; for one sure way to build credibility for Indigenous-based initiatives is to write about these experiences so that people get to understand, appreciate, and value these worldviews and experiences. I no longer allow myself to be placed in a position of compromise. I choose carefully what I do, who I work with, and research projects that I work on. I have also come to realize that to be able to do research that feels right, that is tika (correct), that is pono (honest); I have to have a “voice” that is valued, respected, and listened to. Ideally, I would lead the project or have a key role in decision making and I would have to ensure I do not walk in isolation from wha-nau and Ma-ori colleagues because they are a source of support and help keep me safe—personally, professionally, and culturally. What continues to motivate me to do this work is the desire to affirm and validate Indigenous ways of knowing and being, to write our stories, to seek ways to measure and validate our progress in ways that are meaningful to us as Ma-ori, and to create the literature for future generations. Being Ma-ori has everything to do with what I do, how I do it, and why I do it. I want to affirm and validate what it is to be Ma-ori for ourselves and for others. There are numerous examples of evaluations in which culturally specific models of practice are evident but not well documented and to which we have made a contribution. Collectively with other Ma-ori and Indigenous researchers, we have the ability to influence thinking and practice in research and evaluation. My role in the wider context of research, beyond the Indigenous community, is to bring the creative element into our work so that we can demonstrate the merit, worth, and value of programs and services in more ways than a written report. We can show through music, art, poetry, song, and dance the difference that good programs make in the lives of individuals, their families, and communities (e.g., facilitating composition of songs that capture the values implicit in a program; use of colorful graphics to capture the aspirations of a community for

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program outcomes; or use of dance, skit, and poetry when facilitating large group discussions on the strengths of a program). I have a responsibility to do good work, to support my colleagues, to bring others on board, to ensure that collectively there are opportunities for all, and that in the Ma-ori space we do the right things, in the right way, for the right reasons. I have a particular worldview; values, beliefs, and ways of working that are specific to who I am and where I come from. I have, through this work, an opportunity to search and re-search things of relevance to us, as Ma-ori. I have choices about what I work on; I work in particular ways, with particular people on projects of interest. I bring process ideas, facilitation skills, and a range of tools that work well in Ma-ori communities because they are ways of relating that we enjoy. I am one of many Indigenous researchers and evaluators who are committed to social justice, to equity, and to contributing to a world that values Indigenous knowing and ways of being. I seek to affirm and validate Ma-ori experiences, strategies, and aspirations and to support initiatives in the wider context that validates our work. I challenge colleagues and institutions in the wider sector to support and contribute to creating contexts that encourage Indigenous research to prosper.

ViVieNNe KeNNedy No- Te Tai Ra-whiti to-ku pa-pa-; Ko Nga-ti Porou to-na iwi; No- Te Tai To-kerau to-ku ma-ma-; Ko Nga-ti Hine to-na iwi;

My father is from the East Coast; His people are Nga-ti Porou; My mother is from Northland; Her people are Nga-ti Hine;

Ko Vivienne Kennedy ahau.

[My heritage defines who I am] I am Vivienne Kennedy.

A changing company culture from innovation and relationship building to a production-line mentality, involuntary redundancy after seven years as a manager of a travel shop, and twelve years in the airline industry, left me with the desire to do something different. Prior to working in the airline industry, I had worked for five years in the cash department of the Reserve Bank of Australia in Melbourne. I was in my early forties when I “fell” into research and evaluation. It was not a career path I chose, and from what I have heard from others in the industry, thirteen years ago one did not chose research and evaluation as a career path; one simply graduated to it or fell into it. I had no previous experience or knowledge of the research and evaluation profession and I had not intended to become a researcher and evaluator.

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The two drawing cards that led me into this profession were the opportunity to work with my younger sister, Kataraina Pipi, and the opportunity to do work relating to Ma-ori, to my people. I had gained a foothold in Te Ao Pa-keha- (the world of the white man), however, I had lost out in some ways in Te Ao Ma-ori (the Ma-ori world) in terms of missing out on family and cultural events and activities by living overseas and by not increasing my ability to speak the Ma-ori language. Although Kataraina is my younger sister, she has been the leader in terms of her connections to communities and her knowledge of tikanga me te reo Ma-ori (Ma-ori customs and language); this is her world, and she thrives in it. When I started working in research and evaluation Kataraina kept me safe by escorting me into various communities, conducting the necessary cultural protocols, and leading the way in processes that I was unfamiliar with or unsure about. She helped forge the way where I would not have ventured because of my unfamiliarity with the territory and communities I was entering. Kataraina also introduced me to people she knew in order for me to establish and build relationships with people in communities I was to work in. My sister provided a window of opportunity and, once there, she gave me encouragement, guidance, feedback, and training as well as many opportunities to be present at meetings that were heart-warming and inspirational. I saw her and others from all walks of life making a difference for our people, each in their own way. The first project I worked on involved researching the determinants of success for Ma-ori providers of health and social services. My brief was to transcribe interviews; my role grew as I made myself useful in what few ways I could by taking notes at meetings and being a general gofer. Everything was new to me as I’d never been part of a research project and I had never met most of the people who were involved with this project. However, I was able to connect with them because they were well known to my sister, and I was accepted to a certain degree on the basis of their relationship with and trust in her. Also, we related to each other based on our place in the universe as Ma-ori, our connection to the land and to people we are related to or whom we know in common. I was excited by the passion the people I came across possessed for working with their own. They were very knowledgeable and articulate about matters pertaining to their families, people, communities, the politics that affected them at local and national levels, and more. After working in the corporate world for so long, I realized I missed being among my own people and I wanted to make a contribution to them. I had gained many transferable skills after years in the customer service industry and lots of life experience, but I did not have graduate

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qualifications with an academic institution. This was unusual as research and evaluation were primarily professions for academics. On reflection, part of the appeal for me was that most of the people working on the Ma-ori Provider Success project came from a community base and were not academics, that is, they were people who were working at the grass roots level. However, Ma-ori academics were working on and associated with the project who have key knowledge and skills of working in research and evaluation. Dr. Fiona Cram was the principal investigator and Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith was the director of the organization that was contracted to carry out the research. I valued Linda’s Kaupapa Ma-ori approach (Smith, 1999) in getting Ma-ori to work with their own in a field where customarily the “experts” were non-Ma-ori academics. It was extremely affirming and validating that we Ma-ori were conducting research and evaluation that was for Ma-ori, by Ma-ori, and with Ma-ori at the community level. I came from an industry where kept knowledge was power. In the corporate world you were careful about sharing your knowledge; you didn’t share your contacts or client base, otherwise you were opening the door for others to decrease your chances of success. Yet my sister showed me a whole way of being that I had not thought to use in business; it was an ethos of sharing. It seemed that the more she gave out, the more she got back. This principle of manaakitanga is a concept of reciprocity; it is about providing support, hospitality, and kindness. It is a way of being that was taught to us as children, but its application as a business model was a foreign concept to me. I had worked collaboratively before, but this sharing of knowledge, skills, and resources was contrary to the way of working that I had learned over the years in the corporate world. The sharing of knowledge, skills, and resources with our research and evaluation colleagues meant that we were building a powerbase that ensured we were stronger as a collective, and that we were empowering ourselves as Ma-ori whilst expanding our individual capabilities. My counsel is to surround yourself with like-minded people who share your passion for the work, who have similar aspirations, whose values and ethics correspond with yours, and who will draw you along with them, uplift you, and share with you. This group of people is critical in terms of my professional practice and development in providing support, guidance, and encouragement. We have formed a close-knit collegial peer group with whom we: • share similar beliefs, values, and work ethics; • pool our various skills and knowledge to increase our collective knowledge; • offer a diversity of expertise and knowledge as a collective;

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• • • • •

maximize our skills by ensuring that people work to their strengths; encourage and support each other so that we build our capacity and capabilities; assure a supportive and safe environment; share a sacred space in terms of our heritage and culture; accept our use and practice of things Ma-ori because of our knowing and understanding about those things, without further justification; and • have a shared understanding of our responsibilities to each other, our people, and our communities.

Fiona Cram also stands out as being paramount in terms of my growth and development through nurturing and mentoring me, providing opportunities that allow me to flourish without floundering, and engaging me and members of my wha-nau (family) in interesting and meaningful projects. Fiona and my sister Kataraina opened doors for me, and I gained credibility by my association with them; they allowed me to hang onto their coat-tails and join them in a whirlwind ride, meeting people whose paths I may not have crossed, and going places I may not have dared to go to. Fiona guided and supported me to attain heights that weren’t even on my radar, such as completion and publication of a number of articles in a special edition of MAI Review, an academic journal for Ma-ori and Indigenous people that has a readership nationally and internationally (see Cram & Kennedy, 2010; Kennedy, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c; Kennedy & Cram, 2010). My journey in research and evaluation is never one in which I walk alone. I continue to receive great support and encouragement from wha-nau (family), colleagues, and people interested and caring enough to nurture and support me on my pathway. I appreciated researching from the bottom up, that is, entering the profession and operating at a community level and developing skills, knowledge, and networks based on whanaungatanga (familial and non-familial relationships), manaakitanga (protection and support), and aroha ki te tangata (love for the people). My hope is that you, too, locate and utilize your “Princess Fiona” and “sister Kataraina” to mentor and support you on your journey.

Kirimatao paipa It has only been in the last three years that I have been comfortable with the title of researcher and evaluator. Prior to this, my involvement had been accidental, and from my perspective, I was just helping out a mate. There was definitely no time in the last ten to fifteen years that I had been helping out my mates when I had thought of myself as a researcher or an evaluator. I was not interested in theories about research and evaluation, methodologies, methods, analyses, project management, design,

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and implementation. I understood through experience that research and evaluation was something that got done to you, that it left a bitter aftertaste in our people’s mouths, and that it was a tool to use against us. I had also experienced and understood that the researchers were people who do not know you, live with you, or love you. So, until my mates asked me to help out, research was a hostile zone. Working alongside my mates, I learned things about research that took me from the hostile zone to a neutral zone. I saw that if research was conducted well, it could add value to our communities and lives. I came to understand that one key to research being done well is the researchers who do the research. I recognized that value is added to research when the researcher is from or lives in the community of research, knows his or her community, and loves his or her people. And I became conscious of research as a vehicle that could help document our journeys, be a great tool for planning, and intrinsically improve what we had. Now that was exciting! How had my own experiences and “knowing” shaped me for the work I do in my many roles as a mother, a sister, an aunty, a facilitator of languages, a trainer of spirit, a friend, and a researcher and evaluator? I am number nine in a line of twelve children and learned some of the skills I need for research and evaluation from my mother. She gave me the gift of resilience and stamina against overwhelming odds. My mum had her leg amputated before I was born and she got around the house, garden, street, and sometimes town on crutches for a number of years. She used to swing through the house on her crutches, and her “do it yourself” attitude fostered independent thinking and the courage to always try something new—at least once, even if you got it wrong. Often on crutches she would have problems carrying things and reaching something. She would always try it once and if that didn’t work, she’d try again but approach it differently. If that didn’t work, she would look at you—and if you’d been watching, you would know what to do; we learned to observe without comment and to help only when asked. Most times, however, she would manage without us; her creative problemsolving skills were highly attuned to quick, simple, creative solutions, as she would think on her ahh foot . . . (excuse the pun). From the time we got up in the morning until we went to bed, Mum was by the sink and the stove. Keeping her household going on a very small budget, keeping us fed, warm, clothed, and in uniforms was indeed a feat. She showed us stamina and a work ethic that often put her ablebodied children to shame. From my father, a veteran of the Ma-ori Battalion in World War II, I learned to have empathy and compassion, as the stigma of being Ma-ori in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s instilled in us a silent shame of who we were

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as Ma-ori. An inside understanding of the legacy of unresolved trauma of war and colonization left our family dealing with the scars of powerlessness in the form of addiction and dysfunction. I was ten years old when some of my brothers and sisters and I first heard our father speak Ma-ori—it was like we had all put our hands on an electric fence and shared in the same shock. We had never heard our father speak or utter anything that sounded Ma-ori; in fact, he would often get us to recite word for word, long poems about daffodils, ships, highway men, and subjects we knew nothing about. Why had we never heard our father speak Ma-ori before? Why didn’t we know that he could? Could our mother speak this language as well? Did that mean we were Ma-ori? Why didn’t we know anything about this? Our father was not forthcoming. Actually, he vehemently told us not to pursue anything to do with being Ma-ori; it was a “museum piece— only good to look at,” full stop, end of story. This helped me understand some of the many shades of shame and the effects of its legacy throughout the generations of my family. This lesson has served me well as an adult in my work as a language activist, a healer, and a researcher. Another skill that has served me well has been collaboration. I learned collaboration at the hands of my brothers and sisters as we vied one way or another to get out of our chores around the house, as we snuck siblings in and out of the house for meetings with sweethearts or parties, but mostly with us young ones, to get more time to play and be with other children. My family taught me about the most crucial competency that we as Ma-ori value above everything else—relationships. Above all else, in this small land that we come from, quality relationships matter. Education taught me about systemic racism and how to blame myself for not being everything that I should have been. It was not until I was an adult and a teacher myself, when reflecting on my schooling years, did I understand that I was not to blame for my teachers’ inability to reach me, to engage me, and to understand me. Because we had been brought up by my mother to be independent, I left home at fourteen. As a teenager, I became involved in consciousnessraising events, protesting alongside many of the giants of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. I learned about my responsibility and accountability as tangata whenua (people of the land) to be the stewards and caretakers of the spirit of the land and all who reside within. I grew to appreciate that aggressive legislation is a powerful tool to agitate, mobilize, and work collectively with like-minded people. At that time, I learned by watching great female leaders such as Whina Cooper, Tuaiwa Rickard, and Titewhai Harawira. In the next generation, there was a wealth of leadership from Ma-ori women like Ripeka Evans, Donna Awatere, Hilda Harawira, Zena Tamanui, and

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Hinengaro Awarau. Leaders back home within our tribal areas were Whaea McClutchie, Mana Rangi, Keita Ngata, Te Heikoko Mataira, Ngoi Pewhairangi, and so many others. These leaders taught me about our history as Ma-ori in this country; most importantly, they taught me to understand shame. It relieved me immensely to understand that the shame our parents felt of being Ma-ori was forced on them, was a learned way of behaving, and was not their burden to carry. I began to understand the “why” to my many unanswered questions regarding my father and his use of the Ma-ori language. I began to understand that some of my brothers’ and sisters’ dating habits and marrying pa-keha- (white people) were just another shade of shame. My life as I knew it, as I had grown up, began to unravel. Opening the onion, unwrapping the present, blossoming open, whatever—I was never the same. I became rather clear and precise, straight to the point, and sometimes deliberately scary. Becoming a mother was another onion-opening experience, as I expressed my need to change my focus to personal development. Then I needed to find the time to learn my language and challenge myself personally after all the protests I had supported at Avalon Studios in Wellington, to bring attention to and increase Ma-ori representation on television. It was time for me to commit to this; I had been in a ko-hanga reo (native language nest for preschool children) and I had not increased my proficiency in the Ma-ori language. I needed to put my money where my mouth was and do it. I enquired about learning and knew that I liked the Te Ataarangi approach of learning the language, so I started asking for availability of and access to Te Ataarangi tutors. I had had a taste of Te Ataarangi when I shared a flat in Wellington with a cousin; she came home with some cuisenaire blocks3 one night and said to have a go at this. In a short time, she had manipulated the cuisenaires and taught me three words—lesson over; I was hooked. I remember feeling such a personal sense of achievement. Wow. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t hard, but it was challenging. I realized I had been totally engaged and wanted the learning to carry on; I knew that I wanted to feel like that again. Eventually, I found out that a Te Ataarangi pouako (teacher) was coming to the local polytechnic. I signed up for his class, took a year’s leave from Ko-hanga (language nest), and I did it. I studied the language. I loved it. It changed my life; it changed me. The journey opened up so much inside of me. I felt afraid, but safe at the same time. When I began to loosen up and not worry about making mistakes, I really began to enjoy it. Laughing at my mistakes and just carrying on. Sometimes I couldn’t wait for my turn at the table. I would be worried that if I didn’t get it out then, it would be wrong by the time

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it was my turn, so I would just blurt it out. The hardest lesson of all for me at first was to learn NOT to correct people, to LET them be wrong. WHY? So that they build their inner native ear, which in turn supports them to hear themselves so they can self-correct. In the end, we enjoyed a freedom of learning that was engaging, encouraging, and enlightening. Not being punished enabled us to laugh at our own errors. As my language ability grew and I could sustain conversations, give presentations, and engage with elders in the language, another world emerged: a world that I could now enjoy and be a part of; the world of my ancestors. I became a detective, unpacking blueprints of my family; endless discussions and joy were shared with fellow journeyers of what were the eternal life lessons that the ancestors had left us in their songs, carvings, and stories. Learning in this way showed me why Ma-ori have low academic achievement in this country. The answer is easy: Ma-ori DON’T fit in Western academic circles; we DON’T engage, enjoy, or feel joy about learning in the Western way. However, my friends, much more liberating than that was the realization that we DON’T need to. Te Ataarangi showed me that we as Ma-ori have our own ways of learning; we have our own approaches and pathways; and we have our own levels of excellence and expertise. The challenge for us as Ma-ori has been trying to get crown recognition and financial support for Indigenous ways of learning—without the crown imposing their standards on us. Another insight that I bring to my work as a researcher and evaluator is knowing about spirit—how it lives within us, moves among us, and guides us. I learned to embrace and acknowledge spirit in all facets of my life as normal; that it is abnormal to ignore spirit; and that our ceremonies and cultural approaches acknowledge spirit at all times. But the spirit I talk about is more than a ceremonial approach or a religion; it is an acceptance that as living beings there is a common intangible element present in all our lives, no matter what name you give it. Ultimately, my journey has been enhanced along the way by having great friends. I have two of the best friends in the world, and they have led me astray in the best of ways. Helping out my friends led me to research and evaluation. In summary, look after your friends—you never know where they will lead you. Acknowledge who you are; everything you have experienced to date makes you the person you are, so perfect for working among your own. Every now and then, do a personal inventory of spirit, knowledge, skills, and achievements—knowing yourself helps you be highly aware of others. Bless your experiences and work among your people with joy and love. You can always add technical skill, but you cannot add heart

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and soul to a person. My friends, if there were one thing I would say to you, it would be to trust that your experiences provide you with all the skills and knowledge you need; everything else is a bonus.

CoNClusioN We finish as we started and return back to a story of four Ma-ori women, who in 2008 and 2009, with the support of non-Ma-ori colleagues, committed to postgraduate study in the field of evaluation. The study served to add the theory to that which we had been practicing for years.4 We approached the study as if it were another one of our projects—allotting timelines to readings and assignments, clarifying roles and responsibilities, keeping lines of communication open, and meeting regularly to discuss our work and our progress in a collaborative and inclusive manner. We used the study to review Kaupapa Ma-ori approaches to our work, further validating what it is we do and why we do it that way while also studying other approaches and theories; all the while noting why they were useful approaches for us or not. This study took us on a further journey of self-discovery as individuals and as a cohort, as Ma-ori and as researchers, strong in our sense of who we are—a group of women who are united in a desire for greater outcomes for our people. One road leads to another, and we continue to support one another in our practice. We are now looking to further our academic study so that we may contribute more effectively at the table where policies are made that affect our people. We acknowledge we have a long road ahead of us, but as one of our rangatira (wise leaders) said: Kua ta-whiti ke- to- haerenga mai, kia kore e haere tonu; He tino nui rawa o mahi, kia kore e mahi nui tonu. Ta- Himi Henare. (Nga-ti Hine, 1989) You have come too far not to go further; You have done too much, not to do more. —Sir James Henare (Ngati Hine, 1989)

Notes 1. Hinerauwha-riki: Hine is a term of address for a young woman and used here represents the four Ma-ori women sharing their research stories; rau means a hundred, or in this context, the many pathways we have traversed in our research journey; and wha-riki is typically a woven floor covering and speaks to the interconnectedness of our lives and our life plans. 2. The term “Pasifika way” is my acknowledgment of the unique ways of being and knowing of my South Pacific colleagues. 3. Created by Georges Cuisenaire in 1952, cuisenaires are colored rods originally used to teach mathematics and algebraic equations. These rods were consequently embraced by Caleb Gattegno in 1953 and used to provide unambiguous situations for students

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acquiring a second language. In New Zealand, Gattegno’s approach to second language learning has been adapted by Ma-ori educator Katerina Mataira to restore, revive, and regenerate the Ma-ori language. This approach is called Te Ataarangi. 4. The course covered a wide range of theorists, including David Fetterman, Jennifer C. Greene, Ernest House, Michael Quinn Patton, Michael Scriven, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and Carol Weiss.

refereNCes Bishop, R. (1996). Collaborative research stories: Whanaungatanga. Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press. Bishop, R. (1999). Culture counts: Changing power relations in education. Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press. Bishop, R. & Berryman, M. (2007). Culture speaks: Cultural relationships and classroom learning. Wellington: Huia Publishers. Cram, F. (1997). Developing partnerships in research: Ma-ori research and Pa-keha- researchers. SITES 35, 44–63. Cram, F. (2006). Talking ourselves up. Alternative: An International Journal of Indigenous Scholarship, Special supplement 2006: Marginalisation, pp. 28–45. Cram, F. (2009). Maintaining Indigenous voices. In D. Mertens & P. Ginsberg (Eds.), Sage handbook of social science research ethics (pp. 308–322). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cram, F. & Kennedy, V. (2010). Researching with Wha-nau collectives. MAI Review 3. http://ojs.review.mai.ac.nz/index.php/MR/issue/view/17 (accessed September 13, 2012). Kennedy, V. (2010a). Ecomaps. MAI Review 3. http://ojs.review.mai.ac.nz/index.php/MR/ issue/view/17 (accessed September 17, 2012). Kennedy, V. (2010b). Genograms. MAI Review 3. http://ojs.review.mai.ac.nz/index.php/ MR/issue/view/17 (accessed September 17, 2012). Kennedy, V. (2010c). Social network analysis and research with Maori collectives. MAI Review (accessed September 17, 2012). Kennedy, V. & Cram, F. (2010). Ethics of researching with Wha-nau collectives. MAI Review 3. http://ojs.review.mai.ac.nz/index.php/MR/issue/view/17) (accessed September 17, 2012). Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books Ltd. Smith, L. T. (2005). On tricky ground: Researching the native in an age of uncertainty. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 85–107). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wehipeihana, N. & Porima, L. (2003). Research into the New Life Akoranga Programme of the Mahi Tahi trust. Wellington: Ministry of Justice.

Chapter 18

Research in Relationship with Humans, the Spirit World, and the Natural World Polly Walker

Here is an epistemological category that deepens all other categories. Existing in relationship triggers everything: with people, with ideas, with the natural world. —Meyer (2008, p. 221)

Tsitsalagi. Nvwhtohiyada idehesdi. In the words of my ancestors: “I am Cherokee. May we live together in balance and harmony.” I am also of Anglo-European descent, grown up in the traditional lands of the Mescalero Apache. I chose to become involved in research in large part to address the damaging legacies of colonization both on my own peoples, all five-fingered ones,1 and the natural world. In many senses, to say I chose this path is much more linear than my deepest experience in which a network of relationships, both human and the more-than‑human world, called me into becoming-researcher.2 In describing my experiences, I speak with humility, knowing there are other Indigenous scholars with deeper understandings of Indigenous knowledge. Nevertheless, in this chapter I share my experiences of Indigenous knowledge research, a co-creative relationship integrating mind, body, spirit, and the natural world. My desire to become a researcher was based in part on my experiences of the damage that colonization has done to the relational webs that sustain our lives. I grew up in a wilderness area in New Mexico, adjacent to the Mescalero Apache Reservation and experienced, both within my family and the broader community, the alienation between Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 299–316. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 299

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many Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in colonized countries. I sensed tensions within my own family and the wider community as to whether it was acceptable to be “Indian”: that is, to live and practice Indigenous ways of knowing in which relationships between humans, the spirit world, and the natural world are constantly renewed. I knew that the conflicts between Native and settler people stretched back generations, and my work began to move in the direction of learning how people might work together to transform generational and cultural conflicts in the direction of justice, balance, and harmony. In my experience, there seemed to be a great need for research that highlights ways to decrease injustices suffered by Indigenous peoples. In the New Mexico public school systems where I worked, the legacies of colonization on the neighboring Mescalero Apaches were never mentioned, much less addressed. Educational procedures for Indian students were the same as those for the non-Indigenous population, and Apache students who were below expected achievement but above average ability were labeled as learning disabled and placed in special education programs. The impact of colonization was never analyzed as a factor in policy and decision making regarding the complex educational issues involving Mescalero Apache students and their families. However, as the Apache students told me stories of their lives, I came to understand that their educational challenges within the school system were not a result of learning disabilities. Rather, their struggles with Western education reflected a myriad of social and cultural differences, power imbalances, and unaddressed injustices that remained unseen within the school system. Motivated by my students’ experiences, I actively began seeking opportunities to research ways of addressing some of the educational issues facing Indigenous peoples. In 1995, I received a Rotary Ambassadorial fellowship that funded a year of independent study at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia. During that year, I researched ways of improving Indigenous students’ experience in Western education systems. During this fellowship, the network supporting my research became much stronger and more diverse, including both human and more-than-human relationships. I had many mentors, guides, and colleagues, both Indigenous and of settler descent, who encouraged and guided me in becoming-researcher. I can remember the day I was sitting in a large lecture hall at UQ, listening to Ralph Summy, head of the Peace and Conflict Studies Department. He was explaining a typology of violence and began to talk about structural violence (Galtung, 1969) kept in place by dominant groups that prohibited people in marginalized groups from reaching their full

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potential. I wanted to leap from my seat and shout, “That’s it. That’s the term that describes what is happening to Indigenous students when they are not allowed to integrate Indigenous knowledge into Western education systems!” I remained in my seat, but I was dancing in spirit. I realized there were researchers with whom I could connect to learn about ways of addressing ongoing injustices that Indigenous peoples were experiencing. The relational network that supported my becoming-researcher also included the spirit and the natural world. There are many different terms Indigenous peoples use when describing the interconnections and relationships between humans and the more-than-human world. In the United States, many Native Americans speak of “all my relations” when they refer to this network of relationships. In Australia, many Aboriginal people use the term “country.” As Deborah Bird Rose (2002, p. 14) explains: People talk about country in the same way as they would talk about a person: They speak to country, sing to country, visit country, worry about country, grieve for country and long for country. People say that country knows, hears, smells, takes notice, takes care, is sorry or happy. Country is a living entity with a yesterday, today and tomorrow, with consciousness, action and a will toward life.

Several Aboriginal senior people mentored me in building relationships with country and in understanding the interconnections between country and epistemology. Michael Williams, of the Goreng-Goreng people, was director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Unit at UQ when I was planning and completing my Ph.D. I took his course, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Approaches to Knowledge, in which he exemplified the Aboriginal concept of “listening to country,” the call and response between humans and the natural world. We often sat in country for our class sessions, rather than in a classroom, learning to listen to explorations of academic texts and the natural world. Michael also arranged for our class to travel to Minjerribah, an island off the coast of Brisbane, where he and Penny Tripcony, one of the traditional owners of Minjerribah, shared stories of living in dialogue and relationship with that place. We learned that listening to country included respectful relationships with the land, animals, plants, dreaming sites, natural processes, ancestors, and living Aboriginal peoples who had custodianship of those lands. It would have been impossible for me to research ways of transforming conflict between Aboriginal and settler Australian peoples if these Aboriginal senior people had not invited me to live in relationship with country and the Indigenous custodians of country.

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Mary Graham, senior Aboriginal woman of the Kombumerri people in Australia, became both my friend and mentor, helping me understand what a relationship with the natural world in Australia might mean in becoming-researcher. She has developed a place-based research methodology in which “Indigenous research methods stress the moral nature of physicality (especially land) and the need for relationality and interconnectedness with all life forces” in which “balance and re-balance is achieved when Place is used like an ontological compass” (Graham, 2010, p. 5). Mary maintains that: Place precedes inquiry. Place defines and supersedes inquiry. Place is a living thing, whether it is geographically located or located as an event in time. Place does not hamper, confuse or attenuate inquiry, rather Place both enhances and clarifies inquiry. . . . It informs us of “where” we are at any time, thereby, at the same time informing us of “who” we are. (Graham, 2010, p. 5)

I have learned from Mary to strengthen my relationship with place, adding depth and rigor to my Indigenous research methodologies. At one of the first conferences I attended after beginning my doctoral program, I witnessed a powerful example of the interrelationships in Indigenous research. Dr. Manulani Meyer was speaking about her experiences at Harvard regarding her doctoral research in Native Hawaiian epistemology. As she presented her paper, she embodied the principles she was describing. When she spoke about the epistemic violence she had experienced at Harvard, Dr. Meyer clearly expressed the emotional impact her professor’s comments had on her. In the stories she shared, in her body language, and in her tone of voice, she visibly embodied principles of connection of body, mind, spirit, and the natural world. Her presentation strengthened my resolve to disrupt the epistemic violence experienced by Indigenous peoples in colonized countries when they are told that scholarly research must focus primarily on linear intellectual analysis. I became more determined to find research methodologies that honored and respected the interconnections between mind, body, spirit, and the natural world. I have continually drawn inspiration and strength from Meyer’s work, particularly in regard to the importance she places on relationships between humans and the natural world. In the excerpt below, she is describing aspects of her methodology: I went to informants’ homes and places of teaching . . . each site held an important message for this work; it was either the birth place, spiritual home, or place of responsibility for most of my informants. . . . Each site spoke volumes. . . . It is quite possible that the site was the interview. Place as passion. Aina as kumupa’a, hupuna, aumakua (land as foundation, elder, ancestor). (Meyer, 1998, p. 70)

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My Doctoral Work: InclusIon of aborIgInal VoIces In my doctoral research, I experienced a measure of epistemic violence within the academy. I have written about these experiences previously (Walker, 2001b) and will briefly describe them here. The first advisor I was assigned informed me that she would not be my supervisor if I intended to speak with Aboriginal people. I explained that the omission of Aboriginal voices and epistemologies would re-create a type of violence similar to the structural violence I was attempting to research. My advisor replied, “Nevertheless, it is too complicated and messy if you speak with Aboriginal people. If I am to be your supervisor, you will need to rely on the library and other texts, and do theoretical research.” At that time, there were few books written by Indigenous scholars and knowledge holders (that was soon to change), and I knew that the voices I would hear would carry the resonance of non-Indigenous epistemologies only. So I moved on from that supervisor and found others who encouraged me to work collaboratively and respectfully with Aboriginal Australians. Under the guidance of my next two supervisors and with their support, I developed a research methodology called interconnected knowing, which was based on multiple layers of interconnections. This methodology is characterized by knowing based on interconnections between people, spirit, and the natural world, a central aspect of Indigenous knowledge (Duran & Duran, 1995, p. 15). In the Native worldview underlying interconnected knowing, “All things are interrelated. Everything in the universe is part of a single whole. Everything is connected in some way to everything else. It is therefore possible to understand something only if we can understand how it is connected to everything else” (Bopp et al., 1989, p. 26). Interconnected knowing also emphasizes the importance of the interrelationships of mind, body, emotion, and spirit, which many Indigenous scholars regard as integral in understanding human experience (Begay & Maryboy, 1998; Cajete, 2000, p. 2; Ghostkeeper, 2001). For example, Meyer (1997, p. 7) claims that in Hawaiian philosophy, humans “are not simply ‘head thinkers’” but rather are directed by their “bodies . . . larger sense of otherness.” Interconnected knowing also emphasizes respectful relationships between the researcher and the research participants. Many Indigenous researchers maintain that skilled data interpretation occurs within relationship rather than in isolation (see Begay & Maryboy, 1998, pp. 50–55; Cajete, 2000, p. 66; Smith, 1999, p. 148), and that intelligence outside of relationship is considered impossible (Meyer, 1998, p. 135). Indeed, knowledge that breaks the awareness of interconnectedness

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with others is considered worthless and/or harmful and is to be avoided in research involving Indigenous peoples (Meyer, 1998; Smith, 1999). Interconnected knowing illuminates connections between the human and more-than-human worlds, drawing on the tenets of Native science, which goes “beyond objective measurement, honoring the primacy of direct experience, interconnectedness, relationship, holism, quality and value. . . . Concerned with the processes and energies within the universe, it continually deals in systems of relationships” (Cajete, 2000, p. 66). To illuminate these interconnections, this methodology incorporates expanded cultural definitions of what can be known. In Western research paradigms, empirical data are often defined as data perceived by one or more of the five senses. However, just as senses are defined differently in different cultures, empirical data are also defined differently in different cultures (Meyer, 1998). Interconnected knowing redefines empirical data to include information received through senses that are integral to the experiences of Indigenous peoples. For example, many Indigenous scholars’ empirical data include dreams, visions, and signs from the natural world (Begay & Maryboy, 1998, p. 203; Cajete, 2000, pp. 75, 84–85). Interpretation of empirical data is a culturally mediated act, and seeing a relative who has died and hearing the advice they have to offer is considered valuable information to many Indigenous people. Dreams are also a data source in interconnected knowing, as they are for many Indigenous researchers (see, e.g., Begay & Maryboy, 1998; Cajete, 2000, p. 84; Duran & Duran, 1995). A number of Indigenous researchers utilize information from dreams both to guide research projects and to assist in analyzing data (Ghostkeeper, 2001; Meyer, 1998, p. 74). Indigenist research does not privilege humans in relation to the natural world. Indeed, in many Indigenous worldviews, humans are considered lower than other creatures, as can be seen in the following quote regarding the worldview of First Nations peoples in Canada: “The Aboriginal world-view holds that mankind (sic) is the least powerful and least important factor in creation. . . . Mankind’s interests are not to be placed above those of any other parts of Creation” (Sinclair, cited in Ross, 1996, p. 61). In interconnected knowing, there is no hierarchy of humans over nature, and research data from the natural world are considered equally valid as information from other humans. This methodology draws on Indigenous ways of knowing, such as the epistemology of the Yarralin people of Australia, which requires deep listening to the natural world (Bird Rose, 1992), and such interactions form an integral part of data collection and analysis.

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Spirituality is an integral aspect of interconnected knowing, as evidenced in the work of Begay and Maryboy (1998, p. 93) and others, who maintain that Indigenous research is “inherently spiritual.” Interconnected knowing builds on other Indigenous methodologies that openly acknowledge the fundamental role of spirituality in research (Duran & Duran, 1995, p. 44; Wheshula, 1999). For example, Meyer (1998) speaks of the importance that her research respondents gave to the spiritual aspects of their experience in which “every mentor spoke and lingered within the arena of how knowledge is affected, acquired and shaped by spiritual forces” (pp. 99–100; emphasis in the original). Nevertheless, integration of spirituality into academic research continues to be a contested issue. Ma¯ ori scholar Linda Tuwahai Smith maintains that “The arguments of different indigenous peoples based on spiritual relationships to the universe, to the landscape and to stones, rocks, insects and other things, seen and unseen, have been difficult arguments for Western systems of knowledge to deal with or accept” (Smith, 1999, p. 74). I was not far into my data analysis before my primary supervisor challenged the integration of spirituality into my methodology of interconnected knowing. Looking at my data, one of my supervisors admonished, “You can’t include anything in your research findings about people’s spiritual beliefs. If you do, your thesis will not be taken seriously as social science research.” Later this supervisor relented, accepting my argument that omitting participants’ spiritual experience would invalidate the data. Nevertheless, he went on to warn me that I could not speak about my own spiritual experience as a researcher if I wanted the data to be accepted as valid within the academy. I don’t believe that my supervisor was being intentionally disparaging of my integration of spiritual experience into an Indigenous methodology. Rather, he seemed to be adhering to university guidelines about successful and timely completion of doctoral research. Although seemingly well-intentioned, these responses seemed to me to be a continuation of the epistemic violence that marginalizes many epistemological concepts that are integral to Indigenous knowledge systems and Indigenous methodologies. As I went further into researching conflict resolution, I also found a measure of epistemic violence within the discipline of peace and conflict studies, particularly in the omission of the interconnectedness of humans, the spirit world, and the natural world. I found that most often Indigenous people were offered conflict resolution training or processes based solely on Western, linear, and atomistic frameworks (Walker, 2001a). In contrast, native peacemaking “is . . . a way of thinking and living in respectful relations with others” (Yazzie, 2004), which

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seeks to maintain and restore balance and harmony to vast networks of relationships among living humans, the spirit world, and the natural world. Native peacemaking also seeks to restore balance within each individual, bringing harmony to the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical aspects of human experience. Native peacemaking might be described as processes that assist people to live in harmony with the flux and patterns of the natural world. I continue to move toward, finding ways to communicate with the wider academic community how relationships between humans and the natural world shape Indigenous knowledge research. As Dr. Gregory Cajete of the Tewa Pueblo explains, failure to acknowledge the world and all its beings as alive is one of the greatest contrasts between Western and Native epistemologies (Cajete, 2000). Nevertheless, scholarly literature that conceptualizes the world as alive can be found in the work of Indigenous scholars such as Begay and Maryboy (1998) and Hogan (2000), as well as emergent Western scholars including Abrams (1996), Suzuki and Knudson (1992), and Bird Rose (2011). As Manulania Meyer explains: “Indigenous people are all about place. . . . Land is our mother. This is not a metaphor. The natural world is in constant dialogue with us, although we do not always listen or respond in our research journeys.” Linda Hogan (2000, p. 117), Chickasaw author, argues for the critical role of the natural world in our epistemologies: “And there is even more a deep-moving underground language in us. Its currents pass between us and the rest of nature. It is the inner language that Barbara McClintock (winner of the Nobel Prize for her research in genetics) tapped for her research.” In my experience as an Indigenous researcher, the spirit world and natural world have shaped, sustained, and directed my research. My research interests grew out of my relationship with the more-than-human world that has called me to attend to particular places to deepen my research and has strengthened me in the midst of research. In the following section, I share some of the experiences of relationship with the spirit world and the natural world that have informed my postdoctoral research.

lIVIng In relatIonshIps Throughout my becoming-researcher, I have come to a deeper understanding of my previous experiences of how living in relationships informs my research. The land that grew me up is in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico, near one of the Mescalero Apache’s sacred mountains. In those high places, in the canyons, and by the springs, I listened deeply and heard many voices including the ones singing in

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Mescalero Apache ceremonies, resonances of rhythms heard by my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Living, working, and moving among these rugged mountains shaped my understanding about the ragged choices of colonized peoples: Chiricahua Apaches forced onto other Apache’s land, and families of mixed Cherokee and settler descent homesteading land taken from the Mescalero Apache by the U.S. government. I learned the stories of colonization and saw the patterns of injustice embodied in the land and the people who lived there. I also saw patterns of new relationships, designs growing out of shifting circumstances and choices. When I look at the beautiful patterns woven into Apache burden baskets, I see new patterns of relationships such as those between my Cherokee-Anglo grandparents and the Mescalero Apache. In the earliest days of my family’s settling in New Mexico, my great-grandfather traded with the Mescalero Apache who rode horseback over the mountain to my family’s orchard. Each Apache rider brought baskets full of piñon nuts to trade for apples. I imagine these Apaches as my Great-Aunt Blanche describes them, riding down in the warm fall sunshine, baskets spilling over with sun-warmed nuts, the scent of piñon resin filling the air, the Apache seeming strong and formidable to my wide-eyed aunt, who was a small child peering out from behind my great-grandfather. In these and many other exchanges between the Mescaleros and my great-grandfather, a deeper pattern of respect was being woven, and seventy-five years later, at the little church in the desert where his funeral was held, many Mescalero Apaches came to stand with my family. The pattern of those baskets, reflecting the patterns of the land, came to symbolize for me the design of respectful relationship that could exist between Apache and others moving into their country. The design of these relationships that were moving in the direction of balance and harmony created a foundation for my research into transforming conflict between Indigenous and settler peoples. My values and perceptions growing out of these relationships between the natural world and the people living there shaped my research into structural justice in education for Native students. The land continued to speak of its intimate relationship with the Indigenous peoples. Wherever I rode or hiked, I encountered petroglyphs and pictographs that incorporated designs I saw re-created in Indigenous ceremonies, where the patterns of the relationship between the spirit world, the natural world, and the Indigenous peoples were constantly renewed and celebrated. Yet these relationship patterns were largely invisible to the wider community, where the injustice of the enforced curtailment of Native lands, beliefs, language, and culture was seldom acknowledged. My relationship with this place, both the people and the natural world, called me

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to respond to these injustices and alienation, and I moved into my role of becoming-researcher, seeking ways of transforming conflict between Indigenous and settler peoples. In my experience as becoming-researcher, the natural world and the spirit world sometimes call me to a specific place to learn. I was called by dreams to come to Australia, to live in relationship with country and the Aboriginal peoples who are its custodians. When I was young girl living in the Apache’s mountains, I repeatedly dreamed of a land with tall grasses, long-haired kangaroos, and men poling across shallow water in small bark boats. I thought it was a fantasy, since all the movies I saw about Australia featured red dust, little water, and kangaroos with flat, deer-like hair. When I arrived in Australia to begin my research journey, I soon found the swamps with the long golden grasses and the wallaroos with the long fur. And a few months later, I discovered the plains of Arnhem Land, submerged in the wet season, where Yolgnu people travel by poling small canoes. I had found the places of my dreams and understood the natural and spirit worlds called me to learn in this place, from the land and the Aboriginal custodians of the land. When I recently shared this story in Adelaide with Auntie Barbara Wingard, an Aboriginal elder in south Australia, she said: “Your story sounds like you have been ‘sung’ to come to Australia to do this work—‘sung’ in a good way” (Wingard, personal communication). The natural world is active in shaping my research, in a co-creative dialogical dance. Sometimes I come purposefully to a place, to learn from it and from the people in relationship with that place. At other times, the natural world may command my attention, reflecting its ability to “derange and rearrange the sensibilities of the human being” (Cameron & San Roque, 2003, p. 78). One of my most powerful experiences of being called by the more-than-human world to stop, pay attention, and learn from a particular place happened during my field research on the Nez Perce Memorial ceremonies at Ft. Vancouver, Washington. I had been studying the role of ceremony in transforming conflict between Indigenous and settler people there and had participated in the ceremony and listened to the stories of Nez Perce and descendants of settlers and Army personnel. I had interviewed a number of the people who were instrumental in creating and sustaining these annual ceremonies. To reach the memorial site, I had driven 1,246 miles across the United States, along the route of the Oregon Trail that brought many of the settlers who dispossessed the Native peoples in the Northwest. I had been sidelined by snowstorms, heartened by stories of respectful relationships and healing that the ceremonies had generated, and challenged by stories

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of the war forced on the Nez Perce who were only striving to protect their peoples and their lands. After weeks on the road, my final interview was with Uncle Horace Axtell, spiritual leader of the Longhouse and Wilfred Scott (Uncle Scotty), chairman of the Nez Perce at the time of the first memorial. We met at the university library on a cold, sunny Idaho day, the final day of my field research. During the interview, Uncle Scotty told a moving story of a little girl in his family who died when a group of vigilantes attacked the Nez Perce camp at Whitebird. He explained that each time the memorial ceremonies were held at Whitebird, they evoked the pain and loss that his people had endured during the War of 1877. And he went on to describe the healing that was also taking place in each ceremony when they commemorated the deaths that occurred in the war and celebrated the new relationships that were being created through the ceremonies. When I heard his story, I understood that my research would be deepened by visiting the Whitebird battlefield and other sites where similar ceremonies were held. But I would have to wait for another time, another trip to Turtle Island (a Native American name for North America). I was very tired and I had another 1,246 miles to drive to return my car to my mother’s home before flying back to Australia. I finished the interview, had lunch with Uncle Horace, and set off on my long drive, hoping to make a couple of hundred miles before night fell. As I drove through the late afternoon sunshine, a storm blew up and the clouds started to spit fine, popcorn snow. The wind drove the snow sideways, pelting into the car. I was becoming numbingly tired, and my thoughts were focused on finding a place to spend the night before the snow decreased the visibility to the point that I could no longer drive. I topped a hill and looked down to find the road winding dizzily back and forth into a deep valley. At that instant, the clouds parted, and the last rays of the sun lit up the valley below, filling the space between the dark storm clouds and the canyon bottom with a rich, golden light. I noticed a roadside pull-out with an interpretive sign, but was driving too fast to stop. Nevertheless, there was something about the presence of that place that called me to return, in spite of my exhaustion, in disregard of the storm. At the bottom of the mountain, I turned around and drove back up the mountain and pulled out at the interpretive sign. I found the Whitebird Battlefield stretching below me, the site where the little Nez Perce girl had lost her life in the War of 1877, as Uncle Scotty had described to me just that morning. I was the only driver crazy enough to stop in this storm, shivering in the unexpected snow, dressed only in a t-shirt and thin jacket. As I danced in the cold, I read the description of the Nez Perce attempts to

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protect their people, only to be set on by militia. I kept hearing Uncle Scotty’s story, as he described the despair and confusion of that battle, and I imagined the healing Uncle Horace described taking place through the ceremonies. As I reflected on both the pain and possibilities for healing paradoxically bound up in this place, I heard a truck stop behind me. A man got out and came over to read the sign, and we began to share our understandings of the history of this place. He introduced himself as a retired U.S. Army colonel and expressed interest in Nez Perce perspectives and the reconciliation, social justice, and relationship effected through their memorial ceremonies. We stood in the midst of the storm, a Cherokee researcher and a retired U.S. Army official, exploring ways the injustices of colonization might be transformed. We were, for a moment, a hologram of the research in which I had been immersed at Ft. Vancouver. I spent that night in a tiny, four-room motel at the foot of the mountain and walked the battlefield in prayer the next day, deeply touched by the injustices that had taken place there and by the efforts of Indigenous and settler peoples to restore some measures of balance and harmony to the web of relationships damaged by colonization. It seemed to me that I had been called by the natural world, sung back through the storm by its power and beauty, to engage in dialogue at that place, a peace scholar brought into deep conversation with a leader of war. “It was as though we had an active non-human partner in proceedings: the place itself, which acted directly on a deeper level of human consciousness than the normal waking state” (Cameron, 2003, p. 102). I have experienced other relationships that are characterized by mutual care between humans and the natural world. Auntie Margaret Iselin (2006), an Aboriginal elder from Minjerribah, maintains that “we take care of country, and country takes care of us.” Auntie Margaret is president of Minjerribah Moorgumpin, an Aboriginal elders association on Stradbroke Island off the coast of Brisbane, and has been a mentor for me in becoming-researcher in Aboriginal lands. From her and other Aboriginal senior people, I have learned to be respectful in my relationships with country: gaining permission from the custodians of the land to do work in that place, reducing my impact on the natural world, and living in respect and relationship. Likewise, as Auntie Margaret maintains, country extends care toward us, and has continually supported me on my research journeys. One significant experience of country’s care took place in 2006 when I was beginning the first stage of earning the right to do collaborative peacemaking research in the Yolgnu Aboriginal way. I had been accepted to be a participant in Mawul Rom, a Yolgnu peacemaking ceremony held on Elcho Island off the northern coast of Australia.

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The custodianship of the knowledge of this ceremony is held by Yolgnu people, and out of respect for their knowledge management systems, I will not describe the ceremony or peacemaking teachings that take place within it. However, I do have permission from Rose Gondarra, my sister in Yolgnu kinship system, to tell the following story: Two nights before the Mawul Rom ceremony ended, I was sleeping on the ground beside the fire we kept in the women’s camp, the bright arm of the Milky Way combing the sky above our heads. As I fell into sleep, in my almost dream state, I heard two Yolgnu women singing a beautiful, mournful song. One voice sang: “We do not eat the bark of the stringybark tree.” And another women’s voice lamented: “Oh, but it is so lovely to the taste.” I was puzzled about the meaning of these phrases and the strong emotion expressed by the women. The next morning, I sought out Rose and asked her who I should speak to about a stringybark dream. She replied, “Speak to my brother, he is custodian of the Stringybark Dreaming.” We sat around the smoky morning fire for a few moments, and Rose declared. “You can tell me the dream.” When I “sang” the women’s song, her face broke into a wide grin. “I know what your dream means. Come with me,” and, grabbing my hand with one of hers and an axe with the other hand, we went striding across the campgrounds into the trees. “Here, strip this bark,” she commanded, and demonstrated how I was to peel away a section of the bark, pulling layers with outer grey and brown, then inside, tender, salmon-pink bark. We carried the bark back to the fire, and she set me to stripping away the dry outer bark and placing the pink inner bark in a billycan over the fire. Rose started the billy to boil, then told me to get back to work and she would call me later. When I returned, she offered a cup of the rosecolored sweet tea she had brewed from the bark. She explained to me that, indeed, Yolgnu do not eat the bark of the stringybark tree, but for years they had boiled the inner bark to make a drink that restored energy levels and stamina. She also told me that they had gotten out of the practice of making the tea and she wanted return to it, that this restoration of balance and well-being was exactly what was meant to happen in the ceremonies held there. For me, this experience was country growing me up strong so that I could continue my journey of becoming-researcher. Unknown to Rose, immediately before I had boarded the plane for the trip to Elcho Island, I had received a frantic and concerned call from my physician who demanded that I come to his office immediately to discuss results of tests I had taken. I told him I was leaving for the Mawul Rom ceremony and would not be able to come in until I returned. My doctor continued to urge me to delay my trip, explaining that my blood tests showed very low levels of thyroid hormones and that he was

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concerned the condition would seriously impact my ability to function. In regard to my thyroid condition, country was supporting me: through the dream, through my relationship with Rose, one of country’s custodians, and through Rose’s teachings regarding the tea. Country sustained me until my return home, through the knowledge of that place and its Indigenous custodians. Just as country reaches out to us, we have a relational responsibility to respond to country when it is wounded. I learned a story about mutual healing during my research with Aboriginal and “Whitefella” elders and senior people in New South Wales, Australia. It relates to measures of healing effected at a Myall Creek where, in 1838, a group of Aboriginal people were massacred by men from nearby properties. Anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose (2004, p. 34) describes these sites as “wounded spaces,” places that have “been torn and fractured by violence.” In my experience of becoming-researcher, I understand that just as spaces may be wounded, they may also be healed. Healing processes have been effected to some extent through the annual Myall Creek Massacre Memorials. John Brown (cited in Walker, 2011), Anglican pastor and member of the Myall Creek Massacre Memorial Committee, describes this process of mutual healing: I remember Aboriginal elder Lyall Munro saying as clear as anything. . . . “I have travelled down that road by the massacre site hundreds of times but never before today have I stopped here. This has been a bad place for Aboriginal people but you’ve helped us to reclaim it.” So, the process (of the memorial) was a reclaiming of this place, an honouring of the spirits of those who have died and a washing of the place, as it were. “This is an okay place for us to be because the truth has been told and it has reclaimed it in a way.” One of the odd things that happened, quite independently of this, relates to that reclaiming. You know that there were skeletal remains of Aboriginal people that were taken to universities and museums in the United Kingdom. One was brought back and it was a girl from the area. The Aboriginal Land Council was given responsibility for the burial and they came to us and said, “We would like to bury these remains at the Myall Creek Memorial. Would you allow us to?” For them, the significance of that decision was: “This land is now reclaimed and it’s safe for us to be here.” So they came and they held the ceremonies and buried the remains there on that land quite near the actual memorial rock. Those things illustrate exactly that point. (p. 4)

Aboriginal elder Sue Blacklock, Aboriginal descendant of survivors of the massacre, explains that the ancestors are now at peace and can no longer be heard crying at the site. Although there remains a great deal that needs to be done to bring full justice in relationships between Indigenous

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and settler Australians, this attention to mutual healing between humans and country has effected significant measures of reconciliation. Those who have participated in the memorial have witnessed Aboriginal custodians of the land calling in ancestors, making commitments to address contemporary injustices toward Indigenous peoples, and celebrating new relationships between Indigenous and settler peoples, restoring webs of just relationships with the human and more-than-human worlds (Walker, 2011).

conclusIon As mentioned in the introduction, I offer these experiences in humility, knowing there are many Indigenous knowledge holders who have a much deeper understanding of our relationship with the natural and spirit worlds. Like other Indigenous scholars, I struggle with the entanglements of Indigenous and Western ways of knowing (Little Bear, 2000) in which the imposition of Western epistemologies have damaged the fabric of Indigenous worldviews. Yet, I also know that balance and harmony of mind, spirit, body, and the more-than-human worlds are integral to our well-being and to Indigenous knowledge research. As an Indigenous woman becoming-researcher, I am endeavoring to do research in ways that restore some measures of balance and harmony to the web of relationships that sustain us all. Interconnected knowing, the research methodology that I have implemented, seeks to honor relationships among humans and the natural and spirit worlds, relationships that inform research in a complex dance of co-creation. In the latter part of this chapter, I focused on some aspects of Indigenous worldviews that are often marginalized within Western academic research: relationships of mutuality between humans, the spirit world, and the natural world. In contrast, interconnected knowing seeks to acknowledge and integrate the call and response between spirit, the natural world, and humans. Cherokee author Marilou Awiakta (1997, p. 77) eloquently describes the importance of interconnected knowing, of implementing an epistemology that respects interrelationships: One quiet line marked the beginning of my healing: “No more will I follow any rule that splits my soul.” Not for society or for government or for education or for any power whatsoever would I depart from the traditional teaching of my elders: “All of creation is one family, sacred.”

It is within this relational network I am becoming-researcher, seeking balance and harmony, Nvwati.

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notes 1. Grandfather Leon Secatero, of the Canoncito Band of Diné, spoke of all human beings as the five-fingered ones, admonishing us to reflect on the importance of living in harmony with each other and with the more-than-human world. 2. I use the term “becoming-researcher” to reflect a term closer to the Indigenous worldview of constant flux, inherent in the verb-based Cherokee language.

references Abrams, D. (1996). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more‑than‑human world. New York: Vintage Books. Awiakta, M. (1997). Amazons in Appalachia. In J. Harjo & G. Bird (Eds.), Reinventing the enemy’s language: Contemporary Native women’s writings of North America (pp.469–478). New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Begay, D. H. & Maryboy, N. C. (1998). Nanit’a Sa’ah Naaghai Nanit’a Bik’eh Hozhoon (Living the order: Dynamic cosmic process of Dine cosmology). Ph.D. dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco. Bird Rose, D. (1992). Dingo makes us human. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bird Rose, D. (2002). Country of the heart: An Indigenous Australian homeland. Canberra, Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press. Bird Rose, D. (2004). Reports from a wild country. Sydney: UNSW Press. Bird Rose, D. (2011). Wild dog dreaming: Love and extinction. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Bopp, J., Bopp, M., Brown, L., & Lane, P., Jr. (1989). The sacred tree, 3rd ed. Twin Lakes, WI: Lotus Light Publications. Cajete, G. (2000). Native science. Santa Fe: Clearlight Publishers. Cameron, J. I. (2003). Education for place responsiveness: An Australian perspective on ethical practice. Ethics, Place & Environment 6, 99–115. Cameron, J. I. & San Roque, C. (2003). Coming into country: Catalysing a social ecology. Philosophy, Activism, Nature 2, 76–88. Duran, E. & Duran, B. (1995). Postcolonial psychology. Albany: State University of New York Press. Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research 6, 167–191. Ghostkeeper, E. (2001). A partnership of Aboriginal wisdom. Paper presented at the Breakthrough: Ninth International Conference on Thinking, Auckland, January 15–19. Graham, M. (2010). Understanding human agency in terms of place: A proposed Aboriginal research methodology. Unpublished paper. Hogan, L. (2000). A different yield. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision (pp. 115–123). Toronto: UBC Press. Iselin, M. (2006). Living with country. Conference on Marine Biology. University of Queensland Marine Research Station, Stradbroke Island, Australia, July 26. Little Bear, L. (2000). Jagged worldviews colliding. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision (pp. 77–85). Toronto: UBC Press. Meyer, M. A. (1997). Native Hawaiian education: Our Kumupa’a. Unpublished paper. Meyer, M. A. (1998). Native Hawaiian epistemology: Contemporary narratives. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University. Meyer, M. A. (2008). Indigenous and authentic: Hawaiian epistemology and the triangulation of meaning. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln, & L. T. Smith (Eds.), Handbook of critical and Indigenous methodologies (pp. 217–232). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ross, R. (1996). Returning to the teachings: Exploring Aboriginal justice. Toronto: Penguin Books.

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Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books Ltd. Suzuki, D. & Knudson, P. (1992). Wisdom of the elders: Honoring sacred native visions of nature. New York: Bantam Books. Walker, P. (2001a). Mending the web: Conflict transformation between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous people. Ph.D. thesis, University of Queensland, Australia. Walker, P. (2001b). Journeys around the medicine wheel: A story of Indigenous research in a Western university. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 29, 18–21. Walker, P. (2011). Creating a new story: Ritual, ceremony and conflict transformation between Indigenous and settler peoples. In C. Cohen, R. Varea, & P. Walker (Eds.), Acting together on the world stage: Performance and the creative transformation of conflict. Volume I: Resistance and reconciliation in regions of violence (pp. 225–251). San Francisco: New Village Press. Wheshula, M. (1999). Healing through decolonisation: A study in the deconstruction of the Western scientific paradigm and the process of retribalizing among Native Americans. Ph.D. dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies. San Francisco. Yazzie, R. (2004). Navajo peacemaking and intercultural dispute resolution. In C. Bell & D. Kahane (Eds.), Intercultural dispute resolution in Aboriginal contexts (pp. 107–115). Vancouver: UBC Press.

