Indigenous Knowledges
Indigenous Knowledges are Traditional Knowledges or knowledge that comes from a community. Indigenous methodologies are increasingly being used in research.
Indigenous Knowledges:
- Are transmitted from generation to generation
- Are expressed in many formats. eg. oral, ceremony, artistic creations, artifacts, etc
- Are not all in the past; there is continued growth, innovation and change in practices
- Include history, law, spirituality, agriculture, environment, science, medicine, animal behaviour and migration patterns, art, music, dance, craft, construction, and more
Indigenous research methods:
- Challenge the notion of neutrality of the researcher
- Aim to animate postcolonial institutions with Indigeneity
- Challenge the assumptions of domination, patriarchy, racism
- Are increasingly accepted in academic institutions
Finding Indigenous Knowledges Resources
Issues in using Indigenous Knowledges resources include:
- Assessing the quality of the information without peer review
- Ethics requirements for obtaining information directly from people
Primary Sources
Many assignments require the use of primary sources, and Indigenous Knowledges resources can often be used. These might be:
- Community-produced materials and information
- Images of traditional clothing, regalia, activities
- Recordings / digital versions of traditional practices (Ceremonies are not usually photographed or recorded and if they are, it may not be appropriate to use them.)
- Oral pieces
Suggested Sources:
- iPortal - Indigenous Studies PortalA database of full-text electronic resources such as articles, e-books, theses, government publications, videos, oral histories, and digitized archival documents and photographs. The iPortal content has a primary focus on Indigenous peoples of Canada with a secondary focus on North American materials and beyond.
- Blackfoot Digital LibraryA publicly accessible Blackfoot-centric library, including multimedia resources such as field notes, photographs, and recordings
- Inuvialuit Digital LibraryMultimedia resources, developed with the assistance of elders, to preserve the Inuvialuktun language
- Four Directions TeachingsMultimedia resources for learning about Indigenous knowledges and philosophy from five diverse First Nations in Canada
- Circle of Indigenous LanguagesStories shared by Elders and community members in their Indigenous languages
Research with Indigenous Peoples in Canada
Research with Indigenous peoples in Canada has a complicated and problematic history. For information about doing research in partnership with Indigenous peoples and communities, see Red Deer Polytechnic Research Common's Research with Indigenous Peoples.
Permissions and Acknowledgement:
This page contains content adapted from the University of Alberta Library (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) If you use any of the information, please ensure to comply with the terms and conditions of use imposed by the owners or licensees of those materials.
This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
