Emma Battell Lowman and Adam Barker, ‘Indigenizing Approaches to Research’, from The Sociological Imagination (Oct 2010).

What does it mean to see the world through Indigenous eyes, to come to understand the ontological worldview that Indigenous peoples assert as an essential component of their existences? These questions have more than just theoretical relevance; for Settler peoples, understanding Indigenous ways of knowing is necessary for understanding the nature and causes of Indigenous-Settler conflicts.  Eminent Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. asserted from the 1960s through to his passing in 2005 that colonial conflicts are rooted in deep philosophical and ideological disjunctures between colonizing Settler peoples and Indigenous resisters (see for example: (Deloria, 2006, 2003, 1997, 1988). Maori scholar Makere Stewart Harawira (2005) has linked divergent ontological and epistemological production of knowledge to the creation of very real social and political conflicts between Indigenous and Settler peoples.

Global networks of power have and do support colonialism, and interconnected networks of state and capital have and continue to concentrate the profits of colonization into the hands of imperial elites while improverishing and oppressing others. This situation is untenable, unjust and must change. As Settler academics the relevance of Indigenous ways of knowing and being has extended beyond the academic or the material; it has become a deeply personal project, necessary to critical engagement with our histories, our biases and unquestioned assumptions, and our privileges and responsibilities, both individually and as members of larger Settler society. We call on researchers in all disciplines to engage with Indigenous ways of knowing and doing in order to improve research practices, and to rebalance Indigenous-Settler relations worldwide.