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Abstract

This article explores the potential and pitfalls of approaching Indigenous research as settler scholars in an attempt to redress the intergenerational damage of colonization on Indigenous culture and to contribute to a process of healing. We consider Indigenous historical trauma and survivance, and their intersections with Western psychological models and Western research paradigms. We then work with the principles of Indigenous Storywork (Archibald, 2008) to consider our own complex engagement in Indigenous research to bring to light how a profound commitment to relational ways of knowing and being are required elements of culturally appropriate and culturally safe psychological research.

Keywords

Indigenous approaches to knowledge ethnicity and race epistemologies decolonizing the academy pedagogy

Remember who you’re working for. You’re not just working for yourself, you’re not just speaking for yourself, but for your children who will take over the yintah and everything that goes with it. Your grandchildren, they are listening too. And your great grandchildren not yet born. (Patrick Namox, Kwin bey Yikh, Dinï ze’ Ut’akhkwits from Violet Gellenbeck, Ts’akë ze’ Kilisët)

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) made a call for action to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous indicators of health, particularly mental health. The TRC report emphasized that all levels of government and services providers across sectors must address the distinct health needs of Indigenous Peoples, recognize traditional healing practices, and understand the current health situation of Indigenous peoples as a result of previous government policies (TRC, 2015). In 2018, the Canadian Psychological Association’s (CPA, 2018) response to the TRC report called on “psychologists in Canada to stand with Indigenous peoples” (p. 12) and acknowledged that the profession was developed in the same political climate and colonial context that gave rise to the residential school system and indeed participated in the process of attempted cultural genocide. The CPA response to the TRC report states that, in its interaction with Indigenous Peoples in Canada, the profession of psychology has breached its own code of ethics and calls on psychologists to adopt humility in working with Indigenous peoples, recognize the importance of Indigenous knowledge systems and culture, advocate for Indigenous peoples to enjoy the same rights as all Canadians, and to address the discrepancies in services and supports available to Indigenous peoples (CPA, 2018). The Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA; CCPA, 2021) highlighted the need for specialized mental health services for Indigenous peoples, underscoring the lack of services available in communities, and the limited, or no access to, culturally safe care within mainstream mental health. The CCPA called on the discipline of counseling to work with the provinces and territories to support a culturally safe mental health framework for Indigenous peoples, which integrates Indigenous ways of knowing with mainstream approaches to mental health care (CCPA, 2021). Following the lead of the TRC’s Calls To Action, the final report of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG; National Inquiry Into MMIWG, 2021) highlighted the connection between health and safety and called on governments and health service providers to recognize that Indigenous Peoples are the experts in caring for and healing themselves. The parliament of Canada passed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) Act in 2021, 14 years after it was adopted by the United Nations in 2007; UNDRIP highlights the rights of Indigenous peoples to access traditional health practices and “to access, without discrimination, all social and health services” (United Nations, 2007, p. 18).

Furthermore, guidelines for Indigenous research have now been well established through Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession (OCAP) principles that aim to ensure that Indigenous peoples have jurisdiction and control over all aspects of the research process and possession of their research data (First Nations Information Governance Center [FNIGC], 2014; Schnarch, 2004). The Government of Canada research funding agency issued the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples of Canada that emphasizes that researchers engage with communities by becoming informed and by respecting local customs, protocols, and codes of research. Research should be relevant to community needs and priorities, and support community capacity building, including “enhancement of the skills of community personnel in research methods, project management, and ethical review and oversight” (Canadian Institute for Health Research [CIHR], 2022, Article 9.14). Taken together, these documents provide a robust framework that guides how research involving the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples of Canada can begin to acknowledge harm, contribute to a process of healing, and attempt to redress the intergenerational damage of colonization on Indigenous culture.

We are at a key juncture in the discipline of counseling psychology and individually as practitioners, scholars, teachers, and researchers in standing with Indigenous peoples in Canada and answering for our unethical conduct. In this article, we seek to explore the potential and pitfalls of settler scholar engagement in the pursuit of culturally appropriate and culturally safe psychological research. We begin by outlining Indigenous historical trauma and survivance, and the impacts of psychological research and Western approaches to research on Indigenous peoples. In the second part of this article, we work with the principles of Indigenous Storywork (Archibald, 2008). We consider our own complex engagement in Indigenous research and discover how a profound commitment to relational ways of knowing and being are required elements of culturally appropriate and culturally safe psychological research.

Sarah’s Story

I am a White settler with ancestry from Jewish Eastern Europe and Scotland and England. My family has lived as settlers on the lands known as Canada for multiple generations. I grew up on Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga and Kanienʼkehá꞉ka territory and have spent my adult life on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam peoples, and the territories of the Wet’suwet’en, Gitx̱san, and Ts’msyen peoples in Northwest British Columbia, Canada.

I first came to Indigenous research when I began working with the Office of the Wet’suwet’en (OW) in 2010 on research related to Wet’suwet’en Nation’s opposition of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project for an MA in human geography. In this work, I began to grasp the Wet’suwet’en understanding of interconnection, so different from the dualism I lived in my own worldview. The Wet’suwet’en word for land is Yintah and it means “the health of the people is the health of the land and the health of the land is the health of the people,” as David deWitt told me as we stood beside the Wedzin Kwa river, not far from where the Wet’suwet’en have been fighting to protect their lands from natural gas pipeline development.

I spent most of the subsequent decade living on Gitx̱san territory where I was involved in community development projects related to holistic wellness through connection to the land. Living in Hazelton, I felt a sense of belonging and purpose—I was a part of a community of non-Indigenous and Indigenous people who lived according to the seasons and with the land. My time in Hazelton inspired me to return to school to pursue an MA and now a PhD in counseling psychology. I am driven to develop therapeutic skills and practice to better walk alongside the individuals, families, and communities I became connected to in the North. In 2019, I renewed my research relationship with the OW on research for my MA degree, exploring the mobilization of Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy (IFOT) in the Nation. We are now embarking on a broader research project expanding the Wet’suwet’en wellness framework my PhD.

Lisa’s (Sugwelhan) Story

I was born in Tk’emlúps, commonly known as Kamloops, which means “where the rivers meet” in Secwepmc. Currently, I live and work on the unceded ancestral homelands of the WSÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən (Lkwungen)-speaking people on southern Vancouver Island. For nearly a decade, from 2010 until 2019, I lived and worked with the Tsilhqot’in First Nation in the Rights and Title territory of the Tsilhqot’in people. I descend from European settler ancestry—my mother is Dutch and immigrated from the Netherlands as a child; my father is mostly Italian from his mother’s side and has mixed bloodlines from his father’s side, including an unsettled Indigenous lineage through his father’s mother. This obscure thread of Indigenous heritage highlights my tenuous position at the complex border between Indigenous and colonizer peoples; it wraps into my family of origin’s identity story and continues to inform my personal and professional inquiry about right action and place.