Chapter 19

Lens from the “Bottom of the Well” Ricardo Alfonso Millett

I am a person of African descent, born and raised in the Republic of Panama, more specifically the Panama Canal Zone. My grandparents migrated from Antigua and Jamaica like thousands of other Caribbean Blacks attracted by the serene song of economic opportunities on the Panama Canal project. Their hope was to work hard for a few years and return to their West Indian homeland, purchase land, construct a home, and create a life more comfortable than any of their family had experienced since the early days of plantation farming. The Panama Canal Zone experience, however, not only dashed hopes for a successful return, but took many more Afro-Caribbean lives as a consequence of tropical diseases, construction explosives, and the reckless disregard of their humanity sanctioned by a government more overtly racist than ever experienced in nineteenth-century Latin America. This history and experience would shape my orientation as an evaluation practitioner dedicated as we are to applying data to inform society betterment. More than ever, we live in a society where the opportunity to access resources, assets, wealth, and status grows more unequal. People of African descent are aware of this reality as they find themselves among the least advantaged. Consider any index of quality of life, and they fare less well than others. Regardless of the country—United States, Panama, Brazil, Jamaica—people of dark skin face systemic forces that limit their capacity to achieve as well as others in their communities and society at-large. I am one of the faces at the “bottom of society’s well” as described by Derrick Bell (1992). Bell’s examination of racism and the existential victories that can be realized in the struggle to fight it reflects my own life’s Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 317–332. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 317

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experiences, growing up in Panama as a person of Afro-Caribbean heritage and a citizen of the Panama Canal Zone, and subsequently a citizen of the United States of America. It is an experience that has one’s equal rights as a human being with access to society’s benefits, opportunities, wealth, and status constantly questioned and fought for. Bell describes this experience in the opening proposition that frames Faces at the Bottom of the Well: Black People will never gain full equality in this country. Even those herculean efforts we hail as successful will produce no more than ‘temporary peaks of progress’, short lived victories that slide into irrelevance as racial patterns adapts in ways that maintain white dominance. This is a hard to accept fact that all history verifies. We acknowledge it, not as sign of submission, but as an act of ultimate defiance. (1992, p. 12)

The 1960s was a time of hope, as it seemed to open up windows of change following the civil rights struggles in the United States. Fortunately for me, it influenced responses at all levels in U.S. society, including private higher education institutions. Based on my grades, my English-speaking competence, and letters of support from my high school teachers and the local Episcopalian parish, I was awarded a Wien International scholarship to Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts in 1963. It was the era of President John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress, when U.S. foreign policy emphasized improving relationships with Latin America, and sit-in freedom riders and urban riots, among other forms of struggle, heightened demands of African Americans for social and economic equality in the United States. As a nineteen-year-old Afro-Caribbean Panamanian residing in Santa Cruz Panama Canal Zone, I was a beneficiary of this struggle. I became a double beneficiary, as my formative consciousness was greatly influenced by my participation in the civil rights struggle in the latter years of the 1960s and early 1970s. Exposure to social activism at Brandeis introduced me to social policy research that transformed my bottom of the wellperspective into a useful lens to understand race-based social inequality. Where Am I From? I am from my mother’s dream for my becoming, And from my father’s anger Of his dreams denied

Silver and Gold Four hundred years of slavery settled into a system of Caucasian racial superiority legitimated by the faulty application of so-called scientific theory. Eighteenth-century science “proved” that the difference in races expanded beyond skin color and physical attributes. Faulty scientific

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evidence “proved” that people of African descent were physically and intellectually inferior to their Caucasian counterparts. Belief in these erroneous findings continue today—in conscious and unconscious ways—to sustain systemic governance and justify social, economic, and labor stratification along racial lines in societies around the world. Nell Irvin Painter’s (2010) The History of White People and Julie Greene’s (2009) The Canal Builders capture the misapplication of science to explain the hierarchical system wherein Caucasians are at the top of the human chain, deserving status, privileges, benefits, and wealth. The Canal Zone was a living, breathing, social laboratory used to reinforce white supremacy. In the U.S. Panama Canal Zone, labor, status, privilege, and wages were based completely on race. Black faces dominated the population of faces at the bottom of the well. The system used to pay workers in the Canal Zone exemplifies the gross systemic inequities between Whites and Blacks. American laborers’ (primarily Caucasians) salaries were paid in gold certificates and non-Americans (primarily people of African descent imported from the Caribbean) were paid in silver certificates. Over time, gold and silver became euphemisms to distinguish segregated life in the Canal Zone. Caucasian workers enjoyed gold standard privileges. Gold privileges afforded the best life had to offer on the Canal Zone. Houses for the American gold workers were often located in the hills or other elevated areas where cool breezes could provide comfort from the often oppressive tropical heat. Segregated gold sections of the commissary showcased prime meat and produce offerings. A Caucasian police force enforced strict separation of gold and silver residents, protecting their Caucasian brethren and keeping the silver workers in their place. Afro-Caribbean laborers suffered within the confines of the silver standard. Thousands of West Indian laborers were recruited from the Caribbean Islands, most of them skilled artisans. They were paid the lowest wages, lived in the worst housing, and were given the most dangerous jobs. In short, they were expendable. Silver laborers died at over ten times the rate of gold due to exposure to unsanitary conditions, lack of access to medical care, errant dynamite explosions, and landslides. The probability of an early death during canal construction, then, was highly correlated with race. Unlike most Canal Zone townships, Gamboa housed both American employees who were predominantly Caucasians and non-American laborers, who were predominantly West-Indians. This division worked to widen the narrow pathway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I spent the first nineteen years of my life in Santa Cruz, the Negro residential section of Gamboa Canal Zone. Like most Canal Zone townships, it housed both American and non-American silver laborers. Less than a thousand people called Gamboa or Santa Cruz home. The Gamboa gold

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standard resident workers lived in quiet comfort along the hillsides, while the Santa Cruz Negro silver standard workers made their homes at the base of those same hills, living under the relentless gaze of their “superiors” from above.

a Face From the Bottom oF the Well Like many other faces at the bottom of the well, I am adept at applying what Richard Wright (1957) called a “frog perspective.” It is a strong metaphor, as the frog is born a tadpole at the bottom of the pond. It later surfaces as a frog. It experiences life through both perspectives in order to survive everyday life. Wright uses the frog analogy to describe people of African descent’s sense of inferiority when forced into subservient roles. This psyche remains with me and with everyone I grew up with in the silver townships of the Canal Zone. My grandmother, parents, godfather, brothers, sisters, and teachers— in fact, the entire black community in the Canal Zone—also had an influence on the principles that guide my personal and professional development. Each life revealed the unique psychological impact of racial stratification and compelled me to respond, to act, to break the chain that legitimated and sustained our collective and systemically conditioned place as people deemed “less than.” Family lore has it that my paternal grandfather migrated from Antigua, West Indies, to Panama. Like thousands of Caribbean males, he responded to the call of work and opportunity during canal construction. He found temporary work unloading baggage on tourist ships. One day while working, he was accused of looking at a white woman as she disembarked. He was immediately fired. Despondent, unemployed, and disconnected in a foreign country, he eventually died destitute. My maternal grandfather fared a little better because he was a carpenter and managed to set up shop repairing horse carriages in Panama City. He avoided the harsher treatment of black males on the Canal Zone but did not avoid the demeaning reality of competing for work as a black worker in the Latino Panamanian society where he was just another chombo (the Central American equivalent of “nigger”). Widowed at a young age, shortly after migrating as a newlywed from Jamaica, my maternal grandmother “cleaned and washed for the white man,” as she would remind us in her retelling of her struggle to survive and keep her dignity intact when her husband passed. Granny earned enough to pay the rent for one room in a tenement building for herself and her three children. She regaled us with stories of her engagement, marriage, and all-too-brief life with her beloved husband. The stories spoke of his strong moral character, dedication, and determination to

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make a way for their children in Panama that would surpass the opportunities of their family in Jamaica. As a child, my younger sisters and I spent weekends with Granny in her one-room apartment in Panama City. It was during these times that we were exposed to her strict discipline and high expectations for us. As youngsters, we looked forward to these weekend excursions to my grandmother’s apartment, primarily as opportunities to play with the other kids in the building when we were not being charged to sit still and listen to her legendary lessons. One such lesson was, “The white man can throw you down in the gutter to work for a living, but you don’t have to live there with him.” Granny created a family philosophy that did not allow the harsh realities of life to excuse abandoning one’s family commitments and responsibilities. Another lesson she often stressed to us was that wages didn’t define one’s self-respect and dignity—these were things you earned through your actions and words. However, the greatest lesson she taught her children and grandchildren was the importance of education. Her philosophy was that no one could take away what goes into your brain. But Joe Stone, my godfather, left me with the most enduring life lesson about pride and self-respect. He chose to adopt me since he had no children of his own. At 6’ tall and 250 pounds, he was a legend in Panama. He represented the Republic of Panama in the Olympics and other international sporting events as a weight lifter and wrestler. Joe Stone was also a gifted scholar, high school graduate, voracious reader, and had a great command of the English language. (Not speaking “good English” was always considered a sign of Panamanian/West-Indians “ignorance.”) I spent many weekends in Panama City visiting Joe Stone and my aunt, his common-law wife. We slept in their crowded one-room tenement apartment. At night, I often overheard him complaining to my aunt about the indignities he suffered on his job. Joe Stone’s skills and reputation had landed him an unusually well-paying job on the U.S. Naval base in Amador, Panama Canal Zone. As a warehouse supervisor, he reported to a white officer intent on keeping him “in his place.” Over time, Joe’s sense of dignity and self-respect was ground down by his boss’s constant denigration and abuse. One night, I heard him confess to my aunt that he couldn’t take it anymore and would rather walk away from his financial security than suffer another day of abuse. This was a pivotal decision for Joe. It left him without a job, and subsequently resulted in a downward spiral to alcoholism and premature death. I continued to love and respect Joe Stone as I grew up, graduated from high school, and attended college on a scholarship. No one was more proud of my accomplishments. Despite being ultimately defeated by the racial injustices impacting Blacks, he personified the dignity and respect that too many others were forced to trade in for survival. He has been

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a constant reminder of the consequences people at the bottom of well faced when challenging systemic racism. My earliest memories of being a victim of this system surfaced as a child. To supplement my father’s wages, my mother worked as a domestic for Caucasian families in the segregated Gamboa hills. I loved going to work with her. I particularly enjoyed the cookies and sandwiches the Caucasian ladies gave me. One day as we walked down the hill to our segregated quarters, I asked my mother why the Caucasian people lived in better houses, had better clothes, ate better food, and had nicer things than we did. My mother tried to shield us from the negative effects of segregation and strived to create an environment where we wouldn’t feel “less than.” My penetrating questions shocked and upset her. She never reconciled the inequality issues she faced on a daily basis, let alone figured out how to explain them to a small child. I can remember the anguish on her face when she attempted to respond to my questions. As in other aspects of her life, she depended on prayer and faith in God to provide answers and relief for what appeared to be His will. I must have filed the memory of Joe Stone’s life and the privileged lives of the people living on the hills at the very surface of my consciousness because it has never left me. “It formed the foundation of my will to challenge any ‘scientific theory’ or ‘theistic premise’ that legitimated the notion that Caucasians were naturally superior human beings deserving more access to society’s benefits, wealth and privileges. In general to challenge the scientific base of ‘race’ as a condition of social and economic benefits in general”. Neither science nor God justified our relegation to the ranks of the least intelligent, deserving, capable, or productive. From my mother’s perspective, the only viable pathway to success was to get her children safely out of the Panama Canal Zone to greater opportunities in the United States. By the sheer force of her determination, the tides of fortune fell on me and I was able to follow the lead of my two older brothers to the “Land” (we called the United States the “land of escape and opportunities”). Moreover, I received a full scholarship to attend university there—an opportunity that I would have been forced to pass up, due to my family’s financial constraints, had I not received financial aid. My fortune was truly extraordinary. Where Am I From? I am from my Godfather’s pride And his character and principles applied

experienceS in america Having graduated from Paraiso High School in the Canal Zone, I moved to the United States in 1964 to attend Brandeis University. Following my

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older brother’s ambitions, I decided to study biology as well. I thought I had the capacity to be a scientist or even a physician. I quickly learned that I was not as prepared to be a successful science student at Brandeis as I thought. This was a rude awakening, given that proving myself capable of mastering a science discipline was integral to my personal challenge of disproving white intellectual superiority. This sense of impending failure was boosted by a seemingly well-meaning dean of the Biology Department. He told me that, based on his experience with African American students, I might do better at Brandeis if I changed majors to the social sciences. With solemn concern and deep seriousness, he shared with me the difficulty Blacks faced in taking on science, particularly at a rigorous research university like Brandeis. His advice was based, he said, not only on his experiences, but also on studies that suggested that my socioeconomic background (by this, he meant a person of African descent) made my chances of success at Brandeis low and as a science major nearly impossible. This experience motivated me to succeed. As in the Canal Zone, racially biased research legitimated notions of black inferiority. In retrospect, having earned a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. degree at Brandeis, I know that the research measures used to inform this academic advisor’s view failed to factor in the strength and power of my voice, my experiences, and my sheer will to struggle to prove him wrong. Struggle yes, but neither failure nor giving up were options.

tranSitioninG to reSearch Becoming a researcher evolved in my consciousness as I confronted the subservient survival mindset often exhibited by my parents. My father came home every day complaining of the incompetence of his white boss who was paid at least four times more than he was, while he performed both his and his boss’s work. My mother never challenged the fact that her only work opportunities were menial domestic labor or that our only housing option was to live in a segregated township. Every lesson imparted by my parents was underpinned by the notion of not challenging authority or the system that kept us at the bottom of the Canal Zone society’s well. Coming from this background, I was astounded by the bold and direct fashion with which my fellow Brandeis students questioned our professors. I was at first frightened and amazed by their activist stands in support of civil rights and social justice issues. Angela Davis (and her Afro—I had never seen a woman with an Afro) particularly impressed me. The strength of her convictions commanded the respect of students and professors alike.

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Guardedly but steadily, I gravitated toward learning more about the civil rights movement and those who challenged Jim Crow laws and behaviors. I became more aware and directed about what I wanted to do with the opportunities granted to me as a foreign scholar at Brandeis. As a young man who understood Joe Stone’s pride and devastation, as a son who understood his parents’ fight for survival, I wanted to make a difference—not simply for myself, but for all the faces at the bottom of the well. By my sophomore year, I transitioned away from biology toward economics, a subject that I perceived as a rigorous field of study. My need to prove my capacity to succeed in the pure science disciplines clearly continued to influence my choice of majors. In retrospect, this was one of the many relics of racial victimization that remained ingrained in my consciousness. College was an intellectual proving ground against the negative racist voices planted in the innermost parts of my unconsciousness. My choice to study economics also reflected my desire to understand how societies presumably made “rational choices” to inform effective and efficient systems to distribute wealth and status. Brandeis awarded me another full scholarship to the Heller School for my graduate studies. Were it not for this opportunity, I would have had to return to Panama once I completed my baccalaureate degree. Now that I was legally an adult, the residency rules in the Panama Canal Zone did not allow adult dependents to live in workers’ quarters. The U.S. government’s permission to reside in the Canal Zone was temporary and conditional on current employment status. Moving on as a graduate student presented an opportunity to extend my student visa, and the full scholarship was the only way I could afford to stay in the United States. Exposure to the Heller School broadened my perspective of what it meant to be a researcher and analyst of social policy. I was introduced to a curriculum that took the notion of social justice more seriously than I ever encountered in biology or economics. The Heller curriculum brought the application of scientific discipline and the practice of research into an alignment that addressed my growing need to participate in the struggle to empower communities of color. Courses at the Heller School introduced me to Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1966). This book greatly informed my conceptual understanding of how “normative,” “right,” and “legitimate” practices at a societal level are derived and sustained. I learned that, more often than not, objectivity has less to do with what we know as real than do the forces (military or superior force of advantage by the majority) that sustain and maintain them as “truth.” I began to understand how the mechanisms used by dominant victors of wars legitimated their superiority and their right to define

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reality. This conceptualization process also validated and justified the permanence of people of color as the faces at the bottom of the well. I was finally able to develop a conceptual frame and understanding of how and why dominant groups in society confer inferiority onto another group. In late 1969, my personal convictions regarding my new “I can make a difference” consciousness and activism were put to the test. Negotiations between the black student leadership and Brandeis president concerning enrolling more minority students and increasing the number of black faculty had collapsed. I was among the student leaders who decided we needed to take action. We took over the university’s communication center in Ford Hall and renamed the building Malcolm X University. This action could have resulted in my immediate deportation; in fact, several faculty members initiated legal action to do just that. This was perhaps the most significant stance I have ever taken in my life. My mother’s voice cried out to me, “Son, don’t throw everything away! This is not why I washed and cleaned white people’s homes.” I could also hear my father’s voice saying, “Focus on your studies. . . . You have to help support our family.” However, the voice that compelled me most was Joe Stone’s: “You can stand tall for what is right—no matter what the consequences.” The building takeover lasted eleven days and ended with concessions from university administrators to increase minority student enrollment and faculty recruitment. Incredibly, the university did not pursue actions to deport me, nor did they take away my scholarship support. I learned a searing lesson in courage. Worried as I was by deportation and the embarrassment this would bring on my family, somehow I knew that taking this stand was a basic duty, not only for me but for my grandparents and all those held as faces at the bottom of the well. This experience intensified my personal and professional commitment to make a difference. I delved deeper into evaluation research and social policy analysis, trying to answer how an entire social and political system could legitimate less-than-equal status and privilege on perpetually subjugated peoples. In the process, I learned of the evolving evaluation field tied to Great Society federal programs that represented a career opportunity to inform programs and policies designed to create a more just and equitable society. This was my opportunity to act on my evolving consciousness and social activism.

early experienceS aS a novice reSearcher In my latter years at the Heller School in 1972, I was hired by a consulting firm to conduct field interviews for a national public housing survey for

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Housing and Urban Development. After weeks of training and practice with the interview protocol, I figured out why I was deemed an appropriate interviewer for this study. The targeted interview respondents were low-income residents of public-assisted housing in major cities across the United States. Few of the consulting firm’s research staff felt comfortable or safe traveling to these locations. Apparently, being a black graduate student, an entry-level researcher, and someone willing to enter public housing sites provided me with the necessary credentials for the job. My race was more important to the firm than any skills or perspective I could bring to inform the interview protocol to better capture the nuanced data they were designed to obtain. I was relegated to being a mechanical voice for their research methodology. I quickly realized that their protocol was not culturally appropriate to the population it was trying to solicit information from. Respondents were being paid to complete the survey as an incentive to sit through the interview and answer what was being asked of them, regardless of whether or not they understood the questions. More often than not, the questions were intrusive or used language unfamiliar to the respondent. But they answered anyway, so long as they would get paid. The study had great potential to inform urban housing policies and programs. However, the protocol was not getting residents’ authentic insights, nor was it capturing their experiences on the challenges they faced. Ultimately, I violated the strict interview protocol by rewording the script so I could capture the residents’ voices and ideas for meaningful change. Interestingly, the firm found the response data informative and more useful than those collected by other interviewers who followed the scripted protocol. This was my first lesson on the importance of capturing authentic voices of respondents wanting to share their experiences and insights of their lived conditions. During this time, I was experiencing a surge of racial pride and started to question authority. We challenged the many paradigms that influenced the practices and programs that shaped implementation of social welfare policies. I found myself coming full circle back to my life on the Canal Zone. Social systems and programs were being enacted by dominant forces that didn’t solve the problems or consider the points of view of the people who would ultimately suffer the consequences. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that social science research was a powerful conceptual development and maintenance tool that could legitimize inequities or inform a more just distribution of opportunities, status, privilege, and access to wealth. It was also becoming clear that I could make a difference by earning sufficient respect to influence evaluation in ways that honored the legacy and functions of program evaluation to play a democratizing role and function in society.1 In short,

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I wanted to be an evaluation practitioner who actively shapes programs and practices at the policy and program levels that underscore social equity and justice objectives. In my later years as a graduate student, I sought to learn and discern evaluation and research methodology aligned with capturing the authentic voices of people caught at the bottom of the well. At that time, there were few professional evaluation practitioners committed to this orientation and sufficiently respected or credentialed to influence practice and or scholarship referenced in graduate research curriculums. Conventional practice disregarded the voice, experiences, and wisdom of the people who were the intended beneficiaries. Even the best-intentioned evaluators were more concerned with issues of methodological rigor and experimental designs to determine causality and reduce bias than with program theory or problem definition that best defined the social and economic conditions to which program evaluation methods were being applied. From my perspective, this focus often resulted in flawed approaches that had very little impact on stemming the forces of widening disparities. I often found myself at odds with such well-meaning academics and policy researchers. I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Asa Hilliard at an early stage of my evaluation consultant career. He made a tremendous impression on how I resolved to practice evaluation. He was hired as a consultant to a national daycare study where I had a junior-level position on a team of high-level program evaluators, statisticians, economists, measurement psychologists, and other highly trained social scientists. This was a major longitudinal study tasked to determine the developmental impacts of childcare on white, black, and Latino children. While not a central objective, the study would have a significant contribution to the literature on the cognitive intellectual capacity of children as determined by their race. The federal government, as a sponsor of the research, wanted to ensure that the research methodology was impeccable and noncontroversial. I tried unsuccessfully to inform the project’s approach to measuring cognition and intelligence, particularly as applied to childcare settings in the Latino and African American communities. My concerns were shared by other members of the research team who were similarly troubled by the research study’s complexities; this resulted in bringing Dr. Hilliard on as a consultant to the project team. His impeccable credentials, extensive experience, command of cognitive measurement methodologies, calm and professional self-assuredness, and ultimately, his ability to challenge the firm’s methodology based on his knowledge of the black community amazed and impressed me. He challenged the reliability and validity of the proposed cognitive measures and designed ones more likely to be authentic measures for African and Latino children and families.

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This was a significant episode in my evaluation professional development. The credibility of Dr. Hilliard’s competence and skills in this instance was sufficient to influence a major national evaluation design that might have otherwise maintained and legitimized misguided notions of people of color’s cognitive development, abilities, and capacities to provide positive childcare environments for our children. Dr. Hilliard offered an inspirational model of practice that continues to motivate me. Where Am I From? From my grandmother’s faith in Jesus And from my Grandfather’s abuses

evaluation reSearch With a diverSity lenS I have embraced people of African descent in the United States, Panama, and worldwide as my community. As an evaluator, my professional motivation is to capture the authentic voices of my community. The research orientation is significantly influenced by the evolving practices of participatory evaluation, transformative evaluation, empowerment evaluation, and my own very nascent articulation of these approaches that I call evaluation with a diversity lens (EDL). EDL is an approach to program evaluation that emphasizes the importance of incorporating diverse voices (especially those of the intended beneficiaries) to identify problems and to engage in program design, implementation, and data analysis. It offers a way to recalibrate the way that social problems, issues, programs, and/or policies are seen, defined, or understood by giving priority attention to the first stage of the evaluation research practice (i.e., problem definition or theory). This focus is critically important if we are to use limited time and resources to leverage informed strategies to help reverse our widening social and economic inequities. The conventional practice of evaluation too often misses incorporating the voices of those who find themselves among society’s marginalized, resulting in inappropriate outcomes and a lack of authentic data. Remaining deaf to the voices of those we wish to serve causes evaluation to become a source of power for the few—usually the racial and economic majority—and an anathema to all others. In truth, we inadvertently hurt the people we mean to help. Through my work as a researcher, I strive to amplify and give space to the voices at the bottom of the well. Therefore, I use evaluation methods that embrace diversity and hold myself accountable for cultural competence. Like the racial equity lens, EDL brings into focus the ways in which race and ethnicity shape experiences with power, access to opportunity,

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treatment, and outcomes, both today and historically. It can also help grant makers analyze what can be done to eliminate the resulting inequities. This methodology addresses how race shapes the allocation of power and the distribution of benefits and burdens among all groups within society. In essence, EDL is an opportunity to achieve greater diversity and effectiveness in governmental policy analysis, program development and design, and philanthropic grant making aimed at achieving a more just and equitable society.

evaluation FundinG Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice that made philanthropy necessary. —Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963, p. 34)

This dictum is one that should be remembered by all funders and evaluators. Dr. King’s point is that funders of programs seeking to address the plight of those who are the least advantaged only scratch the surface of the problem when they ignore the underlying systemic factors that keep certain segments of our society permanently in the underclass. We must find inclusive ways to measure outcomes and build evaluation into program design so we can prove the worth of community-based programs to funders—they are inextricably bound together. Effective programs with relevant outcome measures find sustainable funding. Where Am I From? I am from the yesterdays . . . Yearning to give birth to the todays, tomorrows And a world yet to come.

contriButionS to the Field Becoming the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s director of evaluation provided me with tremendous opportunities to introduce evaluation models and methodologies to a wide range of philanthropic institutions, their grantees, and nonprofit communities. The W. K. Kellogg Evaluation and Logic Model manual (produced in English and Spanish, WKKF, 2000, 2003) was among the foundation’s most downloaded reports. It presented evaluation methods and practices in simple and practical modules useful to community-based social services practitioners. Equally important, Kellogg provided a platform to launch efforts to build the pipeline of evaluators of color. As a result, the American Evaluation

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Association and the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation are among a group of organizations that sponsor and manage a pipeline program to recruit, train, and provide practice opportunities for evaluators of color.

partinG WordS During a racial-healing workshop in Mississippi last year, participants were called on to creatively answer the question “Where are you from?” This simple icebreaker provided a space for me to briefly reflect on my life. The intensity of the setting, its purpose, and the seeming yearning of black, white, and Native American participants gathered in a “circle of trust” prompted me to be as honest, transparent, and open as I could be to provide an authentic context—to both heal myself and contribute to a platform that would result in a better place for us all. My answer to the question was this reflection. Where I am From . . . I am from my mother’s dream for my becoming, And from my father’s anger Of his dreams denied I am from my Godfather’s pride And his character and principles applied From my grandmother’s faith in Jesus And from my Grandfather’s abuses I am from the yesterdays . . . Yearning to give birth to the todays, tomorrows And a better world yet to come. —Ricardo Millett

For the purposes of this book, I found that I could easily identify myself as an Indigenous person, as a person who has been one among the less-than-privileged faces at the bottom of the well. My life experience on the receiving end of racism accentuates my need to incorporate multiculturalism and diversity in my practice of evaluation. I feel it is my responsibility as an evaluator to actively seek effective solutions to social issues from as broad a perspective as humanly possible. I employ evaluation methodologies that garner input from participants, enabling me to more effectively interpret the participants’ experiences accurately. By heeding the voices of marginalized people, we have the opportunity to gather data that can shape effective solutions to complex social and economic problems. In a political and social climate of increasing skepticism about whether social programs work, some of the most promising community-based initiatives are relying on evaluators to tell

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their story or face dying on the vine because they were overlooked and cut off from vital funding. As I continue along my career pathway, I hope to inspire and motivate a cadre of skilled practitioners to expand on the use and application of evaluation in a fashion such that evaluation will naturally incorporate the voices of those at the bottom of the well, regardless of who is conducting the study.

note 1. In 2004, I coauthored a chapter in Foundations and Evaluation with Jennifer Greene and Rodney Hopson. Jennifer was president of the American Evaluation Association in 2011 and Rodney in 2012. It is worth noting that the early “democratizing” tradition of evaluation practice had an educative function. The objective of this function is to inform decision makers, program developers, and the general citizenry about underlying processes that promote and sustain persistent social inequalities.

reFerenceS Bell, D. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of racism. New York: Basic Books. Berger, P. L. & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Greene, J. (2009). The canal builders: Making America’s empire at the Panama Canal. New York: Penguin Group. Greene, J., Millett, R. A., & Hopson, R. K. (2004). Evaluation as a democratizing practice. In M. T. Braverman, N. A. Constantine, & J. K. Slater (Eds.), Foundations and evaluation: Contexts and practices for effective evaluation (pp. 96–118). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. King Jr., M. L. (1963). Strength to love. New York: Harper and Row. Painter, N. I. (2010). The history of white people. New York: W. W. Norton. WKKF. (2000, 2003). Handbook of program evaluation. Battle Creek, MI: Author. Wright, R. (1957). White man, listen! New York: Doubleday.

Chapter 20

Neyo way in ik issi: A Family Practice of Indigenist Research Informed by Land Shawn Wilson and Alexandria Wilson

Indigenist research, although only recently acknowledged by academia, has existed for as long as Indigenous folks have been around. What follows is the story of our family and the development of our understanding of Indigenist research and research methodologies. We are from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation,1 a northern nation physically surrounded by the province of Manitoba, Canada. Our ongoing family story is grounded in Opaskwayak, so we will begin there. Prior to colonization, Neyanowak (Swampy Cree people) proclaimed lineage and identity based on significant relationships. These relationships might be spiritual, literal, physical, environmental, theoretical, familial, dreamed, or classified in the realm of the mysterious (Wilson & Wilson, 1998). Knowing our relations connects us to the past, helps us understand the present, lays out our responsibility to the future (Wilson & Wilson, 1999), and, most importantly, helps us avert pastahowin (breaking a natural law). This way of understanding our situation in the world is often referred to, in English, as a clan system. There are five of us in the immediate Wilson family. Our family comes from two clans. The Robertson and McClean clans, our mother’s lineage, is from Scotland. Our family is researching this part of our Indigenous heritage today. Our other clan is Wassenas,2 a Cree concept that can be interpreted literally as “shining light that emanates from within.” After careers as classroom teachers, school administrators, and community activists, our parents Stan and Peggy Wilson made the decision to return to school. At the ages of forty-seven and fifty, they received their doctorates in education from the University of California, Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 333–352. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 333

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Santa Barbara. Since then, they have worked as academics at universities in the United States and Canada. Their three children, us two and our brother Jamie, all have Bachelors and Masters degrees. We both have doctorates and work in research as university academics: Alex is an associate professor and director of the Aboriginal Education Research Centre in the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan, and Shawn is a researcher at the University Centre for Rural Health in Lismore, Australia. Jamie is the Treaty Rights Commissioner for the province of Manitoba. This chapter is written from the point of view of each member of the family, about their lives and careers as Indigenist researchers. We have not attempted to review or reference other Indigenist scholars’ work but rather have focused on a different section from each of our family members’ experiences that have impacted on us. We hope that this will allow you to understand for yourself how Neyo way in ik issi (doing it the Cree way) informs all that we do.

