Collaborative Indigenous Research (CIR) Digital Garden & Interview Study

PI Eve Tuck

Years active

2017-2022 

Abstract

Collaborative Indigenous Research (CIR) brings together two methodological streams: Indigenous methodologies and participatory methodologies. The two projects included in this work are the creations of the Collaborative Indigenous Research (CIR) Digital Garden as well as an interview study with Indigenous researchers and collaborators. The interviews will seek to identify ways that scholars and collaborators understand collaboration as part of their Indigenous research methodologies. The CIR Digital Garden will include exemplars of participatory Indigenous research. Researchers will also be able to contribute their own projects to be included in the virtual archive. The main research questions of these projects include: What is the history, and future trajectory, of Collaborative Indigenous Research? What sets participatory Indigenous research apart from other Indigenous research methodologies? And what are exemplars of Collaborative Indigenous Research that can be used to promote and expand the field? 

Methods

Literature review

Interviews

Ethical Framework

The Collaborative Indigenous Research projects are accountable to and guided by an international advisory board. The virtual archive being developed aims to be representative of the interdisciplinary and international scope of Indigenous participatory research and seeks to include research in multiple languages. Paying attention to the relational and participatory aspects of Indigenous research, the interview study will include academic researchers as well as non-academic research collaborators.

Theories of Change

The CIR Digital Garden and Interviews Study seek to promote and expand the field of Collaborative Indigenous Research. The projects aim to generate insights about the methods, ethics, theories of change, and forms of knowledge mobilization present in Collaborative Indigenous Research methodologies. Recognizing the deeply relational approaches to Indigenous research, these projects seek also to better understand ways that researchers and collaborators work together and to distinguish what sets participatory Indigenous research apart from other Indigenous research methodologies. The turn towards collaborative and participatory research methodologies uplifted through these projects rejects exploitative, extractive and damage-centered research that is all too pervasive in research that interacts with Indigenous communities. 

Kinds of Evidence

Profiles in the Collaborative Indigenous Research Digital Garden; Interview transcripts

Knowledge Mobilization 

The Collaborative Indigenous Research Digital Garden will be a virtual community archive where novice and experienced researchers alike will be able to access and learn from exemplars of participatory Indigenous research. The aim of the Digital Garden is to promote and expand the field of Collaborative Indigenous Research. The exemplars could help scholars situate their work within this field. Researchers will also be able to contribute their own projects for inclusion in the archive, growing it over time.

Keywords

Indigenous research; participatory research; Community archive; qualitative interviews; Collaborative research, participatory research, 

Disciplines

Indigenous research, qualitative research, 

Project funded by

Canada Research Chairs Program: Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Methodologies with Youth and Communities