4 The Elements of an Indigenous Research Paradigm#

Collection note: This is a navigation copy assembled from an existing local Markdown extract; it does not claim to be a complete or authoritative edition.
Coverage: Available local extract: printed pages 62–69. The local source ends during this chapter, so this file is incomplete.
Provenance: RCH-Wilson-ElementsOfResearchParadigm-001-260111213125-ab2ff9a0-fec7-451e-9fc4-3e6752370ad8.SOURCE.md

By now you should have build a fairly solid relationship both with me (through the writings to Julius, Max and Falco) and with the socio-research timeline that has led Indigenous research to the place where it is today. It was my intention in the preceding chapters to develop the context from which to view what comes next. With these relationships in place, it is possible to go on to directly discuss an Indigenous research paradigm.

It is no longer necessary for me to continue writing directly to my children. That tool allowed you to develop a good understanding of me and my place in the research. I face a problem if I discontinue that style, though, in that I wish to retain much of the personal information, stories and insights that are reflected in the letters to my sons. So I shall retain that style for now, but address you directly so that I can continue to share these more personal bits of writing.

On a Journey with My Friends#

I have been writing about the importance of relationships and how they are the key to an Indigenous research paradigm, but what I have failed to do is to build a stronger connection between you, the reader, and the other people who have been involved in my research process. I need to apologize for this lack of introductions. If I were following the proper Indigenous protocols, I would have done this already. I guess that in switching back and forth between worlds (Indigenous and dominant) I sometimes forget where I am.

I need a way to deepen your understanding of this web of relationships that we as co-researchers share; I need to help you to come into this web yourself. It is impossible for me to just take you around and introduce you in person to all of the others. This would probably be the best way to accomplish

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what I want to do, and is what I will do with my children as they grow older, but I don’t think it will work for the others who are reading this. I can’t really expect everyone who reads this book to travel around the world to meet with everyone. (Though if you’re willing to pay for the trip, let me know. It could be lots of fun...)

So, how will I go about building this set of relationships? The only things that I can think of that I have to work with at the moment are the relationship I have with my children, and have shared with you, and my relationships with the others. Perhaps if I share how I developed my relationships with the other researchers, you can use your understanding of me to help you to make the connection. So even though you may not meet the others directly, I will try to act as intermediary so that you can see them through my eyes (and through our relationships). They are obviously more than mere research participants; they are my friends and co-researchers.

As I write about later in this chapter, the ethics involved in an Indigenous research paradigm sometimes differ from the dominant academic way of doing things. I would like to use the real names of everyone I worked with on this research, so that you will know exactly whom I am writing about. This goes against the rules of most university ethical research policies. However, how can I be held accountable to the relationships I have with these people if I don’t name them? How can they be held accountable to their own teachers if their words and relationships are deprived of names? What I will do is write using the real names of everyone who has given me explicit permission to do so. I will use pseudonyms for anyone who I couldn’t get in touch with to talk about it or who had any misgivings about the use of their name.

Let’s see, how do I do this? Maybe I’ll tell you little stories that can serve as metaphors of how I see and know each person.

Jane#

Jane Martin is Ojibwa and, though she now lives in Edmonton, her home community is in Ontario. As with the other students in the First Nations Education program at the University of Alberta, I met Jane through Mom and Dad when they directed the program. An integral part of what they accomplished had to do with bringing the students together to work as a cohort group. Jane, along with Peter and several of the other students and their families, came to stay at our family home at Opaskwayak one summer for a retreat. They were all there to get to know one another and to build the relationships that would help them to help each other through the years to come. Helen (my wife) and I were working with a group of youth mentors at the time and volunteered to run Jane and the others through an obstacle course that we had built. In order to be successful, everyone had to work together and be able to see creative solutions to the obstacles we put in their way.

It was great fun. We had a terrific afternoon, and I remember everyone laughing and enjoying each other’s company. We came away with a wonderful

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spirit of camaraderie. We eagerly faced (and overcame) each obstacle in the course that afternoon with real gusto. Whether it was being guided blindfolded and barefoot through a minefield of mousetraps or retrieving the anti-venom from a swamp filled with mutant alligators, as long as we were all together, it felt like there was no obstacle we couldn’t take on.

So that is kind of how I see Jane. I know that she will be there as part of the team whenever there is an obstacle in our way. And I know that we will have fun, that there will be plenty of laughter, but that we will do whatever needs to be done so that the whole team can benefit.

