"Indigenous peoples are used to being studied by outsiders; indeed, many of the basic disciplines of knowledge are implicated in studying the Other and creating expert knowledge. More recently, however, indigenous researchers have been active in seeking ways to disrupt the “history of exploitation, suspicion, misunderstanding, and prejudice” of indigenous peoples in order to develop methodologies and approaches to research that privilege indigenous knowledges, voices, experiences, reflections, and analyses of their social, material, and spiritual conditions. . .
Indigenist research also includes a critique of the “rules of practice regarding research, the way research projects are funded, and the development of strategies that address community concerns about the assumptions, ethics, purposes, procedures, and outcomes of research. These strategies often have led to innovative research questions, new methodologies, new research relationships, deep analyses of the researcher in context, and analyses, interpretations, and the making of meanings that have been enriched by indigenous concepts and language. . .
Research, like schooling, once the tool of colonization and oppression, is very gradually coming to be seen as a potential means to reclaim languages, histories, and knowledge, to find solutions to the negative impacts of colonialism and to give voice to an alternative way of knowing and of being."
- Tuhiwai Smith, Linda." On tricky ground: Researching the Native in the age of uncertainty." In Luttrell, Wendy. Qualitative Educational Research: Readings in Reflexive Methodology and Transformative Practice. Routledge, 2010.