Stan Recently, someone from my home First Nation asked me why I had not written anything so that community members could read about, and perhaps learn from, my experiences of being raised on the Reserve,3 gaining a Ph.D., and teaching and conducting social science research at several universities in North America and elsewhere. At the time, I felt that I was too busy—too busy enjoying the benefits of having so many wonderful people willing to pass along to me what they had learned. I, in turn, have passed along that knowledge to my family and the many students I have had the privilege of meeting. However, I now realize that I have an obligation to also write about my experiences and insights, as I will do here. My early years were spent on what is now known as Opaskwayak Cree Nation. Back then it was known as The Pas Indian Band. My father was a trapper,4 as were my uncles, whenever trapping was in season. My earliest memories are of my family living in a tent along the Saskatchewan River delta, downstream from Opaskwayak. I recall being by myself, but I don’t recall ever feeling that I was alone in the bush. After all, there was plenty of other life there in the form of birds, rabbits, skunks, ducks, geese, muskrats, beaver, and even wolves. This lifestyle is what was preferred by my family. Even when other options, such as working as lumberjacks were available, my father and uncles and their families would rather be out on their trap-lines. They were also wage earners in between trapping seasons. Cree was our language. English was barely understood and was spoken in a very limited fashion. I am grateful for that now, because I have come to realize what

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a psychological treasure this is and have been able to articulate a view from that perspective in my teaching and research activities. I attended the day school on our Reserve along with the other children I grew up with. My cousins were the ones who helped me to understand the basics that were required of us as students—especially when it came down to writing in English. What I came to realize much later was that the kind of English we were learning to use was based on Cree culture. Now, though, with more and more Cree substituting English for Cree, the English cultural base of that language is slowly and insidiously getting itself established in the minds of the new users. I spent the time out of class doing the chores that were assigned to me. The pattern was that I would get up early to pick up the daily daylate newspapers from the train from Winnipeg that arrived at 6 a.m. In the summer months, I would then deliver the twenty-five or so papers by bicycle, eat breakfast, then go to school. In winter, I would hitch up one of my father’s sled dogs to a small sled and deliver the papers that way. Then I would walk up the bush trail to check my rabbit snares before breakfast. If I caught any rabbits, that’s what we had for supper that night. My cousins and I would go down after supper to ice fish for maria (a type of fresh water cod). The ones I caught I would drag home in the snow. My mother would take the livers out and hang them to dry over the wood burning kitchen stove. The next morning we would have maria liver for breakfast. Everyone had a job to do, and there was joy in getting it done and doing it in a good way. School filled in the rest of the day’s activities. When I completed the requirements of elementary school, the teacher, Sam Waller, told me there was no more he could offer me because there was only room for so many students in the one-room day school on our Reserve. Because I was the only one wanting to advance, he said he had to give priority to the majority who were younger than me. The other boys my age and older all would rather be out hunting and being “in the bush” with their fathers and uncles. They didn’t want to spend their time in school. Not that I didn’t want to be out trapping and hunting, but I wanted to see how both worlds could be part of my experience. With our community being on one side of the Saskatchewan River and the town of The Pas being on the other side, I could see that the town also had schools. So I went at the start of the school year and enrolled in the appropriate grade. I actually attended the town school for several days until the classroom teacher asked me to stay after school. She took me to the principal’s office where I was informed that there was no agreement between the Band (called at the time) and the town school board in place to pay for me to attend their school. The school could only serve the town residents, I was told.

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Finally, Sam Waller said there was one empty desk I could use. He got me the books that were needed, but I had to complete the requirements of the grade on my own because he needed to give his attention to the younger ones. So, I spent the rest of that school year in the corner of the room reading and writing in the workbooks that Sam gave me. Toward spring, Sam gave me some formal-looking documents to take home for my parents to sign. My mother looked them over and told me what they were. They were release forms that were to go to the Indian Affairs office giving permission for me to attend residential school in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. I learned later that during that time, the residential schools primarily took in orphans or children from broken homes. The residential school had chartered several sleeping cars that were full of other children from places farther north. When we arrived in Prince Albert, we were all lined up and got on the back of a farm truck that made several trips to take us to what in effect was our new home. The experience at the residential school introduced us to other First Nations children and young people. The friendships that were forged there became life-long ones. As the first year went by, I began to see that what I, we, were used to in the way of doing things at home seemed to be at odds with the way things were done there because the people in charge were mostly non-Aboriginal. This conflict was evidenced by the routine searching for and retrieving the students who tried to escape. There were more of these incidents at the beginning of the school year. Some of the older children managed to elude capture and make it home. Unfortunately, a few died in the attempt. At home, I learned more about what my uncles stood for by observing how they were in their daily and seasonal rituals and activities. It was these patterns that I recalled later that allowed me to make some sense of the uneasy relationship they (and I) had with the white neighbors on the other side of the river. While people from my community seemed to be at odds and were feeling uneasy and tense with the white community, they were completely at ease in the natural world. I, too, would experience the unease being aware of the differences between the two worlds but was unable to articulate. I knew back then there must be a way to talk about it and I needed to learn that if I was to express it so that others would know what I was thinking. For a long time, while I was finding my way, I’m sure I must have appeared to many people as being socially awkward. The old people I remember, who were not as affected by the newcomers (the Europeans), could easily be described as being poised, self-confident, and able to “keep their cool,” even in adverse social and natural circumstances. They kept busy working hard to make their lives the way they wanted. The work ethic was definitely part of their tradition. When I hear or read about traditional Aboriginal

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culture now, I seldom or ever hear or read about that important part of traditional culture. After grade eight, once again I was on the prongs of a two-horned dilemma. My father wanted me to become his partner on his trap-line and to educate me on basics of being a Cree man. In late March, we were out spring trapping muskrats—this must have been during the school’s spring break, with an extra week thrown in. I recall one beautiful sunny day, while I was making my rounds on my line of muskrat houses, that I stopped to linger for a while sitting on one of the lodges that had emerged from the thick blanket of snow and the sun had warmed up earlier that morning. All around me I could see the endless spring snow shimmering in the sun. I tried to see the horizon, but the snow seemed to meet the sky with no discernable line between the two. I remember sitting there and thinking about my father’s offer, but also wondering what lay beyond the horizon. I believe it was there that I decided to see where the Western education trail would lead. I told my father what I was thinking, with the justification that I could always return later to be his partner. I believe he was greatly disappointed with my response as we exchanged few words during the next few months. I don’t really know to this day if he ever changed his opinion, because it seemed he did his duty more as an obligation about teaching me the Cree ways of hunting and gathering when I would return in the summers from residential school. Those hunting trips with him along with an uncle or two each time are moments of time that taught me much about how one fits into nature (and not the other way around as I would learn later). The main feature of what the old ones had to teach us young people was that we had to respect all living beings. We were told to pay attention to what we were doing because we didn’t want to do unnecessary harm to those who were smaller and less able than we were. Otherwise, we could end up on the wrong side of natural justice and could suffer otchinawin or even pastahowin. Otchinawin is like a curse you can bring on yourself if you deliberately or wantonly injure other living beings, especially those unable to help themselves against you. Pastahowin is similar, in that you can deliberately break a sacred or spiritual law for which natural justice will bring about a balance. These concepts underpin the relational consciousness that demands our accountability for our actions to all living beings. Even now, as I am writing this, I am thinking that were I not to respond to the request from the community member who asked me how come I hadn’t shared my story in written form, I could inadvertently incur otchinawin or even worse pastahowin on myself. It is like if a gift is given and it is not used in the proper way, it is like throwing it away, rejecting it. A gift

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of insight is a valuable tool that others can put to good use. Not passing on knowledge is like hoarding and doesn’t fit into our sacred values of sharing. Breaking natural or sacred laws carry heavy consequences. We must be careful to live in the contemporary world within those limits in conducting research activities as Indigenist scholars and researchers. What about all other human beings? Are they too subject to those laws? What happens when those laws are breached? Because if one person, a few people, or a nation go beyond moral and ethical limits, then all humanity will suffer the consequences of pastahowin. One of the messages I want to send is one that my deceased father gave me. We were again out on the trap-line, and I think he may have picked up from my body language that I was impatient to get back home to my buddies on the Reserve. The bush was his home and he was relaxed while he was out there. So, I suppose, sensing my anxiety to get things finished quickly, he put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said something like the following to me: “It doesn’t really matter at all that much if you go with haste and great speed or if you go calmly and slowly because you will arrive at eternity at exactly the same time.”

Peggy I was raised in a white5 middle-class home in a rural farming community. Although the family farm and the community where I grew up lay adjacent to a First Nation,6 I did not speak to an Aboriginal person, nor had I been inside an Aboriginal home, until I was twenty years old. At that time, I went to teach on an isolated First Nation in northern Manitoba. However, teaching on a First Nation did not guarantee socializing with Aboriginal people. I could have remained isolated from the residents of the community, as had many other white teachers, except that circumstances changed for me. The teachers in the community were all white and the teachers’ compound was separate from the Aboriginal community in many ways. Not only was there a physical distance, there were social and obvious economic distances between the homes of the white teachers, storekeepers, and business people and the homes of the Aboriginal people on the Reserve. The homes of the white people were the only ones with electric lights (through generators), the only ones with septic sewer services, and the only ones with central heating. The white residents all earned regular monthly salaries and, as they were not native to the area, their homes and rents were subsidized by either the provincial or federal government or by other agencies. With few exceptions, Whites came to the

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community for as short a time as possible, to make as much money as possible, so that they could leave as soon as possible. I was young, energetic, and impressionable. I had been raised on a farm, so I had a slight advantage over some of the other white people there. Although at that time it was considered a taboo for white teachers to mix with the local Aboriginal people, I began to socialize with the residents of the community. I also began to visit in the homes of many of my young pupils. I was soon able to understand, and then to use, much of what I saw to help me in the classroom. Several years later, a young Aboriginal man came to teach in the same school as I. The year after that, Stan and I were married, and the memory of the transition that I experienced as I entered a new culture recurred years later when I watched and interviewed young Aboriginal students for my doctoral research (P. Wilson, 1991, 1992). Stan and I were married during the two-month summer break from school. We went back to the community to teach in the autumn. When I returned to the community, my reception by the white residents was distant and cool. We were seldom invited to the white residents’ social events. I soon learned to pick my friends and my acquaintances carefully. Not only was I considered an Indian by my white colleagues, I was now legally a Status Indian under the Federal Indian Act. Things I had taken for granted—freedoms I enjoyed previously—all were subtly changed. For instance, in the local store, I was not allowed to purchase vanilla extract since it contained alcohol. Local store owners did not sell products containing alcohol to Indian people, because Indians were “not able to hold their liquor.” Since that time, Stan and I raised three children who all progressed successfully through the public school and the university systems. Our offspring are obviously Aboriginal in physical appearance. They had to learn how to fit into multicultural situations, and the learning did not always come easily. As a mother, I became vigilant to negative and abusive treatment from several teachers, school administrators, and fellow classmates, and I had to learn to fight back, speak up, and educate myself so I could do this effectively. This personal agenda became the solid foundation for my social science research agenda. Later, teaching and conducting research at universities in Alaska (P. Wilson, 1994a, 1997), California (P. Wilson, 1994b), Saskatchewan, and Alberta, I became all too aware that students’ limitations in academic performance are consequences of macrostructural factors. Some of these factors are fundamental to schools in which there is no place for ethnically diverse students, particularly Aboriginal students. The overwhelming frustration and isolation of these students naturally affects their academic performance.

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The understanding gained from our research into these macrostructural factors led Stan and me to develop a First Nations doctoral education program at the University of Alberta. The highlight of our careers was to finally realize an initiative that reflected an Indigenist paradigm; one that honored relationships in all their many forms. To help draw that Indigenous knowledge from our students and to be a part of that growth was surely the most rewarding experience of my academic career.

alex Our family lives at a site on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation called Pumuskatapan (the place where you have to get out of the canoe and pull it because of the landscape). A creek runs through the diamond willows, poplars, and various wild shrubs that cover the area, eventually giving way to pastures. This is where my brothers and I spent our childhood and teen years exploring, playing, and ultimately learning about the water, local plants and animals, and our connection to the environment and the cosmos. Our mom taught us how to identify and properly harvest plants to use for food and medicines and to appreciate their aesthetic beauty. Our dad taught us the significance of our connection to the land and environment of our nation. In our everyday play throughout all four seasons, we hunted, made shelters and fires, and navigated the bush and water. What my parents and people of their generation did for survival, we had the luxury of doing for fun. This was my introduction to and the beginning of my passion for research. In those days, our research questions were endless and ongoing: “What is the best material and construction for a raft?” “How long can you cook a gopher before it turns green?” “What season is best for making wikiwaps?” (a shelter made from small willow trees). “What is the optimal angle for a bike ramp?” “Do the northern lights really sing?” Our questions were always changing, fueled by our curiosity about the world. Very early on, my curiosity about the natural/supernatural world and physics shifted to trying to understand people and their behaviors. Our lives at home were somewhat idyllic, but I was not immune to the realities of growing up as a Cree person in that time. I understood what discrimination was at a very early age. I remember going to the home of a schoolmate during our lunchtime break from school and hearing her grandma tell her that she was not allowed to play with Indians and that I was not allowed in the house. Although there were countless experiences like this, somehow I didn’t let them define me. Rather than being angry at Mrs. Austin, I wondered why she was like that and, at the ripe age of seven, took pity on my friend’s grandma and continued on my path as a researcher.

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As my youth went on, I came to more fully understand and be concerned with the interconnection of racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia. Already embarrassed by the fact that I had second-hand skates, I summoned up the courage to bring them to school and then wondered why school policy meant that I was not allowed to wear boys’ skates. The cumulative effects of individual and systemic forms of oppression took their toll but, thankfully, my strong family network and positive childhood helped me quickly move through what, for many, are the painful stages of “coming out” as a two-spirited person. I did not finish high school, but did eventually finish an undergraduate degree. During the last two years of my undergrad studies in psychology, I worked as a youth group facilitator for a local community-based Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual (LGBT) organization. When I returned from Canada for the fall semester of my last year, I was devastated to find out that the two Native American youth in the group had both committed suicide over the summer. I had never thought that being gay was a negative part of my own identity and wondered what had troubled these youth so deeply. I began looking for academic and oral information about LGBT Native people in Canada and the United States. I quickly realized that almost no research was available, and the majority of what did exist was written by white anthropologists. The death of my young friends occurred during the time I and other LGBT Native people began using the term “two-spirited” to describe ourselves. This was also during the time when AIDS appeared in the gay community. In a very short period of time, I lost over thirty people from my peer group, most Aboriginal gay men. This is a loss that I mourn daily and influences everything that I do as a person. My peers in Manitoba started a political and social movement around this identity. The World Indigenous Peoples Conference in Education was held in Wollongong, Australia, that year, bringing Indigenous peoples from around the globe together to share new academic and cultural educational research, teaching practices, and curricula. I prepared an abstract and completed the application process for what was to be my first presentation on two-spirit people. I successfully applied for funding to help cover the expenses of a trip to, what I thought of then, as the other side of the world. I spent countless hours preparing the presentation, interviewing friends and acquaintances, and searching fruitlessly for any mention of gay and lesbian Indians in the literature. I was ecstatic when my abstract and presentation on two-spirit people was accepted by the conference organizers and immediately booked my ticket to Australia. The conference packet arrived in the mail not long after I had been told that my abstract had been accepted. I quickly thumbed through looking for the abstract of my two-spirit presentation, but it wasn’t

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there. It must have been a mistake! I had not received a letter or any other notification advising me that my presentation was no longer acceptable. I tried to contact the organizers and got the run around. No one had heard of or seen the abstract, nor did they know anything of its prior acceptance. Stonewalled, I realized that we needed to explore the impacts of homophobia and internalized oppression in our own communities. When our group arrived at the conference, we quickly met many gay and lesbian Aboriginal people from throughout the world—elementary school teachers, researchers, college professors, all healers in their own ways. I was thrilled to be there. As I talked with other gay and lesbian delegates, I realized that we had one thing in common—we cared deeply about our communities. We shared our histories, stories, and teachings about gay and lesbian people in our communities and in our field. We decided to find time and space to meet as an informal caucus group and scheduled a lunchtime gathering on the conference grounds. Word spread quickly. The Aboriginal Australian contingency, however, was directed by some of their elders not to participate in the informal meeting. The directive was passed on in the lunch line—so when we gathered on the hill, we sat next to one another solemnly eating our lunches and not saying a word. This experience made me wonder about the global impacts of oppression on Indigenous peoples. Throughout that conference, I observed and experienced a number of critical events that helped solidify my path as a researcher. One positive outcome was that I was able to connect with Jerry Smith, an Elder from the Flathead Nation, who made a stand during the closing ceremony for the conference, when he explained the importance of recognizing and honoring LGBT Indigenous people. I realized from his actions that one person can make a difference and that despite the many negative impacts of colonization, we will always find people and places in our communities that provide us with the grounding, connection, and strength we need to overpower the negative. This became the catalyst and theme for my current research focus and passion. As I continued with graduate school and today as a university professor, I have been able to draw on the strengths of my upbringing, land, family, ancestors, and community to guide my research. Out of necessity and almost quite naturally, the methodology that emerged as I became a researcher was framed and carried out within a Cree worldview. My doctoral research explored the question, “How does the empowered identity of a two-spirit person appear within the context of sustained homophobia, sexism, and racism?” (A. Wilson, 2008). This question could only be answered by two-spirit people, and I knew, as I developed the proposal for my research, that if I wanted to hear their answers, I would need

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to work in ways that fit with their own values and understandings of the world. I turned to the teachings I had grown up with—the Cree teachings of my family and community, and the Ojibway teachings of many of my two-spirit peers—for the principles that guided this research. These principles included the communality of knowledge (that knowledge does not belong to any one individual), relational accountability (that every relationship should be founded on mutual accountability), reciprocity (that we should give back to our communities and to each other), and holism (that we should acknowledge and attend to all aspects—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual—of being and experience). In practical terms, this meant that the two-spirit people who participated collaborated with me at all stages of the project, from data collection through analysis to a review of the final dissertation. In an institutional ethnography completed with Ellen Pence for Mending the Sacred Hoop (an Indigenous group within a domestic abuse program in Minnesota), we analysed the response of the criminal justice system to domestic assault cases involving Native American women (Wilson & Pence, 2010). We were determined, in our research, to stay true to Indigenous ways of knowing, to meet the scientific standards of the federal agency that funded the project, and to further understanding to support the development of Indigenous systems to intervene in domestic violence and protect Native American women from continued abuse. We assembled a team that included four Indigenous researchers from the local university, three elders, and thirteen community members who had accessed the services of, or worked in, community-based human service agencies. In the early stages of the two-year project, we formulated an Indigenous methodology and then modified a sociological method (institutional ethnography) to complement the Indigenous methodology. We incorporated local protocols for how we should work together, drawing on the principles described above, and the community members on our team took primary responsibility for data collection. I have been able to bring this methodological positioning and experience to research and to my teaching practice. As an Indigenous scholar, I believe that knowledge is most valuable when it enables us to create positive change in the world. I do not distinguish between myself as an academic and myself as a community member and, similarly, my academic and community work are mutually constitutive. Both are sites of teaching and learning, research, theory, and praxis. I am happy to be a part of an ongoing effort to practically demonstrate the transformation of knowledge into action, draw together academic and traditional Indigenous knowledge, and offer praxis as an activist tool that community members can use to disassemble gender- and sexuality-based

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oppression, rebuild leadership, and undo and move beyond the destructive impacts of colonization.

Shawn I came into the picture in 1966. At the time, we lived in Saskatoon, while Dad finished his Bachelor of Arts degree. While studying there, he was instrumental in getting the government to recognize post-secondary education as a treaty right for Aboriginal people in Canada. Education has always been important in our family, and we’ve had to work hard and sometimes fight to get it. When I was in grades three and four, we all went and lived in Santa Barbara while Dad began his Ph.D. in confluent education at the University of California. This style of education is meant to teach the whole person in a confluent manner, including cognitive, affective, and physical education. Confluent education had a great influence on me, as it closely resembles the parenting style I was brought up with and really mirrors an Indigenous view of educating the whole person. As I went through my early schooling, the differences between Aboriginal and white kids became more and more prevalent and obvious. I was the shy and quiet type growing up. I mostly spent time with white kids, as I was in an academic stream in school. Some of the other Aboriginal kids were in general classes, but most were in remedial classes. Once I got 99% on my math report, and Dad phoned to complain, “Why didn’t Shawn get 100%?” He did it as a joke, but I was put into an accelerated program from then on. I feel really lucky that I did not have the same struggles with trying to get a high school education as my parents. If Mom and Dad had not known how the education system worked, I probably would have ended up being in some remedial class and not finishing secondary school just because I am Aboriginal. I attended the University of Manitoba straight out of high school, where I began in the pre-med program. One thing about our family: It was considered a normal progression to attend university. Just as other Western families don’t really think much about sending their children off to primary school, going to university was something that was assumed. Tertiary education was just a natural progression. Life-long education is the cultural norm in our family. And while there were very few other Aboriginal students at the university, at least my sister and later my brother were also at university, so I wasn’t alone. After finishing my Bachelor’s degree I left for a trip to Europe. It was the first time that I had really been away from everyone in my family. Being on my own really helped me come out of my shell and be a bit

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more outgoing. I made lots of friends and really enjoyed seeing different people and cultures. An experience that stands out in my mind is the week that I spent in Morocco. I was driving around with four others and looking for directions to the youth hostel. A young man came and talked with us and when we told him we were looking for the hostel, he said that we should come and stay with his family instead. We were instantly welcomed into their two-room home. The parents moved out of their sleeping room for their guests (also the living room) and slept on the floor in the kitchen with the kids. We had a great time together and went with him to visit his extended family in different parts of the country. On the night before we left, the mother cooked us a traditional feast of couscous with all the fixings. We hardly got through half of it, so the neighbors were invited around to finish off the feast. We had a great time singing, laughing, and generally carrying on, even though we could not understand a word of each other’s language. This extended family in Morocco showed me some of the most welcoming hospitality I had ever experienced. They were poor by North American standards; they were rich in their culture and more than willing to share everything that they had with total strangers. It really reminds me of many Indigenous people that I know. While I was off globe-trotting, Mom and Dad both had finished their Ph.D.s, and I was extremely proud of them. They got jobs in the Education Department at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, so I applied and was accepted in the Master of Arts program in community psychology there. One of the main things that I had learned doing my B.Sc. degree at the University of Manitoba was that I did not like that style of academia. I had a major in microbiology with a minor in zoology, but I knew that I did not want to have anything more to do with the sciences. The community psychology program at University of Alaska was great and really offered something that was missing before—the application of what was being taught. I was learning about community research and action and I loved it. My advisor was actually an Aboriginal man—Eber Hampton, who had received his doctorate from Harvard. That was the first time that I had ever had an Aboriginal professor (or even seen one other than my parents). Val Montoya was another Aboriginal person teaching in the program. There were other Aboriginal students in the program—again a first—as well as Aboriginal elders living on campus. While in Alaska, I had the terrific opportunity to work with some great elders (S. Wilson, 1996). Being in this program really helped me learn about myself and how to combine my Aboriginal identity with Western academia. This message is reinforced by my family—we don’t have to make a choice between being Indigenous or being educated, but can be both.

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In Alaska, I was adopted into the family of a Minneconju couple, who also gave me a traditional name Oyate Tawa, Belongs to the People. Lionel and Germaine Kinunwa were great teachers. I learned many lessons from their stories—not just about what happened in the stories, but lessons about myself and about Indigenous culture and ways of viewing the world. It was Lionel who got me on to the idea of storytelling as counseling. I was really attracted to this style of counseling, and especially the worldview that was behind it. I went to visit the Psychology Department at Simon Fraser University to see about doing my doctorate. But the level of racism I faced just to have a brief talk with someone in the department put plans of doctoral study there out of my head. The first comment I got from their student advisor was, “You have to have really high marks to get in here,” along with the kind of look that made it clear that they thought this would put me off. When I replied that I had a 4.0 grade point average (the highest possible), the response was, “Yeah, but it has to be from a real university (inflection hers).” I cannot be sure what she meant, but assume that she thought that being an Aboriginal person with good grades (in itself an obvious oxymoron), I must have therefore either bought my degree on-line, or gotten it from a tribal college. And of course the Tribal College wouldn’t have a real university program. As I was leaving, I was told that they were out of program brochures for me to take with me. When I tried to leave my address with the receptionist, at least she told me directly not to bother, “I’ll probably just lose it.” I think that they must have been pretty successful in warding off any Indigenous students. Later that year, I attended the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education in Wollongong, Australia, with the rest of our family. On the way there, we made a stop in New Zealand and spent some time at a Ma¯ori marae (traditional meeting place). This trip really started me thinking about how Indigenous people from all over the world have so much in common. I later got invited to go to Australia again, this time as a visiting academic to teach international Indigenous issues at Southern Cross University, in Lismore, New South Wales. I jumped at the opportunity and was off traveling again. Preparing for and teaching this course really emphasized in my mind the similarities among Indigenous peoples. So many of the conditions that we have faced as colonized peoples are the same, but more important to me, our views of the world seem to be so similar. I was thinking a lot about what I wanted to do for my doctoral research during this whole time. The idea of spirituality as a key component of Indigenous peoples’ healing interested me. How can spirituality be so important to Indigenous people, yet Western society has

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so distanced itself from anything spiritual? I decided that it would be great to also look more into the similarities that I had noticed among Indigenous peoples’ world views as the main part of my research. With these questions in mind, I went in search of a doctoral supervisor with whom I could work. Having connections in the Indigenous Australian community around the Lismore area and a wife who was homesick helped me make the decision to do my Ph.D. in Australia. I met with many Indigenous scholars in Brisbane. It was informative for me to participate in general scholarly pursuits along with Indigenous Australians, and I learned a lot from observing what they were going through. I was able to form good relationships with these new friends and hope that I was able to share as many lessons with them as I learned from them. While working on my Ph.D., I attended the thesis defences of two Indigenous students in Brisbane. Both presentations went very well, and all of the Indigenous people in the audience (academics and members of the communities where the research was conducted) thoroughly enjoyed the way the research was presented and appreciated the work that had been done. I later found out that both of these scholars were heavily criticized for their research methodologies by the dominant system academics on their panels as not being scientific. Both had attempted to use methods that were reflective of the Indigenous communities where they were working. Each had to spend much of their time and effort rewriting their theses and justifying their Indigenous-based research methodologies through mainstream theoretical arguments, relying heavily on feminism and postmodernist relational theories. Through participating in and observing the academic lives of Indigenous scholars in Australia and Canada, I began to see a major obstacle that we were all facing that revolved around having to justify our use of Indigenous methodologies in our research (S. Wilson, 2001). At this time, plenty of Indigenous people were questioning mainstream research methodologies whose colonial and oppressive underlying beliefs were being exposed. There was a general call for the decolonization of research methodologies and a great need expressed for research that followed an Indigenous worldview (S. Wilson, 2003). The problem was that even though many of us Indigenous researchers were facing this same problem and had accepted the need to decolonize research, few people had yet explained or written about the alternative: research developed from an Indigenous paradigm. So, that is where my thesis and subsequent book focused (S. Wilson, 2008). Now you know more about some of the things, especially my family, that influenced me in becoming an Indigenist researcher. It has become apparent to me that my entire life journey, including the experiences I have had, the teachers who have led me, and the upbringing and values

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given to me by my family, have impacted on my ability to conduct research properly. The responsibility has also fallen on me to share these ideas (S. Wilson, In press). Aside from the hegemony of the Western system and some of the institutional racism I have had to face, I can also see that there were many doors that were opened for me that allowed me to progress. Previous generations of Indigenous scholars (such as my parents) had paved the way for me. Other academics have been great allies. People such as Mary Hampton and Trish Fox, who helped supervise me during my Masters and Doctoral degrees, allowed me to develop in myself as I developed as a researcher. When reading back over this article, I realize that I’ve focused on some of the struggles that I’ve overcome. It is probably easier to remember these individual examples. But what has been much more important in my development as an Indigenist researcher is not these hurdles but the great encouragement and support that I’ve received throughout. Though I haven’t always been so positive in the past, I now realize that to really be true to the values of my culture, while I acknowledge the negative, I don’t have to fight against the darkness. Instead I choose to light a candle.

Jamie I believe that if research is used properly it should be incorporated into every aspect of your work. In many ways we also include it in our lives. As Shawn always says, if research doesn’t change you as a person, then you haven’t done it right. As a former education director for a school system with 1,000 primary and secondary students, as well as 150 postsecondary students, I used research both formally and informally to drive the agenda of our educational authority. Decisions made based on data and research are far and away better than those based on reacting without evidence. To me, land-based research is not merely about the physical land that we stand on, but reflects the importance of place in guiding our research practice. Incorporating place means including the community. I will give you some examples of how I included community in place-based research, but first a bit of background that will provide some context. Our community is an Indigenous Reserve or First Nation, located approximately 600 kilometers outside the major capital city in our province. When administrative decisions had to be made, as director, I would walk around and talk to various staff members, engaging them in a research process, and asking their opinions. My method of analysis was based on the assumption that, if the best teachers liked the decision and the weakest teachers disliked the decision, it was a good option. If the weakest teachers liked something and the best teachers did not, it was a poor choice. Not everyone will be happy with decisions made by

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administrators, so I was keen to have the weakest teachers perpetually unhappy with my decisions and to uphold and support the strongest teachers. The same held for parents. I kept track of parental complaints coming in to our administrative office. I strove to have more complaints from the parents that said, “Our son/daughter was dealt with too harshly, what he did wasn’t that bad (bullying),” versus “Our son/daughter is a brilliant, compassionate young person, but they do not feel safe in their school.” Again, if you take it as a given that there will always be complaints; it is in the community’s best interest to have the bullies being the complainers, not their victims. Over time, I found that this was a good way to informally measure the progress of the school system. Place-based research ensured that what was best for our community was being implemented, rather than rote adherence to provincial regulations or worse, the “squeaky wheel getting the grease.” Of course, the community in which the school resides wants to have access to research and data that tells them how their students are doing and how the school is doing. Parents want to feel confident in their school. Of extreme importance to place-based research is the translation of research results back to the community. One of the methods of achieving this was to develop a yearly report to the community on education. We borrowed a template “school report card” from an outside district and changed it to be relevant to our community. Then we started collecting baseline data. What is the average attendance rate, what is attendance by grade, how many teaching days were completed in the year (for First Nations in Canada there are essentially no laws governing education on reserves, so these were major steps)? What were the schools provincial standardized assessment averages from one year to the next, what were we doing to transmit culture and language in the school, and what indicators were we using to tell us if we were successful or not? All of this meant we had to get the school secretaries, administration, and teachers on board collecting data that they otherwise would not. At times, this was not easy, however, after the staff and community saw the first “Report on Education” it became easier. We ended up with a twenty-page, user-friendly pamphlet that we distributed to the community at a yearly Report on Education town hall meeting. At this meeting, parents were also able to challenge us, give us direction, and ask questions. Informing and empowering the community through the dissemination of our research results, the process assured that Indigenous research protocols of reciprocity and responsibility were followed.

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There are also some cautionary notes to make about data-and research-based decision making at a governance level of a school if community- or place-based processes are not utilized. We ran into problems when our board of directors tried to use some of the data we had collected to do staff evaluations. The belief was that if a teacher had poor attendance rates for her students, and the students performed badly on assessments, then these factors should be included in the rehiring process. At first glance, that may seem logical, however, when you understand that many school principals place the toughest kids with the best teachers, it sheds some light on why a specific teacher may end up with poorly performing students. A huge number of mitigating events go into any student’s success or failure; equally, many variables can influence an individual teacher’s success. On-the-ground knowledge of the context within which research data is collected is crucially important to its proper analysis and application. This example of how data can be used in an improper way demonstrates how Indigenist research needs to follow relational accountability.

Final RemaRkS Once relationships are developed through an Indigenist research method, we become accountable to these relationships and must ensure their proper usage. Building these relationships and maintaining relational accountability are the essence of neyo way in ik issi that informs all that we do, including how we do research. As Indigenous people, we aren’t just in relationships, we are relationships. These relationships are with family and other people and with everything around us—our environment, our cosmos—and with abstractions and ideas. Ensuring that our culture and worldview survive in the modern world requires us to apply Indigenist research methodologies to adapt our culture in ways that we choose. We develop, build, and apply traditional Indigenous knowledge by building relationships with our research topics. The building of relationships and growth of traditional Indigenous knowledge begins in, or in perfect circular manner, is the result of, our context. Knowledge (relations) is formed in place, with, and on the land that has been our family home for millennia. Our roles in relations shape who we are and help to guide our actions. Understanding our roles as brother, sister, parent, and child makes us do things the Cree way. Extending this understanding into our roles as educators, administrators, and researchers has allowed us to be successful in mainstream education. We have written from the personal perspectives of each member of the Wilson family on how our relationships with the concept of research have been developed. Incidents and contexts both

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positive and negative have impacted on and directed how we utilize Indigenist research. Certainly our connection to the land and our home community grounds us all. And while our family is definitely greater than the sum of its parts, our family continues to be a source of strength and guidance for each of us as individuals. To all our relations.

noteS 1. Opaskwayak is a Neynowak community situated along the Saskatchewan River, upstream from Lake Winnipeg, that Inninniwuk (the people) have inhabited for a long time. From analyzing stories and legends as well as the meaning of Cree words, it is evident that we returned to this location after briefly (a few thousand years) being forced south by the last Ice Age. Opaskwayak can be translated into English in a couple of ways: The version that my father heard from the old men is that it means “wooded like a narrows.” The first part of the word opa should be wapak meaning narrows and the second part skwayak is the woods part. They said it is called that because when you are in the Saskram (part of the Saskatchewan River delta) and look east, what you see is the high ridge of land running north and south with the tall, black spruce on each side of the river (there used to be, any way), and where the river runs through the ridge, there is a gap and so, it looks like a narrows. Others say that it means a rise in the landscape like a ridge—this version is what younger people translate it to mean. 2. Cree family names were Anglicized during the treaty-signing process that took place between 1870 and 1878. Before then, Cree people did not have first and last names but spiritually significant names. Our relational name Wassenas was changed to Wilson at that time. 3. An Indian Reserve is an area of land set aside by agreement between the Canadian federal government (the crown) and First Nations for the specific purpose of containing and housing Aboriginal people. Many “insiders” still refer to the space as an Indian Reserve, or simply the Reserve. 4. A trapper is someone who traps and captures animals for their fur. This is their main source of income and has been the main livelihood activity for Indigenous people of North America for centuries. 5. My background is Scottish. People in my home community were mostly of British descent, although a number of families came from European backgrounds as well. Most were “white” skinned and lived and abided by a white-stream philosophy and paradigm. 6. Many terms have been used to designate groups of Indigenous peoples in Canada. During my formative years, the term “Indian” was used, most specifically because that was an assigned nomenclature from the federal government of Canada. With political awareness and acquired education by Aboriginal people, that designation has changed, so that now the words “Aboriginal,” “Indigenous,” and “First Nations” are used.

ReFeRenceS Wilson, A. (2008). Our coming in stories. Canadian Woman Studies 26, 193–199. Wilson, A. & Pence, E. (2010). U.S. legal interventions in the lives of battered women: An Indigenous assessment. Justice as Healing 15, 1–8. Wilson, P. (1991). Trauma of Sioux Indian high school students. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 22, 366–383.

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Wilson, P. (1992). Trauma in transition: The alienation of Indigenous students. Canadian Journal of Native Education 19, 1. Wilson, P. (1994a). The professor/student relationship: Key factors in minority student performance and achievement. Canadian Journal of Native Studies 14, 2. Wilson, P. (1994b). Working on cultural issues with students: A counseling psychologist’s perspective. In G. Spindler & L. Spindler (Eds.), Pathways to cultural awareness: Cultural therapy with teachers and students (pp. 221–245). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin/Sage. Wilson, P. (1997). Key factors in the performance and achievement of minority students at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. American Indian Quarterly 21, 535–544. Wilson, Shawn. (1996). Gwitch’in Native Elders: Not just knowledge but a way of looking at the world. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Knowledge Network. Wilson, Shawn. (2001). What is Indigenous research methodology? Canadian Journal of Native Education 25, 175–180. Wilson, Shawn. (2003). The progression of an Indigenous research paradigm. Canadian Journal of Native Education 27, 161. Wilson, Shawn. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Halifax, NS, Canada: Fernwood Publishing. Wilson, Shawn. (In press). Using Indigenist research to shape our future. In T. Heatherington, J. Coates, M. Yellowbird, & M. Grey (Eds.), Decolonizing social work. Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing. Wilson, Stan & Wilson, P. (1998). Relational accountability. Canadian Journal of Native Education 22, 155–159. Wilson, Stan & Wilson, P. (1999). Taking responsibility: What follows relational accountability? Canadian Journal of Native Education 23, 137–139.

Chapter 21

A Native Papua New Guinea Researcher Simon Passingan

While a student at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), I heard about research that the National Research Institute (NRI) was doing on the UPNG campus. I did not enroll with NRI, but rather as an art student doing social work. However, I was fortunate to obtain a student position with NRI. In 1972, a frost occurred in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and the university sent me there to investigate the impact of the frost on the environment and livelihood of the communities. I was excited to go because I am a coastal person from New Ireland Province in PNG, which is 3° south of the equator. I was unfamiliar with this remote part of my country that lay between the Western and Southern Highlands Provinces in the Tambul/Ialibu areas. I had to do my job, and find out about the people, their customs, the way they live, how they think, and how and what they eat. This made me start thinking about traveling and finding out about other people and other places. This experience got me started in research. In the same year, I led a team of five students to the Gulf Province to carry out a rapid appraisal of the population density of this province in preparation for PNG independence on September 16, 1975. This area is swampland, and people live along the river banks; the swamp and rivers are very important for their livelihood. This was the second time I was involved in research. As an art student doing social work, I took part in an urbanization study in Port Moresby. We studied how urban settlements come about and the challenges/issues/problems faced by these settlements and the people that live in the settlements. PNG urban centers are settled according to different tribes, wantoks, and intermarriages. This is a cultural Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 353–366. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 353

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extension of belonging to an ethnic group back in their villages. In PNG, settlements or shanty towns are biproducts of urbanization due to the different classes of people living in the cities and towns. In PNG, 85% of the total population live in rural areas and 15% in urban centers. Of the 15% of the population who live in the cities, 5% live in good housing, while 10% live in settlements (National Statistical Office of Papua New Guinea, 2000). I became a Christian in 1982 and accepted Christ as my personal Savior. As a Christian living in the community experiencing and being involved in community issues/challenges/problems, I began to examine what caused these challenges. As a social worker and during my student days, I had already worked in some rural and remote communities in Western Highlands and Gulf Provinces. My first involvement with the Tolai, Pomio, and Baining tribal rural communities was in 1982, just after I became a Christian. My Christian values inspired me to do work with these communities as a volunteer. From 1984 to 1992, I worked for no salary. For five of these eight years, my wife, who was employed, gave me five kina a day. Of this, three kina were for transport and two were for food. In 1992, I was employed as an office cleaner with a salary while continuing to work as a volunteer executive officer of the East New Britain Provincial Youth Council. In 1984, I attended a basic counseling skills workshop; this experience improved my communication skills and equipped me with new skills to help those providing helping services to others. Importantly, it encouraged me to continue working with communities and with people in need and in problematic situations. My Christian beliefs and practices of acceptance, tentative listening, and empathic responding led me to learn, experience, and identify these community challenges and help the youth make decisions about their lives. Through my youth work, I was able to identify youth issues/challenges/ problems. Continuing my volunteer work, I started to be involved in the church programs that helped people help people. I became a Sunday school teacher and a religious instructor in one of the provincial high schools in East New Britain. During this time, I was elected youth leader of our local church youth group. As a youth leader myself, I joined the government program called the National Youth Movement Program (NYMP). The NYMP had two main components: (1) giving out funds to village youth groups to start income projects; and (2) training in a spiritual development program called “Just Like Jesus.” The projects developed the youths economically; the training developed them holistically. It nurtured and supported their development emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The program made the youths

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self-sustaining and increased their self-esteem. This program became so powerful that the national government became afraid the youths might become too powerful. These experiences not only started my involvement in research, they also made me want to gain more knowledge to improve approaches, methods, tools, and skills in research. In 1984, I took a five-week basic counseling training course as a volunteer with the church to learn skills in listening, responding, and observing. In 1993, I did three-weeks of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) training where I learned community mapping, group discussions, focus group discussions, survey techniques, and different symbols and models. I went on to learn facilitation and leadership and community research with the Unitec in Auckland, New Zealand. When I used the PRA tools, I felt crazy with joy. The PRA tools use local materials that have deep meaning and are attached to the traditional stories, myths, medicines, and practices and have deep values in regard to their origins in tribes, genealogy, clan history, clans, family trees, customs, and norms. The local materials include leaves, stones, wines, fruit, flowers, sand, ground, bark, nuts, and other things. I used the facilitation skills, the special communication skills, and the processes involved in PRA during the model map presentations. Right in front of me, I would see communities unfolding where there used to be ignorance. These communities became aware of their own power to solve problems. Whereas they used to be suppressed by outside consultants, they are now empowered; they are now holding the “stick of authority” and are not yielding that authority to foreigners. To see communities doing their own findings and discovering solutions to their issues/challenges/problems themselves, observing the healing taking place, and seeing them being empowered drives me wild with happiness and satisfaction for them, because at the end of the day, the communities will express a sigh of relief and say we (the community) have done it. Currently, I coordinate with researchers who do socioeconomic impact studies (SIS) for AusAID, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. These organizations have funded roads and other programs and projects in PNG. (For a full chronology of my work experiences in research, see Table 21.1.) I have always been self-motivated and I like to take advantage of opportunities to learn new things. I have combined the research strategies that I learned through formal training with my knowledge about the customs and practices of Melanesia and specifically PNG. This has helped me enter communities, accept their ways, and organize them. What I acquired through my up-bringing and the traditional values I have come to respect has helped me carry out research. In community entry, the process involves sending out messages to let people know that we are coming to do the study. Before going

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Table 21.1

Timeline of Work Experiences.

•   1972: Led the team to the Western Highland to research into the extent of the frost in  the highlands of PNG. •   1973: Led a team of five to assess the preparedness in the Ggulf Province prior to PNG  gaining independence in 1975. •  2005–2007: Research assistant for the World Bank–funded roads project in PNG. •   2007–2011: Research assistant coordinator for World Bank–funded roads project in  PNG in eight provinces. •   2007: Research assistant coordinator for Asian Development Bank studies in highlands  provinces. •  2008–2009: Research assistant coordinator for AusAID-funded roads in ten provinces. •   2012: Field data manager for smallholder agricultural development program study in  PNG.

into the communities, we find out who the community leaders are, which leaders are powerful and influential, what clans are in that community, and which are the largest and smallest clans. We also find out whether that community is part of another larger community or a community of its own. Then we write a letter notifying the community through the leader that we are coming. We either personally hand-deliver the letter or have another person do it. We also send the same message through local radio stations and the national radio network. On arrival at the community, we go straight to the leader’s house and sit with our things in front of his house until we are called inside. After we have rested, the community gives us food and a place to sleep. Later, we arrange an initial meeting with the community leaders to explain the purpose of our study/research. After the initial meeting with the community leaders, we get permission or approval to conduct our study/ research. We find out from the leaders about the right time to carry out the research and check with them further about the community timetable and whether there is a death or other important ceremonial events that are likely to occur in the village. We sleep, eat, and live with that community until we move to another one. We organize the community according to what tools we are going to use to do the study/research. If we are using a questionnaire, then we use the process of systematic random sampling method whereby we select randomly the households to be interviewed, or we use the stratified sample method or the quota sample method. If we are going to use focus groups, we identify who should be included in each focus group, whether they are youth, women, and/or community leaders. If we are going to use key informants, with the community leaders’ input, we identify key informants and arrange to meet them at a convenient place and time.

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In traditional community research, it is important to have in place a traditional code of ethics that includes the do’s and don’ts in traditional Melanesian societies.

PeoPle Who have Influenced Me My wife, the late Linda Passingan, supported me with transport and food money each day when I worked as a volunteer. Also, my mentors and teachers, namely Sr. Helmtrude of the Christian Institute of Counseling, Dr. Mirror from International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in England, Margret Sete and Maxine from Melanesian NGO Centre for Leadership (MNCL), Margy Jean and Garth Nowland Foreman of Unitec, and the late Rev. Bishop William Kilala of the United Church of Papua New Guinea all assisted me. Finally, my children have helped me in typing and carrying out research work as a team. They have helped me during difficult times and supported me all along. Here is a bit more detail about the people who influenced me as a person and as a researcher. Sister Helmtrude was the director of Christian Institute of Counseling in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province. She taught me basic counseling skills in 1984; in 1985, she taught me about alcohol and drug use. Then in 1987, she taught me advanced counseling skills; in 1990, she tutored and mentored me for a one-year experiential training with the Christian Institute of Counseling. At the end of 1990, I graduated with a certificate in counseling. From 1984 to 1990, Sr. Helmtrude taught me, groomed me, and mentored me to become who I am now. Dr. Mirror taught me PRA and made sure I fully understood the processes and appropriate uses of PRA tools to do research with rural communities. Mrs. Margret Sete is the director of the MNCL, and Maxine is the master trainer there. Both trained me, mentored me, and continuously encouraged me to complete my assignments and studies. MNCL was the PNG nationally accredited organization for Unitec in New Zealand. Margy Jean, Garth Nowland Foreman, Hilary Star Foged, and Fraser McDonald are my lecturers, tutors, and mentors at the Unitec in Auckland. From them, I learned NGO leadership and management and community research. As already noted, the late Mrs. Linda Passingan supported me. We both undertook research studies together for the World Bank, AusAID, and Transparency International PNG. She supported me in my earlier volunteer work and helped me become a leader and a manager. We worked with the national and provincial NGOs. We were responsible for establishing rural community-based organizations. We worked

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as partners in helping remote rural areas all over PNG. We helped communities in organizational development, training, and community organizing. Linda and I and our children started a not-for-profit organization called Barefoot Community Services. Our children include Clive To Wutnalom Passingan, our first-born son, Anania Kabolik Passingan, Mrs. Rachel Ia Kultikai Atam, and Kepas Passingan.

challenges In the Process of BecoMIng a researcher I love traveling to rural remote and exotic areas and like meeting people. Remoteness, ruggedness, and other geographical challenges never deter me. I work in remote areas to help the land owners conserve the red kangaroo and to help them develop a sense of ownership of the conservation program. The terrain is rugged; the earth is made up of limestone with grasslands. There are also mountainous areas with 2,500 meter altitude. There are deep gorges made by the mountains and the valleys. There are also many rivers. The climate is hot most of the time, with rain coming in the afternoon. To access these areas, local people walk. They might walk for three days from where the road stops. I went there by plane if there was an airport. Then I walk all day to the next village. After three days in that village, I have to walk for another day to another village. This pattern of working in different villages and walking from one to another is a big challenge because of the terrain. See Figure 21.1 for a picture of how rugged the terrain is in this part of PNG. However, my biggest challenge is when researchers break the ethics of research and do things that are dishonest. In research, there is a set of rules to guide researchers about how to enter communities, listen, and respond. The researcher also needs to be aware of the attitude and behaviors expressed during the interview and indications that the participants are completing the research instruments honestly. There are ethical guidelines that are specific to PNG that researchers need to adhere to when they are in the field. For example, we have 869 tribes or ethnic groups. Each tribe speaks a different language and has different ways of doing things. In each place, we first must observe the tribe’s customs and do the right things. So, when we are in a community and there is a death there, we have to stop doing the research until the leaders say it is okay to continue. Second, we observe community members’ way of accepting us, how they present themselves to us, and most importantly, what they value. Some tribes place high value on young girls, while others place high value on their animals. And there are some areas of rivers or swamps where we need to show respect for the water. Researchers sometimes break these guidelines (e.g., they might talk with the elders before

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Simon Passingan Trekking on Yawan Community Land.

they sit down with the whole community). If guidelines are not heeded, then the team must move to another village because there are already damaged relationships. To avoid these challenges, researchers must be briefed and trained before they go into the field and must be supervised and monitored in the field. There should also be a community liaison at both the provincial and community levels. Finally, researchers must take with them a letter of introduction to give to community and provincial leaders. Researchers must go through the instruments in English to understand what they mean and be able to translate them into the local language. We work with researchers about how to enter each community and how to communicate and interpret body language during observations. We have trained many researchers. First, we make sure they understand why they are asking the questions that are included in the datacollection process. The bottom line is they have to understand the questions in English. Several languages are spoken in PNG. Most people speak one of three languages. We have to know which language is used and select researchers who can communicate in that language. Having been colonized by different countries, we also have places where people speak German or English. We have to construct the questions in ways that reflect the experiences of the people in the communities.

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We teach researchers’ communication skills and we teach them to accept community practices and values. This is important because they sleep and eat in the villages. We help them accept how to dress. Researchers must accept whatever food the people in the villages eat as well as the accommodations provided. The second important part of the training is to teach the researchers to be good listeners. While listening, they also need to observe. They need to listen to the voices of the community and realize that sometimes we don’t give a direct answer, we go around and around in our thinking and discussing. If you ask something that is very personal to the people, you will get silence. Silence often means that they are getting prepared to give the answer. So you have to wait. It might be difficult for community members to answer something that is very close to them. We also teach the researchers how to deal with feelings; they must listen not only to what the person is saying, but also how they feel about it. Is the person happy, or sad, or angry? We need to try to judge if they are lying or telling the truth. The researchers can learn these things by being in the community and by staying in the village, eating with community members, being seen in the community, and showing people how they feel. We also teach researchers how to encourage people to participate in the research. One good thing is to paraphrase, bring focus, and probe. Finally, we train our researchers to always say thank you. Researchers should not leave the community immediately. They should take time before going to the next house. We do a community map called opportunity dimensions that shows where the school, cemetery, fields, really all parts of the village are located. After we do the village profile, we do the household survey. From the village profile, we number the households and write down the names of the household head. We also ask about religion, hospitals, and trade stores. We do interviews in the stores. We have wonderful discussions using focus group strategies with different groups like women or youth. And we have key informants. After the training, the researchers buy calculators, nets, medicines, torches, and things they need to travel to the villages. Food is provided by the communities.

MeMorIes of WantIng to Be a researcher I can remember the excitement on that day at the university when I was selected out of the entire student body to provide leadership on a research project. It started with the research project in the area that experienced the frost and continued from then on. The university recognized me as a leader. We researched the demography of the PNG before independence.

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Even though I had never been involved in research in a big way prior to that, I did have to coordinate teams and be responsible for the money for the research work and paying out stipends to researchers. This was all new to me, and I had to do it no matter what. The do’s and don’ts that went through my head when I had to make decisions on my own included having to decide when I should consult the others as a team to make decisions about continuing or stopping the research due to unforeseen reasons.

My MotIvatIon to do research Research enabled me to travel to remote and exotic rural areas. This is exciting and fulfilling for me. Now, international and national organizations pay for my organization to carry out community research and social impact studies on development projects. I like meeting people, and research has taken me to places where I can meet different people. Travel and money are nice, but wanting what is best for the people of PNG also motivates me. As an NGO, I have been very vocal about the World Bank and its strategies that have led to greater dependence on foreign money. The communities need to be helped; that is the bottom line. But some of the World Bank strategies end up making people poorer. The World Bank policies create more poverty; we need programs that reduce poverty. It is better to have local control of projects. I am most interested to see if those funds really help PNG.

IndIgenous versus natIve In PNG, the term “Indigenous” does not apply to us as a human race. We are native of this land. Research has been carried out by our forefathers, especially in areas of traditional healing and sorcery for some 40,000–50,000 years before Christ was born. We are Papua New Guineans; in the past we were here and we are still here. I do not see myself as an Indigenous person but as a Papua New Guinean. In doing research with the local populations, I bring specific knowledge related to the society where I live. Being native influences me because I understand the traditional values and ethics; this helps me to be able to build relationships with the community. The Melanesian ways and traditions did not include the documentation of information. Rather, it was kept in oral form and then passed from generation to generation. This is a common practice among the Melanesians, Micronesians, and Polynesians in the Pacific. This has inspired me as a Papua New Guinean and a Melanesian to do research

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and document the findings and use these findings to improve living standards of the communities in PNG. The oral tradition is reflected in the personal nature of ethics and the traditional ways of accepting people and their customs. The traditional value of living in the community allows for the transmission of information and the traditional value of love. We look after our sick; there is this love for each other in families, clans, tribes, and villages. Because of these communal values, we are able to act as researchers and still be accepted. Changes have come into many societies in the Pacific, and many Pacific communities have been invaded by outside races. The invaders were anthropologists who reported inaccurately about our ways of living and our knowledge. Traders who came from Asia also introduced different ways of living. And now, instead of our values of sharing and love, we are dependent on donor funding and grants. Our commerce is now being influenced by outsiders. When the first missionaries came to PNG, they started changing our way of being. When I went to school, I had to stand on one leg because I didn’t speak English. There were many ways they intruded on our ways of being and our language. PNG was also colonized by the Germans, the British, and the Japanese. Then the Australians came in. Now we are part of Australia. The invaders brought new ways of eating, ways of living, and new attitudes and behaviors that have made our society more individualistic rather than communal where everyone participates together. The work of some developmental partners in the not-for-profit sectors like World Wildlife Fund, Rainforest International, Conservation International, and other forestry corporations has played a big part in me becoming a community researcher. These groups work with the landowners in PNG in community forestry. We use research tools like community resource and customary clan land mapping to help communities map out their resources so that they are able to give free, prior, and informed consent to allow logging companies and development partners to use their land. In the past, these companies developed community forest management without resource owners’ input. By working with communities using survey instruments, development partners make sure communities are empowered and take ownership of development happening on their land. These traditional values, and the loss of them, have played a vital part in me becoming a traditional community researcher. I feel obliged to my people to do research on issues that will help them come out of being suppressed and being branded poor by the Western world. My goal is that Papua New Guineans will have accessible and improved services in health, education, commerce, and livelihoods. I feel proud

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to be a researcher to help my people and country realize the impact of donor funding and IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) loans and grants from New Zealand Aid Programme (NZaid), Eu, AusAID, and Japanese and Chinese aid. All the systems we have in commerce, law, agriculture, and finance were based on the colonizers’ systems. When we became independent, we still had their systems. Now I see Papua New Guineans who have the skills to modify these colonial systems and create systems that are more appropriate to our country, to use the resources from this country. This is an important trend: NGOs have people with know-how who can work within the cultural systems. And we are working toward using the resources from PNG to benefit the people who live here. Being a researcher builds my capacity. I am able to use the skills I have learned and improve on them as I carry out community research. As I do research in important fields, I am paid for doing it, providing me and my family with income to buy the things we need.

coMMunIty suPPort for research My community sees me as a power player in deciding which roads will be sealed or maintained in the World Bank, AusAID, and ADB-funded roads. There are ten provinces with AusAID-funded roads; eight provinces with the World Bank–funded roads, and five provinces with the ADB-funded roads. I do assessments on the impact of these funds on the lives of people using these roads. We carry out Social Impact Studies (SIS) of the impact of the donor funds. My presence in the various communities and the various studies that have taken place has made me an important figure in my community. Some people criticize my work; they say I work with the World Bank, ADB, and AusAID and support the bad things donor funding is doing to PNG. When people do not support my work, I respond as follows: There are many areas being researched. We are aware of the importance of ethics and we do not enter a village without a welcome. We are also careful not to set false expectations. As a not-for-profit organization (NFPO), I was really against World Bank and IMF loans to PNG because they enslaved the country and poor people are forced to repay these loans. I am now involved in socioeconomic impact assessments. The NGOs, community-based organizations, and communities I work with now say that I am sleeping with the very people I was against in the first place. The study is about the impact of the World Bank–funded roads in the local communities in PNG. In my work, I collect baseline data about what happens when they construct a road. I check to see if they are doing maintenance

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on the roads. I want to see if there is a positive impact on the community. This is a good thing, but the communities do not understand this. The lack of funding is a big problem. In some cases, I act as a local partner to the international research partners. In other cases, I carried out research without involving international partners. In these cases, I do consultancies for organizations. I really would like to do research into traditional systems and structures that might answer law and order issues facing PNG now, but without funds it is just wishful thinking. We are having national elections and there are important issues involved, such as climate change, which is taking its toll on our outer islands. The islands will disappear as sea levels rise. Weather patterns are not predictable, and that causes problems. The mining and liquefied natural gas projects need to be monitored to ensure environmental safety and assess their impact on the environment. And the control of resources and use of the money generated needs to be brought into the communities. Agriculture needs attention because we grow spices and need to improve our marketing practices. Violence is also coming to the fishing grounds and the tuna industry, with disputes about who has control of that area. Forestry also needs attention because of logging. Research in PNG has been institutionalized. For example, we have the National Research Institute, the Institute of Medical Research, and research departments in the five existing universities in PNG; therefore, there is competition for funding in terms of who you are and your area of research. For the bigger research projects, the bidding and tender processes make it impossible for NFPO to meet the conditions of the tendering process. You must have in your account some 500,000 PNG kina for your tender document to be considered. As such, we are stuck with international partners who have money.

suMMary: natIve (IndIgenous) Methods The native/Indigenous methods that I have brought into the research scholarship are as follows: •  Finding out how to enter a community, where the community is not my community, the customs are different, the type of food community members eat is different, and their way of living and attitudes and behavior are different. How do I enter a community? •  Using tradition knowledge about the men’s house and what to do when entering a new community, where I must rest on arrival, and knowing in general norms common to the Melanesian society at large. •  Using communication skills of tentative listening and emphatic responding coupled with in-depth observation. Listening to hunches and intuitions and observing body language and the physical environment of the people and community.

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•  Having some knowledge and experiences about open-ended questioning and tribal affiliations in regard to lineage, clan, tribe, language and clan history, genealogy, and land rights and user rights. •  Doing community mapping using local materials combined with community discussions and focus group discussions to ease gender-related issues and influential power play within the complex structures and systems. •  Helping researchers use traditional knowledge to be able to get the right answers to the study they are undertaking.

I call my research approach the community development impact assessment tool. This tool is carried out by incorporating traditional research methods and new research methods like listening, responding, observations, and community development tools and approaches to poverty, environment, and networks. We involve the communities in appropriate cultural ways, establishing relationships with them. It is community development in that the data collection, monitoring, and evaluation processes are carried out by a team of community development workers who have some understanding and experience in working with communities. The processes, approaches, methods, tools, and skills used are familiar to them. Before a project is established in a community, baseline studies are carried out and after the project is completed, an impact assessment is done. This is to gauge the impact of the project on the local people and to establish ownership by the local population. As a result of the SIS studies done on the World-Bank funded roads project, both AusAID's transport sector support program and ADB have followed suit and are requesting SIS to be carried out on their PNG funded road projects. I am also involved in carrying out research for Transparency International in the areas of urbanization, law and order, and forestry. I work in all thirty-two provinces in PNG and am taking additional graduate-level work in community research and NGO leadership style and change. I have learned from these courses in addition to what I learned from my many years of experience. I am now in a position to see beyond the Indigenous research community. I wish I had some certification and legal recognition of such achievement. The important thing is to be able to give to the rural communities. Through the community development processes that include a respectful approach using appropriate communication skills, we will be able to be at one with them in their community, to conserve our lands, and to observe the ethics of our lands.

reference National Statistical Office of Papua New Guinea. (2000). 2000 National Census. http:// www.spc.int/prism/country/pg/stats/2000_Census/census.htm (accessed September 27, 2012).