Peter#

Peter Hanohano is a Native Hawaiian. As such, he is not really an Indigenous Australian or Canadian but is an Indigenous person who was living in Canada. I still view him as Indigenous, just as I view myself as Indigenous when I am in Australia. Peter and his family were also there and part of the team at the retreat at Opaskwayak. Peter also came to stay at the cabin at the lake while he was finishing off writing his dissertation. Julius went for rides with Moosoom and him in the canoe while he worked out his ideas. I think I’ll talk about his whole family though, because they are such a close and loving group that it seems a shame to separate Peter from the rest of them. They are able to truly demonstrate through their lives the essence of relationality—honouring and treating with respect those we are in relationship with.

I remember Helen, Julius and I arriving in Hawaii around 11 o’clock one night, half-way home on a trip from Australia to Canada, and being picked up at the airport by Peter and Lynn. We got back to their house bleary-eyed and jetlagged, and all fell into comas. After breakfast one of their daughters and a cousin guided us around on a sightseeing tour of the north shore. Julius was such a tiny little guy then that his swimsuit fell off every time a wave hit when we took him in swimming. When we got back to their home, everyone was there to greet us and share dinner. We stayed up and gabbed till everyone was ready for bed. In addition to Peter, Lynn, the five children and grandma, a couple of extra cousins were crashed out around the place. The girls had given up their room for us, so all the kids were camping out in the living room. I said to Helen that it was just like being back on the reserve, with the whole extended family over at Chapan’s house.

Even with everyone in the house, there was a constant supply of food on the table for whoever was hungry. I’ve never seen that many kids get along so well together, and to just hang out and have fun without the usual family bickering and squabbles. I don’t think it’s that they were on their best behaviour because we were there either. They are just such a loving and caring family that their way of looking out for each other is a constant part of their lives. Anyway, that’s how I see Peter, as a part of this great family who are ready to take in a few strays at any time.

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Cora#

It’s a bit harder for me to describe the relationship that I share with Cora Webber-Pillwax. Of the students in the First Nations Education program who helped with this research, I probably know the least about her personal life. This isn’t because she is secretive, but I think it says more about her humility. She just doesn’t talk about herself much. She is a powerful and deep thinker, but perhaps more importantly she lives her beliefs and carries her philosophy into her everyday life.

Cora maintains very strong connections to her home community in Calling Lake and would do anything at anytime if the community needed it. She shares this commitment also to the Metis community in general throughout Alberta. I think that for her, relational accountability extends first to her home community, and that this accountability mediates her relations with academia and other Indigenous scholars. So even though I know this about Cora, it is hard to think of a story to describe her to you. I present later in the chapter one of the stories she shared with us at a research seminar and I analyze the life out of it there. Maybe that’s all I need to share about Cora, and you can read the story of her reaction to the anthropologist’s description of her grandfather to get a clearer picture of her.

Lewis#

Again I am having a hard time thinking of a story that can sum up what I know about Lewis Cardinal. This idea of using a story or single event as a metaphor for each of the co-researchers does not seem like such a great plan as I progress. I know and have worked with Lewis’s father Don as an Elder in the counselling program at Brandon University. Knowing his father I think gives me a greater understanding of Lewis. The Cardinals are great orators, and the family is known throughout Canada for their political activism. They are Cree from Sucker Lake in Alberta.

Let’s see... Lewis came into his job as director of Native Student Services at the University of Alberta in 2000. The previous director had been heavily criticized for his autocratic management style, and the office was really dysfunctional by the time he left. When Lewis took over, he made a commitment to himself and to everyone working in the office to implement a “circular” management style.

He began by starting the practice of holding regular talking circles with everyone. All of the people who worked there—secretaries, student advisors, counsellors, receptionists and administrators—were given equal say in how the office was run. In addition to the practical or physical running of the office, the talking circles allowed staff the opportunity to work through some of the issues that had been festering among them. It wasn’t long before you could feel the difference in the atmosphere upon walking into Native Student Services. It became a much healthier environment. Staff members are also encouraged to work on their own holistic health through workshops on nutrition and scheduled exercise sessions.

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Lewis is able to make connections to the big picture and the political aspects of all that we do, including our research. That he was able to implement an Indigenous epistemology into the running of an office on a university campus speaks to his commitment to working from an Indigenous worldview. He excels in being able to explain this worldview to non-Indigenous people in such a way that they are able to understand its importance.