My role and, even, responsibility for culturally aligned, land-based, mental health program design and research emerged through my experience of working and living with the Tsilhqot’in people in Tsilhqot’in territory. In 2011, as we were setting up a home with our three children near Talhiqox Biny (Tatlayoko Lake), I was formally invited to work in the Tsilhqot’in community of Tl’etinqox as the community clinical counselor after a tragic youth suicide exposed the extreme health disparities and lack of services often experienced by Indigenous people in remote communities (Adelson, 2005). I worked in a frontline capacity during that time and, over the years, I was included in many milestone moments for the community and Nation—moments of incredible political gain and contemporary examples of survivance: ceremonies, gatherings, funerals; the Tsilhqot’in Supreme Court decision for Aboriginal Rights and Title in 2014; the exoneration of the Tsilhqot’in War Chiefs; community comprehensive planning, strategic planning, and health and mental health planning; the wildfires of 2017; and the Deni Accord reconciliation framework agreement between the provincial government and the Tsilhqot’in people.

The relative immersion I experienced professionally during this time continually challenged and deconstructed the dominant, colonial, Western paradigm that I grew up with and was educated in. Although I was grounded in Western and transpersonal clinical theory, techniques, and ethics, my invitation was to focus my work relationally with the communities, individuals, families, and Tsilhqot’in government from a place of not knowing. I certainly could not have known beforehand how influential the experience would be of working within a collective worldview and the reality of historical and intergenerational trauma, moved by countless moments in relationship to people, place, and land. I began to experience a desire for social justice for Indigenous people in Canada, alongside being challenged in my understandings of healing, well-being, identity, and place. Now, after some years of distance and integration as an ally, I consider the potential and pitfalls of settler scholar engagement in Indigenous research, the relational accountability involved, and how my work might contribute to the well-being of Indigenous people and the benefit for all.

Indigenous Historical Trauma

Indigenous historical trauma has been described as a distinct form of psychological trauma that originated from the massive group trauma experiences of colonization whose impacts are collective, cumulative, and span generations (Brave Heart, 1998; Gone et al., 2019). The effects of colonization on Indigenous peoples may be best understood as attempted disconnection from land, culture, and community (Gone et al., 2019). Eduardo Duran, psychologist of Apache, Lakota, Hunta, Yellow horse, and Italian descent described historical trauma as a “soul wound” (Duran, 2019, p. 18). He continued,

When trauma is not dealt with in previous generations, it has to be dealt with in subsequent generations. [. . .] There is a process whereby unresolved trauma becomes more severe each time it is passed on to a subsequent generation. (Duran, 2019, p. 18)

Maria Yellow Horse Braveheart, Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota scholar, noted, “the pervasive and cataclysmic aspects of historical trauma and the compounding discrimination, racism, and oppression” (Brave Heart et al., 2011, p. 282) experienced by Indigenous peoples. For Braveheart, the construct of historical trauma reduces the sense of isolation and stigma experienced by those with mental health challenges. Her research highlighted how historical trauma is strongly related to lifetime traumatic events, unresolved or complicated grief, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression, all of which are often comorbid with substance use.

Historical and intergenerational trauma are constructs often used in parallel. Contemporary research and theory on Indigenous historical trauma is drawn from research on the experiences of Holocaust survivors and resulting intergenerational impacts (Bombay et al., 2009). Historical trauma is distinct from intergenerational trauma in that intergenerational trauma refers to the experience across familial generations and does not necessarily imply a shared group trauma experience, but rather the effects of familial trauma on future generations (Mohatt et al., 2014). Historical trauma may be understood not so much as trauma that occurred in the past but as ongoing structural violence, involving strategies of forced assimilation and marginalization (Kirmayer et al., 2014). It is difficult to disentangle the effects of historical trauma from the everyday experiences of marginalized people living in poverty. Contemporary health and social conditions experienced by Indigenous peoples, together with persistent discrimination, are a continuation of historical traumas (Bombay et al., 2009).

James Waldram, settler medical anthropologist, proposed that Indigenous “healing” and “historical trauma,” have evolved relationally together. “Healing” is designed to ameliorate “historical trauma,” and “historical trauma” is a framework to explain contemporary suffering and distress among Indigenous people (Waldram, 2014).

Indigenous Survivance

Indigenous survivance is a concept proposed by White Earth Anishnaabe literary theorist Gerald Vizenor (2008). Survivance describes the relationship between resistance and survival. Not only have Indigenous peoples survived colonial violence but also have continued to embody their culture in fluid and generative ways. Survivance acknowledges resistance to ongoing colonialism through Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, despite violence and oppression. Survivance resists the stagnancy of simply surviving, emphasizing the ways in which Indigenous peoples have created counter positions and opportunities to those who are marked out for them by colonial systems and narratives. Within the experience of historical trauma is survivance. This is the vitality with which Indigenous peoples thrive in their cultural and collective ways and grapple with the impacts of colonization (Vizenor, 2008). Considering survivance requires acknowledging both challenges and strengths facing Indigenous peoples in their mental health and well-being and moving away from deficit-based narratives.

Psychology and Indigenous Peoples

Some scholars have argued that the impacts of historical trauma in Indigenous communities have been exacerbated by Western psychological models that have neglected Indigenous approaches to well-being (Adelson, 2005; Gone et al., 2019). Western psychological approaches have often failed to consider the holistic context of the individual, prioritizing Western over Indigenous epistemologies. While there is no universal Indigenous worldview, as Indigenous cultures are uniquely rooted in land, place, and community (Hart, 2016), Indigenous worldviews are typically more similar to each other than to the dominant cultures of colonial states (Blume, 2020). Commonalities in Indigenous worldviews stem from, in part, a relational view of knowledge and being (Hart, 2016; Kovach, 2021; Wilson, 2008). In Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies, reality is created through a process of relationships. In this view, everything is animate and in ethical and spiritual relationships with everything else, across people, the natural world, and the cosmos. Meaning arises through relationships and knowledge is holistic (Kovach, 2021; Wilson, 2008). Western psychological approaches that are focused on the individual have often led to a cultural disconnect for Indigenous peoples, resulting in alienation and limiting access to care (Stewart, 2008).

Gale et al. (2022) described the ways that psychological assessments were developed according to Western knowledge systems, normed on non-Indigenous populations, and then administered on Indigenous peoples. Unsurprisingly, results have typically shown that Indigenous peoples test lower than normative samples. The authors argued that this pattern corresponds with higher rates of incarceration of Indigenous peoples, higher rates of Indigenous children in care, and the general pathologizing of Indigenous peoples. For example, intelligence tests such as the Binet-Simon were used as evidence of the racial inferiority of Indigenous peoples and justified eugenic processes of forced sterilization (Gale et al., 2022). According to Duran and Firehammer (2016), unless services are “deeply rooted in the life-world metaphor of the culture, effectiveness will be limited at best and more trauma will occur at worst” (p. 122). Colonial relationships and inadequate mental health responses have shaped the disproportionate psychological distress and poor health outcomes experienced by Indigenous peoples in Canada, compared with non-Indigenous peoples (Adelson, 2005; Gone et al., 2019; McIntyre et al., 2017; Statistics Canada, 2018).