Chapter 22

From Refusal to Getting Involved in Romani Research Rocío García, Patricia Melgar, and Teresa Sordé in conversation with Luisa Cortés, Coral Santiago, and Saray Santiago

“We, the Roma, are the most analyzed people in history. We are tired of being the object of these studies that only benefit those who say always the same things.” This comment was one among many negative reactions to the first two studies that were presented in Spain at a governmentsponsored meeting in Madrid in November 2009 before an audience full of Roma representatives. The Roma are a people without territory, spread throughout the world. Although mainly located in Europe, they are the largest ethnic minority in the European Union (EU). Ten million out of the 12 million estimated Roma live in the EU. They have been victims of multiple discriminations in the countries where they have settled, suffering from racist persecutions throughout history, as in the Porrajmos (the Roma Holocaust during the Third Reich) and the recent collective ethnic-based deportations in France and other EU countries. International human rights organizations, as well as research institutions, have reported many contemporary rights violations. For instance, Roma are overrepresented in special schools: Estimates indicate that around 70% of Roma children of school age are currently educated in these schools. Other studies have analyzed the exclusion of Roma people from health services and the labor market. It has been calculated that Roma life expectancy is ten years less than the EU average for men (seventy-six) and women (eighty-two) (Sepkowitz, 2006). According to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) survey, ­unemployment Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 367–380. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 367

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among Roma who are twenty-five to fifty-four years old reaches 71% in Macedonia, more than 60% in Bulgaria and Croatia, and up to 50% in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro (UNDP, 2002). The long list of outstanding discrimination and social exclusions can go on. The Roma who attended the government-sponsored meeting in Madrid agreed that the majority of the studies conducted on the Roma were useless and only served to legitimize existing stereotypes. The Ministry of Education of Spain had commissioned three research studies on Roma social exclusion from high-quality education. Two studies focused on describing “the problems” Romani families have, and the third one focused on identifying what has worked in overcoming Romani school failure and ways in which this knowledge can be transferred to other contexts. While the first two studies were highly criticized, the third one was acclaimed as being the way forward. The first two studies might have been useful had they produced structural answers to questions about racism, exclusion, and society. However, these two early studies, following objectivist and constructivist perspectives, were limited to descriptions and explanations of the social facts, and used a deficit perspective that located the problem within the Roma families. The third study followed a critical-communicative perspective, with a standpoint of transforming the social context through communicative action, as we will see in this chapter. Such research oriented toward advancing knowledge about how to address real people’s problems was acclaimed. A young Romani woman said: “When you have dampness stains, you do not need to call three plumbers to talk about the size, the color or the source of the damp. What you want is a plumber that knows how to eliminate it.” Romani families are the best ones to know exactly what discrimination and social exclusions are; what the majority of them do not know is how to reverse them. Roma leaders, therefore, asked the governmental representatives to stop funding projects that only described the reality of exclusion in which they live without providing any answers. The Roma leaders’ claim was clear: Only support research endeavors that are explicitly oriented to the search for effective solutions. The story of that morning in Madrid is one example of many that shows the change that research is creating for the Roma people, thanks to their demands. The next section provides some context for the Roma leaders standing firm in their views about what research the Roma would be involved in.

ReseaRch on Roma A strong (and legitimated) reluctance is found among the Roma population toward anything that is research related. For decades, researchers

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have come to the Roma homes, neighborhoods, and communities just to gather information, publish it, and not come back again. Exclusionary research has made an instrumental use of Romani families who have been seen as objects from which to withdraw “juicy” data. The findings of such research invariably legitimate existing discrimination and social exclusion practices and even blame the Roma for the circumstances they find themselves in. Many efforts have also been made to reinforce the exoticism and mysterious images around Roma. Such myths include the association of being Roma and not being interested in education or finding a regular job, and the myth of Roma as people who want to live at the expense of society without being willing to contribute to it. None of this research has addressed the community’s main problems. On the contrary, research findings have very often given these problems sustenance. Such research has also been characterized by the exclusion of the Roma voice and experience from these research processes, thus characterizing Roma as objects of study. So it is that research has been conducted on Roma, without Roma. A Roma activist said once that the Roma have been excluded even from discussions about Roma social exclusion (Touraine, Wieviorka, & Flecha, 2004). The Romani refusal to be involved in research emerged in this context. The comments made by Roma leaders that morning were an example of the kind of complaints Roma organizations have been raising in the past decade. The Romani refused to tolerate exclusionary research (i.e., studies in the social sciences that have legitimized negative images of Roma people instead of facilitating wellness and social transformation). Such research has asserted, for example, that the Roma people prefer to live in poverty as part of retaining their cultural identity. Exclusionary research, beyond not involving the Roma, entails a conception of language based on communicative acts of power; therefore it fails to contribute to overcoming social inequalities that vulnerable groups suffer (Sordé & Ojala, 2010). An exclusionary research approach has dictated that the researchers have obtained information about Roma solely for their own interests, without any benefits returning to the people (Munté, Serradell, & Sordé, 2011). Such research is no longer acceptable to the Roma.

ReseaRch with Roma Recently an increasing dialogic orientation of social sciences research has led to the creation of a new paradigm, communicative methodology (CM), in which the participation of Indigenous researchers becomes central (Gómez, Puigvert, & Flecha, 2011). Roma and non-Roma researchers collaborated to develop CM, breaking down the dichotomy found

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between researchers (as active agents in the construction of knowledge) and Roma (as objects of study) as well as responding to the need to conduct research that is relevant for Roma people’s everyday lives. CM in Romani studies emerged from two main strands: First, the most recent contemporary social sciences theories grant dialogue a crucial role in explaining everyday (or current) social relations (Flecha, Gómez, & Puigvert, 2003). Second, CM represents a response to the Romani demand for research in which they are the real protagonists (Gómez & Vargas, 2003). CM is rooted in the dialogic turn that has been increasingly dominating social sciences, urging recognition of how dialogic-based practices are replacing power-based ones. Therefore, it was very difficult to continue the path of research based on power relations in which the Roma’s subjectivity and capability to explain and interpret their own reality was persistently subordinated to the hegemonic researchers’ ones. Instead of seeking objectivity, intersubjectivity is placed in the center of the dialogic creation of knowledge. Indigenous Romani researchers and nonRoma researchers worked together in mixed teams oriented toward the creation of new knowledge relevant for the improvement of the Roma situation. The non-Roma researchers who developed CM are committed to overcoming social inequalities and, in doing so, they are cognizant of the transformative approach of this methodology. Their participation is aimed at promoting dialogue between science and society in an egalitarian way; that is, the results of the research should emerge from the analysis on the basis of validity claims and not power claims. These ethical considerations reflect the values of all the individuals involved in the research and avoid the reality distortions that arise from the manipulation of the context object of study. The Romani voice is present from the very beginning, from the identification of the research questions, until the very end, in the dissemination activities or the definition of policy recommendations. One project conducted from this perspective was the European Framework Program Workaló (CREA, 2000–2004), which focused on Roma labor insertion. Instead of analyzing what the Roma need to acquire to have better access to employment, the project showed the skills, competences, and abilities developed by the Roma and how these match with the information that the labor market demand. The use of CM meant that the project recommendations were taken into consideration in a European Parliament resolution, as well as the Spanish one, about the recognition of the Roma as an ethnic minority. A second project about schooling is described in more detail in the remainder of this chapter.

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co-ReseaRching schooling In this section, the authors write about their experience of being coresearchers. The non-Roma researchers and the Roma community researchers have been collaborating on the INCLUD-ED project, funded by the European Framework Program of Research (CREA, 2006–2011). This is the only integrated project focused on schooling in this research program, and it is the one that received the most resources. The project is aimed at identifying strategies that promote social cohesion within the Roma community. We particularly reflect on the experience of having worked on a longitudinal case study of the La Milagrosa neighborhood in Albacete, Spain. In what follows, we introduce the research team, contextualize the case study, and then reflect on the collaboration and its implementation. Our chapter finishes with some final remarks to be considered in further works. A team that consisted of university faculty and Indigenous coresearchers worked together on a research project that was designed to transform the schools where Roma children attend. Rocío García and Patricia Melgar are researchers at the Center for Research in Theories and Practices that Overcome Inequalities (CREA). Teresa Sordé is a researcher at the Group of Studies on Migration and Ethnic Minorities. The research works is as follows. Teresa focuses on analyzing and overcoming inequalities of the Roma people; Rocío focuses on education; and Patricia focuses on gender issues. Teresa is also a member of the Roma Studies Group in CREA, which was created based on the need to analyze scientifically the exclusion of the Roma people and how the exclusion can be overcome. Roma and non-Roma people belong to the research center, and it has an advisory committee that includes the most relevant Roma and pro-Roma organizations in Catalonia. Luisa Cortés started to get involved as an Indigenous researcher in 2006 when the process of transformation in her children’s schools was launched. She has been involved in the longitudinal study since it began, participating in the discussions to define the research questions as well as to validate the questionnaires. As co-researcher, Luisa was involved in collecting data, participating in the implementation of the questionnaires by passing them to other mothers in the school. In writing this chapter, we have worked closely together to privilege Luisa’s experience of the research; for us, this is the real test of whether we have been true to the values of CM. Being one of twelve siblings, Luisa did not have the chance to attend school when she was young. Only her younger siblings went to school; she and another older sister did not go. Because of their age, they helped

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the family by working and taking care of the younger ones. Luisa explains that this is why she felt so disappointed with the condition of her children’s school, as she really wants her three daughters (Tamara, twentythree; Saray, twenty-one; Coral, thirteen), an adopted son (fifteen), and a granddaughter to have a different life from the one she had. Luisa wants all of them to learn what she did not have the chance to learn; she does not want them to be working at the outdoor market like her. Selling is not enough anymore; she wants them to have a future, a college degree, “to be someone” without giving up their Romani descent and legacy. Luisa says “I do not want to lose it; I want myself to be as I am.” Luisa knows more than anyone else what it means to be able to read and write in today’s society. On many occasions, she recognized that she did not know something, and people asked her if it was her fault that she did not attend school. For example, Luisa would have the name of the street written on a sheet of paper, but she still needed to ask other people for directions. On such occasions, she was told, “Why can’t you read . . . being that old, you could have learned!” Now, she is proudly learning at the children’s school. Luisa believes that it is through education that most discrimination can be prevented. She has experienced a great deal of discrimination herself. Because she looks Roma, she has been mistreated on many occasions or just told to wait. She waited and then saw that other people were being attended to before her and were being treated very differently. She wants her children and grandchildren to go to a place and be treated as anyone else; they deserve to be attended to properly. Her daughter, Saray, is twenty-one years old, a mother of a beautiful five-year-old girl, and works as a mediator at the school. She is also taking her GED courses there. Last year, Saray went to the First International Romani Conference of Women celebrated in Barcelona.1 Coral, Luisa’s younger daughter, is thirteen years old, and is the one who has experienced first-hand the deep transformation of the school. She dreams of being a teacher and counts on all her family and the community’s support to make this dream real. Roma and non-Roma researchers met in 2006, when Luisa, Saray, and Coral started to collaborate on the project titled “INCLUD-ED. Strategies for inclusion and social cohesion in Europe from education.”2 The first contacts between the six of them were formal, dealing with the explanation of the objectives of the research, how it was going to be developed, and how they could be involved. Once the research was started, the formal meetings in which we conducted the interviews and the school observations were combined with informal meetings, in which the researchers, mainly Rocío García, shared their daily lives. In these conversations, the Roma researchers

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explained their dreams for the future, the exclusion that they faced in their daily lives, and how this created a great barrier and decreased their expectations. Not all conversations took place face to face, as they live in different regions of Spain. Thus, this chapter gathers part of these formal and informal conversations, which took place between the years 2006 and 2011. For the elaboration of this chapter, non-Roma researchers conducted a draft outline that Patricia shared with Luisa, Saray, and Coral in August 2011. Through telephone conversations after that, we continued defining the contents that we present here.

la milagRosa BaRRio: how to tuRn DespaiR into hope La Milagrosa was not only considered one of the poorest (if not the poorest) areas in Spain, but also a very dangerous one, dominated by drug dealers and criminals. Basic services such as post offices, ambulances, and even the police did not dare enter it. In 2006, the barrio made it into the newspapers headlines as teachers from the San Juan school were claiming they needed police protection in the classroom. They also wanted a new entrance to the school (from the back door, to avoid going through the neighborhood). No one talked about Romani families’ suffering, but it existed. The families were also in despair, seeing their children go through school and leaving without being able to read and write. Families were not allowed to enter the school and were badly treated by the teachers who did not know how to handle a relationship with them. Luisa remembers that she was not even allowed to go to school parties. Her cousin wanted to give the teacher a note from the doctor explaining why her daughter was not attending school one day, and she was not allowed to enter, even into the school playground. The teacher was shouting at her while standing at the school main entrance. There was such a profound contempt of the mothers that it is no wonder the kids were not happy there. How were they supposed to learn in this environment? Twelve year olds were not able to read and write. Teachers used to expel students to their homes for fifteen or twenty days as a disciplinary measure, so some of the students spent more time at home than at the school. At the school playground, kids would hold onto their mothers’ legs, not wanting to go inside. “School no, please, no!” Once at the schools, kids would escape and teachers did not let the families know that they had gone. The mothers would go to pick them up, and no one knew where the kids had gone. The research team started the transformation process at the school. The existing mutual distrust was impossible to overcome without

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making very drastic and brave decisions. Especially important were that the administration decided to shut down the school, redistribute the teachers among other schools, and open a new school in the same place with a different name and a brand new teaching team. These were brave moves, applauded by the families who were scared to see their children redistributed among different schools. However, families did not feel that the opening of the new school was a real change until they experienced it. The administration did not know how to proceed. They were told that a research center in Barcelona was supporting the transformation of more than a hundred schools from all around the world, from being failing ones into successful ones and becoming learning communities.3 The transformation was based on the school and community commitment to implement those actions that research indicates to be effective in bringing students’ success. Different meetings were held, and the families, NGOs, professionals, and others agreed on the need to implement these actions at the newly inaugurated La Paz school. The following measures can be mentioned: heterogeneous grouping of students within the classroom and reallocating of existing human resources, extending the learning time, involving the families in their children’s learning process and school decision making, and providing family education. Luisa says that everybody needed to collaborate, from professionals to community members, volunteers, families, and so on. In three years, the school went from not being evaluated by regional tests into being above the regional average. The same students, with the same families, went from not learning and not being able to read and write to performing at the same level as other schools sharing similar features. Because of the positive progress the school was making, the neighborhood was selected as one of the case studies that have been conducted under the INCLUD-ED project. Three criteria were used as a basis for selection of the case studies: being located in a low socioeconomic status area, having a minority population, and showing positive progress in relation to other neighborhoods with similar features. It was under the INCLUD-ED project in which Luisa served as a co-researcher.

FRom ResiDent to co-ReseaRcheR: luisa’s stoRy Luisa participated in the decision-making process of turning the school into a learning community. Although there were new people, with a different approach, the first year was not an easy one. Every day, school started with a daily assembly at which family members, teachers, students, and volunteers agreed on what they wanted to pursue for the day. Initially, these discussions were mainly focused on disciplinary decisions;

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however, they turned it into an opportunity to set up the daily learning goals. The school became totally different than what it had been. Family members have their own space: a coffee room where they meet, chat, and get organized. Many things have been arranged from this room. This included discussion groups, travel arrangements for the children’s final year trip, planning for the women’s attendance at the First International Romani Conference of Women, and preparation to present their experience. Now Luisa is proud of being a volunteer at the school. She not only contributes to the students’ learning through the interactive groups, she also attends literacy courses herself. Every Wednesday, more than fifteen women get together at the school to learn to read and write. Luisa was one of the first ones to attend the course, and she did not hesitate to take her mother along with her. After a long day selling in the mercadillo (outdoor market), they both go to school to learn to read and write. Because of her satisfaction in attending the course, Luisa has been spreading the word of the course at church, the school entrance, the market, and wherever she goes. In the beginning, she did not know how to write her name, but now Luisa writes, recognizes many letters, and can read some things. Her involvement at the school and with the project led to many changes. She explains her story as not being unique to her but similar to that of many other Romani families. For instance, they got organized to claim the need to have a high school in the neighborhood and not to oblige students who want to pursue their compulsory studies to commute to a high school every day. This was Luisa’s and other members’ idea based on recommendations from the INCLUD-ED research findings. The collaboration made it possible for the entire sixth-grade class, both boys and girls, to move on to high school for the first time in the neighborhood’s history. In this context, Luisa became a co-researcher not as a result of a conscious decision but out of necessity. She knew so many families that were going through the same struggles; she was desperately looking for solutions to turn the situation around. It was not the first time that new projects and outsiders came into the neighborhood with good intentions. However, previous efforts had not yielded the desired results. Luisa did not want to be an ally of another “testing experiment” with their people. This time it felt different because the INCLUD-ED research team (composed of Roma and non-Roma) shared the evidence they have about what works. If they asked her, she would not know how to fix the school and the neighborhood. But the research team knew how; in other parts of the world, schools with similar problems had been able

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to turn themselves around and had the outcomes to support their claims of effective practice. Now, Luisa’s five-year-old granddaughter reads and writes and knows how to use a computer. And Saray works at the school and Coral wants to be a teacher. All this was unthinkable before. The school is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., all year long, and it is welcoming to the students’ families. This is something mothers really appreciate because they see how their children are learning there. When the school was shut down, there were only about twenty students enrolled. Everybody took their children to another school; now everybody wants to come back because they see that this is a “special school.” It is not only Luisa, but many mothers who recognize the changes that have occurred. She says that the principal is really good and that the teachers really care about the students. Mothers and other community members can freely enter the school. How did Luisa move from distrust to trust and hope? How did the other families do so? She does not describe it as an individual process, but as a collective one. Seeing in which ways many Romani families were getting involved encouraged others to build the needed trust to join. Word of mouth was a kind of magic, and when Romani families see other Romani families, they reconsider and start looking at the school differently. And when Luisa talked about the meetings she was attending, she felt that her voice was really taken into account by the researchers and the school personnel; she felt that she had something to contribute. It also felt like a lot of responsibility to make it work. As said previously, community members have seen a lot of wellintentioned people come in and leave once a project was over. But even though there was reluctance at first, Luisa says that people from the neighborhood had never given up wanting to overcome poverty and discrimination and to achieve educational success and social justice. They were thirsty for solutions, and the research team contributed to defining them from within. That’s why it is a special school. In implementing different successful actions in the neighborhood, for instance, the creation of the citizens’ assembly or the weekend center, radical changes can be observed. Youth are not in the streets all day, for instance, on the weekends from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Before, from 3 p.m. on, all the youth just hung out in the streets; now they have things to do and a place to stay.

how we DiD it: communicative methoDology The longitudinal case study of the La Milagrosa neighborhood led to a transformation through the research process itself. The use of CM also guaranteed that, while the main objective of the project was carried out, additional opportunities for social transformation opened up.

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The main question of the case study was: In what ways does community involvement in education contribute to strengthen connections between education and diverse areas of society? To answer this question, people from the neighborhood, like Luisa, have been participating throughout the research process, from the beginning until the end. Within the communicative approach, Luisa and other Roma participants contributed their ideas and impressions about the entire case study and worked with the rest of the research team. Different aspects were tackled over the first two rounds of research. In the first year, educational strategies were identified based on the community’s views of what would contribute to greater social cohesion and better academic results. In the second year, the team decided to focus on identifying a series of forms of community participation, which are related to the students’ academic success. Evidence was collected on which of those strategies would facilitate particular types of community involvement. The objectives of the third and the fourth year were to go deeper into various aspects of the previous analyses. Luisa has been helping with the analysis of the different forms of participation and its connection with the school success based on her own experience. CM provides the possibility to integrate and incorporate distinct methods and techniques to collect and analyze data. Communicative techniques and traditional qualitative and quantitative techniques with a communicative orientation have been used. Quantitative data were collected through two questionnaires, one addressed to family members and another one to students (divided also between pre-primary and primary students). The questionnaires were aimed at gathering the impressions, opinions, and perceived impact of the selected school success from the point of view of the end-users. They also provide a longitudinal view of ongoing issues as well as the evolution of the project in terms of contributing to reduce or prevent inequalities and to foster social inclusion and empowerment. The distribution and analysis of these surveys was possible because of the collaboration of the whole community. Flecha and Gómez (2004) stress that communicative data collection strategies need to evolve through egalitarian dialogue. Open-ended interviews, communicative life-stories, communicative focus groups, and communicative observations have been conducted each year. These techniques have the added advantage of ensuring that the research results really reflect the experiences of the people whose reality is analyzed, particularly disadvantaged groups’ experiences.4 Researchers contribute to the dialogue with their academic background and the participants (e.g., Luisa) contribute from their lifeworld. During a communicative daily life story or a communicative focus group, the researchers share the research questions and what they

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already knew about them, and the participants contribute with their thoughts and impressions. A dialogic exchange creates new knowledge. For instance, when researchers presented the experience of the British Columbia citizens’ assembly or the Porto Alegre participatory budget to the community, it was decided to create the consejo vecinal (neighborhood council). However, the community members proposed that, instead of members being randomly selected, they should be appointed so as to be really representative of the community. Many discussions and meetings were dedicated to reach a consensus on who should be part of this council, taking into account many issues, not only diversity but also honesty and respect. In this way, there is a collective interpretation of reality, based on an egalitarian and intersubjective dialogue that bridges the gap between researchers and researched people. Luisa recognizes that the fact that Romani families felt that their opinions and interpretations matter made it possible to reverse the situation of the neighborhood. She says “Without the researchers, we would not know what to do, without our input, it would not work. We need both.” CM provided an ideal framework to take advantage of all the benefits of Indigenous researchers. Success was based not only on capturing the perspectives of those who represent the majority of people living there, but also gaining new insights as the research progressed. More creative orientations to research questions were formulated each year in dialogue with the community. CM requires the inclusion of Indigenous researchers, as well as the participation of lay Indigenous people becoming co-researchers throughout the whole process, taking their voices into account. Luisa’s involvement is an example of this.

the way FoRwaRD Luisa dreams of a day when there will be Romani judges, doctors, firemen, teachers, and researchers. Romani studies have been profoundly transformed with the increasing participation of Indigenous researchers; now we need to also have Roma researchers in other areas of knowledge, not necessarily related to Roma. There is no return, only a way forward. It is unacceptable to have studies conducted on Roma without Roma people. As a society, we would not accept a study on women without any women in the research team. This is what has defined Romani scholarship, and we need to integrate more Roma into research to make it a reality, instead of an exception. Mentorship and solidarity in promoting access to higher education are crucial in increasing the number of Indigenous people who can participate in research.

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More can be done. The research community should come up with alternative solutions to integrate the Roma experience and voice into the processes of knowledge creation. We need studies that hear and include the voices of Roma, especially those who authentically represent the majority of Roma in the world. People’s views and interpretations should not be dismissed because they do not speak the same way academics do. Antonio, a Roma pastor working at La Milagrosa, was the one who spoke at the European Parliament, in the first INCLUD-ED conference in November 2009. Of all the presentations, his was the one that struck people the most. They were not used to hearing direct and disturbing testimony about how things are in some European schools. But it was not only that. His talk also contradicted many stereotypes about the Roma. Antonio shared how amazed all the families were to see their five year olds reading, like Luisa’s granddaughter saying that this is a very big thing for Romani families. The auditorium was silenced by Antonio’s impressive words. Participation of lay people does not stand alone in the case of the CM. On the contrary, it is contrasted and complemented by the contributions formulated from the scientific community.

notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

For more information, visit http://dromkotar.org/en/?page_id = 77. See http://creaub.info/included/about/. For further information, see http://www.comunidadesdeaprendizaje.net/. Every year, different qualitative techniques have been used: thirteen standardized openended interviews (representatives of the local administration, representatives of other community organizations involved in the local project, professionals working in the local project); thirteen communicative daily life stories of end-users (family members and students); one communicative focus group with professionals working in the local project; and five communicative observations looking at the characteristics and particularities of each local project in spaces in which community participation could be found.

ReFeRences CREA. (2000–2004). WORKALÓ. The creation of new occupational patterns for cultural minorities: The gypsy case. (I + D + I). RTD, 5thFP. Barcelona: European Commission. CREA. (2006–2011). INCLUD-ED. Strategies for inclusion and social cohesion from education in Europe 028603-2. Sixth Framework Programme. Priority 7: Citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society. Barcelona: European Commission. Flecha, R. & Gómez, J. (2004). Participatory paradigms: Researching “with”rather than “on.” In B. Crossan, J. Gallacher, & M. Osborne (eds.), Researching widening access: Issues and approaches in an international context (pp. 129–140). London: Routledge. Flecha, R., Gómez, J., & Puigvert, L. (2003). Contemporary sociological theory. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.

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Gómez, A. J., Puigvert, L., & Flecha, R. (2011). Critical communicative methodology: Informing real social transformation through research. Qualitative Inquiry 17, 235–245. Gómez, A. J. & Vargas, J. (2003). Why Romà do not like mainstream school: A voice of a people without a territory. Harvard Educational Review 73, 559–590. Munté, A., Serradell, O., & Sordé, T. (2011). From research to policy: Roma participation through communicative organization. Qualitative Inquiry 17, 256–266. Sepkowitz, K. (2006). Health of the world’s Roma population. The Lancet 367, 1707–1708. Sordé, T. & Ojala, M. (2010). Actos comunicativos dialógicos y actos comunicativos de poder en la investigación. Revista Signos 43, 377–391. Touraine, A., Wieviorka, M., & Flecha, R. (2004). Conocimiento e identidad. Voces de grupos culturales en la investigación social. Barcelona: El Roure Editorial. UNDP. (2002). The Roma in central and eastern Europe: Avoiding the dependency trap. Regional Human Development Report. Bratislava, Slovakia: UNDP.

Chapter 23

Interpreting the Journey: Where Words, Stories Formed Victoria Hykes Steere

In the world of my grandparents, we are all born with gifts. Having a curious mind, an inability to simply walk by anyone being mistreated, and a desire that all life be respected led me on a path to research. In particular, a promise I made led me to study social justice. An absolute refusal to accept what my law professors claimed to be our truth (i.e., Alaska is and forever will be a part of the United States), uncovered hope. My grandmother told me never, ever to give up hope as it is hope and prayer that allowed us to survive in the Arctic through seven ice ages. All my research on traditional healing, plants, climate change, suicide, violence whether it be to the earth, water, air, animals or humans, resiliency, is guided by a simple question: How can we rebuild our world so our villages are once again economically viable and we once again are self-defining real human beings? My grandmother dreamed of freedom, and my research is dedicated to ensuring that it becomes our reality.

Giving Their Lives Away Iñupiat grandparents or great-grandparents or elders chose certain individuals as children to “give their lives away,” a phrase I’m borrowing from Iñupiaq elder George Edwardson of Barrow, Alaska, who said to me, “It’s good to know someone else raised to give their life away. How does it feel?” I laughed, and then answered, “It’s all I’ve ever known.” I remember the sun pouring through my grandmother’s kitchen windows onto my great-grandmother standing in the doorway between the kitchen and my grandmother’s room. I was eye level with the wolverine Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 381–394. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 381

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trim of her parkie (more commonly called parka) as she spoke to me. Slowly arching my eyebrows upward, signifying my commitment to go to college then university to learn how white people think, I promised her my heart and mind would remain Iñupiaq and that I would learn to use Western knowledge as a tool for our survival as Iñupiat. From then on, my grandfather sent me out to listen—to the wind, to the trees, to sea ice, to river ice, to rubber ice on the ponds, to read the clouds, to watch the sunset and the night sky, to smell the air, and to watch animals. My grandmother simply said, “Watch, listen, learn!” In the summer, I often fell asleep, oblivious. I’d wake up hungry and afraid I missed something important. However, my grandfather’s smile and arched eyebrow let me know it was all right. Every night, except for the period after his stroke and before he learned to talk again (when I was five), my grandfather told me stories, and every morning I had to tell the story back to him verbatim. Not a single word out of place in Qawiaraq, our dialect. Once I started first grade (age six), he would ask me each day what I learned and in Qawiaraq he would explain our math, science, etc. He taught me quantum physics and much, much more, but would say, “Put on the paper what is in their books. They can only see what they believe it is possible to see. Always remember, you will only see what you believe is possible.” Then, if I was particularly excited about something, he would say, “Don’t tell them what you are learning or they will put you in API (Alaska Psychiatric Institute) or give you a lobotomy.” My grandparents’ friend, Lars Soosuk, had a lobotomy scar, so I never spoke of what he taught me with anyone. Looking back, the time spent with our grandfather, great-grandmother, grandmother, and others prepared me more for what I do than anything learned inside a first–twelfth-grade classroom. My brother and I knew we were the luckiest kids in the world. A deep love and strong commitment grows when a world is so beautiful that even its broken parts (caused by dying due to diseases, epidemics, massive commercial harvests of our food sources by Yankee whalers, miners, commercial fishers that led to starvation, and orphanages in ninety-three communities in Alaska) pale with the joy of being part of a world where there are no nobodies. I remember being baffled by the word nobody. I asked my grandmother, “Who is nobody?” She said, “Everybody is somebody. Everyone is born with special gifts that make them unique; it might be the gift of laughter that cheers everyone up at the right moment.” She then had my grandfather tell me the story of an attack on our village where our ancestors would have all died, and in a panic, an old man pushed aside a young boy and the old man fell. Knocked out with his mouth wide

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open, the old man peed right into his own open mouth. The young boy started laughing, and the whole village burst into laughter. The men outside with their burning arrows decided it was a trap and ran away. The young boy’s laughter and the old man’s panic saved us, and we tell the story to this day. “Then why is there the word nobody?” I asked. She wrinkled her nose and said, “It isn’t a word in Qawiariq. It’s a word because they never learned that every life has value, animal or human or plants. Like the old man and the boy, we live because of panic and laughter.”

sTArTinG The Journey To undersTAnd how “whiTe PeoPLe Think” Colby College, Waterville, Maine, freshman orientation week, I called home. Hondel (Gordon Kotongan) shot himself after typing a letter to Senator Ted Stevens. Our regional corporation was declaring bankruptcy, and everyone thought we’d lose our land. No suicide had ever happened in the village. Who are we without our homeland? Who are we without hope? Devastated and totally alone for the first time in my life, I asked the leaves of red, yellow, and orange to take my tears. My heart could not bear the pain, and my mind never imagined our world or my life without Hondel in it. In fifth grade, a classmate, daughter of two missionaries teaching in the high school said, “You are only intelligent because you are half-white,” I looked up at her and said, “What about Hondel? He’s full and he’s smarter than both of us.” He and I were both born of the Malemiut and Qawiaraqmuit tribes of Northwest Alaska. As Iñupiat, the way I was raised fell outside the norm. We were at that time a communal-based society, where everyone was part of the whole and decisions were made by consensus. However, my grandparents told me I was being raised to stand alone. I understood, but always imagined Hondel there as a brilliant guide and friend, helping me. We shared our dreams. He memorized every word in the dictionary when we were in eighth grade because he wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a journalist, and my grandfather and I avidly read every issue of Howard Rock’s Tundra Times. I had counted on Hondel to be a buffer for the times my mixed blood needed to breathe and for the space my overly sensitive soul needed to have someone say something, while my words were lost in shearing pain. Hondel’s death was the first time I truly understood the personal cost of my promise to my great-grandmother. I lost the one person on whom I had unconsciously relied. Now I was standing alone. A classmate told me that I was failing at the most important reason for being at Colby, networking. He was right. I went to Colby on a dare

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and took sociology the first semester to try to understand the people around me. Miscommunication happened all the time. After being told I had no tact, I looked it up in the dictionary, then went to Professor Morrione (sociology) and opened my dictionary and read the definition of tact. I asked him why people wanted me to lie. He talked to me about white lies. I told him I understood what they were, but that in our world a lie is a lie; there are no varying degrees of truth. For one class (cultural anthropology), we had to interview fifty people. I asked: What is the definition of truth? How is it different than honesty? What is true? I learned what they valued. I played Risk with Jewish students from New York, became friends with French Canadians, Italians from Jersey, Irish Catholics from the Boston area, and found many of the Mayflower blue bloods pretentious and boring. The Lebanese family that owned the pub was wonderful. I asked the owner if I could buy a pitcher from him. He told me I was the first person who didn’t just take it. I told him I needed it to throw water on the fraternity pledges knocking on the door in the middle of the night drunk, wanting to see the Eskimo. He gave it to me. That night I opened the door, threw a full pitcher of water, and no one ever came drunk looking for the Eskimo again. Later that year, a history professor said that you cannot understand history if you do not understand economics. Her words led to my major in economics. I wanted to understand if it is possible for communal people to thrive in a market-based economy and maintain their own distinct norms and mores without embracing greed.

From QuesTion To QuesT Nearly ten years later, my grandmother said to me, “I was born free. I won’t die free. What happened to us?” She told me to go to law school. I told her to ask my cousins who already were practicing lawyers, but she insisted I needed to explain it to her. I arched my eyebrows up—yes. Before she died, I was able to explain to her how, without battles, wars, or treaties, we became citizens of the most powerful nation on Earth and “lost” our homelands. The land was cleaved from us by a unilateral act of Congress when oil was discovered in the North Slope. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) created state chartered for profit corporations. ANCSA deliberately took our land base from the traditional governments and put it into village corporations, with the subsurface rights going to the twelve regional corporations. Congress knowingly took the land base of hunters, fishers, and gatherers to force them into the market economy and the twentieth century, the largest land grab in U.S. history and a marvel of social engineering designed to destroy the social fabric of our communally based societies.

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When the radio station in Nome announced the passage of ANCSA, not a single elder or person who came into my grandparents’ house supported it. They all knew the country their sons and grandsons either were fighting for in Vietnam or had fought or died in Vietnam cared nothing for our people, who were suddenly shareholders in corporations designed to pursue economic gain, even at the expense of the villagers who “owned them.” It introduced something into our society as In˜upiaq we were taught to shun: greed. My academic advisor at Colby had studied ANCSA and told me that as an economist, he knew the act had been “designed to fail.” He told me a majority of the land would be lost, and it would have been if ANCSA had not been amended by Congress. Grandmother listened and said, “We don’t make good white people.” She told me to seek a legal way to allow us to govern ourselves as real Iñupiat again. I focused my legal studies beyond federal Indian Law, international public law, international environmental law, international organizations, international law, and Indigenous rights, as all my professors said nothing could be done. The Constitution of the United States of America has a mechanism for becoming a state, but there is no mechanism for a state admitted into the Union to leave, and the Commerce Clause gave Congress power over Indian affairs. Sir Geoffery Palmer, former prime minister of New Zealand (international environmental law), taught a section on global warming in the fall of 1992. The early models showed that global warming will flood a majority of our communities, along with permafrost melt and/ or erosion due to fall storms with no protective sea ice along the shoreline. After graduating from the University of Iowa College of Law, I enrolled in a Master of Laws (commonly referred to as a LLM) program at University of Washington School of Law and studied advanced environmental law, public land law, coast zone management, international environmental law, natural resource law, human rights law, and courses at the School of Marine Affairs and School of Public Policy, seeking information that impacted subsistence, a totally inadequate word used to describe the traditional economy of village Alaska, based on hunting, fishing, and gathering. Sometimes you feel utterly alone. Research will sometimes lead you to understand or see things that are not obvious to those who have never left their home, village or state, or to those who have long-term friendships with scientists in various agencies and with political leaders and who trust their friends. One instance illustrates what I mean. I was working on policy, and was discussing global warming with a well-respected leader who told me his friends assured him that environmentalists were overstating the risk of global warming and that our

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villages had nothing to worry about for fifty to a hundred years. I told him I’d taken a class at the School of Marine Affairs on Global Warming at the University of Washington: The most conservative computer models showed tremendous impact in Alaska within the next twenty-five to thirty years. The North Slope, Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and most of our village communities would be under water. The leader believed that his friends and colleagues of over twenty years would let him know if global warming threatened our villages. Nearly ten years later, at a meeting on oceans, the leader came up to my husband and me and told us he should have listened to me and he apologized. This was after one of his long-time colleagues, who had just retired from academia, whose work was highly respected and whose opinion carried great weight, answered a direct question about what was impacting a marine mammal species. The scientist stated that trawl fishing was impacting their food sources. The man I’d talked to about global warming then asked the scientist why he was only now stating the cause of the species crash. The man looked at my former boss and told him it was because there weren’t sufficient scientific data and he would have been ridiculed if he had spoken or written based on what he’d learned. In our world, until the late 1970s and early 1980s, lying almost never occurred. It was a horrible insult to be called a liar. Lying violated all our society’s social mores and norms, whether Iñupiat, Yupiit, Athabaskan, and so on. Trusting others to be truthful and attorneys to honestly work for our people created a lot of long-term problems for us. This included the attorney who advised a former president of Alaska Federation of Natives to choose a rural preference over a race-based preference in Title VIII of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The result of the attorney’s bad advice left us fighting for access to our traditional foods, and we continue to fight for them in violation of our cultural mores. My task was to ensure that I fulfilled the promises I made to my great-grandmother and grandmother. So I studied international law, how other Indigenous peoples were addressing the impact of colonization on their societies and social structures, the environmental impact of global warming/climate change, human rights law, and resiliency, education, and violence. As an Iñupiaq, I understand that the moment I allow anger to guide what I do, I’ve failed. We believe that the energy we feed impacts long-term outcomes. Regardless of how well intentioned an Iñupiaq may be, if he or she speaks or writes in anger, the energy of that anger will cause the long-term outcome to be negative. Last, I acknowledge that today many Iñupiat have no idea what it means to be a real human being in terms that our grandparents or great-grandparents

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or for some great-great-grandparents understood, but they do carry the blood of our people. Our grandparents ensured that my brother and I would incorporate the traditional mores and values of being Iñupiat, one of which is the requirement that we never speak or bring up a problem unless we have an idea of its possible solution. It has led to hours of reading on my part about alternative energy sources, building materials, composting toilets (as sewage lagoons cause vector-borne diseases that strongly impact the health of young children), and learning about the regulatory barriers that villages face in relocating. Many cannot meet the congressional requirements, such as the cost benefit analysis or matching funds. Nor has the state of Alaska stepped forward to help meet such matches, although the states does reimburse the Anchorage school district for 50% or more of the building costs of new schools. Another troubling disconnect within state government is its refusal to let state-employed scientists veer off the state policy of suing the federal government about listing polar bears, walrus, and ice seals as threatened, claiming climate change is no threat to ice seals, polar bears, and walrus because the Endangered Species Act requirements would require greater federal oversight over offshore oil and gas development. Yet our last governor created the state of Alaska Governor’s Climate Change SubCabinet to look at climate impact with federal agencies on Alaska communities so the state university system would receive millions of dollars in climate change research funds. I’ve researched Alaska’s legal history under international law and federal Indian law, learning about global warming/climate change impacts and how to build energy-efficient self-sustaining communities again and bio-prospecting traditional plant knowledge. I am advocating that traditional healing practices be protected by creating communal property rights for all Iñupiat groups, now divided into three regions working together via their councils of elders to come to agreement. We must also take into consideration the psychological impacts of colonization and how resilient people respond to trauma. Throughout all my studies, I have been seeking solutions to problems our communities were facing at that time. Professor Robert Clinton (federal Indian law), a mentor, shepherded me through the realization that law is not about justice and honor plays no part in its formation or foundation. He listened as my heart struggled with a cosmology where honor, an integral part of becoming a real human being, had no role in the creation of law. Professor Gerald Wetlaufer (legal theory seminar and advanced legal theory seminar) allowed me to process how various theories compete to impact the creation of law. Professor S. James Anaya (Indigenous peoples and

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international law) provided the opportunity to do an internship at the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, which allowed us to learn first-hand the challenges facing Indigenous peoples around the world and to meet and discuss issues and strategies that have been invaluable. In Professor Palmer’s course, I realized our villages in Alaska were facing a terrible threat to their survival from global warming. Charlie “Etok” Edwardsen gave me the topic of my paper for Professor Clinton—the idea of statutory warfare—and he became a friend and mentor. At the University of Washington School of Law, Professor William Rodgers (advanced environmental law) mentored me and led me to three wonderful women he also mentored working on climate justice and global warming, Jen Marlow and Jeni Krencicki Barcelos, co-founders of the Three Degrees Warmer Project at the School of Law, and Ann “Mickey” Mortiz. Professor Ralph Johnson (natural resource law) provided wonderful guidance as I researched the termination of our hunting and fishing rights under ANCSA as a human rights violation. He strongly supported my work and wanted me to publish. Fighting over food violates our mores; I declined to submit the paper for publication. Animals are still recognized as being an integral part of creation; our survival depends on their abundance. We are admonished not to speak in anger; the system of law is adversarial, stripping away our humanity. Inua/nuna (spirit/land) defined us through seven ice ages. In the 1960s to protect our world and our right to our homelands, ANCSA was established. The organization filed blanket land claims to stop the state of Alaska from taking land where our villages were already occupied or were being used for hunting, fishing, and gathering. Even with this political action, trying to protect ourselves within the framework of Western law may lead to our being a footnote in human history. I studied language and how it is interpreted and owe much gratitude to Professor Clinton and Terri Henry, founder of Clan Star, Inc., and councilwoman for Eastern Band Cherokee; they helped me process what I was learning. Language and how it is used played an important role in the theft of Alaska from Unungan, In˜upiat, Sugpiaq/Alutiiq, Yupiit, Athabaskan, Eyak, Haida, Tlingit. (I am not including the Tsimshian, as they moved to Annette Island from Canada and are recognized as a reservation in the 1884 Organic Act.) I strongly recommend reading Steve Newcomb’s book, Pagans in the Promised Land, to understand how the use of language deprived and continues to deprive Indigenous peoples of their land. The book also explains the doctrine of discovery and the papal bulls used to justify the taking of land. Reading Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s book, Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, set me on a journey to meet her and

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invite her to Alaska. Her sister, Dr. Cherryl Smith, provided me with shelter and friendship. Fiona Cram, then deputy director of the Institute for Indigenous Research at the University of Auckland, came, presented, and held a workshop at the Alaska regional meeting of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society (NAFWS) and became a dear friend. She also provided me with research on domestic violence that I shared with Clan Star and Mary Ann Mills, chief tribal judge for the Sovereign Nation of Kenaitze Indians and vice-chair of their tribal council. The next year, Linda and Graham Smith, Fiona Cram, and Mahinekura Reinfelds (the latter was the first Ma¯ ori to have her traditional healing clinic certified by the Ministry of Health in Aotearoa New Zealand) hosted workshops at the 20th Annual NAFWS’s national conference. As the major fundraiser and conference planner, I included them in a conference for fish and wildlife biologists, forestry, and grasslands professionals who are Native American because Ma¯ ori are doing research based on their own identity and mores, focusing on community-based participatory research to address local iwi (tribe) needs. Debra Harry, founder and executive director of Indigenous Peoples Council on BioColonialism, also hosted a workshop on protecting traditional plant knowledge. It’s important when we find excellent practices to share that information as much as possible. Two Crow (Dr. James Schumacher) discussed using Indigenous knowledge in natural resource management and later presented similar information for sustaining ecosystem services of the Pribilof Island region (Macklin et al., 2008). Some of the society board members were upset as they did not understand why I was including educators and researchers as keynote speakers and workshop presenters. They learned to compartmentalize the world in a very Western way. Without any explanation, I raised the funds for the conference to expand the discussion of Indigenous research, education, and science in Alaska and nationally. This is a very traditional Iñupiaq response to address a problem without mentioning what or why. You get the job done and move on. Once the conference and, most importantly, the workshops took place, all but two or three understood and thanked me. Graham Smith also told me that it was the first time he’d attended a conference that was so multidisciplinary. At the April 2009 Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change, a council member of one of the pueblos in the southwest came up to me and said, “You didn’t plan this event.” He told me he could tell because the NAFWS conference and workshops were the best he’d ever been to because the attendees interacted with all the keynote speakers as the keynote speakers hosted workshops on their topic the same day they spoke to the entire conference. Michelle Davis explained to me the importance of having ideas reinforced in workshops where people

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from all over Canada and the United States could exchange information and ask the guests from Aotearoa New Zealand questions. Mahinekura Reinfelds came back for the 2005 Snow Change Conference, which brought together Indigenous peoples from across the Arctic to discuss the on-the-ground changes caused by climate change that they were witnessing in their communities. In my mind, it was important that the north and south share their experiences, and Mahinekura won the hearts of all those who were present. She went to the Snow Change Cooperative’s (based in Finland) next meeting in Russia and had a profound impact on the lives of the Indigenous peoples who participated. Tero and Kaisu Mustenon and Hanna Eklund of the Snow Change Cooperative also became dear friends. Building relationships based on trust, friendship, and a genuine desire to improve the lives of our peoples through our work has guided my journey. Reaching out to people I didn’t know, whose work I admire— some on the other side of the planet—is intimidating, especially when they are well known and I was a lowly assistant professor in Alaska. But when their words are important to the survival and the end goal of thriving societies, it is worth the risk of being told “no” or “not interested.” Debra Harry, Cherryl Smith, Taiaiake Alfred and his book, Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto, have provided, at different times, encouragement and inspiration. Taiaiake wrote, “Acceptance of ‘Aboriginal rights’ in the context of state sovereignty represents the culmination of white society’s efforts to assimilate indigenous peoples” (p. 59). This is what Terri Henry and I discussed in law school about the doctrine of discovery, the papal bulls, and, for me, the burning question of how we lost our land without a just war, voluntarily abandonment/relinquishment, or treaty, as Russia never had dominion over Alaska. Furthermore, Alaska was on the list of non-self-governing territories with the right of nationhood. All my international law professors assured me nothing could be done about statehood, but I believed they were wrong. Cherryl introduced me to Linda and Graham and taught me about women who gather as friends to address the needs of their community. The late Eyak Chief Marie Smith Jones, Terri Henry, Michelle Davis, Two Crow, Tero Mustonen, Lisa and Max Dolchok, Mahinekura (who has also passed on), and Mary Ann Mills have all prayed for various issues and projects. George Edwardson provides sound guidance as he reinforces the traditional teachings of my grandparents and great-grandmother. Family support (my husband, sons, cousins, and late mother) has been critical in allowing me to do what I promised. It would have been impossible without their putting up with my “chasing rainbows” and

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inability to ignore injustice, a trait that comes from my father. He does not understand me, but I became the person I am because his idealism, with a strong dose of realism, wove its way into the human being I became and am. Grandfather opened up a whole world to me with his teachings and left me a message via my grandmother that defines all the work I do. His daily instruction imprinted a precolonial mindset that guides me. He taught me to believe in limitless possibilities and to trust that I will always know. The gift of a precolonial mind has been the greatest influence on my research. He said, “Always remember, we come from people who didn’t lay down and die.” His words came in handy when I worked on contaminants in traditional foods and they continue to guide me as I reach out to build partnerships to address the relocation of what will be 191 out of our 227 villages that are inhabited year round (General Accounting Office [GAO], 2009). I worked with Michelle Davis (then at the NAFWS) to call attention to contaminants in traditional foods. We wrote resolutions passed by statewide tribal and corporate entities and then used the resolutions to garner support for research. We met with former Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott. As global warming occurs, we said, the Arctic will stop storing contaminants and will send them south into the food chain. After Talbott listened, funding became available to address the issue. A panel of federal, state, and other entities, including Michelle and me, began meeting to discuss how to address contaminants in traditional foods. Michelle and I attempted to have the tribes included and were attacked professionally once the funding became available. We insisted that the tribes decide how best to address the contaminants issue as different areas eat different foods or eat the same foods prepared differently. We wanted to know which food preparation methods lowered the risk of exposure to contaminants in different foods. After a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Native Americans (ANA) proposal we wrote for NAFWS was not funded, a regional non-profit submitted to ANA this proposal with all the relevant sections copied verbatim, inserting their own organization and changing the five villages to villages in their region. I was angry because Michelle was treated badly in meetings with the state, federal agencies, health corporations, and non-profits. The proposal used community-based participatory research, which was unheard of in Alaska at the time and outside of traditional knowledge gathering. I could not hide my disgust with the new experts and stopped working on contaminants in traditional foods. It was a hard lesson but valuable. As an Iñupiaq, my disgust and anger with how my friend was treated made my words no longer of value, and my silence honored my grandparents.

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Grandfather warned me I would face greater resistance doing the most important work. And in those moments that happened, I know he is beside me, ensuring I stay strong. Gram saying, “It takes courage to live, courage to love, and courage to forgive,” comes to mind and the clouds cease to matter. I laugh out loud and as my grandfather promised, laughter heals. My mother’s humor helped when my father could not understand why a good paying job was not why I went to Colby College, the University of Iowa College of Law, and the University of Washington School of Law and I’ve talked to my uncle and asked for prayers because no one works on social justice issues alone. Always guiding me is the promise I made to my great-grandmother. The most important issue I research involves the ability for a territory to be re-listed as a territory under the United Nations to formally go through the decolonization process. It is an offshoot of my grandmother’s words, and I believe in the power of words. There are three ways a nation loses its sovereignty: conquest via a just war (Indians are subject to a just war if they deny free passage through their territory, or they prevent merchants from making a profit, or they hinder the propagation of Christianity); the Treaty of Cession, which is the right to possess territory given by one sovereign to another; or relinquishment or voluntary abandonment. In the 1867 Treaty of Cession between Russia and the United States of America, Russia sold the trading posts owned by the Russian American Company and the right to exclusive trade in Alaska. This amounts to 117,600 square feet of land: “Claims based upon secession have also been disputed upon the ground that the ceding party possessed no right to dispose of the territory in question or that the manner of disposal was irregular” (Hill, 1945, p. 160). As the vast majority of Alaska was untouched by Russian fur traders, “The Russian government deliberately refrained from claiming, on the basis of the right of discovery, more territory than it could claim by virtue of the right of first permanent settlement” (Chief of the Foreign Law Section Law Library, Library of Congress, 1950, p. 8). Russia could not sell what it did not possess, so our claims to Alaska are still a valid existing right under international law. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971) is a unilateral Act of Congress and does not extinguish our prior existing claim. Our people have still not been informed of their rights under international law. We have not been educated in our own languages due to policies first under the churches, then under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to eradicate our languages to civilize us (we are proudly uncivilized today). Nor were our grandparents capable of running a sovereign nation when the vote for statehood occurred in 1958.

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In the 1960 census, only 9% of our population over twenty-five years of age had graduated from high school in our rural communities (Federal Field Committee for Development Planning in Alaska, 1968, p. 63). The criteria for decolonization had not been met when the UN voted. There is a caveat: The U.S. Constitution has a mechanism of admitting states into the union, but no mechanism for letting one out. All our homelands are now the property of corporations. Modern corporations have an average life span of forty-five years, and 20% of companies listed in the Fortune 500 disappear every decade (Lehrer, 2012, p. 209). I recently was asked by another professor at Alaska Pacific University to talk to his class about what wilderness means to me. The gist of what I said is, “We are in our wilderness now. Our wilderness is the violence in many of our lives: the suicides, the alcoholism, the violence, rape and despair.” The legacy of colonialism’s continual assault on our languages, cultures, and identities, and the regulation of hunting, fishing, licenses and permits criminalizes the gathering of food. We are vilified and mocked for clinging to a life that is thousands of years old and sustainable. My hope is that, in the societies we create, we will still have no nobodies and remember the words of another mentor, the late Iñupiaq traditional healer Della Keats: “Everyone is necessary and needed.”

reFerences Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1601–1628. (1971). 1991 Amendments, Act of February 3, 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-241,§ 2 (8) (B), 101 Stat. 1788, 1789 (1988). Alfred, T. (2009). Peace, power and righteousness: An Indigenous manifesto. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chief of the Foreign Law Section Law Library, Library of Congress. (1950). Russian administration of Alaska and the status of the Alaska Natives. “Letter of April 11, 1824, from Cont Nesselrode to N. S. Mordvinov.” English translation in the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal Proceedings (1904), vol. 2, p. 166. Presented by Mr. O. Mahoney. Federal Field Committee for Development Planning in Alaska (1968). Alaska Natives and the land. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. General Accounting Office (GAO). (2009). Alaska Native villages: Limited progress has been made on relocating villages threatened by flooding and erosion (GAO-09-551) http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09551.pdf (accessed September 13, 2012). Hill, N. L. (1945). Claims to territory in international law and relations. London: Oxford University Press. Lehrer, J. (2012). Imagine: How creativity works. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Macklin, S. A., Two Crow (aka J. D. Schumacher), J. D., Moore, S. E., & Smith, S. (2008). Sustaining the marine ecosystem of the Pribilof Islands. Deep-Sea Research 55, 1698–1700. Newcomb, S. (2008). Pagans in the promised land. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.

Chapter 24

The Onward Journey César A. Cisneros Puebla

A sociology of ourselves is necessary now more than ever. We learned to do sociology of knowledge and technology (Gouldner, 1976; Latour, 1987), sociology of social movements (Offe, 1985; Touraine, 1985), and sociology of daily life of other people (Schwartz & Jacobs, 1979). But a sociology of our own practices as researchers, as scientists, as persons of flesh and blood is still pending. We don’t really know too much about ourselves as researchers, and/or as human beings, and how we came to be what we are. In some ways, the personal pathways of becoming a researcher, scientist, activist, or practitioner of any discipline are mysterious and hidden. Becoming a researcher or scientist and acting in consequence of that is equally a matter of speculation and suspicion in specific scenarios. Sometimes, for opportunistic reasons, as the president of the International Social Science Council says (ISSC Report, 2010, p. vi), social scientists “did not understand how their own creation worked.” To do a sociology of ourselves and our work is not just necessary, but urgent. Our contribution for a global social change is highly valued. We cannot let down the trust that society has in us: The best knowledge about ourselves and the consequences of our work and actions is the best guarantee for the future of our endeavor. Personal pathways into social sciences are carved in very specific social, historical, and geopolitical contexts. Obviously, becoming a social scientist in Germany and in Peru are not comparable. There has not been similarity in producing theory and doing social science research along the Rhine River and in the Amazon River basin. In this scenario, the previous chapters are a marvelous sample of diverse personal pathways outlined to illustrate how diverse our legacies, memories, and lives are, Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, edited by Donna M. Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 395–402. ©2013 Left Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 395

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regardless of our professional identity as social scientists, methodologists, evaluators, or simply researchers. Knowing more about ourselves is not just describing our feelings and desires in a sort of autobiography or autoethnography. This is not what I am writing about. The stories of the researchers in this volume present us with awareness about the limits of our methods and approaches, the historical circumstances of our epistemologies, and the geopolitics of our knowledge. Knowing more about ourselves is also a matter of ethics and responsibilities. I think the previous chapters must be read in ways that allow us to see through and beyond their authors’ practices. Gaining awareness of the historical dimensions of our theories, concepts, approaches, and methods leads us to an insightful moment of recognizing how contested our certitudes and taken-for-granted beliefs are in the encounter with other cultures and knowledges. Human civilization is shaped by the conjunction of thousands of different trajectories. Each society has its own rhythm, pattern, obstacles, problems, solutions, wars, and social memories. As social scientists, we need to find our place in the struggle between dominators and dominated, right and left, past and future, core and peripheries, and superior and inferior perspectives. Reading this book, we recognize that we are dealing with knowledge production in societies that treat humans unequally. After centuries of domination of some countries, people, classes, and races over other countries, people, classes, and races, we are still asking ourselves how such international inequality has been possible and continues to be so. The question about how such global social order was constructed is unanswered, although all of us must act to change it. For centuries, our modernity has included much ignorance about otherness because the only way of knowing was to eliminate, subordinate, and/or oppress our differences from the Other. Mignolo (1995) has shown how the narrative of modernity needs the notion of “primitives” to create the spatial colonial difference and define the identities of supposed superior and inferior human beings. Colonization was based on such terrible assumptions, and the effects of such narratives have been substantial, leading to different ways of producing societies and creating knowledge. Coloniality of power also had and still has influence in the ways science is organized and institutionalized in each society.

Postcolonialism, modernity, and coloniality From India, Spivak (1995) has provided us a way of thinking to deconstruct the legacy of colonialism and show that the subaltern can speak. And Bhabha (1995) has enriched our perspectives with concepts as

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hybridity to analyze cultural dominance. The postcolonial turn has brought us to other perspectives to analyze our actions regarding cultural products, ethics, conquerors and conquered, knowledge, values, and traditions. Without a doubt, the three “A” (Africa, Asia, and America) are still opposed to the one “E” (Europe) in thinking about subaltern cultures and oppressed groups from a long historical perspective. But we need to think critically to include the islands and the archipelagos in the histories of resistance and struggle against dominion. According to Quijano (2000), the modern idea of race emerged with the colonization of America: It is a mental category of modernity. It was created as an instrument of basic social and racial classification as “a way of granting legitimacy to the relations of domination imposed by the conquest” (p. 534). Coloniality of power is a main category that leads us to think in critical ways about how the imposition of the idea of race is and has been an instrument of domination. In a worldwide vision, the narratives of the oppressed must be integrated to let us overcome the accomplice of silence that generates the permanence of status quo. Analyzing the global capitalism’s dynamics, Quijano (2000) proposes that we include conflict, domination, and exploitation as the basic elements to be considered to study the changes on such social dimensions as work, race, sex, natural resources, authority, governance, and public authority. In such direction, coloniality of power is an important category when thinking about the social geography of capitalism. The knowledge divide can be seen as a historical consequence of the global dynamics of capitalism, dividing the world into the core and the peripheries. The core and peripheries are economically, socially, and technologically obvious when comparing social structures and countries in worldwide perspectives. This knowledge divide also classifies social science researchers into core and peripheries. It is possible to think about coloniality of scientific labor as the coloniality that determined the geographic distribution of each one of us in the integrated forms of labor control in global capitalism. Core is producing theory and methods, and peripheries are consuming and reproducing it. We can think about the postcolonial, decolonizing, and Indigenous knowledge systems discussion (Smith, 1999) as a kind of rebellion against such distribution. The personal Indigenous pathways into social research drawn in this book are highlighting, from the coloniality of power view, the very quotidian way of living the dominance. We live together on a planet, but we inhabit different worlds. Global coloniality (Escobar, 2004) is marginalizing and even suppressing the knowledge and culture of subaltern groups; it seems like this oppression will never end. Being social researchers with the marks and

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traces of ancestral knowledge on the soul allow us to build on the strong shoulders of giants to create new life perspectives.

