Reclaiming Indigenous Research In Higher Education

Indigenous students remain one of the least represented populations in higher education. They continue to account for only one percent of the total post-secondary student population, and this lack of representation is felt in multiple ways beyond enrollment. Less research money is spent studying Indigenous students, and their interests are often left out of projects that otherwise purport to address diversity in higher education. Recently, Native scholars have started to reclaim research through the development of their own research methodologies and paradigms that are based in tribal knowledge systems and values, and that allow inherent Indigenous knowledge and lived experiences to strengthen the research. Reclaiming Indigenous Research in Higher Education highlights the current scholarship emerging from these scholars of higher education. From understanding how Native American students make their way through school, to tracking tribal college and university transfer students, this book allows Native scholars to take center stage, and shines the light squarely on those least represented among us.

The essays in Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision spring from an International Summer Institute held in 1996 on the cultural restoration of oppressed Indigenous peoples. The contributors, primarily Indigenous, unravel the processes of colonization that enfolded modern society and resulted in the oppression of Indigenous peoples.

This edited volume is the result of a collaborative project of Indigenous graduate education training and higher education-tribal institution partnerships in the southwestern United States. We feature the work of interdisciplinary scholars writing about local peoples, issues, and knowledges that demonstrate rich linkages between universities and Indigenous communities. Collectively, as Indigenous peoples writing, this work takes the opportunity to explore why and how Indigenous peoples are working to reframe dominant limits of our power and to shift educational efforts from the colonial back to an Indigenous center. These efforts reflect a conscientious practice to maintain Indigenous worldviews through diverse yet unified approaches aimed at serving Indigenous peoples and places. “The luminous Indigenous scholarship contained here comes to us as a rare gift. The voices of Pueblo intellectuals speak to the profoundly innovative Indigenous doctoral cohort model they co-developed with Liz Sumida Huaman and Bryan Brayboy of Arizona State University. They also instruct us in the richness of their contemporary, community-based research, rooted in the ‘creative genius of our ancestors,’ as Karuk scholar Julian Lang evocatively described Indigenous epistemologies.” – K. Tsianina Lomawaima, Professor & Distinguished Scholar of Indigenous Education, School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University “The editors and writers reveal identity and sense of place as indigenous people from their own native perspectives rooted in both their spirit and in their place in the academy. As indigenous people, we strive for the academy to belong to us without the definitions and framework of colonization. This book contributes to our ownership of the academy as a place where we belong with all the knowledge of our ancestors and the promises of the future embedded in what we learn and what we teach.” – Cheryl Crazy Bull, President & CEO, American Indian College Fund “The depth and breadth of knowledge of the editors in Indigenous education and their ability to apply the knowledge to produce practical outcomes and benefits to our Indigenous communities on the ground comes through in this book. It transforms ideas into action and demonstrates the ‘blisters on the authors’ hands’ based experiences that delineate Indigenous Leaders from Indigenous Academics in my view. Indigenous Leaders enact their research into real outcomes for the people on the ground and don’t just write about the issues challenging our peoples.” – Bentham Atirau Ohia, President AMO-Advancement of Maori Opportunity & and AIO-Americans for Indian Opportunity Board member

The Journal is a site where indigenous authors care able to reflect their knowledge creatively. The range of articles covers those arguing for the validity of indigenous knowledge in the academy, to improved educations systems, the importance of local language, etc.

Applying Indigenous Research Methods focuses on the question of "How" Indigenous Research Methodologies (IRMs) can be used and taught across Indigenous studies and education. In this collection, Indigenous scholars address the importance of IRMs in their own scholarship, while focusing conversations on the application with others. Each chapter is co-authored to model methods rooted in the sharing of stories to strengthen relationships, such as yarning, storywork, and others. The chapters offer a wealth of specific examples, as told by researchers about their research methods in conversation with other scholars, teachers, and community members. Applying Indigenous Research Methods is an interdisciplinary showcase of the ways IRMs can enhance scholarship in fields including education, Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, social work, qualitative methodologies, and beyond.

Indigenous Motherhood in the Academy highlights the experiences and narratives emerging from Indigenous mothers in the academy who are negotiating their roles in multiple contexts. The essays in this volume contribute to the broader higher education literature and the literature on Indigenous representation in the academy, filling a longtime gap that has excluded Indigenous women scholar voices. This book covers diverse topics such as the journey to motherhood, lessons through motherhood, acknowledging ancestors and grandparents in one’s mothering, how historical trauma and violence plague the past, and balancing mothering through the healing process. More specific to Indigenous motherhood in the academy is how culture and place impacts mothering (specifically, if Indigenous mothers are not in their traditional homelands as they raise their children), how academia impacts mothering, how mothering impacts scholarship, and how to negotiate loss and other complexities between motherhood and one’s role in the academy.

This book focuses on Indigenous participation in postgraduate education. The collaborating editors, from the contexts of Australian, Canadian and Nordic postgraduate education, have brought together voices of Indigenous postgraduate students and researchers about strategies to support postgraduate education for Indigenous students globally and to promote sustainable solution-focused and change-focused strategies to support Indigenous postgraduate students. The role of higher education institutions in meeting the needs of Indigenous students is considered by contributing scholars, including issues related to postgraduate education pedagogies, flexible learning and technologies. On a more fundamental level the book provides a valuable resource by giving voice to Indigenous postgraduate students themselves who share directly the stories of their experience, their inspirations and difficulties in undertaking postgraduate study. This component of the book gives precedence to the issues most relevant and important to students themselves for consideration by universities and researchers. Bringing the topic and the voices of Indigenous students clearly into the public domain provides a catalyst for discussion of the issues and potential strategies to assist future Indigenous postgraduate students. This book will assist higher education providers to develop understanding of how Indigenous postgraduate students and researchers negotiate research cultures and agendas that permeate higher education from the past to ensure the experience of postgraduate students is both rich in regard to data to be collected and culturally safe in approach; what connections, gaps and contradictions occur at the intersections between past models of postgraduate study and emerging theories around intercultural perspectives, including the impact of cultural and linguistic differences on Indigenous students' learning experiences; how Indigenous students’ and researchers’ personal and professional understandings, beliefs and experiences about what typifies knowledge and research or adds value to postgraduate studies are constructed, shared or challenged; and how higher education institutions manage the potential challenges and risks of developing pedagogies to ensure that they give voice and power to Indigenous postgraduate students.

This open access book provides insights from Indigenous higher degree research (HDR) students on supervision practices in an Australian context. It examines findings from qualitative studies conducted with Indigenous HDR students from different academic disciplines, enrolled higher education institutions across Australia, and supervisors of Indigenous HDR students. Six types of data and their thematic analyses are presented, to understand the needs and experiences of both Indigenous HDR students and supervisors of Indigenous HDR students. This book also unpacks assumptions and commonly held beliefs about Indigenous HDR students, and shares what Indigenous HDRs report they need to experience success in higher education. It reports the experiences of supervisors of Indigenous HDR students, and explore further opportunities which enhance the higher education experiences of Indigenous HDR students. This book also suggests how successful relationships between Indigenous HDR students, and their supervisors may be fostered, and aims to be a useful resource for Indigenous peoples wishing to pursue higher education, and HDR supervisors in countries with Indigenous populations.