Research and Indigenous Peoples

Historically, research conducted on Indigenous peoples, was extractive research carried out according to Western systems of knowledge that served to oppress Indigenous peoples under imperialist and colonial projects rather than to be of benefit (Kovach, 2021; Wilson, 2008). In her formative text on decolonizing Indigenous research, Māori scholar, Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021) reminds us that “the word itself, ‘research’, is probably one of the dirtiest words in the Indigenous world’s vocabulary” (p. 30). She continues,

It galls us that Western researchers and intellectuals can assume to know all that it is possible to know of us, on the basis of their brief encounters with some of us. It appalls us that the West can desire, extract and claim ownership of our ways of knowing, our imagery, the things we create and produce, and then simultaneously reject the people who created and developed those ideas and seek to deny them further opportunities to be creators of their own culture and own nations. It angers us when practices linked to the last century, and the centuries before that, are still employed to deny the validity of indigenous peoples’ claim to existence, to land and territories, to the right of self-determination, to the survival of our languages and forms of cultural knowledge, to our natural resources and systems for living within our environments. (Smith, 2021, pp. 30–31)

Smith underscores that the creation and validation of Western knowledge has been linked with scholarly constructions of the Indigenous Other in ways that have bolstered imperialism and colonialism, and contributed to the subjugation of Indigenous peoples. Suzanne Stewart, psychologist, and scholar from the Yellowknife Dene First Nation, elaborates on the conflict between Indigenous ways of knowing and being, and Western thought: “Indigenous knowledge has historically received a tepid welcome (at best) from Western learneds, whose sole mission, until recently, has been to colonize Native peoples (thinking and all)” (Stewart, 2009, p. 59).

In Canada, health research on Indigenous peoples has a troubling history. Nutritional experiments were completed on malnourished children in residential schools in the 1940s and 1950s, as a part of the development of the Canada Food Guide by physician and biochemist, Lionel Pett (Mosby, 2013). This research was carried out without the informed consent or knowledge of the children or families involved and assessed responses to malnutrition (including testing experimental fortified flour mixtures that were then under a federal ban). These efforts were in part investigations by the federal government to transform the diets of Indigenous peoples, related to thinking that the “Indian problem” may be due to nutrition rather than racial traits, and directly influenced the development of the Canada Food Guide (Mosby, 2013).

Indigenous Research

Margaret Kovach, Nehiyau Cree scholar, tells us that Indigenous research is concerned with Indigenous matters but may or may not include Indigenous peoples or follow Indigenous methodologies (Kovach, 2021). It is a broad umbrella of research that is related (directly or indirectly) to Indigenous peoples. Indigenous research is interdisciplinary and may employ quantitative and qualitative approaches (Kovach, 2021). Critical methodologies, such as community-based research, critical ethnography, critical narrative inquiry, discourse analysis, and participatory action research, as well as decolonizing methodologies have generated allied approaches for engagement in Indigenous research. Despite its imperial history (or perhaps because of it), “Indigenous research has the potential to shake things up, to provoke an unsettling that arises from piercing the [Western] gaze” (Kovach, 2018, p. 388).

Decolonizing Research

Considering the harm done through Indigenous research carried out according to Western paradigms, a decolonizing research frame encourages us to critically examine the values, motivations, and assumptions that underlie research (Smith, 2021). Decolonizing methodologies reflect research that is “initiated, directed, and controlled by Aboriginal peoples” (Max, 2005, p. 79). For Stewart (2009), decolonizing research encourages us to “generate results that are valid and rigorous within the community where they were gathered” (p. 61) and be assessed according to how it benefits community. Joseph Gone (2021), psychologist and scholar from Aaniiih-Gros Ventre Tribal Nation of Montana, proposed that decolonization is an “innovative and generative framework for conducting research” (p. 260), with implications for knowledge, practice, and training in the field of counseling psychology. Decolonizing research may involve the reclamation of Indigenous sovereignty, collaboration with Indigenous communities, and the interrogation of Western knowledge systems (Gone, 2021).

Eve Tuck, Unangax̂ scholar, and K. Wayne Yang, settler scholar, tell us that “decolonization is not a metaphor” and must involve relinquishing Indigenous land. Decolonization means recognizing different understandings of and connections to land, and implicates and unsettles everyone. Reflecting on and challenging personal complicities in settler colonialism and assumptions as White settlers are central to efforts at engaging in decolonizing research (Tuck & Yang, 2012). These reflections and challenges must happen not only professionally within our roles as researchers, but also in the intimate terrain of our interpersonal relationships to confront the disconnect between theoretical decolonization and the place-based nature of ongoing colonialism (Hunt & Holmes, 2015). A critical aspect of challenging complicities in settler colonialism is approaching Indigenous research with an interest in survivance rather than damage and documenting the complexities of hope and wisdom alongside difficult social realities (Tuck, 2009).

Engaging decolonizing research supports Indigenous self-determination and social justice by creating spaces for “innovation and change” (Kenny, 2000, p. 147). For Smith (2021), self-determination is at the center of the “Indigenous Research Agenda,” reflecting a process of change from survival to recovery, and development. Inherent in decolonizing methodologies is a social justice imperative that can bolster social movements and shape policy and practice (Kovach, 2021). Choice of methodology influences research outcomes, which affect policy, and programming; engaging in decolonizing methodologies frames the interpretation of research and the recommendations that result (Kovach, 2021).

Indigenous Methodologies

Indigenous methodologies go further in their approach to Indigenous research. For Kovach (2021), “with Indigenous methodologies, your research must be and feel Indigenous” (p. 394), reflecting Indigenous values, beliefs, lands, spirit, languages, and worldviews (Kenny, 2000). Indigenous methodologies reflect Indigenous epistemologies wherein reality is created through a process of relationships (Wilson, 2008). Meaning arises in relationship (Wilson, 2008), reflecting “a belief system that espouses a non-fragmented, non-human-centric, holism focusing on the metaphysical and pragmatic brought alive in animate language structure and contextualized within place and land-based knowing and teachings” (Kovach, 2021, p. 67). Knowledge is holistic, arising from human and nonhuman sources and it is embodied, instinctual, and spiritual, as well as cognitive. Knowledge lives within spirit and may arise through dreams, ceremonies, and other means (Ermine, 1995). If we apply this relational epistemology to research, we see that the aspects of an Indigenous research paradigm are all connected (Wilson, 2008). The researcher is inseparable from the research itself and must fulfill their role and obligations in the research relationship (Wilson, 2008). This approach to research is not prescriptive; rather it encourages a certain sensibility: “Indigenous methodologies require exploration of identity, an ability to be vulnerable, a desire for restitution, and an opening to awakenings” (Kovach, 2018, p. 388).