Karen#

In order to tell you about Karen Martin, I’m going to relate something that stands out in my mind from the Indigenous scholars conference. Aha, now I can return to the story as metaphor style! Karen, who is a Noonuccle woman from the Quandamooka people of southeast Queensland, is an Indigenous scholar from Australia. She presented her ideas on how Indigenous research has progressed and her thoughts on how it should reflect Indigenous ways of doing, being and knowing. As a way of starting her presentation, she first showed us where she was from on a map (one she said that she ripped out of a magazine on her flight over to Canada). The map was the “western” way for her to explain where she was from and to give us a way of orienting her spatially.

The next thing she did was to show us a painting she had done of her homeland. This was her Indigenous way of showing us where she was from. The painting was of the same physical location as the map, but the similarities ended there. What the painting showed us was the relationships she held with the land and the relationships she had observed others sharing with the land. It was what I would call an Aboriginal “dot” painting. But I now realized what these dots were. Sure they are an interesting visual form, but as important from this new perspective was the fact that the dots and lines on the painting represented relationships between things. Physical forms could be made out, and I suppose seeing the western style of map that I am trained to recognize helped me to make the connection there. I was also able to understand a lot more about Karen from seeing how she viewed her relations with the land. The painting allowed me to see into her way of thinking about the land. It allowed me to form a much closer or more deeply rooted understanding of her. She had shown me a way to build relationship with her in a way that I might not have done otherwise.

What she had also done was to demonstrate to me how research—which is all about building closer relationships with things/ideas—could be done from an Indigenous research paradigm. She was acknowledging, and thus being respectful of, the relationships that she shared with the land. Karen also shared her knowledge of these relationships with us in a way that allowed us deeper insight, which was her way of giving back some of what she has gained through her relations. That she took the time to share with us in the way that she did was also the responsible way of doing this. She took on the responsibility of sharing the relationship with us in several ways, so that we could understand it better.

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Gregory#

It was a typical spring day in Brisbane. The sky was clear and it was nice and warm without being too hot. As we gathered on the lawn in front of the medical sciences building, there was a feeling of tranquility that was almost but not quite disturbed by the sounds of traffic from the nearby street. We had started gathering well ahead of the appointed time, and Gregory Phillips was everywhere—making introductions, chatting with friends, helping the “Aunties” set the food. People wandered in and chose places to sit, under the trees in the shade or leaning against a log and basking in the sun. The Aunties had brought damper and muffins and had set a fire for billy tea and coffee. Gregory made sure that everyone had something to eat and drink.

As the afternoon progressed, we formed ourselves into a circle. This gathering was taking place so that Gregory could present his research findings. Representatives from several Aboriginal communities came to the presentation in order to show their support of his work. The Elder who was traditional guardian of the land we were on started the formal part of the presentation with a prayer welcoming us onto her land. We then went around the circle for introductions: there were university and thesis committee people, other students and members of both the local Indigenous community and other communities from around the state. After Gregory talked about what he had done, the community members thanked him formally for his work.

Gregory, who is an Indigenous man from Mount Isa, did a wonderful job of bringing everyone together that day. Everyone had an opportunity to share, to ask questions and to feel included in the process of presenting his research. I felt honoured to have shared in this process and to have witnessed Gregory following the protocol so that his work could be given in a respectful way back to the community.

Wombat (obviously a pseudonym)#

Here is a story I can relate to you about Wombat. Jean Graveline, Wombat and I held a teleconference one day, talking about the programs we work in at our universities. As we all work as counsellors and healers, the discussion turned to the intergenerational impact of trauma, including all of the negative shit that accumulates in our communities as a result of centuries of colonization. As she talked, Wombat’s voice became harsher, and she started to cough more and more. I realized that I had not properly set the stage for discussing the topics that were brought up. I quickly lit a smudge and cleared out the energy of the room with its smoke. As Wombat smudged, her voice slowly returned to normal, and she was able to go on with the conversation. Her issues are her own story to share, but the point is that by not properly preparing the environment, further discussion of these negative issues became more and more difficult.

This little story for me exemplifies how I see Wombat. She is a very sensitive person, who is deeply committed to the Indigenous communities where she works. That she would put herself at risk in order to bring these topics out into

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the open is indicative of her character. She identifies herself as having come from “the three I’s: Indigenous, invader and immigrant.” Her Indigenous ancestry comes from the Bundjalung people of northeast New South Wales. The second self-identified I comes from the convicts and initial wave of settlers, of mixed English and Celtic descent, who invaded Australia. Finally, she is also of immigrant German ancestry. She has shared with me how much of a struggle it has been for her to come to terms with / among these various aspects of her identity. I have learned a lot from her about the need to listen with deep respect in order to build strong relationships.