Global, local, and lanGuaGe If social research methods created by Europeans and North Americans have become a sort of general knowledge (Ryen & Gobo, 2011, p. 411), it is convenient to remind ourselves that there is no context-free knowledge and no power-free interest. In social sciences and humanities, it is a mistake to think in terms of universal knowledge beyond any cultural differences. Nevertheless, questioning the assumed existence of globalized methodology or globalized knowledge leads us to criticize the illusion of homogeneous practices and uniform thinking everywhere around the world. Globalized knowledge means, particularly in social science research, domination of Anglo-American legacies, concepts, and methodologies over the peripheral world with their potentially innovative own conceptual legacies and Indigenous epistemologies. In a brief essay, Maerk (2009) discusses what he calls the “coverscience” as practiced in social sciences and humanities in Latin America. In his view, scholars in Latin America just copy foreign theories, concepts, and methods. He recalls what the Mexican-Spaniard philosopher Jose Gaos coined as “imperialism of categories,” referring to categories that originated from other cultures, especially Europe, and are used to characterize processes of social, economic, and political orders in Latin America with no changes or adaptations. In his words (p. 186): Latin American and other scholars from the “global South” commit the error of “universalizing” the local knowledge of supposedly “great authors”: Max Weber analyses and describes the bureaucrat of the “old continent”; Joseph Schumpeter focuses on the innovative European, but mainly British capitalist; Jürgen Habermas directs his attention to the industrialized First World society, in particular to the German society; and Pierre Bordieu studies mainly the French socio-cultural and socio-political condition. Instead of recognizing the singular character of each of these theories, there is a strong tendency in Latin America to believe that any of the resident capitalists is a capitalist in the sense of Schumpeter or Weber; or that relation between the public and the private in Mexico or Brazil is similar to the one we find in Germany, as assessed by Habermas.

Undoubtedly, there is pendant discussion about globalized knowledge in the sense of validity, reliability, transparency, applicability, replicability, and originality when dealing with concepts and theories in social science and humanities. However, a particular and unique quality of Latin American researchers is the epistemological perspectives they embrace.

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From the stance of sociology of science, this uniqueness is due to the differences in the social contexts in which knowledge is produced in each country. Hence, the geographical closeness of Mexico and the United States provides an interesting case. In Abend’s analysis of the differences between Mexican and American approaches to doing sociological research, he notes “an empirical sociology of epistemologies would constitute a step forward in the agenda of the sociology of knowledge, as it would further our understanding of the social conditioning of scientific knowledge” (2006, p. 32). The more noticeable difference Abend discovered in his analysis by comparing contributions in journals published in the period of 1995–2001 is related to the way Mexican scientists are testing theory or thinking about the dialogue between theory and data. Abend’s sample of articles was drawn from the most cited and most prestigious journals in each country: In the United States, the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review; in Mexico, Estudios Sociológicos and Revista Mexicana de Sociología. Is such a Mexican way of doing sociology particular to just that country or is it also the favorite way of working in other developing countries? Referring to foreign authors’ concepts without referring to data collected by native researchers seems to be a general practice to validate inquiry in the academy. “Doing theory” in such a way is just reproducing ideas and arguments in the recreational fiction of “universal” applicability of some sociological concepts, regardless of their historical and cultural situations. And that is totally unacceptable. Let me insist: Globalized knowledge means, in the field of qualitative research in particular, domination of Anglo-American legacies, concepts, and methodologies over the peripheral world with their potentially innovative own conceptual legacies and Indigenous epistemologies. As I have pointed out (Cisneros Puebla, 2008), the narratives that are told about the history and development of qualitative research are deeply grounded in the experience of North America, and it is only very recently that the diversity of qualitative research history and experiences have come to light. A rich discussion is emerging regarding our position as global qualitative researchers based on various reflections from different perspectives about the dominance of the Anglo-American legacies (Alasuutari, 2004; Cisneros Puebla et al., 2006; Mruck, Cisneros Puebla, & Faux, 2005). Hsiung (2012, p. 5) has suggested that what she calls “globalization of qualitative research” “is emerging as a subfield where qualitative researchers in the periphery have begun challenging the domination of the Anglo-American core.” Thinking specifically of qualitative research, we need a shift in the current division of scientific labor control that sees scholarship in the core

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producing theory and methods, while those in the peripheries consume and reproduce it. More attention needs to be paid to the indigenization of qualitative research in the peripheral countries. Kathy Charmaz (2012), for instance, is currently leading a query around the ways grounded theory methodologies have been adopted by non-English-speaking researchers, and Gobo (2011) is questioning whether Indigenous methodologies and participatory action research are effective ways to escape methodological colonialism. Geopolitically speaking, it would be valuable to explore what contributions in the peripheries could be taken in a globalized world of qualitative research to be integrated and practiced in the core. Is the current division of scientific labor control eternal and non-changeable? It would be interesting to testify about the peripheries producing theory and methods and the core consuming and reproducing it. If qualitative scholars in the core could shift their roles from producers to consumers, the divide would change drastically and our discussion would be freely moving away from colonial dimensions.

indiGenization and ePistemic Violence We can assume that indigenization of knowledge consists of creatively adapting concepts, methods, and approaches to a culture different to that where such concepts, methods, and approaches were created. Communication between cultures is a very complex issue, but regarding knowledge production, we can follow the route that recognizes a secondgeneration indigenization phenomenon that refers to how Indigenous people are being educated in local universities in the peripheries; in previous generations, that took place in the centers. Huntington (1996) asserts that around the globe, education and democracy are leading to indigenization. Discussing about cultural backlash he quotes Roland Dore (p. 38): “The first ‘modernizer’ or ‘post-independence’ generation has often received its training in foreign (Western) universities in a Western cosmopolitan language. Partly because they first go abroad as impressionable teenagers, their absorption of Western values and lifestyles may well be profound.” This second-generation indigenization phenomenon occurred mainly (Maerk, 2009, p. 188) in “societies under colonial rule until the twentieth century, e.g., in the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean, in Africa, in the Middle East, and in parts of Asia.” Maerk mentioned the case of the Guyanese historian Walter Rodney, comparing the Trinidadian Eric Williams, the French Martinican Aimé Césaire, and the African American W. E. B. DuBois to highlight that second-generation members are mainly inclined to produce local knowledge rooted in their

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own cultural context and benefit and be master of what had been done for their predecessors. But we need to recognize that this is just one side of the phenomenon. Given the asymmetrical hierarchy the Indigenous maintain with the nonIndigenous, the complex world of unfair subordination is reproduced and the dominion the colonizer holds over the colonized appear as eternal “naturalized” social relationships that are difficult to destroy. Developing autochthonous research methods is decisive to overcome the epistemic—and I would add racial—violence Walker (this book) is referring to, when Indigenous peoples in colonized countries are told that scholarly research must focus primarily on “linear intellectual analysis.” But it is also crucial to enrich our practices as researchers by getting into new ways of experiencing relationships and human interactions. Ancestral knowledge around the world is still waiting to be listened to in the horizon to change our presence in the planet. The personal pathways of becoming researcher, scientist, activist, or practitioner of any discipline will no longer be mysterious and hidden if books like this one can create a movement to emphasize the multiple and complex connection between the self and the social. Doing science as Indigenous is not just related to indigeneity: It is a kind of critical awareness about their own beliefs and thoughts’ limits in the realm of a decolonized geopolitics of knowledge.

references Abend, G. (2006). Styles of sociological thought: Sociologies, epistemologies, and the Mexican and U.S. quests for truth. Sociological Theory, 24(1), 1–41. Alasuutari, P. (2004). The globalization of qualitative research. In G. Gobo, C. Seale, J. F. Gubrium, & David Silverman (Eds.), Qualitative research practice (pp. 595–608). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bhabha, H. (1995). Interview with cultural theorist Homi Bhabha by W. J. T. Mitchell. Artforum 33, 80–84. Charmaz, K. (2012). Grounded theory in global perspective. Paper presented as part of the panel Challenges for Qualitative Inquiry as a Global Endeavor I: Methodological Issues, at the Eighth International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, May 18. Cisneros Puebla, C. A. (2008). On the roots of qualitative research. In J. Zelger, M. Raich, & Paul Schober (Eds.), GABEK III. Organisationen und ihre Wissensnetze (pp. 53–75). Innsbruck, Austria: Studien Verlag. Cisneros Puebla, C. A., Domínguez Figaredo, D., Faux, R., Kölbl, C., & Packer, M. (2006). Editorial: About qualitative research epistemologies and peripheries. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7, Art. 44. http://nbnresolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs060444 (accessed January 13, 2012). Escobar, A. (2004). Beyond the Third World: Imperial globality, global coloniality, and antiglobalization social movements. Third World Quarterly 25, 207–230. Gobo, G. (2011). Glocalizing methodology? The encounter between local methodologies. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 14, 417–437.

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Gouldner, A. W. (1976). The dialectic of ideology and technology: The origins, grammar, and future of ideology. London: Macmillan Press. Hsiung, P-C. (2012). The globalization of qualitative research: Challenging Anglo-American domination and local hegemonic discourse. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung (Forum: Qualitative Social Research), 13, Art. 21. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114fqs1201216 (accessed February 23, 2012). Huntington, S. P. (1996). The West: Unique, not universal. Foreign Affairs 6, 28–46. ISSC Report. (2010). World social science report: Knowledge divide. Paris: ISSC, UNESCO. Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Maerk, J. (2009). Overcoming cover-science in Latin American social sciences and humanities—An intervention. In M-L. Frick & A. Oberprantacher (Eds.), Power and justice in international relations: Interdisciplinary approaches to global challenges. Essays in honor of Hans Köchler (pp. 185–192). Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing. Mignolo, W. D. (1995). The darker side of the Renaissance: Literacy, territoriality and colonization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Mruck, K., Cisneros Puebla, C. A., & Faux, R. (2005). Editorial: About qualitative research centers and peripheries. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung (Forum: Qualitative Social Research), 6, Art. 49. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0503491 (accessed February 23, 2012). Offe, C. (1985). New social movements: Challenging the boundaries of institutional politics. Social Research 52, 817–868. Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism and Latin America. Nepantla 3, 533–580. Ryen, A. & Gobo, G. (2011). Managing the decline of globalized methodology. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 14, 411–415. Schwartz, H. & Jacobs, J. (1979). Qualitative sociology: A method to the madness. New York: Free Press. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books. Spivak, G. C. (1995). Can the subaltern speak? In B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, and H. Tiffen (Eds.), Post-colonial studies reader (pp. 24–28). London: Routledge. Touraine, A. (1985). An introduction to the study of new social movements. Social Research 52, 749–788.

Index

A agriculture, 26, 114, 124, 125, 176, 363, 364 ancestors, 14, 26, 31, 35, 109, 133, 138, 142–143, 177–178, 180, 239–241, 243–244, 273, 283, 295, 299, 301, 312–313, 342, 382 Aotearoa, 18, 33, 197, 199, 200, 277–278, 280, 282–286, 389–390 apartheid, 25, 32, 101–103, 262, 266, 268 Arctic, 14, 38, 193, 239, 242–243, 246, 381, 390–391 Australian, Aboriginal, 27, 210, 212, 342 B Botswana, 12, 185 Burkina Faso, 12, 28, 171–174, 177–180, 183, 185 C Cameroon, 12, 26, 123–127 Canada, 11, 14, 31, 35–36, 109, 116, 125, 159, 197, 224, 235–236, 241–242, 245–247, 304, 333–334, 341, 344, 347, 350, 352, 389, 390 characteristics of Indigenous research, 16

Cherokee, 35, 299, 307, 310, 313–314, 389 climate change, 20, 33, 37, 38, 242–243, 264, 381, 386–387, 389–390 colonization, 12–15, 22, 26, 30, 33–35, 134–135, 196, 205, 211, 272, 277, 293, 299–300, 307, 310, 333, 342, 344, 386–387, 397 communal, 37, 362, 382, 384, 388 connectivity, 16–17, 27, 114, 147–149 Cree Nation, 35, 333–334, 340 D data collection, 20, 23, 25, 29, 33, 37, 53, 129, 194–195, 216, 224, 232, 304, 343, 344, 365, 378 decolonizing, 30, 96, 105, 196, 264–265, 285, 397 discrimination, 22–23, 35–36, 42–45, 47, 50, 53, 107, 155, 157–158, 340, 368–369, 372, 376 disparities, 22, 95, 278, 327 E ethnic, 13, 15, 21–23, 41, 61–63, 101, 103, 116, 158, 160, 163, 164, 180, 251, 284, 354, 358, 367, 370–371 ethnicity, 13, 41, 62, 65, 77, 135, 329 ethnography, 160, 343

403

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F feminist, 50–51, 54 First Nations, 18, 35, 208, 242, 244, 247, 305, 336, 340, 349, 351 food security, 29, 33, 172, 179, 182, 183, 264, 266 G grandparents, 23, 29, 35, 75, 80, 85, 90–91, 98, 104, 162, 191, 193–194, 307, 317, 325, 381–383, 385–387, 390–392 H Hawaii, 32, 52, 242, 251, 260 hearing loss, 30, 205–206 human rights, 28, 37, 43, 103, 155, 367, 386, 388 I Indigenous community, 21, 28, 54, 129–130, 140–142, 144–145, 147, 181, 187, 190, 205, 287 epistemologies, 246, 303, 399 knowledge, 11, 16–17, 19–21, 25, 27–28, 32–33, 36, 104–105, 108, 113–114, 118, 126–127, 143, 154, 208–209, 212, 243, 254, 261–270, 272, 299, 301, 303, 305–306, 313, 340, 343, 350, 389, 397 who is, 13–15 Inuit, 31, 239–247 J Japan, 12, 30–31, 219, 221, 223–225, 227, 234, 242 K Kaupapa Maori, 25, 72, 89, 92–93, 96–97, 282, 290, 296 L LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual), 36, 341–342

M matrilineal, 22, 42–45, 47–48, 50–51, 54–55 Mexico, 11, 24, 27, 153, 155–156, 159, 162, 164, 398–399 mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative), 66, 95, 106, 112, 254, 376 N Native African, 15 Alaskan, 29, 200 American, 34, 301, 309, 330, 341, 343, 389, 391 Hawaiian, 14, 249, 302 language, 110, 294 Papua New Guinean, 36, 361 O oppression, 12, 16, 35, 53, 80, 109, 209, 216, 341–342, 344, 397 oral tradition, 28, 32, 171, 362 P Panama, 11, 34–35, 317–322, 324, 328 Papua New Guinea, 12, 37, 42, 134, 353–354, 357 paradigm Indigenous research, 16, 172–173, 175, 264, 269–270, 274, 340, 348, 351, 369 legal, 38 Western, 264, 326 participatory research, 18, 24, 28, 230–231, 389, 391 patrilineal descent, 22, 42–45, 47–48, 50–51, 53–54 postcolonial, 16, 20, 84, 86, 108, 397–398 poverty, 22–23, 37–38, 48, 77, 85, 95, 102, 125, 127, 155, 223, 361, 365, 369, 376 privilege and power, 12, 21, 78, 95, 105, 109, 118, 230, 286, 304, 319, 326, 372

Index program evaluation, 23, 29, 66, 125, 127–128, 130, 182, 186, 189–190, 233, 326–328 protocol, cultural, 142, 232, 326 Q qualitative research, 19, 24, 28, 67, 95, 106, 232, 254, 256, 377, 379, 399–400 quantitative research, 66, 96, 106, 112, 254, 377 quest, 44–45, 53, 384 question, research, 53, 108, 340, 370–371, 377, 378 R racism, 18, 32, 34–36, 90, 95, 102, 107, 116, 266, 294, 317, 322, 330, 341, 343, 346, 348, 368 religion, 223, 258, 267–268, 271, 295, 360 Roma, 37–38, 367–379 S sexism, 36, 341–342 social justice, 18, 20, 48, 68, 77–78, 110, 216, 288, 310, 323–324, 377, 381, 392 sovereignty, 14, 17, 87, 251, 277, 390, 392 Spain, 12, 15, 38, 367–368, 371, 373 spirits, 50, 133, 240, 312 spiritual, 18, 24, 27, 109, 135, 137, 142, 147, 196, 212, 255, 259, 302, 305–306, 309, 333, 338, 343, 347, 354 spirituality, 36, 146–147, 280, 305, 346

| 405

storytelling, 19, 23–24, 30, 33, 36, 52, 76, 79, 190, 192, 212, 242, 346 struggle, 24, 92, 94, 102–103, 107–108, 113, 135, 181, 191, 211, 227, 280, 313, 317, 319–320, 323–324, 396–397 T Torres Strait, 26, 133–135, 140–150, 301 treaty claim, 83, 278, 387 Treaty of Cession, 390, 392 Treaty of Waiganti, 33, 77–78, 87n, 199, 277–279, 334 treaty rights for Aboriginal people of Canada, 344, 351n U Ubuntu, 16 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 43–44, 47, 51, 53 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), 13–14, 31 United States, 11, 15, 18, 23, 25, 35, 90, 116, 125, 197, 246, 301, 308, 317–318, 322, 324, 326, 328, 334, 341, 381, 385, 390, 392, 399 V Vanuatu, 11, 22, 41–55 W Waitangi Tribunal, 24, 73, 76, 77, 85, 87n2, 199, 277

About the Editors

Donna M. Mertens I began my journey into research and social justice when my family moved from Washington State to Kentucky, just as I was starting seventh grade and the civil rights era was beginning to create change in the United States. In Washington State, I had only seen people who looked like me: white, middle class, and able bodied. In Kentucky, it became immediately apparent that people who were black lived there, however, they did not live where I lived in the suburbs, they did not go to my school, and they did not go to my swimming pool. When I asked the teacher why the black children did not go to my school, she patted me on the head and said, “Honey, they just prefer to be with their own kind.” I did not know the words cognitive dissonance at that time, but now I recognize that was what I was feeling. Why would black people prefer to live in the sweltering slums of the inner city rather than in the nice suburbs like me? From that point on, I focused my school assignments on trying to figure out the effects of the civil rights movement on black people. That was my nascent stage of becoming a researcher with a social justice lens. I pursued higher education because I was happy there; I did well in school; I got scholarships. That was important because I came from a family with twelve children and we were not wealthy. My family is of German, Irish, English, Dutch, and Scottish descent. However, we were raised with little awareness of our cultural heritage. Fortunately, my aunt Mary Ann Derr is constructing the heritage of my family, so we can see more clearly were we came from. My values were influenced by my family and my religion. I was raised to believe that I should love everyone and help those in need. No restrictions were put on the directive to love everyone, so I interpreted that to mean everyone. My early research focused on women in the workforce, teacher expectations, inner-city kids, isolated rural folks, Peace Corps workers, 407

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people in prison, and people with disabilities. While I had gravitated toward doing research about people from marginalized communities, the piece that was missing was a connection with the communities that the research was about. That gap unsettled me in a powerful way and led me to accept a position at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the world’s only university with a mission to serve the Deaf community. I had never met a Deaf person before walking on the Gallaudet campus, but I thought of it as an experiment to see if I could respectfully enter a marginalized community and build the kinds of relationships necessary to do research with them, rather than about or on them. I had some challenging days learning the language and the culture of the American Sign Language (ASL) community. I am now competent in ASL (although not a native signer) and am comfortable in the Deaf community. The greater challenge that I had not anticipated, but that led to the greatest rewards, was the need for me to reframe research methodology so that it related to the experiences of my Deaf students. Many of the contributors to this volume note that they did not see themselves in the academy when they were taught Western content by Western methods. I encountered a parallel challenge in presenting research in a way that was seen as culturally relevant to the Deaf community. I looked for literature that included the ideas of discrimination and oppression because that was a salient part of most of my students’ lives. The literature available at the time came from feminist scholars (e.g., S. Reinharz, Feminist Methods in Social Research, Oxford University Press, 1992). I tentatively introduced the idea of research as a tool with potential power for either positive social change or sustaining an oppressive status quo, recognizing that feminists had written with reference to the dynamics of gender relations. My Deaf students got the idea immediately; they said, “Just take out the word gender, and put in the word Deaf, and it fits.” This was all the encouragement I needed. I began serious development of a framework for conducting research called the emancipatory paradigm and later changed the name to the transformative paradigm (Mertens, Transformative Research and Evaluation, Guilford Press, 2009; Mertens, Research and Evaluation in Education and Psychology: Integrating Diversity with Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods, Sage, 2010). The idea is to begin research with the philosophical stance that research should serve human rights and social justice, and, to do that, researchers had to be aware and respectful of cultural diversity, inequitable power relations, and the need to give back to communities in the form of supporting positive changes. This ethical stance leads to the need to uncover different versions of reality that exist, interrogate the positionality those realities came from, and investigate the consequences of accepting one version of reality over

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another. Researchers need to build relationships of trust, follow cultural protocols, and share power in constructive ways. Methodological choices should be made based on the ethical premise of human rights and social justice (i.e., methods should be chosen to reflect the diversity with the community so that accurate representations of their experiences can be constructed and produced in such a way as to facilitate social change). I developed the transformative paradigm of research to provide an umbrella for those dimensions of diversity that have been used to exclude various members of society from having a voice in their destinies. I did not want to focus only on gender or only on deafness; I wanted to try to reach a deeper understanding of the dynamics of discrimination and oppression in all of its diversity and how research could play a role in challenging those conditions. As I wrote about and presented this paradigm, I was invited by people with the same social justice and human rights goals to share my knowledge with them and support them as they figured out how research could play such a role in their communities. Because of my relations with people across the globe, I can see that the transformative paradigm shares much with the Indigenous paradigm discussed in this book. I know that my understandings of how to address social justice and human rights through research are enriched by my connections with Indigenous people; I thank them for sharing. I thank my sons, Nathan and Jeffrey, for loving me unconditionally and supporting me in the work I have chosen to dedicate myself to. I also thank my coeditors for walking this challenging pathway to the completion of this book; it has been a wonderful journey. Together we are stronger. Fiona Cram The honor of reading about the journeys of fellow Indigenous researchers and evaluators has sparked many things for me. At times, I have found myself connecting with experiences that I recognize as ones that I have also had. At other times, I have been astounded by descriptions of contemporary experiences of blatant racism that I may not have personally experienced but that I recognize as not uncommon for Indigenous peoples. My own experience was of growing up in a big family in a small city in Aotearoa New Zealand. Our circumstances meant that, although we were not well off, I was showered with love and attention from four older siblings and hard-working parents. I played and squabbled with two younger sisters as the older ones made our rite of passage into teenage years easier by testing the rules and boundaries that our parents put in place. As a result, my mother and father were more flexible in their parenting style when we younger ones emerged from childhood. When I was ten, I went to work for my father on Saturday mornings in our garden shop. This time forged my relationship with my father and left

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me with the initiative that comes from being in a work environment where you have to figure out what needs to be done because other people are busy with their own tasks. It also taught me about working for precious pocket money and saving for deeply desired things that were only available through my own hard work and willpower. Growing up we always knew about our heritage—that Dad had “Ma-ori blood” and Mum was of Danish and English stock. When I was seven, we got an old bus that my father fitted out with a kitchen, seats, and bedding arrangements for the whole family. We then traveled on weekends, going south to first visit Dad’s family and then continuing on to spend time with Mum’s. My parents’ investment in this journeying connected us to our wide network of relations, as both Mum and Dad came from very large families. I enjoyed school, although as a teenager I was hesitant about joining Ma-ori activities. The informal activities often seemed to involve smoking cigarettes, and I knew that serious fatherly repercussions would follow if I went in that direction. The more formal activities seemed incompatible with academic pursuits. As a teenager, I made decisions that kept me at school, while the number of Ma-ori students in my grade dwindled with each passing year. I finished high school and went to the university. While I was certain about doing this, it was a strange thing in my family: My older siblings had either gone to work or to teacher training college. I studied psychology, which did not equip me with the skills to explain to my mother and father exactly what I was doing at the university then or later on when I worked as an academic, researcher, and evaluator. At the university, my mentor Dr. Sik Hung Ng instilled in me a curiosity about research methods and ensured that I successfully complete my Ph.D. I then accepted a lectureship at the University of Auckland and began a journey about supporting change within the Department of Psychology so that it was more welcoming and supportive of Ma-ori students. This included looking at my own teaching and asking myself how it could be more focused on local issues related to Ma-ori–non-Ma-ori relations and structural inequalities. I left the Department of Psychology in the mid-1990s, as I was awarded an EruPomare Ma-ori Health Research Fellowship and took the opportunity it provided to move to the Department of Education at the university. There I was able to work alongside colleagues in Ma-ori education, including my boss Linda Smith. At this time, I also strengthened connections with colleagues at the EruPomare Ma-ori Health Research Centre, including Papaarangi Reid, Bridget Robson, and my dear, departed relation Vera Keefe-Ormsby. In the past ten years, since leaving the university, I have built up my own company, Katoa Ltd., undertaking Kaupapa Ma-ori (by Ma-ori, for

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Ma-ori) research, evaluation, and training. My love of methods remains and, at the end of 2010, one of our projects culminated in a special issue of the MAI Review journal on methods to undertake research with Ma-ori collectives. My work brings me into contact with Ma-ori academics, public servants, community leaders, service providers, and wha- nau (families) who are committed to social justice and the transformation of Aotearoa New Zealand into a place that re-centers and values being Ma-ori. This is the kaupapato that I want to add my contribution to by using the tools and skills that I have acquired through my training. When I meet people who are impatient with the pace of change in this country, I tell them the story of how just over twenty years ago, Graham and Linda Smith started working at the Department of Education, University of Auckland, and began to talk about Kaupapa Ma-ori. Now this term is widespread and the number of Ma-ori researchers can no longer be tallied on two hands; now we are many. We have a growing research capacity and more opportunities for dialogue and debate about the place of research and evaluation in our world and our agenda. What more could someone ask for but sparkly, intelligent colleagues who are exploring the nature of knowledge and how we understand our world, as Ma-ori. Of course, we could ask for social change, but given our revitalization and energy, that can only be a matter of time. Bagele Chilisa I came to participate in this volume as an African scholar, curious to track, observe, and take note of the footprints of Indigenous scholars of African ancestry and from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Latin America, the United States, and Asia as they increasingly take the responsibility of conducting research in their communities. I am curious to know how they conduct their research and what academic institutions teach about how to conduct research with Indigenous peoples. I was born in Botswana, a former British colony situated in southern Africa. My journey as a researcher started during my undergraduate degree at the University of Botswana. Part of the requirement for a Bachelor of Arts degree was to write a history research project. I conducted my project, titled “The Economic History of Kgatleng: From Self-Sufficiency to Dependency,” using oral traditions as a data collection method. Imperialism and colonialism were common topics of debate in our lessons. My professors, African and Western, taught me about the European scramble for Africa and how in 1884, European powers—namely, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain—met at the Berlin Conference and divided Africa among themselves. I learned that European explorers, settlers and missionaries, travelers, and even hunters were notorious for claiming discovery of African lands, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, valleys, and

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mountains, renaming them after themselves or their rulers. The professors were quick to point out that the renaming was the most violent way of dismissing and silencing the peoples’ ways of knowing and disconnecting them from what they knew and how they knew it. My research journey continued when I pursued my doctoral degree at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States. Here, I met other dynamic professors who consistently engaged in the debate then dubbed “the research paradigm wars.” From listening to and engaging in these debates, I learned that research methodologies can and should be questioned. After completing my doctoral degree at the University of Pittsburgh, I returned to Botswana to conduct research and teach at the University of Botswana. I questioned the Euro-Western research paradigms and critiqued them for their tendency to exclude other knowledge systems. These exclusionary tendencies became obvious when I conducted research on HIV/AIDS. It became apparent to me that intervention research legitimized by Western research frameworks and categories of analysis alienated the people from the struggle to prevent the spread of the virus (Chilisa, “Educational Research within Postcolonial Africa: A Critique of HIV/AIDS Research in Botswana,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies, 2005). The research, together with other research that I conducted in southern Africa, clarified the need to bring the cultures of Africans into the conceptualization and conduct of research. I coauthored a book on that subject (Chilisea and J. Preece, Research Methods for Adult Educators in Africa, Pearson, 2005), which critiques Euro-Western paradigms by using African counter-arguments, context, and examples. I continued to think about issues of social justice in research and was lucky to meet Donna Mertens, whose work on the transformative paradigm further inspired me to pursue my writing on conducting research with Indigenous peoples. Donna Mertens worked hard to help me find a publisher for my new book Indigenous Research Methodologies (Sage, 2012). In the book, I join other Indigenous scholars to present a postcolonial Indigenous research paradigm that is informed by assumptions about a relational ontology, epistemology, and axiology that should find a place on the map of research paradigms. Both Indigenous and Western scholars have made positive comments about the book and its relevancy in academic institutions. Like me, contributors in this volume have learned from both Western and Indigenous scholars. One of the lessons to be drawn from the contributions in this volume is the importance of partnerships and integration of knowledge systems as well as the partnerships and collaborations between Western and non-Western researchers.

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The book did not fully satisfy my curiosity to learn and hear from Indigenous scholars from across the globe. Along with writing the book, I agreed with colleagues from Botswana, the majority of whom were educated in the United States like me, to edit a volume on the challenges of doing research using Euro-Western–based methodologies. I asked Donna Mertens to coedit that with me and to help find a publisher and make the dream a reality. We continued to network and brought Fiona Cram, whose work had also inspired my book Indigenous Research Methodologies, into the project. This edited volume partially fulfills my yearning to listen and hear voices from Indigenous scholars from across the globe on their research journeys. Today, the three of us (Bagele, Donna, and Fiona) continue to work on organizing a session on Postcolonial Indigenous Research Methodologies for the RCC International Conference on Social Science Methodology. This, in a way, is our attempt to promote the valuing and internationalizing of postcolonial Indigenous epistemologies, methodologies, and methods. My story would be incomplete without the mention of my parents. My parents had a big influence on who I am today. They worked hard as subsistence farmers to pay my school fees. They valued education; at an early age, my father taught me to count and recite the alphabet. More than that, he taught me about the decolonization of the mind, although he did not call it that. The lesson was to be happy with who you are and not try to change yourself. When people in the school system demanded that I change my African name to a Christian name, my father opposed the change. He explained that the basis of naming is done in terms of relationships between parents and children and others in their community. A name change would result in changing in relationships; this he could not authorize. This lesson continues to provide me with the courage to further explore Indigenous practices about connectedness and relational ways of knowing.