Indigenous methodologies support Indigenous well-being and cultural sustainability in how they privilege, widen, and share Indigenous knowledge systems (Kovach, 2021). Carolyn Kenny (2000), Indigenous scholar and music therapist of Choctaw and Ukrainian ancestry, captures how Indigenous research can embody Indigenous ways of knowing and being across generations. She writes,

If we develop an approach to research which is unique and reflects our values and beliefs, we will be reflecting the spirit of our ancestors, the spirit of our people who are alive today, and the spirit of our Aboriginal children who are yet to be born. (p. 160)

Through Indigenous methodologies, cultural knowledge systems are strengthened, which is critical for cultural sustainability (Kovach, 2021). Alanaise Goodwill, Anishinaabekwe psychologist and scholar, and Candace Galla, Kanaka Maoli scholar (2017), demonstrate how engaging in Indigenous methodologies promotes well-being. Their research practice used their own Indigenous languages to articulate Indigenous understandings of well-being from Indigenous language speakers and found that, “Indigenous language revitalizes us, not the other way around. If we take care of our language, it will take care of us” (Galla & Goodwill, 2017, p. 67). Archibald (2008) describes the centrality of story in supporting well-being: “some stories remind us about being whole and healthy and remind us of traditional teachings that have relevance to our lives. Stories have the power to make our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits work together” (p. 12). In Indigenous methodologies, coresearchers are at the center and empowered through the research process, “in this way, the power remains with the people and it can grow. When my findings are published and they see their words more than mine, they feel powerful and they feel in control of their spaces, their lives” (Kenny, 2000, p. 159). Doing Indigenous research through and with Indigenous methodologies builds well-being and cultural sustainability for Indigenous peoples.

Within the Academy, the adoption of Indigenous methodologies challenges homogeneity in favor of relational forms of knowing and doing. Such a shift opens the possibility for unity and healing through equitable relationships (Kovach, 2021). Embracing Indigenous knowledge systems and methodologies has the potential to help the field of psychology, as well as the social and human sciences, to be relevant to Indigenous peoples and to enrich the experience of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and students alike (Ansloos et al., 2019; Smeja et al., 2019).

Indigenous Storywork and Engagement in Indigenous Research

We now turn to critical reflections of our experiences of trauma intervention research using IFOT (Turcotte & Schiffer, 2014) with the Wet’suwet’en Nation and the SȾÁUTW̱ (Tsawout) First Nation. We structure these reflections of our research experiences according to Q’um Q’um Xiiem, Jo-Ann Archibald’s Indigenous Storywork (Archibald, 2008). Archibald, Stó:lō scholar and educator, based Storywork on what she learned about the role of stories from Coast Salish Elders and other Indigenous storytellers. The principles of respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity, holism, interrelatedness (Archibald, 2008, p. 1), and synergy provide a framework for meaning-making with and through Indigenous stories.

Sarah’s Storywork

My research with the OW was possible because of relationships I had built over time with previous research and living and working on Wet’suwet’en and neighboring Gitxsan territories. Having been trained in IFOT, I was familiar with the approach. The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs recognize the profound impacts of historical trauma among their people and are utilizing IFOT (Turcotte & Schiffer, 2014), a trauma-informed treatment model that is collective, land-based, and intergenerational, as a part of their wellness framework to help their Nation heal. Our collaborative research was advised by a circle of Hereditary Chiefs, Ts’akë ze’ Wilat, Dinï ze’ Madeek, Dinï ze’ Neekupdeh, and Dinï ze’ Smogelgem, and the OW clinical advisor, Gretchen Woodman. Our study explored the question, “How is IFOT shaped by Wet’suwet’en ways of knowing and mobilized by individuals, families, house groups, and the Nation?” Following from Indigenous methodologies and narrative inquiry, Wet’suwet’en IFOT practitioners participated in sharing circles for data collection and interpretation. Our research took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we shifted the process online using Zoom. The exploratory findings revealed that the strategic application of IFOT by Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs created a culturally relevant model for land-based healing wherein Wet’suwet’en people were able to experience greater connection with their own yintah (land) and c’idede’ (stories from long ago). Our research was shared in an article that I coauthored with all participants and the Advisory Circle (Panofsky et al., 2022). In the following reflections, I work with the Storywork principles, the voices of participants in our study, and my own experiences.

Respect

Archibald (2008) begins the principles of Storywork with respect. Respect must be at the center of the relationship between the Elder and the researcher; respect “includes trust and being culturally worthy” (p. 41). For Tanya Brown,

We didn’t have the words for what we were feeling, what decolonization is, how we were still entrenched in it [. . .] but we felt it, we just didn’t have a word for it [. . .] to break free we seek out our Wet’suwet’en ways of being.

I have included these words from Tanya because they capture the essence of what I tried to respect in our research process, Wet’suwet’en ways, and bringing voice to the change these community practitioners are fostering in their Nation.

Archibald (2008) describes being culturally worthy as “ready intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually to fully absorb cultural knowledge” (p. 41). To understand readiness to absorb cultural knowledge and apply it is an ongoing process. I can say that I am farther along that path than when I first began working with the OW 12 years ago. Living and working in Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en communities helped with this. While we might adopt an attitude of openness, it is over time, through relationships, and embodied experience of connection to land, community, and all relations that being ready to absorb cultural knowledge occurs. My understanding has developed over time, in layers of experiences and learning on the land and in community.

Archibald (2008) comments that “you show respect by spending time with them [the Elders] in order to establish a learning relationship” (p. 43). As I moved away from Wet’suwet’en territory, I am keenly aware of the strain of distance on spending time. The COVID-19 pandemic made this even more difficult. I spend time with the Advisory Circle through regular phone calls and periodic visits. I acknowledged participants’ time with gifts of medicines and honorariums. At the onset of the research, we established an agreement that followed traditional protocols. Throughout, I attempt to approach cultural readiness with humility and to be in service to the Hereditary Chiefs I am working with.

Reverence

Archibald (2008) tells us that “storytellers showed reverence through prayer, songs, and the ethical ways that they approached the work. [. . .] These create a meeting place for the heart, mind, body, and spirit to interact” (p. 126). Dinï ze’ Smogelgem’s words carry the reverence that infused our sharing circles:

IFOT brings us into a mental state where we visualize the land coming to us. [. . .] More often than not, our ancestors show up. And they have advice for us. [. . .] Our territory is our home that belongs to us. And the ancestors are asking us to go home. To get off the reserves and go home.

Limited as we were on Zoom, we infused the research process with use of Wet’suwet’en language, opening and closing prayers, guided visualizations focusing on the land and the body, and the gifting of medicines. All of these contributed to reverence.

For me, the words and stories of the participants demanded reverence—they carried spiritual connectedness. As I was transcribing the stories and writing, I carried the stories and the people, in the mind, body, and spirit, as Archibald described. I took frequent pauses in this process, walking the trail by the Stawamus river by my home, gently holding the stories and meanings from the research inside of me.

Responsibility

Archibald (2008) teaches that cultural responsibility involves first understanding the teachings and values, applying them to learning that occurs in the research process, and then sharing this learning with others. Responsibility is also about taking ownership of mistakes. These words from Ts’akë ze’ We’es Tes speak to all the relationships that I was responsible to in undertaking this research, beyond the participants and the OW, to “all that is”:

Sacred connection to all that is. [. . .] And so, there’s a sacred responsibility there to honor that, to listen to it. It helps guide us, and it teaches us that we’re not alone. [. . .] We are a collective as Indigenous people, as Wet’suwet’en people, in our families, in our house and clan, as a Nation.

