Impact and Intention on Indigenous Land: How Research Affects the Researched

This blog post is the literature review from a paper I wrote for my Research Methods course, as part of my master’s degree program. It is bound by the limitations of APA style and all the colonial suppositions and norms contained therein. The goal in writing this paper was to increase awareness on this subject amongst my peers, so I am posting it here to continue that work.

Impact and Intention on Indigenous Land: How Research Affects the Researched

This paper seeks to understand the human impact of mental health research on indigenous communities in the part of the world temporarily known as the United States of America. Previous research on this subject is minimal or incidental to other research questions.

Literature Review

As this subject is not well represented in the literature, this review includes research involving worldwide Indigenous groups, including those traditionally living in the areas temporarily known as Canada, Australia, Polynesia, and the Torres Strait Islands. Due to the paucity of available resources, both psychology-related and broader healthcare-, behavioral health-, and education-related studies were searched for. Themes include historical relationships between academia and Indigenous communities, current interest in Indigenous epistemologies with concurrent colonization, and whether or not research in Indigenous populations translates into improved real-world health or quality of life outcomes. Sources were found through a database search at the CIIS Library and through PubMed.

Availability and Selection

Very little peer-reviewed research has been done on the effects of research on Indigenous populations, and it appears only recently that Indigenous scholars have been permitted into this settler-dominated space to conduct and publish related research, although much has been written and said on the need for it outside of academia over the decades and centuries. What research has been done appears to be quite recent. Papers solely or lead-authored by Indigenous scholars directly impacted by the subject were selected for this review to address the historic imbalance.

Summary and Synthesis

Indigenous peoples globally have long been the subjects of intensive research, yet subsequent data collection does not reflect a corresponding improvement in outcomes or decreases in disparities (Bainbridge et al., 2015). The relevance of research that lacks engagement with Indigenous epistemologies and values is therefore questionable (Harfield et al., 2020). Additionally, the ethics of harvesting research from Indigenous communities, rather than respecting the data sovereignty of Indigenous nations, is rightfully in question (Haozous et al., 2021). Indigenous knowledge, much like Indigenous land, is a form of wealth that colonial institutions often feel entitled to take without reciprocity. As such, some Indigenous communities have created oversight commissions to protect their data sovereignty and ensure ethical treatment of their citizens (Battiste, 2008).

As the majority of research has been done on Indigenous people by colonial institutions, rather than with or by Indigenous people themselves, Indigenous people are often justifiably skeptical of modern academic research (Harfield et al., 2020). Non-Indigenous researchers have long been able to control the narrative of what constitutes research and academic legitimacy, and have historically established a pattern of extractive, culturally-harmful methodologies that become a de facto “colonizing encounter” (Findlay, 2000, as cited in Mataira, 2015). Work by Haozous et al. (2021) on this subject indicates that a combination of community consultation, informed consent, and creation of mutually-agreed-upon data use contracts with Indigenous nations is helpful in establishing respectful research relationships.

To counter these historical (and contemporary) trends, Indigenous-led research and Indigenous-developed tools are vital to translating research into improved outcomes. An example of an Indigenous and non-Indigenous co-developed quantitative tool to determine the quality and usefulness of healthcare research is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Quality Appraisal Tool, or QAT, developed by Harfield et al. (2020). This tool, the first of its kind for Indigenous people, has been found to be valid and reliable for determining research quality from the perspective of those researched. However, it is important to reflect that such a quantitative tool by its very nature is rooted in Western cultural frameworks. That which is measurable is not always the only relevant available data. Worldviews, relationships, and intangible cultural heritage are not easily plotted on a graph. Likewise, an Indigenous concept of health is often broader than the quantifiable Western idea, incorporating well-being related to one’s interconnection with community (Bainbridge et al., 2015).

References

Bainbridge, R., Tsey, K., McCalman, J., Kinchin, I., Saunders, V., Watkin Lui, F., Cadet-James, Y., Miller, A., & Lawson, K. (2015). No one's discussing the elephant in the room: contemplating questions of research impact and benefit in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian health research. BMC public health, 15, 696. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2052-3

Battiste, M. (2008). Research ethics for protecting indigenous knowledge and heritage: Institutional and researcher responsibilities. SAGE Publications, Inc., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483385686

Haozous, E. A., Lee, J., & Soto, C. (2021). Urban American Indian and Alaska Native data sovereignty: ethical issues. American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research (Online), 28(2), 77–97. https://doi.org/10.5820/aian.2802.2021.77

Harfield, S., Pearson, O., Morey, K., Kite, E., Canuto, K., Glover, K., Gomersall, J. S., Carter, D., Davy, C., Aromataris, E., & Braunack-Mayer, A. (2020). Assessing the quality of health research from an Indigenous perspective: the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander quality appraisal tool. BMC medical research methodology, 20(1), 79. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-020-00959-3

Mataira, P. J. (2019). Transforming Indigenous research: collaborative responses to historical research tensions. International review of education : journal of lifelong learning, 65(1), 143–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-019-09766-5