She says that her family named her Wombat. Wombats are known for their determination; when faced with an obstacle, they just put their heads down and keep on pushing until they get through. And though Wombat certainly shows this determination and deep sense of commitment in her work, she is also a whirlwind of energy when she gets going. Her energy is enough to carry along those of us who sometimes become complacent or have lost the energy to fight. I guess that I would nickname her a “Cyclone Wombat.”

Stan#

It gets a bit trickier telling you about Stan. He is my father, an educator, a researcher and my friend. The reason that I am including him in this section is that he acted like the consulting Elder on this project. So not only has he read what I have written and discussed the research project with me, it is to him that I feel most accountable. As my father, he has obviously been the most influential person in teaching me about being Indigenous. I feel nourished by his guidance and also feel a sense of obligation to get things right. After all, I am a reflection of his teachings and want this reflection to be as true as possible. I have already told you a lot about Stan earlier in the book.

There are a lot of other people who have helped me and who I have learned from in this process, including Trish Fox and John Williams-Mozley, who were at the school of human services at QUT during my time there and helped me to get through the hoops that the system set in my way; Victor Hart and Penny Tripcony at the Oodgeroo unit of QUT, who gave me a lot of new ideas to think about and helped to firm up my ideas for my research; the rest of the First Nations education students at the University of Alberta, who have always been so open and welcoming to me whenever we talk; Jean, Brenda and Dawn in the First Nations and Aboriginal Counselling degree program at Brandon University, who put up with me and showed me a lot of this stuff about relationality in action through the way that we work together; the faculty at the College of Indigenous Australian Peoples at Southern Cross University, who have let me into their community of friends; and of course the rest of my family who have shared with me real insight in my “participant observation.”

Now that you know some of my co-researchers, perhaps the words and ideas that they have shared with me will take on fuller meaning.

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Introducing an Indigenous Research Paradigm#

As I get down to the heart of what an Indigenous research paradigm is all about, once again I am filled with doubt about how to proceed. This is due to the fact that much of this knowledge came to me in an intuitive fashion. In talking about these ideas with the others who were helping me to form them, I often found that just mentioning a word or phrase would trigger the release of a whole load of information and ideas—within both me and the people I was talking with. All of us were research participants, rather than me being the researcher and them my subjects. We all learned and grew as a result of exploring our relationship with this topic. As I review my notes and transcripts, they seem incomplete without the final coming together that was required deep within our beings. I talk about this style of analyzing ideas in the next chapter.

Writing on a personal level, rather than in the abstract to an anonymous reader, has helped in some way to get these ideas out while retaining some of their context, but they still feel hollow or that a great deal of their context is missing. One problem is that the elements of an Indigenous research paradigm are interrelated or interdependent; it is difficult to separate one to write about. Again reviewing my notes, I find that there is no distinction between where one element ends and the next begins.

My friend Peter related to me having the same problem in presenting his thesis. When talking with his Elders, often he would find that they would say things or describe events that would take him to a different place. In his thesis, he was not sure whether to talk about what the Elders were saying or about the place where they took him. If I tell you about what we were talking about when I was doing this research, will you make the same intuitive leaps that I did? I cannot be sure of this. On the other hand, if I just tell you where I ended up with my ideas, will you be confused about how I got there? There is no real way for me to tell whether you are ready to receive this information.

Something that has become apparent to me is that for Indigenous people, research is a ceremony. In our cultures an integral part of any ceremony is setting the stage properly. When ceremonies take place, everyone who is participating needs to be ready to step beyond the everyday and to accept a raised state of consciousness. You could say that the specific rituals that make up the ceremony are designed to get the participants into a state of mind that will allow for the extraordinary to take place. As one Elder explained it to me: if it is possible to get every single person in a room thinking about the exact same thing for only two seconds, then a miracle will happen. It is fitting that we view research in the same way—as a means of raising our consciousness. But how can I reflect this ceremony in my writing? How can I get you to the same space that allowed me to understand these concepts, and how can I know when you are there? In short, how can I know when or if we are both thinking about the same thing at the same point in this process?

One thing that bothers me is when ceremonies and symbols become dogmatic. One symbol in our culture that has amassed a great deal of this dogma is