Throughout the research process, I checked my understandings with the Advisory Circle and the participants. Our data collection involved a series of sharing circles, the last was the collaborative interpretation of stories to arrive at themes collectively. The participants and table of Hereditary Chiefs approved the manuscript at all phases. Still, I was hesitant at first to share our research; I had a sense that the stories were not mine to tell. At one such moment, I had a conversation with Dinï ze’ Smogelgem, seeking his approval of an upcoming presentation. He told me, with a warm sternness, that the protocols had been followed and it was now my responsibility to share this story more widely. In this way, this article is part of my responsibility of teaching what I have learned.

I think also about taking ownership of mistakes and the portrayal of the research itself in the article that I coauthored with all the participants. While I believe the findings section reflects Wet’suwet’en ways of knowing and being, principally because I relied extensively on direct quotations, I experience discomfort with the academic framing in which the stories rest and wonder about the authenticity of the work as a whole. This is something I am grappling with—how to ensure that the representation of the research is also aligned with Wet’suwet’en ways. I see this grappling is part of my responsibility.

Reciprocity

For Archibald (2008), reciprocity is about using words and stories with acknowledgment. It is cyclical and highlights the importance of giving back and contribution; “the form, content, and immediate setting of oral tradition exist in a larger context of reciprocity or ‘balance’” (Archibald, 2008, p. 28). As a White researcher representing a Western institution, I facilitated the research process, endeavoring to be transparent in attempts to understand the lifeworld of the Wet’suwet’en. Enacting reciprocity was incomplete, owing to the tensions in being an outsider to the community and attempting to translate Wet’suwet’en ways of knowing and being to the Academy. Upon sharing a draft of our manuscript with one of the participants, I was asked how this written work will benefit the Wet’suwet’en community. This participant was hesitant about the research process from the onset and joined in only because of the urging of the hereditary chiefs. Upon completion of the project, she was unconvinced of the value of our publication. Other participants described feeling a part of a community of practice from their engagement in this process. It was the middle of COVID and these community leaders were isolated and overwhelmed. Our process helped them to remember why they were doing their work and its meaning to them and their community. The Advisory Circle described feeling affirmed and empowered having their stories heard and shared. The OW staff said that the research articulated Wet’suwet’en well-being and ways of healing in a form that could be interpreted by the government officials they were negotiating with.

Ts’akë ze’ We’es Tes spoke to some of the challenges facing the Wet’suwet’en community in creating change:

We end up having to . . . focus on the most urgent and the most important things first. . . . There’s never enough time to do all this good work, you know, in our own families, in our houses, in our clans, and our community. . . . We’re holding each other up in all of this. These are not easy times for people. Across the world you know the Wet’suwet’en Nation is holding up the whole Indigenous rights movement around the world and we still are, and that’s a lot to hold up.

I have gained enormously from our collaboration together. My experience personally and professionally is richer from touching the teachings highlighted in the research. And, more tangibly, my power and privilege in attaining a graduate degree, in large part to this work, have grown immensely. I remain unsettled and uncomfortable about the balance of reciprocity, always feeling like I should be doing more.

Holism

According to Archibald (2008), “holism refers to the interrelatedness between the intellectual, spiritual (metaphysical values and beliefs and the Creator), emotional, and physical (body and behaviour) realms to form a whole healthy person” (p. 11). Dinï ze’ Madeek spoke to the holism inherent in Wet’suwet’en ways:

Hiltus, strengths, it’s all built in. You find that when you get out on the territory. Spirituality, that’s connection to the land and to your own body, to bring that spirituality out on the land back into your heart. . . . Sustainable livelihood, everything that we take off the land, we pray for, everything that we take, we give an offering back.

Holism encouraged me to understand the stories in context—of generations past, present, and future living from and with the land. From the perspective of participants, IFOT meets trauma from “all my relations,” an expression that encompasses the web of relationships in which everyone is embedded; everything is animate and interconnected across time, space, and through the generations, and so can be drawn upon for healing.

Interrelatedness

For Archibald (2008), “an interrelationship between the story, storyteller, and listener is another critical principle of Storywork” (p. 34). Dinï ze’ Neekupdeh captured Wet’suwet’en interrelatedness when he said, “the yintah is more than just the land; it’s everything about us, everything about Wet’suwet’en and we can’t take one thing away from it because it’s all of it.”

Wet’suwet’en practitioners described how IFOT brought alive connection to land, ancestors, spirituality, the Wet’suwet’en language, stories, and ceremony in a way that was holistic and rooted in Wet’suwet’en ways. By connecting to the land through IFOT, there was also connection to “all that is.” By connecting people to yintah, participants said IFOT echoed how Wet’suwet’en ancestral ways brought about healing by being on the land.

The research process pointed to the extent to which Wet’suwet’en participants’ worldviews are deeply and fundamentally entwined with their yintah, in ways that I, as a non-Indigenous settler, could only barely grasp as I do not have the same experience of ancestral connection to place. As a White settler, I cannot know the lived experience of Wet’suwet’en ontology, epistemology, and axiology, and so I question my role in a coleading collaborative project that is founded on Wet’suwet’en ways (Steinhauer, 2002).

Interrelatedness also speaks to my role in understanding and translating the stories. Sitting in the sharing circles, I was acutely aware of myself as listener and what I was learning from the stories and the storytellers. This understanding continued to deepen and grow as I worked with the stories, sought to represent them in written form, and continue to be in relationship with them.

Synergy

According to Archibald (2008),

The power created during the storytelling session seemed interrelational as it moved among the storyteller and the story listeners in the storytelling situation. This interaction created a synergistic story power that had emotional, healing, and spiritual aspects. The synergistic story power also brought the story “to life.” (p. 100)

In our research, we followed protocol, opened and closed sessions with prayer, wove the Wet’suwet’en language throughout, and created a safe space for storytelling and listening. All of these conditions, and the existence of the other principles, gave rise to the synergistic story power that Archibald describes. I hope you can get a sense of that from these words from Ts’akë ze’ Wilat:

When some young person went somewhere and Kwin gghenen dïl, “When did you come back to the fireside?” When a young person went somewhere, comes back a few days later. Nk’ëdeh’ kwin ggnenïnge their way of saying, “When did you come home?” And there’s another way of using fireside. When an Elder Chief passes away, and a successor arrives. Everything has happened. Ne kwin dist ggan they say. The light is lit again, they use that word. Ne kwin dist ggan they say.

My sense is that the use of the Wet’suwet’en language fostered synergy. I was taught introductory phrases by Ts’akë ze’ Wilat and her daughter Delores Alfred and we translated core IFOT concepts into Wet’suwet’en. Fluent speakers moved in and out of Wet’suwet’en; others used words and phrases. Language holds cultural meanings and there are fundamental differences between Indigenous and Western language ideologies. Whereas, Western language ideologies emphasize structure and code, Indigenous language ideologies highlight social interaction, performance, and social action—cultivating relationality (Henne-Ochoa et al., 2020). Thus, the use of the Wet’suwet’en language had a synergistic effect on the group.

