"Indigenous research in social work: The challenge of operationalizing worldview"
Date
2003-11
Authors
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Publisher
School of Native Human Services
Abstract
This paper arises out of a research project that was designed to gather information about how
Indigenous researchers incorporate their worldview beliefs, practices, and protocols with
western research methodologies and methods. The focus of this paper is to describe the
challenges I experienced as I embarked upon a 'western' research project while trying to
incorporate my nascent understanding of Indigenous worldview.
The research project was designed to identify the specific descriptions and explications of how
indigenous scholars have reconciled worldview issues and integrated these unique ways of
perceiving the world within their research methodologies. As a Ph.D. student cognizant of the
western standards required in dissertation research, I wanted to find a way to honour my
Indigenous roots, and my "Indigenist" ideological stance. An Indigenist stance, according to
Churchill (1996), means that one actively strives to hold the rights of Indigenous people as his
or her primary political goal, while incorporating his or her traditions in their
work. Hence, the need to incorporate Indigenous practices and protocols into a western
qualitative research paradigm was the premise upon which the project was designed. The
challenges were evident in considering the design of the research, in attempts to
weave ceremony and protocol into the various phases of the project, and in
considering how to record these elements into the final report. The preliminary findings
verified the challenges I faced.
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Citation
Sinclair, Raven, 2003. "Indigenous research in social work: The challenge of operationalizing worldview". NSWJ-V5, p. 177-139.