Settling/researching: Vicki Chartrand, ‘Settler Research in Indigenous Country’, Qualitative Inquiry, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Settling/researching: Vicki Chartrand, ‘Settler Research in Indigenous Country’, Qualitative Inquiry, 2025

09Nov25

Abstract: Settler research in Indigenous country continues to emerge as problematic scholarship, often complicit in an invasive and extractive knowledge production. Drawing on the Unearthing Justices project—a collaborative research initiative that shares and showcases Indigenous-led initiatives for the MMIWG2S communities—this article examines the ontological and methodological possibilities for settler research. Foregrounding a practice of witnessing that is relational, embodied, and land-based, the article proposes this approach as a generative intervention into conventional settler research. While acknowledging the inherent tensions and incommensurability of settler presence, this article argues that settler research cannot stand outside colonial systems; instead, it must be reshaped through accountable collaborations that advance Indigenous intellectual sovereignty and community-defined justice. Rather than offer a prescriptive methodology, it invites researchers to stay with the complexities, contradictions, and responsibilities of research in Indigenous country.

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