There can be no final “arrival” in being a White settler engaging in Indigenous research. I think about something that Alanaise Ferguson, Ojibway psychologist, said to me when I approached her when I was considering returning to school and focusing on Indigenous psychology. I asked her whether there was a role for me as a White settler in doing this work. Her response was, “there has to be.” I agree with Alanaise and Jeannette Armstrong’s “complex view of interconnectedness that demands our responsibility to everything we are interconnected to” (Armstrong, 2005, p. 13). Seeking justice for Indigenous peoples in Canada is part of my responsibility as a psychologist-in-training and as someone living on lands that were never ceded by the peoples who have inhabited them for generations. Justice for Indigenous peoples means justice for everyone who lives on these lands.

Lisa’s (Sugwelhan) Storywork

As I begin to reflect on the research I engaged in with the SȾÁUTW̱ (Tsawout) community of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich) Nation located on what is commonly known as southern Vancouver Island, I first contextualize my experience within White claims to Indigenous identity and my program development work with the Tsilhqot’in Nation.

Claiming Indigeneity

The possibility of claiming Indigenous ancestry was intensely unsettling in my everyday existence and work in Tsilhqot’in communities. I often fumbled uncomfortably with the conflicting perspectives existing within me: “If I do have Indigenous blood then perhaps there is some greater meaning and responsibility to the position and place I find myself in”; “I should stand with and recognize any Indigenous heritage I have, no matter how small. Hiding it replicates and amplifies what was originally intended by Colonial governments to effectively eradicate and oppress Indigenous people”; and, “How do I claim with any certainty an Indigenous ancestry, when it is ultimately no more than family story—there is no documentation and no connection to her home community.” This personally and politically sensitive and controversial process of claiming Indigenous identity seemed to intensify as my relationships, roles, and responsibilities increased, and again, as I began to consider my interest in reentering academia and research.

If the stories are true, my Indigenous Great Grandmother would have been born in the Lake Huron area in 1888, 12 years after the Indian Act was created in Canada in 1876. The Indian Act dictated ethnic separation, making it illegal to leave government-mandated Indian Reservations without a pass. It became codified by law that if a person left outside these bounds, they would not be welcomed back and would be formally and practically disconnected from all family and community ties (Davis-Alphonse, 2021; TRC, 2015). In addition, if an Indigenous woman married a non-Indigenous man, by law, she would lose all status, an aspect of the Indian Act that was not changed until 1985. Consequently—especially from the lens of Indigenous women—lost genealogical history may legitimately relate to displacement and dispossessed identity.

On the contrary, false or inaccurate claims to Indigenous lineage have been publicly criticized, especially for people in high-profile positions or in academia where race claims influence grants, research, admissions, and the award of faculty positions. White claims to Indigenous identity is a complicated social phenomenon that has been elaborated upon by Darryl Leroux, a settler scholar in Kjipuktk (Halifax, NS). In his book “Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity,” Leroux (2019) focuses on the contemporary trend toward Indigenization of otherwise White, French descendants in Canada. His research raises serious concerns about how becoming self-Indigenized “expand[s] the boundaries of Whiteness” (p. 4) and is often motivated by political and social power that undermine Indigenous voices, rights, and homelands (Leroux, 2019). In this view, there exists a responsibility to stand against race shifting, especially when claims focus on long-ago ancestry, distant genealogical records, and DNA tests while lacking relational connection to the living culture.

Squarely looking at these dynamics, I now hold any Indigenous ancestry I may have as a living question without any hope of resolution. This unsettling guides me to focus on the connections, requests, and accountabilities of ongoing relationships with the Indigenous people, families, and communities that I have. My sense of responsibility is amplified by receiving the honor of being adopted into the Tl’etinqox community of the Tsilhqot’in Nation in 2018 and given the name “Sugwelhan,” meaning she who “leaves it in the right place.”

Storywork

Turning now to the principles of Indigenous Storywork as described by Archibald (2008), I first point out that, in my experience with the Tslhqot’in people, Storywork research principles (respect, reverence, responsibility, reciprocity, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy) are upheld as principles of living and being, through Governance Councils, Women’s Councils, protocols and ceremonies, gatherings, harvesting practices, storytelling, and prayers—these are not principles separate from everyday community life or reserved for research. Rather, language, culture, and tradition demonstrate a living reality of survivance, which exists alongside and through the serious challenges of substance use, violence, abuse, and the overrepresentation in the criminal justice and child welfare systems common across many Indigenous communities (Smith, 2021; Yu et al., 2020). A powerful example of the way that vitality moves through adversity is demonstrated by the landmark case of the Tsilhqot’in Supreme Court decision on Aboriginal Title of 2014, where the Tsilhqot’in Nation proved that, “prior to the assertion of European sovereignty, the land was: “occupied” in a manner that was “sufficient,” “continuous,” and “exclusive” by the Tsilhqot’in people (Miller, 2014). Indigenous people have survived hundreds of years of attempted genocide (Davis-Alphonse, 2021); survivance challenges the commonly told deficit narrative that tends to position settler peoples as automatic helpers, protectors, and agents of improvement (Yu et al., 2020).

As a lead mental health practitioner through the health impacts of the wildfires of 2017 and the various planning and engagement processes in the Tsilhqot’in communities at that time, I was asked to initiate the design and implementation of an on-the-land, trauma-informed wellness program with horses that included multigenerational and multi-community opportunities for healing, balance, cultural identity restoration, and mind–body integration. This request called for my direct involvement in a larger response to the lack of culturally grounded mental health services often found in Indigenous communities (CCPA, 2021; CPA, 2018). It also highlighted the paucity of applicable trauma intervention research and lack of relevant evidence-based practice models available to Indigenous communities—especially relational and land-based—to support long-lasting change and to secure ongoing funding for the very programs that most effectively help their people (Gameon & Skewes, 2020).

SȾÁUTW̱ Pilot Research Project

This context set the stage for conducting a small pilot land-based research project with the SȾÁUTW̱ First Nation, who are the original inhabitants of the land where I currently facilitate nature-based psychotherapy with horses as a portion of my private practice. My learning about healing ways from the Tsilhqot’in people, and my training in IFOT and gestalt equine psychotherapy, informed the design of a small, six-session group series focusing on posttraumatic growth and survivance through providing and promoting experiences and connection with horses and land. We were interested in exploring the human–animal–nature bond for growth and wellness alongside and through historical and intergenerational trauma. Each group session was designed around a relevant theme for relational well-being and healing based on IFOT principles and language, and each group provided space for storytelling, reflection, and active engagement with nature, the land, and the horses. Archibald’s Storywork principles (2008) provide a structure for critical reflections of our research experiences.

Storywork Principles

Reverence

Archibald (2008) explains that reverence is illuminated through prayers and songs, and the way these forms interact with the heart, mind, body, and spirit. In addition, “silence creates a respectful space for reverence” (p. 30). Group sessions in the SȾÁUTW̱ Pilot Study were held with the intention of ceremony facilitated by the group members through inviting song, prayer, stories, and rituals; we opened and closed each group in a circle around a fire, which created a respectful space for the cultural wisdom of the knowledge-keepers present and helped invite silence and connection. Our initial session was opened by the Chief of the community, who took his time to share stories about the land, the history, and the place where we were situated. Cedar, a group participant, shared his experience reflecting the principle of reverence:

It was a beautiful experience in a lot of different ways . . . many of the conversations I’ve had with different Indigenous peoples across Canada, oftentimes we look at bringing the Elders [who] will pray, and bring certain creatures into the room and conversation . . . because we often as a species isolate ourselves. This experience in, about and among other creatures, particularly horses in this case . . . and then the medicine of having the fire, and having the sun and the autumn colours and the wind. It was all around a very rich experience and coincided well with my own sort of healing spiritual journey.

Respect

Archibald (2008) states that she began with the “principles of respect for cultural knowledge embedded in the stories and respect for the people who owned or shared stories as an ethical guide” (p. 16). Planning meetings took place at Heart Lake Farm and in the SȾÁUTW̱ Band office with a community leader who acted as a point person for the study. We discussed community protocols and beliefs, and reviewed the group themes to ensure that the group content and process, informed by IFOT, were aligned with the community. In this way, we started to build relationship. The Chief agreed to open the group, and his contribution was acknowledged with an honorarium. When reflecting on respect, I also include the presence of the horses that, as large mammals and prey animals, invite a particular kind of respectful admiration. The horses provided a relational thread to the series of sessions and created openings beyond words to engage the participants through movement and spatial relationship, to have quiet reflection, and to build mutual respect and responsibility. Cedar speaks of the respectful engagement with the horses: “to have [the horses] here, first and foremost, but then secondly to enter into closer proximity in a reserved kind of respectful way and then to have that bonding.” Little Pine, another participant, also shared her experience of respect: “You have to give room and respect boundaries because the horses have boundaries, and we have boundaries.”

In writing about respectful research relationships with Indigenous communities, Davidson (in Archibald et al., 2022) describes that working with a community familiar to her—a community with knowledge of shared ancestry—helped to ensure cultural safety and relational trust that carried through the research process and the dissemination of findings (p. 27). This stands out as a pitfall for our pilot study. Unlike the long-term relationships I had developed with the Tsilhqot’in people, we lacked cultural credibility with the SȾÁUTW̱ people and the trust that only comes from building relationships over time. Self-imposed pressures to deliver a group experience and complete a pilot study within 6 weeks did not give us adequate time to secure a cultural community lead for the project; a cultural facilitator’s consistent presence may have contributed appreciably to the participants’ experiences as well as the OCAP principles so crucial for ethical Indigenous research (Schnarch, 2004).

Responsibility

We focused the initial group sessions on building safety and connection to place, framing survivance, hearing stories, describing the intent of the group, and exploring group agreements. Space and structure were given to describe the positionality of the facilitators and the purpose of the study, to formally introduce the owners of the farm, to hear from all the group members, answer questions about the research, and gain appropriate informed consent. Shawn Wilson, Opaskwayak Cree scholar from northern Wilson (2008), describes the importance of responsibility in research: “. . . I am responsible for who I share information with, as well as for ensuring that it is shared in an appropriate way, at the right place and time” (p. 126). Responsibility also includes taking ownership of mistakes in research. Considering the newness of our relationships with the community and the importance of relational accountability in Indigenous research, I now believe that we were premature in making our first group a research study, a blindspot that likely put undue pressure on the participants. Little Pine reflected on her tenuous relationship with us as researcher-facilitators. She describes the risk she was taking at the outset as the community coordinator for the pilot study:

I started to question because there is a lot of pain going on right now and we see a lot of non-Indigenous people leading Indigenous ways. . . . so I was like, I hope this turns out good because I’m the one who’s involved in this, starting it up and I don’t wanna have it come back on me.

To address her own concern and to everyone’s benefit, Little Pine became a participant in the pilot study. Her firsthand engagement strengthened connections and she provided valuable feedback and suggestions about how to move forward with her community in a good way. In the final interview, Little Pine reported that she “enjoy[ed] being outside . . . on the land . . . interacting with creatures” and “just learning” and she was “thankful [she] was able to join.”

Reciprocity

Kuokkanen (2007), an Indigenous scholar and associate professor of education and Indigenous studies at Sami University College in Norway, describes reciprocity as an interrelated process that reflects “a sense of collective responsibility, and reverence toward the gifts of the land” (p. 23), and emphasizes giving back (p. 3). Reciprocity is also a principle of IFOT and the theme we explored in our fifth group session. During the group, we observed the natural reciprocity exemplified throughout nature, through our breathing, and our coexistence with all species; we practiced reciprocity with the horses, with activities such as approaching a horse in a good way, attuning to our senses, and mindful grooming.

Reciprocity in research includes listening and acting on the feedback of the participants, and sharing what is learned with others (Archibald, 2008). At the time of this writing, we require several actions to approximate the principle of reciprocity in our pilot research with the research participants: review participant feedback with the community and explore the ways that the research benefits the community, if at all; follow through with the participants’ requests to create and offer another group; find and forefront a cultural facilitator; and consider the ways the group members wanted to be more inclusive. One of the participants offered, “I think that it would be nice to see our families come together like this.” Little Pine implied that she would like to get more training so that she “could imagine [leading] something like this.” This speaks to building community capacity, another important consideration in settler scholar research (CIHR, 2018). These elements of reciprocity represent the actions for building and sustaining good relations for ethical research with Indigenous communities (Kovach, 2018); they challenge us as clinician-researchers to seriously consider the possibilities and limitations of what can be offered going forward and to participate in ongoing collaborative engagement (CPA, 2018).

Holism and Interrelatedness

The root of the word “healing” is literally “to make whole” (Egnew, 2005). Archibald (2008) describes holism as all the interrelated parts, spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical, and the wider context of relations, which form a whole healthy person. For our pilot study, we had the gift of being on the land relationally with the group, accompanied by the horses and all of life—wild birds, insects, frogs, trees, grasses, and fungi; water; and the elements that were there as well. Cedar’s statement reflects his appreciation of holism and interrelatedness “to ground first on the land and with nature and then with other beings in the here and now and (have that) move the conversation.” Tiger Mama expressed, “to have the courage to even take part in horse therapy is beautiful. The many ways that they show us how to carry ourselves that we didn’t even know. It came alive and brought wholeness to myself.”

Synergy

Archibald (2008) describes synergy as the dynamic interaction between listeners and storytellers that creates emotional, healing, and spiritual power (p. 100). In this pilot study, synergy seemed to be created through the relationships we were engaging in between the humans, the land, and the horses, and through learning and listening to the difference held within that space. The space was filled with elements outside of typical contemporary daily life, including being with horses around the fire along with the pressure of taking notes and recording for research purposes. Through working with difference, synergies were being experienced and expressed. Cedar offered, “Simply having (the horses’) presence in the conversations about healing and about. . . the nature of reality and our purpose in the world was healing.” Tiger Mama reported, “I got a wholeness; I’m not all there yet, to complete wholeness, but I am more together.” For Little Pine,

It helped me to sense [the horses] and know that they have feelings, and they’re just as concerned about their environment, they are protecting their environment like we are protecting ours. Relating to understanding fear and protection I found it very helpful for me, and I’m thankful that I was able to join.

The more I listen, read, engage, reflect, and learn, it seems the less certain I become about my particular role when it comes to engaging in Indigenous research in academia. I strongly feel my responsibility and agency as part of the living, vital movement for Indigenous rights and prosperity, social action, and justice; this lives within me as an embodied, intergenerational conversation and I continue to have more questions to live into than any answers. I am convinced that there is potential for mutual benefit when, as settler scholar practitioners, we engage humbly and actively in local, national, and global conversations with Indigenous people and listen to what is being asked of us. In 2018, I recall asking how I can live in a way that rightfully honors “leaving it in the right place,” which is the meaning of the Tsilhqot’in name I had just been given. Chief Joe Alphonse responded, “use it and grow into it.”

Conclusion

The persistent lack of responsive and ethical mental health care for Indigenous people in Canada signals the disconnect in our current health care system when it comes to being in relationship with Indigenous communities and addressing the complex issues that have been created within our problematic past (Yu et al., 2020). For settler scholar practitioners and researchers, who are dedicated to facilitating intra- and interpersonal wellness, to not play a role in this primary conversation in Canada, would be unconscionable. Yet the proposition demands expanded perspectives on healing and health, more relational ways of participating in research with Indigenous people, and the implementation of culturally grounded treatment modalities. Understanding interconnectedness with land, all species, and the natural world, and respecting Indigenous survivance exemplify some of the shifts in awareness that are required. We must reconsider how our research and its effects genuinely support Indigenous peoples and the environment through shared obligations and mutual benefit. Indigenous research methodologies make explicit these relational priorities and ethical concerns (Kerr & Adamov Ferguson, 2020).

As settler scholars, the role, if any, we have in engaging with Indigenous research and methodologies depends on place, capacity, and relationality. If research is going to be impactful for Indigenous people, if it is to promote the values of respect, relationship, responsibility, and reverence, we must be clear that it is of benefit to the communities themselves and be willing to build relationships over time. Clear invitation to do the work, alongside lasting loyalty, right spirit, kinship, humility, and trust are key elements of collaborative inquiry (Jones & Jenkins, 2008). The years we spent with the Tsilhqot’in people and the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan people, respectively created a platform for entering research relationships. These experiences stand in contrast to Lisa’s new relationships with the WSÁNEĆ peoples.

It is our hope that settler engagement in Indigenous research offers potential for creating a shared future based upon privileging Indigenous knowledge and decolonization. Alison Jones, settler scholar, and Kuni Jenkins, Māori scholar (2015), offer a framework for engaging in Indigenous–settler collaborations where the focus is about learning about difference, from the Other, rather than learning about the Other. They critique collaborative inquiry between Indigenous and colonizer peoples as an imperialist demand. The “hyphen,” used to demarcate difference between Indigenous and colonizer groups, has been erased in multiple ways, replicating the oppression that collaboration ostensibly seeks to undo. Maintaining difference is critical for decolonizing research, “the hyphen ideally demands a posture of alert vulnerability to our recognition of difference, rather than a pose of empathetic understanding that tends to reduce difference to the same” (Jones & Jenkins, 2008, pp. 12–13). Our current homes, located in urban, colonial places, have us increasingly aware of the complexity at the self-other border. We see the need to be mindful at the border of difference, accepting our place in troubled settler engagement with Indigenous peoples and with their lands over time. We are learning that good quality colonizer–Indigenous research collaborations are most meaningful when the value is on learning from the other in ethical spaces (Jones & Jenkins, 2008). We reflect on the ways we have tried, at times, to reduce, soften, or romanticize the tension of difference we have so often felt as outsiders in an Indigenous community, in an uninvestigated attempt to feel included or to have a special role to play. Jones and Jenkins (2008) explore the settler scholar’s choice to both commit and surrender to the inevitable disappointments and ambivalences involved in this kind of work, adopting “sharp, unromantic pragmatic engagement” (p. 16).

We are struck by the tenacity, maturity, and guidance required to be engaged in Indigenous research in a fulsome, valuable way as White settler scholar allies, including being in honest relationship with difference, constantly checking expectations, and humbly acknowledging errors. Kovach (2021) describes “bridge scholars” as non-Indigenous researchers who are in trusting relationships with Indigenous people or communities; they are not a substitute for Indigenous people, but they may assist in facilitating Indigenous research (Kovach, 2021). These non-Indigenous allies in academia understand the risks to Indigenous knowledges and peoples inherent in their inclusion in a Western normative system and mobilize multiple strategies to negotiate these risks: “When invested non-Indigenous academics listen attentively to what upholds Indigenous research and scholarship, possibilities expand” (Kovach, 2021, p. 266).

As White settlers, there is not always a clear role in Indigenous research. Moreover, as Margaret Kovach (2018) reminds us, “it ought to unsettle” (p. 388) and further, according to Pam Palmeter, Mi’kmaq lawyer, activist, and academic, “if it feels good, it’s not reconciliation” (Palmater, 2018, p. 1). We are humbled by the unsettling inherent in so many questions of how we might do this work in a good way. Indigenous Storywork demands adherence to protocols and principles inherent in Indigenous ways of knowing and being, and by doing so, it creates a structure and process for research governed by right relationship.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sarah Panofsky

Author Biographies

Sarah Panofsky, MA, is a PhD student in counselling psychology at the University of British Columbia and a registered clinical counsellor. Her research focuses on Indigenous psychology, influenced by the years she spent living and working on Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Territories in Northwest British Columbia.

Lisa Hartwick, MA, is a registered clinical counsellor in private practice in Victoria, British Columbia with over 20 years of experience in clinical settings with individuals, couples and groups. Currently, she meets a large portion of her psychotherapy clients in nature and with horses. Lisa has been deeply influenced by the near-decade (2010-2019) of living and working with the Tsilhqot’in people in the beautiful Rights and Title Land of The Tsilhqot’in Nation.

Marla J. Buchanan, PhD, is a professor in the counselling psychology program at the University of British Columbia. Her research and teaching interests are in the field of traumatic stress studies.

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Potential and Pitfalls: Settler Scholar Engagement in Indigenous Research

Abstract

Keywords

Sarah’s Story

Lisa’s (Sugwelhan) Story

Indigenous Historical Trauma

Indigenous Survivance

Psychology and Indigenous Peoples

Research and Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous Research

Decolonizing Research

Indigenous Methodologies

Indigenous Storywork and Engagement in Indigenous Research

Sarah’s Storywork

Respect

Reverence

Responsibility

Reciprocity

Holism

Interrelatedness

Synergy

Lisa’s (Sugwelhan) Storywork

Claiming Indigeneity

Storywork

SȾÁUTW̱ Pilot Research Project

Storywork Principles

Reverence

Respect

Responsibility

Reciprocity

Holism and Interrelatedness

Synergy

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Author Biographies

References