Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

A second edition of Professor Linda Smith’s impressively well-received methodology text has now been published. Some 13 years before (in 1999), her first edition developed the concept of indigenous methodologies, setting research on/with indigenous peoples in the context of the complex skeins of colonization. Linda’s approach is that of many ‘standpoint theorists’ in which a particular (underprivileged) social category is ‘privileged’ epistemologically and morally, following the lead of feminist research/ methodology and common to the preferred methodological stance of many other underprivileged groupings. The world is seen from their perspective and mobilization to protect and develop the group’s interests by researchers is called for. The text is set within a broad-ranging analysis of the processes of colonization in its various and changing manifestations over time, beginning with the hegemonically imposed power of Western categorizations (e.g. conceptualizations of time/space) which underpin its knowledge generation (and other) processes. The book’s focus progressively and gradually zooms in on more fleshed-out features of indigenous research, such as providing a ‘menu’ of potential methodological possibilities, discussion of indigenous social research infrastructure for example, iwi (=tribal) research units which are concerned to develop ‘claims’ for compensation for foregone resources/property) and discussion of culturally appropriate research tactics). This latter includes ethical frameworks to guide indigenous and non-indigenous researchers. Articulating the link between these two halves of the book a broad indigenous conceptual framework is laid out and briefly discussed on p. 121. Outside research on indigenous peoples is seen as one of the more pernicious and persistent features of colonization as yet another way in which colonization’s (in its political, economic and cultural aspects) mendacity, murderousness and pulverizing effects smash the integrity and cohesion of the lived realities of many indigenous peoples. Perhaps on the face of it the intrusion of researchers seems less devastating, yet the attention of Western (social) science has the potential to destroy the collectively held cultural essence of indigenous peoples. Non-indigenous research may steal the Intellectual Property of indigenous tribes, consume efforts through distracting from other activities and is often framed in an alienating way: for example, when ethnographic monographs are published in metropolitan centres with the extracted knowledge encapsulated in such tomes not being available to those who have provided it. So Smith is concerned to lay out the conditions under which research might work for, and even better be carried out with/by indigenous peoples. Maori-developed articulations of knowledge generation and diffusion are used as a case study throughout the book. To provide some sense of what these involve the following are six principles of Kaupapa Māori Theory: